Optimizing Coalition Air Warfare: The Emergence and Ethical Dilemmas of Red Card Holder Teams
| Author | Rune Saugmann,Katja Lindskov Jacobsen |
| Date | 01 September 2019 |
| Published date | 01 September 2019 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/1758-5899.12670 |
Optimizing Coalition Air Warfare: The
Emergence and Ethical Dilemmas of Red Card
Holder Teams
Katja Lindskov Jacobsen
University of Copenhagen
Rune Saugmann
Tampere University
Abstract
Red card holder (RCH) teams have developed during the last two decades of collaborative air interventions undertaken by
NATO or groups of like-minded states under US leadership. In such coalition contexts, different fighter jets are tasked, from a
central US headquarter, to strike (or, in military language, ‘engage’) specific targets that have been developed to achieve the
objectives of the mission. Yet, prior to a fighter jet from a specific nation striking a target, the national RCH Team must first
approve this. Indeed, when a state contributes a fighter jet, the RCH Team has now become part of the package, together
with mechanics and other support personnel. In this article, it is this RCH function that we describe in more detail, drawing
on interviews with Danish RCH team members. Our aim is to show that this and other ‘on-the-ground’functions are key to
understanding how international law –and, importantly, national interpretations thereof –function in practice and influence
the conduct of collaborative warfare.
1. Between national mandates and coalition air
warfare
When various states decide to join a collaborative military
air intervention led, for example, by the US or NATO, each
contributing state not only agrees to the overall aim of the
operation, but also join in with their own, national man-
dates. Such mandates specify both what aspects of the
operation their military contribution is mandated to partake
in (e.g. flying only in Iraq and not in Syria), as well as under
what conditions their military contribution may engage a
given target (what is an acceptable level of civilian casualty,
what constitutes a legitimate target, how is self-defence
interpreted, etc.). That contributing states all have different
national mandates has the consequence that inside a coali-
tion, like for example the on-going Operation Inherent
Resolve (OIR) in Iraq and Syria, we find a number of military
contributions from a variety of states, all of whom are likely
to have different caveats regarding what aspects of the mis-
sion and how, in practice, their military contribution may
contribute to the specific military intervention.
It is in the context of such complex interventions that the
role of the red card holder (RCH) Team has emerged. The
main function of this team is to ensure that national man-
dates, caveats, and interpretations are adhered to whenever
a pilot from their country is tasked by coalition headquarters
to engage a target. The RCH function has, in other words,
become central to the link between national political man-
dates and international collaborative intervention practices.
More broadly, the development of this function must also
be seen in relation to broader debates about technology
and autonomy in contemporary coalition warfare, as current
practice will likely inform future practice in collaborative air
interventions. We suggest, thus, to look at the practices
related to technological warfare rather than at specific tech-
nologies, such as drones. First, while discussions of drones
and autonomy are indeed important vis-
a-vis the future of
air warfare and regulations thereof, it is at least as important
to discuss and illuminate current practices that regulate air
warfare, whether this is conducted by manned, unmanned
or autonomous systems. As examined in this article, drones
form part of a broader set of technologies (also comprised
of precision guided weapons, intelligence gathering tech-
nologies, communication technologies, etc.) all of which
forms part of the context in which the function of the RCH
Team must be understood. Second, and following from this,
we suggest that the role of drones and other new technolo-
gies can favourably be examined through the notion of
human-machine interfaces and reconfigurations (Suchman
et al., 2017). One can see RCH Teams as an example of a
‘human’component in such an interface and analyse its
place in the reconfiguration of pilots, aircraft, weapons, com-
mand and control functions, and intelligence technologies,
which is what we do here. Whether the practice of formaliz-
ing legal review in a specialized institution (RCH) will enable
RCH-approved strikes to be carried out autonomously, or
whether attempts will be made to have computers perform
RCH functions, is difficult to say, but what we can say is that
Global Policy (2019) 10:3 doi: 10.1111/1758-5899.12670 ©2019 University of Durham and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Global Policy Volume 10 . Issue 3 . September 2019 349
Special Section Article
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