Project paper.
The main aim of this project has concentrated on observing the multinational cooperation between contingents sent to Bosnia, which are different in many aspects. They come from a great number of countries, with different political and military cultures. These different cultures influence the behavior and ways of doing business, which can lead to tensions in practical cooperation on the ground in multinational military deployments.
To conclude, the improved national security situation of the Western world, where we have neither enemies nor military threats but more combat areas around the world, has fundamentally influenced the armed forces. Today, the job of a soldier has become less violent, more varied, with the participation of more nations, for new reasons, and characterized by faster intervention.[6]
Politically, soldiers play a more active and exposed role in society than they once did because they are perceived as ambassadors for their country when deployed abroad and because their decisions may have foreign political content and consequences. Economically, the armed forces are now paid as much for their performance in low-level conflicts and humanitarian missions than they are for national defense operations. Actually, many Western European armed forces receive heavy weaponry and air/sea lift material more easily for their interventions in humanitarian missions than they do for traditional national defense missions. Militarily, Western armed forces cannot rely on combat merits only, but have to reconcile contrasting objectives: alleviation and violence, international and national presence, military and humanitarian objectives, speedy intervention and deliberate non-commitment. All this demonstrates the expansion of Western military functions. The old discussion of “guns-versus-butter” is now a “butter-for-guns” debate.
