Introduction

In today’s globalizing world military organizations are not only becoming more diverse internally, they also operate in an ever more diverse environment. Today’s militaries carry out missions all over the world, in culturally, ethnically, and linguistically varying regions. The majority of these operations are conducted by multinational intervention forces, such as UNIFIL in Lebanon, ISAF in Afghanistan and KFOR in Kosovo, or by permanent multinational forces, such as NATO or the Eurocorps. Except perhaps for the US armed forces, national militaries are no longer capable of executing such operations on their own. The current imbalance between demand and resources makes it impossible for most national armed forces to conduct large-scale missions on their own. In addition, the need for legitimacy pushes even the most powerful countries and their armed forces to cooperate with the armed forces of other nations. To be distinguished from joint operating (military services of one country working together), this multinational military cooperation is called combined operating. In general, in the military one sees the same evolution as in the private sector, i.e. the proliferation of joint ventures, strategic alliances and virtual organizations in an international context.