The Enhancement of UNIFIL

Abstract

The 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah was followed by the ‘enhancement’ of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL). The UN peacekeepers in Lebanon, already present since 1978, were strengthened considerably in numbers in order to provide a more effective security buffer between the two conflict parties. This re-designing of UNIFIL in crisis mode was made possible as a result of the substantial participation of European nations, most notably Italy and France. For most of these European troop contributors, this marked a return to UN peacekeeping since the debacles in the former Yugoslavia. On at least two accounts, the UNIFIL enhancement therefore qualifies as a suitable second case study in this study of European crisis response operations. On the one hand, UNIFIL can be qualified as a contemporary example of European militaries undertaking a ‘classic’ peacekeeping operation, where a ceasefire agreement is followed by the insertion of a military buffer separating the conflict parties. On the other hand, UNIFIL arguably provides the best example of European states conducting a military operation under UN flag. The leadership role assumed by the European troop contributors turned UNIFIL into a genuine laboratory on how to plan peacekeeping operations in a challenging environment and displayed the conditions under which these states were willing to consider deploying their forces under UN command.KeywordsSecurity CouncilSecretary GeneralContingency PlanningIsraeli Defence ForceSecurity Sector ReformThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.