Peacekeeping Efforts Research Articles

Canadian Civil-Military Relations

Every war is rich in unique episodes. Each is an uncharted sea, full of reefs.-Clausewitz, On War1This study looks at civil-military relations in Canada and the use of military power for political purposes. Through an examination of the 2005 Canadian decision to deploy forces to Kandahar and the debates about potential deployments elsewhere, the following pages highlight the gap between the ambitions of Canadian international policy and the reality of limited military capacity. The study makes the case that the absence of strategy and strategic dialogue are at the heart of the problem of civil-military relations in Canada. It calls for a new model of civil-military relations, bunt upon a sustained dialogue between civilians and soldiers that rests ultimately on a more realistic assessment of the military means available to attain policy ends.DECISION-MAKING ANDTHE DEPLOYMENT TO KANDAHARSoon after appointing General Rick Hillier as chief of the defence staff, Prime Minister Paul Martin summoned him to discuss the government's priorities for international engagement and the potential deployment of the Canadian forces. After acknowledging his qualified support for Canada's ongoing involvement in Afghanistan, the prime minister spoke of three other priorities for Canadian international policy and sought Hillier's assurances that Canada's participation in the Afghan mission did preclude our capacity to deploy elsewhere. Martin wanted a commitment from Hillier that Canada would have the military capacity to contribute to an international peacekeeping effort to prevent the slaughter in Darfur. Martin also believed that Canada, as the hemisphere's largest francophone nation, should shoulder special responsibilities in Haiti, and he raised the possibility that Canada would play a military role if there was ever an Israeli-Palestinian peace pact.2 In Martin's view, it was important that the mission in Afghanistan not crowd out other international deployments that his government might choose to undertake. Martin had, after all, appointed Hillier a few days earlier because he had noted the general's view that the Canadian forces had to be capable of responding quickly to new demands.Martin was particularly interested in Darfur, as his memoirs make clear, suggesting that it presented a perfect opportunity for Canada to play a leadership role in keeping with [the] broader philosophy of our foreign policy. The importance of Darfur, together with Martin's sense of lost opportunity, can be seen in the chapter tellingly entitled Into Africa. Exercising leadership abroad was certainly a priority for the prime minister. I believe that we will have the greatest impact on the direction of world events, he writes in Hell or High Water, if we select an objective carefully and choose those opportunities where we can play a leadership role. In addition to offering the potential for international leadership, Martin saw Darfur as a place where Canada could pursue, in his words, its own perspective in international affairs, independent of the United States, which he judged to be largely indifferent to African issues. In Martin's thinking, Canadian leadership in Darfur, including participation in a humanitarian intervention with military means, matched the ideal he envisaged for the country in global affairs. In The Unexpected War, Stein and Lang insist that Martin's interest in Darfur also reflected strong support within the Liberal caucus to do something about the crisis unfolding there, a view bolstered by public opinion, which appeared to favour a potential Darfur mission over continued involvement in Afghanistan.3According to Martin, Hillier assured him that he understood the government's priorities and that whatever the next stage might be in our Afghanistan mission, it would not preclude our capacity to deploy elsewhere. Stein and Lang confirm Martin's account of his discussion with Hillier, but they offer a few additional and, one might add, dramatic details of the conversation between the two men. …

South Africa's politics of peace and security in Africa

In May 2010 South African President Jacob Zuma will have been in office for one year. During this time, the Zuma administration has been far less ambitious in its foreign policy than previous administrations. However, South Africa is not in a position where it is able to withdraw from foreign engagement, as regional issues — such as Zimbabwe, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Swaziland — continue to demand attention. The Zuma administration's approach in the future, in terms of both substance and style, will need to be informed by lessons from past engagement, including South African peacekeeping efforts in countries such as the DRC and Burundi, and South African mediation efforts in countries such as Angola, Côte d'Ivoire and the Comoros. Certainly, South Africa's record of success in taking on international responsibilities over the past 10 years has been mixed, but there is scope for past experience to shape future engagement positively. Indications of this can be seen, for example, in Zuma's efforts to redress former President Thabo Mbeki's clumsy mediation efforts in Angola by deciding to make his first state visit as South Africa's president to Luanda. Zuma's approach to Zimbabwe could build on the foundation set by Mbeki's long engagement with that country.

Lessons in Developing Democratic Police from Post‐Second World War Successes

Fundamental to Bayley's three‐step process of democratizing police is the development of interim civilian police to enforce law, prevent crime and maintain order. The United States, NATO, and other political organizations have uniformly focused recent studies of police democratization on post Cold‐War bilateral and multilateral efforts. Focusing on the police as the essential protector of the populace's democratic rights, this study applies Weber's comparative method to analyze two proven successes in democratization, West Germany and Japan, developing lessons that may inform future peacekeeping and stability operation efforts to democratize police. In the development of sustainable democratic ‐criminal justice agencies, this study identified six fundamental processes: decentralize control, civil‐ ianize central administration, demilitarize and disarm existing forces, but rearm reconstituted forces, standardize recruitment and training, and most importantly, maintain flexibility in dealing with existing political and cultural norms.

The Broader Horn of Africa: Peacekeeping in a Strategic Vacuum

This article analyses the challenges confronting the international community as it tries to deal with the conflicts in the Broader Horn of Africa through peacekeeping. The contention of the article is that peacekeeping efforts in the region are undertaken in a strategic vacuum, thus undermining efforts at resolving the conflicts. Peace operations deployed across the Broader Horn are not synchronized with the political processes, and this is exacerbated by five interrelated challenges: the lack of a political framework; the lack of consent; the issue of protection; the issue of overstretch; and US counter-terrorism policy. The article concludes by calling for the development of a strategic regional framework aimed at reconciling national, regional and international interests that are often in conflict. While deployment of peacekeepers may be part of that framework, it should not be a substitute for viable political processes.

United States foreign policy and the prospects for peace education

In light of the United States' age of and the controversial involvement in the war in Iraq, U.S. policies toward diplomatic peace education are coming under increasing scrutiny. This book evaluates the prospects for effective U.S. peace education in the context of post-1945 U.S. foreign policy.The work first documents the disparity between U.S. pronouncements about protecting human rights and the country's systematic erosion of those rights in the international arena. Second, it evaluates the challenges that the war on terrorism poses for peace education and explores the importance of international treaties in upholding security. A final section explores new ways of thinking and relating that are ultimately necessary for the realization of nonviolent peacekeeping efforts. Designed as a resource text for U.S. educators, the text offers concrete proposals for addressing contentious foreign policy issues in the classroom and includes an appendix of primary documents and sample questions for easy use.

The United Nations-African Union Mission in Darfur: Implications and prospects for success

With the security situation in Darfur remaining grim, the international community passed United Nations Security Resolution 1769 that authorised a more robust peacekeeping force. This article addresses the security concerns motivating the United Nations-African Union Mission in Darfur (UNAMID), highlights the mandate and implications of the force, and compares the potential command and control issues to the experiences of the Somalia intervention in the 1990s. It closes by analysing the prospects for success of the intervention and offering some limited recommendations on ways to mitigate the risks associated with the peacekeeping effort.

A critical analysis of Africa's experiments with hybrid missions and security collaboration

In the last decade, the nature of peacekeeping in Africa has changed somewhat, especially the manner in which peacekeeping missions are comprised, funded and driven. What one can observe is that there has been new thinking in the field of peacekeeping where this initiative is driven by states with particular interest in a particular issue(s). This thinking has led, to a certain extent, to the United Nations (UN) de-monopolising peacekeeping and ceding its ‘responsibility to protect’ to either lead states or regional organisations to deal with crises in respective backyards. In the first instance, ‘lead states’ have been empowered (financially and militarily) by peacekeeping powers to attend to crises in their respective regions to drive peacekeeping efforts. In the second instance, while financial and military support is not paramount, regional powers have had the blessing of the UN to deal with regional issues and crises in various parts of their respective regions. This situation evidently signifies the shifting nature of peacekeeping on the African continent. On assessing this scenario, the question that emerges in one's mind is where does this leave the UN? Does this mean that the UN and multilateralism is being sidelined in favour of unilateralism? Or does the UN still matter? What is the future of peacekeeping in Africa? These questions and the challenges posed by both the ‘old’ and ‘new’ approach to peacekeeping will be analysed in this article.

Deployments for Development? Nordic Peacekeeping Efforts in Africa

The Nordic states have embraced the thesis that development and security are strongly interdependent. While they have been heavily and continuously involved in Africa as donors in the development field, their military engagement is less consistent. The article argues that the foreign policy strategies of the Nordic states are designed to maximize international influence by enhancing their reputations and images. However, those foreign policies are divided into separate policy fields, or segments, working within their own international frameworks. Since different international frameworks appreciate actions and behaviour differently, national integration of development–security strategies is very difficult to achieve.

Tenacious, sad account of NZ complicity on East Timor

This is an essential book for any one interested in the way that New Zealand formulates and carries out its foreign policy. It is also a stark reminder that New Zealand, a founder member of the United Nations, a vocal supporter of decolonisation and a country much-praised for its peacekeeping efforts all over the world has not always been willing to take a moral stance when balancing trade, security and human rights. Maire Leadbeater has produced the most detailed account so far of New Zealand's involvement in the tragedy that engulfed East Timor during and after the 1975 Indonesian invasion of the former Portuguese colony.

Promoting norms through peacekeeping: UNPREDEP and conflict prevention

By applying a social constructivist perspective this article investigates whether the preventive peacekeeping mission to the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia contributed to altering or sustaining norms of international peacekeeping. In addition, the article is concerned with if and how the UN mission UNPREDEP functioned as a channel of diffusion of international norms pertaining to peaceful conflict resolution to Macedonia. The article suggests that UNPREDEP provided the international community with an opportunity for norm diffusion. Furthermore, by allowing the emerging norm of conflict prevention to guide peacekeeping efforts in Macedonia, the norm was strengthened and the ambitions to promote the norm globally, as well as locally, were supported.

Special Operators: A Key Ingredient for Successful Peacekeeping Operations Management

As an integral component of the Military Observer Mission Ecuador and Peru (MOMEP), 1995–99, Special Operations Forces (SOF) performed as a true confidence-building measure (CBM). They succeeded in changing the behaviour of states, helping to resolve a longstanding conflict. MOMEP consequently serves as an example of risk management and reduction measures that insure regional stability. Further, it is an example of a regional multi-national military peacekeeping effort (PKO), conducted by conventional forces from various nations with influence and guidance from SOF, that succeeded without the reliance upon the United Nations.

Workers, Warriors and Criminals: Social Conflict in General Equilibrium

We analyze how economy-wide forces (i.e. shocks to terms of trade, technology and endowments) affect the intensity of social conflict. We see conflict phenomena such as crime and civil war as involving resource appropriation activities. We show that not all shocks that could make society richer will reduce conflict. Positive shocks to labor intensive industries will diminish social conflict, while positive shocks to capital intensive industries will increase it. The key requirement is that appropriation activities be more labor intensive than the economy. Our model can explain the positive association between crime and inequality, and the curse of natural resources; it predicts that aid in kind to war-ridden societies will have perverse effects, and offers guidance on how to integrate international trade policy and peacekeeping efforts. Including appropriation activities into a canonic general equilibrium model introduces a social constraint to policy analysis. Thus, we can also account for populist policies, apparently inefficient redistribution and national development strategies.

Motivation for Participation in Peace Support Operations: Initial Findings among Slovenian Soldiers

The question of why soldiers, policemen, civil servants, or members of civil society are motivated to participate in efforts dedicated to keeping, enforcing, building, or making peace is old as the peacekeeping efforts of the global community, and at least conditionally connected with the phenomenon of “willingness to fight” in classical military operations. The term “willing to fight” should be, within the scope of peace endeavors, redefined into “willing to pacify, but without fighting” because, in the majority of peace operations that have taken place after the Second World War, the given mandates were very limited in terms of allowing the use of weapons. In most cases, participants had light armament, if any. If morale, motivation, and cohesion are the core concepts that guide the actions of military combatants, can we use them to explain the behavior of the peacekeepers (the same soldiers in both cases) as well? The dilemma derives from the tendency to understand soldiers as schizophrenic employees, who have to possess highly-tuned combat readiness in case the peace mission turns into war-fighting, (which happens, although very rarely), and, at the same time, they have to achieve the goals of their missions with the minimal use of force, if not completely without the resort to arms. The theatre for peace operations differs in important ways from the classical military front. Although soldiers are deployed in military formations, their mandate is fully different (with some exceptions) from what they learned during their basic military training. Their police-like activities push them into the role of negotiator, intelligence gatherer, mediator, observer, listener, humanitarian worker, helper, and social worker. It is questionable to what extent they still need the heroism, high fighting morale, or developed will to fight that basic military training strives to inculcate. Gabriel argued that modern war-fighting activities put soldiers into stressful situations, with a resulting

In Search of Warlords: Hegemonic Peacekeeping in Liberia and Somalia

This essay is a comparative investigation into two cases, in Liberia and Somalia, of ‘hegemonic peacekeeping’. It explains the motives of the two lead states - Nigeria and the United States-for their military interventions. The essay assesses the interests of the allies of both countries in accepting their leadership, and highlights some of the political difficulties that arose from the aggressive military tactics employed by the ‘hegemonic’ peacekeepers. The strategies of two powerful warlords, Charles Taylor and Mohammed Farah Aideed, are analysed. The essay stresses the importance of public relations, propaganda and the press in creating a public impression about the role of peacekeepers and in sustaining international support for peacekeeping missions. It concludes by suggesting ways of dealing with ‘spoilers’, as well as strategies through which the military and financial muscle of ‘hegemonic’ peacekeepers can be harnessed into more genuinely multilateral and accountable peacekeeping efforts, preferably under a UN umbrella.

The Provision of Lethal Military Equipment: French, UK, and US Peacekeeping Policies Towards Africa

Western capacity-building programs designed to support African peacekeeping efforts have focused on classroom instruction, field training, and the provision of military equipment. These policies are significant given the numerous threats to peace and security throughout the continent and given the United Nations Security Council's continued reliance on African regional organizations and arrangements in the event of armed conflicts and humanitarian crises. Initially, only France's program included the provision of small arms and light weapons, and then on a rather limited scale. Subsequently, the United States and the United Kingdom have developed programs that have provided substantial quantities of lethal materiel. This article documents what has been provided and to whom. It reviews the oversight mechanisms used to ensure that equipment is used as intended, and asks whether the programs have served to promote peace and security as intended. The article argues that, while it is too early to determine the effectiveness of these programs, the checks and balances created to ensure that training and weapons are used as intended should be strengthened.

Radio Jamming: The Disarmament of Radio Propaganda

To more concretely define what the UN's policy towards international peacekeeping should be in the twenty-first century, novel methods of addressing inter-and intrastate conflict need examining. Consequently, this article argues that UN peacekeeping operations must begin to include technological capabilities – namely UN jamming of hate radio – when certain prerequisites are met. Using the Rwandan genocide and the radio station that largely inspired the conflict, RTLMC, as a case study, this article illustrates hate radio's power in both inter- and intrastate conflict and devises a system wherein UN peacekeeping efforts can effectively silence this menace to international security.

Australia´s Peacekeeping Role in the Post‑Cold War Era

Introduction In the post-COLD WAR era, has become an important feature of international politics. This is set out under Chapter VII of the United Nations (UN) Charter, which states that intervening forces are authorized to use all necessary means to achieve the objectives of peace and security in a particular situation. During the Cold War, peacekeeping had mostly been based on Chapter VI of the UN Charter. Peacekeeping forces played a role in implementing agreements between parties that had previously been in conflict. With variations depending on specific circumstances, expanded peacekeeping has been the basis for interventions in northern Iraq in support of the Kurds (1991), Bosnia (1992-95), Somalia (1992-95), Haiti (1994-97), Rwanda (1994-96), East Timor (1999-2002), and Sierra Leone (since 1999). The United Nations Security Council authorized intervention but the UN would not necessarily organize the intervening force. There was sometimes resort to coalitions of the willing to provide the necessary forces for expanded peacekeeping. The Kosovo intervention of 1999 was not specifically authorized by the UN Security Council, but was conducted under the auspices of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Against the background of these changes occurring in relation to peacekeeping at the global level, we can ask what position Australian governments have taken on this issue. Australia has played a significant role in relation to a number of peacekeeping operations in the post-Cold War era. What has been the political rationale for Australian involvement? What political influences, domestic and international, have shaped the policies of Australian governments? In practice, what have been the main motivations for the various Australian peacekeeping operations? What political impact have Australian interventions had compared with the initial rationales? While recent assessments of Australia's peacekeeping role have rightly focused on the East Timor intervention, this article reviews the whole post-Cold War era. It deals primarily with the broader political context rather than giving attention to the many operational issues that have been of particular concern to Australian defence planners. The argument presented is that Australian involvement in peacekeeping has been primarily the outcome of perceptions of national interest held by key decision-makers. However, those perceptions have been tempered by moral considerations. This was more explicitly the case under the Labor government before 1996, but has not been absent under the conservative Coalition government since 1996. Beginning under Labor, and becoming even more pronounced under the Coalition, there was a trend towards concentrating Australian peacekeeping efforts in its immediate region. Apart from a public perception that Australia should be contributing to the resolution of major international huma nitarian crises, the most significant influences on Australian policy emanate from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) and the Department of Defence. Within this context, the relevant ministers usually also have a strong impact. If a major crisis with peacekeeping implications arises then a wider range of ministers will be involved, and public pressure can also be a major factor. At the international level, the relationship with allies, particularly the United States, and regional states can be an influence. The United States has an expectation that Australia will play a leading role in dealing with issues in maritime Southeast Asia and the Pacific islands. At the same time, Australia wishes to proceed in such a way that it maintains co-operative relationships, as much as possible, with the governments in those regions. The United Nations itself frequently looks to Australia as a reliable contributor when a peacekeeping operation is being mounted. …

The World Bank's Mission Creep

The World Bank and the global community have learned a lot about development in the past 50 years. The bank is justly proud of its commitment to being a knowledge-based institution and has consistently responded to development setbacks with thoughtful analysis followed by new areas of lending. At the same time, critics have repeatedly faulted the bank for overlooking certain issues and constituencies, from environmental concerns in the 1980s to civil society in the 1990s. Along the way, the bank has added new tasks to its mandate. In recent years, it has been called on for emergency lending in the wake of the Asian financial crisis, for economic manage ment as part of Middle East peacekeeping efforts, for postwar Balkan reconstruction, and for loans to combat the aids tragedy in Africa. By now, its mission has become so complex that it strains credulity to portray the bank as a manageable organization. The bank takes on challenges that lie far beyond any institutions operational capabilities. The calls for greater focus through reform seem to produce little beyond conferences and consternation, since every program has a dedicated constituency resisting change. To counter these problems, the countries that own the bank?its shareholders?need to elaborate a worthwhile

The ACRI Command and Control Challenge

The African Crisis Response Initiative (ACRI) was launched in 1996. Its aim has been to help develop African countries' capabilities to keep the peace on the continent. Having grown out of the international community's reluctance to intervene in the genocide and fighting in Rwanda in 1994, ACRI's existence tacitly acknowledges that the United States is unable and unlikely to intervene everywhere. However, this does not mean the United States will not support such efforts undertaken by others. Indeed, US funding of ACRI is proof that the United States is willing to offer certain incentives and assistance to African countries to step into the breach. This has been most recently demonstrated by the deployment of US Special Forces to Nigeria to train Nigerian peacekeepers for deployment in Sierra Leone. Currently, ACRI is funded only through Fiscal Year 2001. What happens beyond that time will depend on several factors. One is the US presidential election (which has not yet taken place at this writing). Depending on who assumes office in 2001, there may be a shift in American foreign policy. Another issue which is likely to affect future support for ACRI is the performance of the African countries that have already received US training (Senegal, Uganda, Ghana, Malawi, Mali, Benin, Cote d'Ivoire). For instance, the Cote d'Ivoire military recently staged a coup. Will the US Congress continue to look favorably upon an initiative whose participants have engaged in such anti-democratic behavior? Or, if the countries which have received training do not step up to the plate and volunteer for peacekeeping and humanitarian relief operations, will American taxpayers continue to support the idea that this is a worthwhile program? Why train countries to a capability they are then unwilling to use or, worse, too willing to misuse? Support ACRI? Despite questions such as these--and this article will raise more--the reasons to continue to support ACRI are compelling. In an ideal world, the desire to provide humanitarian assistance should be reason enough. But the United States also has a self-interest in promoting regional stability efforts in Africa. More than 16 percent of the used in the United States comes from Africa, with some experts predicting that oil imports from Africa could surpass those from the Persian Gulf by 2010. [1] Plenty of other strategic minerals also stream out of Africa, as do a range of profitable raw materials, from diamonds to timber and gold to rubber. In fact, fighting over control of these natural assets is the reason for most of the continent's conflicts. To put it even more bluntly, if there were no corporate buyers fewer battles would be fought. Without question, transnational syndicates of all kinds manage to profit despite (and arguably because of) rampant corruption and instability in Africa. US citizens, in stark contrast, do not. Narco-traffickers and terrorists have increasingly found safe havens in countries like Nigeria and Sudan. Diseases that no one had heard of two decades ago now threaten people just a plane ride away. Americans can try to bury their heads in the sand and presume that their modernity offers sufficient protection from such dangers. But family members of the victims of the Nairobi and Dar es Salaam embassy bombings would rightfully argue otherwise. And just the name West Nile fever should serve as a wake-up call. Yet those committed to bettering conditions in Africa have tried to prick the consciences and scare sense into the American public by sounding similar alarms for years. Theirs remains a Sisyphean task. [2] Whatever American goodwill there was toward Africans in the aggregate dissipated in Somalia. Also, truth be told, there isn't enough of a political constituency in the United States to support expansive peacekeeping efforts in Africa--which also explains the development of ACRI. [3] In many regards, ACRI represents the living, breathing embodiment of the American national ambivalence. …

Crisis in Sierra Leone

Efforts to resolve Sierra Leone's nine-year conflict have stalled. Within the country an uneasy peace prevails, but more fighting is possible once the rainy season ends in November. Incursions by rebels into neighbouring Guinea make finding solutions all the more crucial. For United Nations peacekeeping efforts to succeed, greater commitment and cohesion as well as a stronger sense of purpose will be needed.