Long-endurance peace and social stability I guess

Thank you Mario!

What you refer to is important. I am looking at the use of force for achieving objectives in the mission.

Military operations in peacekeeping is a complex issue and often the national interests/fears/caveats of Troop Contributing Countries, get in the way of the mission's aims. I am trying to get a little closer to understanding the theoretical link between the application of military forces for national interests on the one hand and the deployment of uniformed personnel for international UN mandated missions on the other. In the case of militaries in UN missions I am trying to further understand the link between the UN's strategic interests and national objectives and how strategy can be used to meet the objectives of all role players.

First of all, one should remember that no "peace keeping" force has ever been deployed to a peaceful country. Therefore, the first and foremost goal for such a force is the creation of "peace", i.e. a state in which life and property are generally free from harm.

In order to achieve this (or any other military goal, for that matter) a clear objective must be defined, alongside with the operational constraints for its attainment. These objectives should not be different for UN forces than for any other counterinsurgency unit and should include the physical removal of insurgent infrastructure, detainment of hostile combatants and gaining the local population's support.

However, few UN sanctioned missions had the mandate, or the will, to actually engage in a protracted offensive against insurgents.

Thank you Shlomi! You make some good points. Deployment of a diverse polyglot force in a failed state to achieve unclear objectives complicates matters.

By removing the insurgent infrastructure, detaining the insurgents, winning over local population support and neturalising the immediate threat - would this be heading in the direction of the military victory in peacekeeping? There would also have to be a force deployed on the ground to maintain the 'peace' after the action/campaign; this would also have to be monitored by civilian peacekeepers - would you agree?

As far as I know, there is no alternative to the "military" part of victory when dealing with an armed insurrection. History has shown, time and again, that nothing comes out of "peace-keeping" missions, when they are not coupled with the ability and will to act violently against armed insurgents. Lebanon, Rwanda, former Yugoslavia and the early mission in Somalia are sad examples to the worthlessness of deploying a force without resorting to force.

As for civilian peace keepers: I can't see how they are useful. If there is a peace -they are unnecessary; and if there isn't - they are useless.

I agree that with UN peacekeeping especially offensive operations - there is definitely a strong military part when dealing with insurrection or any direct threat by an armed group, especially on civilians. The cases in Rwanda, and former Yogoslavia had a specific context. In some of those cases deployed forces (blue helmets) did not have the capabilities to deal with the threats and the UN HQ did not provide the resources to deal with the situation on the ground. I agree that these were failures of a then newly formed department of peacekeeping operations - about 25 years ago.

With modern peacekeeping operations and the decision to implement offensive operations in one mission - I believe that we need to define offensive operations and what that means. Thus my question was how the UN should define neutralising an armed group / a military victory? - is it tactical only/ or rather strategic/political; at what point does it dwell into counter-insurgency. Often after a tactical encounter/battle/skirmish, between a conventional military force and a weaker insurgent group - the insurgents/rebels may disappear/become part of the population again or move across borders - only to return later. This is similar to other strategies of the 'weak'. This may require increased military pressure or negotiations and other forms of peace making depending on the context.What makes it complicated is that UN peacekeeping missions are different to purely military campaigns - often led by a single nation state or alliance. With the UN there are a number of states with competing interests operating at the same time. Thus it is more political and troop contributing countries fear casualties in peacekeeping missions.

Civilian UN peacekeepers, in multidimensional/integrated missions have the purpose of monitoring conflicts, investigating human rights abuses, building relations with local communities, developing infrastructure, operationalising the mission's objectives, amongst other objectives. Ultimately the head of many integrated peacekeeping missions, are civilian (SRSG).

You are correct that purely tactical engagements do not necessarily lead to victory in a counterinsurgency campaign. What is required for success is a long-standing ability to collect intelligence regarding the opposing force and act upon it, while it is still relevant (meaning a "surgical" approach to the use of force). In parallel, public legitimacy for the counter-insurgent force must be gained and maintained.

Therefore, success in counter-insurgency depends on both political and military factors, each supporting each other: you can have no legitimacy without proven ability and will to withstand the opponent; while that same legitimacy serves to garner support within local society, which is crucial for intelligence and deterrence.

Civilian UN personnel, therefore, can only be useful as a part of a combined campaign, serving as the "political" arm alongside the military one.

Hi Shlomi,

Thank you for your answer - I am in agreement!

Best,

Tony

Peacekeeping has never considered the issue of victory in a military sense. The peacekeeping literature has generally coalesced around two different definitions of effectiveness in peacekeeping. The qualitative literature tends to use mandate fulfillment as the definition of success (e.g., Howard 2008). Because mandates are not commensurable, the quantitative literature on peacekeeping effectiveness has generally used two criteria for the definition of success (Diehl 1993): (1) is violence lessened when the peacekeepers are deployed, (2) is there an absence of war after the peacekeepers leave. Depending on the statistical methods used, #2 has usually been an arbitrary number of years without return to war--2, 5, 10 are common--or a longer period of time before war restarts.

Peacekeeping, as traditionally understood, abides by the three Hammarskjöld principles of (1) consent, (2) neutrality, and (3) minimum use of force only in self defense. It is only in the post Cold War period that peacekeeping has been stretched to mean coercing agreement compliance and/or force used to protect civilians. There is significant resistance to even calling interventions that include military coercion peacekeeping--cf. Fleitz (2002), Karlsrud (2015). When peacekeepers engage in coercive violence they risk becoming part of the conflict.

More recently, we have seen peacekeepers deployed in the same theater as other states' troops on counter-insurgency or counter-terrorism missions. For example, in Mali, where French and American 'green helmets' are deployed on different but complimentary missions to the 'blue helmets' of UN peacekeepers. In this context, you still would not assess peacekeeping effectiveness as military victory.

Lise Howard once quipped in a presentation at the International Studies Association Annual Meeting that the peacekeeper's job is to smile and wave as the roll by in their trucks. Particularly in the 'new wars' (Kaldor 2012) of the post-Cold War period, which are civil wars, UN peacekeepers and civilian police (CIVPOL) are there to provide security while a war torn state is reconstructed. Victory is not assessed militarily but rather in the success of the liberal peace building undertaken by the UN.

References

Diehl, Paul F. (1993) International Peacekeeping. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University.

Fleitz, Frederick (2002) Peacekeeping Fiascoes of the 1990s: Causes, Solutions, and US Interests. Greenwood Publishing Group.

Howard, Lise Morje (2008) UN Peacekeeping in Civil Wars. Cambridge: Cambridge University.

Karlsrud, John (2015) The UN at war: examining the consequences of peace-enforcement mandates for the UN peacekeeping operations in the CAR, the DRC and Mali, Third World Quarterly, 36:1, 40-54, DOI: 10.1080/01436597.2015.976016

Kaldor, Mary (2012) New and Old Wars: Organized Violence in a Global Era. New York: Polity.

Hi Greg,

Thank you for your answer. I missed this previously and apologise for the delay in responding. You have put a lot of effort into your answer and I thank you for taking the time.

My question refers to how we consider conflict in offensively mandated peacekeeping missions. So the old school thinking is, as you mention the principles which still hold value, monitor a peace agreement; buffer forces and all that.

There are however a number of examples of peace missions where the use of force is called for. How do we quantify military victory when force is called for in UN mandated missions? Mandates may say 'neautralise' armed groups , or 'all means necessary' - what does this mean in practice. Limited tactical engagements followed by negotiations?

On your points, victory by liberal peacebuilding perhaps answers a related but slightly different question. I am not saying that it is not important, as there is an important part in peacebuilding (liberal perhaps is more relevant to worldview). I am afraid that I am not in agreement with Howard's quip. I assume that this was said in jest, and perhaps half hinting at what Lise considered the truth. There are of course examples of ineffective peacekeeping and low performance among certain TCCs. It is however my experience that there are many civilian and military peacekeepers who work very hard to make positive change. The point about Kaldor is perhaps more relevant to a different point. I of course support and have had experience in reconstruction efforts.

What I am looking for is to understand how we quantify military victory, when it is set as an objective in UN mandated missions. The change/victory will of course always be political however, what is required in terms of tactical successes to allow for the political negotiating space and to achieve strategic objectives.

Kind regards,

Tony