CRANFIELD UNIVERSITY DAREN BOWYER JUST WAR DOCTRINE

equipped and trained forces were required and they were to be able to support
themselves properly. Development was required of the UN Stand-by Arrangements
System (UNSAS) to identify likely available forces.
The Brahimi Report did not confine itself to the forces required for peacekeeping
operations. Even when sufficient forces were provided, operations suffered from lack
of planning and guidance. So Brahimi also made recommendations on the management
of operations from the UN’s HQ in New York. He noted, for example, the patent
inadequacy of just 32 officers in the DPKO providing military planning and guidance to
forces totalling (then) 27,000 men in the field. 69 Then US Ambassador to the UN,
Richard Holbrooke, highlighted the problem:
The peacekeeping department is effectively the UN’s ministry of defence.
They’re running worldwide operations and they’re stretched to the bone. They
work round-the-clock and they don’t have sufficient expertise. Some of the
most basic components of responsible military planning are lacking in the UN
system because of the resource crunch, lack of qualified military personnel and,
above all, the fact that the peacekeeping department has not risen
commensurately in size and quality with the dimensions of the challenge. 70
There had been attempts in the early 1990s, as the size and scope of UN missions
increased, to reinforce the staff of DPKO by the provision of ‘gratis’ military officers,
that is personnel seconded from (mainly Western) national armed forces that continued
to meet their salaries. However, they had been phased out as a result of developing
nations’ concern that their presence – since they were only provided by nations wealthy
enough to bear the cost – skewed the international representation within the department.
UNGA Resolution 51/243 of 15 Sep 1997 71 expressed ‘serious concern at the impact on
the geographical balance in some parts of the Secretariat of gratis personnel, in
particular in the Department of Peacekeeping Operations…’ and therefore called on the
Secretary General to ‘phase out expeditiously’ all but a small number of closely defined
appointments.
In the light of the Brahimi Report, attempts were made to improve upon UNSAS, as the
panel had recommended, but with a mixed response from Member nations. UNSAS
‘is based on conditional commitments by Member States of specified resources within
the agreed response times.’ 72 The resources include formed military units, individual
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