Peace Support Operations: Lessons Learned? - School of Political ...

More documents

Recommendations

Info

PEACE SUPPORT OPERATIONS: LESSONS LEARNED? Shannon Tow Logistics arrangements also present particular difficulties. Logistics chains are not only contingent on whether the needs of peacekeeping forces can be met, but also whether suppliers and transporters can meet the needs of logistics headquarters (Cohen and Shelton 1999: 4; Breen 2000: 139). In the case of INTERFET, logistics chains were stretched to maximum (Cotton 2001: 137). These difficulties were only compounded by expectations of many international contingents’ that Australia, as the lead state, would also supply the bulk of INTERFET troops (Breen 2000: 140). The PSO doctrine’s recognition that consent must be managed, points to the model’s utility in encouraging a more integrated organisational structure. However, the erosion of political will over time is likely to prove a significant obstacle in actually realising these operational advantages. Civil-Military Cooperation Efforts to generate integrated peacekeeping missions are further complicated by the need to coordinate with humanitarian agencies. Such efforts have, in past, proven relatively unsuccessful. In Bosnia, for example, over 150 NGOs operated in the UN theater of operations. Only forty-one of these agencies, however, regularly coordinated their operations with UNPROFOR (Hillen 2000: 172). In recognising the role of these agencies in managing consent, the PSO doctrine encourages and codifies greater civilmilitary coordination. This has been evidenced by the plethora of civilmilitary coordinating mechanisms that have emerged in recent years. Among these include NATO’s strengthened Civil Military Cooperation (CIMIC) component and Humanitarian Coordination Information Centre (Bellamy 2001: 11). An absence of enduring political will on the part of both military contingents and NGOs at the operational level, however, often undermines such initiatives and the efficacy of the PSO model. Indeed, both actors continue to perceive themselves as autonomous rather than as equal partners of a broader peacekeeping/peacebuilding force. Several military forces, for instance, do not attempt or are not equipped for the capacity-building activities that the PSO doctrine envisions. The US army represents a case in point, preferring to focus on issues of force protection (Bellamy 2001: 10). Michael Pugh has also suggested that civil-military initiatives such as NATO’s CIMIC, are designed by military forces primarily to support Dialogue 1:1 (2003) 6
PEACE SUPPORT OPERATIONS: LESSONS LEARNED? Shannon Tow their own mission and do not adequately take into account civilian agencies’ perspectives (Pugh 2001: 138). Similarly, humanitarian organisations often compete with one another, hire private security forces and pursue a myriad of objectives (Fitzgerald and Whitehall 2001: 5-7) that make a single civil-military link difficult to forge. Until greater political will on the part of peacekeeping/peacebuilding forces emerges, the operational advantages of the PSO doctrine will remain difficult to realise. Even if greater civil-military cooperation were possible, however, it is debatable to what extent this would necessarily lead to a stable end-state. The PSO doctrine envisions this outcome by highlighting the importance of a robust and integrated mission to manage consent. Ultimately, however, any efforts directed towards managing consent must take into account the nature of the actors engaged in conflict and their underlying motives (Bellamy 2002: 29; Wilkinson 1998: 77). Such actors might include professional warlords who promote violence to further their own material interests. Addressing these issues, in turn, requires cooperation with agencies beyond the humanitarian community including the corporate sector and intergovernmental economic bodies. Furthermore, while the PSO doctrine correctly assumes that consent will flow on from peacekeeping forces’ impartiality, concerted efforts must be undertaken to ascertain whether this impartiality is perceived by the belligerents themselves. Efforts to promote consent by enforcement might be viewed by the offending party as discriminating (Betts 1994: 22). The PSO doctrine’s operational advantages are therefore likely to be limited if insufficient political will is directed towards these broader aspects of managing consent. Conclusion In light of this fundamental difficulty, efforts of operation planners should be focused not on continually altering peacekeeping doctrines in the hope of improving results, but on ensuring that the current one works more effectively. By highlighting the importance of managing consent, PSOs represent a meaningful adaptation to the changing nature of conflict in the post-Cold War era. If the doctrine is to actually operate more successfully, however, fundamental issues of political will must be Dialogue 1:1 (2003) 7
Page 1 and 2: Peace Support Operations: Lessons L
Page 3 and 4: PEACE SUPPORT OPERATIONS: LESSONS L
Page 5: PEACE SUPPORT OPERATIONS: LESSONS L
Page 9 and 10: PEACE SUPPORT OPERATIONS: LESSONS L
Page 11: PEACE SUPPORT OPERATIONS: LESSONS L

Peace Support Operations: Lessons Learned? - School of Political ...

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?