Warriors in Peace Operations - Strategic Studies Institute - U.S. Army

AFTERWORD
Dr. Douglas V. Johnson II
The National Defense University recently published a
collection of essays on the intervention force (IFOR) in
Bosnia constituting a worthy review of policy decisions in
that endeavor (Lessons from Bosnia: The IFOR Experience,
Larry K. Wentz, ed., 1997). The present collection of
monographs discusses the consequences of those policy
decisions down at the level where the proverbial “rubber
meets the road.”
As USAWC students continue to contribute their
experiences to the Personal Experience Monograph
Program, additional compendia may well be forthcoming,
telling the readers what truth looks like from all aspects of
an engagement that could prove to be equal in length to the
occupation and restoration of Germany and Japan following
World War II. In one sense, as a speaker at a recent
conference on Civil Dimensions of Military Operations
noted, this too is a war, but it is a war against war. If it is
treated in that sense, the casualty count is more likely to be
low and the success more enduring. The situation may even
transform over time to the point where the need for soldiers
diminishes, but that will not be soon.
Students of peace operations need to pay particular
attention to Colonel Peter Dausen’s essay on communications,
focusing not so much on the technical process of
establishing telecommunications as on the difficulty of
doing business with “friends and allies” who are working
under a somewhat different mandate. Allies in war and
“friends and allies” in peace operations may not react as
cooperatively as one might expect. The lesson may be that,
absent enough stress or danger to cause willing cooperation
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