Understanding Peacekeeping. Alex J. Bellamy
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and Peacebuilding Affairs (formerly the Department of Political Affairs). Our list also excludes cases of ‘humanitarian military intervention’ (i.e. the use of military force by external actors without host-state consent aimed at preventing or ending genocide and/or mass atrocities). Hence the US, French and UK no-fly zones established in Iraq (1991), as well as the NATO-led coalitions in Kosovo/Serbia (1999) and Libya (2011), are omitted. Nor does our list include what we call ‘regime support operations’ (see also Coleman 2011). These are missions that involve the deployment of foreign uniformed personnel to help the host-state authorities quell some form of insurrection and/or insurgency but generally take place in the absence of a peace agreement. In legal terms, they are based on collective self-defence (see Article 51 of the UN Charter). We exclude them when they are not undertaken with an explicit mandate to support a peace process. Examples of such regime support operations are Operation Sovereign Legitimacy in Democratic Republic of the Congo and Operation Boleas in Lesotho, both of which were conducted by factions within the Southern African Development Community in 1998. We have also excluded on these grounds the Multinational Force in Iraq (2004–13) and NATO’s Resolute Support Mission in Afghanistan (2015–). This category also rules out several ad hoc coalitions in Africa: the G5 Sahel Joint Force; the Multinational Joint Task Force against Boko Haram authorized by the Lake Chad Basin Commission; and the Regional Task Force against the Lord’s Resistance Army in Central Africa. Another problem with these missions was that the majority of the operations involved domestic troops operating on their home territory. Finally, we also excluded expeditionary missions that deployed uniformed personnel for tasks such as disaster relief, humanitarian assistance, the evacuation of nationals, maritime security tasks, including anti-piracy operations, and containing infectious disease.
Figure 2.2 Generic structure of a multidimensional peace operation
Most of the peace operations in our list are multidimensional. This means that they involve uniformed and civilian personnel, usually broken down into military, police and civilian components (see figure 2.2) as follows.
Troops deploy in contingents, as military observers and experts, or as staff officers in the force headquarters.
Police deploy as individual officers, formed police units (FPUs) or specialized police teams that deal with issues such as forensics or financial crimes.
Civilian components can involve numerous substantive types of role, including political affairs, humanitarian affairs, civil affairs, public information, protection, human rights, gender, security-sector reform and mission support.
Most peace operations also typically follow a fairly standard system of authority and command and control. In this book, we use the following terminology:
strategic level: refers to the debates and decision-making that take place at the level of the mandating authority, usually an international organization;
operational level: refers to the debates and decision-making that take place at the level of the particular operation, usually as a result of dialogue between the mission’s senior leadership team and the authorizing international organization;
tactical level: refers to the debates and decision-making that take place within specific components and contingents in a particular operation, usually as a result of dialogue between component heads and national contingents or units (such as a force commander and the commander of a national contingent).
These levels are illustrated for UN peacekeeping operations in figure 2.3.
2.2 States as peacekeepers
Peace operations are sometimes initiated and led by states. Usually, they act as part of a multilateral coalition but on rare occasions they act alone. Pivotal states initiate, lead and provide a significant material contribution to a peace operation, which may or may not be authorized by an international organization. Often, the material contribution made by other members of the coalition or organization is insubstantial. This means pivotal states generally try to form coalitions in order to enhance the legitimacy of these operations rather than to share the material burdens (Coleman 2007).
The motives that influence states to provide peacekeepers are discussed in more detail in chapter 12. Here, we’ll just note four generic reasons why states might want to conduct peace operations outside of an international organization. First, regional hegemons might want to press their own claims to territory, economic benefits or access to natural resources, or to support the socio-political ambitions of allies. Often, such hegemons also have a vested interest in maintaining regional order and the prevailing regional status quo. Russian peacekeeping and mediation through the CIS in Abkhazia/Georgia and Nigerian peacekeeping through ECOWAS in West Africa provide good examples of regional hegemons acting as pivotal states initiating and leading peace operations to maintain regional order. This type of peacekeeping may be a thinly veiled attempt to secure the hegemon’s national interests. In Moldova in 1992, for example, some 12,000 troops from the Russian 14th Army were deployed to the breakaway republic of Transdnestr as part of a so-called disengagement force. In reality, the troops acted to buttress the Transdnestrian secession (McNeill 1997: 99). In more positive terms, regional hegemons have an interest in maintaining order in their neighbourhood, and they are by definition more militarily capable than their neighbours and therefore may make effective peacekeepers. Regional hegemons should also have a good understanding of the dynamics of the conflict they are trying to manage, though they are also more likely to have an economic and political interest in the outcome of the conflict.
Figure 2.3 Authority, command and control in multidimensional UN peacekeeping operations
Former colonial powers that continue to have close economic, political and social ties with their former colonies may also conduct peace operations. For example, French troops garrisoned in Côte d’Ivoire acted as peacekeepers after the outbreak of civil war there in 2002. Alternatively, Britain’s Operation
Palliser, deployed to Sierra Leone in 2000 in support of President Kabbah’s government and the beleaguered UN operation UNAMSIL, stemmed from a mixture of motives, but a sense of attachment resulting from the former colonial relationship was one of them (Williams 2001). Former colonial powers may be motivated by the desire to support elected or friendly governments, help maintain regional order, protect perceived economic and political interests, support humanitarian concerns, or protect significant communities of nationals from the metropole.
Concerned neighbours are a third category of state that might conduct unilateral operations or act as a pivotal state when war, economic collapse and/or massive human rights abuse occur in their own ‘backyard’ (James 1990). They may be prompted to act by concerns about negative spillover effects as well as regard for the welfare of neighbouring populations. For instance, the Italian-led operation in Albania in 1997 was prompted by the desire to stem the flow of Albanian refugees into Italy, a perceived need to restore regional order, and humanitarian concerns (Bellamy 2002a: 64). Similarly, Australia acted as a pivotal state in creating the INTERFET mission to East Timor in 1999, primarily because of domestic pressure to do something to protect an endangered population near Australia’s borders.
Finally, great powers might act unilaterally or as pivotal states in initiating and leading peace operations. For instance, in 1982, Israel’s refusal to allow the UN to supervise the withdrawal of PLO forces from Beirut persuaded the Americans to seek alternative options, and it was the US that acted as a pivotal state in the creation of the multinational force deployed to Lebanon (Diehl 1994: