An Irish View on the State of UN Peacekeeping
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NEW YORK UNIVERSITY i CENTER ON INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION Walking Point for Peace: An Irish view on the state of UN peacekeeping Edward Burke and Jonathan Marley June 2015 NEW YORK UNIVERSITY CENTER ON INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION The world faces old and new security challenges that are more complex than our multilateral and national institutions are currently capable of managing. International cooperation is ever more necessary in meeting these challenges. The NYU Center on International Cooperation (CIC) works to enhance international responses to conflict, insecurity, and scarcity through applied research and direct engagement with multilateral institutions and the wider policy community. CIC’s programs and research activities span the spectrum of conflict, insecurity, and scarcity issues. This allows us to see critical inter-connections and highlight the coherence often necessary for effective response. We have a particular concentration on the UN and multilateral responses to conflict. Table of Contents Walking Point for Peace: An Irish view on the state of UN peacekeeping Edward Burke, University of St. Andrews and FRIDE Jonathan Marley, The London School of Economics and Political Science1 Foreword 2 1. Introduction 4 2. Doctrine, Training and Stand-By Arrangements: Aspirations and Reality 7 3. Mission Leadership, Command and Control 11 4. Mission Intelligence and Strategic Analysis 17 5. Peacekeeping Finance and Logistics 20 6. Conclusion 24 Endnotes 26 Foreword But while the strategic case for greater European participation in UN operations may be solidifying, there Could European countries make a greater contribution to are many technical obstacles to this re-engagement. United Nations peace operations? Since the disasters in After years of experience in the Balkans and Afghanistan, Somalia, Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia, few European European soldiers are more comfortable with NATO and generals and strategists have taken the UN seriously. EU doctrines and standards. Adapting to the UN’s way of When thinking of sending their troops abroad they have doing business in cases such as Mali has been a bumpy generally prioritized NATO and the European Union process. European military officers typically view the instead. New strategic dynamics are starting to change UN’s systems for command and control, medical support their calculations. The rapid spread of disorder across the and intelligence gathering as far inferior to the NATO/ Middle East and North Africa has forced EU members to EU alternatives. Many of their criticisms are correct, and rethink the crisis management options available to them. the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO), In Mali, the Netherlands and Nordic countries have made which is relatively frank about these shortcomings, would a large investment of personnel in the UN stabilization not necessarily disagree. Yet in other cases, European mission (MINUSMA) as part of a broader strategy to complaints are either unjustified or based on out-of-date counter violent extremism in the Sahel. There has also views of the UN’s abilities. been talk of a UN peacekeeping force in Libya. The United States has urged its European allies to take a greater role in In this context, there is a need for European militaries to current and future UN operations. learn from the few that never completely gave up on the UN in the 1990s and 2000s. Ireland is one of the most U.S. ambassador to the UN Samantha Power recently prominent of these. Continuing on its Cold War tradition of 2 argued in Brussels that a fresh European investment in the peacekeeping, the Irish military has played a significant role UN could have a “momentum-shifting” impact: in blue helmet missions ranging from Liberia to Lebanon over the last two decades. It has gained and maintained Some critics claim that UN deployments detract a much deeper and more current understanding of the from NATO’s core mandate or missions. Others UN’s strengths and weaknesses than most of their regional claim that the United States does not respect these counterparts. Highlighting this unusual advantage, the deployments, or views them as “soft.” Both claims United Kingdom recently requested Ireland to help train are false. The United States values Europe’s military its troops on peacekeeping issues. contributions to peacekeeping. NATO’s current Strategic Concept itself calls for working with UN This paper by Edward Burke and Jonathan Marley offers and regional organizations to enhance international an in-depth account of how Irish officers and officials peace and security. Blue helmets carry the unique think about UN peacekeeping. Their findings should be of legitimacy of having 193 Member States behind interest to policy-makers not only in Dublin and New York them – from the global North and South alike. In but also among those European governments that want addition, these missions allow burden sharing – to increase their contributions to the UN in future. European nations can provide high-value niche contributions and force-multipliers to UN missions, The paper does not make completely comfortable reading without having the burden of fielding the entire for those who share this goal. Despite their continued operation – a division of labor that both plays to commitment to the UN, many Irish officers still share the European militaries’ strengths and spreads risks broader European preference for NATO/EU operations. across a larger pool. They view many of the civilian officials that play a pivotal role in UN missions with skepticism. The suspicion is mutual. As one UN official interviewed for this study remarks, “The NYU Walking Point for Peace: An Irish view on the state of UN peacekeeping CIC Military Personnel deployed by Europe and other regions: 2005 - 2014 100000 80000 60000 40000 20000 0 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 Europe Other Irish want to do everything their own way.” Such frictions As Burke and Marley indicate, it is incumbent on both are inevitable in all complex military operations, and Burke European militaries and the UN to innovate to work 3 and Marley point out that representatives of non-Western together better in future. There is little point in advanced troop contributors have raised similar concerns. A close militaries offering more personnel and assets to the UN if reading of this paper should help policy-makers identify the organization cannot deploy and use them effectively. potential areas of tension in future operations. Equally, it is not much good for the UN to accommodate European concerns if EU members continue to offer limited In the concluding section of the paper, Burke and Marley military resources in return. Studies like this one may help identify particular areas for policy innovations, including both sides understand each other’s concerns better, and (1) improving and standardizing training doctrines for promote a unified approach to strengthening the UN. UN contingents; (2) moving away from a “one size fits all” approach to the UN’s force generation process; (3) giving Other factors may get in the way of this ambition: Europe’s senior military officials on the ground greater leeway over overall security environment is deteriorating, and it has to how to use the forces and assets available to them; and, on use its resources wisely. For some EU and NATO members, a related them, (4) raising the quality of mission leadership. bolstering the UN will remain a low priority. But as the There are serious headaches over logistical issues and the crisis in Mali shows, European governments cannot simply use of intelligence. Yet the authors also give reasons for treat the UN as an afterthought. For the first time since the optimism: Experienced Irish officers believe that UN has 1990s, the blue helmets are making a direct contribution made real progress instituting previous reforms, and are to European security. Europe needs to give them greater generally positive about the organization’s current efforts support. Ireland’s history of peacekeeping allows it to act to modernize its approach to operations. as a pioneer in this task. Richard Gowan, Research Director, NYU Center on International Cooperation NYU Walking Point for Peace: An Irish view on the state of UN peacekeeping CIC Walking Point for Peace: An Irish view on Ireland’s record on UN peacekeeping is impressive. At the state of UN peacekeeping one point, in 1997, two-thirds of Irish soldiers had served on UN peacekeeping operations. Of these, 70 per cent 1. Introduction had deployed on more than one mission. While that ratio dropped during commitments to NATO and EU-led On August 30 2014 Irish peacekeepers in Syria came under missions in Kosovo, Bosnia and Tchad, in recent years UN attack from al-Qaeda’s affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra. The group service has once again become the norm for Irish military had already kidnapped 45 Fijian soldiers and seized UN personnel. In April 2015 67 per cent of all Irish military Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) bases, weapons personnel have served on UN peacekeeping missions.5 and equipment. Now they surrounded, fired upon and Since 1955, 86 Irish soldiers have died on UN peacekeeping demanded the surrender of two other UN positions operations, more than any other European country with manned by Filipino peacekeepers. Despite such attacks, the exception of France and the UK. Ireland is one of the Irish troops successfully relieved their encircled comrades, few European countries to consistently send contingents evacuating