Coin: the missing currency in peace support operations and beyond Item Type Thesis Authors Pinder, David Rights <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by-nc-nd/3.0/"><img alt="Creative Commons License" style="border-width:0" src="http://i.creativecommons.org/l/by- nc-nd/3.0/88x31.png" /></a><br />The University of Bradford theses are licenced under a <a rel="license" href="http:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/">Creative Commons Licence</a>. Download date 29/09/2021 10:09:31 Link to Item http://hdl.handle.net/10454/2320 University of Bradford eThesis This thesis is hosted in Bradford Scholars – The University of Bradford Open Access repository. Visit the repository for full metadata or to contact the repository team © University of Bradford. This work is licenced for reuse under a Creative Commons Licence. COIN: THE MISSING CURRENCY IN PEACE SUPPORT OPERATIONS AND BEYOND? David Pinder Dissertation submitted for The degree of Master of Philosophy Department of Peace Studies University of Bradford 2007 ABSTRACT David PINDER COIN: THE MISSING CURRENCY IN PEACE SUPPORT OPERATIONS AND BEYOND? Keywords: Counterinsurgency, Peacekeeping, Peace Enforcement, Peace Support Operations, Intervention, Post-conflict Stabilisation, UN Military Missions The United Nations has a long history of peacekeeping missions. These have evolved over time but since the end of the Cold War there has been rapid growth in those missions where the remit placed on the peacekeepers, both military and civilian, is more complex and demanding. In trying to define these missions and their mandates a wide range of terminology has been developed in an effort to describe the exact nature of the mission. Since many of these deployments take place into theatres where there is no peace to keep, or where a fragile peace reverts to a conflict situation such tight definitions often lead to the troops involved no longer having an appropriate mandate. More recently some of these larger missions constitute in fact interventions to impose peace. Attempts to find a „peace‟ classification for such deployments often confuse the issue rather than bring clarity. In reality these missions are not peacekeeping at all. The almost forgotten doctrine, principles and practices of Counterinsurgency provide a better framework for defining these missions, the respective roles of the key players and the factors necessary to bring success. ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENT I am grateful to: Oliver Ramsbotham for suggesting that I attempt this project in the first place. Jim Whitman for his supervision, constant support and encouragement – far beyond the call of duty. My friend and former colleague, Nick Evans for his assistance in uncovering the more obscure details of early military expeditions. Colleagues and comrades, too numerous to mention, with whom I have served and who have helped to form my experiences and opinions. I particularly acknowledge and remember those who did not return from the various missions in which I have participated. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter One: Setting the Problem: P.1 Chapter Two: The Evolution of Peace Support Operations: P.14 Chapter Three: Case Studies: P.41 Chapter Four: The Convergence of Peace Support Operations with Classical COIN Operations: P.111 Chapter Five: The Situation Today: P.150 Bibliography: P.185 iv COIN1: THE MISSING CURRENCY IN PEACE SUPPORT OPERATIONS AND BEYOND? CHAPTER ONE SETTING THE PROBLEM Sadly, in the 50th year of UN peacekeeping operations, the perceived failures and costs of the UN mission in former Yugoslavia, and recent experiences in Somalia, have led to widespread disillusionment. Yet if the world loses faith in peacekeeping, and responses to the new world disorder are limited to the extremes of total war or total peace, the world will become a more dangerous place. Rather than lose faith in the whole peace process, we need to analyse the changed operational circumstances and try to determine new doctrines for the future. General Sir Michael Rose, Commander UNPROFOR in Bosnia, 1994-5 How to bring an end to conflicts short of formal war and replace them with order and stability is a question which has occupied the international community increasingly since the end of the Cold War. The problem is not new. In itself this seems a fatuous comment - at best a banality - with which to begin such a work; however the fact remains that it is a problem, whether it concerns formal war between states or what have sometimes been called Small Wars2, which has been around as long as one group has sought to impose a solution on another group. Even in what is commonly termed the ancient period the problem was hardly new. Examples include Alexander the Great‟s defeat of the Persian Empire and his subsequent attempts to hold together its component parts; the early and late Roman Republic and Empire; and the Mongol Empire of Ghengis Khan and his successors found difficulty not in conquest but in reconstruction of the conquered lands. Later history includes yet more examples from both East and West, whilst more recently the Age of European Imperial expansion yields further examples. It is not suggested that these earlier examples provide „best practice‟ models but it does illustrate that the current period is in no way unique in facing such challenges. The greater problem is not war, 1 The traditional military abbreviation for Counter Insurgency. 2 Caldwell, C. E., Small Wars, London, HMSO, 1896. 1 difficult though that may be, it is the rebuilding afterwards which requires the greater skill. The more remarkable then that to date there are few examples of „getting it right‟; the more remarkable then that so many of the same errors are made on each occasion. It can be well argued that the Allied philosophy and programme after the successful invasion of Europe in 1944 provides many examples of good practice; and considering the scale of the conflict and the complexity and scale of the post-conflict tasks, it was certainly an awesome achievement. Equally, however, examination of the planning for it also reveals that even here there were failings which seem to be characteristic of such endeavours. Robert Murphy, appointed political advisor on German affairs to General Eisenhower in September, 1944, recalled: I was aware that an Anglo-American-Russian agency, called the European Advisory Commission, had been at work in London all through 1944 trying to decide how to administer Germany and I assumed at this late date a detailed occupation plan must be in readiness. Paris had been liberated on August 25, Allied armies were advancing from the west, Russian armies were closing in from the east and the surrender of Germany appeared imminent. To my astonishment, I learned in Washington that no American plan was ready yet because President Roosevelt had not made known his own views and the three departments of the government were wrangling among themselves about postwar Germany. 3 When WWII ended the international community, conscious of the shortcomings of the League of Nations, established the United Nations (UN) in the hope that future conflicts could either be avoided altogether or at worst, brought back from violence to negotiation. The advent of the Cold War placed a cold hand on the more optimistic of these hopes but the consequent emergence of peacekeeping as a lesser option seemed to offer a way forward. Peacekeeping has evolved considerably in the intervening years and several clear stages in that process can be identified; these will be examined in Chapters Two and Four. The end of the Cold War paradoxically gave the UN the opportunity to function 3 Murphy, R., Diplomat Among Warriors, London, Collins, 1964, p.279. 2 more nearly as its founders had hoped, but also saw a significant increase in small wars, which the unreformed UN was incapable of either preventing or managing. This, in turn, led to a plethora of studies, reforms, attempts to redefine categories of UN missions, unrealistic expectations and occasions when regional organisations took the initiative, either with or without UN authorisation. Most recent and perhaps most contentious of the new types of mission are those designated Peace-Enforcement Missions. Whilst clinging to the word „peace‟ in their title they are a tacit admission that they deploy into areas where there is no peace to keep. The term „Peace Support Operations‟ (PSOs) is also finding favour, although as will be demonstrated, in actual fact it is more of an „umbrella‟ term than a concise definition. The advent of global terrorism has brought in another dimension which further confuses the boundaries between traditional peacekeeping and normal war. It will be argued that Peace Enforcement Missions and the immediate post-combat phase of interventions, create a type of operation which fits into neither of these categories but which closely resembles what used to be termed Counterinsurgency. It will be argued that study of this near-forgotten doctrine, its philosophies and methodologies provides the key to understanding the dynamics and requirements of today‟s complex and demanding missions. For reasons of space, missions other than peacekeeping will not be considered in detail; thus although post-conflict peace building (PCPB) missions enjoy a close relationship to peacekeeping operations and as will be shown, share many characteristics with COIN, it will be for others to examine that relationship. It is partly the complexity of these recent missions which exposes the flaws inherent in present planning and practice, irrespective of the exact nature of the mission. For example, where the number of actors is large, the need for a clear mandate and constant 3 cooperation and coordination increases correspondingly; equally, the difficulties in achieving them are also greater and the consequences more severe and obvious if they are not achieved.