Peacekeeping

[Enfield]

Doing a paper on Canada's role in peacekeeping/interventions/"peacemaking", and had a couple questions...
1) Can anyone name the successful peacekeping missions?
2) Are there any books/WWW sites I should look at? I will of course be doing my own research, just wanted to know if there were books that were particularly good or raised interesting ideas.

Thanks!

Enfield

[Cole]

Enfield, did a similar paper last year for English 112, A+. I will e-mail you my bibliography for reference later on tonight.

[TonyM]

Other than Suez, were there any succesful ones?

[Enfield]

Thanks Cole, I'd appreciate it.

Can we consider Bosnia (IFOR) and Kosovo (KFOR) successful? There's gotta be a small, unknown mission that was successful...

Enfield

[ZeroG]

Cyprus? That has been going on for a long time.

[Marauder]

Not a flame, here, Enfield, but how are you defining "success" in your paper? That might generate some more specific trains of thought.....
Either way, G Luck on the paper, bro.

[towhey]

How you define success will be crucial.

Remember that most mission mandates are/were nothing like what the public(s) thought they were.

UNFICYP (been there, done that) in Cyprus is clearly a success. The mission: maintain the status quo as at 16:00 LT on 16 Aug 1974 (or something close to it... my memory fails me). Nothing's changed there in 30 years. Mission accomplished.

UNDOF (been there, done that) in the Golan is clearly a success. Maintain the status quo. Done.

UNTSO is probably a success. Observe & Report. Done.

ONUMOZ (been there, done that) in Mozambique was clearly a success: Maintain the peace until elections could be held. Done.

Remember: Central America, and many many others.

Don't forget that most missions had very limited mandates: maintain the status quo, observe and report, create the conditions for peace, ensure the delivery of aid, etc. Very rarely, if ever, was the public sentiment (locally or internationally) in line with the mission. For example: Cyprus, politically, may be a failure: no peace after 30 plus years. But, the mission mandate was achieved with stellar success.

Cheers,

mark.towhey@towhey.com

[Cole]

I am also doing a report on United Nations Peacekeeping for an International Relations class. I am going to explore the potential implications of the Brahimi Report. Are any of you familiar with it? It is quite new, but, has anybody read any good literature on it?
Thanks
Cole

[Enfield]

Thank you Mr. Towhey, your comments are much appreciated.
I guess three criteria can be used to define
"success"
1) The mission mandate was achieved.
2) Peace was achieved or at least a notable period of time(that period of time being related to the size, expense, and duration of the peacekeeping mission)
3) The situation would have been noticeably worse without the presence of the UN.

Some people would argue that the Golan and Cyprus have not been successful because we have had to maintain troops in place for so long. Or is there a distinct division between the soldiers on the ground (the mission itself) and what the politicians and negoatiators do? ie, the politicians are the only ones that can actually "make" the peace, the peacekeepers can only try to facilitate it?

Is UN peacekeeping still viable? With Somalia and the former Yugoslavia and the new role NATO/US has chosen for itself, where does the UN fit?

Essentially.. does peacekeeping work?

Thanks!
Enfield

[Cole]

Well, I just finished reading the book "Tested Mettle" and the words out of my mouth were "holy shit." Go figure the CF gets little if any respect, the propaganda guys at the top aren't giving the public any reason to be proud. The only things that they see are beating deaths of Somalis and paras eating shit.
Anyways, in response to the peacekeeping question posted by Enfield, I have an bit of a twist to add. Should Canada be sending peacekeepers?
Is it right to be sending overstretched, underequipped and underfunded units into warzones to be guided by SOP's dreamed up by some bereaucrats in New York who have no clue of the tactical situation. Should we put our soldiers at risk to enforce weak Mandates.
The one example that struck a chord with me was when MCpl Vallee seen the Serbs rolling into Srbrenica, which I believe was later "ethnically cleansed." After guarding the enclave for 12 months, it simply collapsed when we left. What was the point of taking the casulties only to prolong the misery of those civilians.
If you ask me I think "peacekeeping" is a crock...no point playing with petty dictators if you ain't gonna play by their rules. Try asking the civilians in the former Yugoslav republics if peacekeeping works. Or the Tutsis in Rwanda...or better yet the family of the Belgian Paratroops butchered there.
Well, in my honest opinon, "Peacemaking" is the path we should take if we wanna be international police. We should go in there, tell the warring sides why were there, and if anyone gets in the way, make'em hurt. The mission will be completed when both sides are unable to continue hostilites.
But it doesn't seem to me that we can follow this mission in our current state. You can't expect to bully dictators with training vehicles and undermanned units. So, that idea is out of the ballpark for now.
But, if you disagree with this, you must see that the alternative is to continue sending troops on UN "peacekeeping" missions. Where they are virtually held hostage in their bases by hostile forces and forced to stand by helplessly and watch innocent civilians murdered. I don't think our soldiers should be put in harms way just to do that. Anyways, there's my daily rant.
Cole

[This message has been edited by Cole (edited 02-08-2001).]

[Enfield]

Cole,

Don't base all your opinions off of Tested Mettle - good book, but what they say should be taken with a grain of salt. I'm not convinced of the validity of all of the stories they tell, though undoubtedly many are true.

And peacekeeping is FAR more than Yugoslavia, Somalia, and Rwanda - there have been dozens of missions before that, and they were _nothing_ like those three, which I think is important to realize. In most missions the peacekeepers aren't shot at.

Peacemaking leads to large interventions, wars that the people back home don't want to fight, and unncessary fighting. Why should Canadians die to keep Hutus and Tutsis apart? Why should the US keep umpteen-thousand soldiers sitting in Bosnia for Christmas? Why should NATO spends tens of millions of dollars on bombs to save some Kosovars?

Personally, I think peacemaking is a Clintonesque fad. Nations should only intervene where they have national interet or their is incredible human suffering. And the UN should stay out of peacemaking - they don't have the capability or structure to conduct a conflict. But peacekeeping is still valid - providing the traditional monitors, observers, and lightly armed soldiers to conflicts where there is a clear mandate and all sides have agreed to their presence.

Enfield

[Cole]

Yes your right Enfield, alot of these "war stories" tend to be embellished and exaggerated, and they should be taken as such. The reason Mark Bowden's "Blackhawk Down" was so successful is that he consistantly checked and rechecked the info provided by the sources, enabling him to eliminate much of the "personal touches."
I guess what I was trying to show with my arguement is that major peacekeeping efforts of the 90's dealt with similar problems; intrastate, deep-seated ethnic hatred, and more instances of simple murder than actual military fighting.
The point of my argument falls along with what you were saying. What is the point of sending Canadians to places like Bosnia or Rwanda, where Serbs are killing Bosnians, Croats are killing Serbs, and Hutus killing Tutsi's. They have been killing eachother for centuries and they will probably keep on doing it, and I don't see how making Canadian soldiers march around minefields and war zones with blue hats on will convince them otherwise. A different approach, not "peacekeeping" or "peacemaking" will probably be needed to solve this problem. And until then I don't see the morality of putting our soldiers in the line of fire to achieve a presently unreachable goal.
Cole

[towhey]

I am compelled to speak up.

First off: "Tested Mettle" is an interesting book. However, it is rife with factual innaccuracies (from misspelled names and places to more serious errors) and petty sniping by the author. I know many of the people mentioned in the book, I have been many of the places written about, and I belonged to the same unit, at the same time, as the author.

Scott Taylor's heart is in the right place but he believes (and I believe him) that he got screwed by DND. Unfortunately, this bitterness colours everythings he writes. To hear him tell it, the Canadian Forces have done nothing right -- ever.

Ain't so.

Not all Canadian privates and corporals are gods. Not all officers are idiots. Fact is, most Canadian soldiers, sailors and airfolks -- at all rank levels -- are very good at what they do.

The business of fighting is a very complex business. Scott's perspective, while very valid, is limited to his 4 years as a Private/Corporal in an infantry battalion. My perspective is equally limited to my own experience, which spanned 14 years, 5 domestic tours and 4 overseas/operational tours.

What I do believe from my experience is that: if we were to wait for perfect conditions before deploying troops into an event, we would never deploy troops.

-- When I was in Cyprus, we didn't have the right kit, weapons or authority to do the job as it should be done.

-- When I was in Germany, we didn't have the right kit, weapons or authority to do the job as it should be done.

-- When I was in the Golan, we didn't have the right kit, weapons or authority to do the job as it should be done.

-- When I was in Mozambique, we didn't have the right kit, weapons or authority to do the job as it should be done.

But we got the job done anyway.

When I speak with veterans of World War II, Korea, Vietnam, Desert Storm, Kosovo, Rwanda, Somalia... they all tell me they didn't have the right kit, weapons or authority to do the job as it should be done. But they did it anyway.

We are too much influenced by Tom Clancy and Hollywood war movies -- where the good guys always have all the right kit in the right place at the right time and it always works exactly right.

That's simply not the way it ever is in the real world.

Anybody can soldier on a sunny day with all the right kit. It takes a real soldier to get the job done with what's at hand.

Fortunately for Canada, we have real soldiers.

Scott Taylor's exactly right about that.

Cheers,

Mark

mark.towhey@towhey.com

[VMI_Marine]

Interesting that you bring up Clancy. I enjoy his books greatly, but it seems like in every one he simply refights Desert Storm, he just changes the antagonist and throws in some other complication, like biological warfare. Other than that, it's superior US technology clobbering the latest challenger with huge amounts of firepower and little in the way of human cost. Seems a little too idealistic to me. Still very enjoyable to read, though.

[TonyM]

Should Canada be involved in peacekeeping? No.
Should any country be involved in peacekeeping?
No.

The world has changed dramaticly since the UN was formed and it has not evolved with it. Let's apply the Dilbert Principle here (one of the best management insight books ever)to the modern UN
Which is more likely true:
1) The UN is an efficent organization able to impose proper ethical and moral views on other countries. It has the backing and support of all it's members, who are willing to sacrifice it's own countries citizens to empower it's global mandates. Most countries are emboldened to seek alternatives to violence when the UN gets involved.
2)The UN is an internationaly funded organization made up of corrupt political figureheads and corporate managers whose primary goal is to ensure a secure employemt position with good pay and benefits and perhaps immigrate to other countries. They do not have the support of their members, some of which have decided it's actually in their best interest not to participate in it's activities. Some may even find ways to use the UN to provide illegal funding of their own polictical agendas.

Yes, I have experiance dealing with the UN. No, I am not going to provide details. Also I have never been on a peacekeeping tour.

[towhey]

Don't get me wrong -- I'm a Clancyphile. Love his original military novels (Red Storm Rising, Hunt for Red October, etc.) -- though not his later "co-written" stuff.

But, all his do-dads almost invariably work. I've sat counting to a hundred too many times waiting to unload a $30,000 miss-fire to believe that things always work as planned!

-----------
Change of subject -- I was thinking about peacekeeping over lunch in the light of a recent New York Times article about US Forces' vs. British approach to peacekeeping.

While I admire the US Army as the best Army in the world, in that it has all the bells and whistles and can play for keeps simply because of its size and technological superiority, it is really ill suited to peacekeeping/making ops. Force protection is important, but the one-size fits all approach that the US takes is too often counter-productive in a PK mission.

Peacekeeping is a dirty business. It means getting down and being vulnerable -- that's how you build rapport, that's how you de-escalate tension. It takes guts to expose your flank. But that's the only way to succeed in a challenging PK mission.

[Cole]

I should say this right now, I am REAL new to this line of work (Just getting my kit this week) and my opinion tends to come mostly from secondary sources, such as writers and journalists. So, if the BTDT's feel I am talking out of my ass with gross innaccuracies, please feel free to let out a warning shot. http://www.specialoperations.com/ubboard/wink.gif
Mr. Towhey, you say that peacekeeping involves getting down low and vulnerable and building rapport. But how do you suppose we can do this a be able to avoid a situation like the Belgian Paratroopers in Rwanda?
Cole

[garett]

That question wasn't directed at me but the way to avoid a situation like the one in Rwanda is the French Foreign Legion way, fix bayonets and if anyone fucks with you shoot them and throw them in a pit.

[towhey]

Unfortunately, the simple fact is that you can't always avoid a situation like the death of Belgian paratroopers in Rwanda. Soldiering is a dangerous business. If it wasn't, we would send Boy Scouts -- they're much cheaper.

I wasn't in Rwanda and have learned, the hard way, not to second guess decisions made on the ground.

I have, though, sat up through the night in a tent elsewhere in Africa, while the Rwanda situation was going on, listening to fellow unarmed observers in tears on the radio, begging for help as they were assaulted, dragged off and beaten by local soldiers.

Later, when it was our turn to fire off the flares and ask for help we, too, knew there was no help to be had. We were lucky and none of us was killed.

It's all well and good to say "fix bayonets" -- and I did swear at the time: "Give me a company of Canadian infantry, and I'll go in there and sort things out..." But there was no Canadian infantry company, and I wasn't able to sort things out. In retrospect, and out of the line of fire, I know it wouldn't have helped in the big picture anyway.

Escalating the situation is very rarely an effective de-escalation tactic.

If we are at war -- it makes sense to kick butt. But, in a war there are good guys and bad guys. In peacekeeping/making there are no favorites. Killing two people to stop them killing two people is pointless. Either, way two people are dead.

Now, if we picked sides and said, let's kill two bad people to save two good people -- that would be do able. But, we don't say that.

Soldiering is the most rewarding and most frustrating profession there is.

Good luck, Cole!