![Sample our Politics & International Relations journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5947/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Politics-International-Relations.jpg"})
ABSTRACT
Recent scholarship has discerned an increasing tendency of the UN Security Council to push the boundaries of UN peacekeeping beyond traditional doctrine by equipping peace operations with ever more robust and even peace enforcement mandates. The first and most frequently cited example of this turn is the so-called Force Intervention Brigade (FIB) in the DR Congo. Yet, a comprehensive account of the FIB experience is still missing. Authorized in March 2013 to launch offensive military operations against insurgent groups, the FIB may come to epitomize a sea change in the transition from robust peacekeeping to a qualitatively different kind of UN peace operation. Thus, studying the FIB can offer important insights about the advantages and challenges that may be in store for the UN, should the organization indeed turn towards peace enforcement. The articles analyses the origins, performance and consequences of the FIB in terms of conflict resolution and state-building. It also examines its organizational impact on the UN peace operation in which it was embedded (Monusco). It finds that the FIB has not proven to be the game changer. Instead, it had unintended negative consequences both on state-building and the performance of UN peacekeepers.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
About the author
Denis M. Tull is currently a researcher at the Institute for Strategic Research (IRSEM) in Paris. His areas of research include Africa’s international relations, military intervention, UN peacekeeping, armed conflict and state building in Africa.
Notes
1 UNSC Resolution 2100 (2013).
2 UNSC Resolution 2295 (2016), para. 18 and 19 c/d.
3 UN Security Council, “United Nations Peacekeeping Operations.”
4 South Africa’s UN ambassador cited in United Nations, “Peacekeeping Must Be More Flexible.” See also Cammaert, The UN Intervention Brigade.
5 UN, Brahimi Report, 51.
6 UN, Report of the Secretary-General on the Protection of Civilians.
7 Findlay, The Use of Force in UN Peace Operations, cited in Rudolf, “Changing UN Peace Operations,” 162; Tardy, “A Critique of Robust Peacekeeping.”
8 De Coning, Chiyuki, and Karlsrud, UN Peacekeeping Doctrine; Peter, “Between Doctrine and Practice.”
9 DPKO/DFS, United Nations Peacekeeping Operations, 31ff.
10 Hunt, “All Necessary Means to What Ends?”.
11 UNSC Resolution 1856 (2008).
12 Cited in Rudolf, “Changing UN Peace Operations,” 164.
13 UN, HIPPO Report, para 104 ff.
14 Tardy, “A Critique of Robust Peacekeeping,” 154; Cammaerts and Klappe, “Application of Force and Rules of Engagement.”
15 UN, HIPPO Report, para. 111.
16 See UN, HIPPO Report.
17 Pierre Buyoya, Special Envoy of the African Union, cited in ISS, Peace and Security Council Report, 20; Martin Kobler, Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General in the DR Congo, cited in Kulish/Sengupta, “New U.N. Brigade’s Aggressive Stance.”
18 MONUSCO official cited in Cammaert, The UN Intervention Brigade, 5.
19 Karlsrud, “The UN at War,” 41–3; De Coning, Chiyuki, and Karlsrud, UN Peacekeeping Doctrine.
20 Hunt, “All Necessary Means to What Ends?” 109; Peter, “Between Doctrine and Practice.”
21 Cammaert, The UN Intervention Brigade, 7.
22 Karlsrud, “Towards UN Counter-Terrorism Operations?”; Boutellis and Chowdhury, Waging Peace.
23 For an excellent take on FIB before it was actually on the ground, Cammaert, The UN Intervention Brigade.
24 Müller, “The Force Intervention Brigade.” See also Whittle, “Peacekeeping in Conflict” and Sheeran/Case, “The Intervention Brigade.”
25 See Berdal, “The State of UN Peacekeeping.”
26 Karlsrud, “Towards UN Counter-Terrorism Operations”; Hunt, “All Necessary Means to What Ends?”.
27 Prunier, Africa’s World War; Reyntjens, The Great African War; Autesserre, The Trouble with Congo; Stearns, Dancing in the Glory of Monsters.
29 UNSC Resolution 1756 (2007).
30 UN, MONUSCO Report, March 2017, para 35.
31 Stearns, From CNDP to M23, 45.
32 For details, see UN, MONUSCO Report, February 2013, para. 37.
33 At the time, it had 19,145 uniformed personnel, second only to UNAMID in Darfur (21,350). http://www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/contributors/2012/militarypolice.zip.
34 BBC News, “UN under Fire over Fall of Goma in DR Congo.”
35 The Economist, “Is This the World’s Least Effective Peacekeeping Force?”.
36 Al Jazeera, “UN to Help DRC Troops Protect Goma.”
37 UN, MONUSCO Report, February 2013, para 23, 45f.
38 Boutellis, “Will MONUSCO Fall with Goma?”
39 UNSC Resolution 2098 (2013), para. 8 refers to “the FDLR, the ADF, the APCLS, the LRA, the National Force of Liberation (FNL), the various Mayi Mayi groups and all other armed groups.”
40 UNSC Resolution 2098 (2013), para. 9, 12.
41 For a report on the military operations, see Olivier, “How M23 Was Rolled Back.”
42 UN, MONUSCO Report, December 2013, para. 38.
43 The UNSC called the neutralization of the FDLR “a top priority in bringing stability” to the DRC and the region.
44 Tull, United Nations Peacekeeping, 2.
45 SADC, Communiqué of the Extraordinary Summit.
46 UN, Midterm Report of the Group of Experts.
47 SADC, Final Communiqué of the 32nd Summit. AFP, “SADC Slams Rwanda.”
48 Johnson/Schlindwein, Endgame or Bluff, 6. On economic interests, see International Crisis Group, “Congo,” 14–16.
49 Rosen, “After the Fall of Goma.”
50 Kagire, “Money for Neutral Force Tops the Agenda.”
51 Angola Press, “SADC Summit Starts in Tanzania.”
52 Radio Okapi, “Sultani Makenga et un groupe d’ex-rebelles.”
53 UN Security Council, Letter dated March 4, 2013 from the Secretary-General.
54 De Waal, “Mission Without End?”.
55 On paper, MONUSCO conceived of stabilization as a much broader policy than state-building. However, MONUSCO was uneasy with its own comprehensive approach to stabilization and de facto focused on military and technical tools to support the restauration of state authority. As part of this endeavour, the FIB served as a counter-insurgency instrument to liberate territory from armed groups. See De Vries, Going Around in Circles, 47–55.
56 Rudolf, “UN Peace Operations and the Use of Military Force,” 172f; De Waal, “Mission Without End?”.
57 For a comprehensive analysis, see Stearns, From CNDP to M23. See also Cammaert, The UN Intervention Brigade, 12.
58 De Vries, Going Around in Circles, 41; Cammaert, The UN Intervention Brigade, 12.
59 International Crisis Group, “Congo,” 1–4; Stearns, “The Framework Agreement.”
60 De Vries, Going Around in Circles, 45.
61 See Tull, “When They Overstay.”
62 UN News Centre, “DR Congo.” See also UN, Report of the Secretary-General on MONUSCO submitted pursuant to paragraph 39.
63 UN Security Council, 7367th Meeting, 8.
64 De Vries, The Ebb and Flow of Stabilization in the Congo, 3.
65 Stearns et al., “Congo’s Inescapable State.”
66 UNSC Resolution 2147 (2014).
67 BBC News, “Head of UN Mission in DR Congo Says New Mandate More Flexible.”
68 UN, MONUSCO Report, September 2014, para 89.
69 UN, Report of the Secretary-General on MONUSCO submitted pursuant to paragraph 39, para 17.
70 Ibid., para 29.
71 BBC, “Head of UN Mission in DRCongo Says New Mandate More Flexible.”
72 UN, Strategic Review, Executive Summary, para. 26.
73 Ibid., para. 25.
74 UN News Center, “DR Congo”; UN Security Council, 7288th Meeting, 4.
75 Al Jazeera, “UN to Help DRC Troops Protect Goma.”
76 UN, Strategic Review, Executive Summary, para. 28f.
77 Ibid., para. 26.
78 Ibid., para. 26, 29.
79 UN, MONUSCO Report, September 2014, para. 51; UN, MONUSCO Report, March 2016, para. 72.
80 UN, Strategic Review, para. 54, 70.
81 UN, MONUSCO Report, March 2017, para. 59.
82 Moreover, peace enforcement in cooperation with such a government carries considerable reputational and legitimacy risks for peacekeepers and UN operations at large.
83 Cammaert and Klappe, “Application of Force and Rules of Engagement,” 154.
84 Berdal, “The State of UN Peacekeeping,” 25; Doyle and Sambanis, Making War and Building Peace, 5.