Information Processing Challenges in Peacekeeping Operations: A Case Study on Peacekeeping Information Collection Efforts in Mali

ABSTRACT

Information analysts are often hindered by uncertainty, complexity, ambiguity, and equivocality when trying to support peacekeeping operations. This article puts forward a conceptual framework that explains what each of these information challenges entails and how uncertainty, complexity, ambiguity, and equivocality hamper peacekeeping efforts. To assess the conceptual value of linking these information challenges to peacekeeping efforts, this article zooms in on the information support system within the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA), though other cases are also considered. The peacekeeping information collection and analysis efforts in Mali illustrate that peacekeeping missions ideally should be equipped with the capacity to overcome information challenges related to uncertainty and complexity in order to support the tactical and operational level of peacekeeping missions. In order to understand decision-making context and support the strategic level, it is also important that information analysts within peacekeeping mission can reduce information challenges related to ambiguity and equivocality. The importance of understanding the decision-making context speaks to the emphasis on sequenced mandates in the High-level Independent Panel on Peace Operations (HIPPO) report. In order to timely adjust the mandate of a peacekeeping mission, the leadership of a peacekeeping mission needs to be alerted of any changes in the decision-making context.

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Roger Mac Ginty and Roisin Read for their great comments on an earlier version of this article. Any errors are my own.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

About the author

Allard Duursma completed his PhD in International Relations at the University of Oxford in 2015, focusing on international mediation efforts in civil wars in Africa. Upon completion of his PhD, Allard joined the HCRI as a research associate at the Making Peacekeeping Data Work Project. Allard's role within this project is to examine the incident data from the UN and African Union mission in Darfur through using GIS and conducting spatial analyses.

ORCID

Allard Duursma http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1261-3982

Notes

1 Dorn, “United Nations Peacekeeping Intelligence”; Dorn, “The Cloak and the Blue Beret”; Chesterman, “Does the UN have intelligence?”

2 Shetler-Jones, “Intelligence in Integrated UN Peacekeeping Missions”; Duursma, “Counting Deaths While Keeping Peace”.

3 High-level Independent Panel on Peace Operations, “Report of the High-level Independent Panel”.

4 Karlsrud and Smith, “Europe's Return to UN Peacekeeping in Africa?” 5.

5 Abilova and Novosseloff, Demystifying Intelligence in UN Peace Operations, 4, fn.11.

6 These different information challenges are defined in the next section of this article.

7 International Crisis Group, “Mali: Avoiding Escalation”; International Crisis Group, “Mali: The Need for Determined and Coordinated International Action”, 5.

8 Williams and Boutellis, “Partnership Peacekeeping”.

9 UN Security Council Resolution 2100 adopted on 25 April 2013.

10 UN Security Council resolution 2295 adopted on 29 June 2016.

11 van Willigen, “A Dutch Return to UN Peacekeeping?” 715.

12 Abilova and Novosseloff, Demystifying Intelligence in UN Peace Operations, 9.

13 Ibid.

14 van Willigen, “A Dutch Return to UN Peacekeeping?” 715; Shetler-Jones, “Intelligence in Integrated UN Peacekeeping Missions”.

15 Van Dalen, “ASIFU”, 308.

16 van Willigen, “A Dutch Return to UN Peacekeeping?,” 716.

17 It should be noted that the ASIFU leadership decided to not deploy an ISR company in Sector North (Kidal), because the security situation was too risky in this area. Yet, from an information collection perspective, an ISR in Kidal was arguably the most needed.

18 Abilova and Novosseloff, Demystifying Intelligence in UN Peace Operations; van Dalen, “ASIFU”.

19 Muhren and Van de Walle, “A Call for Sense-making Support Systems”, 429.

20 Ibid.

21 Prunier, The Rwanda Crisis, 189.

22 Dallaire, Shake Hands with the Devil, 90, 194.

23 UN DPKO, A New Partnership Agenda, 27.

24 Muhren and Van de Walle, “A Call for Sense-making Support Systems”, 430.

25 Dorn, “United Nations Peacekeeping Intelligence”, 75.

26 Muhren and Van de Walle, “A Call for Sense-making Support Systems”, 429.

27 Ibid., 427.

28 Interview with the Chief JMAC MINUSMA in Bamako on 25 January 2017; Interview with a Lieutenant within the ASIFU in Bamako on 24 January 2017.

29 For a study that makes this point for the conflict in Darfur, see: Duursma and Read, “Modelling Violence as Disease?”

30 International Crisis Group, “Central Mali”.

31 Interview with the Chief JMAC MINUSMA in Bamako on 25 January 2017.

32 Interview with a Lieutenant within the ASIFU in Bamako on 24 January 2017; Interview with a Lieutenant Colonel within the ASIFU in Bamako on 24 January 2017.

33 Convergne and Snyder, “Making Maps to Make Peace”, 571–2.

34 Interview with the Deputy Commander of the ASIFU in Bamako on 24 January 2017.

35 Van Dalen, “ASIFU”.

36 Interview with the Chief JMAC MINUSMA in Bamako on 25 January 2017; Interview with a Lieutenant Colonel within the ASIFU in Bamako on 24 January 2017.

37 Interview with JMAC MINUSMA analyst on compliant armed groups in Bamako on 25 January 2017.

38 Interview with former JMAC MINUSMA analyst on compliant armed groups in The Hague on 8 February 2017.

39 Interview with the Chief JMAC MINUSMA in Bamako on 25 January 2017; Interview with JMAC MINUSMA analyst on compliant armed groups in Bamako on 25 January 2017.

40 International Crisis Group, “The Central Sahel”.

41 Interview with the Chief JMAC MINUSMA in Bamako on 25 January 2017. See also: Warner, “Sub-Saharan Africa's Tree”, 29.

42 Note, however, that the different UN missions do coordinate in terms of formulating a common regional strategy. An example is the UN Integrated Sahel Strategy, which is included in the 14 June 2013 Report of the Secretary-General on the situation in the Sahel region.

43 Interview with UN staff member in New York on 19 July 2017.

44 Dorn, “United Nations Peacekeeping Intelligence”.

45 Email correspondence with former ASIFU Commander on 16 February 2017; Interview with a Lieutenant Colonel within the ASIFU in Bamako on 24 January 2017.

46 ASIFU intelligence officer quoted in: Snabilie, “The Organizational Dynamics of Knowledge Production”, 66.

47 Interview with a Lieutenant Colonel within the ASIFU in Bamako on 24 January 2017.

48 Interview with a Lieutenant within the ASIFU in Bamako on 24 January 2017.

49 Interview with JMAC MINUSMA analyst on terrorists groups in Bamako on 25 January 2017.

50 See: UN News Centre, “Mali”.

51 Interview with JMAC MINUSMA analyst on compliant armed groups in Bamako on 25 January 2017; Interview with a Lieutenant within the ASIFU in Bamako on 24 January 2017. The names of the groups the JMAC and the ASIFU suspected to have conducted the suicide attack are not mentioned for confidentiality reasons.

52 Interview with Nurudin Azeez, Military liaison officer of AMIS to the Abuja peace talks, head of the mapping team, in Addis Ababa, 17 February 2015. See also: Duursma, “When to Get Out of the Trench”.

53 Interview with JMAC MINUSMA analyst on compliant armed groups in Bamako on 25 January 2017.

54 Interview with JMAC MINUSMA analyst on compliant armed groups in Bamako on 25 January 2017.

55 Senior staff member within MINUSMA quoted in: Snabilie, “The Organizational Dynamics of Knowledge Production”, 67.

56 International Crisis Group, “Mali: Avoiding Escalation”.

57 Ibid.

58 Dowd and Raleigh, “The Myth of Global Islamic Terrorism and Local Conflict in Mali”.

59 UN Security Council adopted Resolution 2100 on 25 April 2013.

60 Report of the Secretary-General on the situation in Mali issued on 26 March 2013.

61 The UN mission in Lebanon (UNIFIL) and the UN Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) in the Golan Heights were deployed in areas in which terrorist groups operated, but these missions were aimed at maintaining ceasefires rather than fighting these groups. See: Karlsrud, “The UN at War”; Karsrud, “Towards UN Counter-terrorism Operations?”

62 Karlsrud, “The UN at War”; Karlsrud, “Towards UN Counter-terrorism Operations?”

63 Karlsrud, “Towards UN Counter-terrorism Operations?” 10.

64 Dowd and Raleigh, “The Myth of Global Islamic Terrorism and Local Conflict in Mali”.

65 Lebovich, “The Local Face of Jihadism in Northeren Mali”.

66 Interview with former JMAC MINUSMA analyst on compliant armed groups in The Hague on 8 February; Email correspondence with former JMAC MINUSMA analyst on compliant armed groups on 15 February 2017; Email correspondence with former civil adviser within JMAC MINUSMA on 20 February 2017.

67 Interview with JMAC MINUSMA analyst on terrorists groups in Bamako on 25 January 2017.

68 Note that this type of support is not specifically a counter-terrorism activity. It would therefore be best for the UN to not describe this as counter-terrorism. See: Karlsrud, “Towards UN Counter-terrorism Operations?” 11–12.

69 Interview with JMAC MINUSMA analyst on terrorists groups in Bamako on 25 January 2017; Interview with the Chief JMAC MINUSMA in Bamako on 25 January 2017.

70 UN Security Resolution 2164 adopted on 25 June 2014.

71 Some surveys held in northern Mali suggest widespread support from extremist groups. For example, the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung conducted several surveys in Mali, which have been published in a series called the Mali Mètre. See: www.fes-mali.org/index.php/mali-metre.

72 Interview with JMAC MINUSMA analyst on terrorists groups in Bamako on 25 January 2017.

73 Interview with JMAC MINUSMA analyst on terrorists groups in Bamako on 25 January 2017.

74 Interview with JMAC MINUSMA analyst on compliant armed groups in Bamako on 25 January 2017.

75 Barnett, Eyewitness to a Genocide, 114.

76 Dorn, “United Nations Peacekeeping Intelligence”.

77 Barnett, Eyewitness to a Genocide, 114.

78 Ibid.

79 Ibid.

80 High-level Independent Panel on Peace Operations, “Report of the High-level Independent Panel”.

Additional information

Funding

The article is made possible through ESRC grant [ES/L007479/1] ‘Making Peacekeeping Data Work for the International Community’.