Learning to fight in UN peacekeeping

ABSTRACT

Peace operations of the United Nations (UN) have changed significantly since the 1990s. The turn towards “stabilisation” operations increasingly allows the use of military force against armed groups. For some troop contributing armies, this means that peacekeeping has become the first occasion on which soldiers gain combat experience. Yet, what are the consequences of this development for eventual internal public security roles of armed forces? Contributing to discussions on conditions for organisational change, this article develops a model for blending the analysis of bottom-up adaptation and top-down military innovation with studies on civil-military relations. This model is used for examining military learning that resulted from the reciprocal relationship between the Brazilian military’s internal “Guaranteeing Law and Order” (GLO) operations and coercive operations against urban crime groups during the UN Stabilisation Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH). The article finds that a complex interplay between bottom-up adaptation and top-down innovation – enabled by politicians who supported the transfer of lessons – led to a process in which internal missions and peacekeeping deployments mutually informed military change. Soldiers’ adaptation to coercive operations, changes in the legal framework for internal missions, and the development of appropriate doctrine for urban operations resulted in the institutionalisation of military learning.

KEYWORDS:

• Military innovation
• military effectiveness
• adaptation
• UN peacekeeping
• stabilisation
• civil-military relations

Acknowledgments

The author would like to thank Reko Jeske for excellent research assistance. Fieldwork for this project was supported by the King’s Brazil Institute PhD Studentship as well as a Faculty of Social Science and Public Policy Small Grant for Postgraduate Research at King’s College London. All translations from Portuguese by the author.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Paper surveys were distributed at an army base in the state of Minas Gerais and in an online-version among members of army units in the states of Minas Gerais, Rio de Janeiro, and São Paulo. Interviews and focus groups were carried out in 2014 and 2015.

2. the only previous long-term mission (Operação Amazonia Leal, August 2004 – December 2005) provided logistical support to a state agency’s anti-deforestation operation in the Amazon.

3. Centro Conjunto de Operações de Paz do Brasil.

4. Centro de Instrução de Operações de Garantia da Lei e da Ordem. In 2018, CIOpGLO’s name was changed into “Centro de Instrução de Operações Militares em Ambiente Urbano” (Instruction Centre for Military Operations in Urban Environments).

5. Figures per December of each year, except 1990 and 1998 (November) and 2019 (July). Elaborated by author, based on United Nations, “Troop and Police Contributors”, 2019.

6. Elaborated by author, based on Brasil. Ministério da Defesa, “Relação de Operações.”

7. Elaborated by author, based on Brasil. Ministério da Defesa.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Christoph Harig

Dr Christoph Harig is Research Fellow at the Chair of International Relations and Regional Governance, Helmut Schmidt University Hamburg. He holds a PhD in Security Studies from King’s College London. His research interests include international relations, civil-military relations, UN peacekeeping, and military sociology.