The long and winding road … to success? Unit peace operation effectiveness and its effect on mission success

Abstract

Why does peacekeeping sometimes fail? How can effective peacekeepers increase the likelihood of success of a mission? The two main flaws in the current evaluations of peace operations are that they mainly rely on already concluded missions and that they make use of indicators that do not reveal micro-level dynamics. This article introduces an analytical framework relating the effectiveness of soldiers to their actual impact in their area of operation in a peace operation. The framework is called “unit peace operation effectiveness” (UPOE). Focusing on soldiers in peace operations, this article shows that: different units behave differently; emphasize different aspects of the mandate; and are effective in different ways. Ultimately, this has an actual impact on the end-state of the mission. It relies on and adapts classic security studies works to theoretically enrich the peacekeeping literature. The model is tested in an illustrative case study based on ethnographic work on French and Italian units in Afghanistan between 2008 and 2010.

Keywords:

• military effectiveness
• peace operations
• mission success
• French army
• Italian army
• Afghanistan
• ethnography

Notes

R. Gowan, ‘The Tragedy of 21st Century UN Peacekeeping’, World Politics Review (2012). http://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/articles/5552/the-tragedy-of-21st-century-u-n-peacekeeping (accessed April 17, 2013).

M. Doyle and N. Sambanis, Making War and Building Peace (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006); V. Page Fortna, ‘Interstate Peacekeeping: Causal Mechanisms and Empirical Effects’, World Politics 56, no. 4 (2004): 481–519; M. Hanlon, Expanding Global Military Capacity for Humanitarian Intervention (Washington: Brooking Institution Press, 2003); B. Pouligny, ‘Civil Society and Post-Conflict Peacebuilding: Ambiguities of International Programmes Aimed at Building “New” Societies’, Security Dialogue 36, no. 4 (2005): 495–510.

In other articles I have documented variations in behavior among several units in different contemporary operations: Chiara Ruffa, ‘What Peacekeepers Think and Do? An Exploratory Study of French, Ghanaian, Italian, and South Korean Armies in the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon’, Armed Forces & Society, first published on March 28, 2013 as doi:10.1177/0095327X12468856 and Chiara Ruffa, ‘Imagining War and Keeping Peace? Military Cultures and Force Employment in Peace Operations’ (Mimeo, Uppsala: Uppsala University Archives, 2012).

E. Kier, Imagining War (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997).

R. Brooks, Creating Military Power. The Sources of Military Effectiveness (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004), 9.

Center on International Cooperation at New York University, Annual Review of Global Peace Operations, 2010, Press Advisory, 1. http://www.cic.nyu.edu/Lead%20Page%20PDF/ARGPO2010_press_advisory_25Feb10.pdf (accessed February 11, 2013).

Madeleine Albright, http://www.disam.dsca.mil/pubs/Vol%2016_4/Albright.pdf (accessed February 18, 2012).

E.A. Shils and M. Janowitz, ‘Cohesion and Disintegration in the WehrMacht in World War II’, Public Opinion Quarterly 12, no. 2 (1948): 280–315; O. Bartov, The Eastern Front, 1941–45: German Troops and the Barbarisation of Warfare (London: MacMillan, 1986); J.J. Castillo, The Will to Fight: Explaining German and French Staying in Power in World War II (College Station, TX: Texas A&M University, 2008); S.P. Rosen, ‘Military Effectiveness. Why Society Matters’, International Security 19, no. 4 (1995): 5–31; S. Biddle and R. Zirkle, ‘Technology, Civil-Military Relations and Warfare in the Developing World’, Journal of Strategic Studies 19, no. 2 (1996): 171–212; A.R. Millet and W. Murray, ed., Military Effectiveness, Vol. 1: The First World War (Boston: Unwin Hyman, 1988).

T.B. Seybolt, for example, wonders why some past interventions have been more successful than others. Humanitarian Military Intervention: The Conditions for Success and Failure (Oxford: SIPRI by Oxford University Press, 2007).

Brooks, Creating Military Power, p. 9.

Even within each military organization, Biddle points out that for military forces in general, proficiency in one or several fields ‘does not imply proficiency in them all’. S. Biddle, Military Power (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004), p. 5.

Gen. Sir R. Smith, The Utility of Force – The Art of War in the Modern World (London: Penguin Books, 2005), p. 269.

F. Fischer, G. Miller, and M. Sidney, Handbook of Public Policy Analysis: Theory, Politics and Methods (Boca Raton: Taylor and Francis, 2007), for example, chapter 26.

For a complete argument on why these armies have a similar threat level, see Chiara Ruffa, ‘Imagining War and Keeping Peace? Military Cultures and Peace Operation Effectiveness’ (PhD thesis, European University Institute, Florence, 2010).

NATO Strategic Vision April 2008 after the meeting in Bucharest.

O-2, interview via email, November 2008.

O-3, Italian Unit, Camp Invicta, Kabul, Afghanistan, October 2008.

O-2, French Unit, interview via email, November 2008.

NCS-1, French unit, Warehouse, Kabul, Afghanistan, October 2008.

NCO-2, French unit, Warehouse, Kabul, Afghanistan, October 2008.

NCS-1 French unit, Warehouse, Kabul, Afghanistan, October 2008.

O-7, Commander, Italbatt, Kabul, Camp Invicta, Kabul, Afghanistan, October 2009,

P. Rehse, Concept, Definition, Practices (Hamburg: Heft, 2004), 136. http://www.ifsh.de/pdf/publikationen/hb/hb136.pdfp.14 (accessed February 16, 2013).

O-8 French, unit, via phone, February 2009.

CIMIC is different from NGO projects, however. Mainly CIMIC cells do not involve the whole community in setting up the project, only governmental institutions.

CIMIC is different for two reasons. First, CIMIC cells do not involve the whole community in setting up the projects but only governmental institutions. After having had the authorization from the governmental institution, this is how they proceed: “one out of our team goes out to have a look; we try to understand where primary schools and kindergartens are” O-3, Italian Unit, Camp Invicta, Kabul, Afghanistan, October 2009.

O-3, Italian Unit, Camp Invicta, Kabul, Afghanistan, October 2008.

NCS-3, Italian Unit, Camp Invicta, Kabul, Afghanistan, October 2008.

NCS-2, French unit, Warehouse, Kabul, Afghanistan, October 2008.

The ANSO report, page 2, issue 3, May 16–31. The situation is reported to be particularly serious in Kabul City. The specific situation in Kabul City can partly be explained by the fact that the control of Kabul City has been handed over to the Afghan Security Forces.

S. Biddle, Military Power (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004), 5.

J. Nagl, Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife Counterinsurgency Lessons from Malaya and Vietnam (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002), 29.