The Transformation of The World of War A

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THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE

WORLD OF WAR AND PEACE
SUPPORT OPERATIONS
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Praeger Security International Advisory Board

Board Cochairs
Loch K. Johnson, Regents Professor of Public and International Affairs, School
of Public and International Affairs, University of Georgia (U.S.A.)
Paul Wilkinson, Professor of International Relations and Chairman of the Advi-
sory Board, Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence, University
of St. Andrews (U.K.)
Members
Anthony H. Cordesman, Arleigh A. Burke Chair in Strategy, Center for Strategic
and International Studies (U.S.A.)
Therese Delpech, Director of Strategic Affairs, Atomic Energy Commission, and
Senior Research Fellow, CERI (Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques),
Paris (France)
Sir Michael Howard, former Chichele Professor of the History of War and Regis
Professor of Modern History, Oxford University, and Robert A. Lovett Professor
of Military and Naval History, Yale University (U.K.)
Lieutenant General Claudia J. Kennedy, USA (Ret.), former Deputy Chief of
Staff for Intelligence, Department of the Army (U.S.A.)
Paul M. Kennedy, J. Richardson Dilworth Professor of History and Director,
International Security Studies, Yale University (U.S.A.)
Robert J. O’Neill, former Chichele Professor of the History of War, All Souls
College, Oxford University (Australia)
Shibley Telhami, Anwar Sadat Chair for Peace and Development, Department of
Government and Politics, University of Maryland (U.S.A.)
Fareed Zakaria, Editor, Newsweek International (U.S.A.)
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THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE

WORLD OF WAR AND PEACE
SUPPORT OPERATIONS
EDITED BY
KOBI MICHAEL, DAVID KELLEN,
AND EYAL BEN-ARI
PSI Reports
PRAEGER SECURITY INTERNATIONAL

Westport, Connecticut London
Page Number: iv
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

The transformation of the world of war and peace support operations / edited
by Kobi Michael, David Kellen, and Eyal Ben-Ari.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-313-36501-0 (alk. paper)
1. Peacekeeping forces. 2. Western countries–Armed Forces–Stability operations.
3. Security, International. 4. Nation-building. 5. World politics–1989– I.
Mikha’el, Kobi. II. Kellen, David. III. Ben-Ari, Eyal, 1953—
JZ6374.T73 2009
341.50 84—dc22 2008047578
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data is available.
Copyright
C 2009 by Kobi Michael, David Kellen, and Eyal Ben-Ari
All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be

reproduced, by any process or technique, without the
express written consent of the publisher.
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2008047578
ISBN: 978-0-313-36501-0
First published in 2009
Praeger Security International, 88 Post Road West, Westport, CT 06881
An imprint of Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc.
www.praeger.com
Printed in the United States of America
The paper used in this book complies with the

Permanent Paper Standard issued by the National
Information Standards Organization (Z39.48-1984).
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Page Number: v
Contents
Foreword by Lars H€ansel vii

Acknowledgments ix
Abbreviations xi
Introduction – Wars and Peace Support
Operations in the Contemporary World:
Conceptual Clarifications and Suggestions
Eyal Ben-Ari, Kobi Michael, and David Kellen 1
1. The End of War? The Use of Force in the
Twenty-First Century
Christopher Dandeker 21
2. From Conscription-Based Defense to Volunteer-Based
Constabulary Forces: European Defense Integration and
Mission Change as Driving Factors for the End of
Conscription in Europe
Karl W. Haltiner and Tibor Szvircsev Tresch 39
3. Peace Support Operations and the ‘‘Strategic
Corporal’’: Implications for Military Organization
and Culture
Eitan Shamir 53
4. Media and Conflict: An Integral Part of the
Modern Battlefield
Ilana Bet-El 65
Page Number: vi
vi CONTENTS
5. The RMA, Transformation, and Peace

Support Operations
Allen G. Sens 81
6. Transformation or Back to Basics? Counterinsurgency
Pugilism and Peace-Building Judo
David Last 101
7. Civil-Military Aspects of Effectiveness in Peace
Support Operations
Robert Egnell 122
8. The Role of Private Security Companies in Peace
Support Operations: An Outcome of the Revolution in
Military Affairs and the Transformation in Warfare
Christopher Kinsey 139
9. Cultural Intelligence for Peace Support
Operations in the New Era of Warfare
Kobi Michael and David Kellen 157
Notes 173
Index 207
About the Editors and Contributors 000
Page Number: vii
Foreword by Lars H€ansel
More than 40 years ago, Konrad Adenauer and David Ben-Gurion laid the
foundation for reconciliation and partnership between Germany and Israel.
Carrying on the legacy of the late chancellor, the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung
(KAS) has been active in Israel for almost 30 years.
Together with local partner organizations we work on three main
objectives:
To preserve and further develop the relations between Germany and Israel,
which are increasingly acquiring a European dimension
To support efforts to strengthen democracy and the rule of law in Israel
with our partner organizations
To strive to facilitate a peaceful coexistence between Israel and its
neighbors
Within this framework, we supported the international conference on

‘‘The Transformation of the World of War and Peace Support Operations,’’
which was organized by the Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies (JIIS) and
the University of Manitoba and took place at the Konrad Adenauer Confer-
ence Center in Jerusalem in June 2007.
The involvement of third parties in the conflict was for a long time taboo.
But recent experiences such as the EU missions EU-BAM and EUROCOPPS
and the EU troops in the framework of UNSCR 1701 have changed the
atmosphere. A realistic mission of foreign troops—in particular in the context
of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict—is still a long way away, but it has become
Page Number: viii
viii FOREWORD
more and more possible to seriously discuss the concrete role of foreign forces
in support of peace efforts in the region.
This book offers a number of innovative ideas and insights for peace
operations, with relevance both to the study of international involvement in
conflict and to political decision makers in Israel, Europe, and beyond.
This project, like all KAS projects, has been guided by our belief in the
benefits of democracy, freedom, market economy, and peaceful coexistence.
May it be a lasting and sustainable contribution to Israel’s peace, prosperity,
and partnership with Europe.
Dr. Lars H€ansel
Page Number: ix
Acknowledgments
A recurrent theme in The Transformation in the World of Warfare and Peace

Support Operations is the necessity of collaboration and cooperation between
different agents, and perhaps this book is a case and point in itself. This work
would not have been possible were it not for three years of fruitful collabora-
tion between the Hebrew University’s Harry S. Truman Institute for the
Advancement of Peace and the University of Manitoba’s Center for Defense
and Security Studies. In the framework of that collaboration, Jim Fergusson,
Director of the Center for Defense and Security Studies, brought together a tal-
ented group of Canadian scholars who have greatly enriched our understanding
of peace support operations and have been instrumental in developing the con-
ceptual foundation of this book. Yaacov Bar-Siman-Tov and the Jerusalem
Institute for Israel Studies have supported the project in times of need and have
ensured its continuation, and the dedicated support of Lars H€ansel and the Kon-
rad-Adenauer-Stiftung have sustained the project and facilitated collaboration
with Europe’s best and brightest scholars of peacekeeping, the results of which
are evinced on the following pages. Collaboration with such fine people has
been a pleasure for us and has resulted in what we believe is an important con-
tribution to the field of peace support operations. We hope you find in this book
a valuable resource and that you enjoy reading it as much as we enjoyed pro-
ducing it.
Page Number: x
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Abbreviations
4GW fourth-generation warfare

ACO (NATO) Allied Command Operations
ACT (NATO) Allied Command Transformation
CGS chief of general staff
CIMIC civil-military cooperation
COIN counterinsurgency
CPA Coalition Provisional Authority
CR conscript ratio
DCI Defense Capabilities Initiative
DDR disarm, demobilize and reintegrate
DFID Department for International Development
DoD US Department of Defense
DPKO (UN) Department of Peacekeeping Operations
EBAO effects-based approach to operations
EBO effects-based operation
EO Executive Outcomes
ESDP European Security and Defense Policy
EUROFOR European Union Force
FCO British Foreign and Commonwealth Office
GDP gross domestic product
GWOT global war on terror
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xii ABBREVIATIONS
HIC high-intensity conflict

I&R information and research
ICRC International Committee of the Red Cross
IFOR Implementation Force
IISS International Institute for Strategic Studies
IPB Intelligence Preparation of the Battlefield
IPE Intelligence Preparation of the Environment
ISAF International Security Assistance Force
IST intervention, stabilization and transformation
KFOR Kosovo Force
LIC low-intensity conflict
MAP Municipal Alliance for Peace in the Middle East
MoD Ministry of Defense
MOOTW military operations other than war
MPRI Military Professional Resources Incorporated
NCO non-commissioned officer
NCW network-centric warfare
NGO non-governmental organization
NRF NATO response force
NSC National Security Council
OoAR out-of-area ratio
OOTW operations other than war
ORHA Office for Reconstruction and Humanitarian Affairs (Iraq)
PCC Prague Capabilities Commitments
PfP NATO Partnership for Peace
PMC private military corporation
PSC private security company
PSO peace support operation
PTC peace transition council
QDR Quadrennial Defense Review
RDO rapid decisive operations
ROE rules of engagement
RMA revolution in military affairs
RUF Revolutionary United Front
SADF South African Defense Force
SDR Strategic Defense Review
SF special forces
Page Number: xiii
ABBREVIATIONS xiii
SFOR Stabilization Force

SitCen UN Situation Center
SOD system operational design
SSR security sector reform
SSTR stability, security transition, and reconstruction
SWORD Small Wars Operational Research Directorate
UNAMIC United Nations Advance Mission in Cambodia
UNAMIR United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda
UNHQ United Nations Headquarters
UNOC United Nations Operation in Congo
UNOSOM United Nations Operation in Somalia I
UNOSOM II United Nations Operation in Somalia II
UNPROFOR United Nations Protection Force
UNSCOM United Nations Special Commission
UNTAC United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia
WEU Western European Union
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Introduction: Wars and Peace Support Operations in

the Contemporary World: Conceptual Clarifications
and Suggestions
Eyal Ben-Ari, Kobi Michael, and David Kellen
For the past two decades or so, various scholars, commentators, and experts
have declared that the militaries of the industrial democracies are undergoing
fundamental change. Some of these assertions have been formulated as slogans
such as the ‘‘Revolution in Military Affairs,’’ the advent of a ‘‘Postmodern
Military,’’ or the matchless emergence of ‘‘effects-based and net-centric opera-
tions.’’ Other, more reflective, contentions have centered on the emergence of
‘‘New Wars,’’ ‘‘Other Wars,’’ or new ‘‘Western Ways of Waging War.’’ While
these arguments have been the focus of intense criticism and discussion, they
nevertheless underscore the fact that since the end of the Cold War, the armed
forces of the industrial democracies have undergone very significant transfor-
mations. As of yet, however, no systematic scholarly attempt has been carried
out linking these changes to Peace Support Operations (PSOs), those operations
with major state-building components that demand broad and coherent coopera-
tion between military forces and civilian entities. It is this lacuna that our vol-
ume seeks to fill.
At the same time, however, our focus is primarily conceptual. This point
means that our volume does not offer a focus on the implications of advanced
technologies for peace-related missions. Rather, we seek to understand how
social, economic, political, and organizational transformations around the globe
are related to the complex links between armed forces and PSOs. Accordingly,
we see the challenge facing decision-makers, senior military commanders, and
scholars as filling in gaps in existing conceptual frames that link PSOs to con-
temporary conflict and warfare. We contend that this gap is to a great extent an
outcome of the dominance of militarized thinking in this area. Indeed, note the
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2 THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE WORLD OF WAR AND PEACE SUPPORT OPERATIONS
large number of scholars writing about PSOs who have either a direct back-
ground in military institutions or have specialized in military and security stud-
ies. Along these lines, because of the centrality of armed forces in PSOs and
because the concepts handy to actors in the field are based on martial knowl-
edge and experience, the main frames for analyzing and interpreting PSOs are
militarized.
More concretely, in this essay we argue that the dominant conceptualization
connecting the transformation of war and PSOs continues to be based on, or
derived from, two master templates or frames. The first is what has been vari-
ously termed ‘‘conventional’’ or ‘‘industrial war,’’ while the second is that of
‘‘traditional peacekeeping.’’ Whereas the first provides a conceptual lens that sit-
uates conflicts on a gradient of nearness or distance from conventional war, the
second supplies a frame that analyzes missions in terms of their similarity to or
difference from traditional peacekeeping. In fact, the basic notion of the latter is
itself derived from an idea of industrial war, where traditional peacekeeping cen-
ters on maintaining or monitoring peace between two or more states marked by
international boundaries and possessing an internal monopoly over the means of
organized violence. As we shall show, these two conceptual prisms, which are
still highly emotionally resonant both within and outside the military, provide
the basic frames through which PSOs are perceived, understood, and acted upon.
Yet an analysis of many contemporary conflicts leads us to conclude that these
templates, and more widely military-based knowledge, are not necessarily the
most suitable for analyzing and understanding these circumstances.
The wider context of our volume is a sense of failure and pessimism in dis-
cussions and commentaries about PSOs. Thus, Schindl explains that after the
end of the Cold War, the euphoria of the Gulf War of the 1990s, and the avowal
of a ‘‘New World Order,’’ peace-operations were declared the recipe for a better
world.1 Yet the debacles and failures in Cambodia, Somalia, and the Balkans led 1
to disillusionment. More concretely, a report by the Center for International
Cooperation contends that the mandates of current missions are usually the out-
come of improvised responses that lead to inconsistencies and false expecta-
tions.2 Hence, some authors contend that the United Nations’ response to law 2
and order issues in peacekeeping have been no more than ad-hoc and driven by
exigencies on the ground.3 These examples underscore a sense of strategic help- 3
lessness that combines political, organizational, and conceptual problems.
Against this background, our volume builds on emerging scholarship to sug-
gest a new set of ideas and concepts that may aid us in grasping and interpret-
ing the transformations we are witness to in the world of war and in PSOs.
TRANSFORMED WARS AND CHANGED CONFLICTS
In much of the vast scholarly, professional military, and journalistic work on

‘‘future warfare,’’ the emphasis has been on ‘‘safe, clean wars’’ that are
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INTRODUCTION 3
technologically based, precise, distanced, and imagined as near-bloodless.4 4

Gates caricatures this perspective on wars as ‘‘high-tech affairs, dominated by
lasers, robot weapons, computerized decision-making, neutron bombs, energy
beams, and fighting space stations.’’5 More thoughtful commentators have been 5
skeptical of such high-tech scenarios that seemed to dominate debates at the
end of the 1990s. Spiller notes, for instance, that such missions as the interven-
tion carried out in East Timor defied the ‘‘easy, technological solutions that are
so blithely promoted in some quarters today.’’6 Van Riper and Scales point out 6
that there is an ‘‘enormous difference between enduring distant attack, which
however unpleasant must eventually end, and enduring the physical presence of
a conquering army with all of its political and sociological implications.’’7 7
Thus, for all of the polemics, especially rife after the Gulf War of the early
1990s, some scholars have argued that contemporary conflicts actually comprise
‘‘messy’’ local wars in which ground forces continue to be of prime importance.8 8
On a more macro-level, Kaldor and van Creveld argue that such conflicts should
be seen within the context of changes to the Westphalian order of states and the
interrelations between them.9 Along these lines, Burk observes that unconven- 9
tional struggles have actually been the predominant kind of conflict over the past
fifty years, and despite the advent of alleged means to wage ‘‘virtual’’ wars, the
world is marked, if anything, by the proliferation of insurgencies.10 10
What marks these many conflicts is that they all are dispersed, blurred,
‘‘fuzzy,’’ and unpredictably fluid. They are dispersed in place and time in ac-
cordance with the principles of guerrilla warfare, where one finds a ‘‘vanishing
front’’ because it is often unclear where front and rear are and who are the war-
riors on the ‘‘battlefield’’ and who the supporters are at ‘‘home.’’11 This spatial 11
and temporal diffusion is often intensified, moreover, by the links between dia-
sporas and armed groups.12 These conflicts are blurred because the boundaries 12
between war as politically motivated violence between states (and groups
linked to states) or privatized bodies are not clear and because state interests of-
ten cannot be separated from economic, ethnic, or criminal ones.13 They are 13
fuzzy because, as Battistelli, Ammendola, and Galantino state, many new arenas
are characterized by unclear definitions of friend and foe, the existence of many
enemies, and the saturation of the ‘‘battlefield’’ with a variety of innocents,
unknowns, or neutrals.14 Finally, many contemporary conflicts are fluid in that 14
within one arena different kinds of struggles may often combine or transform
into each other (for example, peaceful demonstrations, violent protests, terror
attacks, small-scale fighting, or open combat). In such conflicts fighting is not
restricted to relatively isolated sectors but may flare up anywhere and anytime.
Finally, they are fluid because ‘‘the new wars have neither an identifiable begin-
ning nor a clearly definable end.’’15
Dandeker’s piece (Chapter One in this volume) sets the frame for the vol-
ume as a whole against this background. He starts his analysis with reference to
Rupert Smith’s volume, which attempts to make sense of current-day conflicts
through positing a broad global move from ‘‘industrial war’’ to ‘‘war among
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the people.’’16 To simplify somewhat, Smith’s argument is that while industrial 16

wars are based on such assumptions as clear differentiation between front and
rear, combat between regulars, linear organization, and decisive battles, the
logic of war amongst the people is non-linear, complex, over hearts and minds,
and is about creating conditions for political solutions. To be sure, war amongst
the people has various sub-forms, as the different conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan,
Somalia, Sierra Leone, or Palestine demonstrate. But according to Smith a
number of significant trends are common to them all: malleable (as opposed to
hard) objectives; conflict that takes places within and outside a theater (real and
virtual); goals centered not on victory but an ‘‘acceptable condition’’ based on
changing the intentions of adversaries; a stress on force protection and not only
mission accomplishment; and warring sides combining non-state and state
actors.17 17
What Dandeker adds to Smith’s analysis is the crucial element of what he
calls the spectrum of political strategy. Accepting the latter’s typology of what
the military can be used for in contemporary conflicts—to ameliorate, contain,
deter or coerce, and destroy—Dandeker contends that the risk of absence of
strategy increases the more intense and lethal the force used. In other words,
Dandeker complements Smith’s analysis by showing how different applications
of military force imply dissimilar sets of considerations on the part of political
and military leaders.
While Smith’s volume has spurred intense discussions in the academic and
military worlds, his contentions need to be balanced or supplemented by under-
scoring a number of other key developments. Hence we need to understand the
emergence of new forms of conflict—the ‘‘New Wars’’ or ‘‘wars among the
people’’—alongside the continued persistence of older, more conventional pat-
terns. This point implies more than saying, as the popular portrayal of Smith
argument has it, that one type of conflict has become the dominant one. Rather,
we argue that some countries may have to simultaneously fight different kinds
of wars (hybrid wars) and that one type of conflict may turn into another.18 For 18
many countries this situation poses significant problems in terms of the struc-
ture, training, and investment in their armed forces.
The second trend centers on the idea that conflicts are now also managed
and fought through the media, the internet, and the stage of (national and
global) public opinion (Bet El, Dandeker, Chapters 4 and 1 in this volume,
respectively). Today’s conflicts—and most crucially the interventions of indus-
trial democracies—are judged on television screens and in newspaper columns.
In today’s world the media is integral to the strategic level of conflict, not the
tactical, since the military and political levels must be able to explain the con-
text and produce a convincing narrative to wider publics. Indeed, the idea is
that the core of battle involves the need to win over the hearts and minds of
people around the globe. This element is heightened by our specific historical
context due both to technological innovations allowing instantaneous reporting
and the fact that many armed conflicts have become global media events.
Page Number: 5
INTRODUCTION 5
Indeed, take the Israeli—Palestinian conflict, which has by now become iconic
in the sense of representing in dense form many of the problems of conflict in
the contemporary world. To be sure, Smith is well aware of the importance of
the media, but its importance extends beyond the theater of war.
Hence, the third trend can be referred to as the casualty aversion and fragil-
ity of legitimacy of many contemporary missions. Shaw sees in this trend the
development of ‘‘risk-transfer war,’’ which centers on minimizing life-risks to
the military and hence all-important political and electoral risks to their mas-
ters.19 In today’s industrial democracies, cultural transformations have led to an 19
erosion of martial values and to much less tolerance of casualties both on
‘‘our’’ side and, to an extent, civilians on ‘‘their’’ side as a consequence of mili-
tary operations.20 This is the social context that explains the emphasis found in 20
many militaries, as in the American one, on force protection.21 In many coun- 21
tries, public insistence on a minimum of casualties has been closely related to
the development of high-tech weaponry that supposedly both protects friendly
military personnel and delivers force ‘‘effectively’’ and precisely to accomplish
missions.22 Yet, as we shall see, expectations about advanced military technol- 22
ogy that have contributed to (and emanated from casualty aversion) can also
lead to a relatively easy commitment to wars of conscience.23 23
At base of this issue lies what Dandeker calls the ‘‘military covenant,’’ the
social, political, and psychological contract that connects the military (and
groups within it) and senior officers to politicians and civilian society.24 Thus, 24
the question of how many casualties the industrial democracies are willing to
suffer in missions abroad is not only related to concrete political will or risk tol-
erance. As Haltiner (Chapter Two in this volume) demonstrates, European
states with mandatory conscription are far less likely to participate in PSOs.
While he does not use the term military covenant, Haltiner argues that changes
in such states have less to do with the end of the Cold War and more with new
missions and the multi-nationalization of forces. Out-of-the-area deployments
are simply much more difficult to manage in the hard-core conscription coun-
tries. PSOs violate the ‘‘Republican Equation,’’ the contract between citizens
and their states. People are willing to sacrifice by military service and military
funding for material and symbolic rewards and accept the state political control,
but PSOs do not provide those rewards and therefore the motivation to partici-
pate in PSOs decreases.25 25
This point leads us to the fourth trend, which entails emerging international
norms that involve what have come to be called ‘‘wars of conscience.’’26 Dan- 26
deker suggests that in late modernity, accompanying a greater questioning of
the legitimacy of the unilateral use of military force to resolve international dis-
putes is the increased focus on human rights as an addition to the concept of se-
curity.27 What we are witness to in the last twenty years is the development of 27
new international norms that define what is legitimately accepted by state
actors. Certain actors or norm entrepreneurs—both domestic and external, state-
and NGO-based, and often supported by the media—have steadily been pushing
Page Number: 6
to expand the role of humanitarian interventions. These loose coalitions of

intellectuals, informed publics, human rights and humanitarian movements, and
national and transnational judicial bodies have been producing a global dis-
course on human rights and the rules and expectations developed within it for
the proper initiation and use of force.28 28
As a consequence, human rights now provide the very basis for justifying
and legitimizing military intervention.29 The power of these global norms, 29
refracted through domestic and international pressure, tends to force Western
decision-makers to intervene even when they should not because they resonate
with assumptions about the responsibility of industrial democracies for conflicts
in the Third World and the need to alleviate suffering and poverty among civil-
ians in them. These themes are so ethically and emotionally evocative because
they touch, as Ignatieff observes, on the basis of Western self-perceptions as
good, responsible, moral beings.30 As a consequence, as Chandler and Reiff 30
contend, the integration of human rights into humanitarian work has led to the
emergence of a militarized humanitarianism.31 Indeed, following the past two 31
decades, publics in the industrial democracies have been conditioned that
humanitarianism is more than charity; it is action.32 Thus, the ‘‘new humanitari- 32
anism’’ has become not only much more explicitly politically involved and
committed, but has also emerged as a driver for intervention in various places
around the world.33 Perhaps one unintended consequence of this situation has 33
been the appearance of a set of mobilizing slogans for new missions as in the
calls for Human Security or indeed ‘‘humanitarian interventions’’ or ‘‘peace-
building.’’34 34
A final and fifth trend is what Martin Shaw calls ‘‘global surveillance,’’ the
growing transparency of contemporary armed forces to external agents such as
political leaders, the media (local and global), the judiciary, pressure groups,
international non-state institutions such as the Red Cross, Human Rights Watch,
or Amnesty International, and individual reports transmitted through cellular
phones or the internet.35 This development has been accompanied, in turn, with 35
the expansion of international law governing military activity.36 This trend 36
implies that almost all of the actions of troops are constantly open to external
scrutiny monitoring. In this manner, while models governing military behavior
originate outside a particular military organization or country, new organiza-
tions that have no governmental standing can nevertheless dictate and shape the
rules of war.37 They may define, for example, weapons, modes of action, and 37
forms of organized violence that are, or are not, acceptable.
TEMPLATES: SHAPING THINKING AND ACTION
Before proceeding on to an analysis of the template at base of contemporary

thinking about PSOs, let us examine the premises underlying much
Page Number: 7
INTRODUCTION 7
contemporary theorizing about war. Despite a rather voluminous professional

military literature about armed conflicts waged by the ground forces of the
industrial democracies, only recently have military establishments around the
world set out to develop a comprehensive doctrine for combating irregulars.38 38
Given the Al-Aqsa Intifada in Israel—Palestine and the participation of coali-
tions of forces in Afghanistan and Iraq, things are slowly changing, yet much
recent work is still restricted to military theory,39 journalism,40 or autobiogra- 39
40
phies.41 Furthermore, very little sustained and systematic social scientific 41
research combining empirical data with theoretical formulations has been car-
ried out about so-called irregular warfare.
A prime reason for the dearth of such work derives from the kind of imagery
of war and combat that many military professionals and scholars still retain.
What is the model that shapes the social scientific idea of war? In short, it is,
even now, an image of conventional interstate conflict between soldiers, fought
in accordance with the codified laws of war.42 Historically, this model reflects 42
the predominant forms of great-power warfare within the modern European civ-
ilization and is the one enshrined in the U.N. Charter, in collective defense
organizations like NATO, and in definitions of aggression in international
law.43 Indeed, notice how the terms used by various commentators originate in 43
an assumption that the diversity of contemporary conflicts is based on their sim-
ilarity to, or difference from, conventional wars. Spiller for instance talks about
‘‘war and lesser forms of conflict,’’ and Smith talks about ‘‘lesser operations’’
(presumably contrasted with ‘‘greater operations’’).44 Fastbend mentions ‘‘war 44
and military operations other than war,’’ while Gates talks of ‘‘military opera-
tions short of war.’’45 Eliot Cohen talks about ‘‘small wars’’ as opposed (we 45
would assume) to ‘‘big wars,’’ or take the idea of ‘‘spectrum of conflict’’ based
on the idea of its intensity (high, medium, or low) from which the term LIC
(low-intensity conflict) is derived.46 In fact, the very term ‘‘irregular’’ warfare 46
implies a normal, ‘‘regular’’ war—and assumptions about ‘‘regulars’’ and
‘‘irregulars’’ as fighting adversaries—offering a benchmark against which all
other conflicts are almost always measured. An interesting exception in this
regard is Hoffman’s definition of ‘‘Hybrid Wars,’’ which characterizes the mul-
tiple dimensions of modern warfare.47 47
This mode of thinking was reinforced by the emergence of the so called
‘‘Revolution in Military Affairs’’ (RMA) during the 1990s. This RMA was ba-
sically driven by advances in technology applied to military munitions, commu-
nications and intelligence, and (on the basis of these improvements) certain
organizational and doctrinal changes.48 Underlying it was a beguilement, a fas- 48
cination with technology and especially military technology.49 As Bacevich 49
argues, at bottom of the concept of warfare developed in the United States after
the Vietnam debacle is war that combines high-tech precision (the veritable sur-
gical strikes) with clear opponents and goals.50 Hence the problem, as Bondy 50
observes, is that the language of RMA, with its stress on information domi-
nance, stand-off munitions, and the end goals of a decisive battle, excludes
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alternatives such as asymmetric battles or long wars of occupation.51 The result, 51

as Sens (Chapter Five in this volume) forcefully argues is that many concepts
such as full-spectrum dominance, effects-based operations, network-centric
warfare, and ‘‘Shock and Awe’’ have led to the marginalization of low-intensity
conflict (LIC), counterinsurgency (COIN), military operations other than war
(MOOTW), and PSOs. As he ironically states, RMA has achieved ‘‘full intel-
lectual dominance.’’
But the problem runs deeper than a marginalization of thinking about irregu-
lar conflict. In the majority of recent social scientific works on combat, the
focus continues to be on ‘‘conventional’’ or ‘‘regular’’ war. Take the latest crop
of excellent books about these matters: Joanna Bourke’s An Intimate History of
Killing, Dave Grossman’s On Killing, McManners’ The Scars of War, or the
book edited by Evans and Ryan The Human Face of Warfare: Killing, Fear,
and Chaos in Battle.52 All of these volumes focus on, and assume the continued 52
importance of, the stipulated conventional war. Similarly, a number of recent
qualitative works about combat or preparation for combat that have been writ-
ten about Israel and other industrial democracies take a similar tack.53 Such 53
analyses tend to examine ‘‘conventional’’ combat, the armed struggle of (usu-
ally) two opposing forces belonging to regular armies of organized states. In
this sense, corresponding to the relative (albeit changing) disregard of
‘‘irregular warfare’’ by military professionals, one finds an almost total absence
of social scientific studies about the organizational and sociological aspects of
unconventional conflicts. It is as though social scientists have accepted the mili-
tary’s priorities in defining what is ‘‘worthy’’ of study.54 Many social scientists, 54
in other words, have willy-nilly accepted the very world-view of the military
organizations they study.
No less significant is the fact that it has been the template of conventional
war—in its older semblance or newer guise as part of the RMA—that is also
the one from which concepts have been developed to explain and understand
peace-related missions. Thus, for instance, in a thoughtful piece Burk observes
that we know more about what constitutes ‘‘good practice’’ in war-fighting than
we do about what constitutes ‘‘good practice’’ in peacekeeping.55 This point is 55
true despite the fact that global peace operations have grown exponentially
since 1999 and often not only involve troops in greater numbers and are more
militarily ‘‘robust,’’ but also have more ambitious military, policing, and politi-
cal roles.56 56
What is important from the perspective of our analysis is that just as conven-
tional war continues to be the template for conceptualizing ‘‘unconventional’’
war, so traditional peacekeeping is the template for thinking and reasoning
about all PSOs. In other words, all non-traditional missions are still to a great
extent seen as a derivative of traditional peacekeeping. Most missions are char-
acterized as traditional missions derived from conventional or industrial war, so
peace-related missions are an extension of similar thinking in terms of tradi-
tional missions.
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INTRODUCTION 9
Donald contends that the confusion centering on many PSOs originates in the
three cardinal principles of traditional peacekeeping: the neutrality of the peace-
keepers, the consent of the warring parties, and the minimal or non-use of force.57 57
Each of these principles has been applied, and subsequently questioned, in current
PSOs. In our words, the confusion that Donald observes derives from the contin-
ued use of the template of traditional peacekeeping in PSOs. For instance, in con-
flicts such as Somalia or the former Yugoslavia, the belligerents recognize no
neutrals and interpret any action by external agents as helping or hindering their
cause.58 In such cases, intrastate conflict has much in common with insurgencies 58
because both involve belligerents who do not recognize or accept the legitimacy
of established states.59 Hence, while the traditional emphasis has been on the con- 59
sent of the parties, peace-enforcement missions, let alone other kinds of interven-
tions, are based on different kinds of legitimacy.60 Similarly, while older forms of 60
peacekeeping emphasized the non-use of force, many new operations are explic-
itly based on it. Along the same lines, while the earlier stress was on neutrality in
the sense of a ‘‘passive’’ absence of partiality, the newer missions involve a much
more ‘‘active’’ judgment based on the application of criteria to render assistance
or intervention. Accordingly, there is an immense difference between a cease-fire
negotiated by two governments involved in an interstate war, and a settlement
enshrined in documents of legal, political, and psychological validity and legiti-
macy between warring communities, warlords, and other parties operating in the
chaos surrounding collapsing states.61 61
But the problem is not limited to the fact that much of contemporary thinking
about PSOs is derived from traditional peacekeeping. The problem centers on the
very militarization of concepts related to such missions. Take as an example the
linguistic usages in such terms as ‘‘humanitarian intervention’’ or ‘‘human rights
protection operations,’’62 or notice the proposal by Metz and Millen that as part of 62
intervention, stabilization and transformation (IST) operations, the American mili-
tary ‘‘needs a stabilization concept that is equivalent to the rapid decisive opera-
tions in conventional war-fighting. This concept needs to be grounded in mass
psychology, with the full integrations of cultural distinctions.’’63 Finally, take the 63
militarization of ‘‘other’’ missions as in a statement by the then U.S. Secretary of
State Colin Powell, ‘‘The NGOs are such a force multiplier for us, such an impor-
tant part of our combat team.’’64 All these examples attest to the assumption that 64
current missions (and the actors participating in them) should be undertaken
within what are essentially military modes of action. Indeed, even counterinsur-
gency studies that argue that politics is paramount, in effect continue to over-
whelmingly focus on the military dimension.65 65
These premises also apply to assertions about the preeminence of security
considerations over other concerns and the primacy of the military over other
organizations in PSOs. Such assumptions are related, no doubt, to sequential
aspects of many missions in which security and stabilization must precede any
other effort. But when examined closely, it seems that the very concepts with
which PSOs are reasoned about are essentially military in nature. One example
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is the set of organizational practices centered on civil-military cooperation

(CIMIC), which, despite its name, is a military creation, commanded by offi-
cers, and aimed at achieving military ends by linking representatives of the
armed forces to civilians: ‘‘local’’ populations, NGOs, or U.N. civilian officials.
Another illustrative instance, centered on military professionalism, is the
intense discussion about the possibility of ‘‘training down’’ for ‘‘wars among
the peoples’’ from industrial war (rather than the reverse). As Moskos notes,
one of the growing internal debates within military circles is the degree to
which ‘‘operations other than war’’ detract from the ‘‘warrior’’ capabilities of
the armed forces.’’66 Indeed, Haltiner observes that for many commanders and 66
scholars, there is an inappropriateness, even incapability, of traditional military
organizational structures for tasks other than combatant ones and that the track
record of the military in fulfilling other tasks is at best mixed.67 Dandeker and 67
Gow hence contend that while there are differences between combat units (par-
atroopers versus light infantry) or nations (the United Kingdom versus Sweden)
in terms of suitability for PSOs, there still is an underlying culture of the mili-
tary that contrasts with peace-related missions.68 In this respect, Shamir 68
(Chapter Three in this volume) contends that the expected behavior of non-
commissioned officers (NCOs) and officers in PSOs runs counter to their train-
ing and ethos. Shamir argues that current doctrine still encourages acting
aggressively in the face of uncertain situations, whereas in PSOs it is often bet-
ter to avoid action or to de-escalate than to act incorrectly.
A major reason for the continued stress on the template of conventional war
is its continued emotional resonance with most soldiers and officers and the fact
that at the very core of professional self-images are battles that take place
within such conflicts. Such emotional meaning, as a long line of scholars have
noted, is related to images of masculinity, to representations in popular culture,
and to the expertise of soldiers in the management and effectuation of organ-
ized violence.69 This situation, in turn, implies difficulties for motivating and 69
allocating prestige to soldiers in peace-related missions. As Burk dryly
observes, ‘‘One strains to imagine a movie about the ‘Blue Helmets’ that would
rival the ‘Green Berets.’’’70 Indeed, although there may be differences between 70
militaries in this respect, the template of conventional war (distance from or
nearness to ‘‘real’’ combat) continues to resonate emotionally with troops and
mainly from Western professional militaries around the world.71 And it is this 71
continued emotional resonance that may further contribute to militarized think-
ing about PSOs.
NEW METAPHORS AND NEW KNOWLEDGE?
One concept has recently become rather popular in discussions about current
military missions: ‘‘cultural intelligence’’ (Michael & Kellen, Chapter Nine in
this volume). This term, which refers to cultural knowledge of adversaries, may
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INTRODUCTION 11
be modeled on the purported cultural and linguistic capabilities of special

forces.72 The move toward ‘‘cultural intelligence’’ does not seem to be a mere 72
organizational fad, for there is mounting evidence that many armed forces have
adopted concrete measures to institute this kind of knowledge. For instance,
aspects of cultural knowledge have begun to be incorporated into military
courses and education, intelligence systems, and new organizational entities.73 73
In one example, the Pentagon has initiated a program by which social scientists
are embedded with brigades in Iraq and Afghanistan to serve as cultural advi-
sors to their commanders.74 Other instances are the new Center for Languages, 74
Cultures, and Regional Studies at West Point, the American Marine Corps’
Center For Advanced Operational Culture Learning, new advertisements for
field anthropologists, cultural experts or analysts in corporations consulting for
the American forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the smart card that has been
issued to American troops in Iraq (to help in cross-cultural communication).75 75
Along similar lines, NATO has begun to carry out simulations and workshops
aimed at exposing forces to the importance of religious and cultural issues in
missions abroad.76 And finally, an Australian military officer with a background 76
in anthropology and counterinsurgency now advises the American forces in a
formal capacity.77 77
In examining the importance of cultural intelligence for PSOs, Michael &
Kellen (Chapter Nine in this volume) contend that the production of such
knowledge is primarily a response to the militarization of intelligence in such
missions. They differentiate between two types of cultural intelligence. The first
is environmental and is necessary to develop cognitive and behavioral abilities
to adapt to the context of a mission. The second is operational and ‘‘anthropo-
logical’’ in nature and is needed for understanding the enemy and the theater of
conflict. Michael and Kellen argue that both types play an important role in
developing strategies and allocating resources within PSOs. To be sure, given
the sheer volatility of the new conflicts and the number and variance of actors
within them, there is an acute need for the kind of information and analysis this
kind of intelligence may provide military and political leaders.
But instituting these measures may also create problems. To start with, such
intelligence requires intensive engagement with locals, which may go against
military training and assumptions about enemies especially during insurgencies.
More broadly, as a number of commentators have remarked, the problem is that
what is labeled by one party as strategic intelligence may be labeled by the
other as espionage involving subterfuge and secrecy.78 In addition, given the 78
open nature of the United Nations, many member states are anxious or abso-
lutely against the adoption of intelligence systems for fear that any covert intel-
ligence is liable to create prejudice and suspicion and undermine the building
of trust with local actors.79 Finally, many academics and especially anthropolo- 79
gists (who often have the greatest store of knowledge about areas where PSOs
take place) are highly suspicious of collaborating with states and especially
armed forces.80 80
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But the problems with the new kinds of knowledge necessitated by PSOs do
not end with cultural intelligence as an organizational aspect of military action.
The past decade has been marked by new humanitarian missions explicitly
aimed at nation- and state-building. While such missions usually take place in
post-conflict theaters, during the last decade such operations are increasingly
conducted in situations of ongoing conflict. Thus, for instance, such efforts have
taken place in East Timor, Haiti, Kuwait, Somalia, Iraq, or Afghanistan. Simi-
larly, around the world there is increasing involvement of world or regional
bodies in violence reduction as part of removing hindrances to national devel-
opment.81 Canada and Germany as states have established governmental 81
structures to focus on nation-building, while the United Nations has set up its
Peace-building Commission to do the same thing. When looked at closely,
however, it appears that the models at base of most efforts at nation- and state-
building do not differ much from those used by social scientists in the 1950s,
during the heyday of modernization theory. In fact, while peacekeeping schol-
ars have adopted these terms, they have also taken on certain assumptions that
many contemporary social scientists—in sociology, anthropology, and certain
parts of political science—no longer hold.
Take a recent report published by Rand, entitled A Beginner’s Guide to
Nation-Building.82 While such handbooks are important and sometimes useful 82
for practitioners, it is important to get at the hidden assumptions at base of the
report because they are indicative of wider premises. First we are told that the
overall responsibility for any reconstruction and rebuilding efforts undertaken
by the United States has been given to its Department of Defense. Yet not only
is this an agency without experience in such projects, but it is one totally domi-
nated by security considerations. In fact, note the sentence beginning the report:
‘‘Nation-building, as it is commonly referred to in the United States, involves
the use of armed force as part of a broader effort to promote political and eco-
nomic reforms with the objective of transforming a society emerging from con-
flict into one at peace with itself and its neighbors.’’83 The objectives of peace 83
and stability are very much oriented to security and the very definition of
nation-building as a ‘‘mission’’ is indicative of its militarization. To go back to
a point we made earlier, the concept of IST operations indicates the military
point of view at base of a project, nation-building, that is far more complex
than one that can be reduced to security considerations.84 84
Second, the report assumes that nation-building is predicated on the nation-
state (or one of its permutations) as the proper unit for any kind of transforma-
tion. Part of this kind of emphasis involves the historical links between the
military and the state since troops serve the latter and their culture is rooted in
concept of honor, obedience, and sacrifice rather than in the idea of booty or
spoils.85 In other words, modern militarized thinking assumes the existence and 85
importance of the state both as a taken-for-granted matter and as the desired
end-state. It is not surprising that in the guidebook, this kind of emphasis
is, moreover, extended to adjoining states as partners in the process of
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INTRODUCTION 13
nation-building.86 No less important, the ultimate goal of creating a safe and 86

peaceful country is to be achieved, according to the guidebook, through a linear
(albeit complex) process. This assumption is reflected in the way that the
report’s text is constructed with each stage forming a precondition for the next.
The final goal of this linear process, moreover, is envisaged as a country that is
very similar to the United States: one with stable legal frameworks; democra-
tization as evinced in political parties, a free press, civil society, and constitu-
tional frameworks for free elections, finally leading to economic growth, the
reduction of poverty, and improvement in infrastructure.87 87
Third, the report assumes that the complex set of processes encapsulated in
nation-building can be implemented through planned and intentional social en-
gineering. Thus, for example, the report uses such words as ‘‘refashioning’’
societies or ‘‘close oversight, mentoring, and institutional change’’ to character-
ize the kind of action needed for a successful project to take place.88 In addi- 88
tion, take the following sentence with its image of industrial production:
‘‘Mismatches between inputs, as measured in personnel and money, and desired
outcomes, as measured in imposed social transformation, are the most common
cause for the failure of nation-building.’’89 Similar postulates derived from this 89
manual providing recipes or instructions for action are found in the suggestion
to ‘‘dial down the objective if resources are likely to be limited.’’ In the practi-
cal world, this social engineering orientation has already begun to be imple-
mented with the recruitment by the Pentagon of academics from engineering,
statistical sociology, mathematical economics, or computer science to model
the social behavior of Iraqis.90 90
Against this background it may be clear that new types of knowledge are
necessary for PSOs. Given that the academic disciplines within which studies
of peace-related missions have been rooted are overwhelmingly political sci-
ence, international relations, and security and conflict scholarship, it is not sur-
prising that on top of the militarization of concepts one also finds their
securitization. But if one wants to understand the broader social context of
PSOs, then it seems that the real challenge lies in bringing in knowledge rooted
in political-economy, anthropology, and sociology. This kind of knowledge, it
appears, is the key to any kind of long-term transformation of the violent soci-
eties within which peace forces are deployed. As Last (Chapter Six in this vol-
ume) asserts, theorists of MOOTW or counterinsurgency are almost totally
oblivious to the growing literature on moral economy or social capital in soci-
eties around the world. More broadly, Bhatia contends that whereas the various
forms of political involvement in peace-related missions are by now predict-
able, economic reconstruction has hardly been examined.91 Indeed, he calls for 91
a renaissance of research on the economic dimensions of post-conflict situations
like the one that is already occurring in regard to war economies.92 More con- 92
cretely, Last argues that it is crucial to examine the incentive structures and po-
litical arrangements that may lead to change in war-torn societies. For instance,
the differing incentive structures for women and men embedded within
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different societies may provide different levers for change. Or, in working for
reconstruction, we need to be aware of the structures and dynamics by which
warlords or gangsters who want to legitimate themselves may be brought into
‘‘the game.’’93 Finally, the economic impact of military forces on the societies 93
in which they fight may also be a source of social transformation.94 94
INTER-LINKAGES AND HYBRIDS
Understanding that PSOs involve much more than military or security aspect
leads us to broader questions about interlinkages and interfaces between the
military and other bodies involved with such issues as livelihood, economic de-
velopment, or governance. In this respect, over the past years, many commenta-
tors have argued for an all-inclusive organizational approach to PSOs that
would center on relations with civilian movements or various forms of inter-
organizational cooperation. Rather than adding another such call, in this section
we discuss some the conceptual and practical implications of the organizational
forms involved in PSOs.
Inter-organizational cooperation. International peace operations now
involve significantly greater numbers of civilians to handle political and devel-
opmental tasks and police to handle security tasks.95 This development has 95
spelt an ever greater need for coordination and cooperation in inter-agency,
inter-ministerial, or indeed inter-governmental projects. Such projects involve
different entities (such as states) bringing different capabilities, interests, and
commitments. As a consequence, a number of administrative measures have
been put into place in order to facilitate inter-organizational collaboration and
assistance. To cite one example, in 2005, the U.S. State Department established
a new Office of the Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization to help
organize the transition from conflict to ‘‘sustainable stability.’’96 But such proj- 96
ects involve more than the establishment of partnerships or increasing organiza-
tional complexity.
It is within this context that Egnell’s article (Chapter Seven in this volume)
should be seen. The complex nature of contemporary PSOs implies that inte-
grated civil-military approaches are necessary for effectiveness in achieving the
often far-reaching political aims of democratization and economic develop-
ment. Egnell’s contention is that the ‘‘comprehensive approach’’ to civil-
military relations advocates creating interdepartmental and interagency struc-
tures that overcome the stovepipe structure and culture that characterizes most
governments and presents a serious challenge to cooperation between most
political, security, and defense establishments. Such comprehensive approaches
to operations require integrated institutions at the national strategic level or at
the international organizational level in cases of multinational operations. Inte-
grated structures provide more accurate interpretations of reality, implying that
the instruments of national power, primarily the military, are better suited for
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INTRODUCTION 15
contemporary strategic contexts. In addition, such structures provide more in-

clusive command and control mechanisms at the strategic level, meaning that
all relevant actors in complex operations are coordinated through integrated
planning and execution of operations. Although he does not say it explicitly,
Egnell’s contention appears to be that the effectiveness in PSOs is not primarily
military. A real change needs to take place in civil-military relations among a
variety of actors.
Hyphenated roles. Long ago, Morris Janowitz argued that the militaries of
the industrial democracies have been moving toward a constabulary role, to-
ward policing in various forms.97 As we saw, this transformation—or more cor- 97
rectly, an addition of new roles to conventional ones—has led to debates about
the tensions between the ethos of warriors and the needs and practicalities of
policemen. Developing Janowitz’s thoughts, to the soldier-policeperson, Mos-
kos has added the soldier-diplomat, soldier-statesman, and soldier-scholar as
part of the array of hyphenated roles that contemporary officers need to mas-
ter.98 But at present there seems to be a proliferation of such military roles that 98
are relevant to PSOs, and we could easily add soldier-media expert, soldier-
social scientist, soldier-social worker, soldier-nation builder, or (the somewhat
unwieldy) soldier-infrastructure restorer. Finally, to follow Haltiner, we can
suggest the soldier-consultant, soldier-relief worker, or soldier-alderman.99 One 99
problem with these hyphenated roles centers on individual officers and
commanders and what sociologists term role-tensions, or the kinds of internal
strains and contradictions between the stipulations of different components of
expected behavior. But perhaps more significant are the kinds of training and
promotion structures that will be established within the armed forces to encour-
age cultivation of different kinds of officers. One example is European military
academies that have moved from a stress on military skills toward a broader
education in the behavioral science, what Haltiner calls the move from a
‘‘Sparta’’ to an ‘‘Athens’’ model.100 100
Linking communities of professional practice. Another important example of
links between militaries and external entities is not strictly formal or institutional
but involves connections between communities of professional practitioners. Let
us provide two examples. Bet-El (Chapter Four in this volume) provides an analy-
sis of the ‘‘symbiotic’’ relationship between the media and the military as two
such specialized communities. She proceeds from the differing expectations of
both parties.101 While most militaries expect the media to be ‘‘objective’’ (i.e., 101
rally to their cause), the media’s intention is to convey, within strict time limits,
the most compelling narrative it can find. Since the very logic of the media centers
on the creation of a narrative, commanders must also struggle to create their own
persuasive military storyline. In military operations other than war, this basic ten-
sion is magnified by the fact that representatives of the media are usually much
more independent of the military than in times past.102 The dispersed nature of 102
conflicts in which the media may be anywhere (because there is no ‘‘war zone’’ or
ease of access to armed groups) is reinforced by technological developments (the
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miniaturization and mobility of equipment) that make for much less dependence
on military communications nets.103 103
The outcome of this situation is a recognition on the part of the armed forces
that one needs to deal directly with the complex set of tensions and contrasts,
and dependencies, with this other community of practitioners. One aspect of the
introduction of ‘‘media awareness’’ in military instruction thus entails an under-
standing of the logic-of-action of journalists.104 This kind of awareness entails 104
understanding not only the constraints (and possibilities) of the reports dissemi-
nated by the media but also the fact that they are run as business enterprises in
a very competitive environment. More widely, we can conjecture that the
increased move of people between the military and the media will lead, at once,
to greater understanding between the communities but also to potentially
greater and more focused critiques between these communities.
One can analyze the relations between the military and NGOs (primarily
human rights or humanitarian movements) in a similar manner. Titles such as
‘‘Strange Bedfellows’’ or ‘‘Uncertain Partners’’ underscore the tension-filled
connections between these parties in PSOs.105 Here the differences between the 105
two sides seem more far-reaching and include a hierarchical vs. egalitarian
mode of deciding and operating, national versus international loyalties,106 or 106
differing abilities to control information, and contrasting definitions of success
and the time frames for realizing it.107 But at the practical level, one often finds 107
a mutual dependence that is even more acute than in the case of military-media
relations. ‘‘Humanitarian organizations may find themselves unable to provide
relief in very dangerous areas. International military units, for their part, may
feel compelled to step into this void and begin delivering relief supplies and, in
the process, blurring the distinction between combatant and humanitarian
worker.’’108 Moreover, change may be afoot with the move of military person- 108
nel into humanitarian organizations.109 This unidirectional transfer has, ironi- 109
cally, led to a greater ‘‘militarization within’’ NGOs, making it easier for them
to work with the armed forces.110 Here too, simulations of negotiations and 110
links with humanitarian movements have been introduced into the training mili-
tary units received before deployment to PSOs.
Hybrid organizational forms. The next type of organizational form that has
developed in regard to PSOs is hybrid organizations that blend structure and
modes of action. David Last (Chapter Six in this volume) has suggested that we
stop talking about the police and the military as separate entities. At one level,
his point refers to hybrid corps such as the French gendarmerie that could per-
haps be better suited to missions of stabilization. But at a second and perhaps
conceptually more challenging level, our point involves forms that blend organ-
izations together. Thus, rather than talking about military police we should take
seriously ‘‘military policing,’’ as a set of activities that blend in hybrid form the
‘‘logics’’ of action of different organizations. The advantage of such organiza-
tional hybrids is that they combine order and disorder and thus provide a means
to answer the complexity of such missions as PSOs. Accordingly, hybrid
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INTRODUCTION 17
organizations are not only a means to control military operations (like manning
checkpoints) but also measures that the military uses to manage its relations
with groups in the civilian environment and whose values, needs, and identities
may contradict its own.
In this sense, hybrids like CIMIC officers are mediators or boundary-
spanning roles that link the military to civilian entities through embodying in
their functions the logics of two or more organizations. In effect, in CIMIC
organizations’ members wear uniforms but also represent part of the military’s
responsibility for civilians. As such, its members are, in a sense, both in and
out of the military. The strength of such hybrids lies in their ability to perceive
the needs and views of civilians and ‘‘translate’’ them into concrete suggestions
that commanders and troops can take into consideration through their actions.
CIMIC officers, moreover, sometimes find that they form a pressure group
pressing for civilian interests. More broadly, links between combat troops and
members of CIMIC, and other liaison officers, are part of the new relations
between the armed forces and various entities centered on humanitarian issues
(and to a very limited extent on human rights). In other words, they are
‘‘between and betwixt’’ the military and its environment but they are also part
of practices that are not fully military nor fully civilian. To put this point by
way of example, such cases show how the military does not leave uncontrolled
areas such as municipal issues but develops a mixed kind of control that is part
civilian and part military. Through the work of such hybrids, the military con-
currently displays its ‘‘humane,’’ caring aspects, reacts to some civilian
demands, maintains overall control of the situation, prevents potential disrup-
tions, and seeks to accomplish its military missions.
To be sure, we are not arguing that these organizations are unqualified suc-
cess stories but rather that their unique characteristics make them better able to
help the military as an organization deal with the contingencies and uncertain-
ties of PSOs. But from the strictly military point of view, the problem is that
elements of the armed forces continue to be military units but are changed by
their very relationships with others. The difficulty in many of these hybrids, in
other words, is how the constituent units collaborate (even participate in a rela-
tively coherent amalgam) but also retain their separate identity. The potential
military disadvantage of hybrids is thus the loss of identity and special skills of
the constituent units and roles.
Organizational isomorphism. Another important organizational process also
takes place in PSOs: mutual learning between militaries—the technical terms is
organizational isomorphism—which leads to the emergence of similar kinds of
practices.111 In this process, the practices of one armed force provide a model 111
for other forces that then incorporate them into their own organizational struc-
tures and actions. Joseph Soeters’ argument (presented in June 2007 at the con-
ference in Jerusalem mentioned in the acknowledgement) is that through what
he terms experiential isomorphism in Afghanistan, the Dutch forces have
become more like the Americans while the latter have become more similar to
Page Number: 18
the former in terms of national military styles of responding to hostilities and

administrative challenges. He argues that in contrast to the approach taken by
the United States, Britain, and Canada, the Dutch approach aims not to defeat
the Taliban but to make it irrelevant. Accordingly, it has been more modest and
risk-averse, inclined toward interaction with local stakeholders on an equal ba-
sis, and has produced far fewer casualties. It remains unclear at present which
national approach is more effective in the long run. Yet Soeters argues that the
armed forces of the various nations show a tendency to learn from each other’s
experiences and approaches, leading them to become isomorphic. In concrete
terms this means that the Dutch forces have become more aggressive while the
American forces have become more accommodating to local civilians.
Armed forces of the industrial democracies now create practices on the basis
of the global discourse of human rights and these practices, in turn, are being
disseminated between them. Human rights considerations are beginning to
become a kind of universalistic standard to which organizations seek to adhere
to in order to gain legitimacy, support, and resources. In this manner, ideas
related to ‘‘minimal collateral damage’’ can be seen as the military equivalent
of ‘‘best practices’’ in a certain sector or organizational field. Theoretically, our
argument is that the emulation and mimicking of one military establishment by
another is part of the processes that takes place within what may be called a
world system of professional military knowledge. Within this system, professio-
nal knowledge is produced and disseminated from world centers through vari-
ous institutions, arrangements, professional publications, and military doctrines.
Here, of course, it is the American military establishment that has been the cen-
ter for the production of such knowledge. The point we are making is that mili-
tary organizations not only conform to their national and international
environments but come to resemble each other in the process of institutional
isomorphism. It is for these reasons, then, that one finds not only an emphasis
on human rights in all of the armed forces of the industrial democracies but
concrete organizational measures (such as legal experts advising bombing mis-
sions) that are very similar.
Privatization. Finally, let us take up the issue of how the process of privati-
zation of security is related to PSOs. While the context of this process is the
spread of global capitalism and the world-wide neo-liberal regime, there are
more proximate causes: first, the spread of free-market values and the spread of
economic liberalism makes moves toward privatizing services gradually more
acceptable and legitimate; second, the increasing demands by civilian leaders
for leaner, less expensive forces has been a prime reason for the move to out-
sourcing; and third, the heightened risk aversion of publics in the industrial
democracies has contributed to viewing fighting by ‘‘proxy’’ as an advantage.
Against this background, it seems only rational for states to privatize and for
private groups to supplant the dearth of governmental forces with private
ones.112 Today, the sheer scope and geographical breadth of contemporary pri- 112
vate security companies is impressive, and, we would add, their lethal potential
Page Number: 19
INTRODUCTION 19
is no less critical for altering country and region-wide balances of power.113 113
But as many commentators have noted, the core problem with the privatization
of security is the potential for weakening the state’s monopoly over the means
of violence thereby undermining the concentration of state power that began
with the peace of Westphalia.114 114
Within this overall context, Kinsey (Chapter Eight in this volume) offers an
overview of the current use of private security companies in armed conflict and
discusses prospects and obstacles for their deployment in PSOs. Kinsey demon-
strates that the use of private security forces has blossomed in recent years and
that their deployment is spreading beyond traditional administrative and logisti-
cal support roles to the battlefield and to related roles such as defensive guard-
ing, security sector-reform, and disarmament. Kinsey argues that private
security companies will most likely see more engagement in PSOs as militaries
become more specialized and defer more mission tasks. He cautions, however,
that private security companies lack the legitimacy of state actors and are more
likely to be perceived by local populations as neocolonialist agents.115 More- 115
over, Hillen cautions that some powers and functions, mainly legal aspects of
sovereignty, can never be transferred.116 116
Yet the economic benefits of private ‘‘peacekeepers, in terms of effective-
ness and efficiency, should prod us to think about other forms of security
arrangements that are akin to privatization.117 Take the form that was involved 117
in the Western forces’ use of the Northern Coalition in Afghanistan or Israel’s
utilization of the Army of South Lebanon for many years. While these armed
forces may be publicly categorized as ‘‘allies,’’ in organizational and economic
terms they are much more similar to subcontractors, that is, relatively cheap
groups that provide military services and often employ fighters as sort of day-
laborers. Politically, the advantage of using such forces for the industrial
democracies lies in averting casualties among ‘‘their’’ forces and overcoming
many of the problems of accountability to wider publics and constituencies.118 118
CONCLUSION: PROFESSIONAL VOCABULARY AND SOCIAL SCIENTIFIC LANGUAGE
By way of conclusion let us emphasize two main points. The first centers on
the existing frames or templates used to interpret and act within PSOs. In this
introductory essay, we underscored the twin templates of industrial war and tra-
ditional peacekeeping, the militarization or securitization of thinking about
peace-related projects, and the assumptions based on 1950s modernization
theory in preparing for and implementing programs for the reconstruction of
war-torn societies. Instead of these templates, this introduction and many of the
contributions to this volume suggest the need to develop new concepts and
metaphors.
The second point refers to the possible impact of PSOs on military transfor-
mation. Thus, perhaps the way to think about future developments is not so
Page Number: 20
much on the way that military transformation influences peace-related missions

but rather on the way the latter effect the former. Some of these effects have to
do with career structures within the military, military education, or the links
between the armed forces and external entities. For such institutionalization to
take place, there will be a continued need for entrepreneurs for change within
the security establishment, perhaps for a political champion, and for doctrinal
developments (that is, mainstreaming of new ideas into military doctrine).
By offering this volume on military transformation and PSOs we are also, of
course, participating in current debates about these issues. The various contribu-
tions to this book, and the volume as a whole, should be seen as interrogating
and questioning current trends from a variety of perspectives. And that, after
all, is our aim.
Path: K:/GWD-MICHAEL-08-1005/Application/GWD-MICHAEL-08-1005-001.3d
Date: 29th December 2008 Time: 15:50 User ID: abhaskar BlackLining Enabled
Page Number: 21
The End of War? The Use of Force in the

Twenty-First Century 1 1
Christopher Dandeker
INTRODUCTION
Ever since the end of the Cold War there has been a debate about the extent to
which the international order has been shifting away from states’ concerns with
preparing for, deterring, and, if required, fighting classical, interstate war, to-
ward a preoccupation with ‘‘new wars.’’2 This debate has been part of a wider 2
discussion of the supposed decline of the ‘‘Westphalian’’ state system, which
many argue is connected with an intensification of the process of globalization.3 3
Key questions arising from the literature on this subject are: with what forms of
violence will Western armed services and the actors (military and non-military)
with which they have to cooperate need to contend in the early decades of the
twenty-first century; how will they do so, and what will be the likely effects on
their organizations and the societies from which they are drawn?
Martin Van Creveld argued in 1991 that low-intensity conflict, civil war,
and guerrilla campaigns would supplant the kinds of interstate warfare that
Western militaries have traditionally been trained to fight.4 He claimed that ter- 4
ritorial states would be eroded, including the Clauswitzean distinctions between
army, state, and people, characteristic of the modern state. Police and security
organizations would become more important than regular military forces as po-
litical authorities sought to defeat armed bands in a world that would be some-
what reminiscent of medieval Europe; that is, a world where, in a fragmented
political order, wars are fought by small groups of professionals for religion,
status, and honor as much as for land or for profit. Although in the post-Cold
War period, attempts would not be made to minimize damage to civilians; in
fact, it was quite the contrary. State-on-state encounters, and the regular tech-
nology-rich armed forces designed to fight them, were a costly irrelevance for
an era of transformed war.
Page Number: 22
In 1999, Mary Kaldor developed an influential distinction between ‘‘new’’

and ‘‘old’’ wars, drawing attention to the contemporary frequency of mid- and
low-level conflicts and the increased significance of intra- rather than interstate
warfare as a source of human insecurity. Kaldor highlighted the features of
‘‘new wars’’ as follows. First, in the context of failed or disintegrating states,
political leaders can make entrepreneurial use of the politics of identity: that is,
to mobilize support for their strategies through the manipulation of national,
ethnic and/or religious symbols, language, and memories, which may, as in the
case of the former Republic of Yugoslavia or Rwanda, be misleadingly por-
trayed by ill-informed outsiders as the primordial politics of tribal enmity. Sec-
ondly, these intrastate conflicts, which may well spill over into neighboring
territories and encourage outside intervention, are focused on non-state military
agencies such as militias, armed and predatory criminal bands, for whom the
(Western) ‘‘laws of war’’ scarcely apply. As a result, displacement of popula-
tions, refugee crises, and civilian suffering are key features of these wars.
Third, new wars are connected with processes of globalization. Political leaders
can use their control and plunder of a country’s assets in order to sell them on
the global (and often black) market, sometimes in exchange for arms, of which
there has been a plentiful supply after the collapse of the Soviet Union, in order
to buttress their hold on power.
Kaldor’s work led to a debate on how new these so called ‘‘new wars’’ really
are. For example, Hirst argued that ‘‘[m]ost of Kaldor’s new wars involve old
problems, stemming from the colonial era, or from peace treaties after the First
World War, or from the Cold War.’’5 The deep historical roots of the war 5
focused on the break-up of the former Republic of Yugoslavia is one example.6 6
Recently, Munkler has assessed this debate. He argues that the distinctiveness
of the era of new wars rests on a coincidence of three trends, each of which has
appeared before but not in combination. First, the ‘‘privatization of war,’’ which
means that ‘‘states are no longer the monopolists of war …; non and sub-state
actors have increasingly seized the initiative from states that, for the most part,
have been reduced to reactive positions.’’7 Second, Munkler points to the devel- 7
opment of ‘‘military asymmetry’’ with the technically sophisticated Western
armed forces facing ‘‘military[il]y inferior actors hardly fit for battle,’’ by
which he means conventional war. Interestingly, he argues asymmetry is the
historical norm with symmetry as a political order constructed by the Westpha-
lian state. Third, Munkler argues that war has become ‘‘demilitarized’’ in the
sense that ‘‘regular armed forces have lost both the control and monopoly of
warfare.’’ There are a variety of players, not always uniformed and by no
means committed to the (European in origin) laws of war.8 8
Munkler’s analysis leads him to conclude that three types of war are likely to
define our era. The first is what he calls ‘‘resource wars,’’ which, echoing Kaldor’s
arguments, are likely to occur in regions such as Africa, with valuable natural
resources and conditions that encourage competition for their control amongst a
variety of state and sub-state actors. These actors have the incentive of the global
Page Number: 23
THE END OF WAR? 23
economy and the facilitating condition of fractures in local state authority to be

able to use coercion and terror to control populations and resources for their own
ends. Such resource wars can invite intervention from other states, which may be
driven by a mix of strategic and humanitarian motives; these are wars of pacifica-
tion. Yet such interventions may not be universally welcomed, not least in the ter-
ritory in which an intervention takes place. This, in turn, can provide a fertile
ground for ‘‘internecine warfare,’’ in which radicalized groups can not only resist
intervention but seek to mount, via terrorist tactics, armed attacks not only on
local intervention forces but also in the heartland of the states from which they
come.9 The example of the links between the U.K. presence in Iraq and Afghani- 9
stan and U.K. domestic terror would be a case in point.
Munkler argues that states that intervene and conduct wars of pacification,
or what might be called robust peacemaking or ‘‘strategic peacekeeping,’’ will
have a mix of strategic (realist) and humanitarian (liberal and cosmopolitan)
motives.10 They will also face dilemmas about calibrating how much effort to 10
expend and costs to incur relative to what their citizens are prepared to accept
and for how long. In addition, states will need to think about what forces can
achieve in such interventions. These are especially troubling issues for what
Cooper has called ‘‘postmodern states,’’ principally the EU, which enjoy rela-
tive peace and prosperity in their region of shared sovereignty and interdepend-
ence.11 Yet this prosperity depends on resources of the wider global economy 11
and faces troubles at the interface between the postmodern world and the pre-
modern world of weak and failing states. At the same time, postmodern states
that intervene in wars of pacification will also need to avoid losing sight of such
states’ continuing power and political competitions with what he calls modern
states, concerning resources such as oil, water, and minerals. Postmodern states’
armed forces need to be attuned with military symmetry if not for war, then for
coercive diplomacy in a realist, interstate context. They must do this themselves
or at least have a reliable ally to do it for them.
Indeed, elements of interstate war are likely to be present in the three kinds
of warfare discussed by Munkler. We need to think about how power contend-
ers will fight them, and there may well be more than two sides. One argument
is that, from the point of view of Western states engaged in these situations,
such contests are likely to involve a ‘‘hybrid blend of traditional and irregular
tactics, decentralized planning, and execution and non-state actors … using
both simple and innovative tactics in innovative ways.’’12 This suggestion is 12
not unrelated to another U.S. naval commentator’s influential concept of ‘‘three
block warfare.’’13 He argues that it is possible for a military unit within one 13
urban setting to move from delivering humanitarian relief, separating conflict-
ing parties and then dealing with tactically high intensity exchanges of fire with
insurgents. And this rapid tempo of events is likely to be exposed to media
scrutiny, during which tactical and sub-tactical decisions can have major opera-
tional and even strategic consequences, as when an apparent war crime can
damage the mission of an intervening state and its international reputation.
Page Number: 24
These dilemmas of postmodern states preoccupy General Sir Rupert Smith’s

influential book The Utility of Force, which provides analysis as well as an
attempt to educate political and military elites (and their citizens) on what one
can usefully do with force in the twenty-first century.14 Although Smith claims 14
that ‘‘war no longer exists,’’ actually he means that warfare has become trans-
formed from what he calls industrial war to a world of confrontations and con-
flicts where ‘‘war amongst the people’’ is the dominant theme.15 In industrial 15
war—a product of the innovations of the Napoleonic and Prussian militaries,
which used the resources of the industrial revolution and the modern nation
state—armed forces are used to resolve conflicts through decisive strategic
encounters with their opposite numbers on the battlefield. War is a rational use
of force to win a political contest, and this remained the case from the early
nineteenth century through the wars of German unification, the U.S. Civil war
through the two World Wars of the twentieth century. The application of sci-
ence and technology in industrial war led to the creation of nuclear weapons,
which also, ironically, led to its decline as states could no longer use war as a
rational instrument of policy to achieve military victory.
During the Cold War bipolar confrontation, however, states prepared for
industrial war; they equipped and trained their forces for conventional and nu-
clear phases of a war that they knew could not be fought and won. Meanwhile,
they witnessed, and some became engaged in, rather different kinds of con-
flict—in counterpoint to industrial war—which were not interstate, strategic
military encounters, but engagements with non-state or proto-state actors. The
objective of these actors was to avoid a contest with an industrial state where
the latter was strong but, from a position within the (more or less supportive)
surrounding civilian population, to inflict a series of smaller tactical attacks on
it so that it would become tired of its involvement in the guerrilla and revolu-
tionary wars during the period after 1945; the current insurgency in Iraq is the
latest example. As Smith notes, the basic features of ‘‘war amongst the people’’
were prefigured in the Spanish guerrilla resistance to the French occupation
during the Peninsular campaign in the Napoleonic Wars, resistance which,
when coupled with Wellington’s adroit use of the British regular army, led to
Napoleon’s withdrawal and made a major contribution to his subsequent defeat.
For Smith, industrial war came to an end in 1945. However, wars amongst
the people only became the dominant form of war after the end of the Cold
War (more properly termed a confrontation), as states sought, repeatedly, to
consider how best to use force to engage in these conflicts and, when they did,
such as in Somalia but especially in Bosnia and now in Iraq, to wonder why
force does not produce the results they expected, why ‘‘victory’’ is elusive, and
the extent to which something far less than this as an acceptable outcome is in-
evitable. Perhaps, Smith suggests, force can only lead not to a decisive victory,
but to a condition, in which an acceptable outcome is likely to be produced by
political and diplomatic parties internal and external to the territory concerned,
and in which process the utility of force is quite limited.
Page Number: 25
THE END OF WAR? 25
Wars amongst the people are complex affairs in which confrontations shift
back and forth to conflicts in which the intervening state is unable and/or
unwilling to use force at the strategic level to produce a decisive result that
leads to a resolution of a political dispute. One of the rare examples of this after
1945 is the Falklands war of 1982. In wars amongst the people, the objective
cannot be to defeat the enemy in a trial of strength on the battlefield but,
through a contest of wills, to change the intentions of the insurgents and ulti-
mately to win over the people whose more or less active support is a key to
their success in resisting the intervening state. Military activities can be used by
intervening states but these often fall short of the use of force and, in so far as
force is used, it is confined to the tactical level. Force is limited to sub-strategic
goals, which means that the interaction between military, political, and diplo-
matic agencies of the intervening states are quite different from those character-
istic of the logic of industrial war. In a key passage on these civil-military
dynamics, Smith states:
Conflicts … are about trials of strength: military activities that may sit within a polit-
ical or diplomatic framework, but do not involve those agencies in achieving the
objective once the military activity is in process. In other words, if a confrontation
has crossed over into a conflict, the military is in the lead and it is up to the other
agencies to support it until the objective is attained, but at the same time they may
continue working to resolve the confrontation that led to the conflict at another level.
In essence, conflicts involve the application of force to attain a desired objective,
whether at the tactical, operational or strategic level. And if the strategic level is
reached, then a full war in the industrial sense is at hand. This has not happened very
often since 1945, and then only in conflicts in which there was no threat of weapons
of mass destruction.16 16
By the same token, in wars amongst the people, the lead role is not the mili-
tary, but the political and diplomatic agencies to which the military lends sup-
port by exerting pressure to change intentions. Normally, even if force is used,
the change of intentions and the achievement of an acceptable condition is the
product of non-military and military means. Force in and of itself cannot be
decisive.
Smith argues that, whenever force is used, in industrial war or war amongst
the people, ideally, it should be to achieve military objectives which, in turn,
produce an outcome, or, in the latter case, a condition likely to lead to an ac-
ceptable outcome desired by political authority. Yet the history of the use of
force in the contemporary age of war amongst the people shows a lack of
clarity and coherence in the linkage between political goals and military activ-
ities, and it also shows that the organization of the military is inadequate to deal
with the challenges of war amongst the people. Here the focus on the first set
of issues, and some of the organizational issues will be considered later on.
One suspects that Smith’s thesis will be used to assess the current imbroglio
in Iraq rather more than the case that haunts the book: Bosnia and the record of
Page Number: 26
the United Nations Protection Force (UNPROFOR), the United Nations, and
NATO. Bosnia is the locus classicus of forces deployed for incoherent and
unrealistic objectives and where Smith himself managed to use his position as
force commander to ‘‘turn the UN key’’ in order to use NATO power to coerce
Serbia into compliance, although he recognizes that offensive operations
by Croatians and the federation for their own purposes were ‘‘ultimately
decisive.’’17 17
In a similar fashion, in the case of Kosovo, Smith as Deputy Supreme Com-
mander of Europe, faced the daunting task of making sense of Western govern-
ments’ optimistic and misplaced belief that a short period of modest bombing
would produce the desired political outcome of Serbia giving up its attempt to
dominate Kosovo. In his discussion of the need for realism and coherence con-
cerning the use of force, Smith’s anger and frustration is plain, dealing as he
had to in a very practical way with political authorities’ naivete about what
force could achieve, especially if (as in Bosnia) there was no attempt to take
any risks to achieve realistic goals.
Just as Smith felt the need to fill the gap left between political objectives
and military force by the intervening states, so now he wishes to educate those
who would countenance using force in comparable situations. Smith makes an
impassioned and persuasive plea for a more realistic appreciation of the utility
of force. He argues that, in the context of a complex world of confrontations
and conflicts, force can only be used to perform four functions, arrayed in order
of extensive and intensive use of force: ameliorate (for example, through the
delivery of humanitarian aid. Here the military does not use force but performs
useful activities as a disciplined and reliable organization, as it does in the
domestic sphere of disaster relief); to contain, as in the enforcement of no-fly-
zones; to deter or to coerce, and to change intentions or indeed form them, as
with the history of the Cold War and the use of force such as Desert Shield to
deter Iraqi forces from designs on Saudi oilfields. Interestingly, Smith argues
that with deterrence, ‘‘the employment of force is usually closely controlled at
senior political levels by means of ROE [Rules of Engagement], and in the case
of coercion, by close political attention to target lists as well as ROE.’’18; to 18
destroy (i.e., both people and objects in pursuit of a political purpose as in De-
sert Storm, from 1990–91, or the Falklands War: both cases approximate the
logic of industrial war and are the exceptions that prove the rule that, especially
since 1990, wars amongst the people are the predominant reality).
Smith groups these four functions into two subsets: to ameliorate and to con-
tain are possible to initiate without a clear political strategy, even though one is
to be preferred, but it is essential in the cases of coercion-deterrence and
destruction. The linkage between political outcome and military objectives
must be coherent and realistic and, in the case of wars amongst the people, that
means the political level must recognize that entering into such a complex sit-
uation is likely to be ‘‘timeless’’ because the most that can be expected is not
the achievement of a decisive outcome by force of arms at the strategic level,
Page Number: 27
THE END OF WAR? 27
but a condition in which an acceptable outcome is likely. In the case of Kosovo,

for example, even if coercion at the strategic level was relatively successful, it
has not led to the achievement of a political objective because no one quite
knows what that objective is supposed to be.
Even such a modest goal as a condition is difficult to achieve unless the co-
herence and realism of which Smith speaks is followed through in operations
on the ground and in terms of planning how they are to be conducted. Industrial
war operates according to a relatively straightforward logic: ‘‘peace-crisis-war-
resolution, which will result in peace again.’’19 In wars amongst the people, the 19
problem is to gain the support of the people and to change the intentions of the
insurgents so that either both insurgents and people are prepared to participate
in the process that leads to a favorable outcome, or that the insurgents become
isolated and in too a weak position to undermine the infrastructure of a political
community in which the people have a stake and feel offers the best prospect
for their own future.
As in the case of Iraq, after the initial industrial war phase, the key task is
not the use of force, but the establishment of internal order through an effective
system of police and justice as part of the infrastructure of a political commu-
nity: as Smith says, ‘‘the objective of all our operations amongst the people is
the will of the people, and if we want a stable state and to remove our force
from maintaining a ‘condition’ they must be sufficiently content with the out-
come that it remains intact.’’20 Smith emphasizes that the logic of industrial 20
war is not only relatively straightforward, it is also linear, while war amongst
the people is non-linear and complex, so that the objective of winning over the
people must be integrated into the planning of operations from the start. Many
will recognize this point in connection with Iraq and criticism of the failures of
the United States in this regard, partly because of interagency squabbles
(mainly between the Departments of Defense and State), but also na€ive over-
optimism in thinking that the strategic use of force against Saddam could bring
about success in the aftermath. Thus, the tricky part for the intervening state is
not the defeat, marginalization, or neutralization by force of those who are
opposed to this objective, but doing so in such a way that does not alienate the
will of the people. Here Smith is touching on issues of cultural sensitivity and
how to use force (especially to avoid incidents such as Abu Ghraib and the
like), which have been taken up by others.21 21
Interestingly, Smith’s argument that armed forces are still equipped to fight
industrial war rather than war amongst the people is more about a mindset than
about technology: states are too obsessed with the idea of strategic uses of force
than the current reality warrants, and they are mistaken in thinking that wars
amongst the people are phenomena that are exceptions to the core business of
war fighting. However, Smith exaggerates his argument unnecessarily. Wars
amongst the people, it may be conceded, are the most frequent operations, but
Western states need still to be prepared for industrial war because these still
constitute a risk and, as Western doctrine generally argues, it is possible to train
Page Number: 28
down for wars amongst the people from industrial war rather than to engage in
the reverse. This is why, in terms of doctrine, equipment, training, and organi-
zation, Western armed forces are loathe to cease doing what they do now: with
limited resources, to prepare for industrial war while also preparing for and
conducting operations associated with wars amongst the people. But this is not
conservatism; rather, it is based on a realistic judgment of the risks and threats
in contemporary international politics. It is far too early and risky to write off
industrial war.
Consider the following. Industrial war, far from dying out, has been a key
part of Middle Eastern politics as in the bloody attrition of the Iran-Iraq war,
which was reminiscent of the First World War.22 There is the possibility of 22
industrial war between Western states and North Korea in much the same way
that industrial war was required to deal with Saddam Hussein (in that case even
if the strategy was flawed, it could not have done without the apparatus of
industrial war). There is also the possibility of interstate industrial war as com-
petition for natural resources like oil, gas, water, and other raw materials inten-
sifies. The United States, Russia, China, and Japan come to mind as, to use
Cooper’s language, tension at the interface between modern and postmodern
states continues.23 23
Smith’s conceptual distinction between industrial war and war amongst the
people is overdrawn no matter how one views his analysis of contemporary his-
torical trends. As Adam Roberts has suggested, in some degree war has always
been amongst the people, notwithstanding Smith’s position that in the Second
World War, for example, war was against, not amongst, the people.24 In addi- 24
tion, any engagement in wars amongst the people is likely to have to include a
dimension of industrial war. The guerrilla war in Spain was effective in the end
because it was exploited by Wellington’s regular British army. The Vietcong
only triumphed because of the regular formations used adroitly by General
Giap. Building democracy via external intervention (whether to do this or not is
a debate of course) in Iraq could not have been achieved without industrial war.
States need to think hard about what they wish to achieve and to what extent
armed forces can assist them, and whether in doing so force has any utility.
They need to ensure that realism and coherence underpin their multinational
efforts and that all concerned, including the wider public, are aware that the
risks of a timeless engagement are known and judged to be worth taking. This
is the consequence of not being able to achieve political outcomes through the
decisive use of force at the strategic level but having to make do, at best, with
achieving a condition in which an acceptable outcome might be achievable later
on. Smith muses that this is all that is available to Western nation states as they
seek to manage their defense and security in a world where the principle of the
nation state may be fading away, which of course takes us back, but not quite,
to Van Creveld’s formulation on the future of war.
Smith’s pragmatic and ‘‘band-aid’’ approach to the post-Cold War world of
conflicts and confrontations implicitly treads a delicate path between two
Page Number: 29
THE END OF WAR? 29
positions: the realist argument based on hardnosed national interest, where leav-
ing well alone may be the best policy; and two variations on idealistic interven-
tion: the cosmopolitan project or the idea of empire, which most commentators
argue has no place in contemporary public sensibilities.25 25
CONDUCTING WAR AMONGST THE PEOPLE AND DEALING

WITH THE PROBLEMS OF POSTMODERN WAR
Smith highlights the distinctive ways in which Western states conduct war
amongst the people. That is, they are engaged in the pragmatic task of estab-
lishing a condition, rather than the pursuit of victory. Most, but not all, of these
tasks recur in those cases where strategic encounters are akin to interstate war.
As indicated above, in establishing a condition, the use of force needs to be
calibrated with other instruments of policy, and there must be coherence of the
military goals and political objectives, all of which need to be geared to win-
ning over the people and detaching the insurgents from them. In all of this,
Smith’s emphasis on the integration of politics and military strategy in achiev-
ing realistic effects chimes well with the literature on ‘‘effects based opera-
tions’’ (EBO). The evolution of the novel kinds of military operations to which
Smith refers have been accompanied by changes in military organization,
including a move away from conscription and the design of more agile and
flexible structures capable of providing rapid and effective contributions to
these international missions. These new operations have altered the ways in
which the utility of force is calibrated, and it is here that the idea of EBO has
taken root.
EBO is a complex concept partly because it has been used in different ways
by different states and their armed forces.26 In the United States, for example, 26
EBO is used to highlight the ways in which information and other leading edge
technologies offer unparalleled opportunities for the precise exercise of lethal
force and with less need for repeat use of weapons platforms or munitions
because of the greater capacity of information technology to conquer the fric-
tion produced by the fog of war. In doing so, EBO is viewed as an application
of the potential of ‘‘the revolution in military affairs,’’ or ‘‘military transforma-
tion’’ and ‘‘network centric warfare’’ to security problems.27 27
As Abrahamsson et al argue, in the United Kingdom, by contrast, there is
greater emphasis on how military and non-military means can be used to
achieve a political effect and how the military itself can be used to achieve
effects without its resorting to the use of force—for example, via defense diplo-
macy—which is a key point in Smith’s analysis. However that may be, in both
the U.S. and U.K. literature, the concept of EBO has been applied to resolving
problems encountered in asymmetric warfare: how Western states can either
prevail in, or at least nullify the worst effects of, the kinds of irregular warfare
characteristic of the twenty-first century.
Page Number: 30
One of the difficulties faced by those involved in wars amongst the people is
that people can watch, via the media, a good deal, but by no means all, of what
is done in their name by intervening states. In this context, the ‘‘people’’ com-
prise more or less interlinked populations across the globe—what Shaw has
called global surveillance war—although that surveillance is far from constant
or even, as the lens of the media tracks some wars rather than others and can
move on from one pressing topic to another, rather like a searchlight does in its
penetration of the dark night sky.28 28
Given the imperative of winning over the people, the arts of persuasion and
media and opinion management are as critical as the conventional art of war.
Smith asks members of the military profession to be good actors, which extends
earlier formulations by Moskos on the importance of the soldier statesman and
soldier scholar.29 Moskos focused on the importance of political skills in the 29
management of the political-military interface and the need to think through the
question of the use of force in conditions other than normal war (a prescient
comment). He also focused on the importance of ‘‘courting the media,’’ whose
support is critical in the conduct of operations within the theater of operations
and amongst wider audiences. This support, he argues, not wholly convinc-
ingly, is more difficult in peace operations than in situations approximating
war, where it is far easier to manage and sometimes muzzle the press. Recently,
due to concerns about the perceived accuracy and lack of context of some news
reporting and the alleged failure to preserve the privacy of wounded personnel
being returned to the United Kingdom, the U.K. Ministry of Defense with-
drew the right of ITV news journalists to be embedded with U.K. forces in
Afghanistan.30 30
Smith is adding to this theme in interesting ways, largely because the theater
of operations is indeed a ‘‘theater,’’ in which the people are watching events
just as other observers in different states are doing. The people have to be won
over, not bludgeoned by force, and their willingness to be won over depends, in
part, on the information they have at their disposal and how they choose to
accept one or more narratives of ‘‘what is going on’’ over others that are avail-
able. The military has a key role to play in ensuring that, in the diversity of
conflicting and often confusing narratives, the political outcome or condition
that operations are seeking to achieve is translated into a ‘‘narrative’’ that, once
communicated, can play an effective part in winning over the people. In doing
this—in playing to and seeking to influence audiences—Smith is asking the
military to be more effective actors than before in recognition that success is no
longer to be had on a discrete battlefield.31 There is no ‘‘objective war’’; rather, 31
there are competing narratives, and one of the key tasks in establishing a condi-
tion is ensuring that one’s own narrative stands out as the most convincing.
Smith’s discussion of narrative as an instrument in wars amongst the people
raises a wider set of issues that have been addressed more explicitly by those
who see it as an opportunity to pinpoint the postmodern aspects of the conduct
of contemporary war. As Hammond has argued, in a perceptive essay, the idea
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THE END OF WAR? 31
of postmodern too often serves as a label with little real substance.32 For exam- 32
ple, he points out that Baudrillard’s portrait of the first Gulf war as hardly a
war at all, because of its technologically driven one-sidedness and media image
and spectacle, made it hard to distinguish real from virtual war. This view
applies a fortiori to the ‘‘shock and awe’’ invasion of Iraq in 2003 with the
(premature) image of Bush at the center of the staging of ‘‘mission accom-
plished.’’ Others have emphasized the way in which technological superiority is
facilitated by information technology, which is associated with a dramatic shift
in the balance between human and technical capital in the conduct of war. But
these features, including the ways in which applying force is akin to a visual
game in which one is both immediately in the presence of the violent act yet
detached from it, can be judged to be a ‘‘high-tech’’ part of late modernity
because they extend rather than depart from modern war.
The most interesting part of Hammond’s analysis relates to the paradox of
the power of the West being undercut by its weakness. Interestingly, this has
less to do with the well-known difficulties concerning the use of nuclear weap-
ons or the problems of asymmetric warfare and more to do with the nature of
contemporary political culture. He refers to Lyotard and the issue of grand or
metanarratives and suggests that it is perhaps the absence of metanarratives
today that explains the unique features of contemporary warfare.33 It is this lack 33
of confidence to project a meaning, Hammond suggests, which lies at the heart
of Baudrillard’s most valuable aspects of his discussion of the Gulf war.34 It is 34
this lack of self-belief that accounts for the fragility of political and public will
in the face of setbacks and casualties in contemporary war and the related ob-
session with media management and spin, to which I shall turn presently.
Before doing so it is important to ask what are the roots of this lack of belief or
self confidence, which, it is clear, shocked conservative opinion when 9/11, far
from leading to a robust and widely supported moral outrage that could under-
pin first the Global War on Terror (GWOT) and now the ‘‘long war,’’ led to
skepticism, irony, and a relativization of these efforts to give an absolute mean-
ing to the events. The recent events in Iraq, the collapse of the ‘‘neo-con’’
vision, and the ongoing government attempts to redraw the strategy of the coa-
lition accompanied by their pleas for patience surely support this line of reason-
ing. This process of relativization, in turn, has led to a continued sense of doubt
and ambivalence about the values of Western civilization within the West, and
in terms of defending those values in wider global contests. Although some
commentators have suggested that it was the Vietnam war that removed, in the
United States at least, the meaning and will to undertake any ‘‘great projects,’’
again we must refer to longer term processes in Western culture that have led
to the widening and deepening of skepticism and belief in grand narratives.
This is true not just of Marxism but of any such overarching interpretations,
including the values of liberal democracy which seemed, briefly, to have tri-
umphed and to have done so absolutely after 1989. As Hammond concludes,
‘‘The collapse of grand narratives makes war a matter of risk management at
Page Number: 32
the same time as it gives rise to an exaggerated feeling of vulnerability. The

inability to cohere society around any inspiring, future-oriented project empties
war of meaning even as it makes war more likely as an attempt to discover
some common, unifying values.’’35 35
This argument helps us to account for the priority given to narratives in con-
temporary wars and also the nervous energy that is attached to ‘‘spinning’’ and
winning the war of defining ‘‘what is going on,’’ in which process the military
itself has become a significant actor. In these contending narratives, one prob-
lematic theme is the question of casualties, whether suffered by the armed
forces of intervening states, the opposing forces (comprising regular but also
insurgent and irregular elements), as well as non-combatant civilians.
In wars amongst the people, ‘‘risk aversion,’’ one aspect of which is a con-
cern or over-concern with force protection instead of achieving the mission, is a
central feature. Interestingly, Smith attributes this phenomenon to quite prosaic
factors such as the need to protect the valuable assets of Western all-volunteer
forces, which are costly to replace in a competitive labor market, rather than in
terms of a response to wider cultural sensibilities about home-side casualties as
well as those of enemy forces, and collateral damage to non-combatant civilians,
which, as we shall see later in this chapter, is the subject of some debate.36 36
By contrast, Shaw argues that the West has developed ‘‘risk transfer milita-
rism,’’ which is a way of prosecuting as well as legitimizing war in Western
societies, whether or not ‘‘amongst the people.’’ It allows the superior technol-
ogy of the United States and its allies or coalition partners, not least the reliance
on airpower, to inflict death and destruction without themselves having to face
much in the way of a risk of the same.
In his account, Shaw focuses on five issues. First, he accepts that the rein-
vention and application of airpower by the west is much more precise and
effective than it was in its original 1920s usage. The focus is on killing the
enemy and, therefore, in terms of the history of twentieth century warfare, the
risk of death is transferred back to them rather than to non-combatant civilians.
Second, although the West emphasizes airpower, it does require land forces,
but here the emphasis is increasingly on special forces (SF) with the assistance
of local ground forces, as in Afghanistan, who bear the brunt of the risk of mili-
tary casualties on the ground. Third, Shaw argues that the risk of ‘‘small massa-
cres’’ of civilians is an inherent feature of its approach to war. He says it is a
known and inevitable consequence of fighting with a view to maximizing the
force protection offered to Western forces. The Amirya shelter incident in the
Gulf War, in 1991, is one example. Shaw states, ‘‘Reliance on high-altitude and
long-range bombardment keeps aircrew and soldiers safe; but it inevitably leads
to errors of targeting in which hundreds or thousands of civilians die in each
campaign. So the transfer to civilians of the risks of being directly killed is
deliberate and systematic.’’37 37
Fourth, any concern with casualties leads to media management and ‘‘spin,’’
whether of overall civilian casualties or of any others. Finally, Shaw argues that
Page Number: 33
THE END OF WAR? 33
so far as indirect casualties are concerned (caused by, for example, enemy poli-
cies, civil war, drought, etc.), where responsibility is difficult to allocate to the
West, they are more acceptable because they are more manageable in terms of
media representation.
Shaw combines sociological observation with moral objections to these mat-
ters. He implies that the matter of military casualties being one-sided in West-
ern encounters with enemy forces is, in some way, unfair or even unchivalrous.
But why? Is not the aim of war, and war abiding by Just War principles, to
ensure that the other side dies for their country while one does not have to do
so oneself?
On direct civilian casualties, Shaw thinks that these are beyond a Just War
defense along Walzerian lines. Walzer, in his account of the rule of ‘‘double
effect,’’ Shaw reminds us, contends that, in the conduct of war, an evil act, such
as one leading to the killing of civilians, is permissible so long as it is in pursuit
of a good that is greater than the resulting (and foreseeable) evil; and, second,
that there should be proportionality so far as the respective loss of life of the
opponent’s civilians and one’s own military forces are concerned. So, even if
civilians suffer death and injury, this can be morally acceptable but only so
long as the good intention and the reduction of evil are delivered. Shaw draws
on Walzer’s claim that a state should not just give some indication of ‘‘doing
something’’ to save civilians but provide a sincere effort, which means that, if
saving civilian lives means risking soldiers’ lives, then this should be done.
But, Shaw complains, ‘‘[i]n risk-transfer war, this is precisely what is avoided
at all costs.’’38 38
Shaw then considers Walzer’s ‘‘get out clause’’ in respect of the above
restrictions: that war is inherently hellish and that how far one should actually
go in order to try and protect civilians is rather difficult to establish with preci-
sion. For Shaw the key point here is that this rather permissive stipulation might
be acceptable in past wars (presumably, say, Korea and the Second World War),
where very many Western soldiers were having to risk their lives, but is far less
so when hardly any one of them do today. The proportionality is driven not by
any decent Western military civilian/soldier death ratio, but by what will be ac-
ceptable in terms of media management. Bombing and long-range artillery bom-
bardments are undertaken in the firm knowledge that it will increase the risk to
civilians compared to other possible means, military as well as non-military.
Even if the ends of the GWOT are just, Shaw contends that the ways in
which it is being fought are not. Yet the following statements reveal the fact
that this argument is problematic.
The West is using armed force in a way that kills, directly, more enemy fighters than
civilians; it generally doesn’t target civilians except in error; it aims to minimize
‘collateral damage’ and ‘accidental’ massacres. Although civilians are still killed, in
historical, especially mid-twentieth century, terms, the numbers of victims are small.
The new Western way of war thus meets, prima facie, many of the historic demands
Page Number: 34
for just war, even if we may question some excesses. However, if my argument has
been accepted, there is still something fundamentally awry. That disparity between
more than 1000 innocent Afghans killed, to one American (in the first months of the
Afghan campaign), says it all.39 39
The reference to the 1000 innocents implies one or more of the following:
(a) this number could have been less if operations (unspecified as to detail) had
been conducted in a way that led to more than the one American being killed;
(b) that if, somehow, more U.S. military personnel had indeed been killed then
this would have been a better outcome morally if the same number of Afghans
had been killed; (c) that from Shaw’s point of view, the preferred outcome
would have been to have had far fewer Afghan dead with more Americans
killed, and that the resulting, more balanced, Western and opposing forces’
blood sacrifice would have been worth it; and that (d) this option is not pursued
because of the fears of political and military leaders that these casualty figures
would be beyond its capacity to ‘‘spin’’ the media and public into accepting its
legitimacy. It should be pointed out here that so far, despite the decline in sup-
port for the Iraq war on both sides of the Atlantic, the point remains that the
public’s capacity to accept casualties remains dependent on well-known factors
studied since the Vietnam war: that the blood sacrifice is perceived to be worth
the strategic objectives being pursued; that suitable progress is being made in
achieving them; and that leadership is competent and in reasonable control of
events. Admittedly, all are problematic so far as the public is concerned. These
factors make any plea for patience hard to sustain.
The legitimacy problem, referred to above, is caused, in part, by the
increased value of individual human rights, which has now extended from civil-
ian society into the sphere of the military itself. Consequently, the armed ser-
vices are likely to face all sorts of moral and legal contestations on such matters
as ‘‘small massacres,’’ the shooting or maltreatment of prisoners and suspected
insurgents, the failure to prevent ‘‘blue on blue’’ (i.e., casualties caused by West-
ern, coalition forces firing on each other), or to protect troops sufficiently from
hostile fire. All of these are likely to be magnified if the ends of war are seen to
be fragile in terms of their own legitimacy or legality, as in Iraq today.
For Shaw, this means that there is a prospect for the ‘‘delegitimation of
war’’ as one outcome of the development of risk transfer militarism. This out-
come is likely to be magnified further by such acts as local allies committing
atrocities and coalition forces suffering or inflicting heavier casualties than the
media and public can bear. Shaw calls these phenomena ‘‘risk transfer
rebound.’’ Shaw contends that as people worry about their own casualties, and
not just the opponents, ‘‘the tests for justly killing get ever tighter.’’40 Precisely 40
so, and this is exactly why the West does what it does and when it can. That is
to say, it uses technology and strategy not only to meet the prima facie criteria
for Just War, but, more than that, to also manage its operations in the awareness
that it cannot do so in a political and moral vacuum but in the context of
Page Number: 35
THE END OF WAR? 35
contemporary Western culture’s sensibility about the ends and means of war.
He appears to be arguing that in doing so, the West creates opportunities for
critics, like himself, to aggravate the delegitimation of war, and so, in this proc-
ess, the concept of risk transfer and the associated attempt to hold the West to
ever stricter criteria, can assist in exposing the unjustness of the Western way
of war.
Shaw is among a number of contemporary commentators who critique the
Western way of confronting the moral and political context of wars. Others
have called this critique an unrealistic demand for humane warfare41 and the 41
‘‘de-bellicisation of the West.’’42 Gray suggests that, for Western pubic opinion, 42
war is no longer acceptable as a means of resolving disputes; there is a greater
need to have discretionary wars always backed by the United Nations (the legal
and moral objections to U.S. unilateralism underscore the point), and there is
ambivalence over the conduct of war which involves killing and destruction.
Gray provides some telling points here, especially on the way in which live
media coverage of the reality of war leads to or causes a change in public sensi-
bility, but this underplays changes in political and cultural values since 1945.
On the one hand, war as ‘‘spectator sport’’ creates entertainment and excite-
ment—like a video game in some instances—with the possibility of the vicari-
ous pleasure of living close to violence and thrills but being detached from
them (like an exciting amusement park game where the risk is controlled in
order to maximize the immediate sense of danger but not the reality).43 On the 43
other hand, the same coverage can provide grounds for squeamishness and a
sense of the awfulness and horror of war, which in turn can lead to pressure for
the imposition of impossibly tight demands to fight in way that avoids the worst
of those realities. That such strict rules are being asked for shows how far away
from the reality of war many people are in the postmodern states of the West,
how sheltered they are from it even if they can travel and see the world and
know about it from their armchairs in ways quite beyond the imagination of
those earlier generations who, via their own military experience, had a sense of
what it was like.
CONCLUSION: INTERNATIONAL MISSIONS—SOME ISSUES FOR THE FUTURE
Smith and other writers have highlighted a number of features that constitute
contemporary war and conflict, and thus the context in which international mis-
sions are likely to evolve. A shift away from national territorial defense to
international missions is associated with either a move to an all-volunteer force
or an attenuation of conscription.44 The greater reliance on market forces for 44
the mobilization of people for military service brings problems in its train.
Although forces involved in international missions are composed of ‘‘volun-
teers,’’ the professional or ‘‘all-volunteer forces’’ of the West should now prop-
erly be referred to as ‘‘recruited’’ forces, as is indeed the case in the United
Page Number: 36
Kingdom. Even though ‘‘leaner and meaner forces’’ are the dominant trend, the
military continues to face a range of social, cultural, and demographic difficul-
ties in recruiting enough people to meet its demands. This means that the mili-
tary cannot rely on a flow of volunteers but has to proactively recruit and to
design ever more imaginative attempts to attract people using a variety of finan-
cial and other incentives (including, for example, in the United States, forms of
fast-track citizenship for non-nationals, or, in the United Kingdom, the use of
Commonwealth citizens to fill the gap left by the recruiting effort within the
United Kingdom).
Police and military forces are becoming more focused on the increasingly
internationalized and cooperative attempts by states to control borders and deal
with internal security threats, whether these derive from terrorism, especially
those forms associated with internecine warfare, or other problems such as the
uncontrolled movement of population and drugs. These problems arise not just
at the level of the state and its relations with other states but at lower levels.
That is to say, states are not only concerned with state-on-state military threats
but also military and non-military risks and threats that flow from non-state
actors and transnational processes, which can undermine them at sub-state lev-
els. Force projection abroad (itself requiring military cooperation with police
and other agencies), therefore, takes place in a context where security threats
(and thinking about security) has broadened from military to non-military issues
as well as deepened from the level of the state to sub-state levels.45 Designing 45
effective interagency collaboration is a real challenge for military and other
organizations.
Meanwhile, especially in states with all-volunteer forces, the public becomes
more distant from its military even if, from time to time, it finds its armed ser-
vices presented to it in the media spotlight, sometimes concerning matters about
which the military and the civilian population can be proud (courage under fire,
bravery, and the award of medals), or otherwise where embarrassment or shame
is the order of the day (the abuse of prisoners or the lack of dignity with which
the dead are treated). For most civilians, though, the default response can be
‘‘this does not have much to do with me; they volunteered, and so they can pay
the price.’’ Thus, relationships between the military and the public are a para-
doxical mix of estrangement and more or less supportive engagement, and these
affect political and military elites in interesting ways.
One of these ways is the matter of casualty sensitivity. International mis-
sions, even if supported by an international legitimate authority such as the
United Nations, are less and less likely to have the charisma of national territo-
rial missions that entail dealing with a military threat from a contiguous state.
They are likely to suffer from a ‘‘fragility of legitimacy,’’ where public support
for the mission is likely to be increasingly sensitive to perceived lack of pro-
gress or success and the blood sacrifice that has to be paid in a context where
the end state and time frame for completion are unclear. Note, for example, that
while some commentators wonder if the mission in Afghanistan can last for
Page Number: 37
THE END OF WAR? 37
longer than a few years at most, others (including some within the military)
argue that it will take at least three decades to deliver an acceptable ‘‘con-
dition,’’ to use Smith’s concept. Contemporary ‘‘wars of choice’’ have, espe-
cially after the controversy over the rationale for the invasion of Iraq,
increasingly become what this author has referred to as ‘‘wars of contested
choice.’’46 For a while, a public attitude of ‘‘what has this to do with me?’’ can 46
keep casualties from being too sensitive a matter, but it would be imprudent to
rely on this when media dramatization of casualties can awaken public concern
to their meaning and cost. Events both in Iraq and Afghanistan reflect this de-
velopment, as does the attempt by some participating governments to ensure
their own formations bear as small a risk of death in combat as possible. The
current debate in NATO about burden sharing in Afghanistan illustrates this. So
while international politics might dictate the need for international missions
(including Peace Support Operations) to comprise contributions from a number
of different states, there will be tensions in terms of competence, doctrine, and
the attitude toward risk each country brings to a mission.
In conducting these missions, armed services do far more than apply or
threaten to apply lethal force. As we saw earlier, Smith argues they are there to
ameliorate, to contain, to deter and coerce, or to destroy. The strategic use of
force is exceptional as the military is asked to achieve political goals, and nor-
mally the most that can be expected is a condition in which an acceptable out-
come can be delivered by the political process. In doing so, the military
becomes engaged in a complex and interdependent political and military net-
work with its government as it seeks to deliver that ‘‘condition,’’ often in ways
that require the management of different missions (for example, counterinsur-
gency and reconstruction in different or even the same areas of the theater). At
the same time, tensions between coalition participants need to be mitigated
while relations with non-military actors also need to be managed. Throughout
these missions, further issues can dog military personnel: the need to manage
‘‘timeless missions’’ and deal with the scrutiny of success and when a mission
can be considered as over; the need to be a good ‘‘actor’’ and to manage the
‘‘narrative,’’ and thus to establish the political message of what the mission is
or is not achieving; dealing with the issues that can arise from the role of the
‘‘strategic corporal’’ as the levels of war become decompressed, and letting
mission command flourish or limiting it when the political and the media con-
text of ‘‘global surveillance’’ indicate it would be prudent to do so.47 47
It is not surprising that, given the above discussion, tensions can arise
between soldiers and governments. A good example was the case of the profes-
sional head of the British Army, the Chief of General Staff (CGS), General Sir
Richard Dannatt’s controversial remarks in mid-October 2006 concerning the
mission in Iraq, its relationship with operations in Afghanistan, and the implica-
tions for U.K. security and social cohesion.48 Similar rumblings occurred in the 48
United States with regard to questions such as the size of the force allocated to
the invasion and, subsequently, the appropriate strategy for counterinsurgency
Page Number: 38
and reconstruction, which led to the recent ‘‘surge’’ of military forces to pro-
vide a more robust security framework for a political settlement amongst the
factions within Iraq.
Committing one’s armed forces to an engagement in ‘‘war amongst the peo-
ple’’ is fraught with difficulties ranging from support for the engagement from
the wider public at home to establishing the objectives of that engagement.
These difficulties, associated with ‘‘wars of contested choice,’’ will necessarily
lead the military profession to occupy the roles of soldier scholar and soldier
statesman and to become more politically active and influential. Recent devel-
opments confirm an observation made some years ago by Bernard Boene: wars
amongst the people must involve the officer corps of intervening states of the
West in a more assertive military profession.49 49
Page Number: 39
From Conscription-Based Defense to Volunteer-

Based Constabulary Forces: European Defense
Integration and Mission Change as Driving Factors
for the End of Conscription in Europe
Karl W. Haltiner & Tibor Szvircsev Tresch
THE CHANGING FACE OF THE EUROPEAN MILITARIES
On 10 February 1996, The Economist predicted the end of conscription in

Europe. From the end of the Cold War until the middle of the nineties, Belgium
and the Netherlands had begun suspending conscription, and it seemed obvious
that other states would follow this trend in the years to come. Since 1996, when
The Economist made its prognosis, until 2007, another thirteen European con-
script-based armed forces have followed suit, phasing out the citizen soldier
system. Additionally, three countries will soon switch to all-volunteer forces
(Bulgaria 2008, Croatia 2008/09, Poland 2010), and those who still stick to it
are significantly reducing the share of conscripts in their armed forces.
The primary causes of this process undoubtedly are the end of the Cold War,
the demise of the Soviet Union on 26 December 1991 and, therefore, the end of
the territorial threat in the West-East conflict.1 The end of bipolarity brought to- 1
gether European nations in the East and the West and allowed them to intensify
their cooperation in security, military, and armament policies within the Euro-
pean Union and NATO. The risk of interstate wars in Western, Central, and
Eastern Europe has been reduced to practically zero. Under increasing domestic
pressure to reduce defense spending, conscription-based mass armies have been
scaled down and fewer conscripts have been called in.
The wars in the Balkans and the military involvement of the Europeans,
however, have reduced the euphoria in the military. For the first time since their
founding, NATO and finally the European Union had to prove reliable in a war
and militarily-based conflict resolutions. It was easily overlooked that the
Page Number: 40
stabilization efforts brought about mainly by the challenges of the war in the
Balkans have initiated a process of inner-European military cooperation and of
mission and structure change, both of which act in favor of the abolishment of
conscription. The growing demand for crisis management operations has radi-
cally transformed Europe’s security environment. Today it is not the defense of
national territory, but the stabilization of crisis regions at the periphery, often
far from Europe, that dominates the spectrum of military tasks.
THESIS
This ongoing transformation process can be described, in Morris Janowitz’s

terms, as one of increasing constabularization of the European militaries.2 The 2
national defense forces formerly organized as mass armies are currently being
transformed into international constabulary or expeditionary forces manned by
volunteers all over Europe. This mission and structural change process has been
given further momentum by the involvement of the armed forces in the war on
terror and by the need for domestic security. Our thesis is that enhanced formal
and informal European security integration, as well as the challenge of new
missions out of the national area, are speeding up the phasing out of conscrip-
tion. As a personnel recruiting system, conscription is unsuitable for armed
forces of the constabulary type. There are three main reasons, at different lev-
els, for this:
1. The strategic level. Out-of-area constabulary military missions are generally

carried out on a multinational basis (i.e., within operational units comprising
different nationalities). Operations of this kind require a minimum common se-
curity and mission doctrine as well as a high degree of interoperability, stand-
ardization, and professionalization of the participating nations, not only at
headquarters level, but at all levels of operation. The case can be made that to
the extent to which Europeans complement their political and socio-economi-
cal integration with military integration, the probability rises that conscription
will disappear in Europe.
2. The operational level. The new kinds of threats (terrorism) and military mis-
sions of the constabulary type (peace support missions, police assistance for
homeland security) require a much higher degree of stand-by readiness,
deployability, and sustainability over time than was the case during the Cold
War within the framework of mass armies. Compulsory citizen soldiers are not
well suited for the new missions entailing longstanding operations beyond
national borders. Longer-serving volunteers are needed. Therefore, the
assumption can be made that to the extent to which a country engages in inter-
national out-of-area stabilizing missions, the possibility of its conscription ra-
tio dropping and conscription being suspended eventually will rise.
3. The individual level. European countries cannot compel their conscripts to par-
ticipate in out-of-area missions. In the eyes of the public, conscripted citizens
are classic defenders of their nation or allied territories. The national
Page Number: 41
FROM CONSCRIPTION-BASED DEFENSE TO VOLUNTEER-BASED CONSTABULARY FORCES 41
populations of today’s Europe would not accept or even tolerate the compul-
sory use of their daughters and sons for purposes other than the defense of
their own countries or allied territories. It follows that the operational capabil-
ity of a country’s armed forces to participate in out-of-area peace missions
depends solely on the number of available volunteers. The more extensively a
nation is engaged in international stabilizing operations, the higher the proba-
bility that the conscript defense forces will be given up in favor of recruiting
of volunteers for the armed forces.
The trend towards a deepening of European military integration in the

framework of NATO and the European Union linked to the rise in the number
of multinational operations and the trend towards the constabularization of
forces must therefore be seen as two important interlinked driving factors in the
phasing-out of conscription. In order to support the thesis, the extent and speed
of the decline of conscription in Europe will first be specified. Second, the wave
of transformation that the armed forces are currently undergoing, moving them
away from mass armies towards forces of the constabulary type, will be out-
lined in the context of mission change. Third, the thesis will be empirically
tested on the basis of data from the annually published Military Balance of the
International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS).3 3
METHODOLOGY
The annually published Military Balance of the IISS, from which newly defined
indicators have been calculated, serves as a database for analyzing the All Eu-
ropean trend. The facts and figures in the publications from 1975 to 2007 have
been used for this study. For methodological reasons, not all European armed
forces are included in the following explanations and calculations. The database
in the Military Balance does not seem to be sufficient for all years, especially
in the case of the former USSR states and the new Balkan states. The following
states are completely excluded from the empirical calculations in the next chap-
ters because of lack of appropriate data: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bosnia
and Herzegovina, Georgia, Macedonia, Moldavia, Montenegro, Russia, Serbia,
and the Ukraine. Additionally, because the aim of this article is to illustrate
how the increase in international peace missions has acted in favor of the phas-
ing out of conscription, we have left out the United Kingdom, Ireland, Luxem-
bourg, and Malta. The armed forces of these countries are traditionally
volunteer-based. With the above states excluded, our working sample includes
twenty-seven European countries.4 4
We will base our analysis on two main indicators. The conscript ratio (CR) is
defined as the percentage of conscripts relative to the total strength of the active
armed forces. The second indicator, the out-of-area ratio (OoAR), is defined as
the share of troops deployed outside the country in relation to the total active
Page Number: 42
forces of a country. Troops deployed in other NATO/EU member countries are

not considered as out-of-area and are therefore not included in the OoAR (e.g.,
foreign troops in Germany or standing multinational forces like the EUROFOR
in Florence). A third indicator not derived from Military Balance is the extent of
socio-political and military integration in Europe. It takes into consideration the
number of memberships in political and military organizations. We have limited
it to three institutional bodies: militarily, NATO and WEU (Western European
Union); politically, the European Union.5 5
THE ONGOING DECLINE OF CONSCRIPTION IN EUROPE
During the Cold War, active and reserve soldiers in the European conscript
armies totaled about 12 million. Since 1991, this figure has dropped by 50%, as
the post-communist states have downsized their forces by almost two thirds.
Western Europe has dropped by 40% (Figure 2.1). The downsizing was gener-
ally handled in such a manner that mainly compulsory personnel were reduced,
and contract soldiers were not affected. In this way, the social character of all
European armies began to change. Large mass armies defined by conscripts
turned into lean professional military organizations dominated by volunteers.
In 1990, with the end of the Cold War, continental Europe from the Atlantic
to the Urals was a homogenous conscription region (Table 2.1). With the
14000000
12000000
10000000
8000000
6000000
4000000
2000000
0
1975
1977
1978
1979
1980
1981
1982
1983
1984
1985
1986
1987
1988
1989
1990
1991
1992
1993
1994
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
FIGURE 2.1. Manning levels in European conscript armies 1975–2006. Countries as fol-
lows: Albania, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece,
Hungary, Italy, The Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Sweden,
Switzerland, and Turkey.
Source: International Institute for Strategic Studies 1975–2007.
Page Number: 43
TABLE 2.1. Manning systems in Europe 1990 (twenty-seven European countries with
conscription or all volunteer forces)
Conscription All volunteer forces
On regular basis Great Britain, Ireland, Luxembourg,

Germany, Norway, Yugoslavia, and Malta
Turkey, Albania, Cyprus, Belgium,
France, Italy, Netherlands,
Portugal, Spain, Hungary,
Czechoslovakia, Romania,
Denmark, Greece, Bulgaria,
and Poland
With militia composition
Finland, Austria, and Sweden
Militia system
Switzerland
exception of Great Britain and Luxembourg, the forces of all European NATO-
states, as well as all members of the Warsaw Pact and almost all of the neutrals
(exception: Ireland and Malta), were large mass armies based on conscription.6 6
By 2007, just two decades later, the situation had changed significantly (Ta-
ble 2.2). In a first phase, shortly after the collapse of the Soviet Union, coun-
tries in Western Europe such as Belgium and the Netherlands decided to end
conscription.7 In May 1996, President Chirac announced the phasing out of 7
conscription in France. France was followed by Spain, which suspended con-
scription under the conservative government of Aznar, as well as by Portugal
and Italy.8 8
In a second phase, towards the end of the twentieth century, the first post-
communist countries such as Hungary, the Czech Republic, and Slovenia
decided to abolish their mostly unpopular conscription system in the near
future.9 This process accelerated with the access of other East European Coun- 9
tries to NATO or to the Partnership for Peace framework. Romania, Bulgaria,
Latvia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Slovakia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina will
have transformed their conscript systems into volunteer forces by the end of
this decade. Also, Bulgaria, Croatia, and Poland have decided to suspend their
conscript system soon. In Greece, Ukraine, and Sweden it is just a matter of
time before the government decides to make the same move. Originally, Russia
had intended to do so as well but has meanwhile postponed the step. In 2006,
Denmark decided to call up conscripts on a mandatory basis only in the event
that the Danish forces do not find enough volunteer conscripts and enlisted per-
sonnel on the labor market.
To sum up, fifteen European countries have to date abolished conscription,
and in seven countries the decision has been made or will be made soon. In the
remaining seventeen countries a public debate on whether to maintain or
Page Number: 44
TABLE 2.2. The decline of conscription in Europe 2007 (forty-three European coun-
tries with conscription or all-volunteer forces)
Conscription in
transition or
Conscription planned to change All volunteer forces
On regular basis Bulgaria (1 January Belgium, France, Great
Germany, Estonia, Lithuania, 2008), Croatia Britain, Ireland, Italy,
Norway, Serbia, Turkey, (2008/09), Netherlands, Portugal,
Russia, Albania, Moldavia, Poland (2010) Slovenia, Spain,
Belarus, Cyprus, Azerbaijan, Denmark, Ukraine, Hungary, Latvia,
Armenia, and Georgia Greece, and Sweden Slovakia, Czech
With militia composition Republic, Romania,
Finland and Austria Bosnia and Herzegovina,
Macedonia, Montenegro,
Militia system
Malta, and Luxembourg
Switzerland
abandon conscription has been initiated, often led by political parties that are
members of a coalition government (Austria, Switzerland)
It is interesting to note that among those nations in which conscription is not
yet in question, we mainly find countries that still have territorial disputes with
their neighbors, such as Turkey, Serbia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Moldavia, and
Cyprus, or a country like Finland which neighbors on the biggest land power in
Europe, with whom it has not had very good experiences in the past. This fact
clearly emphasizes the traditional function of the draft as a national military
concept for national defense.
The diminishing significance of conscription is best illustrated by the devel-
opment of CRs. Since 1990, the average proportion of conscripts has come
down from more than 60% during the Cold War to 26% in the average Euro-
pean force in 2006. However, the average figures conceal a significant degree
of variety among the European forces. This becomes evident when analyzing
the changing CRs in specific countries (Figure 2.2).10 The small bars in the fig- 10
ure indicate the average CRs per country during a period of the Cold War
(1975–1989) on the one hand and the situation in 2006 on the other.
All in all, it becomes evident that since 1989, with few exceptions, almost
all European states have markedly reduced the number of citizen-soldiers. Low-
ering the CR is often the first step to abandoning it completely. On the other
hand, phasing out conscription obviously does not necessarily mean abolishing
it altogether.
Page Number: 45
100%
Mean 1975-1989
Conscript Ratio 2006
67%
33%
0%
Belgium
Netherlands
Spain
France
Portugal
Italy
Hungary
Denmark
Germany
Romania
Bulgaria
Poland
Sweden
Norway
Austria
Finland
Greece
Turkey
Switzerland
FIGURE 2.2. Conscript ratios of nineteen countries. Average 1975–1989 in
comparison to 2006 (without Albania).
REDUCING MILITARY CAPACITIES OR REDIRECTING TOWARDS NEW MISSIONS?

EUROPE’S REFORM WAVES
In almost all European countries, multiple stages of military reform have fol-
lowed one another in waves since the Cold War. A first significant indicator of
the impact of new missions on the phasing out of conscription can be obtained
by analyzing the chronology of reform steps taken with the escalation of the war
in the Balkans and the intensified international interventions by the Europeans.11 11
The Downsizing Wave, 1990 to 1995

The first wave of reform, lasting from 1990 to about 1995, can be described as
a rapid, predominantly cost-motivated downsizing of the armed forces in most
European countries. As a rule, this wave of reform lacked strategic vision and
was devoid of serious questioning of the mass-army principle as such. Military
service durations were shortened, heavy ground-war material sold or disposed
of, barracks closed, and military locations abandoned. The primary goal was to
reduce cost through cutbacks in personnel, weapons, and equipment. The peace
dividend was being collected, and national defense became a secondary task.
Only one country, Belgium, ventured a radical breach with the past by suspend-
ing conscription as early as 1992. Thus, without excessive simplification, this
first phase can be termed the downsizing wave.
Page Number: 46
The Wave of Peace-Intervention-Driven Professionalization, 1995 to 2001

The second wave of military reform started in the mid-nineties and is still going
on in some European countries. It was partly provoked and partly accelerated
by the peace interventions in the Balkans (United Nations Protection Force
[UNPROFOR], Implementation Force [IFOR]/ Stabilization Force [SFOR]). It
manifested itself in rapidly increasing international cooperation in military
affairs as well as in the conceptual and strategic transformation of the military
apparatuses to face an expanded spectrum of tasks. With the end of the bipolar
threat, the national defense strategies of the NATO member states lost signifi-
cance and priority was given to the new crisis and the Alliance’s peacekeeping-
oriented strategy. Within the framework of the NATO Partnership for Peace
(PfP) platform established in 1994, international cooperation began to extend
increasingly beyond the borders of the Alliance. NATO’s leadership rhythm
and terminology were widely spread during this period, with English becoming
the language of leadership in most European armies, including even those that
do not belong to NATO. As a consequence of its hegemonic position, for many
non-NATO countries, the Alliance developed into an example of the realign-
ment of strategy and structure of armed forces during the second wave of
reform. This is not only true of the post-communist countries of Eastern and
Central Europe, but also of neutral countries such as Austria and Switzerland,
whose distance from the Alliance visibly diminished in the mid-nineties.
The European Union security policy cooperation, driven by the Maastricht
Treaty of 1992, which aimed for a common security and defense policy, inten-
sified markedly during this period.12 All over Europe, large multinational, mili- 12
tary-brigade-sized units sprang out of the ground like mushrooms (for example,
the German-French Brigade, Eurocorps in Strasbourg, European Union Force
[EUROFOR], Multinational Land Force, Multinational Corps North-East, Euro-
pean Battle Groups). A common defense planning and procurement procedure
was established.
The Third Wave: Consolidating the Strategic Change since 2001

A third reform wave can be dated to the beginning of the new millennium or,
depending on the country in question, to reactions to the events of 9/11. The
terrorist attacks in the United States on 11 September 2001 and the conflicts
that followed in Afghanistan and Iraq can be seen as a multiplier of this reform
wave. The military focus of most European nations is now clearly on missions
abroad in a multinational context. The former primary task of national defense
is being relegated to a secondary position, whereas former secondary functions
(police tasks and subsidiary and rescue services) are given the rank of primary
tasks. This prioritization becomes manifest when we look at the list of military
tasks in official documents.13 13
Page Number: 47
The military reforms of the third wave aim at rendering forces more flexible
with regard to organizational preparedness and deployability in order to make
them able to fulfill a large spectrum of missions abroad and at home. This, in
turn, demands a higher and transnationally standardized technological standard
in weapon systems, equipment, and transport capabilities. At the same time, the
emergence of a transnational military role is promoted within the European
state system, in which single countries develop specific competences that can
be called on in joint operations to meet specific needs.14 14
The intensification of international cooperation continues in the third phase
either in the framework of NATO or the European Union. It culminated in the
International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) Operation in Afghanistan and
the European Union’s decision in Helsinki 1999 to set up thirteen Battle Groups
by 2010, giving the European Union a military core for its common foreign and
security policy (ESDP).15 However, these beginnings of a central European
coordination of the national armed forces policies are still modest, a fact that has
not been changed by the takeover of the WEU by the European Union or by the
desire of four out of ten Europeans for a joint European defense policy.16 16
Further important impetuses for the third reform wave stem from the need to
make use of regular armed forces not only in the international war on terror but
also for the handling of domestic security issues in the aftermath of 9/11. A
close examination reveals that one can speak of a constabularization of the
military not only on an international but also on a national level.
As a consequence of the developments described, conscription is degenerat-
ing more and more into a second-rate reserve pool or is losing its function alto-
gether. Conscription, where it is upheld, serves national tradition rather than
military efficiency.17 The third wave of reform concludes what had been started 17
half-heartedly in the second wave. First, professionalism is becoming the rule
in Europe, and military service based on conscription the exception. Second,
European forces are used to an increasing extent for constabulary tasks, be they
peace or stabilization operations out of the national territory or police support
missions of all kinds at home.
THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE OOAR OF THE EUROPEAN ARMED FORCES
How much this change of objectives mirrors the real situation concerning Euro-
pean forces’ operations, particularly their engagement abroad, is demonstrated
by a comparison of OoARs of European forces between 1995 and 2006. One
has to keep in mind that the proportion of logistic personnel expenses and
reserves for replacement ranges from 1:4 to 1:6 if one compares troops at home
bound for missions in a foreign region with those currently deployed. Thus, an
OoAR of 3% indicates that up to 18%, almost a fifth of a country’s armed
forces, are directly or indirectly involved in military engagements abroad.
Page Number: 48
Figure 2.3 lists the OoARs of 27 European armed forces for 1995 and 2006,
respectively, arranged from left to right in decreasing magnitude.18 The follow- 18
ing becomes evident:
. With the exception of Norway, all European states have increased the number of
troops based abroad during the last decade. In most cases the increase is signifi-
cant, as Figure 2.3 indicates. In absolute numbers, in 1995, according to Military
Balance, 22,823 military personnel from these twenty-seven European countries
were sent on missions abroad. In 2006, a remarkable increase took place (47,065
persons); thus, the figure has more than doubled.
. In 1995, Norway, Denmark, and The Netherlands sent a significant number of sol-
diers in missions abroad (OoAR 3%) in relation to the strength of their armed
forces. In keeping with their military tradition, these countries have always been
classic peacekeeping countries and also participated during the Cold War. In 2006,
the situation changed dramatically. Countries that are very involved in interna-
tional crisis management at this time are Denmark, Estonia, Slovenia, The
7%
OoAR 1995
OoAR 2006
6%
5%
4%
3%
2%
1%
0%
DNK
EST
SVN
NLD
SVK
DEU
SWE
ITA
CZE
POL
LVA
AUT
NOR
BEL
FIN
ESP
ROU
HUN
FRA
ALB
LTU
PRT
GRC
BGR
HRV
TUR
CHE
FIGURE 2.3. The growth of the out-of-area ratio (OoAR) of twenty-seven

European countries (1995–2006). NATO abbreviations for countries as fol-
lows: ALB, Albania; AUT, Austria; BEL, Belgium; BGR, Bulgaria; HRV,
Croatia; CZE, Czech Republic; DNK, Denmark; EST, Estonia; FIN, Finland;
FRA, France; DEU, Germany; GRC, Greece; HUN, Hungary; ITA, Italy;
LVA, Latvia; LTU, Lithuania; NLD, The Netherlands; NOR, Norway; POL,
Poland; PRT, Portugal; ROU, Romania; SVK, Slovakia; SVN, Slovenia; ESP,
Spain; SWE, Sweden; CHE, Switzerland; TUR, Turkey.
Page Number: 49
Netherlands, Slovakia, Germany, Sweden, Italy, Czech Republic, Poland, Latvia,

and Austria (OoAR 3%). But Norway, Belgium, and Finland also have large
numbers of forces abroad in relation to the strength of their armed forces. In this
group we find all-volunteer forces as well as conscript-based armed forces. But, as
Figure 2.4 indicates, the conscript armies have a low CR.
. The lowest OoARs are found in states with conscription. An OoAR lower than 2%
is found in Lithuania, Portugal, Greece, Bulgaria, Croatia, Turkey, and Switzer-
land. Apart from Portugal, most of these countries still maintain draft-based mass
armies, their CR being high in comparison to other armed forces that have abol-
ished conscription. The burden of the relatively small foreign engagement is gener-
ally carried by a small professional core of these armed forces, complemented
with volunteers recruited on a temporary basis, often conscripts, who volunteer for
longer service abroad.
Figure 2.3 documents the massive increase in personnel in constabulary

operations conducted by Europeans since the mid-nineties, and it also supports
the assumption that there is a connection between out-of-area ratio and the
maintaining of conscription.
EUROPEAN POLITICAL AND DEFENSE INTEGRATION AND OUT-OF-AREA MISSIONS

AS DRIVING FACTORS FOR PHASING OUT CONSCRIPTION
It can be empirically documented that the trend towards European defense inte-
gration and the development towards the conduct of constabulary missions by
armed forces have to be seen as important causes for the termination of con-
scription in Europe.
First, according to our initial thesis, the increase in European cooperation on
political, social, and security policy levels implies the inclination of the cooper-
ating countries to engage increasingly in international stabilization missions. As
Table 2.3 shows, there is a clear relationship between the degree of integration
into supra- and international networks and the OoAR of a country’s armed
forces.19 This means that, if a country is a member of NATO and integrated 19
into the European Union network, there will be a higher probability that it will
be involved in international military missions of the constabulary type than a
country which by 2006 has only partial membership or none at all of NATO
and/or the European Union.
Second, we argued that with the increase of a country’s foreign military
engagements, the willingness to maintain conscription will diminish. If the CR
of 27 European countries is correlated with their OoAR we find a significant
negative correlation (R = 0.48; Figure 2.4). The direct finding is obvious and
supports our thesis that the more a country’s armed forces are engaging in out
of area-missions, the more likely it will be that conscription is phased out or
abolished completely.
Page Number: 50
TABLE 2.3. The extent of sociopolitical and military integration in Europe (number
of memberships) and the OoAR of a country’s armed forces (%)
Memberships
OoAR 0 1 2 3
0–1 Switzerland Croatia
Turkey
1–2 Lithuania Portugal
Bulgaria Greece
2–3 Albania Norway Belgium
Finland Romania France
Hungary
3–4 Austria Latvia Czech Republic
Sweden Germany
Italy
Poland
4 or more Denmark Netherlands
Estonia
Slovakia
Slovenia
7% R= -0.48
DNK
6%
EST
5% SVN
NLD
4% SVK DEU
ITA POL
CZE
AUT
3% SWE
BEL LVA FIN
NOR
ESP
2% HUN ROU
FRA LTU ALB
PRT
1% BGR GRC
HRV CHE
TUR
0%
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
FIGURE 2.4. The conscription ratio (%) by the out-of-area ratio (%) of twenty-
seven European countries. NATO country abbreviations defined in Figure 2.3
caption.
Page Number: 51
TABLE 2.4. Conscription and international integration, 2006 (27 Countries)
Memberships
System 0 1 2 3
Conscription Albania Austria Bulgaria Germany
armies Switzerland Croatia Denmark Greece
Finland Estonia Poland
Sweden Latvia
Turkey Lithuania
Norway
Romania
All-volunteer Slovakia Belgium
forces
Slovenia Czech Republic
France
Hungary
Italy
Netherlands
Portugal
Spain
Indirectly, this means that the more extensively a country is integrated into a
European network of political and security political alliances, as well as supra-
national coalitions, the more likely it is to cooperate more closely on a military
level and in missions of a constabulary type as well. The conscription ratio will
thus drop until it is finally abolished.20 Countries joining security policy net- 20
works no longer see their home territory in danger and believe, therefore, that
they can do without conscription. It is no accident, and fits into the picture as
outlined, that it is primarily the neutral countries that are having a hard time
giving up their citizen forces (Switzerland, Albania, Austria, Finland, Sweden).
Table 2.4 supports this conclusion by showing a remarkably strong connection
between a European country’s recruiting system and the extent to which it is
integrated into the NATO and European Union networks.
CONCLUSION
Europe’s conscription-based armed forces have been rendered obsolete not only
by the end of the Cold War, which necessitated mass armies, but also by other
factors. On the one hand, the ongoing process of European political and secu-
rity integration into the framework of the European Union and NATO has
Page Number: 52
eliminated the threat of interstate wars of the traditional type on European soil.
On the other hand, the trend towards a common security and military policy
accelerated by multinational interventions, mainly in the Balkans and in Af-
ghanistan, has fuelled the process of constabularization of European forces.
These two developments must be seen as important agents speeding up the
phasing out of citizen armies in Europe.
Europe’s citizen-soldiers were formally and traditionally considered ideal
defenders of their national territory; they are, however, not considered suited to
the new kind of multinational military missions abroad. No European people
would be ready to legitimize the compulsory employment of young conscripts
in missions out of national or alliance territory, nor would they be ready to tol-
erate casualties among such personnel in out-of-area missions. The tradition of
conscription is symbolically linked with national defense and with guaranteeing
national existence. The new tasks of a constabulary nature in an international
context are radically different. First, they are devoid of the character of guaran-
teeing national existence, and second, they require a much higher degree of
stand-by capability and more sustainability than traditional citizen armies with
their part-time soldiers can provide.
The consequences are obvious. To the extent to which military organizations
in Europe are used for purposes other than interstate war, conscription is prov-
ing obsolete and is being abolished in a growing number of European states.
The military future belongs, as in the United States, the United Kingdom, and
Canada, to small forces-in-being. These forces are becoming more and more
interwoven on the European level, be it within NATO or within a slowly form-
ing alliance of European forces that is manifest in several multinational corps
and is beginning to emerge in the framework of the planned European battle
groups.
Page Number: 53
Peace Support Operations and the ‘‘Strategic

Corporal’’: Implications for Military
Organization and Culture
Eitan Shamir
INTRODUCTION
On the 9 May 2007, near the Palestinian village of Dharia, a small group of
reserve soldiers led by their captain were captured on camera severely beating
a group of Israeli demonstrators.1 These young Jewish Israeli demonstrators, 1
which the media described as ‘‘anarchists,’’ (referring not only to their behavior
but also to their stated ideology), were trying to remove by force an army road
block near the Palestinian village in a show of support to the Palestinian cause.
In response to the demonstrator’s provocations, the small detachment of sol-
diers, who found themselves outnumbered and attacked, acted aggressively and
beat some of the demonstrators. The incident was immediately publicized by
all the main Israeli news channels and caused the Israel Defense Forces (IDF)
and the Defense Minister to swiftly condemn the behavior of the soldiers as
unnecessary and out of line.
Regardless of the fact that the IDF soldiers were not part of a peace support
operation (PSO), the basic dilemmas they faced are typical and rather universal
ones faced by soldiers that are part of any PSO. The incident serves to highlight
some of the unique and specific challenges that soldiers in PSOs are facing.
According to British doctrine, PSOs are defined as an operation that impar-
tially makes use of diplomatic, civil, and military means, normally in pursuit of
U.N. Charter purposes and principles, to restore or maintain peace. Such an
operation may include conflict prevention, peacemaking, peace enforcement,
peacekeeping, peace-building, and/or humanitarian operations. In addition, the
doctrine suggests that the use of force ‘‘should be balanced so as to enforce the
mandate without detriment to Campaign Authority.’’2 The British doctrine also 2
warns that the way in which military force is applied and the means used can
Page Number: 54
‘‘promote or prejudice other immediate and stabilizing activities.’’3 A typical 3

PSO will usually consist of a ‘‘complex of actors,’’ representatives from the
international community working alongside representative of the indigenous
population. Without the active cooperation and consent of the indigenous popu-
lation, there can be no self-sustaining peace.4 A condition for success is thus 4
the legitimacy obtained by the military forces that operate under a PSO man-
date.5 In achieving this legitimacy, the use of force should be ‘‘credible and 5
used in a manner that is reasonable to achieve the mandated outcome or desired
effect. The action should be proportional and discriminatory such that it is con-
fined in effect to the intended target.’’6 In addition, the military forces should 6
‘‘respect the laws and customs of the host nation and must be seen to have a
respectful regard for local religious and secular beliefs.’’7 7
In essence, these requirements demand that soldiers, whose daily work is to
maintain a delicate balance with suspicious and sometimes hostile host popula-
tions, exercise diplomatic skills. Further, these skills are demanded despite the
fact that most soldiers are trained to fight and win conventional wars.8 In their 8
decision to use force, soldiers can determine the outcome of a peace operation.
A simple incident at a road block can have far-reaching strategic implications.
This chapter explores this phenomenon while arguing that conventional military
approaches to dealing with the issue are not very effective. Following this anal-
ysis, some possible directions will be suggested for reducing the damage this
phenomenon causes.
THE RISE OF THE ‘‘STRATEGIC CORPORAL’’
The term ‘‘strategic corporal’’ was coined in 1999 by General Charles C. Kru-
lak from the U.S. Marines in an article he published in the U.S. Marines Corps
Journal.9 According to Krulak, modern militaries are facing what he called 9
‘‘the three block war,’’ which suggests that military intervention will include all
the following three aspects simultaneously: combat operations, humanitarian
aid, and peacekeeping. The combination inevitably puts military personnel in
very complicated and difficult situations, which often do not have a clear solu-
tion. At the same time, mistakes in these situations may be very costly. In these
situations the actions and split-second decisions of often very low-ranking
commanders can have a direct impact on not only on their immediate surround-
ings, but on the overall success of the entire mission or even the stability of the
whole region.
The quotation explains how the British Support Operations Doctrine
explains the challenge most modern militaries face today:
In PSOs, actions taken at the lowest tactical level may need to be especially respon-
sive to strategic decision making, with the tactical outcomes having immediate strate-
gic significance. For example, the comments and actions of a corporal may prompt
Page Number: 55
PEACE SUPPORT OPERATIONS AND THE ‘‘STRATEGIC CORPORAL’’ 55
ministerial statements as a result of media reporting. This may lead to political and
military leaders at the strategic level wishing directly to influence the lowest tactical
actions, missing out the intermediate operational and higher tactical levels of
command.10 10
In addition to explaining the phenomena, the above quotation also gives a

warning to commanders that, in contrast to regular battle situations, where
numerous events happen in parallel and force the delegation of command to
lower ranks, in PSOs they might actually have the time to directly intervene
with low-level tactical decisions in order to prevent what they perceive as a
strategic risk. This could be an event where a soldier might incorrectly assess a
situation and use excessive force, an action that can put the entire mission as
well as the commander’s career on the line. The doctrine clearly recommends
against the commander’s intervention with low-level decisions, although it does
not suggest to commanders how to otherwise minimize the risk from a strategic
mistake committed by an innocent corporal in the field who is only trying to do
his job.
THE ‘‘STRATEGIC CORPORAL’’ IN CONVENTIONAL WAR VERSUS PSOs
In order to explore the meaning of ‘‘strategic’’ in this context, it will be argued

in the following pages that in the conventional battlefield, the initiative of non-
commissioned officers (NCOs) and junior officers has the potential, at the right
place and time, to become what the Prussians and Germans referred to as schewer-
ponkt, the center of gravity. Such opportunities lead to swift and decisive results,
not only at the tactical but also at the strategic level.11 These were clear cases of 11
winning or losing, and the ability of one side’s junior commanders to exercise
initiative and understand the larger context gave that side a decisive edge.
This point will be illustrated in two famous cases of strategic initiative by
junior level commanders. These cases demonstrate the decisive importance of
junior commanders’ tactical actions, using independent decision-making and
initiative, on the general strategic outcome. The first case is the capture of Fort
Eban-Emael in Belgium during the 1940 German invasion of France. The fall
of Fort Eban-Emael signified a strategic achievement and opened the way for
the advancing German forces. The formidable fort fell primarily due to the ini-
tiative of German First Lieutenant Rudolf Witzig and his non-commissioned of-
ficer (NCO), who overcame a complicated situation and a numerically superior
enemy.12 12
The second example is that of a commander of an IDF company-size reserve
reconnaissance unit, who in the 1973 War spotted a gap between the two Egyp-
tian armies deployed east of the Suez Canal. Although a perfect opportunity
presented itself to surprise the Egyptians and destroy several enemy artillery
batteries, the commander understood that the gap represented something much
Page Number: 56
more important and, if discovered, the Egyptian army would immediately close
it. He chose instead to retreat quietly and reported his findings to his division
commander, who was looking for alternative ways to cross the Canal. A few
days later, the IDF exploited the same gap to cross the Suez Canal and encircle
the entire Third Egyptian Army.13 13
In contrast to these examples, PSOs rarely present opportunities for quick re-
solution, and, therefore, the mistakes of junior commanders are more likely to
worsen the existing situation. In PSOs, low-level initiative can rarely lead to
strategic resolution. However, such initiative is still ‘‘strategic’’ because actions
at the tactical level can have impacts far beyond the immediate tactical level,
often in a kinetic effect through the media and public opinion. To conclude,
then, acting wrongly on the tactical level might occupy the full attention and
energy not only of the higher military operational and strategic level, but also
the national security level, beyond the military echelons. These events are often
dealt with directly by ministers, political leaders, international organizations,
and even the courts. Unfortunately, the uninhibited behavior of resistance
fighters and terrorists, including the manipulation of women and children as
combatants, often places the corporal on the ground in the face of real life and
death situations, forcing split-second decisions with impacts on fate of the mis-
sion. The corporal is left in a catch 22, ‘‘damned if he does and damned if he
does not.’’
Uri Bar Lev, a former senior commander in an elite counterterrorism unit in
the IDF, provides an illustrative example. He describes an event whereby he
received information on a potential plot to drive a car full of explosives into a
packed synagogue. When Bar Lev spotted a car that fit the description of the
suspect car, he immediately and intentionally collided with it. The collision
injured passengers in both cars, but the attack was averted and the terrorists
were captured. When then Prime Minister Rabin came to visit the unit to praise
them for their courage, Bar Lev asked him what would have happened had he
made a mistake in identification and collided with an innocent car, injuring
innocent civilians. Rabin, in his famous frankness, told him that had he failed,
he would have found himself alone.14 14
In a different event, Bar Lev describes having to give an order to shoot at a
suspect car. When he approached the car after the shooting, he found four dead
terrorists, but he could not avoid thinking what would have happened had the
dead been four innocent people, possibly a family with young children. ‘‘That’s
our reality,’’ he says, ‘‘when we have a success, it is a bottle of champagne with
compliments from higher echelons. When it is a failure, you are left to your
own devices to face the harsh reality.’’15 15
A very similar sentiment is expressed by IDF officer Moshe (Chico) Tamir,
a veteran of many years of fighting the Hezbollah in Lebanon, starting as a pla-
toon commander and eventually reaching the rank of brigade commander.
When he reflects on his long experience as a soldier and commander in his
autobiography, he says:
Page Number: 57
Litigation and trials of field commanders and the lack of backing from the chain of
command have had an impact on operational effectiveness. Commanders understood
that they will not receive any backing … consequently they prefer to avoid any initi-
ative and repress the offensive tendencies of their units to avoid failures.16 16
But what is the view of senior commanders in these situations? What makes
them so fearful of mistakes? General Rupert Smith helps us understand the
view from the senior commander’s perspective. Smith uses a powerful meta-
phor to explain the problematic situations he found himself in as a senior com-
mander in Bosnia and Northern Ireland. He speaks about a Roman circus where
the commander fights the enemy while everyone watches. His role is not only
to fight but to be the circus producer:
In these situations, instead of only you and a gang of gladiators, there is at least one
other producer and another gang of gladiators. … Here the commander is actually
writing and playing a story at the same time. His job is to produce the most compel-
ling narrative and act it out, and every act he does is an act of sending information
and causes an effect. The currency in these types of operations is not who has more
effective firepower, but who has more effective information, the type that will enable
him to separate the enemy from the rest of the crowd.17 17
One of the problems of writing a convincing script is that junior actors, or

worse, a mere extra, can spoil it. A classic example is the case of the Italian
journalist Giuliana Sgrena. In February 2005, she was kidnapped in Iraq and
thereafter was held for one month and then released. As she was being driven
to Baghdad International Airport, the car she was riding in came under fire from
U.S. forces. Her escort, Major General Nicola Calipari, Italy’s second highest-
ranking military intelligence officer, died in the shooting as he tried to protect
her. Sgrena was seriously injured.18 The U.S. military has maintained that 18
the shooting was justified and that the car carrying the Italians was traveling
at high speeds and refused to stop at a checkpoint. Giuliana Sgrena and the
Italian government have denied U.S. claims. While the Pentagon cleared
the troops involved of any wrongdoing, Italian prosecutors were pursuing the
case and requested the indictment of U.S. Army Specialist Mario Lozano.
This incident became a major source of tension between the Italian and U.S.
governments.19 19
A different example with much worse implications, different both in terms
of the clear misconduct of the group of soldiers involved and in terms of the ki-
netic impact on public opinion abroad and on the local population, was the infa-
mous incident at Abu Ghraib prison. This incident is also different from the
above examples in that it represents a failure of the entire system and chain of
command. Here it was not about having to make a split-second decision in the
face of great uncertainty and risk making the wrong judgment call, but what
seems to be the consistent misbehavior of a group of soldiers over a long period
of time.
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The resulting political scandal damaged the credibility and public image of
the United States and its allies in the execution of ongoing military operations
in Iraq. It gave ammunition for critics of U.S. foreign policy who continue to
argue that it was representative of a broader American attitude and policy of
disrespect and violence toward Arabs. The U.S. Administration and its defend-
ers argued that the abuses were isolated acts committed by low-ranking person-
nel. In a report on the incident, the New Yorker summarized it by saying that,
‘‘As the photographs from Abu Ghraib make clear, these detentions have had
enormous consequences: for the imprisoned civilian Iraqis, many of whom had
nothing to do with the growing insurgency; for the integrity of the Army; and
for the United States’ reputation in the world.’’20 20
It seems that under these circumstances, taking into account the risks and
the response of the entire strategic spectrum (or the Roman Circus according to
Smith), it is often worse to act wrongly than not to act at all. However, not act-
ing runs contrary to the basic combat training and ethos of NCOs. A former
head of the IDF officer candidate school (Bad-Ehad) stated that ‘‘an officer in
general is a term that is related to performance. … An officer is a person who
makes things happen.’’21 The famous motto ‘‘when in doubt, act’’ is part of an 21
education that sees initiative as synonymous with leadership. It stems from ma-
neuver warfare doctrine, which calls for ‘‘shock, surprise, and destruction.’’22 22
Most Western armies adopted maneuver warfare philosophy, which relies heav-
ily on the independent actions of junior commanders. Moltke the elder, one of
the most important thinkers and practitioners in this respect, said about his
expectations from junior commanders that ‘‘In doubtful cases and in unclear
conditions …, it will generally be more advisable to proceed actively and keep
the initiative than to await the blow of the opponent.’’23 However, as one Israeli 23
officer said recently, ‘‘the name of the game in LIC [low-intensity conflict] is
not about taking the initiative as in regular battle, but how to do fewer mistakes
and maintain stability.’’24 24
DOCTRINAL AND INSTITUTIONAL RESPONSE – MISSION COMMAND
Nevertheless, some of the most advanced military institutions do believe that the
solution to the ‘‘strategic corporal’’ situation is not—despite the natural tend-
ency of commanders—to tighten control through detailed orders and detailed
rules of engagement (ROE). On the contrary, the message in most contemporary
doctrines of Western militaries is to reemphasize mission command.25 25
Mission command is a decentralized leadership and command philosophy
that demands and enables decision and action in every echelon of command
where there is an intimate knowledge of the battlefield situation. The approach
calls for subordinates to exploit opportunities by being empowered to use their
initiative and judgment, as long as their decisions serve the higher objective
communicated to them prior to the mission, which is referred to as intent. The
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articulation and communication of the commander’s intent is, therefore, essen-

tial for the success of the approach. Mission command requires above all a
shared doctrine and trust, which implies tolerance for learning and latitude for
honest mistakes, professionalism, and inclination for initiative.26 26
Another way to view mission command is as a type of a contract between
the superior and the subordinate. The superior defines clearly the intent, mis-
sion, resources, and constraints, and leaves the subordinates the freedom to exe-
cute the mission the way he or she sees best according to these parameters. If
the situation then changes, the subordinate is also empowered to change the
mission according to the higher intent.
Mission command asks the commander to provide means and to delegate
authority, however it is crucial to note, one can never delegate responsibility.
Yet there are some basic flaws in this approach. Adopting mission command as
a solution to the ‘‘strategic corporal’’ problem does not sufficiently addresses
the challenges that militaries face in PSO environments. This is for the follow-
ing main three reasons:
First, historically the concept has been developed as part of the German mili-
tary culture, which emphasized mobile decisive war with the aim of quickly
bringing about the enemy’s collapse. In the post-World War II years, following
the defeat of the German Army, mission command was somewhat neglected.
During the Cold War years, the West, facing the Soviet threat, was searching
for ways to balance its relative quantitative inferiority. In its investigation of
the fighting qualities of the Wehrmacht, mission command was discovered as a
central virtue that gave the Germans an edge over their rivals.27 In the 1980s, 27
mission command became part of maneuver warfare theory, which is very simi-
lar in essence to the principles of German Blitzkrieg, and this theory eventually
dominated the military doctrines of all main Western countries, starting with
the United States.28 The ethos of mission command is therefore strongly biased 28
towards acting aggressively. The approach praises commanders such as Moltke
the Elder, Patton, Sharon, and Yigal Alon, who always felt that their political
masters were standing in the way and tried to push military achievement further
with little regard for political and international implications.
Indeed, the British doctrine also emphasizes the importance of knowing
when not to act, but it is still hard to separate mission command from its origi-
nal ethos.29 It should be noted, however, that there are situations in PSOs that 29
call for aggressive action. Such was the case in Srebrenica. A careful and bal-
anced view is required, keeping in mind the desire to deescalate and achieve le-
gitimacy, both of which call for the minimum possible use of force.
Second, the ‘‘Roman circus effect,’’ which means high sensitivity to events
on the ground by political leaders, creates enormous obstacles to applying the
approach. Other obstacles also exist, namely the diverse composition of forces
in PSOs and the difference in training and services that diversity implies. Mis-
sion command requires a highly professional force with strong mutual under-
standing and a common professional language. To this aspect, the lack of
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peacekeeping doctrine consistently followed by training and education leaves

little opportunity for its successful application.
Third, mission command is tightly linked to the mission analysis and the
estimation process that the military uses to assess the situation and devise its
plans.30 Traditionally, the mission is derived from the objective of one level 30
above it. The commander is then guided to think in the context of two levels
above his own immediate mission. However, in PSOs, the relevant levels for
reference can be all the way up top at the political level, if one can distinguish
between these levels at all. In this respect, Brigadier General Yaakov Zigdon,
former IDF Staff and Command College commander, referring to recent
improvement in the officer’s education program, said:
when a day after his graduation from the Staff and Command College, a commander
receives an order to recapture Abu Snen [Palestinian village], he will do it better
because he knows what the Prime Minister’s intent was as communicated in his last
speech to the nation. He also knows the implications of exercising force through his
company’s actions.31 31
But directives from the political leadership do not arise by themselves and
must become an integral part of the planning and briefing process. That is the
reason why, in an interview with Dr. Kobi Michael, General Bogi Ya’alon, IDF
Chief of Staff during the Second Intifida, said the following:
Even in the days when I served as the Judea and Samaria Division Commander, I felt
that the regular Estimate of the Situation (EOS) processes we used to teach did not
provide us with relevant tools to cope with problems and challenges we used to face
in the years 1992–93. I felt that we were missing tools; I felt that the discourses in
Central Command as well as in other places were not deep enough. They dealt with
foam on water.… I felt it was wrong … as I began my duty as the Central Command
Commander, I understood that we had to build a different process of EOS.32 32
AN INSTITUTIONAL FAILURE
At this point, let us turn back to the case that opened this chapter: the road
block in Dharia. The series of reactions and counter reactions is arguably char-
acteristic and typify many soldiers and military organizations who find them-
selves under similar scenarios conducting peacekeeping or similar missions,
such as the coalition forces in Iraq or Afghanistan. The automatic reaction of
the IDF and the political echelon was immediately to condemn the captain’s
behavior. However, an IDF inquiry into the case a few days later came up with
following points:
The captain indeed repeatedly asked for reinforcement, saying his force was
too small to deal properly with the situation. His request was rejected, and he
was told to deal with the situation alone. The brigade commander admitted he
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made a mistake in his assessment of the impact of these anarchists and in his
final decision not to send reinforcement. Importantly, he summed up the whole
event by saying, ‘‘we failed to anticipate these developments, and from a local
event it became an all encompassing strategic event.’’33 Still, despite admitting 33
his own mistake, he wanted to see the captain suspended. He concluded that the
soldiers were not in life-threatening danger; therefore, there was no reason to
behave so aggressively.
Back at home the captain and his men, as civilians again after completing
their reserve duty, released the following statement. They complained bitterly
for not having their commanders’ backing and support, they said that they were
sent to deal with an impossible situation with neither the necessary equipment
nor a proper briefing on the relevant procedures prior to the mission. ‘‘We were
given a mission without the necessary capabilities to fulfill it, and now they
(the commanders) are not giving us any backing.’’34 34
To his defense, the captain raised another interesting point. He stated that he
understood his mission the following way: defending the road block was serv-
ing the higher purpose of preventing the demonstrators from passing down to a
major highway running from Jerusalem to Beersheba and blocking this more
strategic road. This was his understanding of his mission, and he was intent on
preventing a major road in Israel from being blocked. This is a cause that is
worth fighting for. The Captain admitted he might have got carried away, but
the negative display of normative behavior was due to professional problems
within the system that was supposed to support him.35 35
Examining this incident from a mission command perspective, it is easy to
see how almost every principle in this approach was violated. For example, mis-
sion command calls for a clear definition of resources and constraints in the con-
text of the mission. This, according to the soldiers, was not done. In addition,
the mission analysis was not adequate, the effect and intentions of groups such
as the ‘‘anarchists,’’ armed with cameras and ready to provoke, was not taken
into consideration. The result was that the commander acted in the context of
‘‘one level above’’ his own immediate mission; he interpreted the purpose of his
mission in the following way: he would maintain his post (road block) in order
to prevent demonstrators from reaching the main road, and from his point of
view, this purpose was more important than any other higher ramifications.36 36
Another problematic area that demonstrates how difficult it is to use the mis-
sion command approach in these scenarios is the area of authority versus
responsibility and accountability. First, the soldiers found themselves involved
with Israeli demonstrators against whom they had limited authority to act. Sec-
ond, although the brigade commander admits that his judgment was wrong, he
still wants to punish the captain for his misconduct and intends to suspend him.
Some critique will no doubt reveal that this case illustrates a lack of atten-
tion and professionalism, and if only the commanders across the chain of com-
mand would have paid more attention to the details and stuck to the principles
of mission command, we would have seen a different outcome. Perhaps this is
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the case, although this author doubts that the final outcome reflects only basic
professional errors. These events reflect something deeper that is imminent in
every military organization. True, major flaws were committed by all sides
involved, but what ensued was a reflection of a system that is organized,
trained, and prepared (mentally and physically) for the realities of conventional
wars and has found itself, to use General Smith’s metaphor, trapped inside the
Roman circus.
The infantry soldiers whose training emphasized a bias for action over non-
action, once outnumbered and under pressure, did what they believed they
should do as soldiers, which is to fight and fight hard to accomplish their imme-
diate mission. It should be pointed out that before the incident, this reserve bat-
talion was praised for its performance and its captain was highly appreciated.
In the aftermath of the immediate political scandal and under its pressure, the
reaction of the entire chain of command was to deliver to the public what it
wanted: a swift condemnation of the event. In PSOs, soldiers are expected to
act more like police, to use force only as a last result. In this context force is
not legitimatized, but when force is used, even police personnel expect some
form of backing from their superiors and a fair trial.
The primary victim of this behavior is the trust that serves as the main foun-
dation of the social contract between commander and subordinate. Here we
have a major break in trust between the tactical level, which does its work on
the ground and feels abandoned, and the strategic echelon, which must deal
with public opinion and political backlash. Without this trust there is little
chance that mission command can work. It seems, therefore, that while initia-
tive is a key asset in conventional wars, in the context of PSOs, it is a danger-
ous liability.37 The strategic peacekeeping corporal acts with the knowledge 37
that the senior military and political echelon is always ready to sacrifice him
for the sake of the ‘‘script’’ and to avoid the embarrassment.
CONCLUSION: WHAT CAN BE DONE?
The Strategic Corporal phenomenon poses a serious challenge for military

organizations in PSOs for two main reasons: it poses a risk to the mission itself
by undermining the legitimacy of military force, and it destroys the trust foun-
dation within the military organization itself. The breakdown of trust between
senior officers and rank and file has dangerous implications for those units who
have to operate in conventional operations again, where trust between ranks is
crucial. In a conventional war, those same soldiers will have to risk their lives
knowing they can trust their commander’s judgment, and commanders must
know that their soldiers will be able to follow their will and interpret their
intent correctly. The doctrinal solution of mission command is a step in the
right direction, but as this chapter shows, it is not adequate. The way forward
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for minimizing the ‘‘strategic corporal’’ effect is through a series of changes in

different areas: doctrine, training, and education. However, these changes
must come in parallel with an institutional change in attitude and norms of
behavior—in short, a complete culture change. It should be noted that change in
one area alone is not sufficient; these changes interlock and reinforce each other.
Some militaries are currently taking some steps in the right direction, insti-
tuting programs to better prepare soldiers and commanders to cope better with
the realities of LICs and PSOs, both of which require wining ‘‘hearts and
mind.’’ Gaining legitimacy and the support of the local population is the key to
success in such environments, and therefore both scenarios are acutely vulnera-
ble to the strategic corporal phenomenon.38 The following are a few examples 38
of what is currently being done and what can be done in this area:
Doctrine. The British publications Peace Support Operations and The Mili-
tary Contribution to Peace Support Operations provide a comprehensive over-
view of the operational principles of armies in PSOs. The U.S. LIC Manual,
although not specifically aimed at PSOs, also provides doctrinal knowledge
about how to improve commanders’ understanding of the theater and how to
prepare their soldiers to cope with the complex realities of PSOs.39 39
There are also some interesting developments in the areas of situational
assessment and mission analysis. One is the U.S. Marine version of the princi-
ples of System Operational Design (SOD), which is used to better understand
and operate in the complex environment of Iraq. This method, based on com-
plex system theory, highlights the complex and non-linear connections between
events and variables in the system and thus clarifies the futility of some courses
of action that commanders often take.40 40
In terms of training, some militaries have realized that they must emphasize
mental preparation for the theater.41 There is a saying among peacekeepers that 41
a ‘‘trained soldier will make a good peace keeper,’’ but this depends on what
the soldier is trained for. Once soldiers are prepared and trained for battle as
their core activity, they tend to perceive peacekeeping missions as feminine and
inferior.42 Therefore, soldiers must be mentally prepared to see the importance 42
of their missions and must be equipped to function in a PSO environment. One
way of doing this is through role-playing and case-based analysis, where they
can practice various reactions to unforeseen situations. The training should be
done as near as possible semblance to reality. Building a mock village and
using real actors to play locals, like the U.S. army has done recently, might
prove be very effective.43 Training will never be able to cover all scenarios, but 43
it can enable soldiers to develop both a sense of the PSO environment and
improved judgment.
The same direction should be taken to officers’ development. A scenario-
based approach that aims to develop officers’ ability to think and act independ-
ently in different environments increases the probability of making a good judg-
ment call. Programs such as the ‘‘adaptive leader,’’ already offered by Donald
Vandergriff, show the way forward.44 44
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However, these important changes are not sufficient. A deeper change is

necessary, one that affects the basic norms and behaviors of the military institu-
tion. The change should reflect a process of strengthening the profession at the
expense of careerism, while also restoring the bonds of trust between the eche-
lons at the expense of public approval ratings. It is said that Moltke the elder,
the chief advocate of mission command in the German army, used to tell a
story about a major who was reprimanded by Prince Fredrick Charles, who
served as his commander, for doing something wrong. The major, to his
defense, said he was only following orders. ‘‘His Majesty made you a major
because he believed you would know when not to obey his orders,’’ was the
Prince’s reply.45 Whether this story is true or not, it does make a good point: 45
you will be backed by your superiors as long as you honestly attempted to do
the right thing.
Obviously, this sort of unconditional support seems to be more difficult in
the PSO Roman circus type of environment, but unless military organizations
and their political masters find a way to show absolute support and restore trust
across the chain of command, the problem created by the corporal will become
ever more strategic.
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Media and Conflict: An Integral Part of the

Modern Battlefield
Ilana Bet-El
INTRODUCTION: THE MEDIA AND MODERN CONFLICTS
Observing conflict is a profession nearly as ancient as that of making war.

Chronicles, mythologies, religious testaments, poetic odes, and most other
forms of historic expression often contain lengthy descriptions of soldiers and
battle, detailed to an extent possible only if based upon a once observed reality
and some knowledge of battle. Over the years the observations and data may
have been changed or refined by the scribe, historian, or poet, but there can be
no doubt that the original depiction, often lost in the mist of time, was created
by a witness who understood the art of war. This is not a matter of chance;
besides an eternal fascination with war, and especially its manifestations of
masculinity as reflected especially in the myths and poems, there has also been
an eternal need to communicate between the secluded battlefield and the civil-
ians left behind, to justify the sacrifice of men and money the endeavor of war
entails, and to this end have the official versions corroborated by an apparently
impartial, non-military witness.
From the middle of the nineteenth century, effectively with the Crimean
War and then the American Civil War, the crucial role of observer became
more or less ascribed to the journalist, a status that became confirmed through-
out the subsequent century and its plethora of horrific wars. In this manifesta-
tion of the witness, it was this man, and occasionally woman, who sought to
observe and report battle in the name of truth, however painful. And even if
‘‘truth’’ was a relative term open to interpretation, as the twentieth century pro-
gressed the war correspondent became a fixture on the battlefield very largely
accepted by the military of every hue and regime.1 In the Second World War, 1
for example, Stalin and Hitler authorized favorable journalists to accompany
their forces and document their triumphs, if not failures. No less than Roosevelt
Page Number: 66
and Churchill encouraged reporters to join their own militaries.2 And this was 2
not due to momentary benevolence; as these despots and many others of their
ilk clearly understood, any regime engaged in industrial war, using soldiers
drawn from its civilian population, must communicate with this same popula-
tion in order to keep it on its side. In a dictatorship this may be deemed to be
achieved by journalists reflecting only the glories of the military, and in a de-
mocracy, it can be done through depictions of the broader, though often not
complete, picture, including horror and disaster. But in all cases, it is clear that
communication came to be crucial, and that to this end, the journalist came to
be accepted on the battlefield, as both a truthful witness, and as a necessary if
limited mediator between the military and civilian worlds.
All these assumptions survived the Second World War, and any number of
others after it, more or less intact and to this day, which is precisely the prob-
lem: the world has moved on from industrial wars and the gentlemen and ladies
of the press to complex conflicts and the global media. Most significantly, it
has moved from the journalist-as-witness reporting war as a means of commu-
nicating between the military and the civilian populations of each side, to the
media transmitting conflicts in real time and therefore serving as a means of
communication between all the opposing sides, the populations caught up in
the conflicts, and the world at large. In this manifestation of the external ob-
server, therefore, the media has moved from witnessing and reflecting conflict
to recreating the military theater of war into a global interactive show.
To date, this shift has not yet been properly explored as a factor in conflict,
even though the crucial and sometimes determining pairing of ‘‘media and con-
flict’’ is now clearly integral to the modern battlefield. Most existing research
and analysis of media and conflict tend towards four main areas: the role of
media—mostly local as opposed to international outlets—in causing conflicts;
the role of media in post-conflict situations; the creation of legal frameworks for
media activity in conflict and post-conflict areas; and the impact of the media on
political decision making in conflict.3 Whilst undoubtedly important, all these 3
fail to address the core issue of the relationship between the media and conflict
as a military event. Redressing this absence is the purpose of this chapter.
THE SHIFT FROM ‘‘WAR AND THE MEDIA’’ TO ‘‘MEDIA AND THE CONFLICT’’
To no small degree, the lacuna in understanding media and conflict is due to two
of the main protagonists themselves. In the first place, both the media on one
side and the military on the other tend to be practitioners rather than theoreti-
cians.4 Moreover, since they mostly interact within the framework of conflict, 4
which is intense and time consuming, little space is left for reflection on the
actual interaction as opposed to its outcome. In the second place, and possibly
more significantly, both sides seem unaware of the true significance of the shift
from ‘‘war and the press’’ to ‘‘media and conflict,’’ or indeed of the major
Page Number: 67
MEDIA AND CONFLICT 67
transformation in the event known as war. For whilst acknowledging the occa-
sional change such as the impact of satellite technology on reporting, or the oft
cited ‘‘CNN factor’’ of rolling news, both tend to contend that the roles of each
and the relationship between them within a conflict remain essentially
unchanged. Such assertions are largely predicated upon fixed notions, thus that
‘‘media’’ refers to objective journalists in the service only of the truth, and ‘‘con-
flict’’ to war between defined sides, involving at least one state army. In reality,
neither notion is properly applicable to the exceedingly complex framework of
modern conflict, where peace support operations (PSOs) might be conducted
and which includes, besides the combatant protagonists, which are often non-
state, and the media, many other organizations such as the United Nations and
its agencies, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), non-govern-
mental organizations (NGOs), and others. Nor do they reflect the vastly
expanded role of the media, the changing nature of military intervention, and the
combined effect of both upon conflicts in the past fifteen years. In other words,
neither side seems to have internalized that the activity known as conflict in
which they are both engaged has thoroughly changed; that they are no longer
involved in industrial war but rather in ‘‘war amongst the people,’’5 in which the 5
battlefield, the combatants, and the purpose of the event of war have been funda-
mentally altered; nor that the war correspondent is not a journalist reporting or
even photographing or filming war so much as a member of the media transmit-
ting events as they happen, commenting upon them, and, by default, interpreting
them.6 And whilst these interpretations are not necessarily profound or absolute, 6
they undoubtedly stand alongside others influencing both policy-makers and the
general public—deemed the electorate by the policymakers—responsible for the
militaries and peacekeeping forces operating in conflicts.
A further complicating factor in the relationship between the military and
the media in conflict is that alongside the prefixed notions, both sides are also
operating and interacting within the confines of dated and conflicting assump-
tions regarding each other. For its part, the military still tends to somewhat dis-
miss the media and its handling, alongside civil affairs, as no more than ‘‘hearts
and minds,’’ even though it can and should be argued that hearts and minds, of
the population amongst which the military is operating as much as the folks
back home, are increasingly the strategic objective of their operation. Upon this
somewhat dire background, the military then tend to assume that what is at
stake with the media is no more than carefully monitored reproduction and dis-
semination of data, preferably to its own advantage, and that it is possible to be
in control of the monitoring and the data. There is also an assumption that the
media is ultimately reactive, in the manner of journalism; it will present itself
in response to either a defined event or else follow a lead about a potential
event, an event being anything from a battle or skirmish to a suspicion of
wrongdoing. Underpinning all these assumptions is another: that the media,
being synonymous with journalism, consists at most of papers, television, and
radio, and that those who make decisions within these organs do so on
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journalistic principles and merit alone. On the other side, the media usually still
correctly assumes the military is a closed but coherent world of hierarchy and
discipline, and as such tends to accept its separateness. However, it often tends
to incorrectly assume that officers and other ranks are in a situation of manage-
ment and workers, and that management—like in business—has a hand in
deciding as well as implementing the actions unfolding on the ground. Whilst
not necessarily assuming the military is malicious, the media does seem to
assume the military has something to hide and will seek to expose it. In the
conflict zone, it assumes itself to be separate and different from the military in
the eyes of the local population, even if it is often dependent on the same mili-
tary for protection. Above all, it also often seems to assume that journalism and
media are largely synonymous, differentiating little between the distinct natures
and capabilities of its various branches, most especially the internet, and barely
acknowledging its own impact on the actual environment it is reporting on.
Collectively, these assumptions suggest that for the military, the media is basi-
cally only a mode of external communication, which can be used to advantage on
tap. Within this perspective, failure is a question of disadvantage or unfair advant-
age by others, mostly the media. Conversely, the understanding arising from the
media is that the military world is relatively removed and narrow and thus lacking
in any broader context. Most especially, the media is unaware of its own role
within the world of conflict where it interacts most with the military, other than to
‘‘shine a light,’’ even though that is an extremely small segment of what it actually
does, more or less in proportion to the small segment of old fashioned journalism
that still exists within it. At base it is therefore clear that the worlds of the military
and the media have totally different concepts of the other, aside from one specific
issue: there is a mutual sense of distrust, which paradoxically only underlines the
inclinations of both to react to type. In this way the military tends to assume the
media is seeking to harm it by either depicting it in some negative way or else by
uncovering a dark secret, and so tends to behave furtively. The media equally
assumes this to be the case and so approaches the military somewhat accusingly.
It is a negative symbiosis that harms the military, above all. It is also one that
masks the true relationship between media and conflict, since it appears to elevate
the media to the role of player, which, as will be reflected below, is the only one it
does not have in the modern theater of war.
As a result of this comprehensive lack of awareness of the arena in which
they operate, alongside the lack of both self and mutual understanding, both
sides tend to talk past each other and the public. Indeed, they tend to thoroughly
confuse the public, which due to media transmission has now become an audi-
ence and the ultimate witness of conflict. This audience watches events of war
amongst the people unfolding live on its television and computer screens, events
such as tanks driving down a dusty street in Iraq or through a village in Afghani-
stan, or heavily armed soldiers in flak jackets and helmets in a shoot-out with
Taliban or Al Qaeda fighters in traditional dress, with a school in the background
and women and children to one side, but have it explained within the framework
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of the old concepts of industrial war. For in the vast majority of cases, both the
media and the military commentator will use jargon such as divisions, battalions
or other military units, lines of attack, strike capabilities, tactical and strategic
objectives, the technological attributes of weapons, and all of these in reference
to ‘‘the enemy,’’ as if it were an equal, formed military opponent, and ‘‘the bat-
tlefield,’’ as if it were a removed location in which the sides met, rather than
towns, villages, and streets full of regular civilians. This is a new paradigm or
form of war being explained in terms of the old, since those tend to be the terms
in which the military and the media still operate, but to the audience, they pres-
ent a cognitive dissonance, since the images and the commentary do not add up.
In order to untangle this confusion, there is a need to revert to basics: in this
case, the basic identity of both the media and the military in their current sense
rather than those attributed to them by dated assumptions. On the back of such
an enquiry, it may then be possible to establish their roles in the modern battle-
field and the manner in which they interact.
THE AMORPHOUS NATURE OF THE MEDIA
There is endemic confusion concerning the identity of the amorphous entity

commonly known as ‘‘the Media.’’ As noted, many—in the military, govern-
ment, the public, and the media itself—tend to use the terms ‘‘media’’ and
‘‘journalism’’ as synonyms, thereby confusing themselves as much as others.
Journalism brings with it assumptions of neutrality and objectivity, and the dual
role of the journalist as observer and investigator. Whether such a definition of
journalism still applies in any medium is open to debate; though it must be
noted that there are still fine investigative writers and broadcasters out there,
there can be no doubt that the media, taken as a whole, cannot be classified in
such terms. At best, professional journalism may be found within the media,
and this is due to the three basic characteristics of what this entity actually is.
A medium. Such is the focus on its outputs and actions that there is a tend-
ency to neglect the obvious, for the media is first and foremost just that: a me-
dium. The Oxford English Dictionary Online defines it as ‘‘newspapers, radio,
television, etc., collectively, as vehicles of mass communication.’’7 As such, its 7
significance lies in the means it offers, rather than the content, which is the
commodity being conveyed by the vehicle, much as flour can be conveyed on
trucks, boats, or planes. And much as flour can be packed in sacks or bags, or
in bulk, so can media content be packaged in a multitude of ways. This means
that content is open to constant change and manipulation, according to the
media vehicle, the packaging, and the paying customer.
A platform. The major difference between content—words and images—and
any other commodity, is that it can have an immediate impact: on perceptions,
ideas, debates, and events. This means that the vehicle can be dual-purpose; it
transports, but at the same time, it is also a platform, since content passes on
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and through it. Moreover, it can pass in more than one direction, and in many
permutations, such as back and forth, to three, four, or more sides at once, to a
known and unknown audience simultaneously, and so on. It is in the guise of a
platform that the media serves as a means of communication and messaging.
A business. Above all, the media is a business, with high margins and annual
targets to meet. As a result, it needs content as a commodity in which it deals, and
which can fill the vast stretches of time and space that are now a default of it being
global and operating 24/7. But it must on the whole be understood to have no
stake in the commodity or its impact, but rather in its ability to convey it to the
satisfaction of its customers. As such, it is dependent on specific audiences only in
the sense of attracting advertisers or other funding. In this sense there is no differ-
ence between Al-Jazeerah and CNN: even if there is an assumed bias, it is very
largely due to the respective funders (i.e., advertisers who base their decisions on
ratings and audience), rather than ideology or journalistic vigor. In the developed
world, there is also no difference between these enterprises and other commercial
media outlets and the BBC or any other state-owned outlets, since these latter are
also dependent on audiences and ratings in order to receive funding from the state.
Print and internet outlets are also market-driven, with only independent bloggers
being relatively free from financial constraints. Yet on the whole, in order to be in-
fluential, the blog must be of a size and authority such as to attract advertising to
pay for itself. As a business the media therefore has employees, some of whom
may be journalists, many of whom are simply in the media business as enter-
tainers, and nearly all of whom are driven by the bottom line.
Taken together, the media must therefore be understood as a business that
deals in conveying information. It is the total environment in which information
is presented, exchanged, digested, and commented and reacted upon. It is the
medium within which this happens and the platform upon which it is conveyed.
It provides the arena and the stage of the theater, but not the actors or the
scripts. It is the immediacy and impact of the constant and interactive nature of
this theater that can influence the script, not the media itself. And the reason for
this, and the ultimate paradox lying at the heart of the media, is that as a busi-
ness, it is part of the audience consuming this information, as a commodity, for
its own needs. Because the media deals in content, it has a constant need for it,
but without any stake or intrinsic interest in it. As such, it is a sophisticated
form of parasite; in order to survive, it lives off the activities of others, in every
field of life, including conflict.
THE AMORPHOUS NATURE OF THE MODERN PROFESSIONAL SOLDIER
The understanding of the modern soldier,8 as a member of a military in the 8

developed world, is no less convoluted and confused than that of the media,
largely because it is also multilayered and, in some respects, counterintuitive.
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A professional. Due to the nature of modern conflicts, there has been an

increasing inclination to see the soldier in terms of the dire human and humani-
tarian situations in which they take place, and thus to obfuscate, or even reject,
the most basic aspect of this figure. For as the Oxford English Dictionary defi-
nition clearly reflects, a soldier is ‘‘One who serves in an army for pay; one
who takes part in military service or warfare; a man of military skill and experi-
ence.’’9 The soldier must therefore first and foremost be understood as a profes- 9
sional in the art of war, and one skilled in arms, whose primary purpose in a
conflict zone is to exercise his profession. Like soldiers throughout the ages,
the modern ones may be charged with keeping the peace rather than actively
fighting, but their presence in the combat zone rather than the police is pre-
cisely in order to escalate rapidly to fighting in time of need.
An agent of civil-military interface. Where modern soldiers may differ from
previous generations, especially those in the era of industrial war, is in the need
to be able to interact with civilians on the latter’s terms. One of the most basic
aspects of war is that it usurps any other given reality through sheer force. It
allows the military to reign supreme and the soldier to be entirely remote from
civilians, or else expect them to interact on military terms. In this way the end
of war has traditionally meant the disappearance of force and soldiers and a re-
version to absolute civilian life. Not so in our current wars amongst the people,
in which the aims of the operation are not purely military ones such as to
destroy a bridge or to take a city. Instead, soldiers are now sent out to ‘‘create a
safe and secure environment’’ or ‘‘establish conditions for democracy’’ or effect
‘‘regime change,’’ all of which rest on encouraging the people to behave differ-
ently rather than exercising military force. Moreover, since the battlefield is
amongst civilians, and they are effectively the strategic aim, it is in the interests
of the military to assist in re-establishing civilian order rather than just attaining
military victory over opposing forces. To this end, therefore, the soldier, in
order to be effective, must be seen as an agent of military-civilian interface.
A representative of an accountable force. The traditional view of conflict is
that of soldiers of two or more clearly defined sides fighting each other on a
clearly defined battlefield; in other words, it is a view of industrial war. How-
ever, the reality of our current complex conflicts is of an exceedingly varied
array of participants. The actual sides to a conflict may include soldiers of
established states alongside ‘‘non-state actors,’’ ‘‘armed elements,’’ ‘‘insur-
gents,’’ or ‘‘freedom fighters,’’ to give a few examples. In addition, there may
also be an international intervening force sent by the United Nations, NATO, or
an ad hoc coalition. Within this reality, the soldier must be seen as a representa-
tive of an accountable force operating within the confines of international laws
and standards, as opposed to other fighters in the field. Moreover, and as al-
ready noted above, the soldier is also part of a hierarchical organization based
on strict, even rigid, discipline, imposing its own codes and laws to which the
soldier is also accountable.
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A member of a national military. Due to the growing inclination of military

interventions in the framework of PSOs being undertaken either in coalitions or
by international organizations such as NATO, the United Nations, or the Euro-
pean Union, there is an understandable tendency to see the soldier serving in
such a capacity as a representative of these organizations or formations and their
collective political will and aspirations. However, it must always be remembered
that there is no such thing as an international soldier. Even in a blue beret or
sporting a NATO badge, the soldier has sworn allegiance to a specific state, and
it is as a national asset that he or she is deployed into a conflict area.
THE PROFESSIONAL SOLDIER IN THE GLOBAL SHOW THEATER
These four threads taken together suggest that the modern soldier, as encoun-
tered in the conflict zone, is a complex composite: a national asset perceived as
an international representative, a professional fighter assumed to sport humani-
tarian values, and an individual accountable both to the law and to the hierarchy
faced by opponents outside both. In short, this is an individual expected to
maintain the external appearance and all the capabilities of the traditional sol-
dier, though not too blatantly with regard to fighting on the streets, who is
equally expected to have the capabilities and inclinations of a humanitarian op-
erative. Furthermore, the militaries composed of these soldiers are taken to be
an amalgamation of all these qualities, as understood in civilian terms. This
applies especially to the issues of hierarchy and accountability, which, as men-
tioned above, are often translated into managerial terms in which it is assumed
that a person in command on the ground is also part of the overall decision
making process that placed him and his unit in a certain place. As such, milita-
ries and soldiers are seen as both extensions and representatives of a political
will far removed, armed with capabilities of dealing, on the one hand, with the
military opponent on military terms and, on the other, with the civilian suffer-
ing on civilian terms. Moreover, the soldier and the military—both in fact and
in perception—are deemed to be accountable for all their actions, even those
not properly in their remit, even if faced by opponents that are not, and often
cannot, be held accountable themselves, and even if it is the media doing the
deeming, though it is also accountable to no one, other than as a business to its
shareholders.
There is no doubt that this complex public understanding of the soldier in
the Western world rests partly on the phenomena of militaries becoming
increasingly remote from the societies from which they are drawn, and of con-
flicts becoming increasingly expeditionary. However awful the reality of war
amongst the people, from the vantage point of the developed world, it still takes
place far away in Africa or Iraq or Afghanistan or the Palestinian Territories.
However, this understanding is also partly—possibly mostly—the product of
media depictions and transmissions of conflict and combat zones, taking place
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in civilian settings with obvious humanitarian suffering occurring alongside,

and in some cases as part of, the fighting. This is not to suggest that such media
work is falsified in any way, but rather that it offers a disturbing reflection of a
distant reality, which is often then accompanied by commentary that knowingly
or not guides the media consumer to the various perceptions and understandings
listed above. In other words, this happens as a result of the theater of war hav-
ing become a global show, a process of transformation that is important to
understand.
THE MEDIA’S RULES AND ITS CONTRIBUTION TO THE GLOBAL SHOW THEATER
Both the military and the media have a part in this process of transformation,
but it may be of use to explain the media first. At the most obvious level, the
media has a capacity to turn conflict into a global show simply through technol-
ogy. Cameras, microphones, computers, phones, and satellites enable the imme-
diate transmission of any data, in print, picture, or audio, anywhere in the
world. However, it is the manner in which the technology is used and applied
by people that is most important when considering the show, and in this matter
there are a number of rules.
The flattening rule. This rule has two implications when applied to conflict.
First and foremost, in absolute terms and regardless of subject, all news is data
of equal value and relevance, regardless of subject, since the media is in the in-
formation business; it is a commodity. Detailed data on celebrities and soap
operas can take up the same amount of space, or more, as the War in Iraq, a mar-
ket crash, or the launching of a space shuttle. There is now a vast audience of
global TV owners, multiplied many times more through computer users, which
can choose between historic moments and YouTube or constantly flip between
the two and any number of other sites or stations. In other words, gone are the
days in which there was a hierarchy to news, decided on journalistic principle,
or a central event that could be assured full attention. Following upon this is the
second implication: all decisions on content are made centrally, often thousands
of miles away from the conflict zone. And so, whilst on the ground an event
may seem of major importance, both the decision as to whether to include it and
the size and slant of the item will be decided by editorial imperatives elsewhere.
The open exchange rule. Not only is the audience constantly dipping in and
out of the data in the media, but it is also open to reaction from any direction,
which can change its intent and meaning; a piece of footage transfers to the
internet immediately and is blogged upon; a quote in a newspaper receives
reaction in the morning radio program, a sentence of which is then commented
upon on the net. Data is a commodity that continuously changes hands, and
both alters and loses value and meaning in each permutation, and the author of
the original piece has absolutely no control over this process. In addition, every
event happens more than once, often repeated in a loop. The concept of rolling
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news stations on television and radio make this a necessity, since it is impossi-
ble to collect enough content to fill 24 hours a day every day; whilst the internet
gives access on tap not only to the present but also to the past, once again
imparting new meaning in a process that the original author has no control
over. In conflict this translates into pictures or sounds of events such as rolling
tanks or soldiers apparently shooting at civilians—because the opposing gun-
man is situated amongst them—being taken out of context, both because the
camera or recorder can take in but a small slice of action, and because any pi-
ece can be edited as it passes along the media chain. In this way the full pic-
tures or sounds may be used first as news coverage then repeated, possibly
edited, to fill time in rolling news stations, then adapted for other purposes by
other users in other outlets such as blogs or clips on YouTube. And whilst this
practice is rife in every field, in conflict it has the capacity to further inflame
passions on the various sides.
The brevity rule. Even if the media were composed only of journalists report-
ing facts and clearly distinguishing between these, analysis, and commentary,
there is still every chance that a clear image of events would not emerge due to
the need to maintain brevity. This is imposed primarily due to the massive load
of content. With so much competition, and with the need to be first and fresh,
outlets stick to extremely short presentations, whether written, oral, or visual.
Thus an average written sample in a paper or on the web is usually in the region
of 500 words, at most, and much often less, with comment pieces at a maximum
of 800 words, though often less. An oral or video piece, on radio or television,
tends to be a minute and a half, often less and sometimes more, which is in the
region of 300 words, plus a picture or a film if applicable. In addition, brevity is
also imposed due to the need to be instantaneous: technology has created the
impulse for information as events occur, however this tends to mean that the
bare facts, or a shred of a fact mixed in with opinion, is all that can be delivered
immediately. The main casualty of brevity is context: causes and clauses, espe-
cially if complex, simply get eliminated, often leaving bare facts standing in an
accusatory manner. In modern conflict the effect of this rule is near disastrous.
The context is all that gives meaning to the existence of soldiers fighting in what
is often a civilian setting, since the reasons for them actually being there and
using arms are usually very complex and often diffuse. An excellent example of
this was the 1992 to 1995 war in Bosnia, which was exceedingly complicated,
being an ethnic conflict, a civil war, and a war of succession. It was unique onto
itself, but it was also part of the break-up of Yugoslavia and its resulting con-
flicts. In addition, there were three official Bosnian sides—Bosniac, Serb, and
Croat—which sometimes had breakaway elements, whilst the latter two also had
close affiliations to their ethnic groupings in Serbia and Croatia but were consid-
ered to be solely Bosnian within the context of the conflict. These were just
some of the most salient problems, which were compounded by many others,
before one even broached far more dramatic and pressing moral issues such as
besieged cities, civilian deaths, or the utility and quantity of humanitarian aid.
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However, since all these made better pictures and were far easier to convey, over
time, nearly all the complex context was eliminated from media coverage, leav-
ing the human tragedy as a sole issue, which would not be problematic but for
the fact that many important political decisions were made on the back of the
media reporting and its impact on audiences.
The narrative rule. Narrative is the backbone of the media, in all its formats
and outlets. Whilst context gets eliminated and facts and comment often
become mixed and treated as one, the actual minute or 300 words of data will
be conveyed as a story, with a beginning, middle, and end, and with characters.
The beginning will usually be a lead in which the story is summarized. The
middle will be a lengthier expose of the summary, or a rehash if no more data
is available. The end will be a conclusion of sorts, often posing a question sug-
gesting a problem with the issue discussed. Like all narrative, characters are im-
perative, and if they are not obvious, as in a clear quote, they are usually found
in other means, such as a significant figure related to the story being mentioned,
even if there is little connection. In addition, talking heads—from think tanks,
universities, businesses, etc.—will be roped in to give a story a human voice or
to fill time, often regardless of their direct relevance to the story. In modern
conflict, coverage tends towards the human and humanitarian aspects because
they offer by far the easiest narrative option and good pictures. The very setting
of most conflicts within civilian populations makes this even easier, and it
vastly increases the cast of available talking heads to include the multitude of
NGO and humanitarian experts.
The budget rule. This rule has a dual implication. First, there is an ever
increasing inclination to cover an event or item in accordance to budget and
availability rather than intrinsic interest or importance. In conflict this has an
effect of either not covering far removed combat zones, or else to approach
them only very slightly. In following Moynihan’s Law, which holds that the
number of complaints about a nation’s violation of human rights is in inverse
proportion to its actual violation of human rights, media coverage of conflicts is
usually in inverse proportion to the violence and danger of the combat zone.
For example, most conflicts in Africa are hardly covered at all by the Western
media, being distant, difficult to get to, and expensive to cover. In Afghanistan,
the combination of distance, size, and danger has reduced most media coverage
to an absolute limit verging on none, as opposed to Baghdad or the Occupied
Palestinian Territories, which are very accessible and equipped with enough
technological infrastructure to make them viable for coverage. Second, like
many other businesses, the media tends to have periodic cuts in which rela-
tively expensive staff (i.e., experienced) and, crucially, capable of judgment
and context, will be cut. As a result, the media is increasingly staffed with
many young and eager people, who are those tasked with filling the endless
hours of time in the many outlets. By definition, therefore, they have neither
the background nor the time to understand an issue in full and will focus on a
narrow remit which they do understand or find accessible, regardless of whether
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it reflects the reality objectively. At best, they are overseen by a thin layer of
more experienced senior editors who tend to use their capabilities in shaping
stories rather than demanding context, structure, and facts. In conflict this has a
very strong impact since, in general terms, there tends to be ignorance of mat-
ters military, which is then compounded by the inexperience of the media per-
son seeking to do a quick package or story, and thus grasping upon the first and
easiest option rather than taking the story in the full.
These five rules taken together reflect that in its operation, the media is
essentially shallow and instantaneous, obsessed with costs, devoid of an aware-
ness of context, and gripped by the need for narrative and character in order to
make offerings more cogent and digestible to audiences that are constantly
switching and surfing between outlets. It is this reality that led the former Brit-
ish Prime Minister, Tony Blair, to devote one of his parting speeches to the
issue of the media, and to describe it as driven by ‘‘impact’’:
Impact is what matters. It is all that can distinguish, can rise above the clamor, can
get noticed. Impact gives competitive edge. Of course the accuracy of a story counts.
But it is often secondary to impact. It is this necessary devotion to impact that is
unraveling standards, driving them down, making the diversity of the media not the
strength it should be but an impulsion towards sensation above all else.10 10
Although Blair’s words may be dismissed as no more than those of a dis-

gruntled politician, it is important to note that his speech became part of an im-
portant dialogue, since it was followed some weeks later by one given by the
prominent British broadcaster Jeremy Paxman. Apart from essentially agreeing
with Blair on the issue of impact, he had dire things to say on the confusion
between fact and opinion, and the role of the media in it:
Now, you go live, live, live, wherever you can. It’s happened because of the pressure
to be fresh and urgent, because of the way the market works.… The consequence is
that reporting now prizes emotion over much else. In this press of events there often
isn’t the time to get out and find things out. You rely upon second-hand information,
quotes from powerful vested interests, assessments from organizations which do the
work we don’t have time for.… The consequence is that what follows isn’t analysis.
It’s simply comment, because analysis takes time, and comment is free. In news, as
much as anywhere else in the industry, the question is no longer ‘what can we do?’
It’s ‘what can we afford?’ Finding things out takes time and money. Easier to stay in
the warm fug of what everyone agrees is news.11 11
This was a frank if sad analysis from one of the senior members of British
journalism who is now part of the media, which applies equally across the
globe, and to all subjects, not only politics. Even worse was his subsequent
assessment, ‘‘the problem is that news is determined not by its importance but
by its availability.’’12 This means the problem is basically endless, since the 12
crossover between fact and comment makes availability effectively endless.
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THE MILITARY’S APPROACH TO THE RULES OF THE MEDIA IN THE CONFLICT

THEATER AND ITS IMPLICATIONS
The media rules of operation clarify that it does not make the show of the mod-
ern theater of war; that is done by the sides to the conflict, the intervening mili-
taries, the civilians amongst whom they all fight, the international organizations
and NGOs sent to assist the civilians and in some cases the sides; in short, all
the producers and players of the modern theater of war. The media, as reflected
in its definition, does not belong to this cast. It is neither a player nor a pro-
ducer, but rather an enabler that offers the arena—the medium and the
platform—for this theater, then packages and transmits it as a show.
This point is often missed by the military, whether it dismisses the media as
being just irrelevant ‘‘hearts and minds’’ or else complains of improper treat-
ment by it, in both cases attributing to it the status of player. The reason for this
mistake is simple: the media is physically present in the conflict zone together
with all the players and producers and interacts daily with them all, including
the military. And since reporters have long been on the battlefield, their pres-
ence is not questioned by the military, regardless of the fact that it is the media,
not the press, that it is transmitting a show, not posthumously reporting facts;
that it is seeking content for its consumers, not broadcasting a central event that
attracts a single large audience; that in its technological capabilities and appli-
cations, it has broadened the battlefield not only into every living room in the
world, including those of the actual combat zone, but also enabled it to become
interactive, through mobile phones and especially the internet, and in so doing,
it often shapes the event without actually participating in it.
This core misunderstanding is part of the wider problem of the militaries of
the developed world still operating within the paradigm of industrial war, in
which, as noted above, the military had full control and supremacy, and civilian
life was subjugated to it.13 However, in modern conflicts amongst the people, 13
and mainly in PSOs, the inverse is true: in order to succeed, the military must
operate on civilian terms. It is its inability to do so, stemming from a basic mis-
understanding of this fact, that is often the cause of its failure. It attempts to
impose a purely military reality and operate on its terms, whilst the civilians on
the battlefield—augmented by the many actors from the aid world—tend to con-
tinue to conduct their civilian life, or a form of it, not least because they have to:
they have no other place to return to, since the opponents to the military are of-
ten amongst them. From a military point of view, this state of affairs is then
unfairly depicted by the media, which effectively recreates the reality yet again
for its own purposes and most often transmits it as an essentially dire civilian sit-
uation rather than a military one, since that is what the eye and the camera ulti-
mately capture, and it is the simplest story to convey to a wide audience.
There is thus a fundamental misalignment between the military and practi-
cally all other players on the battlefield in understanding the terms of play, and
indeed the parameters of the battlefield. In sticking to its concepts of its own
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imposed reality, the military fails to see that the real terms are dictated both by
civilians and by the media, and that in order to win, it must join in and be in a
position to affect the terms to its own advantage. Once again, this is not an
attainable goal with military force alone. Both as the guns roar and once they
are silent, the facts—in Iraq, Afghanistan, the Occupied Territories, and any
modern combat zone—remain the same: the battlefield is civilian, the civilians
do not like the guns and destruction, and unless the quality of their lives is
improved, there is no chance of attaining ‘‘a safe and secure environment’’ of
even a minimal kind. In other words, without affecting the terms, the strategic
aim is unattainable.
By sticking to its own reality and outdated concepts, the military is also
missing out in another way. Most, if not all, of the other players have realized
both the status and the value of the media as the arena provider and show trans-
mitter, and it is as such that they actively seek it out. They want to get their
points across, to provide information to other players, to glean information from
them, to shape opinions, to create constituencies, and, above all, to capture the
will of the people amongst whom the fight is taking place. Whether a warlord,
a besieged leader, or a humanitarian worker, there is an instinctive understand-
ing that the true currency of modern conflict is information, not firepower. In
order to win, it is vital to have as much information as possible in order to
influence the people amongst whom, and over whom, the fight is being had.
Getting their will can be achieved not through shelling, but through influence
based on data. To this end, the narrative is now as much part of the event as
shelling, shooting, and bombing, not a subsequent history. There is a need to
offer a version of what is a happening as it is happening, in order to secure vital
audiences, such as policy and decision makers, politicians, and the electorates
that vote for them. They are all watching the show being transmitted as it hap-
pens, and they will be gripped by the best narrative of events, regardless of
whether it reflects any objective reality. Moreover, the decision makers, de-
pendent on the electorate, will ultimately make decisions based on the show
and the narrative rather than on the hard facts of the conflict.
A classic example of this was the 2006 conflict over South Lebanon between
Israel and the Hezbollah. The latter kept an extremely professional media pres-
ence maintained throughout, largely focused on their leader Hasan Nasrallah,
who spoke directly both to his constituents in Lebanon and throughout the Mus-
lim world, and to Western public opinion rather than its leaders, directly
through the media. From the start he established extremely minor but cleverly
dependent aims for success, basically staying in the field as an informal and
apparently relatively poorly armed fighting unit as against the might of the
established Israeli military, and that this would be proof of a just cause. He
hammered this message home in his media appearances and ensured that the
few other Hezbollah spokesmen allowed access to the media, mostly guiding
cameras through the rubble left by Israeli bombings, remained on message. In
this way Hezbollah provided a continuous and plausible narrative through
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which viewers could interpret the unfolding events. This was in stark contrast
to the Israeli media effort, which was much more confused and appeared
focused on policy makers and leaders around the world, rather than public opin-
ion. The Israeli military, moreover, treated the media exactly as if it were in an
industrial war, communicating in badly staged press conferences and so without
providing a narrative in which to place its activities other than its might and its
own stated objectives, starting with the return of its kidnapped soldiers. Since it
failed in the latter, its might was also brought into question, leading to an inter-
national understanding that it was Hezbollah that won, a notion crowned by the
Economist stating on its front cover ‘‘Nasrallah wins the war.’’14 Which side 14
actually won is a moot point, but the reality that unfolded after the conflict was
one defined by the narrative of a Hezbollah win, and it was within these param-
eters that all parties, including Israel, had to maneuver.
REVERTING TO THE BASICS: THE GLOBAL SHOW THEATER AND REQUIRED

RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE MEDIA AND THE MILITARY
Upon this background it may now be possible to revert to the basic issue posed
at the start of this essay: the relationship between the media and conflict as a
military event. Pulling the threads of investigation together, it is clear that the
media must be seen as a crucial factor in the battlefield, not unlike the weather;
much as the weather must be considered when timing an attack or estimating
effectiveness, so the media must be considered in calculating the impact or con-
sequences of it. But however crucial it is as a factor, the media is not a player.
Its influence lies in its omnipresence both within and outside the conflict zone
and its ability to provide the total environment and means for the transmission
of data, constantly and instantaneously, not in its own opinions or positions. As
such its influence upon conflict is essentially instrumental, in two interdepend-
ent and significant ways. First, it is the means for transforming the military the-
ater of war into a global show: a fluid and flowing, but not always coherent,
combination of reality and representation, images and words, available on tap
anywhere in the world on paper, on screen, on television, on radio, through the
phone, and in any number of other outlets. In the interchange between them all,
they constantly interpret and reinterpret the show, thereby influencing and shap-
ing it. And it is this that leads to the second element of the media’s instrumen-
tality: it is the conduit of information, which has replaced firepower as the
currency of modern conflict. To win in war amongst the people, it is necessary
to have the data to influence the intentions of the sides and, above all, to win
the people over to your side. To this end the purely military act is but part of
the effort, often not even the main event, though it appears most militaries find
this reality hard to conceive.
If modern conflicts are to be won, the military must begin to accept the
media in its real role and influence, not the one it wishes to accord it in line
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with outdated concepts of war. To this extent it must begin to operate with a
clearer definition of the media and the battlefield, and first and foremost under-
stand why it is unrealistic to suggest that the media, or the data that flows
through and on it, can be directed or manipulated to a specific end. On the other
hand, accepting the omnipresence of the media as a factor in defining the battle-
field and the show must also reflect why it is imperative to start including it in
all strategic moves, especially in a world increasingly dominated by data and
its flow.
This should not be seen as a relationship of dependency so much as symbio-
sis; whilst there is much the military needs to learn about the media, it must
never be forgotten that the media also needs the military as an integral part of
the data and narrative they are selling. Indeed, in many cases the media only
bothers entering the battlefield when the military arrives, since it is deemed a
good story to sell. On the other side, the military need the media in order to tell
their own story, to convey information, to their own advantage. Most especially
the commander on the ground needs the media in order to communicate to his
advantage with the opponents he is fighting, the people amongst whom he is
fighting, all the other actors and players on the battlefield, and then, in addition,
with his own people, leaders, and policy influencers back home.
Above all, the commander on the ground, as much as the high command that
sent him, needs the media in order to create a convincing narrative of events,
so convincing as to win over the will of the people for whom he has been
tasked to create a secure environment so that they may become citizens of a
state acceptable enough for him and his forces to leave, having achieved their
strategic aim. To this end the media must be seen as integral to the modern bat-
tlefield and strategy.
Page Number: 81
The RMA, Transformation, and Peace

Support Operations
Allen G. Sens
In the last two decades, most of the military missions conducted by the industri-
alized democracies have been peace support operations (PSOs) of one variant
or another.1 With the exceptions of the Gulf War, the air campaign against Ser- 1
bia, and the initial phase of the Iraq War, military affairs have been dominated
by low-intensity intrastate conflicts and the increased frequency, scale, and
complexity of multinational operations designed to create stability and peace in
war-torn countries. However, despite this operational experience, PSOs have
been marginalized in the ‘‘Revolution in Military Affairs’’ (RMA) and ‘‘Trans-
formation’’ concepts, the two most influential ideas guiding recent develop-
ments in doctrine, force structure, and planning in the militaries of the
industrialized democracies (and especially in the United States). A disconnect
has developed between RMA and Transformation concepts, which emphasize
traditional war-fighting operations (which are rare) and the demands and
requirements of PSOs (which are common). The marginalization of PSOs in the
RMA and Transformation literature can be explained by the dominant influence
of U.S. perspectives in the intellectual and policy development of these con-
cepts. While the RMA and Transformation agendas do promise some improve-
ments in the political, organizational, and operational conduct of PSOs, both
concepts are inappropriate as foundations for the development of peace support
and stability operation capacities and may in fact be obstacles to improving
these capacities. As a result, there will be no wider ‘‘revolution’’ or ‘‘transfor-
mation’’ in the ability of the militaries of the industrialized democracies to con-
duct PSOs. Instead, ongoing and future peace support and stability operations
may have a greater impact on the RMA and Transformation agendas than the
other way around.
Page Number: 82
FROM THE RMA TO TRANSFORMATION: THE EVOLUTION OF FULL

INTELLECTUAL DOMINANCE
The genesis of the RMA concept is generally attributed to Marshal Nikolai V.

Ogarkov, the Chief of the Soviet General Staff in the early 1980s. Ogarkov and
other Soviet military thinkers suggested that a military-technical revolution was
underway due to the development of precision-guided munitions and advances
in surveillance and information distribution systems.2 Ogarkov’s ideas soon 2
found their way to the United States, where the specific term ‘‘revolution
in military affairs’’ was originally coined by Andrew W. Marshall, the long-
serving director of the Office of Net Assessment in the U.S. Department of
Defense. The RMA quickly developed into a fashionable intellectual concept in
U.S. security policy circles. The fundamental tenets of the idea were expressed
in three core arguments. First, military history is characterized by relatively
sudden surges in military capabilities that fundamentally alter the nature of
warfare. What distinguishes these revolutions (which are rare) from ongoing,
incremental military innovations (which are common) is discontinuity: previous
technologies and techniques for waging war are rendered obsolete. Second,
military revolutions are social, not just military-technical, phenomena; they are
embedded in wider political, economic, and organizational developments that
together create the conditions for a paradigm shift in the conduct of warfare.3 3
Third, RMA advocates argued that a revolution was underway, characterized
by new surveillance and reconnaissance systems that would lift the fog of war,
advanced command and control systems to maneuver military forces and
deliver firepower on the battlefield, and precision-guided munitions, which
would increase the lethality and the efficiency of military operations.4 4
The RMA concept was accompanied by a tantalizing normative component.
RMA advocates argued that those countries best able to harness an emerging
RMA and adapt their militaries would reap the advantages of military superior-
ity over their opponents. The RMA was, at the same time, a descriptive intel-
lectual construct about the course of military history and a prescriptive policy
argument charting a course for the future development of military power. Fur-
thermore, the RMA was attractive politically in the immediate post-Cold War
period, promising greater firepower and military effectiveness at less cost and
the prospect of prosecuting regional wars quickly and with minimal casualties.
The RMA soon moved from an intellectual idea to a policy initiative. In 1994,
the Clinton Administration appointed two RMA advocates to senior positions:
Secretary of Defense William Perry and Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff Admiral William Owens. As early as 1995, the Annual Report of the Sec-
retary of Defense made reference to the RMA.5 Subsequently, doctrinal and 5
vision statements such as Joint Vision 2010 (1996), Concept for Future Joint
Operations (1997), and Joint Vision 2020 (2000) emphasized the RMA as the
foundation for the ongoing development of the U.S. military, and established
‘‘full spectrum dominance’’ as the goal of this ongoing effort.
Page Number: 83
THE RMA, TRANSFORMATION, AND PEACE SUPPORT OPERATIONS 83
In 2000, the use of the term ‘‘RMA’’ in intellectual and policy circles began
to be superseded by the term ‘‘military transformation’’ or just ‘‘transforma-
tion.’’ Although the two terms are often used synonymously, Transformation is
best conceived as a policy and organizational agenda flowing from the intellec-
tual logic of the RMA. In a report to the U.S. Congress, Ronald O’Rourke
observed, ‘‘[the] … RMA can be used to refer to a major change in the charac-
ter of warfare, while transformation can be used to refer to the process of
changing military weapons, concepts of operation, and organization in relation
to (or in anticipation of) an RMA.’’6 In the introduction to his edited volume 6
Transforming America’s Military, Hans Binnendijk suggested that ‘‘Military
transformation is the act of creating and harnessing a revolution in military
affairs.’’7 The U.S. defense establishment began calling for the transformation 7
of the U.S. military as early as 1997. The National Defense Panel report titled
Transforming Defense: National Security in the 21st Century recommended that
‘‘executing a transformation strategy for the U.S. military’’ was ‘‘the highest
priority’’ of the Department of Defense.8 The annual report of the Secretary of 8
Defense for 1998 declared that the Department had ‘‘embarked on a transfor-
mation strategy to meet the challenges of the 21st century.’’9 9
The George W. Bush Administration injected new energy into Transforma-
tion. Under the Bush Administration, Transformation might be more accurately
called ‘‘Rumsformation,’’ as the agenda was driven by Secretary of Defense
Donald Rumsfeld’s objective to change the way the U.S. military fought wars.
In a 2002 article in Foreign Affairs, Rumsfeld emphasized that transformation
was an ‘‘ongoing process’’ that required ‘‘new ways of thinking’’ and the ‘‘abil-
ity to adapt.’’ In Rumsfeld’s vision, an emphasis was placed on organizational
and doctrinal change. ‘‘All the high-tech weapons in the world,’’ he argued,
‘‘won’t transform the U.S. armed forces unless we also transform the way we
think, train, exercise, and fight.’’10 Rumsfeld placed a particular emphasis on 10
lighter, more mobile forces (particularly in the Army), joint operations between
the services, and the importance of Special Forces. Rumsfeld’s vision was not
universally popular within the U.S. military, as it threatened established views
on desirable force structure, weapons platforms, and service procurement prior-
ities. Undeterred, Rumsfeld was instrumental in the creation of the Office of
Force Transformation in the 2001 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR).
In the U.S. military, a tree of operational concepts grew out of the RMA and
Transformation vision, often in the form of service or specialized command
vision statements. Rapid Decisive Operations (RDO) emerged out of U.S. Joint
Forces Command and was billed as the essence of military transformation:
‘‘The U.S. and its allies asymmetrically assault the adversary from directions
and in dimensions against which he has no counter, dictating the terms and
tempo of the operation. The adversary, suffering from the loss of coherence and
unable to achieve his objectives, chooses to cease actions that are against U.S.
interests or has his capabilities defeated.’’11 The RDO framework was similar 11
to the ‘‘shock and awe’’ concept that emerged in the mid-1990s and was later
Page Number: 84
popularized with some notoriety by Secretary Rumsfeld.12 Not to be outdone, 12

the U.S. Air Force developed the concept of ‘‘Effects-Based Operations’’
(EBO). Meanwhile, in 1998, the U.S. Navy developed the idea of Network-
Centric Warfare (NCW), drawn from the network-centric business model popu-
lar in U.S. corporate culture at the time.13 NCW has since become a ‘‘master 13
concept’’ in transformation thinking.14 And so it was that by the late 2000’s, 14
the RMA had evolved from a fashionable intellectual concept to a position of
‘‘full intellectual dominance’’ as the core framework for major changes in the
U.S. military, with champions at the highest political and military levels of the
United States.
FROM THE RMA TO TRANSFORMATION: THE MARGINALIZATION OF PSOs
The RMA and Transformation literature is almost exclusively focused on High-

Intensity Conflict (HIC). This is largely due to the dominance of the American
strategic and military establishment in the origin and development of these con-
cepts. Historically, the peacekeeping experience is largely peripheral to U.S.
strategic culture and military operations. Even counterinsurgency operations
have been largely marginalized in the RMA literature, as memories of Vietnam
faded. The major experiences the United States had with PSOs at the end of the
Cold War was in Somalia and Bosnia, experiences that were largely unpleasant
and reinforced negative attitudes toward PSOs (and the United Nations). In con-
trast, the experience of the 1990 to 1991 Gulf War seemed to vindicate the
RMA thesis and supported the widespread consensus that the U.S. military was
an instrument of war-fighting, not peacekeeping.
The HIC focus of the RMA did not go unchallenged within the U.S. mili-
tary. An intellectual opposition suggested that ‘‘operations other than war’’
(OOTW) would become increasingly important.15 This view actually became 15
entrenched in U.S. Army doctrine in Field Manual (FM) 100-5 (now FM 3-0)
in 1993. However, little effort was made to connect or reconcile the RMA and
OOTW concepts, and OOTW was relegated to the background of doctrinal
thinking.16 Through the 1990s, oblique references were made to PSOs in some 16
of the RMA literature. In one early study, it was suggested that the military
technical revolution would be helpful in peace operations that required action
against one or more of the parties to a conflict.17 Another study suggested that 17
the RMA could have an impact on interventions in interstate conflicts due to
the potential of new technologies to reduce casualties and collateral damage.18 18
The National Defense Panel Report of 1997 noted that the U.S. military would
continue to be committed to peacekeeping and humanitarian relief missions,
and conceded that some forces might require ‘‘restructuring’’ for such opera-
tions.19 However, no systematic analysis of the relationship between the RMA 19
and PSOs was ever composed, and little in the way of substantive preparation
for PSOs was undertaken in the U.S. military.
Page Number: 85
The U.S. Transformation literature devotes more attention on Low-Intensity

Conflict (LIC) but rarely addresses PSOs. In his Foreign Affairs article, Donald
Rumsfeld failed to even mention peace support or stability operations. Official
documents like the 2001 QDR mentioned OOTW, but these discussions were
brief and the wider political, force structure, and training implications of such
missions were never developed. The ‘‘shock and awe’’ concept emphasized the
importance of OOTW, but defined such operations rather narrowly as smaller
scale combat with political constraints, rather than addressing broader peace
support or stability operations. In his Congressional Research Service Report
on Defense Transformation, Ronald O’Rourke devotes only one paragraph to
stability operations.20 Furthermore, in the U.S. literature on peacekeeping, 20
peace support, and stabilization operations, there have been relatively few stud-
ies of the impact or significance of the RMA and Transformation for peace-
keeping. One report specifically devoted to the U.S. military and peace support
and stability operations did not establish an explicit link to the RMA or Trans-
formation concepts that have been driving U.S. planning for years.21 21
THE RMA AND TRANSFORMATION OUTSIDE THE UNITED STATES
Changes in U.S. military policy, doctrine, and weapons technology have always
reverberated through the defense establishments of allied countries, and it has
been no different with the RMA and Transformation. Shortly after the emergence
of these concepts in U.S. defense circles, civilian and military defense planners in
other countries began to evaluate them in the context of their own security policies
and priorities. In a 2006 interview, the then Acting Director of the U.S. Office of
Force Transformation identified the United Kingdom, Australia, Sweden, and Sin-
gapore as the countries that had made the most effort on military transformation.22 22
Many NATO member states incorporated some components of the RMA and
Transformation into their defense organizations, doctrine, and force structure.
Many countries in Asia did the same, adopting the RMA and Transformation to
their own military requirements, budgetary constraints, technology level, geogra-
phy, and threat perceptions.23 In general, the approach of other countries to the 23
RMA and Transformation was more cautious and incremental, a function of budg-
etary constraints, policy traditions resistant to revolutionary rhetoric, and defense
strategies that do not envision a national requirement for the HIC war-fighting sce-
narios that dominate U.S. military thinking.
The implications of the RMA and Transformation for PSOs were examined
with more diligence outside the United States because for many U.S. allies, PSOs
were an important focus of civilian and military planning and the most frequent
context for the deployment of military personnel abroad. In particular, the empha-
sis in the RMA and Transformation on command and control (with the attendant
implications for interoperability) and the promise of improvements to force pro-
jection (with the attendant implications for expeditionary forces) attracted
Page Number: 86
attention in allied countries. However, PSOs were not the primary reason why
allied countries adopted elements of the RMA and Transformation agendas. A pri-
mary motive was the retention of first-rate war-fighting capabilities. The U.K.
Strategic Defense Review (SDR) of 1998 reflected this line of thought, identifying
the United Kingdom as ‘‘… a leading member of the international community.’’24 24
The 2000 Australian White Paper on defense had a section devoted to RMA tech-
nologies, which were seen as vital to maintaining Australia’s ‘‘capability edge.’’25 25
The Australian Defense Force moved to implement Network Centric Warfare con-
cepts, with an emphasis on enhancing war-fighting capability.26 In France, the 26
RMA was viewed with considerable ambivalence, not least because it was a U.S.
concept. However, the RMA was viewed at least in part through the prism of
defining France as a great power.27 27
Another primary motive for adopting the RMA as a conceptual framework
was the need to remain an effective ally and contributor to U.S.-led alliances
and coalitions. Interoperability with the U.S. military became a watchword, as
the political implications of a technological gap between one’s own military
forces and those of the United States became evident. This theme was a promi-
nent component of the United Kingdom’s SDR, which posed the question,
‘‘How do we and our allies retain interoperability with U.S. forces given the
radical changes they envisage?’’28 The 2003 U.K. White Paper stressed the im- 28
portance of remaining interoperable with the United States ‘‘to secure an effec-
tive place in the political and military decision-making processes.’’29 In 1998, 29
the Liberal Party of Australia released an election platform document for
defense which identified the importance of the RMA and the need to embrace it
in order to ‘‘… remain a highly valued ally of the United States.’’30 In Canada, 30
interoperability with the U.S. was identified as a key concern in several defense
planning documents.31 Although advances in interoperability were generally 31
regarded as beneficial to PSOs, the central focus of such efforts was the ability
to ‘‘plug and play’’ with the U.S. military.
The surge in troop demands for peace operations placed a premium on expedi-
tionary capabilities. The RMA and Transformation concepts, already heavily per-
meated with an expeditionary consciousness given their origins in the U.S.,
provided a ready model for developing mobile, highly deployable, professional-
ized forces capable of multilateral operations overseas. Considerable emphasis
was placed on expeditionary capacities in the United Kingdom’s SDR and Aus-
tralia’s 2000 White Paper. The 2003 U.K. White Paper emphasized the move to-
ward ‘‘rapidly deployable’’ forces.32 Canada’s Defence Plan 2001 guidance 32
document identified the strengthening of Canadian Forces’ ‘‘strategic mobility
capability’’ as a priority.33 The Swedish armed forces are undergoing major trans- 33
formation towards a ‘‘Network-Based Defense’’ concept, largely in recognition of
a shift in the Swedish military’s focus from territorial defense to international
operations. While much of this discussion emphasized war-fighting scenarios, the
promise of enhanced expeditionary capabilities was directly connected to develop-
ing national capacities to carry out peace support and stability operations.
Page Number: 87
NATO has served as the most important collective instrument for spreading
the RMA and Transformation agendas. NATO has undergone its own process
of adaptation and reform since the end of the Cold War, evolving from an
instrument of collective defense to an instrument of power projection. This evo-
lution began at the Rome Summit of 1991 when NATO adopted a new strategic
concept that established peacekeeping and crisis management as a new role for
the Alliance. However, the mid to late 1990s saw a widening gap emerge
between the capabilities of the U.S. military and the rest of the Alliance. The
extent of the capability gap was revealed by NATO operations in Bosnia and
Kosovo and the air campaign against Serbia. A combination of U.S. pressure
and a growing awareness of the negative political implications of the capability
gap for Alliance cohesion provided the energy for the incorporation of RMA
and Transformation principles into NATO planning. This led to the creation of
the Defense Capabilities Initiative (DCI) at the Washington Summit in April
1999. However, only a few years later, the DCI looked largely moribund.
NATO transformation took on a new urgency in 2002 when Rumsfeld suggested
(some would say threatened) that the United States would withdraw from NATO if
the Alliance did not transform itself.34 At the 2002 summit in Prague, member states 34
approved the Prague Capabilities Commitments (PCC), resolving to transform
NATO’s forces to increase their combat effectiveness and interoperability and to shift
planning from threat-based to capabilities-based and effects-based analysis.35 It was 35
understood that not all NATO states would attain the level of network-centric warfare
standards, but instead the Alliance as a whole would work toward ‘‘network-enabled
warfare.’’36 The Alliance also agreed to establish a NATO Response Force (NRF) that 36
would provide an effective rapid reaction capability for the Alliance and serve as the
model for incorporating transformation concepts into NATO’s force structure.37 Not 37
coincidentally, the NRF was first proposed by Donald Rumsfeld in 2002. The Alli-
ance also agreed to reform its command structure, establishing Allied Command
Operations (ACO) and Allied Command Transformation (ACT). ACT is NATO’s
‘‘forcing agent’’ for the development of new strategic concepts, an Effects-Based
Approach to Operations (EBAO), force planning, capability requirements, and train-
ing.38 The physical location of ACT has not escaped notice. As Helga Haftendoorn 38
has pointed out, the co-location of ACT with the U.S. Joint Forces Command at Nor-
folk, Virginia gives the United States a considerable influence over the alliance trans-
formation.39 Transformation is now fully a part of the NATO agenda, a fact 39
confirmed at the Riga Summit in November 2006.40 However, as an ACT document 40
points out, ‘‘The unique challenge for NATO’s transformation is the attempting of
this ‘revolution’ in an Alliance of 26 sovereign nations.’’41 41
THE IMPACT OF IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN ON THE RMA AND TRANSFORMATION
The relative neglect of PSOs in the RMA and Transformation agendas has been
revisited in light of the operational experience in Afghanistan and Iraq, where
Page Number: 88
‘‘theory has clashed with reality.’’42 In the wake of U.S.-led interventions, sta- 42
bility operations took on a new urgency as swift and successful military cam-
paigns were followed by interminable efforts to establish security and order.
This urgency has led to efforts to fill a doctrinal and capability gap between the
war-fighting mission and the ultimate political objective of a long-term peace.
Peace support and stability missions are seen as the means to fill this gap, and
this has increased interest in PSOs, counterinsurgency, and state-building. In
Iraq in particular, the U.S. military failed to respond effectively to lawless con-
ditions, the collapse of institutions of governance, the impact of a destroyed
national infrastructure, and attacks by insurgents. Some of this was due to
insufficient numbers of personnel, but there was also an evident lack of prepara-
tion, training, and resources for post-conflict operations. As British Brigadier
Nigel Aylwin-Foster observed, ‘‘… the U.S. Army has developed over time a
singular focus on conventional warfare, of a particularly swift and violent style,
which left it ill-suited to the kind of operation it encountered as soon as conven-
tional warfare ceased to be the primary focus in [Operation Iraqi Freedom].’’43 43
The realization that asymmetric warfare advantages lay with America’s
opponents in counterinsurgency and stability operations led to a reactive scram-
ble in intellectual and policy circles in the United States. In 2003, the U.S.
Army Peacekeeping Institute was renamed the U.S. Army Peacekeeping and
Stability Operations Institute as a center of excellence for mastering stability,
security, transition, and reconstruction (SSTR) and peace operations. Two stud-
ies by the Defense Science Board in 2004 and 2005 emphasized the need for
the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) and other U.S. government departments
to devote more energy and resources to carrying out stability operations. The
2005 report explicitly called for a ‘‘transformation’’ to establish stability opera-
tions on par with combat operations.44 In a 2005 DoD directive, the importance 44
of stability operations was highlighted: ‘‘Stability operations are a core U.S.
military mission that the Department of Defense shall be prepared to conduct
and support. They shall be given priority comparable to combat operations and
be explicitly addressed and integrated across all DoD activities including doc-
trine, organizations, training, education, exercises, materiel, leadership, person-
nel, facilities, and planning.’’45 The 2006 QDR recognized the need for U.S. 45
forces to prepare for a long war against global terrorism by ‘‘Giving greater em-
phasis to the war on terror and irregular warfare activities including long dura-
tion unconventional warfare, counterterrorism, counterinsurgency, and military
support for stabilization and reconstruction efforts.’’46 46
It remains to be seen whether these conceptual initiatives will be translated
into practical changes in the doctrinal and training emphasis of the U.S. mili-
tary. While more attention is being directed toward peace support and stability
missions in general and counterinsurgency operations in particular, there have
been no systematic studies of the relationship between Transformation and
PSOs to date. For other countries, the operational experience in Iraq and Af-
ghanistan has been less jarring, largely because of a longer and more extensive
Page Number: 89
experience with PSOs in unstable environments. If anything, the development

of more robust peace support and stability missions has created a convergence:
the U.S. military has had to adjust to the demands of PSOs by moving away
from a myopic focus on HIC, while many other countries have had to adjust by
moving toward more counterinsurgency-based concepts of operations and away
from more passive peacekeeping approaches. Nevertheless, the troubles experi-
enced in Afghanistan and Iraq demonstrate that the techno-centric and HIC my-
opia of the RMA and Transformation agendas has served to hinder, rather than
help, preparations for counterinsurgency, stability, and peace support missions.
THE RMA, TRANSFORMATION, AND THE NATURE OF PSOs
In the period in which the RMA was conceptualized, peacekeeping was under-
going its own revolution or transformation. The emergence of intrastate conflicts
in regional hotspots across the globe, especially in ‘‘failed’’ or ‘‘collapsed’’ states
such as Somalia, Yugoslavia, Cambodia, Rwanda, and Haiti, provoked ambitious
efforts to use peacekeeping as an instrument to stop civil wars and respond to hu-
manitarian crises.47 There was a dramatic increase in the number of U.N. and 47
U.N.-sanctioned peacekeeping operations through the 1990s. While ‘‘traditional’’
interstate peacekeeping missions were still established (between Iraq and Kuwait
and between Ethiopia and Eritrea, for example) most of the post-Cold War
‘‘second generation’’ intrastate peacekeeping missions were qualitatively different
in scope.48 They were frequently deployed into conflict zones where there was no 48
peace to keep. Operationally, rather than conducting interpositionary functions
such as patrolling a ceasefire line, missions were tasked with establishing a safe
and secure environment and facilitating humanitarian relief efforts. Many mis-
sions were invoked under Chapter VII of the U.N. Charter, giving participants a
broader mandate to use force against aggressors and ‘‘spoilers’’ (parties opposed
to peace). The United Nations also authorized regional organizations to lead some
missions (such as NATO in the Balkans and the Economic Community Of West
African States [ECOWAS] in Liberia).
The objective of PSO missions is the creation and consolidation of social
order, the prerequisite for the peace-building and reconstruction efforts neces-
sary for long-term development and a sustainable peace. C. Richard Nelson
defines stabilization operations and reconstruction efforts as ‘‘a process to
achieve a locally led and sustainable peace in a dangerous environment.’’49 49
This objective is achieved only partially through the application of military
force. For the most part, the instruments of peace support and stability missions
are political, not military. From these objectives flow a multitude of tasks char-
acteristic of most, though not all, PSOs. These tasks include: the monitoring
and supervision of ceasefire lines, safe zones, weapons cantonment sites, and
military formations; the maintenance (or supporting the maintenance) of civil
order; sanctions enforcement, demobilization, disarmament, and reintegration
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of combatants; providing security of movement and protection of infrastructure;

protecting the local population; deterring or defeating spoilers or insurgents; se-
curity sector reform (including development and training of police and judicial
systems); and electoral support. To carry out these tasks, coordination with
international organizations, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and pri-
vate contractors is crucial.
In peace support or stability missions, concepts of operations based on a tra-
ditional war-fighting paradigm are largely irrelevant. The nature of the PSO ex-
perience thus cuts against the grain of the conceptual and doctrinal foundations
of the RMA and Transformation concepts. The RMA and Transformation have
been accused of an overemphasis on the impact of technology and an almost
exclusive focus on HIC. Despite the recognition of the importance of training,
doctrine, and organization in the RMA concept, critics charge that techno-
centric and especially weapons-oriented thinking has dominated the intellectual,
policy, and funding environment.50 This techno-centric thinking takes place 50
within the larger paradigm of preparation for large-scale conventional conflict.
In particular, the U.S. military and its political leadership has repeatedly failed
to mainstream irregular, counterinsurgency, or peace support missions into doc-
trine, institutional structures, and training. In peace support and stability mis-
sions, technology is an important but far from decisive component of
operations, which depend much more on diplomacy, mediation and facilitation,
and physical presence. HIC doctrines and training emphasize war-fighting
skills, while PSOs place a higher premium on risk acceptance, fire discipline,
and policing skills.
A signature feature of PSOs is the importance of the social, political, and
cultural context of the countries in which they are embedded. This places a pre-
mium on historical and social awareness at both the planning and operational
levels. However, the RMA and Transformation concepts have also been
attacked for historical inaccuracy and a disconnection from political reality.
Conceptually, the very existence of military revolutions has been called into
question by those who dispute the argument that periods of innovation in mili-
tary history can be described as revolutionary or discontinuous. For these crit-
ics, the emphasis on change over continuity in the RMA literature is an
intellectual construct that has privileged interpretations of military develop-
ments as revolutionary instead of evolutionary.51 In a particularly scathing 51
commentary, Brian McAllister Linn has suggested:
Too much of the historical literature on transformation is conceptually weak, inad-

equately researched, simplistic, and is often fatally suspect. What is even more dis-
turbing is that this flawed literature is assimilated by an uncritical audience and soon
is cited to justify even more specious ideas. The lack of historical awareness, and the
poor quality of much of the research, has led to some of the major tenets—one might
even refer to them as the central dogmas—of the transformation debate being essen-
tially built on historical fallacies.52 52
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If the RMA and Transformation are based on historically contestable

assumptions, then neither concept is a suitable foundation for military planning.
This is especially true of planning for PSOs, which are largely absent from the
historical record used to support the RMA idea. Also absent are the counterin-
surgency and OOTW experiences and forms of armed conflict such as raiding,
tribal warfare, and revolutions. These histories are a more relevant basis for
understanding and planning for PSOs.
The RMA concept is also accused of promoting an air of unreality in delib-
erations about war. Mackubin T. Owens criticized the RMA concept as ‘‘mech-
anistic’’ and ‘‘disconnected from what our adversaries may think, want, or
do.’’53 Owns also suggests that the emphasis on reducing the ‘‘fog of war’’ 53
through information systems and data management will not necessarily lead to
more effective decision making; in his view data and information do not equate
to knowledge and understanding.54 Kagan criticizes the focus on the destructive 54
potential of emerging weapons systems and doctrinal innovations, which he
argues promoted a conceptualization of U.S. military operations separated from
political context.55 Lost in the RMA and Transformation discourse is the basic 55
formula of war as a political act aimed at producing a political outcome. Not
only are PSOs not wars, they are intimately embedded in social, political, and
demographic characteristics, and depend on a solid understanding and apprecia-
tion of those characteristics to be effective. PSOs place a premium on under-
standing not only what ‘‘spoilers’’ (parties opposed to peace) may think, want,
or do, but what the general population or various groups may think, want, or
do. PSOs have a specific set of political and social goals that are the ultimate
objective of any mission task, and operations that are ‘‘mechanistic’’ or ‘‘dis-
connected’’ from the political and social environment are doomed to failure.
The conceptual foundations of the RMA and Transformation are thus funda-
mentally unsuited to the character of PSOs. This suggests that developing
improved PSO capacities must be based on alternative concepts based on differ-
ent, or supplementary, interpretations of the history of armed conflict.
THE IMPACT OF THE RMA AND TRANSFORMATION ON PSOs
Although the assumptions underlying the RMA and Transformation are unsuit-
able as a foundation for the future development of PSO doctrine and capacity,
to what extent do the RMA and Transformation agendas promise some
improvement in PSO capabilities? Historical and contemporary PSOs have
faced a set of challenges at the political, organizational, and operational levels.
An analysis of these challenges in light of the RMA and Transformation agen-
das suggests that the ability to conduct PSOs might be improved by some of
the RMA- and Transformation-related changes in the military capacities of the
industrialized democracies. However, these positive possibilities must be
weighed against the larger conceptual gulf that exists between the RMA and
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Transformation assumptions and the nature of PSOs. On balance, the RMA and
Transformation agendas are likely to harm, rather than help, efforts to increase
the ability of armed forces to conduct PSOs more effectively.
The Political Aspects of PSOs

The creation of PSOs. The RMA and Transformation agendas will have little
impact on the political calculations and machinations that lead to the creation
of PSOs. The creation of any mission, whether it is in the context of the United
Nations, regional institutions such as NATO, or in ‘‘coalitions of the willing,’’
is a product of a political process of negotiation and bargaining between states.
In turn, states are driven by a complex political brew of national interests,
domestic pressures, and the motives of leadership groups. The fact that every
peace support and stability mission is the product of often unique sets of politi-
cal circumstances is the most basic reason for the limited scope that military-
technical or doctrinal innovations are likely to have on PSOs. Some potential
does exist for changes in military capacity to have an impact at the level of po-
litical will and the creation of PSOs. If RMA or Transformation developments
lead to an increase in the availability and capacity of expeditionary forces, an
enhancement of national and multilateral peace support preparations, and the
development of improved operational capabilities, it is possible that these
developments could reduce some of the political doubts and practical obstacles
associated with generating PSOs, and in turn make their creation more likely.
However, ultimately the decision to establish a mission is a product of political,
rather than military, considerations.
Deficiencies in capacity. The size, composition, and capacity of PSOs are the
product of which states choose to participate, and what and how much they
choose to contribute. For political reasons, many states choose not to contribute
to PSOs at all. Many other states choose to offer only small contributions (some-
times a mere handful of personnel). The bulk of contributions to any given PSO
tend to come from a rather small set of countries. Troop contributions to U.N.-
led peace support missions are dominated by developing world countries, many
of which have large militaries but may lack specialized capabilities. Further-
more, even the most enthusiastic contributors to peace support missions do not
have inexhaustible resources and may choose not to participate in some politi-
cally sensitive missions. As a result, PSOs have historically suffered from short-
falls in funding, troop contributions, troop quality, and specialized assets such as
transportation and communications. The RMA and Transformation agendas
might promise improvements in the war-fighting capacity of the armed forces of
the industrialized democracies, but this improvement does not necessarily trans-
late into a reduction in the capacity deficiencies experienced by PSOs.
Right authority and mandates. PSOs are heavily dependent on legal or moral
authority and legitimacy at the political level. This authority and legitimacy
sustains both international support for a mission and the support of the host
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government and society. Right authority and legitimacy is generally a product

of the character of the conflict in question (which may feature gross violations
of human rights that create compelling moral pressures for intervention) and
the legal authority of an international institution (essentially the United Nations
Security Council). The authority and legitimacy of the vast majority of peace
support and stability missions is laid out in a written mandate, which is the
product of political negotiation, bargaining, and power politics between states.
The mandate of a mission specifies its objectives and the parameters of mission
activities. Essentially, the mandate defines the mission, and the mission can
only change if the mandate is changed. These mandates are in turn the basis for
the rules of engagement, which specify the terms under which force and other
instruments may be used in the field. At the political level, where the defining
character and parameters of missions are established, RMA and Transformation
concepts have little impact.
Legitimacy and political support. Over time, the ability to sustain PSOs in
the field is heavily dependent on political support among the leadership and
population of contributing countries. Popular support can be undermined by
doubts about the prospects of success, a lack of progress on stabilization and
reconstruction, and casualties (both to national soldiers and local civilians). In
addition, legitimacy is not only a matter of justness of cause, but also a matter
of justness of conduct. In this respect, the legitimacy of PSOs is also deter-
mined by how operations (particularly military operations) are executed. The
excessive use of firepower, destruction of civilian homes and infrastructure, and
civilian casualties can all undermine local support for a foreign peace support
presence. To the extent that certain technologies or techniques can reduce the
potential for the misapplication of force, reduce collateral damage and civilian
casualties, and reduce the intrusiveness of field operations, then the RMA and
Transformation agenda may contribute to the ability to maintain host support
for a foreign presence. However, PSOs have been conducted for a long time
and witnessed many technological developments and differences in the techni-
cal capacities of national contingents. The relationship between the conduct of
operations and local support is determined primarily by how available technol-
ogy is used, not by the intrinsic technical capacities of weapons systems and
other equipment.
State-building, nation-building, and peace-building. The ultimate objective
of most contemporary PSOs is the establishment of the conditions for a long-
term peace in a failed and/or war-torn state. This requires an international effort
that goes beyond the cessation of hostilities and the establishment of order.
Most PSOs are now mandated to participate in large-scale post-conflict recon-
struction efforts, now referred to as state-building or nation-building (or in the
U.N. system, peace-building). These efforts are carried out by a multitude of
international agencies and actors, requiring effective planning and coordination
across a wide spectrum of activities from elections to police reform to eco-
nomic development. RMA and Transformation weapons and techniques may
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improve the ability of a foreign presence to maintain the order and stability
required for the success of state-building, nation-building, and peace-building.
However, military capabilities cannot provide electoral assistance, contribute to
police training, or revitalize local economies. Reconstruction efforts, on which
the success of a mission ultimately depends, are primarily political, social, and
economic endeavors, and the RMA and Transformation agenda is therefore of
little relevance to this crucial aspect of PSOs.
The Organizational Aspects of PSOs

Interoperability in multilateral military operations. One of the signature charac-
teristics of PSOs is their multinational composition. As a result, one of the most
significant challenges facing PSOs is interoperability. To be effective PSOs
require a high level of cooperation at the military level, which places a pre-
mium on the ability of many different national contingents to communicate
effectively and coordinate their activities. The emphasis placed on enhancing
command, control, and communications through the RMA and Transformation
agendas promises ongoing advances in interoperability that will benefit PSOs.
However, advances in NCW may be largely irrelevant in the conduct of a peace
mission if multinational partners are largely technically or doctrinally incapable
of operating in a NCW environment. Furthermore, concerns about information
and network security may actually decrease communication and coordination
across national contingents and may in fact compromise the political will of
NCW-capable countries to participate in multinational efforts. As Paul T.
Mitchell points out, the twin requirements of network compatibility and infor-
mation security create a barrier to information sharing in multinational opera-
tions. Interoperability is not just a matter of technical capacity, but of trust.56 56
The unwillingness to share information due to real or imagined concerns about
operational security and preserving intelligence sources can promote both a po-
litical and operational unilateralism fundamentally antithetical to the conduct of
effective multilateral missions. The RMA and Transformation thus have a
potentially corrosive implication for multinational peace support and stability
operations.
National command and operational control. A significant barrier to the
effective and efficient use of military forces in PSOs is the ‘‘national caveats’’
or ‘‘red cards’’ imposed by some participating governments. Essentially, these
caveats specify that the personnel contributed by a government will not partici-
pate in certain mission tasks or in certain geographic locations within an opera-
tion. These conditions are imposed by governments that wish to avoid the
domestic political consequences of casualties, either because public support for
a specific mission is weak or because the political culture of a country is unfa-
miliar with or opposed to peace support missions or certain kinds of missions.
As a result, despite the existence of a formal chain of operational control under
a Force Commander, the reality that governments retain national command over
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their contingents has meant that certain personnel will participate in certain
operations, tasks, or initiatives only with the expressed approval of their gov-
ernments. In Afghanistan, NATO’s International Security Assistance Force
(ISAF) mission has struggled with national caveats that restrict the movement
of NATO forces deployed in the north and the west (relatively stable parts of
the country) to the south, where the insurgency is most active and where addi-
tional troops are most needed. While RMA and Transformation initiatives may
have increased the ability of NATO contingents to operate effectively together
in the field, they have not removed the political obstacle of national caveats.
The Operational Aspects of PSOs

Expeditionary and rapid reaction capabilities. As noted earlier, the RMA and
Transformation agendas place a great deal of emphasis on force projection and
expeditionary military capabilities. Improvements in these capabilities have the
potential to increase the number and availability of military units for peace sup-
port and stability missions. Another potential benefit is improvements in rapid
reaction capability. PSOs have been plagued by the slow deployment of mili-
tary forces after the creation of a mission, with delays of as much as three to
six months not uncommon. This has led to several attempts to improve the
rapid reaction capability of the United Nations. NATO has moved in the same
direction, with the NRF emerging as the latest incarnation of the effort to
enhance the rapid deployment capacities of the Alliance. The creation of expe-
ditionary and rapid reaction capabilities and arrangements is a positive develop-
ment for PSOs. However, a political decision by national governments is still
required if expeditionary capabilities are to be deployed. And despite the
advanced preparation for rapid deployment in multinational military arrange-
ments, the basic prerogative of governments to ‘‘opt out’’ of any given contin-
gency remains in place.
Deployment profile. RMA and Transformation concepts emphasize military
deployments designed for HIC operations. There is a special emphasis on air
power, and more recently, special operations forces. The deployment of ground
forces is focused largely on the use of firepower and maneuver elements capa-
ble of achieving victory in mass mechanized warfare. This concept of opera-
tions is not suited to the objectives or characteristics of peace support and
stability missions. In PSOs, the presence of military personnel serves a primar-
ily political function. By deploying between the combatants or within a given
geographic area, they serve as a deterrent to future hostilities, a resource for re-
gional and local negotiation and mediation, a channel for communication, a
visible sign of the commitment of third parties to a peace, and, if necessary, as
providers of order and security. ‘‘Boots on the ground’’ remain the signature
feature of PSOs. Peace support missions require a physical presence on the
ground and human to human communication, networking, and the development
of relationships of trust and understanding. Interaction with the local population
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is a signature component of all forms of peacekeeping and stability operations.

To the extent that combat operations may be required in PSOs, they take a form
more analogous to counterinsurgency warfare.
The use of force. The RMA and Transformation place a great deal of empha-
sis on the delivery of firepower, especially precision firepower. However, the
use of force (even the use of precision-guided munitions) in PSOs faces far more
significant political constraints than in traditional HICs or even counterinsur-
gency warfare. While the use of force can serve to destroy or disrupt opponents
or ‘‘spoilers,’’ the inevitable collateral damage and civilian deaths can alienate
local and international opinion, draw a PSO into hostilities, and increase the vul-
nerability of PSO personnel and foreign staff to retaliation. Both the RMA and
Transformation place a great deal of emphasis on ‘‘battlespace awareness’’ to
remove the proverbial ‘‘fog of war’’ from the battlefield. In PSOs there is no bat-
tlefield to be revealed, no battlespace to dominate. For the most part, combatants
and spoilers take the form of light infantry operating in small, dispersed units.
Lacking mass in the traditional military sense, they are able to take advantage of
available terrain and population centers for concealment and evasion. As a
result, they are far less vulnerable to detection and attack by RMA technologies
than are traditional force structures. Stephen Biddle’s analysis of the war in Af-
ghanistan is revealing, stressing the ability of the Taliban and Al-Qaeda forces
to adapt to the introduction of U.S. firepower by utilizing terrain and tech-
nique.57 Even when relevant military targets can be found, attacking them may 57
be politically undesirable. As Colin Gray has pointed out,
Stability operations need to be understood as integral to counterinsurgency strategy

and doctrine. In order for that to happen, the armed forces have to grasp the most
vital differences between regular and irregular warfare. In particular, they need to
understand, and act on the understanding, that chasing and eviscerating bad guys,
though probably good for soldiers’ careers, is strictly a secondary concern.58 58
Information technology. Several studies have examined the relationship

between information technology and improving peace support and stability
operations. A U.S. study identified a range of information and related technolo-
gies suitable for PSOs. These included communications, crowd control, mine
clearance, non-lethal weapons, and training systems. The study argued that these
technologies could increase the effectiveness of peace support missions by
reducing costs, personnel requirements, and casualties.59 Improved information 59
gathering, dissemination, and communications capacities also carry the promise
of reducing misperceptions and actions based on incomplete or faulty informa-
tion. In PSOs, a premium is placed on accurate information not only about the
disposition of combatants and analysis of their capacities and intent, but also on
social and cultural factors that are crucial to any effort to engage in negotiation,
mediation, or conflict management. To the extent that advanced technologies
can help provide that information, the benefits to PSOs would be notable.
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However, in her examination of information technology in PSOs, Donna G.

Boltz argues that ‘‘The pace of [information technology] development in the
second half of the twentieth century clearly has outrun its application in peace
support operations.’’60 Boltz argues that national governments have devoted 60
insufficient attention to information technologies and PSOs. Meanwhile, the
United Nations is unable to assume leadership in incorporating information tech-
nologies into PSOs due to political, organizational, and financial constraints. A
focus on high technology also obscures the fact that many of the technologies
that have proved their worth in PSOs are scarcely revolutionary, including the
operation of radio stations and the distribution of cheap radios. Finally, informa-
tion technology alone cannot improve the negotiation and mediation skills
required for conflict management at the field level in PSOs.
Intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance. The intelligence gathering
and ‘‘real-time’’ surveillance and reconnaissance technologies of the RMA and
Transformation concepts offer considerable potential for PSOs. When Kofi
Annan was Under-Secretary General of Peacekeeping Operations, he recog-
nized the potential benefits of technologies such as remote sensors and satellites
for peace operations.61 Advances in surveillance and reconnaissance technolo- 61
gies promise to enhance observation of ceasefire lines, demilitarized zones, ref-
ugee camps, and safe areas, and key infrastructure points such as airports,
bridges, and pipelines.62 In favorable terrain these technologies can also be 62
used to detect troop concentrations, track refugee flows, and determine the loca-
tion of atrocities or mass graves. Such technologies have the political advantage
of being less visible and intrusive.63 The use of such technology can also con- 63
tribute to confidence-building measures and transparency, as well as reinforcing
the deterrent effect of a peace operation. As Gerald Yonas observes, ‘‘Data col-
lected through sensor or surveillance systems can help increase the confidence
of the parties to an agreement or it can provide operational intelligence for pre-
venting violence.’’64 64
However, political opposition may limit the actual availability and use of
some technologies. For example, the long-standing allergy to intelligence gath-
ering at the United Nations poses an obstacle to the formal inclusion of more
intelligence gathering capacities in U.N.-led missions. Furthermore, in cases
where sovereignty considerations are a political constraint and where high lev-
els of suspicion of a foreign presence exist, many of these technologies may be
unacceptable to the host state or the local population and leadership. In addi-
tion, the question of who interprets the information and has access to the raw
data is a significant political issue in multilateral operations of all kinds. In
PSOs the political sensitivity of information analysis is magnified. Not only is
information gathering and analysis subject to multiple political, social, or cul-
tural interpretations, suspicions (real or imagined) that such interpretations are
politically motivated and manipulative in intent can poison the atmosphere and
create or reinforce distrust among contributing states. Finally, the mere gather-
ing, storing, and disseminating of information does not create knowledge or
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understanding or effective decision making in conventional military operations.

It is even less likely to do so in PSOs. The effectiveness of new surveillance
and reconnaissance technologies in peace support and stabilization missions is
more than just a function of the technical capacity of the equipment. It is also a
function of the ability of intelligence staffs to interpret and collate the informa-
tion in a peace support rather than a war-fighting context.65 65
Training. The RMA and transformation concepts place a high premium on
training systems that emphasize high technology and traditional military opera-
tions, marginalizing training and simulation for operations short of HIC. The
result is necessarily technical but excessively Manichean training that provides
little guidance in the subtleties of occupation, counterinsurgency, or peace sup-
port missions. It is an axiom in most of the peacekeeping literature that a good
peacekeeper necessarily requires the training of a warfighting soldier. But it is
also the case that a trained warfighting soldier is not necessarily a good peace-
keeper. PSOs place a unique set of demands on militaries. They must cope with
the already formidable challenges of providing a safe and secure environment
and conducting counterinsurgency style operations when required. They must
also carry out a large array of diverse tasks which are outside, or at the margins,
of their training regimen. They must operate within the rules of engagement
established by the mission and their national capitals, and within the social and
cultural milieu of the local and regional environment. The scope of the
demands placed upon military personnel is such that training regimens and
manuals and supplementary mission specific training cannot prepare soldiers
for every eventuality. As a result, background knowledge, education, and life
experiences (military or otherwise) become the basis for some actions, some-
times with negative or disastrous consequences.
The experience in Afghanistan and Iraq has sparked some self-awareness
within the U.S. military establishment of the neglect of counterinsurgency in
doctrine and training. This shortcoming was recognized by senior military
commanders, including General David Petraeus, commander of the U.S. Army
training establishment and the Command and General Staff College (subse-
quently appointed to command U.S. forces in Iraq in 2007), who remarked that
‘‘the insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan were not, in truth, the wars for which
we were best prepared in 2001; however, they are the wars we are fighting and
they are clearly the kind of wars we must master.’’66 The focus of the general’s 66
article, it should be noted, was on insurgency and not peace support, although
several of his core fourteen recommendations are relevant for the conduct of
PSOs. The need for enhanced ‘‘language skills and cultural awareness’’ was rec-
ognized in the 2006 QDR.67 However, there is a danger that the self-awareness 67
of the shortfalls in U.S. doctrine, training, and preparation as revealed in Iraq
and Afghanistan will extend mostly to insurgency warfare and counterinsur-
gency operations. Given the military’s focus on combat operations, this empha-
sis is understandable. However, PSOs are about more than counterinsurgency.
While there is overlap, a renewed emphasis on insurgency warfare and even its
Page Number: 99
inclusion in subsequent RMA and transformation thinking does not mean that
the military forces of any country will be adequately trained or prepared for
peace support and stability missions, or that the RMA and Transformation con-
cepts will be systematically adjusted to account for such operations.
Peace-building and reconstruction. The long-term goal of most peace sup-
port and stability operations is a long-term peace. The national reconstruction
and peace-building effort required to achieve this objective is primarily a politi-
cal, social, and economic endeavor. It is an axiom among senior Canadian offi-
cials in Afghanistan that there can be no development without security and no
security without development. While RMA and Transformation weapons and
techniques may improve the ability of a foreign presence to maintain the order
and stability required for the success of reconstruction and peace-building,
these capabilities cannot enhance the prospects for successful elections, contrib-
ute to security sector and judicial reform, or revitalize the economy. Hans Bin-
nendijk and Richard Kugler have suggested the establishment of a NATO
Stabilization and Reconstruction Force alongside the NRF.68 In 2005, a pro- 68
posal was floated arguing for the creation of a Stabilization and Reconstruction
Joint Command, a military organization capable of ‘‘filling the gap’’ between
the end of major combat operations and onset of nation-building efforts by ci-
vilian agencies.69 Whether these or other initiatives come to pass, the RMA or 69
Transformation concepts will not play a significant role in the development of
post-conflict reconstruction or state-building capacities.
CONCLUSIONS: PSOs AND THE FUTURE OF THE RMA AND

TRANSFORMATION CONCEPTS
The RMA and Transformation concepts have traditionally marginalized peace

support and stability operations. In the wake of the experiences of Afghanistan
and Iraq, and as Transformation concepts work their way through the multilat-
eral environment of NATO, there may be an opportunity to significantly raise
the profile of peace support and stability operations in the civilian defense and
military establishments of the United States and other industrialized democra-
cies. Already, the Afghanistan and Iraq experiences have increased calls for
improvements in political and organizational capacities to deploy such mis-
sions. Interagency cooperation and consultation measures are under review at
both the civilian and military levels. There are efforts underway to expand net-
work centrism to a wider group of agencies and organizations and actors. The
importance of expanding training and simulation regimens to develop a wider
range of competencies is evident. There is a renewed interest in counterinsur-
gency expertise within the U.S. military, and a growing consensus that security
and development efforts must be conducted in parallel and in coordination with
each other. However, in the United States there is a danger that a backlash may
set in if domestic political pressure for ‘‘no more Iraqs’’ and the military’s
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disgust at being asked to carry out missions outside the traditional war-fighting
rubric combine to create a larger political effort to avoid engagement in such
contingencies in the future. This would be unfortunate. An ‘‘Iraq Syndrome’’
era of U.S. military isolation from peace support and stability operations will
only serve to reinforce the unfortunate intellectual dominance of HIC in U.S.
strategic thought and doctrine.
The RMA and Transformation will have a positive impact on the ability of
the militaries of the industrialized democracies to conduct certain specific
aspects of peace support and stability operations, particularly in the areas of
expeditionary capacity, interoperability, and surveillance technologies. How-
ever, the RMA and Transformation are not suitable conceptual or policy foun-
dations for developing PSO capabilities or doctrine. While the RMA and
Transformation remain largely focused on securing battlefield superiority, the
military component of PSOs remains defined by political and social factors, not
military-technical ones. As a result, the RMA and Transformation have had a
negative impact on the intellectual, policy, and operational development of
PSO doctrine and capacities. In the future, the RMA and Transformation will
not have a revolutionary or transformative impact on peace support or stability
operations. In fact, the opposite is more likely: peace support and stability oper-
ations of the kind encountered in the troubled campaigns in Iraq and Afghani-
stan will have more of an impact on the RMA and Transformation agendas
than the other way around. However, this impact is likely to be felt primarily in
the form of a renewed emphasis on counterinsurgency operations, with the
effect of continuing the marginalization of PSOs.
Since the first peacekeeping missions early in the Cold War and through the
‘‘second generation’’ peacekeeping experience of the 1990s, the armed forces of
the industrialized democracies have acquired an ever increasing body of experi-
ence, knowledge, and capacity to conduct PSOs. Repeatedly called upon to take
part in PSOs, military personnel continue to demonstrate that they are capable
of carrying out such missions. If the armed forces of the industrialized democra-
cies are to improve their capacity to carry out PSOs, there must be a systematic
effort to mainstream peace support and stability missions into doctrine, training,
and force structure. This is especially true in the United States, where the mar-
ginalization of PSOs has been most evident. Mainstreaming PSOs in the civilian
and military defense community in the United States (and other countries) will
require champions at the highest levels of government and the armed forces. It
remains to be seen whether such champions will emerge in the aftermath of the
Afghanistan and Iraq experiences. This is not an argument for the exclusion or
marginalization of preparations for high-intensity, high-technology warfare.
Instead, it is an appeal for balance in military planning and preparation, a bal-
ance that is sorely needed given the frequency and significance of peace support
contingencies, especially since the end of the Cold War. A true transformation
agenda for the future should position PSOs on an equal footing with traditional
high-intensity war-fighting in civilian and military planning.
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Transformation or Back to Basics?

Counterinsurgency Pugilism and
Peace-Building Judo 1
David Last1
The talk of revolution and transformation in military circles after the end of the
Cold War got fresh impetus with 9/11 and the messy campaigns of America’s
global war on terror.2 Has the Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA) contrib- 2
uted to thinking about peace and stability? My yardstick for success is the man-
tra of professional officers: the management of violence and, in particular, the
preservation of peace, order, and good government at home and abroad. When
military doctrine and practice are prepared for that task, they will have been
appropriately transformed. To get there, we have to put aside technological
panaceas and distractions and get back to basics. Violence does not occur in a
social vacuum. To deal with it, we must focus on society, not technology.
I begin by considering RMA and counterinsurgency writing. Because litera-
ture of the late twentieth century is set against a background of globalization
and neo-liberal expansion, like that of the late nineteenth, I explore the idea of
global civil war and conclude that recent thinking is flawed in isolating vio-
lence from its context. This is not new, but follows four threads running
through security thinking. Getting back to basics, we need a model for the
social context of violence, and I find this in development theory and World
Bank studies. This leads to deductions about globalization, urbanization, and
the resurgence of primitive warfare, three trends with which security transfor-
mation must come to terms. I conclude with six seeds for the transformation of
military capacity to stabilize and manage violence. Transformation starts with
an understanding of the social context of violence, working with social forces
for cohesion, not seeking out enemies to punch into submission.
The terms in use can be barriers to understanding. My understanding of the
RMA is shaped by official U.S. doctrine, particularly Joint Vision 2010 and
Joint Vision 2020, in which information dominance combines with technological
Page Number: 102
supremacy to achieve victory. RMA literature is remarkable for advocating inte-

gration while focusing in practice on a narrow band of technical and military
questions, which assume that the world speaks English, that culture can be put
in a box for soldiers to use, and that technology is independent of politics and
society. Peacekeeping is third-party intervention to manage violence, and I want
to distinguish between intervention with the consent of the principal parties to
the conflict and without it. Intervention to keep the peace without local consent
and cooperation is imperial policing rather than peacekeeping.
Recent work on counterinsurgency addresses practical difficulties, but it is in
understanding the sociology and political economy of protracted violence that
we will find the inspiration for a real transformation in the way we manage vio-
lence. Counterinsurgency presupposes an insurgent enemy and inevitably
includes a large measure of pugilism no matter how much its proponents speak
of hearts and minds and the primacy of a political solution. Peacekeeping
assumes that the belligerents are allies and that violent conflict is the enemy,
turning the exercise into one of directed momentum rather than oppositional
force, more judo than boxing. Of course, sometimes there are spoilers of peace
who need to be punched into submission, but understanding how we identify
these enemies, and how hard we have to hit them, demands a finer understand-
ing of the political, economic, and social causes of violence than we have gen-
erally demonstrated in counterinsurgency wars.
I will begin with a selective review of some recent writing about RMA and
counterinsurgency. This body of work is remarkable for avowing the primacy
of the political, without applying any serious academic tools to understand it. I
think this is because of the backgrounds of the people who write about military
and strategic topics, and this leads me to describe four themes in military think-
ing—on war, revolution, counterinsurgency, and peaceful change—none of
which has drawn extensively on social science research into violence, and each
of which has culminated in a dead end. The third part of my argument is that
globalization, urbanization, and the revival of primitive warfare provide an im-
petus to rethink these four themes in a more integrated way. Finally, I suggest
that ideas of social cohesion, mimesis, and peace building as a form of nonvio-
lent insurgency might be ideas that fill some of the gaps in recent thinking
about counterinsurgency.
RMA WRITING
The RMA has its parents in the birth of the U.S. Air Force and military indus-
trial complex, the strategic air campaigns of the Second World War, and Dou-
het’s atavistic fantasies of destruction with impunity which spawned them.3 3
The air force-centric RMA has made a generally self-serving and dysfunctional
contribution to the management of violence.
Page Number: 103
TRANSFORMATION OR BACK TO BASICS? 103
RMA literature is an intellectual fad. Using library holdings of a representa-

tive university and internet book-offers as proxy measures, peacekeeping titles
average a few a year for the sixties, seventies, and eighties, then show a jump
that is sustained to the present. Insurgency and counterinsurgency, a narrower
topic (and a subject whose authors appear to have shown more imagination in
choosing titles), has fluctuated modestly over the years, with a dip in the early
nineties when peacekeeping books started to rise. Insurgency and counterinsur-
gency library holdings are larger than those on the RMA. Only a few titles
include the words insurgency or counterinsurgency up until the late nineties.
There is a big bulge around the millennium, and then the number drops off
again after the first few years of the new century.
Writing on the RMA originates overwhelmingly within the United States. In
the sample search, no library books and only a handful of books for sale origi-
nated with non-American publishers. The publishers are also indicative of air
force influence. Air University Press, the U.S. Air Force, and RAND Corpora-
tion (with long links to the U.S. Air Force) account for almost a third of the
published RMA works in the sample. Although not heavily represented in the
sample of library holdings and internet offerings, staff papers from American
War Colleges and commercially oriented studies from industry account for
another large group of RMA publications available in military libraries and pro-
fessional collections that circulate primarily amongst the cognoscenti of the
aerospace and communications industries and the smart-weapons complex.
RMA literature seldom addresses the interplay of political, economic, and
social factors: ‘‘much writing on military technological change in general
and the RMA in particular is flawed precisely because it tends to look at systems
and capabilities too much in isolation and abstracted from the context of their
use.’’4 Nor is there much evidence of RMA approaches to interagency coopera- 4
tion, either within the United States or with international organizations or allies.
There are some exceptions. Vandergriff targets the army personnel system
as most urgently in need of revolution in order to conduct new operations,
including those that involve talking to non-American soldiers and civilians.5 5
Similarly, Mahnken and Fitzsimmons focus on officer attitudes within the U.S.
Navy, one of the most technologically dependent services.6 This is one of rela- 6
tively few RMA sources that acknowledges a range of serious non-military
threats and complications to future operations, such as those identified by Pro-
teus 2020, or the ominous Chinese work Warfare Beyond Rules, which seems
to threaten to do to us what we did to them during the Opium Wars.7 That 7
social collapse, epidemic disease, climate change, organized crime, and even
global trade patterns are significant confounders of future military operations
does not appear in most RMA tracts. Benbow confirms that a variety of asym-
metrical threats challenge the arguments of RMA enthusiasts.8 Rochlin and 8
Demchak are thus unusual in applying theories of network-centric warfare and
information dominance to social situations.9 Demchak, writing from the per- 9
spective of public affairs and policy analysis, discusses the preparation of the
Page Number: 104
Israeli Defense Forces to deal with wars of disruption. Rochlin uses RMA ideas
to explain the relative success of rebels in Columbia and establishment forces
in Mexico. What makes these authors’ works useful is that they go beyond
technology to consider its interaction with broader patterns of society, some-
thing that so little RMA literature does.
On the whole, then, RMA literature is technology-centric, originates over-
whelmingly in the United States, and fails to acknowledge changing patterns of
conflict, or political-economic-social correlates of conflict.10 A small number 10
of RMA authors link technology to its social context, but faced with the realities
of modern war, the vaunted revolution in military affairs can be seen for what it
might have been at its outset: a marketing ploy for the military-industrial com-
plex. Has it contributed anything? Ideas about integrated intelligence, surveil-
lance and target acquisition, global communications, continuous over-watch,
and (more recently) reach-back to specialized knowledge are relevant to the
problems of contemporary warfare. But the whiz-bang three-dimensional artists’
renditions of missile defenses and precision aerial attacks do not add much
to the debate; they are a distraction from the important variables in managing
violence.
COUNTERINSURGENCY AND SMALL WARS LITERATURE
The Literature on small wars has clear parents in post—Second World War
decolonization and the containment of communism, and grandparents in late
nineteenth- and early twentieth-century colonization and imperial policing.
Small wars are not universally fought by expeditionary armies on foreign soil,
but that has usually been the case for Western armies, with Irish and Indian
wars the notable exceptions (unless you conceive of colonists as foreigners fol-
lowing expeditionary armies). Both British and American doctrine, interest-
ingly, consider small wars, counterinsurgency, and peacekeeping as similar
types of conflict, occurring within a framework of rule of law and political con-
straints. Peacekeeping has generally permitted a veto by the parties to the con-
flict and requires their consent to a status of forces agreement.
A RAND Corporation collection of 2001 marks something of an intersection
between counterinsurgency (COIN) and RMA thinking. Networks and Netwars
includes multiple references to Internet mobilization, hacking, and cyberwar,
but is really focused on the social dynamics of networks and gangs that use this
new technology.11 The footnotes are mainly secondary sources from police 11
journals and news stories of contemporary mayhem, and there is no evidence of
the research literature on the sociology of violence.12 The four-decade legacy 12
of empirical studies of group violence and social behavior is not in evidence.
The absence of any work on the sociology of gangs is an obvious gap. In their
intuitive insights and creative categorizations, the authors seem to replicate
some of the work on gangs and insurgency done by Kitson in the 1970s, based
Page Number: 105
on the counterinsurgency experiences of Kenya and Malaya; facsimile editions

and reprints of the earlier works began to reappear after 9/11.13 But like the ear- 13
lier works, Arquilla, Ronfeldt, and others eschew the evidence of academic
research. Writing about counterinsurgency without referring to the sociology of
conflict and violence is like writing about public health without referring to san-
itation and hygiene; clinical practice alone does not answer questions about
cause and effect or public policies that should be explored.
Nagl’s study of organizational learning by the British and American armies
in response to insurgency is more impressive.14 Informed by organizational 14
theory, Nagl describes British adaptation to the Malaya crisis and the less suc-
cessful American learning in Vietnam. He attributes the difference to decentral-
ization, innovation, and the absence of doctrine in the British army in Malaya.
But, ‘‘More important than the tactical innovations … is the strategic vision
required to put the military component of a counterinsurgency campaign in
proper perspective vis-a-vis the economic and political actions necessary to
defeat insurgents.’’15
In The Sling and the Stone, Hammes also finds shortfalls.16 He ascribes 16
parenthood of fourth generation warfare (4GW) to Mao, adapted by the Viet
Cong, the Sandinistas, and the first and second Intifadas. He describes Al-
Qaeda as a transnational network, the Afghan war as a tribal network, and
attacks the inadequacy of technological solutions: ‘‘Much to the surprise of the
Joint Vision 2020 proponents, the Iraqis have proven largely immune to our
technology.’’17 His prescription takes us back to the putative nature of 4GW: 17
To achieve success we must be prepared to fight across the spectrum of political,

economic, social, and military spheres. We not only have to win battles, we have to
fill the vacuum behind them.… We have to establish banking, currency, customs,
public health organizations, public sanitation, air traffic control, business regulation,
a system of taxation, and every other process needed for running a modern society.18 18
The enormity of the task, and the disorganized grab-bag of projects, illustrates
that not much thought has gone into techniques for combining political, eco-
nomic, and social strategies; the remaining sixty pages disappoint. Hammes’
sources are better than Arquilla’s and Ronfeldt’s, but there is still a preponder-
ance of secondary military thinking and no evidence of empirical social sci-
ence. Feirabend, Organski, Midlarsky, Gurr, Azar, Rummel, Singer, and other
classics with hard data about the political, economic, and social correlates of vi-
olence appear to have gone unread.
Fishel and Manwaring have digested the social science literature and applied
it to their thinking about military doctrine, though much does not appear
directly in the footnotes to Uncomfortable Wars Revisited.19 Manwaring and 19
Fishel worked in General Max Thurman’s Small Wars Operational Research
Directorate (SWORD) of U.S. Southern Command in the early 1980s, looking
for insights into the correlates of success in counterinsurgency, to be applied to
Page Number: 106
ongoing wars in Central and South America. The seven dimensions of the
SWORD model form an integrated whole, but legitimacy keeps turning up as
most important. In the afterword to this volume, Ambassador Ed Corr notes,
‘‘Legitimacy is statistically the most important dimension of the paradigm. In
the literature derived from the SWORD Model, the emphasis is on populace-
based governance as a means to legitimacy.’’20 But this is not the same as 20
insisting on Western-style democracy. It does mean the primacy of the political,
integrated with economic and social approaches.
On the primacy of the political, there is remarkable consensus, though the
nature of the political and its relationship with other factors are not articulated.
Returning to the thinking and practice of the late nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries, we can see where the scope for development is and we can deduce
why it has not occurred.
As colonial governors of the 1890s, the French soldiers Gallieni and Lyautey
were responsible not only for the security and policing of colonial territory, but
also for its economic integration with France and for an overarching ‘‘civilizing
mission,’’ which encompassed health, education, and welfare (albeit in pater-
nalistic colonial style). Gallieni adapted colonial policing to the indigenous po-
litical structures of French Indochina. Learning from him, Lyautey abandoned
Bugeaud’s punitive practice of the razzia in French North Africa and focused
instead on developing a middle class with values and interests congruent with
those of the colonialists.21 Similarly, in recovering from the Boer War, Lord 21
Milner’s ‘‘kindergarten’’ of young Oxford graduates developed constitutional
frameworks, rules for local governance, tax laws, and police policies, making
difficult compromises with recalcitrant Boers in the interests of stability.22 22
Baden-Powell was instrumental in developing the South African Police, a com-
promise between early twentieth-century liberal commonwealth values and an
acknowledgement of the racial insecurity of the Boers.23 Callwell was in the 23
thick of this evolution as he wrote his seminal book, Small Wars, Their Princi-
ples and Practice,24 but it is as illuminating for what it omits as for what it 24
includes. Baden-Powell gets not a mention for his policing efforts, only for his
cavalry exploits. The flying columns developed by Bugeaud and abandoned by
Lyautey, are lionized by Callwell as the last word in strategy directed against
guerrilla antagonists, without reference to Lyautey’s 1900 description of their
limitations if not accompanied by stabilizing administrative bases.25 The 25
expanding tache d’huile (oil spot) of peace and stability under effective gover-
nance gets no mention. Callwell’s Small Wars is about the tactics of fighting,
not the practice of nation building or stabilization; Baden-Powell is of interest
while riding and shooting, but not when registering and resettling.
This isolation of intellectual effort was one of the most pernicious character-
istics of early writing about small wars and continued as the twentieth century
progressed. French military thinking on stabilization was eclipsed by obsession
with the big wars of Europe, and literature in the English-speaking world
became increasingly specialized, as ‘‘practical’’ soldiers raised on military
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history overlooked social science research and the context of the wars they
studied at a tactical level. This vertical isolation of the military tactics of coun-
terinsurgency from politics, economics, and society is matched by a horizontal
divide, which continues to separate the tactics of imperial wars from their stra-
tegic context.26 26
GLOBAL CIVIL WAR?
Late-nineteenth century insurgencies were seen by Marxists as part of a global

pattern, a ‘‘war between the biggest slave-holders for the maintenance and con-
solidation of slavery.’’27 What about the twentieth century? This analysis 27
actually fits quite well with American neo-liberal and geopolitical strategists
like Feinberg, and Barnett. A Latin American specialist at the U.S. Overseas
Development Council, Feinberg wrote presciently in 1983 that while the Carter
and Reagan administrations had been rebuffed in efforts to impose American
solutions on the Middle East and Latin America, globalization and the penetra-
tion of third world economies was creating common interests between multina-
tional corporations and third world elites. The world was less controllable, but
fundamentally safer for Western-based economic interests, and economics was
the Soviet Achilles’ heel.28 28
More recently, Barnett has been influential through his work at the Naval War
College and the Pentagon. His books, the Pentagon’s New Map (2004) and Blue-
print for Action (2005), describe the interconnected world that replaced Cold War
bipolarity, and the need for different kinds of forces to manage security: a ‘‘levia-
than force’’ to maintain an international order in America’s interests, and a
‘‘system maintenance’’ force to manage insecurity in the margins.29 Blueprint for 29
Action argues for increasing the integration and ‘‘connectedness’’ of parts of the
world that do not currently benefit from the global economy, while simultaneously
attacking those who resist integration and reject liberal values.
Feinberg and Barnett provide just two examples of neo-liberal worldviews
and manifestos. Key elites in third world countries identify with and benefit
from the neo-liberal order, while pointing to oppressive regimes, rising inequal-
ity, and the concentration of wealth (both within states and between North and
South). Historical sociologist Wallerstein coined the terms systemic and anti-
systemic forces to describe these pressures, and historian Stavrianos describes
the evolution of the third world and the continuity of struggles to escape
oppression.30 In this narrative, globalization leads to both an increase and a 30
concentration of wealth. Resistance, insurgencies, and nationalist uprisings are
part of a pattern stimulated by exploitation. The small wars described by Call-
well, the small wars of the 1940 U.S. Marine Corps Manual, and the peripheral
wars of the late twentieth century are all related.
Nineteenth-century globalization ended with the First World War, and twen-
tieth-century globalization began with the deregulation of the 1970s. The
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continuation of a globalizing neo-liberal world order cannot be taken for

granted, and could be reversed by democratic action, environmental concerns,
or new trading blocs, but in the meantime, the inexorable logic of capitalism in
global markets will create greater inequality and alienation.31 These effects are 31
mitigated by the political left, but less so in a neo-liberal age.32 32
Insurgencies and war economies can often be seen as rational responses to
global processes, which make it increasingly difficult for people to preserve
their identities and meet basic human needs.33 The narrative of global civil war 33
is significant for understanding the consequences of globalization, and the polit-
ical and economic strategies for managing accompanying violence. Neo-liberal
formulas may generate wealth, but without political and social strategies to con-
tain their deleterious effects, they will also exacerbate violence. Political econo-
mists Shimshon Bichler and Jonathan Nitzan have demonstrated in their
impressive study of Israeli political economy that the ‘‘Washington Consensus’’
of deregulation, trade liberalization, privatization, and minimal state involve-
ment has pushed the Israeli economy away from kibbutzim, unions, and state
corporations towards transnational ownership and integration in the global
economy, with the attendant formation of a ruling capitalist class.34 How Israel 34
deals with the Palestinians, how its neighbors deal with it, and how the Palesti-
nians respond to their increasingly desperate circumstances is at the heart of the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but these questions have been analytically separated
by concern over Palestinian terrorism. Reconnecting them is part of the chal-
lenge of getting back to basics in our thinking about how to manage security.
GAPS IN RECENT THINKING
RMA literature is oblivious to political, economic, and social factors. The small
wars and counterinsurgency literature avows their primacy in managing insur-
gencies or civil wars but their military focus detracts. This brings us to the gaps
in thinking that make it difficult to deal with protracted social violence. They
are gaps in knowledge about the political economy and sociology of violence,
areas that have long been addressed in the academic community but that rarely
appear in the footnotes of military studies, and which seldom inform doctrine
or practice, even when the best educated and best intentioned of military lead-
ers are confronted with the most intractable of problems. So we have to ask,
how did we paint ourselves into this corner?
FOUR CONTINUING THREADS AND THEIR IMPLICATIONS
The problem of managing violence has long roots. I suggest that there are four
continuous threads of thinking about peace and violence that might be traced as
far back as the 1592 Wappenhandlungenbuch.35 The first thread is war-fighting 35
Page Number: 109
doctrine: how to use military force effectively, often written with political ends
in mind, although the author’s thoughts were usually closer to the battlefield
than the King’s chambers. Clausewitz, Jomini, Schlichting, Von Schlieffen,
Moltke, Suvorov, and the post-Dupuy evolution of air-land battle are all in this
tradition.36 A culminating point for this tradition was the technologically driven 36
doctrinal revolution of air-land battle, which made American-led military
power effectively invincible, but also inevitably disconnected from politics, of
which war is a continuation. RMA thinking is in this tradition.
The second thread emerges with revolutionary ideas, which spur men to vio-
lence, including major religious movements like the expansion of Islam, the
reformation, counter-reformation, and totalitarian ideologies. Mohammed,
Luther, Marx and Engels, Lenin, Mao, Sanguinetti, and Debray are examples of
thinkers in this tradition. While it is mainly military writers addressing the first
theme, it is mainly ideologues and philosophers writing on the second. Justifica-
tions for violence in support of change often originate with weakness rather
than power, so these ideas have often been associated with innovations by the
weak in their revolutionary struggles, propaganda of the deed, people’s war,
urban guerrillas, and so on.
The third thread was largely a response to the effects of the second, and
traces the evolution of counterinsurgency and police thinking. Like the first
thread, this field tends to be dominated by practical men, often in uniform: Gal-
lieni, Lyautey, and Calwell in the nineteenth century, Gwynne, Galula, Trinqu-
ier, and Kitson in the twentieth. All these helped to catalogue the practical
lessons of fighting insurgencies or policing empires, asking the question, ‘‘What
do we do that works?’’ A common theme alluded to above is that these writers
are more concerned with symptoms than with causes. A culminating point for
this line of thinking was the SWORD project sponsored by General Max Thur-
man of the U.S. Southern Command in the 1980s and headed by Manwaring. It
is a culminating point because the study brings together understanding of the
political, economic, and social elements of insurgency and marks legitimacy as
the central variable. But it cannot offer more insight without a better model of
specific insurgencies, and here Manwaring and the SWORD project were
impaired by their Delphic approach, which relied on respondents who had
focused primarily on the military aspects of counterinsurgency struggles.
This brings me to the fourth thread. If the first is about winning wars, the
second about revolution, and the third about preserving order, then the fourth
thread might be described as the management of change to minimize violence.
It goes beyond ‘‘keeping the peace,’’ just as revolutionary theory goes beyond
insurgency and terrorism. Grotius and Kant might be its progenitors, and the
minds in the background of the Westphalian treaties might be among its early
practitioners.37 The Congress of Vienna, the Congress of Berlin, and the Treaty 37
of Versailles followed to consolidate the epistemic community of European di-
plomacy,38 punctuated by internal and imperial policing operations like the 38
four-power intervention in Crete from 1896 to1908.39 The League of Nations 39
Page Number: 110
gave rise to Peace Observation and transition missions in the 1920s,40 and John 40
Maynard Keynes’ work on the economic causes and consequences of war influ-
enced the framers of the U.N. Charter, so that it was established with both a Se-
curity Council for political and military matters and a General Assembly and
other organs and agencies to address economic and social problems, hoping to
avoid a recurrence of the proximate causes of the First World War.41 41
Like the pre-Dupuy doctrine writers and counterinsurgency writing, early
thinking about peacekeeping was largely a matter of practical soldiers observ-
ing and recording successful practice. Notwithstanding their common origin in
1956, the soldiers of early peacekeeping forces do not show any evidence of
reading the Journal of Conflict Resolution. E. L. M. Burns, Indar Rikhye, and
Michael Harbottle described the military dimension of peacekeeping; Ralph
Bunche, Dag Hammarskjold, and Lester Pearson pioneered its diplomatic side;
and the early thinkers of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Devel-
opment set out evolving theories of economic development against the back-
ground of East-West Cold War competition.42 42
BACK TO BASICS: VIOLENCE DOES NOT OCCUR IN A SOCIAL VACUUM
While many recent authors acknowledge the primacy of the political, they seem
incapable of getting beyond the military factors with which they are familiar. For
all the insight in Smith’s Utility of Force, it tells us nothing of the effects of force
on social cohesion, nor of the means for achieving the peace and order he avows
to be the object of ‘‘war amongst the people.’’ To understand the resilience of
social capital in the context of violence, the best work comes from the World
Bank. Nat Coletta and Michelle Cullen of the World Bank’s Center for Conflict
Prevention and Post-conflict Reconstruction drew on sociology and anthropology
to compare the resilience to violence of communities in Cambodia, Rwanda, and
Guatemala, including the sorts of social relations during and after protracted social
conflict that permit or impede peaceful coexistence.43 This is a counterinsurgency 43
goldmine ignored by the military community; it does not prescribe military action,
yet it addresses precisely the factors necessary to rebuild peaceful communities af-
ter conflict. Social capital affects social cohesion. Social cohesion refers to the ab-
sence of latent conflict (for example along racial, class, or ethnic lines), and to the
presence of strong social bonds measured by levels of trust, norms of reciprocity,
institutions to bridge differences (civil society), and institutions to resolve conflict
(democracy, judiciary, independent media, entrenched rights, and safeguards for
groups and individuals). Figure 6.1 illustrates the components of the concept
(arrows added to indicate inter-connection).
Part of the criticism of the concept arises in development circles because the
World Bank espouses it, but it has also been stretched to be too all encompass-
ing, and begins to lose its utility.44 Woolcock’s refinement is to distinguish ver- 44
tical and horizontal social capital, and Colletta and Cullen build on this. It
Page Number: 111
social cohesion
absence of latent presence of social
conflicts bonds and institutions
racial, ethnic,class, trust,

economic, political or reciprocity, civil
other cleavages social capital society,
detract from social democracy,
cohesion judiciary,
social responsibility: social initiative: independent
self-defense to efforts to grow and media, rights
mitigate risks like expand rather than add to social
epidemics, illiteracy, mitigate risk cohesion
conflict
Figure 6.1. Social capital and social cohesion. Derived from Violent Conflict and
the Transformation of Social Capital: Lessons from Cambodia, Rwanda, Guatemala, and
Somalia (Washington, DC: The World Bank, 2000).
helps them to describe the role of civil society in moving from low social cohe-
sion and fragmented states prone to violence towards high social cohesion and
functional societies that have the capacity to manage conflict without resorting
to violence.
Inequality and exclusion do not, by themselves, lead to violence. The risk of
violence is increased when these factors are exacerbated by manipulation or
social fragmentation. Social capital can be perverted to undermine social cohe-
sion and foster violence for the gain of one group at the expense of another,
and the real contribution of the World Bank studies has been to describe the
forms of social capital that contribute to peace and stability rather than exclu-
sion and violence. Figure 6.2 reproduces Colletta and Cullen’s understanding of
vertical and horizontal social capital, with three inserted deductions (shaded).
For anyone seeking a transformation of military capacity to stabilize and man-
age violence, the concepts of social cohesion and social capital are more useful
than a concentration on technology. Defining social capital in the context of a con-
flict allows measurement of the effects of violence and evaluation of interventions
to stabilize a society. Indicators like community events, informal networks, village
leadership, and links with external agents were used in the studies of Cambodia.
Proxies for social capital in Rwanda included trust of neighbors, intermarriage,
mechanisms for information exchange, and mutual cooperation. In Somalia and
Guatemala, social responsibility indicators included the diversification of civil
Page Number: 112
Globalization presents threas

and opportunities for vertical States and markets
social capital beyond the control
of the state
Urbanization permits new forms

of bridging social capital, and High social cohesion, low conflict:
vertical social capital

breaks down traditional inclusion, rule of law, democracy,
exclusionary social bonds open society, non-corrupt
bureaucracy, civil society
Resurgence of primitive warfare
reinforces bonding social capital,
requires cultural soluions
Horizontal social capital

Bonding (kin, Bridging (creates
religion, ethnicity) cross-cutting ties)
civil society
enhances social
cohesion
Low social cohesion, high conflict:

exclusion, oppressive state,
inequity/inequality, corrupt inefficient
bureaucracy, closed society
Communities and
Individuals
Figure 6.2. Violence and social cohesion. Adapted from Violent Conflict and the
Transformation of Social Capital: Lessons from Cambodia, Rwanda, Guatemala, and
Somalia (Washington, DC: The World Bank, 2000).
society organizations and the quality of collective actors, and social initiative indi-
cators included material factors like mail and phone service, financial services,
and qualifications of public employees.45 Using indicators like these, we have a 45
much clearer picture of the correlates of violent conflict and resistance to it.
THE NEED TO REVISIT OLD THEMES
We now need to revisit some themes to help frame the combination of theories and
practical insights that will be useful for the future. These three themes point to areas
that are not well-developed in current military thinking. The themes are globaliza-
tion, urbanization, and the return of primitive warfare. What binds these three
themes together is the failure of military thinking to seek and incorporate necessary
social science expertise, except in the most rudimentary and ad hoc ways.
Global War or Global Peace?

Globalization presents both threats to and opportunities for stabilization
because of the ways in which it affects social cohesion. It can undermine the
Page Number: 113
capacity of states to establish markets and build national cohesion, but it offers
new sources of collective identity that can obviate anachronistic conflict. When
Greek- and Turkish-Cypriots are all European citizens with common European
institutions, there are new ways of managing the divided island’s conflicts.
Non-state global actors like non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and
transnational corporations can bring employment and wealth and cultural
change that may compensate for the incapacity of weak groups in a globalizing
economy.
Globalization is the restructuring of the world as a whole, ‘‘… a social proc-
ess in which the constraints of geography on social and cultural arrangements
recede and in which people are becoming increasingly aware that they are
receding.’’46 The world systems perspective describes this as a function of the 46
expansion and deepening of a global capitalist economy,47 but the impact that 47
generates conflict is social and cultural. If globalization is related to widely dis-
persed resistance and unrest (a global civil war), then neo-liberal prescriptions
for generating prosperity are part of the problem. Divorced from mechanisms
to mitigate market failures, and combined with military ventures that enforce
Western access and protect Western interests, they are part of the problem. This
suggests two components to a counterinsurgency or stabilization strategy. The
first entails exogenous mechanisms to manage the threat of exploitation. The
second entails support to local culture as an antidote to the alienation of global
pressures.
Whether it is a jihad against godless Western culture or a revolution against
capitalism, ‘‘global civil war’’ is an attractive rallying cry but a dysfunctional
strategy for oppressed and marginalized groups. By militarizing what are essen-
tially social and economic problems, it tends to bring precisely the wrong
resources to bear, deterring investment and integration when these might con-
tribute to stability, prosperity, and human security. We should consider both the
individual and collective implications of this. Shimoni and Bergmann indicate
that multinational corporations provide an alternate source of identity for indi-
viduals. As local managers start to work for corporations, they retain their core
culture, but also develop hybrid, multinational, cultural attributes, which
enhance communication within the organization and enrich the lives of the indi-
vidual managers.48 48
The collectivist criticism is that although globalization may benefit some
individuals, global penetration swamps and destroys local culture, reduces
autonomy, and usually entails extractive industries and environmental damage,
which benefit the powerful few at the expense of the poor majority. This criti-
cism is especially germane in weak states, conflict zones, or peripheral regions
with few institutions to confront corporate action. Corporations are bigger,
richer, and better connected than many national governments, let alone sub-
national or local governments. Whether they deal directly,49 or through infor- 49
mal arrangements with the shadow economy,50 they are in a position to alter 50
the power structures and economies quickly and perhaps irrevocably.51 51
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Referring back to Figure 6.2, some argue that without global governance and
with weak international civil society, global markets simply reduce the capacity
of states to serve their populations.52 52
World Bank economists Gerson and Colletta suggest a framework for peace
building and reconstruction using the private sector, but argue, ‘‘Privatizing
peace must mean more than simply opening up channels for rapacious compa-
nies.’’ They suggest that just as aid NGOs should focus on sustainable liveli-
hoods rather than just saving lives, reconstruction efforts should build
employment and local economic capacity. They cite Ericsson Response, aimed
at putting cell-phone technology quickly into disaster areas, and building on it
to achieve a permanent communications infrastructure, which may be publicly
owned or regulated.53 They propose a Peace Transition Council (PTC) made up 53
of business leaders and NGOs, incorporated in the District of Columbia as a
non-profit corporation, and financed primarily from business contributions.54 54
Gerson and Colletta describe the PTC as a single organization with global
scope, seeking to use the forces of globalization for inclusion and development
in conflict zones and working with agencies like the United Nations and the
World Bank.55 The argument for centralized decision-making is that the global 55
economy takes expertise and resources to manage and wealth to mobilize.
A global PTC would open up markets and business opportunities in the wake
of conflict; however, to be useful, it would have to be a creature of the business
world. The balance envisioned by Gerson and Colletta would come from a
trusteeship role for the United Nations and the World Bank. Key roles for the
United Nations as ‘‘trustee-occupant’’ include establishing the legitimacy of
local authorities, clarifying property ownership rules (important to reverse sys-
tematic efforts to displace and disenfranchise a population), identify sources of
capital, and pick projects.56 Perhaps most importantly, one would expect the 56
U.N. ‘‘trustee-occupant’’ to have an oversight role to prevent exploitation by
‘‘rapacious companies.’’
Swiss researchers Wenger and Mockli follow Gerson and Colletta, suggest-
ing six roles for business.57 They argue that conflict prevention has foundered 57
because governments lack the will and NGOs lack the means, but hope to find
both in the private sector, under ‘‘tri-sector governance’’: public sector, private
sector, and civil society. Businesses can help both by engaging in their normal
lines of business and by transferring private sector knowledge and practices to
local actors. In the first category, business ventures may be commercial, semi-
commercial, or non-commercial. In the second, they can engage in funding, in-
kind support, and strategic philanthropy. Surprising in a book from academics
studying the security sector is the close reading of business literature: the most
important factor in private sector development is an enabling and competitive
business environment. This includes sound macroeconomic policies, low infla-
tion, fiscal stability, stable exchange rates, reliable market institutions, a legal
framework for commerce, secure ownership, enforcement mechanisms, and
means to promote transactions (such as banks, markets, and stock exchanges).
Page Number: 115
Credit, physical infrastructure, transport, communications, fuel, and power sup-

plies complete the list of basic business requirements. It is a long list, but they
point out that the private sector can help to generate many of these, particularly
if it is not confronted with an unreliable or hostile public sector, an arbitrary or
opaque administration, corruption, inflation, expropriation, lawlessness, and so
on. Wenger and Mockli disagree with Gerson and Colletta’s prescription for a
centralized peace council and argue instead for case-by-case arrangements and
an ad hoc division of labor, but the concept of tri-sector governance echoes
Gerson and Colletta’s assertion that there must be some mechanism to prevent
exploitation of weak states and immature markets by rapacious and powerful
companies.
Global markets are not as big a problem if they are perceived locally to be
fair and accessible, but making them so requires external support to governance
that restrains and shapes their impact, whether that comes in the form of Gerson
and Colletta’s unified PTC or Wenger and Mockli’s ad hoc local arrangements.
With a suitable governance structure, the private sector in a globalizing econ-
omy should be positioned to support both peace building and conflict preven-
tion. But without such a governance structure, we may see tactics evolving in
Gaza and Kandahar today appear in Paris, Birmingham, and Los Angeles
tomorrow. In this discussion of the economics of globalization, the social and
cultural aspects have been bypassed, which brings us to urbanization.
Urbanization
Urbanization typically serves to break down traditional bonds and form new
social groupings, a process associated with growth and innovation, but also up-
heaval and violence.58 Both counterinsurgency and policing have evolved to 58
account for different behavior in urban and rural spaces.59 If globalization per- 59
mits economic partnerships and conflict-resistant social capital, urbanization
may permit renewed civil police more attuned to their own civil society.60 60
The new battleground for third-world insurgencies and small wars is a
sprawling landscape of low-rise slums and urban gangs with echoes in the
developed world.61 Individual radio communications and GPS tracking, real- 61
time satellite film, multi-spectrum imaging, and even instantaneous communi-
cation with distant translators or cultural interpreters are just some of the
technological solutions intended to make Canadian police in cities like Toronto
or American soldiers in cities like Najaf more effective. But the changing social
landscape of the city is not well understood even at home, and it is even less
well communicated to soldiers abroad. ‘‘Cities of peasants’’ and emerging ques-
tions of citizenship will determine how stable the cities of the future will be.62 62
Technology can help hunt bad guys, but it is less helpful in building safe neigh-
borhoods and stable communities, on which stabilization ultimately depends.
Many of the challenges of urban security are most evident at neighborhood
level.63 Police make deals with crime bosses to protect some zones, and ghettos 63
Page Number: 116
become ‘‘no-go’’ areas for officials. Low police salaries invite police involve-
ment in gangland economies.64 Those who can afford it resort increasingly to 64
private security, and the urban landscape is marked by spatial segregation and a
lethal culture of armed police for hire, whose bosses and shareholders benefit
from rising violence; the private security sector in Sao Paulo is lucrative and
unregulated, blending the legitimate and illegal economies.65 There are other 65
cases, however, of well-regulated and unarmed private security companies pro-
viding employment and discipline for unskilled demobilized young men.66 The 66
availability of firearms correlates directly to levels of violence, and both side
arms and long arms tend to become concentrated in capital cities and power
centers after protracted social conflict.67 External regulation of security and 67
tight control on small arms is clearly part of the human security picture, but it
must be balanced by social development, which makes communities resilient to
violence.
We have some examples of successful experiments in urban social develop-
ment: the Haiti Transition Initiative included road works, water and sanitation,
electrification, marketplace development, youth sports, and socio-cultural activ-
ities, and involved a high proportion of youth at risk for criminal and gang
activities. U.N. Peacekeepers were permanently stationed near some of the proj-
ects and patrolled regularly near others to increase confidence in the security of
the projects.68 This supports bridging social capital at the microscopic level by 68
implicating international players because states are unable to provide the neces-
sary framework for vertical social capital (Figure 6.2).69 The jury is still out on 69
whether international organizations like the Municipal Alliance for Peace in the
Middle East (MAP) can sponsor inter-communal projects that serve the func-
tions of bridging horizontal social capital, if a state (Israel) and nascent state
(the Palestinian Authority) do not actively support them.70 70
Just as globalization permits new actors outside the state to contribute to, or
undermine, social capital and social cohesion, so urbanization creates new dy-
namics within the state to which managers of violence must adapt.
Primitive War and ‘‘War amongst the People’’

The positive aspect of brutal primitive warfare is that there is no military solu-
tion. It demands that we seek out the sources of individual and collective vio-
lence to defeat them in detail through law, good governance, education,
economic opportunity, and cultural change. Unfortunately, there is always the
temptation to see the barbarity as amenable to easier solutions: if they will not
stop fighting, we will kill them, and we can do that because ‘‘whatever happens
we have got the Maxim gun and they have not.’’71 But the conditions of primi- 71
tive war exist precisely because the conditions of advanced society do not
obtain, and military instruments cannot establish, those conditions.
In The Utility of Force Smith defines ‘‘war amongst the people’’ as a
description of contemporary warfare and a conceptual framework reflecting the
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absence of a secluded battlefield; the people—all of them, anywhere—are the

battlefield.72 His conclusion is that there are no longer separable political and 72
military situations. Yet there is a residual tendency to think in terms of the stra-
tegic application of force in irregular warfare, often with the constabulary over-
tones of international peacekeeping. Rather than integrating social
reconstruction with economic development and full-spectrum security, Smith
sees the solution lying with information: managing what is known in theater for
tactical purposes, and back home for domestic purposes.73 To make sense of 73
his argument, information must be construed in the broadest sense. ‘‘Informa-
tion’’ implies shaping perceptions and frameworks of reference, and it therefore
comes close to the meaning of culture: all that is socially rather than physically
or biologically transmitted.74 This takes us beyond Smith’s work into cultural 74
anthropology to explain what is really going on in ‘‘war amongst the people’’ at
three levels: aspects of culture below the conscious level (such as vocabulary,
grammar, and syntax, including our concepts of ‘us’ and ‘them’); patterns of
thought and perception that are culturally determined (ideas of family, revenge,
ownership, and honor, for example); and learned patterns of behavior (e.g.,
throwing stones at the occupiers). I may be expanding Smith’s intent, but cul-
tural change is precisely where the solution to war amongst the people lies,
with all that it entails: self-criticism, socialization, early education, partnerships
with families, schools, religions, and political agents, youth programs, publish-
ing, scholarship, mass entertainment, and media diversification. The list derives
from understanding how culture is shaped.
UNESCO’s Culture of Peace program gives an idea of the quixotic, Sisy-
phus-like work of cultural transformation. Without efforts to combat the effects
of primitive warfare, societies are on a downward escalator towards tighter
bonding and exclusionary forms of social capital, as states and markets break
down and people are thrown back upon ethnicity and clan as the basis for trust.
The formal economy, which depends on trust, breaks down to be replaced by
informal and illegal economies, reinforcing the power of rivals to the state and
undermining development and stabilization efforts.75 This understanding has 75
led the pragmatic World Bank to support various cultural and institutional re-
vival efforts in pursuit of social capital and social cohesion.76 76
FINDING THE SEEDS FOR TRANSFORMATION
The recent enthusiasm of the U.S. Department of Defense for ‘‘human terrain
teams’’ with anthropological knowledge is encouraging, but anthropology falls
short of describing all the political, economic, and social factors that produce
stability. Multidisciplinary teams need a prescriptive map to guide them. If the
map always points to Western-style liberal democracy and free markets open to
global economic pressures, then we might continue to be disappointed in our
interventions, but if we can temper capitalism’s effects with some social
Page Number: 118
TABLE 6.1. Frequency of Key Word Occurrence
JV2010 JV2020 FM3-24

Pages 39 27 242
Technologj 71 25 21
Societj 0 1 116
Economj 4 2 167
Culturj 1 4 189
Politicj 2 1 251
Governj 4 3 538
*Includes variations of the key words.
experimentation and politically imposed discipline on rapacious actors in the

marketplace we might see progress. This is the larger strategic backdrop against
which military thinking about small wars and insurgency, or stabilization mis-
sions, must stand. Against this background, I suggest six seeds that might help
transform the management of violence, some germinating and others dormant.
The first seed is to replace ‘‘leading’’ with ‘‘supporting’’ military roles. It is
axiomatic that civil authorities and police lead in counter-insurgencies and that
military force plays only a supporting role.77 This is captured in the new draft 77
American Field Manual (FM) 3-24 Counterinsurgency manual.78 The draft also 78
provides an interesting contrast with the Joint Vision 2010 and Joint Vision
2020, as Table 6.1 illustrates. FM 3-24 illustrates a healthier balance between
technology and society than the RMA-inspired Joint Vision documents.
The second seed is the understanding that the technological focus driven by
purveyors of gadgets has led us (and more specifically, the United States) seri-
ously astray. We can hope that diversion is in decline, and the soil is now more
fertile for other sources of transformation.
The third seed is the understanding that although small wars literature con-
sistently avows the primacy of the political and the importance of populations,
for the most part it ignores the social science research and tools that help us to
understand social and political development. This suggests putting an under-
standing of the social correlates of violence at the center of our efforts to trans-
form military thinking. The World Bank’s model is just one, but it is a good
place to start.
The fourth seed is mimesis. It emerges from the four threads of security
thinking described above. These threads converge to the extent that they com-
bine political, economic, and social issues and incorporate a clear conception of
the ‘‘other’’ in their paradigms. War-fighting doctrines are more durable when
they incorporate an understanding of the state (Clausewitz) than when they iso-
late technology (air-land battle); revolutionary thinking is more virulent when it
incorporates a social and economic vision (Marx and Mao) than when it focuses
on the tactics of overthrow (Sanguinetti); policing and counterinsurgency
Page Number: 119
thinking is more effective when it works with society (Lyautey) than against it
(Bugaud). Thinking about peaceful change is nugatory when it focuses on secu-
rity (buffer zone missions) but powerful when it builds new institutions (from
Westphalia to the United Nations). Ideas of mimesis, the mirroring of character-
istics, offer a path to combining these intellectual threads more fruitfully in the
future.
The concept of mimesis raises two further seeds for transformation—peace-
building insurgency and the metaphor of judo before pugilism—but mimesis
requires some explanation. In a powerful book about the role of emotions in
keeping society healthy, sociologist Metta Spencer explores some of the roles
of entertainment and popular culture.79 The effects of story telling (like that of 79
clerics or television) can be beneficial, harmful, or mixed, but story telling can-
not be abolished because it is the means of transmitting culture. It is particu-
larly powerful in transmitting values to the young, through imagery and
imitation. Rene Girard’s theory of mimetic desire explains how mimesis can
lead to conflict because we adopt the desires of others and become rivals for
the object of their desire: the popular girl, land, power, or wealth, for example.
Spencer’s insight is to link mimetic desire to empathy for the other, and relate
both to the existential, moral, and spiritual problem of finding meaning in our
lives and communities through popular culture.80 80
Spencer’s image of popular culture as a vehicle for fostering a healthy soci-
ety is one that should be mobilized to address shortfalls in social cohesion. The
image is a powerful one. We know that insurgencies, revolutions, and wars
amongst the people are above all battles of ideas. The Communist Manifesto is
a powerful story of oppression and resistance. Al Qaeda recruits with poetry
and polemics.81 The next generation of violent revolutionaries is already won 81
over by stories half-remembered from early childhood. So a genuine revolution
in the management of violence may depend more on purveyors of mass culture
than purveyors of mass destruction; mothers and kindergarten teachers are more
important than combat trainers, and literature and theology are more influential
than engineering and social sciences. An investment in mass culture to support
social cohesion, avoiding radio milles collines, is likely to pay bigger dividends
than a heavy military presence within a generation.
The fifth seed is the concept of a peace-building insurgency. Mimicking
some aspects of the strategy and tactics of the insurgent may help transform the
capacity of societies to manage insurgent violence. The first requirement is a
cause, which the established authority cannot espouse without losing its power.
A revolutionary insurgency may then follow two paths in its escalation to con-
trol of the state. The traditional pattern involves creating a party, forming a
united front, conducting guerrilla warfare, escalating to maneuver warfare, cul-
minating in a conventional campaign of attrition (or annihilation). This is a
struggle that can last many years. Galula offers an alternative, or bourgeois na-
tionalist short cut, which involves a rapid move from random terrorism to gain
publicity and stimulate a repressive overreaction to selective terrorism aimed at
Page Number: 120
severing the links of the population to the established authority.82 Galula further 82
divides the insurgent strategy into two periods: a ‘‘cold revolutionary war’’ dur-
ing which activity is largely legal and non-violent, and a ‘‘hot revolutionary
war’’ during which it is openly illegal and violent.83 83
There is a peace-building analog to these patterns. The cause of peaceful
coexistence and incremental change is an alternative to revolutionary or libera-
tion ideology. The cadre organizational structure is easy to mimic, and the
shadow structures of subversive organizations within urban settings could be
turned around to serve other causes. This is what happens as communities begin
to emerge from protracted social conflicts; trusted guerrilla or insurgent leaders
assume positions of community leadership in civilian life. When one side seizes
municipal instruments of power (such as transport, housing, utilities, taxation,
and records), this signals continuation of the inter-communal conflict by other
means.84 But equally there are examples of collaboration across conflict lines, 84
such as the Municipal Alliance for Peace in the Middle East.
‘‘Hot revolutionary war’’ is inimical to peace building, but there may be useful
analogies. Galula and Kitson both point to the problem of mutual policing in a
revolutionary society; even when populations loathe the insurgents, they will carry
out their revolutionary duty to report infiltration out of fear of reprisals if they do
not.85 Insurgent and counter-insurgent forces alike can use reprisals, but Smith’s 85
insight is that the side that tells the best stories about them is likely to gain
more. This is where a peace insurgency has a significant advantage, not by out-
brutalizing the forces of violence but by out-publicizing them, and focusing partic-
ularly on stories that expose militants and bolster moderates. It might be a vain
hope that a peace-building insurgency could be completely passive. Activist Ward
Churchill has challenged the view that pacifism works, describing it as inevitably
favoring the status quo, and if status quo is the reign of violent militants, it may
take more than bloodless community-building to deal with spoilers.86 86
Finally, the sixth seed for transformation in the management of violence
goes below the community level to look at the dynamics of families and gender
relations in the development of social cohesion. Women, children, adolescents,
and men occupy different roles in families, particularly in raising the next gen-
eration. They join different groups and behave differently when they are in
groups. They respond differently to incentives and disincentives. Efforts to de-
velop both social responsibility (which has a primarily defensive function in
mitigating the costs of conflict) and social initiative (which presents opportuni-
ties for growth and expansion of conflict managing institutions) can be tailored
more effectively to meet the needs and expectations of particular parts of the
population, and to draw on the resources they embody in the community. This
is effectively moving with the social momentum of human and communal
needs rather than fighting against it and looking for enemies that frequently can
lay some claim to representing the needs of the community. Aristophanes’ play
Lysistrata captures some of the power that is wielded within family groups,
which might be mobilized in the interests of transforming conflict management.
Page Number: 121
‘‘We do wrong, very wrong. Ah! Great gods! What lovely thighs she has!’’
A Laconian delegate, in Lysistrata
CONCLUSION
Having dispensed with the distractions of technology and the revolution in mili-
tary affairs, we can get back to basics: how do people behave? How are com-
munities built and preserved? How do we manage conflict in ways that are not
socially destructive? This sort of question will transform the way in which we
deal with violence. There is a lot of useful military thinking about small wars,
but the best of it adopts a catholic approach to security, including policing and
governance, and socio-economic development. An all-too-common characteris-
tic, however, is the isolation of military thinking and experience from social
science research about political and economic development and processes of
social change. Four threads of security thinking that have co-evolved with the
Western world have culminated in dead ends, because violence does not occur
in a social vacuum. Concepts like social capital help us to knit together ideas
about the management of violence, and lead to deductions about the role of
globalization, urbanization, and the resurgence of primitive warfare. From
these, six seeds for the transformation of counterinsurgency thinking are
extracted: surrender the leading military role, reject the preeminence of technol-
ogy, focus on social cohesion, use mass culture to transform society, mimic in-
surgency with peace-building tactics, and work with the cleavages of gender
and age within society to isolate and tame the militants.
More sophisticated tools to find and kill enemies will avail little if we do not
understand the society within which the violence occurs. Less counterinsur-
gency pugilism; more peace-building judo.
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Civil-Military Aspects of Effectiveness

in Peace Support Operations 1 1
Robert Egnell
INTRODUCTION
The conflicts of the new millennium seem ever more bewildering, complex, and
asymmetric. The starting point of this chapter is therefore the acknowledgement
of a transformation in strategic affairs, a changing strategic context in which the
most important and frequent operations involving Western armed forces will be
different forms of complex peace support operations. This means a reversal of
interest from traditional large-scale warfare between states to different forms of
small wars.2 One of the main features of these conflicts is the far-reaching and 2
complicated aims of operations, such as state and institutions building, imposed
democratization, economic development, and respect for human rights. This
means that Western armed forces will be operating in contexts often involving a
combination of counterinsurgency, post-conflict reconstruction, humanitarian
assistance, as well as economic development and statebuilding. The military will
therefore only play a part (often not even the leading part) in operations that are
likely to include a wide range of actors, such as other civilian government
departments and agencies, international organizations, private security compa-
nies and non-governmental organizations (NGOs), host government agencies,
and security forces. British doctrine argues that, ‘‘In the light of experience
gained in Sierra Leone, Afghanistan, and Iraq, it became evident that coherence
could only be achieved if strategic processes, planning, and objectives were
harmonized across all instruments and agencies.’’3 Arguably, the most salient 3
problem of complex peace support operations is, therefore, coordinating the dif-
ferent instruments of power, multinational and multifunctional, civilian and
military, into a coherent, comprehensive strategy. The purpose of this chapter
is to discuss how different strategic level institutional arrangements in the
Page Number: 123
CIVIL-MILITARY ASPECTS OF EFFECTIVENESS IN PEACE SUPPORT OPERATIONS 123
civil-military interface affect the operational conduct and effectiveness of armed

forces involved in complex peace support operations.
The chapter notes that there are at least two important civil-military aspects
of effectiveness. The civil-military interface must function effectively as the
provider of well-trained and equipped forces of adequate size and nature for
modern operations, which is referred to as the indirect impact of civil-military
relations. The civil-military interface must also function effectively as an
important level in the operational chain of command, providing coordinated
civil-military analysis, planning, and execution of operations. This direct
impact of civil-military relations is the main focus of the chapter. Without well-
functioning civil-military relations, effectiveness in complex peace operations
is unlikely. In essence, for increased effectiveness, the civil-military interface
should strive towards increased integration of the military and civilian echelons.
The purpose of such integration is to create enough mutual trust, knowledge,
and understanding across the civil-military divided to provide both the neces-
sary structures, and a working culture, that serve to coordinate the different
instruments of power towards intended political effects in the field.
The complex peace support operation is a concept employed within this
chapter in a generic way to include all operations beyond conventional inter-
state warfare. As such, the concept includes the many traditional concepts refer-
ring to different forms of operations other than war: PSOs, stability and support
operations, counterinsurgency, humanitarian interventions, small wars, and
low-intensity conflict. The chapter is introduced by a section that creates the
theoretical foundation for the hypothesis of the chapter. Thereafter, the U.S.
and British cases are used as empirical examples to show how different patterns
of civil-military relations can affect operational effectiveness.
CIVIL-MILITARY RELATIONS THEORY AND MILITARY EFFECTIVENESS
A number of civil-military aspects of effectiveness are emphasized in the recent

lessons learned coming out of complex PSOs such as Afghanistan and Iraq.
They are also becoming part of the strategic studies literature and military doc-
trine. There is, in other words, relative consensus regarding the importance of
the civil-military aspects of effectiveness. This consensus is not, however,
matched by a corresponding body of work that seeks to increase the under-
standing of the relationship between civil-military relations and military effec-
tiveness. A useful starting point is, nevertheless, the field of civil-military
relations theory.
The central problem discussed in civil-military relations theory is the need
to maximize the protective value that armed forces provide and the need to
minimize the domestic coercive powers that the same forces inevitably possess,
thus creating effective armed forces under democratic civilian control.4 Despite 4
the inherently dual aims of civil-military relations theory, Suzanne Nielsen
Page Number: 124
notes that the field of civil-military relations theory has mainly focused on the
issue of civilian control. The impact that civil-military relations has on military
effectiveness is not nearly as well-studied within the literature.5 5
The starting point of civil-military relations theory is often the assumption
that the military institutions of any society are shaped by two forces: a func-
tional imperative stemming from threats to a society’s security, and a societal
imperative based on the ideologies, social forces, and institutions that are domi-
nant within the society.6 How the functional and societal imperatives should be 6
allowed to influence the structure and culture of the armed forces is, in other
words, one of the main issues of civil-military aspects of effectiveness.
Christopher Dandeker notes that in the search for a useful combination of
the functional and societal influences, theorists tend to employ a ‘‘zero-sum’’
view, thinking that it is only possible to maximize either military strength or ci-
vilian control.7 However, the conceptualization of the relations between func- 7
tional and societal imperatives in zero-sum terms is misleading, according to
Dandeker, as it assumes that military adjustments to civilian values necessarily
undermines military effectiveness, and that the focus on military effectiveness
must necessarily mean decreased civilian control or non-adherence to the val-
ues of civil-society.8 The aim of civil-military relations theory should, thereby, 8
not be striking a balance between the imperatives but rather finding synergies
between the imperatives, solutions that strengthen both civilian control and
military effectiveness.
It should, however, be noted that the idea of civil control goes beyond the spe-
cific nature and characteristics of different patterns of civil-military relations.
Although a number of aspects of civil-military relations differ in various cases
and theories, the logic of civil control as the mechanism that assures the superior-
ity of the civil echelon is generally the same. Kobi Michael therefore highlights
the fact that the essence and rationale of civil control is common to all patterns of
civil-military relations, or at least it should be; ‘‘The common denominator of all
definitions is the expectation that civilians will set the limits on the military’s
action and ensure concordance between those actions and the political echelon’s
objectives as well as maintain the elected echelon’s superiority.’’9 9
Samuel Huntington and Morris Janowitz have come to dominate the field of
civil-military relations for the last half century and still serve as a useful start-
ing point. Huntington treated the functional imperative of the armed forces as
an external given, which can only be interpreted and adjusted to by military
professionals without interference from the political leadership. Without inter-
ference from the political leadership or civil society, the military will automati-
cally adjust for maximum effectiveness in relation to the functional
imperative.10 Huntington, therefore, advocated a radical form of military pro- 10
fessionalism, which emphasizes isolation and autonomy of the military for
maximized effectiveness. Military professionalism, in this view, demands obe-
dience to civil authorities but allows complete control over internal organiza-
tional matters.11 The practical structure of civil-military relations should 11
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include a clear divide between the political and military leaderships in order to
allow for objective control of the armed forces and military professionalism.
Such professionalism will, according to this tradition, inevitably lead to military
effectiveness by allowing the military to define and adjust to its own functional
imperative. This view of civil-military relations and effectiveness is hereafter
referred to as the divided approach.
This approach has become problematic as the changing strategic context of
the post-Cold War has clearly placed new demands on armed forces for opera-
tional effectiveness. The changing strategic context also means that the func-
tional imperative of defending the nation not only involves winning the
nation’s wars, but also includes tasks such as maintaining international security,
defeating international terrorism, and protecting citizens overseas. The practical
application of the functional imperative has thereby changed. Many armed
forces have nevertheless been slow to recognize this fact and to adjust their or-
ganization and culture for the new tasks.
Morris Janowitz, in contrast, supports the tradition of pragmatic profession-
alism, which denounces military autonomy and instead emphasizes integration
with civilian society and even the participation of civilian officials in the for-
mulation of professional standards and the evaluation of performance.12 The 12
shape of professionalization should be determined by immediate needs, by what
is acceptable to the parent society and by what is seen to be the most effective
way of getting the job done. Anthony Forster calls this being ‘‘fit for purpose,’’
whatever the task may be.13 Significantly, Janowitz argues that the political 13
leadership must control both the criteria and information for judging the effec-
tiveness of the military establishment. ‘‘The formulation of the standards of
performance the military are expected to achieve are civilian responsibilities,
although these standards cannot be evolved independent of professional mili-
tary judgment.’’14 14
The implication of the pragmatic approach is expressed by Richard Kohn,
who argues that ‘‘[n]o decision or responsibility falls to the military unless
expressly or implicitly delegated to it by civilian leaders. Even the decisions of
command—the selection of strategy, of what operations to mount and when,
what tactics to employ, the internal management of the military—derive from
civilian authority.’’15 In structural terms, the military leadership should be inte-
grated with the political level in order to develop increased political under-
standing and sensitivity among the armed forces, and to ensure the relevancy of
the military operation to the political goal. This idea is reflected in Kobi
Michael’s useful definition of effective civil control: ‘‘the mechanism that
assures that military force is used for the implementation of those political
goals that best serve the public good as determined by the political echelon.’’16 16
The Janowitzean notion of civil-military relations is hereafter referred to as the
integrated approach.
There is general agreement regarding the notion that societal characteristics
may be reflected in the ability of a country to create military power.17 The 17
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pattern of civil-military relations is, in other words, treated as a causal factor in

the creation of forces ‘‘fit for purpose.’’ By being the arena in which funding,
doctrine, and direction for the military organization is decided, the strategic
context interpreted, and by overseeing the implementation of those decisions,
the constitution of the civil-military interface is an important factor determining
the quality of the forces available for operations. This is what this chapter refers
to as the indirect impact of civil-military relations
However, lessons learned from irregular operations in the contemporary stra-
tegic context show that the civil-military interface must not only function well
during peacetime preparation of armed forces, but also during operations as a
highly important link in the chain of command. This is referred to in this chap-
ter as the direct impact. It is an aspect of civil-military relations and effective-
ness that is not well covered in the literature and serves as the main focal point
of this chapter. What are the consequences of different civil-military structures
within the operational chain of command?
THE CIVIL-MILITARY INTERFACE IN THE OPERATIONAL CHAIN OF COMMAND
As an important level of the operational chain of command, the civil-military

interface must be organized to provide efficient strategic and operational level
command centers, capable of advanced planning as well as quick analyses and
decisions regarding operations. At this level in the chain of command, political
objectives are translated into strategy and operational plans, and decisions
regarding size and structure of the force to be deployed are made. Thus, differ-
ent patterns of civil-military relations may have a direct and very practical
impact on operational effectiveness.
Moreover, lessons from contemporary peace operations stress the impor-
tance of comprehensive civil-military approaches, involving integration and
joint planning at the strategic and operational levels, and cooperation and coor-
dination at the tactical level to achieve unity of command and effort. To
achieve such coordination of planning and execution, the structures and work-
ing culture of the civil-military interface must function well. Moreover, in the
field of operations, the development of civil-military cooperation (CIMIC) and
civil affairs units indicate the increasing importance placed on the cooperation
and coordination of the different actors at the tactical level. The Provincial
Reconstruction Teams in Afghanistan and Iraq are examples of this.18 The com- 18
prehensive and cooperative approaches to operations must be provided by the
institutional structure and culture of the civil-military interface. So what deter-
mines the success of this provision?
Risa Brooks has looked at the impact of political control mechanisms and
argues that the highly centralized and rigid command structures of Arab
regimes, the use of direct leadership rather than mission type command, and
the tinkering with the chains of command for political reasons have negative
Page Number: 127
effects on the effectiveness of Arab armies.19 Moreover, the central argument 19

of Samuel Huntington is that the political leadership should avoid any interfer-
ence in military affairs for maximum military effectiveness. Eliot Cohen, never-
theless, criticizes this conclusion empirically by arguing that the truly
victorious wartime leaders have all interfered in the military sphere to a very
large extent. Lincoln, Clemenceau, Churchill, and Ben-Gurion are used as
examples of leaders who during wartime have continued to control their gener-
als in a way that Huntington and others would find most damaging.20 However, 20
the obvious counterargument involves highlighting any occasions when politi-
cal meddling has produced negative results. Deborah Avant similarly highlights
the importance of low-cost civilian monitoring and strong civilian control of
the armed forces. Without such control, the military will resist necessary inno-
vation as the strategic context changes.21 21
However, despite these contributions, the limited literature on how different
structural arrangements in the civil-military interface affect operational effective-
ness means that theoretical inspiration must be sought elsewhere. Therefore, this
section turns to military command and control theory to enhance the picture.
The increasing political sensitivity of operations in the contemporary strate-
gic context, involving global media scrutiny, means that political and military
leadership have sought ways to micromanage events from headquarters. This
despite the fact that the increased operational complexity and pace of events
indicate a need for the dispersion, rather than centralization, of command.22 22
Centralized or direct command is, for several reasons, not an effective solution
to the problems of politically sensitive operations. First, micro situations on the
ground are very hard to interpret if you are not there physically. Wrong or
insensitive decisions may be the outcome. Second, micro-management often
means that people with little understanding of soldiering will make the deci-
sions, be it politicians with no or little experience, or high-ranking officers who
have not experienced these situations for decades. Third, centralized command
is time consuming. The reason for this is that when using centralized or detailed
command, subordinates must refer to their headquarters when they encounter
situations not covered by the commander’s original orders.23 In the short-term, 23
this means a loss of operational speed and missed opportunities while waiting
for new orders. In the long-term, it leads to a loss of quality and initiative of
junior commanders and soldiers, who are never forced to make decisions and to
learn from their own actions.
Therefore, most armed forces’ doctrines on command and control emphasize
the importance of mission command in complex environments, a philosophy of
decentralized command based on trust and initiative. In essence, mission com-
mand involves giving orders about what to do and what the aims are, but not
how to do it. Commanders can, by explaining their objectives and communicat-
ing the rationale for military action, give junior commanders and their soldiers
‘‘insight into what is expected of them, what constraints apply, and, most im-
portant, why the mission is being undertaken.’’24 Thus, commanders are 24
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allowed to hold a ‘‘loose rein,’’ allowing subordinates freedom of action, while

at the same time requiring them to exercise initiative and adjust actions accord-
ing to new inputs of information. This means that commanders make fewer
decisions, but it allows them to focus on the most important ones.25 Richard 25
Lovelock argues that when commanders on all levels understand their general
roles within a larger perspective, as is ideally the case when employing mission
command, ‘‘they are also more able to think laterally and share objectives
through unity of effort, decentralization, trust, understanding, and timely deci-
sion making.’’26 26
There is, however, always an element of increased risk involved in mission
command, the risk that the subordinates have not really understood the intent,
or the risk that the commander has made a bad decision or provided too few
resources. Mission command theory, therefore, always involves a trade-off
between ineffective but safe command and effective but risky command. Deal-
ing with such risk requires mutual trust between superiors and subordinates.27 27
In sum, mission command requires high levels of trust and understanding, initi-
ative from subordinates, and clarity of intent and aims from commanders.
Interestingly, the traditional notion of civil-military relations is very similar
to that of mission command in its demand for a clear dividing line between po-
litical decisions and military implementation. Operations are delegated to the
military and other agencies in a way that clearly resembles the ideals of mission
command, stating what to do but not how to carry out the task. However, as
observed above, the successful implementation of mission command requires
the components of mutual trust and understanding, a clear intent from
commanders, and initiative from subordinates. Without clear aims, mutual trust,
and understanding, there is a risk that the political leadership meddles in strictly
military affairs and increasingly micromanages what it considers to be politi-
cally sensitive situations. There is also a risk that the military chain of com-
mand misinterprets the aims and intent of the political leadership and how
these aims should be translated into military actions.
The concept of trust is a key to successful mission command and deserves
further attention. The rich sociological literature distinguishes between different
forms of trust, which are relevant to the argument of this chapter. First, inter-
personal trust refers to trust between people. In a review of the literature, Dmi-
try Khodyakov makes a useful distinction between thick and thin interpersonal
trust. ‘‘Thick interpersonal trust originates in relationships with strong ties and
depends on the personalities of both the trustee and the trustor.’’ This form of
trust involves personal familiarity with the counterpart, as well as strong emo-
tional commitment to the relationship.28 Lynn Zucker calls this character-based 28
trust, because it is based on social similarities, shared moral codes, and personal
characteristics like gender, ethnicity, and cultural background.29 This form of 29
trust thereby depends on similarity and strong emotional relationships between
people. Anthony Giddens refers to ‘‘confidence in the reliability of persons’’ as
the basis for creating a sense of social reality.30 30
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However, in governmental institutions, interactions and trust between people

who do not often meet are of greater importance. This is what Khodyakov calls
thin trust, which is created through interactions of people who do not know each
other well. ‘‘It represents reliance on weak ties and is based on the assumption that
another person would reciprocate and comply with our expectations of his or her
behavior, as well as with existing formal and ethical rules.’’31 Zucker similarly 31
refers to process-based trust, built on experiences of reciprocity.32 32
Social reality is nevertheless not only dependent on persons and their activ-
ities, but on institutions and abstract systems as well. Other ways to build trust
than through personal relations are therefore necessary. This is where confi-
dence or trust in systems or institutions becomes important. System or institu-
tional trust refers to trust in the functioning of organizational, institutional, and
social systems. It flows from institutional arrangements that create and sustain
trustworthy behaviors, such as broad societal norms, guarding institutional
arrangements, and organizational governance systems. These abstract principles
can bring about varying degrees of embedded trust, of shared norms and
expectations, and of reciprocity.33 Khodyakov argues that trust in institutions 33
depends on their ‘‘perceived legitimacy, technical competence, and ability to
perform assigned duties efficiently.’’34 34
How does knowledge about mission command theory and trust help in the
analysis of civil-military relations for maximized effectiveness in operations?
Mission command theory emphasizes that effective command and control in
the political-military interface requires clear aims from the political leadership.
It also requires an extensive understanding of how to use the military tool to
achieve political aims, as well as a well-developed strategic conceptual frame-
work. At the same time, mission command requires excellent political under-
standing within the military in order to translate political aims and directives
into appropriate military activity. This is what Kobi Michael refers to as effec-
tive substantive civil control, as opposed to the normative formal assumption of
civilian control that was mentioned earlier. Substantive civil control is weak-
ened by instances when the political leadership has no clear vision or strategic
preference, and when there is a knowledge gap and/or a gap in analytical and
conceptual tools. In these instances, the military takes the position as an ‘‘epis-
temic authority.’’ The military controls the agenda of the civil-military inter-
face, while the political and civilian structures develop an information
dependence on the military.35 Michael argues that in order for the political 35
leadership to wield effective substantive control, it must ‘‘generate knowledge
and put forward high-quality challenging alternatives to those that the military
adduces.’’ However, he also notes that the achievement of such an alternative
requires a revolution in governmental culture.36 36
Mutual understanding and effective command and control in the civil-
military interface also require mutual trust. It is, therefore, imperative that the
civil-military interface be constructed to increase trust and mutual understand-
ing across civil-military and departmental boundaries. At the same time, it
Page Number: 130
should be noted that due to the different organizational cultures and interests of
the civilian and military echelons, the inherent nature of the relationship is
inevitably conflictual. However, as Kobi Michael argues, such conflict can be
healthy as long as it is controlled.37 One important way to control such conflict 37
and to keep it at a ‘‘healthy’’ level is to increase mutual understanding and
respect across the boundaries.
The knowledge that interpersonal trust is based on social similarities and
shared moral codes, and/or experiences of reciprocity, means that trust within
the civil-military interface can be achieved by recruiting people with similar
social backgrounds and moral codes on both sides of the divide, or to promote
a common civil-military culture of shared moral values within the interface. It
also means that the civil-military organizations, such as the department of
defense or interagency planning teams, should strive to integrate staff from both
sides of the civil-military divide in order to create interpersonal trust and mu-
tual understanding through personal experiences of reciprocity.
Understanding that different institutional arrangements may evoke and sus-
tain trustworthy behavior means that the structures of the civil-military inter-
face must be carefully constructed to promote cooperation and trust. If
interpersonal trust is lacking within the organization, there can at least be a
level of belief in the structure or culture of the organization to provide a basic
level of trust. Competition between the different agencies of the civil-military
interface may evoke distrustful behavior within interagency structures. For
example, when an operational planner does not know his or her counterpart
from the other side and feels that there a few shared values with the counter-
part, instead of instinctively distrusting the counterpart, the planner may instead
fall back on institutional trust based on the fact that the different agencies have
always cooperated well towards common goals, as well as the knowledge of a
recruitment and promotion system within the other agencies that makes it
highly unlikely that the counterpart is anything but competent and trustworthy.
Finally, the planner may also fall back on previous personal experiences of
working with people from other agencies with good results.
EVALUATING DIFFERENT PATTERNS OF CIVIL-MILITARY RELATIONS
Among several approaches to civil-military relations, this chapter has empha-

sized two extremes in the divided approach, as advocated by Samuel Hunting-
ton, and the integrated approach, as introduced by Morris Janowitz. These
approaches are relatively well represented in the real world as implemented in
the cases of the United States and the United Kingdom. Although it is well
beyond the scope of this chapter to empirically test the theoretical outline, the
purpose of this section is to provide an empirical taster, which serves to high-
light and discuss a number of points made in the previous sections.
Page Number: 131
U.S. Patterns of Civil-Military Relations

American civil-military relations are, to a large extent, the implementation of
Huntington’s divided approach. The United States has poorly developed struc-
tures for interagency cooperation and coordination. Power is decentralized, and
national security issues therefore tend to be dealt with in departmental stove-
pipes. Where different forms of interagency structures exist, the competitive
political culture of checks and balances means that interagency working groups
and committees generally lack the authority as well as internal trust and under-
standing among participants, which is necessary to conduct meaningful work.38 38
The National Security Council (NSC) is obviously central in this respect, but it
mainly functions in an advisory role to the President and has no executive func-
tion.39 A study conducted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies 39
argues that the NSC plays no role in the planning of operations and currently
has neither the authority nor the capacity to fulfill such a function.40 Within the 40
Department of Defense, the civilian and military sections are not well inte-
grated. Instead, the department is purposefully divided to ensure the purification
of military and political affairs. This divide, between the policy and military
sides of the Pentagon, has led to a stovepipe structure in which civilian and
military sets of expertise are not coordinated until the very top levels of the
department.41 41
These findings are interesting with reference to the theoretical discussion on
trust. The limited interagency structures, as well as the divided civil-military
structures within the Pentagon, mean that there are few opportunities for civil
servants and officers from different departments and agencies to meet face to
face and thereby develop interpersonal trust, mutual respect, and at least some
level of mutual understanding. The different background of military officers
and civil-servants also means that no thick interpersonal relationships exist
from common schooling or background. Moreover, there is little institutional
trust as there are few positive experiences of working together. Neither the
interagency system nor counterparts from other agencies and departments are
trusted. The civil-military interface of the U.S. chain of command during opera-
tions does not function well and thereby affects the effectiveness of complex
operations negatively.
The U.S. armed forces’ historical development of professionalism in isola-
tion from the political leadership in the wake of the Civil War, in combination
with the high costs of civilian monitoring and control of the armed forces, has
meant that the functional imperative of the U.S. military has been interpreted
and defined by the military itself: winning the nation’s wars in defense of its
people and values.42 The resulting strategic culture, or American way of war, 42
begins with a conceptual division between war and peace, which means that
there is really no conceptual space for ‘‘grey area’’ operations, between war
and peace, such as complex peace support operations.43 The dualistic view of 43
war and peace, as well as of political and military affairs, is perpetuated in the
Page Number: 132
divided pattern of civil-military relations. The preferred way of war involves

large-scale conventional campaigns, fought quickly and at minimum cost. It
also involves the maximum use of force and the application of high technology
to maximize firepower.44 U.S. troops are therefore essentially organized around 44
the division as the defining organization and emphasize the warrior ethos as the
foundation of military culture.
However, the uncompromising focus on conventional war-fighting has left
the U.S. military ill-prepared for complex peace support and post-conflict type
operations. Despite the fact that the U.S. military has mainly been involved in
irregular warfare since the end of the Second World War, U.S. military and
strategic culture is firmly fixed on what it sees as its core task: defeating con-
ventional enemies that threaten the freedom of the American people. This
unshakable belief in the essence of the organization has, according to John
Nagl, precluded any organizational learning and adjustment to unconventional
wars or operations other than war.45 It has also led to what Nagl describes as 45
‘‘a remarkable aversion to the use of unconventional tactics.’’46 During the 46
peace support operations of the 1990s, and more recently in Iraq, we have wit-
nessed how U.S. troops seek to apply the traditional American way of war in
complex contexts.47 As an example, Robert Cassidy summarizes the U.S. role 47
in Somalia by arguing that ‘‘maximalist and conventional attitudes about the
use of force led the U.S. military to abandon the OOTW [Operations Other than
War] principle of restraint, and thus legitimacy.’’48 48
U.S. Operations in Iraq

The final verdict regarding the outcome of U.S. operations in Iraq remains for
history to decide, but a number of conclusions can be made at this stage. Most
importantly, the security situation is far from under control, which inhibits pro-
gress in the political and economic areas. Toby Dodge argues that Iraq is a col-
lapsed state in which a resultant security vacuum has driven the country into
sectarian civil war.49 The Iraq Study Group Report observes that the United 49
States has made ‘‘a massive commitment to the future of Iraq in both blood and
treasure.’’ By June 2008, more than 4,000 American soldiers had lost their lives
serving in Iraq. Another 21,000 have been wounded. To date, the United States
has spent roughly $400 billion on the Iraq War, and costs are running at about
$8 billion per month. The Iraq Study Group’s concluding assessment reads:
Despite a massive effort, stability in Iraq remains elusive and the situation is deterio-
rating. The Iraqi government cannot now govern, sustain, and defend itself without
the support of the United States.… The ability of the United States to shape out-
comes is diminishing. Time is running out.50 50
The U.S. troops in Iraq conducted their operations in accordance with the
traditional American way of war during the invasion phase, and to a large
Page Number: 133
extent during the post-conflict phase. The campaign was interpreted as an

essentially conventional war, which is also what the U.S. military planned and
trained for. The invasion was an overwhelming display of superiority in terms
of technology and organization on the conventional battlefield. However, when
Saddam Hussein’s regime fell, it quickly became clear that the U.S. leadership
had failed to create a serious strategy for the post-conflict phase. Interagency
cooperation failed in the planning process and did not produce a comprehensive
approach. The lack of civil-military cooperation and interagency structures in
the United States make coordination and cooperation even more difficult in
times of crisis and operations. Not even for the obviously multifunctional tasks
of post-conflict operations in Iraq did the U.S. administration manage to set up
interagency working groups and joint civil-military planning teams.51 Civil- 51
military cooperation within the Pentagon also failed to produce plans that effec-
tively connected operational and tactical activity to the strategic aims. The
limited interaction over departmental boundaries, with the subsequent limitation
in expertise in the planning process, allowed a small number of people to plan
operations on a number of flawed assumptions about Iraq.52 52
There were, in fact, deep divisions between the State Department and the
Department of Defense over how to plan for conflict stabilization and nation
building. The rift began at the top with personal problems between Secretary of
State Powell and Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, and extended down to the
‘‘working levels’’ of the departments. President Bush’s National Security Direc-
tive 24 on 20 January 2003 put the Office of the Secretary of Defense in charge
of nation-building efforts and effectively led to the efforts of the State Depart-
ment and other agencies being ‘‘dropped, ignored, or given low priority.’’53 53
The post-conflict planning lacked civil-military cooperation and coordination.
A Council on Foreign Relations report highlights the weakness of the NSC
structure and argues that the lack of a body or an arm within the U.S. govern-
ment formally responsible for post-conflict stabilization and reconstruction
operations is a major reason for poor post-conflict planning and lack of inter-
agency cooperation. ‘‘Policy and implementation are divided among several
agencies, with poor interagency coordination, misalignment of resources and
authorities, and inadequate accountability and duplicative efforts.’’54 54
In the field, the civilian and military components failed to create unity of
command, which made cooperation and coordination difficult, not least of all
because the civilian Office for Reconstruction and Humanitarian Affairs
(ORHA) refused to colocate with the military command. There was confusion
about the chain of command as well as serious friction in the working relation-
ships between the military and civilian sides of the operation. Different views
about how to stabilize, reconstruct, and democratize the country led to frequent
conflicts between the military and civilian leaders in the field.55 The failure to 55
achieve unity of command thereby led to an even more serious failure to
achieve unity of effort.56 The fact that General Garner refused to colocate 56
ORHA with the military command meant that ORHA and later the Coalition
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Provisional Authority (CPA) remained out of touch with the conditions in the
field, adding to the lack of expertise or experience with peacemaking and nation
building.57 Key issues like jobs and economic security were, as a consequence, 57
addressed much later than should have been the case in a campaign for the
hearts and minds of the Iraqi population.58 58
The tactical behavior of U.S. troops in Iraq, especially during the first three
years of the campaign, revealed that they have neither been trained nor men-
tally prepared for post-conflict type operations or complex irregular warfare.
Instead, the U.S. military resorted to conventional tactics based on firepower
and technology, with the addition of an overemphasis on aggressive force pro-
tection policies, which separated and alienated the U.S. troops from the local
population.59 U.S. forces also lacked cultural sensitivity and understanding of 59
how the political aims of the operation must be reflected in their behavior on
the ground. The tactical principles of complex peace operations were therefore
also violated.60 Instead of heart and mind operations, force protection through 60
close connections with the local communities, and an understanding of the po-
litical primacy and consequences of operations, the strategic narrative has been
lost in heavy-handed tactics and a failure to understand local culture and the na-
ture of the enemy and its strategic aims.61 The incidents of abuse at Abu 61
Ghraib, in combination with the criminal investigations of serious crimes com-
mitted by U.S. troops in Iraq, raise questions about the warrior values at the
foundation of U.S. military training.
In conclusion, the divided patterns of civil-military relations have, in the
U.S. case, led to a conventional definition of the functional imperative and the
creation of a corresponding structure and culture in the U.S. armed forces. Indi-
rectly, the impact of the U.S.’s divided pattern of civil-military relations has
resulted in an American way of war that is not well-adjusted to the contempo-
rary strategic context. In the words of Andrew Garfield, ‘‘The U.S. military
appears to have the wrong organizational culture to fight the war in which it is
currently engaged [Iraq], which is the most likely type of warfare it will face
over the next twenty years.’’62 The direct effect of the divided U.S. approach to 62
civil-military relations is that, in the context of operations, the United States is
struggling to achieve the necessary joint civil-military planning, cooperation,
and coordination of operations. There is little trust within the system in peace
time, and this is exacerbated in times of conflict. As a link in the operational
chain of command, the U.S. civil-military interface is functioning poorly.
British Patterns of Civil-Military Relations

On the whole, British structure and culture in the civil-military interface resem-
bles the Janowitzean notion of civil-military relations of integration and mutual
understanding. At the interagency level, there is an extensive and somewhat
intricate web of committees, which aims to make government policy informed
by all the relevant departments. It also means that there is a culture of
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cooperation and working towards common goals across Whitehall. However, de-
spite the relatively extensive interagency structure, there are, as in most political
bureaucracies, turf wars between the different departments and agencies, and
tendencies to work in ministerial stovepipes. The committee system as a form
for interdepartmental integration is also problematic as it is sometimes consid-
ered too slow for the planning and command of contemporary military opera-
tions involving high levels of complexity and a fast-moving operational pace.63 63
Within the Ministry of Defense, the integrated civil-military structures are
nevertheless more noticeable. In the everyday workings of the ministry as well
as in the command of operations, there is a joint civil-military structure that
ensures military understanding of government policy as well as politically-
informed military advice.64 In the central areas of the ministry, there is wide- 64
spread civil-military mixed management of the different divisions, where the
head is a military officer and the deputy is often civilian or vice versa.65 The 65
ministry’s integrated structure leads to a common culture of mutual understand-
ing and trust among military and civilian personnel.66 This is reinforced by 66
another important aspect of the British system: the highly professional civil
service. Its apolitical nature and the fact that it holds positions at the very top
of the ministries provide for high levels of political and military understanding
as well as an institutional memory of crisis management that the more fleeting
political and military leaderships can never provide.67 With the dual knowledge 67
and understanding, the civil-service also functions as buffers and mediators
between the political and military wills of the Ministry.
With reference to the theoretical discussion on trust, the British case of inte-
gration provides interpersonal trust within the Ministry of Defense as well as,
to a more limited extent, within the interagency and interministerial structures.
The common background and close working relationships even provide what
sociologists call thick interpersonal trust. Narrow social recruitment, close
working relationships across the civil-military divide, and the small size of the
ministry support this process. Frequent personal contact across some depart-
mental and ministerial boundaries also develops thin interpersonal trust within
the civil-military interface and the interagency structures. Although these con-
tacts do not develop close personal relationships, they provide familiarity and
trust in other organizations through the process of reciprocity.
British military professionalism and military culture were formed under
close scrutiny of the British government during the imperial era of colonial po-
licing. This meant that the British military was forced to develop political sensi-
tivity to handle the essentially civil-military operations in the colonies.68 The 68
political leadership’s effective control over military administration, promotions,
and appointments, also forced the commanders in the field to be more sensitive
to the preferences of the cabinet.69 In contrast with the U.S. case, the British 69
way of war has always taken direction from whatever task the political leader-
ship has defined for the armed forces, most often involving counterinsurgency
type operations in the colonies.
Page Number: 136
Thus, the integrated pattern of civil-military relations has, in the British case,
led to an unconventional definition of the functional imperative and the creation
of a structure and culture of the British armed forces that can be summarized as
pragmatic and flexible, with emphasis on a minimum use of force. Another as-
pect of the British way of war, derived from the pragmatic lessons of colonial
policing, is close cooperation between the civilian and military aspects of
national power.70 The resulting British way of war is therefore theoretically 70
well adjusted to the contemporary strategic context of complex peace support
operations.
British Operation in Iraq

The British forces in Iraq largely operated in accordance with what is theoreti-
cally and doctrinally considered appropriate behavior in complex peace support
operations. Tactically, British forces conducted heart and mind operations
involving the minimum use of force, good political understanding, and force
protection through foot patrolling and interaction with the local community.
The British troops, moreover, displayed an ability to be tactically flexible. The
siege and fall of Basra showed a well-developed political understanding and
restraint in the use of force, even in open battle. The patience and respect for ci-
vilian lives and property during the battle for Basra serves as an example of
what Lawrence Freedman calls ‘‘liberal warfare.’’71 Not only did they have the 71
capability to adjust from the invasion phase to the post-conflict reconstruction
tasks, they also displayed the same flexibility when exposed to different levels
of threat like during the Black Watch operations south of Baghdad in support
of the U.S. operations in Fallujah. Several instances in which escalation would
seem normal were, in fact, deescalated by the British.
At the same time, a number of counterinsurgency principles were violated.
Most importantly, the British failed to draw upon the complete set of national
instruments of power.72 At the strategic level, the interagency committee sys- 72
tem was not utilized to its full potential, creating low-quality strategic-level
planning that seriously underestimated the post-conflict phase of the campaign
and, consequently, did not produce an effective phase IV plan.73 This can partly 73
be explained by the fact that the British were the junior partner in the coalition
and, therefore, not solely responsible for strategy and operational planning.
However, the British did have leverage in the process of operational planning
and, in the end, accepted the Pentagon plans without using their leverage to a
large extent.74 At the tactical level, the principles of civil-military coordination 74
and cooperation, as well as unity of command and effort, were also violated.75 75
The cooperation between different agencies involved in British operations was
substantially more limited than expected from the British approach.
An interesting explanation for the failure to apply what is considered the
British approach to complex operations is that the traditional committee system
of planning was bypassed by the presidential style of leadership employed by
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Prime Minister Blair. The Butler Report argues that ‘‘the informality and cir-
cumscribed character of the Government’s procedures which we saw in the
context of policy-making towards Iraq risks reducing the scope for informed
collective political judgment.’’76 In essence, the traditional approach to plan- 76
ning and operations, involving interagency cooperation and coordination
through the committee system, may have been circumscribed because of a more
centralized and controlled form of leadership, as well as the need for increased
deliberation speed in the run-up to the war.
The consequences of the British ‘‘hands-off’’ approach in Iraq are contested
by academics and practitioners alike.77 While substantial results have been 77
achieved in terms of security sector reform and the handover of responsibilities
to Iraqi authorities, the British have failed to provide security for the Iraqi pop-
ulation and civilian organizations, which have not been able to operate in the
southern parts of Iraq. The small number of British troops, only 8,000 in a vast
area of operation, is a significant factor explaining these failures.78 In an impe- 78
rial policing fashion, the British seem to have found what they feel is an accept-
able level of violence without wasting too many resources and without creating
too much of an imprint on Iraqi society. However, the result is that the British
approach in Iraq has failed to establish a condition from which to achieve the
political aims of the operation by political and diplomatic means.
The British pattern of civil-military relations has had a positive impact on
operational effectiveness by providing a military culture and structure well-
adapted to the contemporary strategic context. It has also provided interagency
structures and a cooperative political culture that also often provides good
cooperation and coordination in the field of operations. The committee system
of the interagency structure, and the extensive civil-military integration within
the Ministry of Defense, provides a structure and culture that is better suited for
comprehensive approaches and civil-military coordination than the U.S. case.
Interestingly, the positive indirect impact was obvious in the tactical behavior
of British troops in Iraq. However, the direct impact was less successful as the
interagency system was not used to its full potential. The result was that the
multifunctional coordination of strategic planning and operational and tactical
execution in the field did not reach the level of coordination that is expected of
the British approach.
CONCLUSION
This chapter has emphasized the importance of civil-military relations when

studying effectiveness in complex peace support operations by outlining a
theory of direct and indirect civil-military impact on operational effectiveness,
and by applying them in the cases of the United Kingdom and the United
States. The most basic conclusion is that the civil-military aspects of effective-
ness in complex peace operations are of such importance that calculations of
Page Number: 138
effectiveness without reference to these aspects are essentially obsolete. Under-

standing the direct and indirect impacts of different patterns of civil-military
relations on operational effectiveness is, therefore, imperative in improving
military and civilian conduct for mission success in complex PSOs.
The chapter has argued that, in the contemporary context, structural integra-
tion at the strategic level of the civil-military interface is imperative for
increased effectiveness. There are two main reasons why integrated civil-
military structures at the strategic level provide better results in complex PSOs.
First, the indirect impact means that integrated structures provide more accurate
and up-to-date interpretations and adjustment to the functional imperative of
the armed forces. This means that the instruments of national power, not least
the military, are better suited to the contemporary strategic context. Second, the
direct impact of integrated structures is that they provide more inclusive com-
mand and control structures at the strategic level, which means that all relevant
actors in complex operations are coordinated through integrated planning and
execution of operations, providing what is called a comprehensive approach to
planning and operations. The empirical tasters of the preceding chapters have
served to highlight how two different patterns of civil-military relations affect
operational effectiveness.
An important consequence of the conclusions of this chapter is that increas-
ing the effectiveness of armed forces in contemporary peace support operations
is not primarily a military endeavor. Instead, increased effectiveness requires
comprehensive civil-military approaches, which in turn requires integrated and
effective civil-military relations, as an important level in the operational chain
of command, and as the arena in which the structure and culture of the armed
forces is decided. However, to change the very foundations of political institu-
tions and bureaucratic cultures is a cumbersome process, to say the least. More-
over, the institutional arrangements of the civil-military interface in certain
countries are part of unique political systems, which are the result of long his-
torical processes and particular political cultures. The fact that all political sys-
tems are different does not mean that lessons from other systems are impossible
to implement, but lessons from across borders must be adjusted and imple-
mented in accordance with the cultural circumstances of the system. With a
sound understanding of the fundamentals and peculiarities of each system, the
recommendations of this chapter may well be implemented in very different
contexts.
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The Role of Private Security Companies

in Peace Support Operations: An Outcome
of the Revolution in Military Affairs
and the Transformation in Warfare
Christopher Kinsey
INTRODUCTION
The idea of privatized security is not new. Private actors have played a signifi-
cant role in war throughout the ages. Before the establishment of the nation
state, the princes of Europe filled the ranks of their armies with mercenary sol-
diers. Even Napoleon was reliant on contractors, though he despised them for
profiteering from war, calling them rogues ‘‘[w]ho roll in … insolent luxury,
while my soldiers have neither bread nor shoes.’’1 At the start of the twenty- 1
first century, contractors are once more an important, if sometimes controver-
sial, feature in war. Importantly, their presence in the operational theater is in
part a consequence of the Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA) that has led to
a military transformation in warfare.
As state militaries have become more specialized, they have deferred more
mission tasks to the private sector, while the increasing complexity of humani-
tarian disasters has left states with little alternative but to harness the capabil-
ities of the private sector. As Duffield explains, ‘‘liberal peace embodies a new
or political humanitarianism that lays emphasis on such things as conflict reso-
lution and prevention, reconstructing social networks, strengthening civil and
representative institutions, promoting the rule of law, and security sector reform
in the context of a functioning market economy.’’2 2
No single agency, including the state, has the ability to undertake such a
range of tasks. Instead, since the 1990s, new institutional arrangements have
had to come into being to support government agencies, international organiza-
tions, the private sector, and non-governmental organizations, as they struggle
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to manage in areas of ongoing conflict. The British Army refers to these

arrangements using the term ‘‘comprehensive approach,’’ while Duffield prefers
to call them ‘‘strategic complexes.’’3 3
In each case, new ways have had to be found to project power through net-
works and systems that are non-territorial and are located in the public and pri-
vate spheres. In the case of the British Army, implicit in such an arrangement is
an understanding that planning and execution must be coordinated across gov-
ernment departments and potential participants,4 the result of which is that the 4
twenty-first century battlefield is no longer the preserve of the military, but is
instead shared with other actors, including those from the private sector.
The role of private security companies (PSCs) has fuelled the debate on the
future shape of the battlefield. They offer the type of services that would have
previously been provided by states. Neither does it appear that demand for pri-
vate security services is slowing down, though the Iraq bubble appears to be
slowly deflating. It is estimated that the global market for private security
stands at roughly $3 billion.5 However, this is solely for security services and 5
does not include the provision of training, demining, and logistical support. Se-
curity services include guarding installations such as embassies and airports,
acting as bodyguards to government officials such as Paul Bremer, who was
head of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) in Iraq, and protecting con-
voys in war zones. Private security also undertakes services in such areas as
logistical support, military and security training, intelligence support, and the
provision of humanitarian assistance. Moreover, as long as Western govern-
ments continue to reduce their force protection, leaving them with a capability
gap, PSCs will try to fill that gap. Finally, if Iraq and Afghanistan are examples
of what tomorrow’s operational theater is likely to resemble, then the future for
private security is assured for the immediate and medium term.6 6
Before examining the notion that the privatization of warfare is an outcome
of an RMA and, with changes to the international political environment that
have occurred since the end of the Cold War, has sought to transform warfare,
the chapter will discuss the role of private security in the early post-Cold War
period. The reason for placing the argument surrounding the use of private se-
curity within an historical framework is to show how it has developed since the
end of the Cold War.7 7
The chapter will then explore the relationship between the RMA and the
increased use of contractors in the theater of operation. Greater use of sophisti-
cated weapons systems has resulted in more contractors being placed in harm’s
way, and the trend is set to continue. At the same time, the U.S. military in partic-
ular is concentrating its efforts on war-fighting, as witnessed during the invasion
of Iraq, leaving humanitarian operations to other agencies. In both cases, the spe-
cialization of military tasks will open up opportunities for contractors of all types,
while the drive to improve cost efficiency will only deepen the process.
Following on from this, the third section will define peace support operations
(PSOs) and identify the forces behind the drive to outsource aspects of PSOs to
Page Number: 141
THE ROLE OF PRIVATE SECURITY COMPANIES IN PEACE SUPPORT OPERATIONS 141
private actors. Such operations are no longer the sole preserve of the military, if
indeed they ever were, but involve a whole array of national, international, pub-
lic, and private actors. The fourth section examines the likely roles for PSCs in
this new environment. The final section draws together the argument that the
RMA and the rise of intrastate war have led to an increase in PSOs, which in
its turn has increased the specialization and civilianization of Western military
forces due to their growing reliance on contractors.
THE ROLE OF PRIVATE COMBATANTS DURING THE 1990S
Even though private security has been active since the 1970s and 1980s, most
notably on the African continent, it was not until Executive Outcomes (EO)
operations in Angola in the early 1990s that the industry really came to the
attention of the international community and media.8 According to Eeben Bar- 8
low, EO’s founder, in 1993 the company was approached by an international
oil company, through a friend, who wanted to know whether the company
could assist in Soyo to recover equipment that had been lost, or that had been
laid to waste, but which the oil company wanted to recover because of its
value.9 The company agreed to help recover the equipment, though at the time 9
they did not know that Soyo was held by Uniao Nacional para a Independencia
Total do Angola (UNITA).10 10
The operations lasted two months and turned into a serious battle between EO
and UNITA. As Barlow explains, ‘‘for the first five days … all our guys did at
Soyo was defend, until through probably very disciplined fire control they had
worn UNITA down.’’11 UNITA subsequently withdrew from the Soyo area leav- 11
ing EO temporarily in control of the area. However, as Shearer remarks, ‘‘when
the company pulled out shortly afterwards, leaving the Angolan battalions in
place, UNITA recaptured the centre. The operation was nevertheless significant in
that it was the first real demonstration of EO’s combat capabilities.’’12 12
Then in July 1993 Barlow was once again approached, but this time by General
Faceira, a senior officer in the Forcas Armadas Angolanos (FAA). The Angolan
government offered EO a one-year contract worth $40 million to train 5,000
troops from the FAA’s 16th Regiment and 30 pilots, and to direct front line opera-
tions against UNITA.13 The contract was later renewed for a further 12 months in 13
September 1994 and then again for three months in 1995. The contract finally
ended in January 1996. EO’s main contribution was tactical advice, drawn from a
solid understanding of UNITA’s weaknesses and supported by intelligence on
UNITA’s activities leaked via South African sources.14 14
Even before it had finished its operation in Angola, the company was being
employed in Sierra Leone. In May 1995 the company was contracted to help
the government of Sierra Leone defeat the Revolutionary United Front (RUF).
The government signed three contracts with EO covering a twenty-one-month
period for a total of $35 million.15 By the time the company arrived in Sierra
Page Number: 142
Leone, the RUF was only 20 miles from the country’s capital, Freetown. Within
eight months the company had forced the RUF to negotiate with the govern-
ment for the first time in five years.16 16
At the same time as the company was operating in Angola and Sierra Leone,
it was also involved in other operations in Africa and beyond. These operations
mainly involved training special forces in covert intelligence gathering for spe-
cial forces operations and not necessarily providing the direct combat support
that was the hallmark of the Angolan and Sierra Leone operations.17 Neither 17
was EO the only company operating at this time.
Established in 1987 by a group of former senior U.S. military officers, Mili-
tary Professional Resources Incorporated (MPRI) is a training, simulation, and
government services company. Unlike EO, MPRI has been directly involved
with PSOs ever since the end of the Cold War, working for the U.S. govern-
ment. Such participation has taken the form of training foreign militaries in the
same military practices employed by militaries in the West. The company is
also involved in organizing security sector reform (SSR) programs and law
enforcement related services that focus on stabilization and reconstruction
efforts. One of the company’s more high-profile contracts was with the Croatian
government. A contract was signed with the Croatian government in 1994 to
help the transition of the country’s armed forces from a Warsaw Pact to a
NATO-style force. MPRI designed a Long-Range Management Program to pro-
vide the Croatian Ministry of Defense with strategic long-term capabilities to
improve its opportunity of becoming a member of NATO.18 18
Sandline International was another company operating during this period.19 19
Established in 1996 and registered in the Bahamas, the company supplied mili-
tary and security services to governments and multinational organizations oper-
ating in high-risk areas of the world. The company became infamous towards
the end of 1997 when it allegedly broke a U.N. arms embargo to supply weap-
ons to Sierra Leone. The company argued that its actions were intended to
restore to power the democratically elected government of the country, while
the company claimed the British government knew all about the operation; a
claim denied by the government at the time. It later transpired that the Foreign
and Commonwealth Office (FCO) had been informed, while Sandline main-
tained that some officials gave it their approval, a claim dismissed by the FCO,
but accepted by the Legg enquiry. The enquiry noted that some in the FCO
might have unintentionally given the impression that the operation had govern-
ment support, when in fact it did not.20 20
Other PSCs also active in the 1990s included Defense Systems Ltd.—known
today as ArmorGroup International—and Control Risks. These companies
tended to focus on security related activities, staying away from the type of
military services supplied by EO, MPRI, and Sandline International. Indeed, in
the case of the United Kingdom, they typified the security industry. In this
respect U.K. companies such as ArmorGroup and Control Risks have tended to
work for multinational corporations, supplying them with security services as
Page Number: 143
well as a range of other functions, such as political analysis of countries that

face internal disruption.
The focus on security and not military activity is typically a British affair
and has its roots in the commercial security operations conducted during the
1970s. Today this distinction is reflected in the attitudes of many former British
officers who now work in the industry. When retired Major General John
Holmes was asked to describe the type of work Erinys does in Iraq, his immedi-
ate reply was ‘‘security work.’’ Holmes went on to explain that
the company supplies point security, which is defensive in nature, for the oil infra-
structure and close protection for individuals working for the U.S. Corps of Engi-
neers and other companies working in the country. We guard things and are no
different to the tens of thousands of private guards anywhere else in the world. What
makes us different is that we are armed and the company has expatriate management
managing local people.21 21
The view that the industry provides security and not a war-fighting function
is reflected throughout the U.K. industry, while Donald makes the same point
when he explains ‘‘British PSCs will not in the short or medium term undertake
combat tasks because it would wreck their business. The sector has spent too
long separating itself from the combat end of the private security spectrum to
jeopardize it all with more ‘dogs of war’ headlines.’’22 22
Importantly, these views differ from those held by some former U.S. military
officers working for American companies. Blackwater Vice Chairman Cofer
Black, for example, proposed dispatching a brigade-size force of private sol-
diers to Darfur as part of a U.N. peacekeeping effort to stop the fighting.23 23
According to Donald, the company may have quietly dropped the idea because
of a lack of support from the U.S. government.24 24
In many respects, the 1990s prepared the industry for what was to come in
the context of 9/11, Afghanistan, and Iraq. Unlike state militaries, PSCs were
already adapting to the political changes occurring globally and especially in
Africa. The increase in intrastate war has also meant an increase in business for
PSCs protecting the assets of multinational corporations operating in hostile
environments. Moreover, some companies were already engaging with interna-
tional agencies involved with PSOs. Over the past fifteen years, ArmorGroup
International has supported more than 53 missions, providing administrative
and technical support to such organizations as the United Nations, UNICEF,
and Care International in more than thirty countries from Afghanistan to
Zaire.25 The same company is now a world leader in humanitarian mine clear- 25
ance as a result of the amount of mine clearance contracts it has undertaken in
the last decade.26 Neither is ArmorGroup alone in this respect. American PSCs 26
have also undertaken to support PSOs. DynCorp supplied personnel for the
International Police Task Force in Bosnia as well as personnel for the Kosovo
International Verification Mission.27 27
Page Number: 144
Even so, the industry’s participation during this period was on an ad hoc ba-
sis with the focus mainly on logistical support and not the physical security that
we are now witnessing in Iraq. 9/11 changed all that. Ever since then, the indus-
try has continued to grow in importance, while militaries continue to rely on
contractors for a multitude of tasks from servicing weapon platforms to supply-
ing logistical support. Thus contractors today are a significant actor in the opera-
tional theater, notably because of the RMA, the transformation in warfare from
interstate to intrastate, and the subsequent increase in the number of PSOs now
being carried out. Nevertheless, in the case of PSCs, governments have been
slow in acknowledging their role in the operational theater. Instead, PSCs have
been left to operate in the shadows, adopting in many respects a quasi-legitimate
personality in relation to the international community. As the remainder of the
chapter explains, this is about to change. The RMA and the transformation in
warfare that has seen a marked increase in PSOs will drive the international
community to increase their reliance on contractors, especially PSCs.
THE RMA AND ITS IMPACT ON THE CONTRACTORIZATION OF WAR
From the moment the Coalition force crossed the border into Iraq in April
2003, there has been growing public concern over the role of contractors in the
war.28 While most of the focus has been on contractors engaged in reconstruc- 28
tion, such as Halliburton, and armed contractors, such as Blackwater and Aegis,
there is a third group without whom the U.S. military could not have gone to
war. These are the defense contractors who are responsible for ensuring the
weapon systems used by the military function properly. Without them, the mili-
tary would struggle to operate many of their sophisticated weapon platforms
given the degree of technical knowledge necessary to operate them. As Singer
points out, ‘‘weapons systems required to carry out the highest levels of conflict
are becoming so complex that as many as five different companies are often
required to help just one U.S. military unit carry out its operations.’’29 Such 29
equipment has revolutionized the operational side of warfare, while in the case
of high-intensity-warfare, reliance on advanced technology has increased the
need for skilled technicians from the private sector.
Although changes in weapons technology have seen military power concen-
trated into the hands of ever-smaller groups, it has also had a dramatic impact
on the political, economic, and social aspects of war, changing the nature of the
modern battlefield. In many respects, we now live in a post-heroic world
because of advances in technology. The military has become risk adverse, while
at the same time the introduction of virtual war means the public now demands
that their soldiers stay out of harm’s way. The soldier is not removed from the
act of war, but only from the dangers it entails. The U.S. Secretary of the Air
Force summed up this state of affairs when he argued, ‘‘The computer chip
may very well be a most useful war-fighting tool. For example, while it is never
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a good thing when we lose a Predator on the battlefield, given the alternatives I
look forward to many more computer chips dying for our country.’’30 30
Many might refute this claim, but the truth is that technology combined with
the ability for news agencies to instantaneously transmit pictures of the battle-
field into the homes of millions of viewers has made politicians much more
cautious about committing the lives of their soldiers to combat, especially when
there are contractors who can operate advanced weapon systems that are able
to engage the enemy instead. Indeed, this situation can only exist with the sup-
port of such highly skilled technicians.
During the first Gulf War in 1991, for every contractor there were fifty mili-
tary personnel involved. In the 2003 conflict, the ratio was one to ten.31 If war- 31
fare is being transformed as a consequence of the RMA, then the primary
transformation is technological, which in turn is leading to a secondary trans-
formation: the specialization or civilianization of the military. This has opened
up opportunities for the private sector to play a much greater role in war.
More importantly, in the case of the United States, if it is to maintain its
military superiority, it will have to embrace technology from the private sector.
Nor should we be surprised about how technology has impacted war. After
all, the origins of industrial war can be traced back to the last years of the
Napoleonic Wars.32 Then, as today, the military relied on the private sector to 32
mass-produce muskets, cannon, and ammunition. By the end of the eighteenth
century, the bureaucratization,33 industrialization, and nationalization of 33
violence were starting to have a significant impact on how war was fought.
War was becoming an activity endured by the masses.
Clausewitz himself, one of the great nineteenth century military strategists,
recognized this transformation in the organization of war when he ‘‘urged the
replacement of cabinet wars by national wars … saying in effect ‘Give the War
to the People!’ The State is the People.’’34 Today war is back in the hands of 34
cabinets, supported by contractors.
This has led some to argue that military and civilian roles are becoming
blurred, when in fact the opposite is true. Specialization and civilianization of
roles that in the past were the responsibility of the military are finding their
way back into the private sector with the support of the RMA. Rumsfeld’s
‘‘shock and awe’’ approach to war-fighting, using technology in place of man-
power to achieve regime change in Iraq, is a return to the quest for decisive
warfare. It is an approach that sees soldiers engaged in fighting while contrac-
tors undertake the other tasks involved in war, from maintaining weapon sys-
tems to organizing logistical support for frontline troops.
While the tools to fight wars today are different from the tools used between
1631 and 1815, some aspects of the nature of war are strikingly similar:
[To] keep the costs of war reasonably proportionate to the purposes obtained. [Fur-
thermore] if in a successful battle the enemy army could be substantially destroyed
… then the whole course of the war could be resolved in a single day, and wars
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thereby might be won at relatively low cost, by avoiding the prolonged expenditure
of resources and lives.35 35
These words apply as much today as they did 200 years ago. The U.S. mili-
tary’s use of advanced weapon platforms has given them an unprecedented
advantage, which means that opposing military forces can be defeated in
months if not days instead of years, as the first Iraq war demonstrated. While
on the one hand U.S. military strategists may be reassured by having a prepon-
derance of force, the country now faces a different type of threat as its enemies
adopt an asymmetric approach to warfare. Neither is asymmetric warfare con-
fined to the United States. Other Western countries also face an asymmetric
threat from the same enemies who want to wage war against the United States.
Where does this leave the role of the advanced weapon technician in war
today?
To suggest he or she is solely responsible for the increase in the number of
contractors on the battlefield is only partly true. They are nevertheless an im-
portant driving force, while a further driving force is the increasing fusion
between the corporate ethos of defense contractors and the military ethos that is
leading to a strengthening of cooperation between soldiers and civilians. This
in turn is making it easier to specialize and civilianize the future military. ‘‘The
contention here is that … defense contractors tend to recruit ex-military person-
nel ‘predisposed’ to ‘ways of acting, based on values drawn from their experi-
ences of military services,’ and who operate ‘to the same high standards’ of the
armed services ‘while exhibiting the same moral values which were first
instilled in them in the military.’’’36 Thus, it is held that contractors working 36
alongside military personnel frequently share the same experiences, dangers,
likings, and difficulties, eroding further any cultural barriers that exist between
them in a mutually beneficial relationship where values pass easily between
environments, shaping attitudes and working practices.37 37
The fusing together of the corporate and military ethos suggests a new
dynamic ethos that transcends the traditional civil-military relationship and the
divide that has existed between these two groups for generations. Uttley sums
up this new form of military ethos by suggesting that it replicates a new public
service ethos and the sharing of best practices in other areas of state activity.
Importantly, the provision of services is through a combination of public and
private service agents and not an in-house monopoly.38 38
If the military ethos is being eroded in the field of technical support, it is
also being eroded in the actual area of war-fighting and stabilization operations.
In this respect, specialization and civilianization is not confined to the sphere of
high-intensity warfare but also to the sphere of low-intensity warfare and spe-
cifically PSOs. Moreover, low-intensity warfare has become the norm for the
time being, as the rest of the world realizes that it cannot challenge the U.S.
military on its own terms. The amount of destructive power that U.S. forces
brought to bear on Saddam’s army dictates that in the short to medium term,
Page Number: 147
those who choose to challenge the will of the United States will do so using
methods associated with asymmetric warfare.
Recognition of the asymmetric threats to the West actually emerged after
9/11 and, in the case of the United Kingdom, is identified in the New Chapter
White Paper published in 2003. The New Chapter concluded that it was better
to engage the enemy at long range and to have significant forces ready to
deploy overseas to act against terrorist groups and regimes that harbored them.
Particular U.K. strengths were identified both in find-and-strike operations and
in prevention and stabilization operations. The former were identified as requir-
ing high-intensity war fighting capacity and decision-making structures to ena-
ble forces to act rapidly and decisively.39 The analysis in the New Chapter 39
pointed to the importance of what it called network-centric capability: the link-
ing together of precision weapons and information technologies to produce a
military effect at a qualitatively higher tempo.40 The support of civilian con- 40
tractors is crucial here. At the other end, the New Chapter also recognized the
need to engage in PSOs. Moreover, as the next section discusses, PSOs are no
longer the sole responsibility of the military. The role and importance of con-
tractors is increasing in this realm as well.
THE DRIVING FORCES BEHIND THE USE OF PSCs IN PSOs
PSOs cover a wide area of activity. It would be wrong to suggest that the pri-
vate sector has been able to encroach on all aspects of PSOs. It is therefore nec-
essary to define what is meant by PSOs before any discussion can take place as
to the type and level of encroachment into this area of operations by the private
sector. A PSO is an operation that impartially makes use of diplomatic, civil,
and military means, normally in pursuit of United Nations Charter purposes
and principles, to restore or maintain peace. Such operations may include con-
flict prevention, peacemaking, peace enforcement, peacekeeping, peace-build-
ing, state-building, and/or humanitarian operations. Under the present
international political climate, it is unlikely that PSCs will be allowed to engage
in peace enforcement and peacekeeping operations. Many governments are still
uneasy about using the industry and are still struggling to come to terms with
the presence of so many non-state actors, including PSCs, now operating in the
operational theater since the end of the Cold War. They seem unwilling to sepa-
rate the concept of PSCs from mercenaries and are therefore not prepared to
employ them. Even if the international community was able to reconcile the
difference between the two actors, it is still unlikely governments would turn to
PSCs to act as peace enforcers or peacekeeping forces in the place of state mili-
taries. As noted earlier, Cofer Black has suggested using private soldiers in
Darfur as part of a U.N. peacekeeping force, citing EO’s success in Angola and
Sierra Leone in support of the idea. However, Jim Hooper, who for the last
twenty years has written about the South African Defense Force’s (SADF)
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special forces combat operations, questions the validity of the claim. Hooper
argues that EO’s success is directly attributed to their operators being former
permanent forces cadres of the SADF with extensive experience in joint-
conventional or special forces combat operations in Angola.41 Other than that 41
provided by EO, there is no evidence to support the claim that a PSC could
become an effective peace enforcement or peacekeeping force. It is more likely
that such a role would be beyond their operational capability and the size of
resources necessary to guarantee operational success.
If PSCs are to be a part of PSOs, it is much more probable that they will par-
ticipate in conflict prevention, peace-building, state-building, and humanitarian
operations. These areas of PSOs reflect closely Duffield’s strategic complexes
mentioned at the start of the chapter in that they employ complementary diplo-
matic, civil, and when necessary, military means, to both monitor, identify, and
address the cause of conflict and the longer-term needs of those suffering. Fur-
thermore, peace-building requires a commitment to a long-term process that
may run concurrently with other types of PSOs.42 This last point is pertinent to 42
PSCs because unlike state militaries, which frequently have other operational
commitments to consider, PSCs can afford to commit the necessary time (cost
permitting).
What then is driving the military’s reliance on the private sector in PSOs? A
number of reasons have been put forward, of which the two most common
explanations are the end of the Cold War and the end of apartheid in South
Africa, which saw the downsizing of state militaries and the release into the
marketplace of thousands of trained soldiers. The problem with these explana-
tions is the fact they both occurred seventeen years ago. Consequently, they can
hardly be responsible for the increasing role of PSCs occurring today. Thus,
both reasons are problematic when explaining the expansion of the private se-
curity industry. The most obvious explanation is that outsourcing government
services continues to be a priority for the U.K. and U.S. governments. This may
be because they believe private companies to be more efficient than publicly
supplied services, but the most probable reason is increased pressure imposed
by operational commitments. To put it more starkly, there are too few soldiers
and resources for operational commitments. In the case of the British Army,
manpower has diminished from 160,000 immediately after the Cold War to
101,808 today, while operations have increased.43 More worrying for the Min- 43
istry of Defense (MoD) is the military’s inability to attract recruits (as of Au-
gust 2006 the infantry was short of approximately 3,500 soldiers, more than
15% of its total strength).44 The market is thus seen as a solution to a shortfall 44
in manpower linked to an increase in the operational tempo of the army. Nei-
ther is this situation likely to improve in the immediate or medium term. The
proportion of the gross domestic product (GDP) spent on Defense has fallen
from 3.5% in 1993 to just below 2.3% today.45 This reduction in Defense 45
spending has resulted in an emerging capability gap that will create opportuni-
ties that PSCs will want to fill. Nor is the United Kingdom alone in relation to
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manpower shortages and increasing operational tempo. The U.S. military faces
exactly the same problem in terms of recruitment as fewer Americans now
choose to serve in the military.
Neither is the phenomenon new as discussed above, though it was not until
9/11 that the industry really started to grow as demands for security services
increased overnight. That said, it was only after the second Gulf War that PSCs
started to sign multi-million dollar contracts. It is estimated that there are 630
companies working in Iraq on contract to the U.S. government, with personnel
from more than 100 countries offering services ranging from cooking and driv-
ing to close protection, while their 180,000 employees now outnumber 160,000
official troops.46 PSCs only represent a small percentage of this figure. The pre- 46
cise numbers, however, are unclear, with some reports estimating the figure to
be as high as 48,000 while other reports suggest the number could be as low as
25,000.47 Even so, such numbers represent a significant increase from two dec- 47
ades ago. Then, the industry only employed a small number of individuals,
probably no more than 2000 to 3000,48 and would mainly have come from a 48
special forces background, the Guards, or served with irregular forces such as
the Sultan of Oman’s Armed Forces. Today, even ordinary soldiers see the
industry as a second career after military service, especially given the U.S. gov-
ernment’s intention to rely more and more on PSCs for security functions in
conflict zones. Other governments have been much slower to react, but will in
all probability follow suit.
After all, using private security may make sense for functions such as perim-
eter Defense since it allows the military to free up personnel for combat duty.
The U.S. military sees its primary role as war-fighting, not PSOs, and therefore
prefers to give more of the latter responsibility to the private sector. Nor are
they alone here. With the majority of Western militaries struggling to attract
adequate numbers of recruits, it is quite likely they too will turn to the private
sector to fill the manpower and skills gaps. What is not clear is the degree to
which governments will become reliant on PSCs to supply services in the
future. The following section discusses the direction the emerging trend might
take; highlighting, in particular, the roles governments are likely to want to
outsource.
ASSIGNING PEACE SUPPORT ROLES TO PSCs
Donald identifies four areas where in the future we are likely to see an increase
in PSC involvement in PSOs. They include intelligence provision and analysis,
support to post-conflict stabilization and reconstruction operations, SSR, and
humanitarian and development assistance. Unfortunately, this chapter does not
have the space to allow a detailed account of the nature of PSC involvement in
these areas. Instead, only a brief analysis is possible.
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Intelligence Provision
The private sector understands intelligence differently from the government. In
the latter case, intelligence is privileged information, normally gathered cov-
ertly by intelligence services and not open for public scrutiny. For the private
sector, intelligence is simply open source or declassified information that has
been analyzed, thus making it useful to the client.49 49
In relation to PSOs and intelligence, PSCs are in a rather unique position
compared to other non-state actors operating in conflict zones because they tend
to employ former soldiers with experience in intelligence. In addition, the fact
that they normally work over large geographical areas and frequently form
close relationships with the local population, being able to adapt to a given
environment,50 make them an ideal source of additional information for the 50
military tasked with conducting a PSO. The last point is particularly pertinent
because failure to adapt can seriously jeopardize their operational effectiveness
and even threaten their survival.
As important are the implications for the military of turning to PSCs for
intelligence. As with state militaries, PSC forces have different security and
organizational cultures, usually reflecting the culture from which such forces
are drawn. Thus, some PSCs may be better placed in cultural intelligence
because their ethos is closer to a military culture that is used to operating in an
insurgency environment. British PSCs, for example, may have an advantage
over their rivals as a result of their employees having gained experience from
operating in Northern Ireland, which would have taught them the value of
adopting an open mind, cultural tolerance, and a willingness to communicate
with outsiders. The same may also be true of other PSCs whose employees
have intimate experience of insurgency operations as a result of serving in a
state military. However, employees of PSCs can also have a detrimental impact
on intelligence gathering by bringing to the operation habits and prejudices that
are not conducive to good operational conduct. Employee attitudes towards the
local community are especially important and can easily have a negative impact
on the local population. Iraq is awash with stories of security contractors behav-
ing badly towards locals, thus endangering not only their own company’s intel-
ligence gathering, but also possibly those of other organizations.51 51
Where PSCs differ from state militaries is in how they operate, and it is in
this area that they can make a contribution to intelligence culture, the military
operational function of gathering and analyzing information about the theater
and the enemy.52 In complex environments they are able to offer commanders 52
and senior officers invaluable information as a result of cultural intelligence. In
Iraq, for example, a number of PSCs operate from outside the Green Zone. This
has meant being able to communicate with the local population, understand
their culture, and remain open-minded and flexible, while also showing careful
judgment in the application of force in what is frequently a very fluid environ-
ment. At the same time, PSCs appear well placed to operate in such an
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environment, notably because many companies employ former members of spe-

cial forces with experience in both guerrilla warfare and counterinsurgency. In
each of these types of warfare, a crucial element is winning the hearts and
minds of the local population. As Kain explains, ‘‘If you are a small unit work-
ing in a foreign country then you are dependent on the relationship between
you and those people for your existence. If they dislike you and only associate
with you because you provide them with dollars, then you can’t operate.’’53 53
The same applies to contractors living outside the Green Zone. Crucially, the
experiences of some PSCs suggest it is possible as long as the local population
is prepared to accept you. That said, it is usually a temporary arrangement and
is susceptible to political manipulation by local power brokers.54 54
Finally, this places PSCs in an ideal position, if only for a short period of time,
for gathering field intelligence, which they do as a matter of course to support
their own security operations, and which the military can also use to improve its
own operational picture. Good intelligence is a force multiplier and is essential for
the overall success of operations, particularly in the case of the U.K. military,
which has traditionally relied on intelligence rather than increasing manpower. In
Iraq, for example, most of the established PSCs have their own intelligence cells,
which collect information on threats and pass it on to team leaders, who use it to
allocate resources more efficiently and to avoid any potential trouble.55 This type 55
of tactical intelligence is extremely useful to the military as an additional source.
Importantly, it offers the military a unique insight into different aspects of the
local population that is frequently beyond their operational capabilities or is sim-
ply ignored as a result of the military’s cultural boundaries, which block out out-
side cultural influences. In this respect, security contractors who live in the local
community and have access to privileged information that is not always available
to military intelligence can provide new insight and understanding regarding the
complex context of the local arena.
Support to Post-Conf lict Stabilization and Reconstruction Operations

This area is already familiar to PSCs. As mentioned above, in the case of Dyn-
Corp the company provided support to the Bosnian operation supplying former
police offices to the International Police Task Force as well as police officers
for the verification mission in Kosovo. In both cases they were supplied on
behalf of the Department of State. In the case of the U.K. government, they
have already hired PSCs to provide security for government staff who either
work in or visit conflict zones. Recent figures show the cost running into mil-
lions of pounds.56 The most lucrative market, however, is likely to be in sup- 56
port of the military. Shortages in manpower coupled with an increase in
overseas commitments suggest that the U.S. and U.K. militaries are becoming
far too small to perform anything other than narrowly defined military tasks.
This will invariably leave a whole range of activities in the hands of contrac-
tors. Indeed, both militaries already employ contractors to build and supply
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base camp facilities for their troops,57 while the United States also use PSCs to 57
guard their bases, something British commanders are still not willing to accept.
Finally, much of the logistical support militaries in the developing world are
receiving from the U.S. government is coming from contractors. For instance,
the State Department has hired DynCorp to help equip and provide logistical
support to international peacekeepers in Somalia, giving the United States a sig-
nificant role in the critical mission without assigning combat troops.58 While at 58
present the U.S. government appears to be the only country willing to outsource
in this way, it is a trend that is set to increase, especially if Western govern-
ments want to be able to influence organizations such as the African Union
without committing ground troops or resources. Paying contractors to do your
bidding not only allows you to influence what is happening in the developing
world, it also lets you protect your national interests by proxy. In this way,
Western governments can keep an element of control over events happening
thousands of miles away without the political risk associated with committing
troops. Furthermore, Western militaries are now facing the prospect of an
emerging capability gap as a result of government willingness to act with fewer
resources, which PSCs will try and fill, but only as long as governments recog-
nize that they are part of the nation’s assets.
Security Sector Reform

The role of private security in SSR is best understood in the context of closer
cooperation between the many different actors that now make up the develop-
ment and security arenas. SSR reform describes the reorganization of a coun-
try’s security structures in terms of its relationship to the state and civil society.
The notion of including the security sector within the development program ori-
ginated from the Scandinavian countries and the Netherlands. These countries
sought to reorganize SSR in a less parochial and ghettoized manner than had
previously been the case.59 Inclusion of SSR within the development arena was 59
considered necessary since a breakdown in development can rapidly lead to a
breakdown in the security sector. Thus, failure to address social, political, and
economic injustices undermines the judicial, police, intelligence agencies, and
the military.
Much of the work undertaken by the private sector in this area is carried out by
public sector consulting firms. These firms operate at the strategic level, undertak-
ing work to promote long-term stability by helping to build local capacity and
competence. In this respect, there is a difference between the type of work that a
PSC is suited to and the kind of work public sector consulting firms engage in.
Nevertheless, both groups engage in SSR alongside each other—not sequentially.
Whereas in the past, longer-term SSR came after post-conflict tasks, this is no lon-
ger the case. Indeed, while a PSC may be contracted to disarm, demobilize, and
then reintegrate (DDR) former combatants back into society—a post-conflict
task—a consulting firm may be restructuring the Ministry of Justice at the same
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time, a long-term project. Neither is their role confined to DDR. PSCs can draw
on a whole range of skills that they can place at the disposal of governments or
international organizations. The most obvious is military and police training,
which is the case in Iraq and Afghanistan, where contractors have been used
instead of uniformed personnel.60 60
Military training has been a core business activity for some U.S. PSCs for
the last decade. Most notable among them is MPRI. As mentioned earlier, the
company was involved in training the Croatian and Bosnian armed forces
throughout the early 1990s, while DynCorp trained the Liberian army,61 and 61
Vinnell is training the Saudi Arabian National Guard.62 Neither are U.S. PSCs 62
alone in marketing their SSR skills. Control Risks, a U.K. PSC, has a gover-
nance and development department that specializes in long-term stabilization
programs. It is also, according to the head of Governance and Development,
able to provide services normally provided by governments.63 This is normally 63
the result of consciously employing former government employees with the
requisite skills to provide such services. Importantly, PSCs offer surge capacity
without the government having to employ additional personnel. Whether this is
cheaper in the long run is debatable. However, what is not debatable is that
some operating areas will be dangerous and require security that will invariably
be supplied by PSCs, as is the case in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Humanitarian and Development Assistance

This is probably the most controversial area in which PSCs might be engaged
in the foreseeable future. There are potentially two roles that they can under-
take: first, the direct delivery and provision of humanitarian aid and develop-
ment assistance, and second, acting as coordinators of delivery of humanitarian
aid.64 In the British context, the direct provision of humanitarian aid since the 64
end of the Cold War has been increasingly managed by non-governmental
organizations (NGOs) acting in partnership with the British government on sta-
bilization, reconstruction, and development projects. While the provision of
hard security continues to be dominated by the military, human security—
securing people against the threat from hunger, disease, and the physical envi-
ronment—has been given over much more to the NGO community. However,
handing over such responsibility can present a government with the problem of
executing policy if, as was the case with Iraq, the NGO community suddenly
withdraws its help in the implementation of human security tasks. It fell to the
CPA to take on the role, which they were not suitably prepared for, and lacked
the necessary experience. As Donald explains, ‘‘many of its personnel were
inexperienced in administering humanitarian or development aid projects.…
The result was that there were very substantial holes in humanitarian and devel-
opment provision.’’65 As noted above, being so reliant on the NGO community 65
to execute policy is problematic if they withdraw their services because they do
not wish to be associated with a particular military operation. In this respect,
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PSCs are an alternative to NGOs in humanitarian aid delivery and development

assistance, while also being able to provide their own security if required. Fur-
thermore, since PSC personnel are invariably former soldiers, they are less
likely to show hostility towards the military and more likely to be prepared to
work alongside them, which is frequently not the case with NGO personnel.
Coordinating the delivery of humanitarian aid is the second role that PSCs
can undertake for government. This is precisely what Aegis is doing for the
U.S. government in Iraq. It is frequently the case that post-conflict environ-
ments are chaotic, with government agencies and NGOs unknowingly working
against each other to achieve their objectives. Because government agencies
and NGOs are sometimes suspicious of the other’s motives, they may not liaise
with each other, thus creating problems when it comes to sharing information.
For those responsible for mounting humanitarian operations, maintaining a stra-
tegic picture is important if the right amount and type of aid is to be delivered.
This can only really be achieved through a centrally-organized process that is
able to coordinate all the different actors involved. In Iraq, the role of coordi-
nating all the PSCs was given to Aegis. They became responsible for tracking
the movement of security companies, coordinating their movement with that of
the U.S. military, coordinating rescue operations if contractors got into trouble,
and sharing intelligence between PSCs. Such experience could be useful in
other humanitarian operations, but it does require the support of all the agencies
operating on the ground if it is to work.
THE CONTRACTORIZATION AND CIVILIANIZATION OF THE MILITARY
The changing nature of warfare, which has occurred since the end of the Cold
War, has made militaries more specialized in their war-fighting and more likely to
defer mission tasks to contractors. This trend is set to continue as long as govern-
ments choose to engage in more and more PSOs. As the previous section noted,
there is a whole array of tasks that in the past would have been considered the
responsibility of the military which are now being given over to PSCs or NGOs.
Even so, certain countries are further ahead in deferring mission tasks to contrac-
tors. The American government, for example, has outsourced many security roles
in Iraq and Afghanistan instead of using the army, while the British government
appears reluctant to do the same. They prefer to use the army rather than commit
to the level of outsourcing security roles that the American government has under-
taken. Indeed, whereas the U.S. military employs PSCs to guard their bases and
protect their convoys, the British Army still uses troops with many commanders
uneasy about outsourcing such important responsibilities.
One possible reason for this unease may have to do with the fact that PSCs
lack the legitimacy of state actors, thus raising real concerns for commanding
officers. However, given the manpower shortage faced by the British Army, it
may eventually have no option but to adopt the same approach as the American
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military for certain security roles, including using PSC’s as static guards and
convoy protection.
Finally, the combination of outsourcing military responsibilities with the
military’s reliance on advanced weapons platforms has intensified the impact of
contractors on the operational environment, thus increasing the speed of which
the military is becoming more specialized as it seeks to focus on war-fighting
while leaving other non-war-fighting functions, including some mission critical
functions such as logistical support, to contractors.
CONCLUSION
What does the future hold for PSCs in respect to PSOs? While the industry is
not going to go away, there is still uncertainty about the future regarding its
potential contribution to PSOs, notably because it is dependant on other factors
over which it has no control. At present the industry appears to be settling for
less contentious roles within PSOs, in particular intelligence provision, support
to post-conflict stabilization operations, humanitarian and development assis-
tance security sector reform. Peace enforcement and peacekeeping have for the
time being been shelved because it is felt that the international community has
no stomach for outsourcing these roles.
Governments in developing countries are particularly hostile to the idea of
using PSCs, which they see as a modern manifestation of the age old merce-
nary, while also denying them a potential source of revenue for their own
troops. Western governments, on the other hand, are already relying on their
services, though there are still significant differences between countries. The
U.S. government, for example, is determined to move forward and outsource
more functions to PSCs. On the other hand, there are countries, such as South
Africa, that would like to see the industry banned.
This use of PSCs in peacekeeping has given the U.S. government a signifi-
cant role in Somalia without assigning combat troops.66 This is a trend that the 66
United States is actively pursuing. Nor is the U.S. government worried about
outsourcing to foreign PSCs. Aegis, a U.K. PSC, won the Matrix contract in
Iraq to protect U.S. government officials involved in reconstruction, while the
British PSC ArmorGroup won a contract to protect the U.S. embassy in Af-
ghanistan. What this also suggests is that in the future, U.S. contributions to
PSOs may include foreign PSCs. Several U.K. companies have already estab-
lished offices in Washington with the intention of benefiting from the govern-
ment’s move to outsource more responsibility for PSOs to the private sector.
In the United Kingdom, the government has been slow to react to the phenom-
enon and is lacking a coherent policy, instead preferring to leave it up to individ-
ual ministries to decide whether they should engage with the industry or not.
While the Foreign Office, for example, uses PSCs to protect staff working in pla-
ces such as Iraq and Afghanistan and has a clear set of rules governing their
Page Number: 156
working relationship with PSCs, the same is not true of the Ministry of Defense
(MoD). Consequently, while military personnel frequently work alongside secu-
rity contractors on PSOs, tensions can and do arise. This is especially so concern-
ing the use of firearms by PSCs, which can make the PSO environment even more
complex for soldiers. The main worry for the industry at present, however, is
whether the government will follow the American example and increase its use of
PSCs in support of PSOs. In the immediate future, this looks doubtful. The MoD
and the Department for International Development (DFID) both appear uncom-
fortable with the idea. The MoD appears particularly worried about the legal
implication of companies being armed and the fact that they could also pose a risk
for soldiers in PSOs. This only leaves the FCO. Unfortunately for the industry,
their contribution to PSOs is usually limited to the diplomatic arena and not to
roles that are generally suitable for outsourcing to PSCs.
Other countries have also started to outsource some of their responsibilities
in the area of PSOs. They are, however, a long way behind the United States
and some way behind the United Kingdom. One of the reasons for this may
have to do with public criticism of the idea, especially if it means risking the
wrath of public opinion, which few, if any, politicians like doing. Even so,
PSCs do offer another approach for countries that want to be seen to support
PSOs but do not necessarily want to become directly involved for domestic rea-
sons; PSO by proxy, some might call it.
Finally, the pace at which aspects of PSOs are being outsourced should be
of serious concern for government. Policy makers need to understand the impli-
cations of such outsourcing for all those parties concerned. The last thing they
need to do is to sleepwalk into controversy as the British government did over
the ‘‘Arms to Africa’’ affair in the late 1990s with serious potential implications
for the future role of PSCs in PSOs.67 In this respect, governments need to start 67
addressing the issues of legitimacy, accountability, and transparency if the gen-
eral public is to have any trust in a system that allows functions which in the
past would have been the sole responsibility of the state to be undertaken by
private actors.
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Cultural Intelligence for Peace Support

Operations in the New Era of Warfare
Kobi Michael & David Kellen
INTRODUCTION
The end of the age of conventional and symmetrical wars and the growth in
number of intrastate conflicts in failed states have, in turn, led to changes in the
nature of peacekeeping operations. This change can be encapsulated in the tran-
sition from first generation peacekeeping, which focused on observing ceasefire
and armistice agreements between warring states, to second generation peace-
keeping, which emphasizes statebuilding through democratization and the reha-
bilitation of indigenous institutions and economies.1 Second generation 1
peacekeeping adopts an approach of dealing with the roots of conflict and not
only the repression of violence.
Intrastate conflicts are no longer the exclusive domain of the participating
warring factions, and the international community increasingly finds itself
involved in these conflicts, whether through the United Nations, regional organ-
izations, or the direct intervention of state actors, most often the United States.
Clear examples of this phenomenon can be found in Bosnia and Kosovo, Iraq,
and Afghanistan.
The challenge only becomes more complex when intrastate conflicts involve
terror and guerilla groups with connections to global terror networks (i.e., Iraq
and Afghanistan). Such conflicts demand increased military involvement, yet,
as Frank van Kappen, former Director of Planning at the U.N. Department of
Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO) explains, ‘‘the military operation alone will
not create a sustainable peace, it only provides the security umbrella underneath
which the real peace process has to take place.’’2 On the other hand, increased 2
military involvement has the potential to overshadow statebuilding efforts. The
hegemony of military mission components is also expressed in the dominance
of military thinking over political thinking, which leads to the militarization of
Page Number: 158
peacekeeping professional discourse. Yet if modern PSOs are to succeed in ful-

filling their mandates, they must be able to move beyond traditional military
rationales. As Renauld Thuenens, Director of Belgium’s national intelligence
cell in the Stabilization Force (SFOR) explains, ‘‘much more than was the case
during conventional military operations, analysts will have to be able to get out
of the [military] paradigm; ‘get out of the box!’’’3 3
Military thinking in the changing world of warfare relies on the conceptual
framework of the Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA), whose characteristics,
foundations, and development are detailed in the chapters written by Allen Sens
and David Last in this volume. Current military thinking currently relies heav-
ily on precision fire and technology to destroy targets (including human targets
in targeted assassination). This kind of intelligence is not necessarily appropri-
ate for increasing the effectiveness of second generation peacekeeping opera-
tions. In this case, mission forces and their dispatchers are in need of a different
kind of intelligence.
The role of intelligence in second generation peacekeeping goes far beyond
destroying targets and force protection; its principle importance is in clarifying
the basic context of the operation and its fulfillment. Without understanding
their context, operations will meet with serious difficulties in ensuring their
relevance and protecting actors in the conflict theater. Moreover, the context of
a second generation peacekeeping operation is far more complex than that of a
traditional military operation. It is, therefore, important to discern the right kind
of intelligence needed for peacekeeping, to grasp its rationale and to understand
how it is achieved.
Intelligence in a peacekeeping context has three levels, all of which are dif-
ferent but connected:
1. Strategic intelligence, which is especially relevant for mission planners, who

must understand the overall picture in order to design the mission’s political
aims.
2. Operational intelligence, which is necessary for commanders to understand the
context of the conflict theater.
3. Tactical intelligence, which commanders require to carry out specific mission
activities.
The third kind of intelligence most closely resembles military intelligence

and is necessary for, among other things, force protection. Intelligence is often
perceived as belonging to the realm of military experts, secret services and the
like. As such, it threatens the neutral nature of the United Nations, where intel-
ligence is almost a synonym for secrecy, non-transparency, and sometimes con-
spiracy. This article’s historical review of the place of intelligence and its roles
in peacekeeping operations reveals its near absence. The methodological and
professional literature on peacekeeping does not so much deal with intelligence
as it does with the difficulties and limits involved in developing intelligence
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CULTURAL INTELLIGENCE FOR PEACE SUPPORT OPERATIONS IN THE NEW ERA OF WARFARE 159
capabilities in the framework of the United Nations and peacekeeping opera-

tions. At the United Nations, intelligence is almost taboo despite its essential
importance. Patrick Cammaert, military advisor to the U.N. Secretary General,
underscores this point when he writes, ‘‘Due to political sensitivities, for many
years ‘intelligence’ within the U.N. was not considered an acceptable term, ac-
tivity, or process.’’4 It seems that an inclusive doctrine for the use of intelli- 4
gence in peacekeeping operations has yet to be developed.
The complexity of second generation peacekeeping operations, which results
from simultaneous military, police, and civil operations being carried out in
complex conflict theaters that are, from the perspective of the peacekeepers,
culturally and politically foreign, requires the construction and development of
integrative intelligence capabilities in the areas of collection, processing, evalu-
ation, and distribution. Intelligence capabilities should develop the knowledge
base of peacekeeping forces and ensure the relevancy of their actions in the the-
ater. The relevancy of mission force actions in the theater should assist in
achieving necessary mission goals. It should be expressed in the creation of the
conditions for creating political change that ensures an end to violence, helps
deliver a political agreement, and rebuilds the failed state. This kind of achieve-
ment is dependent on the ability of the mission force to conquer the hearts and
minds of the local population.5 5
Thus, the goal of second generation peacekeeping operations is to create po-
litical change that will end violence and rebuild the conflict theater by means of
building the institutions and rationale of a state. Here, to our understanding, lies
the interface between the new world of warfare and the new generation of
peacekeeping operations. One of the most important components of that inter-
face is intelligence, which, for different reasons, has not been professionally
and strategically developed within the United Nations. As van Kappen points
out, ‘‘The lack of strategic intelligence has been an important factor in the fail-
ure of a number of U.N. operations. Fact is that the U.N. has no intelligence
capability of its own and is totally dependent on the member states for intelli-
gence support.’’6 6
Intelligence in second generation peacekeeping should assist in bridging the
cultural gap that characterizes the encounter of mission forces, who usually op-
erate from Western, liberal principles, and the conflict theater, which is usually
in a failed state whose culture and political characteristics are not based on the
same principles. The deeper the cultural gap, the less relevant the mission force
will be. This understanding gives rise to the importance that we attribute to
bridging cultural gaps and to the characteristics of the required intelligence
capabilities. We define the intelligence necessary for these needs as cultural
intelligence, and in our estimation, without developed cultural intelligence
capabilities, peacekeeping forces and their dispatchers cannot reach their goals
in a decisive and efficient manner.
Developing intelligence capabilities demands an understanding of the differ-
ences between types of intelligence and the importance of integrating them.
Page Number: 160
The military intelligence necessary for combating terror and guerilla groups is
not similar to political, social, or economic intelligence, which are necessary
for the civil and governmental aspects of second generation peacekeeping. Only
the informed and methodical integration of all types of intelligence enables a
deep understanding of the theater and its various rationales. Thus, integration
should be viewed as a necessary condition for mission success. Any achieve-
ment, military, governmental, economic, or social, must serve the wider politi-
cal goals of the mission.
In this chapter we will clarify the uniqueness and necessity of intelligence in
second generation peacekeeping missions. We will briefly review the history of
intelligence in peacekeeping operations and the nature of its difficulties and
failures. We will also characterize cultural intelligence and introduce the neces-
sary conditions for its implementation.
WHY IS THERE A NEED FOR INTELLIGENCE IN PSOs?
Modern peace support operations, which we also refer to in this chapter as sec-
ond generation peacekeeping, often cannot maintain the same level of neutrality
as traditional peacekeeping operations. Intervention in an intrastate arena fre-
quently involves backing an idea or a side with the aim of creating a political
change towards stabilization and reconstruction of the arena. This is also known
as statebuilding. The key for success in such a mission is winning the support
of the local population for a new idea or a new government, a task that is essen-
tially political and psychological in nature. Winning the population’s hearts and
minds is a form of convincing that entails actively using information as a tool
to further the mission’s goals and, simultaneously, coping with the opponents’
use of information to undermine the mission’s goals. Therefore, contemporary
PSOs must take into consideration that opponents fight with information and
must be countered with information.
One of the basic assumptions of current PSOs is that protracted ethno-
national conflict cannot by resolved by military means alone, nor by the neutral
and impartial monitoring of a ceasefire or armistice agreement, because in most
cases such an agreement simply does not exist. The resolution of protracted
ethno-national conflict requires a more comprehensive and long-term approach:
stabilization and reconstruction. Using such a multidimensional approach
requires a deeper understanding of the conflict theater and its political and
social nature. The mission becomes more complex when opponents blend in
with the civilian population. Under such conditions, when ‘‘the enemy [is]
indistinguishable from the general population,’’7 the challenge is being able to 7
differentiate between opponents and innocent civilians in order to neutralize the
former and empower the latter. The absence of such an ability can become a se-
rious weakness as the Canadian experience in Afghanistan demonstrates:
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‘‘Perhaps the most significant vulnerability facing the CF/Army is the ability to
distinguish between the ‘good guys’ and the ‘bad guys.’’’8 8
Many PSOs can be characterized as war amongst people where the civilians
are the arena, the target, and the audience to be convinced.9 Complexities like 9
these compel learning and understanding the local culture and its politics. A
useful resource in this regard is the U.S. Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field
Manual, which provides doctrinal instructions for improving commanders’
understanding and skills for successful coping with the complexity and unique
challenges of intrastate conflict.10 10
In such theaters intelligence becomes crucial as the strategic and operational
tool that provides distinctions between different layers of society and identifies
political tendencies and cultural aspects. When rivals use the local population
to become invisible and attack peacekeeping forces, the ‘‘rules of the game’’
are changed. The asymmetry of the situation created by the encounter between
state organized PSO forces and non-state entities like terror and guerilla groups
demands intelligence that is more rigorous and sometimes of a different nature.
Such intelligence can be acquired and created by deepening engagement with
the local population and local institutions. Engagement enables mission forces
to correctly identify the required indications for understanding the operational
context and remaining relevant.11 Engagement also provides tactical intelli- 11
gence for force protection, a factor that is much more important in PSOs than
in traditional peacekeeping.12 12
Modern PSOs are concentrated on the idea of stabilization and reconstruc-
tion and therefore face challenges that are entirely different from those of tradi-
tional peacekeeping operations. PSOs have to focus on creating a political
change that will undermine the roots of violence and establish better conditions
for resolving the conflict or managing it more successfully. One of the main
tools used in this regard is building reliable and functional governments and not
simply defeating the enemy.13 Eventually, modern PSOs deal with social engi- 13
neering, which means changing the societal and political order of the society in
conflict. Building reliable and functional governance is one of the desired out-
puts of such a process, and it cannot be achieved without a deep understanding
and established knowledge of the conflict theater, and that requires political and
societal intelligence.14 14
Gathering such intelligence, however, is no easy task. As Pasi Valimaki, a
former Kosovo Force (KFOR) intelligence officer points out, ‘‘In PSOs the
indicators can be difficult to identify and follow as they can change according
to ethnic background, geographical location, and the economic and political sit-
uation.’’15 In order to understand indicators, mission commanders must, in a
sense, adopt an anthropological approach. They must acquire the methodologi-
cal tools that will enable them to investigate and research the conflict theater
and its actors in order to track trends and understand the essence of political
developments in parallel to identifying security risks and threats towards their
troops. In order to improve their effectiveness and efficiency, they have to
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conduct the mission as social scientists, politicians, policemen, and military

commanders. Intelligence must simultaneously support all those functions and
needs, and becomes an even more crucial component of mission effectiveness.
Modern and complex PSOs are characterized by increased proportion of sol-
diers, and such proportion lowers the mission’s risk-tolerance.16 Mission 16
commanders should be aware of the fact that major military power can be espe-
cially destructive to mission intelligence because good force protection requires
very good intelligence. This becomes even more important considering that as
the United Nations intervenes in conflicts that are less ripe for resolution, the
danger troops are exposed to is increased.17 17
WHAT SHOULD BE THE NATURE OF PEACEKEEPING INTELLIGENCE?
PSO intelligence should deal with the organizing rationale of local politics,
understanding cultural codes and needs and the internal order of social net-
works. PSO intelligence should seek to understand opportunities required for
advancing the political change, not just threats. Therefore, PSO intelligence
should be comprehensive and coordinated in its nature and based on a broad
understanding of social and political dimensions of the conflict theater, which
are social constructions. Consequently, ‘‘[PSO] Intelligence is ‘socially con-
structed,’ and the qualitative and quantitative methodology of social science
can be used to enhance analysis work.’’18 18
All actors in the arena are intelligence producers, and a common language
should be established between them that will lead towards fruitful cooperation.
Such a level of coordination is best ensured through common training and a
common doctrine for all PSO personnel, including civilians, police, and mili-
tary units.19 Military units have to coordinate their efforts at all levels with ci- 19
vilian units. This includes local and international NGOs and the private sector,
whose influence in PSOs is increasing.20 All units must be unified by a compre- 20
hensive plan and a clear overall political goal.21 ‘‘Planning the intelligence sup- 21
port begins with a focused Intelligence Preparation of the Environment (IPE).
The traditional Intelligence Preparation of the Battlefield (IPB) has to be
adjusted to meet the local PSO requirements and situation.’’22 All actors must 22
participate in systematic and coordinated intelligence operations. The NGOs,
the police, and the private sector gather and provide information required for
intelligence, but they are still not full partners. Private military corporations
(PMCs) have their own intelligence capabilities, which can contribute to those
of the mission.23 PMCs might also be perceived as less threatening, meaning 23
they can collect the kind of information that regular troops cannot. Further-
more, PSOs planners will have to develop strong cooperation mechanisms with
the local government and use the local government as a source of informa-
tion.24 These sources help provide one of the most important kinds of intelli- 24
gence in PSO theaters: human intelligence. The American and international
Page Number: 163
experience in Iraq and Afghanistan indicates that such intelligence plays a cru-
cial role in bridging the cultural gap between the local population and the PSO
force. Such a gap occurs in the encounter between the ‘‘First World,’’ repre-
sented by the PSO force, and the ‘‘Third World,’’ represented by the conflict
arena mostly in failed states. As Valimaki points out, one of the major problems
for PSO forces of this encounter is that ‘‘Our own belief system does not help
in understanding the actions of an agent with a different belief system.’’25 Qual- 25
itative human intelligence can be acquired only by close work, engagement,
and cooperation with the local population and its institutions, and heightened
engagement with the local population not only produces more information, it
necessitates more information for force protection.26 More intelligence resour- 26
ces create a flow of detailed information that should be managed and analyzed
carefully and wisely and ‘‘… that can be obtained only by a comprehensive col-
lection system.’’27 27
PSOs are long-term missions in their nature and planning, therefore they have
to engage in long-term analysis using a wide variety of information sources.28 28
One of the resources in this regard is technologically-advanced intelligence. As
intelligence gathering channels become commercially available, the United
Nations has the chance to broaden its own capabilities. It can now acquire its
own satellite technology and will have access to the intelligence databases of
major powers like Russia and the United States as well as private databases.29 29
PSO intelligence should be recognized as central tool for planning and exe-
cuting PSOs. Mission planners and commanders should develop intelligence
capabilities first in the conceptual level and then in the technological and
human levels. The intelligence should be considered as one of the most impor-
tant means for bridging the cultural gaps between the intervening forces and
the local population in the conflict theater. Cultural gaps in the context of mod-
ern PSOs become an obstacle that can endanger the mission as a whole. With-
out the ability to bridge this gap, missions risk losing their relevancy, their
effectiveness, and their efficiency.
The Canadian experience in Afghanistan emphasizes the importance of these
skills and qualifications. A recent Canadian military advisory report ‘‘recom-
mends [that] the Canadian Forces put more emphasis on language skills, gather-
ing intelligence, and developing knowledge about the societies it plans to
operate in.’’ The report also deals with the relevancy of military knowledge in
intrastate conflict theaters and recommends that the military ‘‘adapt a range of
non-military knowledge and technology.’’30 30
THE DEVELOPMENT OF PEACEKEEPING INTELLIGENCE—AN HISTORICAL OVERVIEW
The following section provides an overview of the development of intelligence

capabilities in peacekeeping operations. Before beginning, however, a distinction
must be made between ‘‘native’’ peacekeeping intelligence—what U.N.
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Headquarters (UNHQ) and mission personnel collect and process themselves—and

‘‘national’’ peacekeeping intelligence—which is obtained through the national intel-
ligence bodies of participating forces and their allies. These two kinds of intelli-
gence are very different in nature and have contributed differently to peace support
operations. This section begins with the development of native intelligence and con-
tinues with national intelligence and some of the problems associated with it.
The systematic development and use of intelligence in peacekeeping opera-
tions (both native and national) is, with one exception, a post-Cold War phe-
nomenon. That exception is the U.N. Operation in the Congo (UNOC), which
began in 1960 and ended in 1964. UNOC maintained a small intelligence staff
but incorporated several intelligence functions, including the deployment of
field intelligence officers, gathering human intelligence, conducting aerial re-
connaissance, counter-intelligence, and interrogations, and monitoring radio
transmissions.31 However, the operation was so controversial that nothing like 31
it—in both size and intelligence capabilities—was mounted again for the dura-
tion of the Cold War years.
In the early 1990s, as the United Nations began to commission more peace-
keeping operations, it also began to incorporate more intelligence personnel
into its missions. In Somalia, U.N. Operations in Somalia I (UNOSOM; 1992–
1993) incorporated twelve intelligence personnel into the mission (which were
dwarfed by U.S. national intelligence efforts in the operation).32 U.N. Opera- 32
tions in Somalia II (UNOSOM II; 1993–1995) went so far as to hire agents and
informants, but this is the only example of the practice that the authors can find
in the literature.33 The U.N. Assistance Mission in Rwanda (UNAMIR; in 33
1995, after the massacres) incorporated six intelligence officers into its ranks.34 34
In the same period, peacekeeping operations also began to diversify their
intelligence functions. The U.N. Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC)
became one of the first peacekeeping missions to be preceded by a fact finding
mission (U.N. Advance Mission in Cambodia [UNAMIC]).35 In Iraq, the U.N. 35
Special Commission (UNSCOM) incorporated aerial surveillance capabilities,
nuclear radiation detection, and chemical sensors to identify and destroy Iraqi
weapons of mass destruction.36 Operations also used patrols to understand the 36
terrain outside of their area of operation, although not always with U.N. con-
sent. In March 1994, for example, the U.N. Protection Force (UNPROFOR)
assembled a team of European peacekeepers and put them undercover as tour-
ism scouts. These ‘‘scouts’’ toured Bosnia and Herzegovina and greatly
enhanced the mission’s understanding of terrain outside of its area of opera-
tion.37 Following UNPROFOR, the Implementation Force (IFOR) adopted psy- 37
chological and information operations components under the aegis of the
Combined Joint Information Campaign Task Force, which operated a local ra-
dio station and published a weekly newspaper.38 SFOR went even further and 38
became the first peacekeeping operation to use information warfare.39 39
Corresponding to operations on the ground, U.N. Headquarters also experi-
enced a growth in its intelligence capabilities following the Cold War. In 1993,
Page Number: 165
a situation center was established in the DPKO.40 The Situation Center is 40

staffed by twenty-six people, including twelve to fifteen military officers, who
together provide information to the Information and Research (I&R) Unit, a
team of four intelligence officers from Security Council member states.41 41
According to Dorn, ‘‘[The I&R Unit has] produced important information/intel-
ligence reports which have gone well beyond the scope of regular U.N. reports,
including information on arms flows and covert assistance from States to the
conflicting parties and leaders. They have evaluated the motivations of parties,
prepared threat assessments, and made other forecasts.’’42 42
Consequently, the I&R Unit is the DPKO’s most important intelligence
asset. Its four-person staff comprises professional intelligence officers with
access to their national intelligence bodies. The United Nations does often
receive reports directly from national intelligence bodies and foreign ministries,
but intelligence sanitization is a significant concern when evaluating reports
from single nations.
The real value of intelligence from member nations is on the field where
reports are delivered directly to force commanders. Although it tends to create
intra-force coordination problems (discussed shortly), the tendency of member
states to supply their own force commanders and those of allies with the fruits
of national intelligence efforts has made a dramatic difference in the quality of
intelligence available to peacekeepers. In fact, much of the increase in the qual-
ity of peacekeeping intelligence after the Cold War can be attributed to the
increased participation of major powers—such as Britain, France, Russia, and
the United States—in peacekeeping operations.
The earliest instance of national intelligence support to a peacekeeping mis-
sion occurred in UNTAC in the early 1990s. An Australian, Major General
John Sanderson, submitted a request to UNHQ to receive direct American intel-
ligence support for the mission. The U.N. Secretary General had recently
declined a similar request for UNPROFOR but accepted Sanderson’s request.
The intelligence support that Sanderson received was only marginally success-
ful in its early stages, primarily due to unfamiliarity with mission requirements,
as well as internal American arguments over information sanitization and relea-
seability issues. However, in latter stages of the mission, the intelligence
became quite effective.43 43
U.S. intelligence support continued in Somalia and Haiti, largely due to
American involvement in those operations,44 and took on new levels in the 44
IFOR mission, in which the Americans, Germans, and NATO participated,
bringing with them their intelligence capabilities.45 As previously mentioned, 45
the ability of mission constituents to contribute to the mission’s intelligence
capability is a boon, but also generates its own problems.
In UNPROFOR, for instance, one of the force commanders, Lieutenant-
General Satish Nambiar, could not, as an Indian national, receive intelligence
from NATO.46 In addition, a Canadian peacekeeper with NATO clearance 46
received U.S. satellite photographs (useful to determine his operational
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deployment) but he was not permitted to show the images to his U.N. com-
mander, who was a French officer.47 Finally, U.S. and allied air response teams 47
who were tasked to support the mission had better intelligence than UNPRO-
FOR itself.48 These problems underlie the fact that missions often lack, for 48
good reasons, intelligence sharing mechanisms, which makes working together
as a unified whole rather difficult.
A reliance on national intelligence also leaves a mission highly dependent
on its force composition in terms of intelligence being brought into the mission
and its ability to be shared. As Hugh Smith has noted:
The ability of national contingents to collect and process intelligence within their
area of operations will also vary. Some, perhaps most, will simply lack the resources,
expertise, and experience to conduct intelligence activities, while some may lack an
interest in doing so. A number of countries, however, will incorporate an intelligence
capacity into a contingent as a matter of routine.49 49
This phenomenon is further aggravated by the ad hoc nature of peacekeep-

ing. Dearth notes that ‘‘frequently, senior U.N. commanders and key staff had
only days’ notice of their deployment, and only at best a few days sojourn at
New York UNHQ before arrival in their area of operations.’’50 Under such cir- 50
cumstances, missions have little time to engage in intelligence gathering and
are forced to rely on available national intelligence. Until the United Nations
has a more substantial, centralized intelligence mechanism, this will remain the
nature of peacekeeping intelligence.
INTELLIGENCE AND PSOS: PROBLEMS, OBSTACLES, AND RESERVATIONS
Despite the importance and necessity of intelligence, it is still one of the weak-
est and least developed aspects of PSOs. Ideally, as Thuenens writes, ‘‘[The]
intelligence picture should be available before the political decision to send
troops, or participate otherwise in the peace support operation, is taken. Once
this decision is taken, intelligence personnel should be among the first to be
deployed to the mission arena, before the other troops arrive.’’51 This scenario 51
is seldom how intelligence is actually handled in PSOs, and mainly because of
a set of problems that can be categorized on two levels:
1. Inherent conceptual problems. PSOs are mostly ad hoc missions and have little
preparation time. Until the United Nations has a permanent intelligence unit
with information and knowledge on every live conflict in the world, PSOs will
have to cope with the reality of entering conflict arenas with insufficient infor-
mation and knowledge. This increases the importance of intelligence gathering
and analysis in the initial stages of the mission.
An additional conceptual problem in PSO intelligence efforts is the United
Nations’ reticence to engage in intelligence collection. The reasons behind this
Page Number: 167
reticence are both varied and largely justified. To begin with, the United
Nations sees intelligence collection as a threat to its transparency, law-abiding-
ness, and impartiality, all three of which are pillars of its legitimacy as an
international body.52 In fact, the United Nations avoids using the term ‘‘intelli- 52
gence’’ altogether, preferring the more connotation-neutral ‘‘information.’’ Yet
these concerns are well-founded. A United Nations that engaged in the same
kind of espionage as its member states would be a threat to those same states
and become a target for espionage itself. The United Nations prefers to have
as little top secret information as possible in order to avoid tempting the loy-
alty of its own workers.
Consequently, the United Nations’ standing intelligence capability is very
limited. Its largest intelligence collection body—the Situation Center (SitCen)
at UNHQ—numbers a mere twenty-six people and limits its activities to moni-
toring open sources of information.53 The SitCen does receive intelligence 53
from member states, but this intelligence is not without problems.
Another conceptual problem relates to human intelligence, which requires
engagement with the local population, a demand with which militaries have diffi-
culties. Militaries prefer differentiating themselves from civilians and perceive
engagement with the local population in the conflict arena as a kind of threat.54 54
2. Organizational and methodological problems. Because the United Nations
fears that intelligence collection might endanger its impartiality and policies of
openness and transparency, the United Nations has no intelligence gathering
structure of it own and is dependent upon contributing nations.55 Such depend- 55
ency raises at least three problems:
a. Contributing nations share what they want to share with the United
Nations, and they are not always willing or authorized to share information
with one another.56 For example, an American general cannot share infor- 56
mation obtained from NATO with an Indian general. This creates intelli-
gence discrepancies and political sensitivities across mission contingents.
The result, at the command level, is a patchwork of intelligence that is not
unified and is not necessarily complementary. Therefore, the United
Nations’ overall intelligence picture is left highly susceptible to the inter-
ests of its intelligence contributors.
b. Contributing nations sanitize intelligence before passing it on, and the lack
of context can be misleading.
c. Different approaches, methods, and modus operandi increase the difficulties
of coordination and cooperation. Different contributing nations produce
intelligence that is a product of their national doctrines, training, and
technology.57 57
Moreover, sanitization is also an issue when evaluating national intelligence

because member states view the United Nations as an intelligence sieve where
information is readily leaked. A case in point is provided in former Secretary
General Perez de Cuellar’s memoir, in which he writes, ‘‘The diplomatic mis-
sions have always felt that security in the Secretariat is lax and that nay confi-
dential information provided to the Secretariat would quickly be widely
circulated. In general, this is true.’’58 The knowledge that anything shared with 58
Page Number: 168
the United Nations becomes, in the medium- or long-term, public knowledge is

a major deterrent to intelligence sharing. The problem is not only one of U.N.
leaks; the United Nations’ policy of using unsecured communication channels
leaves shared information open to surveillance. The most drastic example of
the dangers of this policy occurred in the UNPROFOR mission in the Balkans
in which Scandinavian soldiers transmitted reports on the impact locations of
Serbian mortar fire in a besieged Muslim town over unsecured radio channels.
Unbeknownst to the Scandinavians, the Serbs listened in on the radio reports
and used them to correct their fire.59 U.N. intelligence leaks are usually less 59
dramatic, but not necessarily less damaging.
An additional problem that occurs at the organizational level is that of Sit-
Cen’s flow of intelligence, which is geared towards providing the secretariat
with information from PSOs and not the other way around. The SitCen offers lit-
tle actionable information to commanders in the field. Each operation, therefore,
must establish its own intelligence capabilities, drawing on members of different
nations, sometimes with radically different training, capabilities, and equipment,
who have never worked together. The multitude of approaches and methods in a
single PSO can lead to difficulties in coordination and cooperation.
The complexity of the PSO theater, which can be characterized primarily as
a multi-national operation amongst the people, compels the restrained use of
force and unique types of intelligence. The combination of these two factors
demands a new conceptual platform, which we offer in the form of cultural
intelligence.
THE UTILITY OF FORCE AND THE CONCEPTUAL PLATFORM OF CULTURAL

INTELLIGENCE IN PSOs
Military forces in PSOs must often deal with threats from non-state actors, usu-
ally in the form of terror and guerilla groups who operate among civilians,
using them as shelters and human shields. This complex evolution of war com-
pels professional, Western military forces to adjust their doctrines and means of
application in order to cope effectively with new challenges.
In such a theater, the utility of force is limited. The utility of force becomes de-
pendent on the quality of cooperation between the military and civilian actors in
the arena: NGOs and international organizations, as well as local populations and
institutions. Professional soldiers are often trained and educated to utilize military
force to defeat an enemy, yet civil insurgency cannot be effectively tackled using
the same principles. When civil insurgency occurs, military force should be used
differently and in a more controlled manner, yet restraining force largely contra-
dicts the professional instincts of the qualified, professional soldier.
Under these circumstances the question of ‘‘doing the right thing the right
way’’ becomes acute and challenging. Doing the right thing means being effec-
tive: correctly defining the aims of the mission and working towards their
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implementation, which also requires efficient and strategic use of available

resources. The military mission must follow the mandate and serve the political
goals defined by international authorities. There is, therefore, a need to ensure
that military strategies are relevant to the specific political context and that they
are well-developed. Without a conceptual platform based on cumulative knowl-
edge and experience and converted to well-established doctrine and training,
the military mission and the PSO as a whole are doomed to fail. Rupert Smith
finds that in most contemporary cases of war amongst civilians (Iraq, Afghani-
stan, and Kosovo), Western professional militaries have failed to change their
traditional paradigm, which is better suited to conventional warfare, and as a
result, mission effectiveness and efficiency have been hampered.60 60
Military planners are compelled to understand and adapt military doctrine to
the complex context of the conflict zone in question, thereby enabling PSOs to
achieve their goals effectively and efficiently (simultaneously redefining the tra-
ditional military paradigm as Smith suggests). Operating in a ‘‘war amongst the
people’’ theater demands fast adaptation to change in a dynamic environment,
and planners should therefore carefully internalize the fact that the PSO’s key
goal is political. Military forces are employed to reach a political end-point,
and military commanders must understand the political context and be able to
adjust the military means and doctrines to the political environment.
One of the most important operational tools for these challenges is intelli-
gence. Intelligence should provide commanders with relevant information and
estimations. Therefore, intelligence means and methods must be adjusted to the
political context of the theater and its dynamic nature, factors which military
commanders accustomed to operating in a traditional military theater are not
accustomed to considering. For that reason, special means and qualifications
should be acquired and developed to ensure that the intelligence used as a basis
for intervention is accurate.
Understanding the culture, language, and conflict environment is a must, and
intelligence professionals should understand that gathering information in intra-
state conflicts requires intensive engagement with the local population. The
local population is simultaneously the arena, the target, and a key source of
intelligence. American experience demonstrates continued oversight in this
regard and has done so since the Vietnam War. The interventions in Iraq and
Afghanistan provide valuable examples of such failings, from which many les-
sons can be drawn.61 This experience indicates the problematic nature of cul- 61
tural encounters, which bring together local inhabitants and those who are
mostly perceived by the locals as foreigners or invaders. In such tense, complex
circumstances, cultural intelligence becomes a necessary qualification among
commanders and senior officials in the theater. Cultural intelligence as ‘‘the
ability of being effective in the interactions with people who are culturally dif-
ferent,’’62 becomes the cognitive platform for absorbing information, under- 62
standing it, and communicating with the local population and institutions as
well as with the different civil organizations operating in the theater.
Page Number: 170
CULTURAL INTELLIGENCE AS THE PSYCHOLOGICAL PLATFORM

OF CULTURAL INTELLIGENCE
This word-play demonstrates the link between the psychological and opera-
tional dimensions of the mission. The first type of cultural intelligence refers to
an individual or group’s ability (cognitive and psychological) to adapt to,
select, and shape a culturally-different environment.63 The second type of cul- 63
tural intelligence refers to the military operational function of gathering and
analyzing information about the theater and the enemy. The first kind of cul-
tural intelligence is a requirement of the latter; there is always a need to under-
stand the context and differences between yourself and your adversary, but in
the context of a war amongst the people, this demand becomes more critical.
David Thomas and his colleagues have recently developed a rich conceptual
platform for the first type of cultural intelligence. They view intelligence as a
system of interacting abilities that determine the individual or group’s ability to
adapt to an environment characterized by cultural diversity and cross-cultural
interactions.64 Although they find similarities between social and emotional 64
intelligence and cultural intelligence, they do distinguish between them by
claiming that ‘‘both of these constructs are specific to the culture in which they
were developed and do not necessarily relate to cross-cultural interactions.’’65 65
Therefore, cultural intelligence is distinct in that it is ‘‘a unique construction of
interacting abilities that exists outside the cultural boundaries in which these
abilities were developed.’’66 66
The military organization, as a well-established, hierarchal, and disciplined
organization, lives by the principle of differentiating itself from other organiza-
tions, particularly civil organizations. Under such circumstances a limited
capacity to go beyond certain cultural boundaries becomes a serious obstacle.
In principle, we can claim that the cultural boundaries of the military organiza-
tion are well blocked to outside cultural influence and that the military estab-
lishment does not welcome engagement with different cultures.
Military intelligence is organized and conceptualized in a way that serves
the military organization’s rationale. It should provide commanders and the
establishment with the capacity to understand the military aspects of the theater
in order to maximize the destructive utility of military force and defeat enemies
in the shortest possible time, thereby minimizing casualties. Military intelli-
gence and knowledge are focused and developed to achieve precisely this goal.
On the other hand, the knowledge and skills associated with cultural intelli-
gence are ‘‘linked by cultural metacognition that allows people to adapt to,
select, and shape the cultural aspects of their environment.’’67 67
Thomas claims that cultural intelligence comprises knowledge and related
skills that can only be developed in a cross-cultural context. However, as men-
tioned before, the military establishment is generally less exposed to local cul-
tural intelligence, and thus its capabilities to develop such knowledge and skills
are limited. ‘‘Specific knowledge of cultures is the foundation of cultural
Page Number: 171
intelligence’’ says Thomas, and he explains that this knowledge forms the basis
for ‘‘decoding the behavior of others and ourselves.’’68 Such knowledge enables 68
us to recognize the existence of other cultures. Thomas believes this knowledge
is necessary to achieve ‘‘greater predictability, more accurate attributions, and
ultimately more effective intercultural behavior.’’69 Development of these skills 69
and capabilities results in improved learning processes, which lead to enhanced
adaptability.
This is an important benefit for PSOs, whose mission effectiveness requires
a focus on the specific nature of any one context and adaptation to the chang-
ing, dynamic environment of the theater in which war amongst the people takes
place. Improving adaptation in such a theater requires the systematic generation
of new knowledge, a process which ‘‘involves learning from specific experience
with culturally different others and is the result of reflective observation, analy-
sis, and abstract conceptualization, which can create new mental categories and
recategorize others in a more sophisticated category system.’’70 70
In order to achieve military mission effectiveness in the complex theater of war
amongst the people, military commanders must understand the distinctions between
the environments in which they act. This kind of warfare requires openness to the
other and to a variety of strategic military aims. Different military aims in a new
war theater require cultural intelligence, and to be effective, such intelligence
requires well-established foundations, as described by Thomas and his colleagues.
Cooperating with civilians is not a straightforward mission for professional
soldiers. Both soldiers and civilians have to be trained to acquire the necessary
capabilities to cooperate with one another. Unity of command and chains of
command are the basic modes of organization for military professionals, while
civilian organizations are far more flexible and unity of command is an almost
alien concept. Civilians talk and think in terms of management and not in terms
of command. The difference in organizational culture between military units
and civilian organizations can constitute a tremendous obstacle to successful
cooperation. However, because PSOs demand integrated mission forces, com-
posed of military units and civilian organizations, both have to establish the
means to cooperate effectively and devote their efforts to bridging the gaps. If
their cooperation is poor, both the international community and the locals are
doomed to suffer a painful failure.
CONCLUSION
The claim that the nature of conflict is changing is, by now, an adage, but its
implications, especially for peace support operations, are not. Deployment in
intrastate conflicts leaves PSOs in a situation where ‘‘warfighting and peacekeep-
ing cannot be separated. They melt into one another, and the conduct of each
determines the success of the other.’’71 It is the importance of understanding how 71
to combine these two mission aspects that brings PSO intelligence to the fore. In
Page Number: 172
making the transition from monitoring and verification to stabilization and recon-
struction, peacekeeping commanders will need intelligence capabilities that are
not only more powerful and varied, but of a totally different scale.
Future operations will need improved intelligence at each of the three levels
mentioned in this chapter: strategic, operational, and tactical. Without the de-
velopment of enhanced strategic intelligence, future PSOs operating in war
amongst the people theaters will find it difficult to correctly discern political
trends, weakening their ability to achieve the political goals that lie at the heart
of state-building missions. Enhanced operational intelligence is and will con-
tinue to be necessary for understanding developments in the theater, their impli-
cations, and the appropriate means for responding. This function determines
mission relevance and is a task made much more difficult by the blurred dis-
tinctions between combatant and civilian, both in the local population and
among PSO forces. Finally, PSOs demand enhanced tactical intelligence for the
accomplishment of their operations on the ground and for force protection,
tasks whose importance is vital in minimizing casualties among the force and
the local population, which, when neglected, can very quickly erode domestic
support for the mission among force-contributing nations.
Sadly, these changes will not come from UNHQ. The United Nations’ diffi-
culties in collecting and analyzing intelligence place the onus of PSO intelli-
gence squarely on the shoulders of the missions themselves, which is not
necessarily a bad thing. The kind of intelligence that second generation PSOs
need most—political and cultural—can only come from prolonged and inten-
sive engagement with the local population as well as from established and
developed human intelligence capabilities. For these kinds of intelligence, the
missions themselves are best positioned. As Wilson, Sullivan, and Kempfer
write, ‘‘future commanders have to [gain] requisite insights into adaptive ene-
mies and intelligence processes that exploit available information and can
obtain the necessary fusion of data from a wider variety of non-traditional sour-
ces.’’72 The fusion of data that the authors refer to is the product of coordinated 72
intelligence, and the most important non-traditional source of intelligence in
contemporary operations is the local population. In order to produce such intel-
ligence, mechanisms must be developed to overcome the obstacles to intelli-
gence sharing within missions, and officers must overcome the military’s
traditional reticence to engage the local population.
One of the most beneficial fruits of such engagement is cultural intelligence,
which provides force commanders with an understanding of the environment in
which they operate and the strategies necessary to contain violence and eventually
reach peace. It is cultural intelligence, in combination with political intelligence,
that allows mission commanders to understand new developments on the ground,
to adapt quickly, and to react in line with the mission’s overall goals. Given the
reticence of both the United Nations and most force-contribution nations to make
long-term troop commitments, these abilities may make the difference between
gradual success and withdrawal until the next explosion.
Path: K:/GWD-MICHAEL-08-1005/Application/GWD-MICHAEL-08-1005-Notes.3d
Notes
INTRODUCTION
1. Erwin A Schmidl, introduction to Peace Operations Between War and Peace,

ed. Erwin A. Schmidl (London: Frank Cass, 2000), 1.
2. Center for International Cooperation, Annual Review of Global Peace Opera-
tions (New York: New York University Press, 2006), 2.
3. Bruce Oswald, Addressing the Institutional Law and Order Vacuum: Key Issues
and Dilemmas for Peacekeeping Operations (New York: United Nations Department of
Peacekeeping Operations, 2005), 3; James Burk, ‘‘What Justifies Peacekeeping?’’ Peace
Review 12, no. 3 (2000): 467.
4. Hugh Smith, ‘‘The Last Casualty? Public Perceptions of Bearable Cost in a
Democracy,’’ in The Human Face of Warfare: Killing, Fear, and Chaos in Battle, eds.
Michael Evans and Alan Ryan (London: Allen and Unwin, 2000), 54–83; George Fried-
man and Meredith Friedman. The Future of War (New York: Crown Publishers, 1997);
P.E. Meilinger, ‘‘A Matter of Precision: Why Air Power May Be More Humane than
Sanctions,’’ Foreign Policy March/April (2001): 78–79.
5. J. M. Gates, The U.S. Army and Irregular Warfare (Wooster, OH: The College
of Wooster, 2002), http://www.wooster.edu/History/jgates/bfook-contents.html (accessed
May 1, 2008).
6. R. Spiller, introduction to The Human Face of Warfare: Killing, Fear, and Chaos
in Battle, eds. Michael Evans and Alan Ryan (London: Allen and Unwin, 2000), 4.
7. Peter Van Riper and Robert H. Scales Jr., ‘‘Preparing for War in the 21st
Century,’’ Parameters (1997): 4–14.
8. Ian F. W. Beckett, Modern Insurgencies and Counter-Insurgencies: Guerrillas
and their Opponents since 1750 (London: Routledge, 2001); Christopher Dandeker,
‘‘New Times for the Military: Some Sociological Remarks on the Changing Role of
174 NOTES
Structure of the Armed Forces of the Advanced Societies,’’ British Journal of Sociology,
45, no 4 (1994): 637–654; Christopher Dandeker, ‘‘A Farewell to Arms? The Military
and the Nation-State in a Changing World,’’ in The Adaptive Military, ed. James Burk
(New Brunswick: Transaction Press, 1998), 139–161.
9. Mary Kaldor, New and Old Wars: Organized Violence in a Globalized Era
(London: Polity Press, 2001); Martin Van Creveld, The Transformation of War (New
York: The Free Press, 1991).
10. James Burk, ‘‘Ten Years after the New Times,’’ in The Adaptive Military, ed.
James Burk (New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction, 1998), 1–24.
11. Herfried Munkler, The New Wars (London: Polity Press, 2005); Boas Shamir
and Eyal Ben-Ari, ‘‘Leadership in an Open Army? Civilian Connections, Interorganiza-
tional Frameworks and Changes in Military Leadership,’’ in Out-of-the-Box Leadership:
Transforming the Twenty-First-Century Army and Other Top-Performing Organizations,
eds. James G. Hunt, George Dodge, and Leonard Wong (Stamford, CT: JAI Press,
1999), 15–40.
12. Katrin Radtke, From Gifts to Taxes: The Mobilization of Tamil and Eritrean
Diaspora in Interstate Warfare (Berlin: Humboldt University in Berlin, 2005).
13. Kaldor, New and Old Wars; Munkler, The New Wars.
14. Fabrizio T. Ammendola Battistelli and M.G. Galantiono, ‘‘Peacekeeping and
the Postmodern Soldier,’’ Armed Forces and Society 23 (1997): 467–484.
15. Munkler, The New Wars.
16. Rupert Smith, The Utility of Force: The Art of War in the Modern World
(London: Penguin, 2005).
17. Ibid.
18. G. Frank Hoffman, Conflict in the 21st Century: The Rise of Hybrid Wars
(Arlington, VA: Potomac Institute for Policy Studies, 2007).
19. Martin Shaw, The New Western Way of War (London: Polity, 2005).
20. Christopher Bellamy, Knights in White Armour: The New Art of War and Peace
(London: Random House, 1996), 30; James Burk, ‘‘Ten Years after the New Times,’’ in
The Adaptive Military, ed. James Burk (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, 1998), 12;
Charles Moskos, ‘‘Towards a Postmodern Military?’’ in Democratic Societies and their
Armed Forces: Israel in a Comparative Perspective, ed. Stuart A. Cohen (London:
Frank Cass, 2000), 5–6; Smith, ‘‘The Last Casualty,’’ 55–56.
21. Andrew J. Bacevich, The New American Militarism: How Americans are
Seduced by War (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005).
22. Burk, Ten Years after the New Times, 1.
23. Cori Dauber, ‘‘Image as Argument: The Impact of Mogadishu on U.S. Military Inter-
vention,’’ Armed Forces and Society 27, no. 2 (2001): 205–230; Paul Hirst, War and Power in
the 21st Century (London: Polity Press, 2001); Jeffrey Record, ‘‘Collapsed Countries, Casualty
Dread, and the new American Way of War,’’ Parameters Summer (2002): 4–23.
24. Dandeker, pers. comm.
25. Yigal Levy, ‘‘The War of the Peripheries: A Social Mapping of IDF Casualties
in the Al-Aqsa Intifada,’’ Social Identities 12 (2006), 309–324.
26. Dandeker, ‘‘A Farewell to Arms,’’ 35.
27. Ibid.
28. Ariel Colonomos, ‘‘Tying the Gordian Knot: Targeted Killings and the Ethics of
Prevention’’ (Paper presented at the conference ‘‘The Moral Dimension of Asymmetrical
NOTES 175
Warfare,’’ organized by The Netherlands Defense Academy in Amsterdam, Oct 2006);

Michael Ignatieff, The Warrior’s Honor: Ethnic War and the Modern Conscience (London:
Chatto and Windus, 1998); Michael Ignatieff, The Lesser Evil: Political Ethics in an Age
of Terror (Toronto: Penguin, 2004); Kay Warren, ‘‘Death Squads and Wider Complicities:
Dilemmas for the Anthropology of Violence,’’ in Death Squad, ed. Jeffrey A. Sluka
(Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2000), 226–242.
29. Richard Minear and Thomas G. Weiss, Mercy Under Fire: War and the Global
Humanitarian Community (Boulder: Westview, 1995).
30. Ignatieff, The Warrior’s Honor.
31. David Chandler, ‘‘The Road to Military Humanitarianism: How the Human
Rights NGOs Shaped a New Humanitarianism Agenda,’’ Human Rights Quarterly 23,
no 3 (2001): 678–700; David Reiff, A Bed for the Night: Humanitarianism in Crisis
(London: Vintage, 2002).
32. Reiff, A Bed for the Night, 202.
33. Minear and Weiss, Mercy under Fire.
34. European Union, A Human Security Doctrine for Europe: The Barcelona Report
of the Study Group of Europe’s Security Capabilities (Barcelona: Presented to EU High
Representative for Common Foreign Policy and Security Policy, Javier Solana, 2004);
Natalie Mychajlyszyn, Twisting Arms and Flexing Muscles: Perspectives on Military
Force, Humanitarian Intervention and Peacebuilding – Report on a Workshop (Ottawa:
Carleton University Press, 2000).
35. Shaw, The New Western Way of War, 75–76; Burk, ‘‘Ten Years after the New
Times,’’ Dandeker, ‘‘A Farewell to Arms,’’ 34; Martha Finnemore, ‘‘Rules of War and
Wars of Rules: The International Red Cross and the Restraint of State Violence,’’ in
Constructing World Culture: International Non-governmental Organizations Since
1875, eds. John Boli and George M. Thomas (Stanford: Stanford University Press,
1999), 149–165.
36. Sally Engle Merry, ‘‘Changing Rights, Changing Culture,’’ in Culture and
Rights: Anthropological Perspectives, eds. Jane K. Cowan, Marie-Benedicte Dembour
and Richard A. Wilson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 31–55.
37. Finnemore, ‘‘Rules of War,’’ 163.
38. Gates, The U.S. Army and Irregular Warfare.
39. Douglas Borer, ‘‘Inverse Engagement: Lessons from US–Iraq Relations, 1982–
1990,’’ Parameters Summer (2003): 51–65.
40. Larry Diamond, Squandered Victory: The American Occupation and the
Bungled Effort to Bring Democracy to Iraq (New York: Times Books, 2005).
41. Keith Brown and Catherine Lutz, ‘‘Review Essay: Grunt Lit – The Participant-
Observers of Empire,’’ American Ethnologist 34, no. 2 (2007): 322–328.
42. Munkler, The New Wars, 12.
43. Kalevi J. Holsti, The State, War, and the State of War (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1996).
44. Spiller, introduction to The Human Face of Warfare, 1; Smith, ‘‘The Last
Casualty,’’ 65.
45. David Fastbend, ‘‘The Categorization of Conflict,’’ Parameters Summer (1997):
75–87; Gates, The U.S. Army and Irregular Warfare.
46. Eliot A Cohen, ‘‘Constraints on America’s Conduct of Small Wars,’’ Interna-
tional Security 9 (1984): 151–181.
176 NOTES
47. Hoffman, Conflict in the 21st Century.

48. Time Benbow, The Magic Bullet? Understanding the ‘‘Revolution in Military
Affairs’’ (London: Brassey’s, 2004).
49. James Der Derian, Virtuous War: Mapping the Military-Industrial-Media Enter-
tainment Network (Boulder, Colorado: Westview, 2001).
50. Bacevich, The New American Militarism, 46–48.
51. Harry Bondy, ‘‘Postmodernism and the Source of Military Strength in the Anglo
West,’’ Armed Forces and Society 31, no. 1 (2004): 31–61; See also Thomas X.
Hammes, The Sling and the Stone: On War in the 21st Century (St. Paul, Minn.: Zenith
Books, 2004).
52. Joanna Bourke, An Intimate History of Killing: Face-to-Face Killing in Twenti-
eth-Century Warfare (London: Granta Books, 1999); Dave Grossman, On Killing: The
Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society (Boston: Little Brown,
1995); Hugh McManners, The Scars of War (London: Harper Collins, 1994); Michael
Evans and Alan Ryan, eds., The Human Face of Warfare: Killing, Fear and Chaos in
Battle (London: Allen and Unwin, 2000).
53. Eyal Ben-Ari, Mastering Soldiers: Conflict, Emotions, and the Enemy in an
Israeli Military Unit (Oxford: Berghahn Books, 1998); John P. Hawkins, Army of Hope,
Army of Alienation: Culture and Contradiction in the American Army Communities of
Cold War Germany (New York: Praeger Press, 2001); Anna Simons, The Company They
Keep: Life Inside the U.S. Army Special Forces (New York: Free Press, 1997); Donna
Winslow, The Canadian Airborne Regiment in Somalia: A Socio-cultural Inquiry
(Toronto: Ministry of Public Works and Government Services, 1997).
54. Kobi Michael, ‘‘The Israel Defense Forces as an Epistemic Authority: An Intel-
lectual Challenge in the Reality of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict,’’ Journal of Strategic
Studies 30, no. 3 (2007): 421–446.
55. Burk, ‘‘What Justifies Peacekeeping,’’ 467.
tions, 1.
57. Dominick Donald, ‘‘Neutral is Not Impartial: The Confusing Legacy of Tradi-
tional Peace Operations Thinking,’’ Armed Forces and Society 29, no. 3 (2003): 415–
448.
58. Thomas R. Mockaitis, ‘‘From Counterinsurgency to Peace Enforcement: New
Names for Old Games,’’ in Peace Operations Between War and Peace, ed. Erwin A.
Schmidl (London: Frank Cass, 2000), 42.
59. Ibid.
60. Christopher Dandeker and James Gow, ‘‘Military Culture and Strategic Peace-
keeping,’’ in Peace Operations Between War and Peace, ed. Erwin A. Schmidl
(London: Frank Cass, 2000), 67–68.
61. Holsti, The State, War, and the State of War, 194.
63. Steven Metz and Raymond Millen, ‘‘Intervention, Stabilization and Transforma-
tion Operations: The Role of Landpower in the New Strategic Environment,’’ Parame-
ters Spring (2005): 48.
64. Cited in Reiff, A Bed for the Night, 236.
65. One example is Austin Long, On ‘‘Other War:’’ Lessons from Five Decades of
RAND Counterinsurgency Research (Arlington, Virginia: RAND Corporation, 2006).
NOTES 177
66. Moskos, ‘‘Towards a Postmodern Military,’’ 17.

67. Karl W. Haltiner, Do New Military Missions Require New Military Structures?
Reflections on the Constabularization of the Military Form from the Perspective of the
Sociology of Organizations. (Zurich: Swiss Military Academy, 2005).
68. Dandeker and Gow, ‘‘Military Culture and Strategic Peacekeeping,’’ 64–5.
69. William Arkin and Lynne R. Dobrofsky, ‘‘Military Socialization and Masculin-
ity,’’ Journal of Social Issues 34, no. 1 (1978): 151–168; Elisabeth Badinter, XY: On
Masculine Identity (New York: Columbia University Press, 1992); David D. Gilmore,
Manhood in the Making: Cultural Concepts of Masculinity (New Haven: Yale Univer-
sity Press, 1990); David H. J. Morgan, ‘‘Theater of War: Combat, the Military and
Masculinities,’’ in Theorizing Masculinities, eds. Harry Brod and Michael Kaufman
(Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1994), 165–182.
70. Burk, ‘‘Ten Years after the New Times,’’ 42.
71. Donna Winslow, ‘‘Strange Bedfellows: NGOs and the Military in Humanitarian
Crises,’’ International Journal of Peace Studies 7, no. 2 (2002): 35–55; Maren Tom-
forde, ‘‘Motivation and Self-Image Among German Peacekeepers,’’ International
Peacekeeping 12, no. 4 (2005): 576–585; Liora Sion, ‘‘Too Sweet and Innocent for
War? Dutch Peacekeepers and the Use of Violence,’’ Armed Forces and Society 32, no.
3 (2006): 454–474.
72. Metz and Millen, ‘‘Intervention, Stabilization and Transformation Operations,’’ 51.
73. Brian Smelski, Military Cross-Cultural Competence: Core Concepts and Indi-
vidual Development (Kingston, Ont.: Royal Military College of Canada, 2007).
74. Evan R. Goldstein, ‘‘Professors on the Battlefield,’’ Wall Street Journal, August
17, 2007, W11.
75. Roberto J. Gonzalez, ‘‘Towards Mercenary Anthropology? The New US Army
Counterinsurgency Manual FM 3–24 and the Military-Anthropology Complex,’’ Anthro-
pology Today 23, no 3. (2007): 14–19.
76. Jeffrey Schwerzel, ‘‘Transforming Attitudes,’’ NATO Review 2 (2005), http://
www.nato.int/docu/review/2005/issue2/english/art3.html.
77. David J. Kilcullen, ‘‘Counter-Insurgency Redux,’’ Survival 48, no. 4 (2006):
111–130.
78. Gustavo Diaz, ‘‘Intelligence at the United Nations for Peace Operations,’’ in
UNISCI Discussion Paper Number 13 (Madrid: Universidad Complutense de Madrid,
2007), 25–41; Hugh Smith, ‘‘Intelligence and UN Peacekeeping,’’ Survival 36, no. 3
(1994): 174–192.
79. Diaz, ‘‘Intelligence at the United Nations,’’ 27; Smith, ‘‘Intelligence and UN
Peacekeeping.’’
80. Amitav Ghosh, ‘‘The Global Reservation: Notes Toward an Ethnography of
International Peacekeeping,’’ Cultural Anthropology 9 (1994): 414–422; Gonzalez,
‘‘Towards Mercenary Anthropology?’’; David Price, ‘‘Lessons from Second World War
Anthropology,’’ Anthropology Today 18, no. 3 (2002): 14–20.
81. Erik Alda, Buvinic Mayra, and Jorge Lamas, ‘‘Neighborhood Peacekeeping:
The Inter-American Development Bank’s Violence in Columbia and Uruguay,’’ Civil
Wars 8, no. 2 (2006): 197–214.
82. James Dobbins et al., A Beginner’s Guide to Nation-Building (Arlington,
Virginia: RAND, 2007).
83. Ibid, xvii.
178 NOTES
84. Metz and Millen, ‘‘Intervention, Stabilization and Transformation Operations.’’

85. Dandeker and Gow, ‘‘Military Culture and Strategic Peacekeeping,’’ 61.
86. Dobbins et al., A Beginner’s Guide to Nation-Building, xxii.
87. Ibid, xxiii.
88. Ibid, xx, xxv.
89. Ibid, xxi.
90. Yudhijit Bhattacharjee, ‘‘Pentagon Asks Academics for Help in Understanding
it Enemies,’’ Science 316 (2007): 534–535.
91. Michael Bhatia, ‘‘Postconflict Profit: The Political Economy of Intervention,’’
Global Governance 11 (2005): 205; See also Sarah Collinson, ed., Power, Livelihoods
and Conflict: Case Studies in Political Economy Analysis for Humanitarian Action
(London: Overseas Development Institute, 2003).
92. Bhatia, ‘‘Postconflict Profit,’’ 221.
93. Gordon Peake, ‘‘From Warlords to Peacelords?’’ Journal of International
Affairs 56, no. 2 (2003): 161–172.
94. Michael Carnahan, William Durch and Scott Gilmore, Economic Aspects of
Peacekeeping (Washington D.C.: Henry L. Stimson Center, 2006); Marianne Heiberg,
‘‘Peacekeepers and Local Populations: Some Comments on UNIFIL,’’ in The United
Nations and Peacekeeping: Results, Limitations and Prospects, eds. Indar Jit Rikhye
and Kjell Skjelsbaek (Basingstoke, England: Macmillan, 1990), 147–170.
tions, 1.
96. Nina M. Serafino and Martin A.Weiss, Peacekeeping and Conflict Transitions:
Background and Congressional Action on Civilian Capabilities (Washington D.C.:
Congressional Research Service, 2005).
97. Morris Janowitz, The Professional Soldier: A Social and Political Portrait
(New York: Free Press, 1971).
98. Moskos, ‘‘Towards a Postmodern Military,’’ 19.
99. Haltiner, Do New Military Missions Require New Military Structures?
100. Ibid.
101. See also Charles C. Moskos, The Media and the Military in Peace and Humani-
tarian Operations (Chicago: McCormik Tribune Foundation, 2000).
102. Ibid, 9.
103. Ibid, 13.
104. Ibid, 44.
105. Winslow, ‘‘Strange Bedfellows.’’; Daniel L. Byman, ‘‘Uncertain Partners:
NGOs and the Military,’’ Survival 43, no. 2 (2001): 97–114.
106. Moskos, ‘‘Towards a Postmodern Military,’’ 33; Laura Miller, ‘‘From Adversa-
ries to Allies: Relief Workers’ Attitudes Towards the US Military,’’ Qualitative Sociol-
ogy 22, no. 3 (1999): 187–197.
107. Sarah E. Archer, ‘‘Civilian and Military Cooperation in Complex Humanitarian
Operations,’’ Military Review March-April (2003): 32–41; Winslow, ‘‘Strange Bedfel-
lows.’’
108. Dobbins et al., A Beginner’s Guide to Nation-Building, xxxi.
109. Moskos, The Media and the Military, 30.
111. John W. Meyer and Brian Rowan, ‘‘Institutional Organizations: Formal Struc-
ture as Myth and Ceremony,’’ in The New Institutionalism in Organizational Analysis,
NOTES 179
eds. Walter W. Powell and Paul J. DiMaggio (Chicago: Chicago University Press,
1991), 41–62.
112. Robert Mandel, ‘‘The Privatization of Security,’’ Armed Forces and Society 28,
no. 1 (2001): 132; Eugene Smith, ‘‘The Condottieri and U.S. Policy: The Privatization
of Conflict and its Implications,’’ Parameters Winter (2002): 104.
113. Peter W. Singer, Corporate Warriors: The Rise of the Privatized Military Indus-
try (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2003).
114. Mandel, ‘‘The Privatization of Security,’’ 129–130.
115. See also Smith, ‘‘The Condottieri and US Policy.’’
116. John Hillen, Blue Helmets: The Strategy of UN Military Operations (Wash-
ington: Brassey’s, 1998).
117. Jared F. Lawyer, ‘‘Military Effectiveness and Economic Efficiency in Peace-
keeping: Public Versus Private,’’ Oxford Development Studies 33, no. 1 (2005): 99–106.
118. Jennifer K. Elsea and Nina M. Serafino, Private Security Contractors in Iraq:
Background, Legal Status, and Other Issues (Washington D.C.: Congressional Research
Service, 2005); Mandel, ‘‘The Privatization of Security.’’
CHAPTER 1
1. This chapter is adapted from a piece originally published in Eight Essays in Con-
temporary War Studies, ed. Magnus Christiansson (Stockholm: Military Academy Karl-
berg, 2007).
2. Mary Kaldor, New and Old Wars: Organized Violence in a Globalized Era
(London: Polity Press, 2001).
3. Robert Cooper, The Postmodern State and the World Order (London, Demos, 2000).
4. Martin Van Creveld, The Transformation of War (New York: The Free Press,
1991).
5. P. Hirst, ‘‘Democracy and Governance’’ in Debating Governance, Authority,
Steering and Democracy, ed. J. Pierre (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 13–35.
6. Beratrice Heuser, ‘‘Wars Since 1945: An Introduction,’’ Zeithistorische For-
schungen, http://www.zeithistorische-forschungen.de/site/40208299/default.aspx.
7. Herfried Munkler, ‘‘What is Really New About New Wars? – A Reply to the
Critics,’’ In On New Wars, ed. John Adreas A. Olsen (Oslo, Norwegian Institute for
Defence Studies, 2007), 69.
8. Ibid, 69.
9. Ibid, 80–81.
10. Christopher Dandeker and James Gow, ‘‘The Future of Peace Support Operations:
Strategic Peacekeeping and Success,’’ Armed Forces and Society, 23 (1997): 327–348.
11. Cooper, The Postmodern State.
12. G. Frank Hoffman, Conflict in the 21st Century: The Rise of Hybrid Wars
(Arlington, VA: Potomac Institute for Policy Studies, 2007), 7.
13. C. Krulak, ‘‘The Strategic Corporal: Leadership in the Three Block War,’’ Maxwell-
Gunter AFB, http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/usmc/strategic_corporal.htm.
15. Ibid, 1.
180 NOTES
16. Ibid, 182, emphasis added.

17. Ibid, 368.
18. Ibid, 321.
19. Ibid, 181.
20. Ibid, 379.
21. N. Aylwin-Foster, ‘‘Changing the Army for Counterinsurgency Operations,’’
Military Review November-December (2005): 1–15.
22. A. Roberts, ‘‘Review of Rupert Smith, the Utility of Force: The Theatre of
Blood,’’ The Independent (London), 11 (2005).
23. Colin S. Gray, ‘‘How Has War Changed Since the End of the Cold War?’’
Parameters, Spring (2005): 14-26; A. Mallinson, ‘‘A Review of Rupert Smith’s Utility
of Force: ‘Battles Just Don’t’ Work any More,’’ Times (London), 24 September 2005.
24. Roberts, ‘‘Review of Rupert Smith.’’
25. J. Keegan, ‘‘Review of Rupert Smith, Utility of Force: First Decommission the
Machete,’’ Daily Telegraph (London), 10 October 2005.
26. B. Abrahamsson, R. Egnell, and K. Yden, K Effects-Based Operations, Military
Organization and Professionalization, (Stockholm: National Defence College, 2006).
27. Christopher Dandeker, ‘‘Surveillance and Military Transformation: Organiza-
tional Trends in Twenty First Century Armed Services’’ in The New Politics of Surveil-
lance and Visibility, eds. K. Haggerty and R. V. Ericson (Toronto, University of Toronto
Press, 2006), 225–249; Abrahamsson et al., Effects-Based Operations.
28. Martin Shaw, The New Western Way of War (London: Polity, 2005); S. Carruthers,
The Media at War: Communication and Conflict in the Twentieth Century (New York: St.
Martin’s Press, 2000).
29. Charles Moskos, John Williams, and David Segal, eds., The Postmodern Mili-
tary: Armed Forces after the Cold War, (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1999), 15.
30. Sam Knight, ‘‘MOD Bans ITV News from War Zones,’’ Times (London), 27
October 2006, http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-2425115.html.
31. Roberts, ‘‘Review of Rupert Smith.’’
32. Phillip Hammond, ‘‘Postmodernity Goes to War,’’ Spiked, 1 June 2004, http://
www.spiked-online.com/Articles/0000000CA554.htm.
33. J. Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge (Manchester:
Manchester University Press, 1984).
34. J. Baudrillard, The Gulf War Did Not Take Place (Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana
35. Hammond, ‘‘Postmodernity Goes to War.’’
36. N. Wheeler, Saving Strangers: Humanitarian Intervention in International Soci-
ety (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002); C. Coker, Humane Warfare: The New
Ethics of Postmodern War, (New York: Routledge, 2001); Shaw, The New Western Way
of War.
37. Shaw, The New Western Way of War.
38. Ibid.
39. Ibid.
40. Ibid.
41. Coker, Humane Warfare.
42. Colin S. Gray, Another Bloody Century: Future Warfare (London: Weidenfeld
and Nicolson, 2005).
NOTES 181
43. Michael Mann, ‘‘The Roots and Contradictions of Modern Militarism,’’ New Left
Review 162 (1987): 35–50; C. McInnes, Spectator Sport War: The West and Contempo-
rary Conflict (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2002).
44. Karl Haltiner, ‘‘The Definite End of the Mass Army in Europe,’’ Armed Forces
& Society 25 (1998): 7–36; Karl Haltiner, ‘‘The Decline of the European Mass Armies,’’
in Handbook of Military Sociology, ed. G. Caforio (New York: Plenum, 2003), 361–
384.
45. D. Lutterbeck, ‘‘Between Police and Military: The New Security Agenda and the
Rise of Gendarmeries,’’ Cooperation and Conflict: Journal of the Nordic International
Studies Association 39 (2004): 45–68.
46. Dandeker, ‘‘Surveillance and Military Transformation.’’
47. Ibid; See also Shamir, this volume.
48. There is an extensive press debate on the General’s remarks. For an argument
that CGS should have resigned see Mathew Parris, ‘‘I agree with every word Dannatt
said. But he has got to be sacked,’’ Times (London), 14 October 2006, http://www.
timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,1065-2402956.html. Some Labour and Liberal democrat
politicians also suggested the General’s remarks were unconstitutional. See Toby Helm,
‘‘Army Chief Went too Far with his Iraq Attack, Says Blunkett,’’ Telegraph (UK), 16
October 2006, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/10/16/
ndannatt16.xml.
49. Bernard Boene, ‘‘Western-Type Civil Military Relations Revisited,’’ in Military,
State and Society in Israel, eds. Daniel Maman, Eyal Ben-Ari and Zeev Rosenhek, (New
Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2001), 43–80.
CHAPTER 2
1. Karl W. Haltiner, ‘‘The Definite End of the Mass Army in Western Europe?’’
Armed Forces & Society 25 (1998): 7–36; Franz Kernic, Paul Klein, and Karl W.
Haltiner, eds., The European Armed Forces in Transition (Frankfurt: Lang, 2005); Tibor
Szvircsev Tresch, Europas Streitkr€ afte im Wandel: Von der Wehrpflichtarmee zur Frei-
willigenstreitkraft. Eine empirische Untersuchung Europ€ aischer Streitkr€
afte, 1975 bis
2003 (PhD diss., University of Z€urich, 2005); Christopher Jehn and Zachary Selden,
‘‘The End of Conscription in Europe,’’ Contemporary Economic Policy 20 (2002): 93–
100; Marjan Malesic, ed., Conscription vs. All-Volunteer Forces in Europe (Baden-
Baden, Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft, 2003).
2. Morris Janowitz, The Professional Soldier: A Social and Political Portrait (New
York: Free Press, 1960).
3. The International Institute for Strategic Studies, The Military Balance, 1975–
2007 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007).
4. This implies that the ‘‘micro-states’’ in Europe (Monaco, Lichtenstein, San Mar-
ino, etc.) are not included in the research because they have no armed forces. Iceland, a
NATO member, is excluded for the same reason.
5. In the case of the WEU, we have confined ourselves to full members (Belgium,
France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain) and associated members
(Czech Republic, Hungary, Norway, Poland, Turkey).
182 NOTES
6. Jacques van Doorn, ‘‘The Decline of the Mass Army in the West: General Reflec-
tions,’’ Armed Forces & Society 1 (1975): 147–157; Morris Janowitz, ‘‘The Decline of
the Mass Army,’’ Military Review 52 (1972): 10–16.
7. Miepke Bos-Bax, Joseph Soeters, ‘‘The Professionalization of the Netherlands’
Armed Forces,’’ in Conscription vs. All-Volunteer Forces in Europe, Marjan Malesic,
ed. (Baden-Baden, Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft, 2003), 83–99; Philippe Manigart, ‘‘The
Professionalization of the Belgian Armed Forces,’’ in Comparative Analysis of Manning
the Armed Forces in Europe, Marjan Malesic et al., eds. (Ljubljana: University of Ljubl-
jana, 2002), 115–131; Rene Moelker, ‘‘Der Umbau der Niederl€andischen Streitkr€afte
und die Sich Wandelnde Sicht des Milit€arberufes,’’ in Europas Armeen im Umbruch,
Karl W. Haltiner and Paul Klein, eds. (Baden-Baden: Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft,
2002), 159–177; Jan Van der Meulen and Philippe Manigart, ‘‘Zero Draft in the Low
Countries: The Final Shift to the All-Volunteer Force,’’ Armed Forces & Society, 24
(1997): 315–332.
8. Rafael Ajangiz, ‘‘The European Farewell to Conscription?’’ in The Comparative
Study of Conscription in the Armed Forces, Lars Mjøset and Stephan van Holde, eds.
(Amsterdam: Elsevier Science, 2002), 307–333; Fabrizio Battistelli, ‘‘The Professionaliza-
tion of the Italian Armed Forces,’’ in Conscription vs. All-Volunteer Forces in Europe,
Marjan Malesic, ed. (Baden-Baden, Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft, 2003), 151–170; Bernard
Bo€ene, ‘‘Going, Going Gone: How France Did Away With Conscription (1996–2001),’’ in
Conscription vs. All-Volunteer Forces in Europe, Marjan Malesic, ed. (Baden-Baden,
Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft, 2003), 101–131; Paul Klein and Christophe Pajon, ‘‘Die Mil-
it€arreform in Frankreich,’’ in Europas Armeen im Umbruch, Karl W. Haltiner and Paul
Klein, eds. (Baden-Baden: Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft, 2002), 109–122.
9. Karl W. Haltiner, Paul Klein, eds., Europas Armeen im Umbruch (Baden-Baden:
Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft, 2002); Tresch, Europas Streitkr€ afte im Wandel; Marie
Vlachova, The Professionalization of the Czech Armed Forces, Working Paper no. 18
(Geneva: Geneva Centre for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces, 2003).
10. For the selection of the countries, see the methodological section of the chapter.
Source: IISS, The Military Balance.
11. Kernic, Klein, and Haltiner, The European Armed Forces in Transition.
12. Anne Deighton and Victor Mauer, eds., Securing Europe? Implementing the
European Security Strategy (Z€urich: Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, 2006).
13. Ines-Jaqueline Werkner, Wehrpflicht oder Freiwilligenarmee? (Frankfurt: Lang, 2006).
14. Gilles Andreani, Christoph Bertram, and Charl Grant, Europe’s Military Revolu-
tion (London: Center for European Reform, 2000); William Hopkinson, Sizing and
Shaping European Armed Forces: Lessons and Considerations from the Nordic Coun-
tries, SIPRI Policy Paper no. 7, 2004.
15. Gustav Lindstrom, Enter the EU Battlegroups, Chaillot-Paper No. 97 (Paris: EU
Institute for Security Studies, 2007).
16. European Commission, ‘‘Standard Eurobarometer 64: Public Opinion in the EU,
June 2006,’’ European Commission, http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/archives/eb/
eb64/eb64_en.htm.
17. This thesis is supported by an international expert survey conducted by Tresch.
See Tresch, Europas Streitkr€ afte im Wandel.
18. IISS, The Military Balance. Troops employed in own territorries overseas and
deployment in Germany are not taken into account.
NOTES 183
19. The number of memberships is as follows: 1. NATO, 2. EU, 3. WEU (Members

and Associate Members)
20. Ines-Jaqueline Werkner, Allgemeine Trends und Entwicklungslinien in den Euro-
p€
aischen Wehrsystemen (Berline: SOWI-Arbeitspaper, 2003).
CHAPTER 3
1. The story was reported and the video was shown in all three main Israeli TV
news channels as well as all other news media, such as news sites on the internet and in
the written press, the following morning.
2. British Army, Land Operations, Army Doctrine Publication, AC 71819 (2005), 20.
3. The Military Contribution to Peace Support Operations, Joint Warfare Publica-
tion 3-50 Second Edition, The Joint Doctrine & Concepts Center, MOD (2004), 1.
4. Ibid, 2–11.
5. Ibid, 2–14.
6. Ibid, 3–4.
7. Ibid, 3.
8. Dandeker, this volume.
9. Charles C. Krulak, ‘‘The Strategic Corporal: Leadership in the Three Block
War,’’ Marine Corps Gazette 83 (1999): 18–22.
10. Joint Doctrine and Concepts Center, British Ministry of Defense, The Military
Contribution to Peace Support Operations, Joint Warfare Publication 3-50, 2nd ed.,
(2004).
11. William S. Lind, Maneuver Warfare Handbook, (Boulder, CO: Westview Press,
1985), 98–107.
12. Wener Widder, ‘‘German Army, Auftragstaktik and Inner Fuhrung: Trademarks
of German Leadership,’’ Military Review (2002), 3.
13. Ron Ben Ishay, ‘‘Hpirtza Sheshinta et Pney Hakravot,’’ Yedioth Ahronot, 12
October 2005.
14. Quoted in Uzi Ben Shalom and Eitan Shamir, ‘‘Reality Redefines Mission Com-
mand: The IDF Experience,’’ Ma’archot (forthcoming).
15. Ibid.
16. Moshe Tamir, Undeclared War (Tel Aviv: Israeli Ministry of Defense, 2006).
17. Rupert Smith, ‘‘RSA Utility of Force,’’ (lecture presented as part of RSA series
on the changing nature of war, Brussels, Belgium, 7 May 2008), emphasis added.
18. The incident was also widely published and debated in the media. See, for
example, Edward Wang and Jason Horowitz, ‘‘Italian Hostage Returns Home After 2nd
Brush With Death,’’ The New York Times, 5 March 2005, http://www.nytimes.com/
2005/03/05/international/middleeast/05italy.html?ex=1401595200&en=935183cee9a4bd
49&ei=5007&partner=USERLAND.
19. ‘‘Bush Apologizes to Italy Again for Shooting of Agent,’’ NY1 News, 4 May
2004, http://208.198.20.182/ny1/content/index.jsp?stid=3&aid=50591.
20. Seymour Hersh, ‘‘Torture at Abu Gharhib, American Soldiers Brutalized Iraqis.
How Far Up Does the Responsibility Go?’’ The New Yorker, 10 May 2004, http://
www.newyorker.com/archive/2004/05/10/040510fa_fact.
184 NOTES
21. Haim Biny’amini as quoted in Haim Lapid and Hagai Ben Zvi, ‘‘Leadership
Concepts and Training of Commanders, a Development Over Time Among
Commanders of Bad-1,’’ in On Leadership: Theory of Leadership in the IDF, Leader-
ship Development, eds. Micha Poper and Ronen Avihu (Tel Aviv: Israeli Ministry of
Defense, 2001), 159.
22. British Army, Land Operations, 33–34.
23. Daniel J. Hughes, ed., Moltke on the Art of War: Selected Writings (Novato, CA:
Persidio Press, 1993).
24. Noam Tibon, ‘‘IDF Ground Forces Command,’’ (presentation at the IDF Ground
Forces Psychology Conference, Tel Aviv, 14 February 2006).
25. US Army Headquarters, Counterinsurgency, FM 3-24/MCWP 3-33.5, (Wash-
ington, D.C.: US Army Headquarters, 2006), 115.
26. British Army, Land Operations, 116.
27. On the circumstances of adopting maneuver warfare mission command into the
U.S. doctrine, see Richard Lock-Pullan, ‘‘How to Rethink War: Conceptual Innovation
and Airland Battle Doctrine,’’ The Journal of Strategic Studies, 28, no. 4 (2004): 679–
702; On mission command development in the IDF see Sergio Catignani and Eitan
Shamir, ‘‘Mission Command and Bitsuism in the Israeli Defense Forces: Are They Com-
plementary or Contradictory in Today’s Counterinsurgency Campaign?’’ in Dimensions
of Military Leadership Vol.1, eds. Allister MacIntyre and Karen Davis (Ontario:
Canadian Defense Academy Press, 2006), 185–215.
28. US Army, Mission Command: Command and Control of Army Forces, FM 6-0
(Washington DC: U.S. Army Headquarters, 2003); U.S. Marines, Warfighting, MCDP 1
(Washington DC: U.S. Navy Headquarters, 1997), 77–81.
30. Ibid., 133–134.
31. Moshe Shamir and Hila Sagi, 50 Years Jubilee to the IDF Command and General
Staff College (Tel Aviv: Israeli Ministry Of Defense, 2004), 58.
32. Kobi Michael, ‘‘The Israel Defense Forces as an Epistemic Authority: An Intel-
Studies, 30, no. 3, (2007): 431.
33. Amos Harel, ‘‘Report: Palestinians Abandon 1,000 Hebron Homes Under IDF,
Settler Pressure,’’ Ha’aretz, 14 May 2007, http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/objects/pages/
PrintArticleEn.jhtml?itemNo=859084.
34. Hanan Greenberg, ‘‘We Were Facing an Impossible Situation,’’ Yediot Ahranot,
13 May 2007, http://www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-3399397,00.html.
35. Ibid.
36. In mission command, every mission must have a reason, and the commander
should understand its purpose and role as part of the greater scheme of things. Therefore
the paragraph ‘‘in order to’’ in the mission statement is a central piece in mission
command.
38. U.S. Army Headquarters, Counterinsurgency.
39. Ibid., 3–6.
40. John F. Schmitt, ‘‘A Systemic Concept for Operational Design,’’ Marine Corps
Warfighting Laboratory, http://www.mcwl.usmc.mil/concepts/home.cfm.
41. Tibon, ‘‘IDF Ground Forces Command.’’
NOTES 185
42. Liora Sion, ‘‘Too Sweet and Innocent for War?’’ Armed Forces & Society, 32
(2006): 454–474.
43. ‘‘How to Do Better? The American Army Has Become More Intelligent and
Hopes to Be More Effective,’’ The Economist, 17 December 2005, 25.
44. Donald E. Vandergriff, Raising the Bar: Creating and Nurturing Adaptability to
Deal with the Changing Face of War (Washington DC: Center for Defense Information,
2006); Douglas Macgregor, Transformation Under Fire: Revolutionizing How America
Fights, (West Port CT: Praeger, 2003).
45. T. N. Dupuy, Genius for War: The German Army and General Staff 1807–1945,
(Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1977), 116.
CHAPTER 4
1. This process was first described by Phillip Knightley in 1975 (first edition). See
Phillip Kinghtly, The First Casualty: The War Correspondent as Hero and Myth-Maker
from the Crimea to Iraq, 3rd ed., (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press,
2004).
2. For an excellent example of the disparity between the full observed reality and
the authorized and published versions of events on the Eastern front from the Soviet per-
spective, see Vasily Grossman, A Writer at War: Vassily Grossman with the Red Army,
1941–1945 (London: Harvill Press, 2005). Grossman was embedded with several mili-
tary units as a correspondent for the Red Army paper, and his book contains both his
published pieces and excerpts from his diaries, which show how much of the negative
he kept out of the reports.
3. It is often possible to see the effects of specific conflicts on research. The 1990 to
1991 Gulf War produced the first study to gain attention on the issue and establish the
term ‘‘the CNN factor.’’ See Nik Gowing, ‘‘Real-Time Television Coverage on Armed
Conflicts and International Crises: Does it Pressure or Distort Foreign Policy Deci-
sions?’’ Working Paper 94-1 (Boston: Kennedy School of Government, 1994). The Bal-
kans, and especially the Bosnian conflict, produced much writing around the media. See,
for example, Nik Gowing, ‘‘Media Coverage: Help or Hindrance in Conflict Preven-
tion?’’ A Report to the Carnegie Commission on Preventing Deadly Conflict (Wash-
ington, DC: Carnegie Commission on Preventing Deadly Conflict, 1997); James
Gow, Bosnia by Television (London: BFI, 1996); Warren P. Strobel, ‘‘The CNN Effect:
How Much Influence Does the 24-Hour News Network Really Have on Foreign
Policy?’’ American Journalism Review (1996): 32–37; Warren P. Strobel, Late-Breaking
Foreign Policy: The News Media’s Influence on Peace Operations (Washington, DC:
United States Institute of Peace, 1997); Miles Hudson and John Stanier, War and the
Media: A Random Searchlight (Stroud, Glos.: Sutton, 1997), esp. ch. 12, ‘‘The Balkan
Tragedy, 1990–1996,’’ 263–302; Ilana Bet-El, ‘‘Black and White: Journalism and the
Bosnian War,’’ Cross Currents: A Journal for Journalists (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1997), 2–7; Ilana Bet-El, ‘‘Playing to Different Audiences: The U.N. and the
Media in the Bosnian War,’’ Reuter Foundation Paper No. 106 (Oxford: Green College,
1998); Monroe E. Price, ‘‘Memory, the Media and NATO: Information Intervention in
Bosnia-Hercegovina,’’ in Memory & Power in Post-War Europe: Studies in the Pres-
ence of the Past, ed. Jan-Werner Mueller (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
186 NOTES
2002), 137–154. More recently, the Iraq conflict has led to new research, such as Sean
Aday, Steven Livingston, and Maeve Hebert, ‘‘Embedding the Truth: A Cross-Cultural
Analysis of Objectivity and Television Coverage of the Iraq War,’’ Harvard Interna-
tional Journal of Press/Politics, 10 (2005): 3–21.
4. To be clear, the reference here and throughout this paper is to the military as the
armed forces of states, predominantly Western, that operate either on their own behalf
or as part of international interventions.
(London: Allen Lane, 2005).
6. On the change in paradigms of war see Smith, The Utility of Force; for a discus-
sion of the role of the media in the new paradigm see pages 284–289. For other discus-
sions on the role of contemporary media in conflict, see also Thomas Rid, War and
Media Operations: The U.S. Military and the Press from Vietnam to Iraq (London:
Routledge, 2007); Milena Michalski and James Gow, War, Image and Legitimacy:
Viewing Contemporary Conflict (London: Routledge, 2007).
7. The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, vol. 1 (London: Guild Publishing/Oxford
8. As a matter of simplicity and clarity, I am using the masculine in reference to
soldiers, though the entire discussion is of course relevant to the female and the many
women who now serve in armed forces and in combat zones.
9. The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary.
10. Tony Blair (speech delivered at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, 12
June 2007), http://uk.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUKZWE24585220070612?src=061207_
1647_TOPSTORY_blair_attacks_media.
11. Jeremy Paxman, ‘‘Never Mind the Scandals: What’s it All For?’’ (James Mac-
Taggart Memorial Lecture, Edinburgh Festival, 24 August 2007), http://image.guardian.
co.uk/sys-files/Media/documents/2007/08/24/MacTaggartLecture.pdf
12. Ibid.
13. Mike Capstick encapsulates this core issue in his excellent analysis of the strate-
gic failure in the Afghanistan conflict, which stemmed from ‘‘the collective failure of
American and NATO leaders to understand the true nature of conflict in failed and fail-
ing states. This failure led to the application of military force using concepts, doctrine,
tactics, and equipment optimized for ‘state—on—state’ conflicts characterized by
clashes between similarly organized military forces, but not well-adapted to the realities
of warfare waged by non-state actors in failed and failing states.’’ (Mike Capstick, ‘‘The
Civil-Military Effort in Afghanistan: A Strategic Perspective,’’ Journal Of Military And
Strategic Studies, 10 (2007): 1–19.
14. The Economist, 17 August 2006.
CHAPTER 5
1. In this chapter, I apply the contemporary term ‘‘peace support operations’’ to the
full spectrum of peacekeeping missions, past and present. Related terms such as ‘‘stabil-
ity operations’’ and ‘‘stabilization operations’’ and ‘‘stability and reconstruction opera-
tions’’ are taken to be synonymous with ‘‘peace support operations.’’
NOTES 187
2. For a discussion of Ogarkov and his writings, see Dale R. Herspring, ‘‘Nikolai
Ogarkov and the Scientific-Technical Revolution in Soviet Military Affairs,’’ Compara-
tive Strategy, 6 (1987): 29–59.
3. For discussions of the RMA concept see Max Boot, War Made New: Technology,
Warfare, and the Course of History, 1500 to Today (New York: Gotham Books, 2006);
Elinor C. Sloan, The Revolution in Military Affairs: Implications for Canada and NATO
(Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2002); Thierry Gongora and Harald von Riekh-
off, eds., Toward a Revolution in Military Affairs: Defense and Security at the Dawn of the
Twenty-First Century (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2000); Richard Hundley, Past Revo-
lutions, Future Transformations (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 1999); Eliot A. Cohen, ‘‘A Rev-
olution in Warfare,’’ Foreign Affairs, 75 (1996): 37–54; Andrew F. Krepinevich, ‘‘Cavalry to
Computer: The Pattern of Military Revolutions,’’ The National Interest, 37 (1994): 30–42.
4. See William A. Owens, ‘‘The Emerging System of Systems,’’ Strategic Forum,
63 (1996): 35–39; Stuart Johnson and Martin Libicki, eds., Dominant Battlespace
Knowledge (Washington, DC: National Defense University Press, 1995); Bill Owens
and Ed Offley, Lifting the Fog of War (New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 2000).
5. William J. Perry, Annual Report to the President and the Congress (Washington,
DC: Department of Defense, 1995), part iv.
6. Ronald O’Rourke, Defense Transformation: Background and Oversight Issues
for Congress, CRS Report RL32238 (Washington, D.C.: Congressional Research Serv-
ice, 2006), 5.
7. Hans Binnendijk, ed., Transforming America’s Military (Washington, DC:
National Defense University Press, 2002), xvii.
8. National Defense Panel, Transforming Defense: National Security in the 21st
Century (Washington, DC: National Defense Panel, 1997), 57.
9. William S. Cohen, Annual Report to the President and the Congress.
(Washington, DC: Department of Defense, 1995), ch. 13.
10. Donald H. Rumsfeld, ‘‘Transforming the Military,’’ Foreign Affairs, 81 (2002), 31.
11. U.S. Joint Forces Command, J9 Joint Futures Lab, A Concept for Rapid Decisive
Operations, RDO White Paper Version 2.0, Coordinating Draft (2001), www.global
security.org/military/library/report/2001/RDO.doc, ii.
12. For a discussion of the early development of the ‘‘shock and awe’’ concept, see
Harlan Ullman and James P. Wade, Shock and Awe: Achieving Rapid Dominance
(Washington, DC: National Defense University Press, 1996).
13. Arthur K. Cebrowski and John J. Garstka, ‘‘Network-Centric Warfare: Its Origin
and Future,’’ Proceedings 124 (1998); David S. Alberts, John J. Garstka, and Frederick
P. Stein, Network Centric Warfare: Developing and Leveraging Information Superiority,
2nd ed., (Washington, DC: CCRP Publication Services, 1999).
14. Paul M. Mitchell, ‘‘Network Centric Warfare: Coalition Operations in the Age of
U.S. Military Primacy,’’ Adelphi Paper 385 (London: International Institute for Strategic
Studies, 2006), 7.
15. See Gordon R. Sullivan and James M. Dubik, Land Warfare in the 21st Century
(Carlisle, PA: U.S. Army Strategic Studies Institute, 1993).
16. Frederick W. Kagan, Finding the Target: The Transformation of American Mili-
tary Policy (New York: Encounter Books, 2006), esp. ch. 4.
17. Michael J. Mazarr, et al., The Military Technical Revolution: A Structural Frame-
work (Washington, DC: Center for Strategic and International Studies, 1993).
188 NOTES
18. Michael G. Vickers and Robert C. Martinage, The Military Revolution and Intra-
state Conflict (Washington, DC: Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, 1997).
19. National Defense Panel, Transforming Defense, 31.
20. O’Rourke, Defense Transformation, 25.
21. Nina M. Serafino, ‘‘Peacekeeping and Related Stability Operations: Issues of
U.S. Military Involvement,’’ Congressional Research Service Briefing for Congress,
CRS IB940040, (Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, 2006).
22. David H. Gurney, ‘‘An Interview with Acting Director, DOD Office of Force
Transformation, Terry J. Pudas,’’ Joint Force Quarterly 42 (2006), 34.
23. Paul Dibb, ‘‘The Revolution in Military Affairs and Asian Security,’’ Survival 39
(1997–1998), 95; Richard Bitzinger, Transforming the U.S. Military: Implications for
the Asia-Pacific (Barton, ACT: Australian Strategic Policy Institute, 2006).
24. Strategic Defence Review (Ministry of Defence, July 1998), 11.
25. Defence 2000: Our Future Defence Force (Commonwealth of Australia, 2000),
107.
26. Network Centric Warfare Roadmap (Department of Defence, Commonwealth of
Australia, 2005).
27. Patrick Bratton, ‘‘France and the Revolution in Military Affairs,’’ Contemporary
Security Policy, Vol. 23 (2002), 87–112.
28. Strategic Defence Review (London: U.K. Ministry of Defence, 1998), http://
www.mod.uk/NR/rdonlyres/65F3D7AC-4340-4119-93A2-20825848E50E/0/sdr1998_
complete.pdf, 14.
29. Delivering Security in a Changing World, Defence White Paper (London: UK
Ministry of Defence, 2003), http://www.mod.uk/NR/rdonlyres/147C7A19-8554-4DAE-
9F88-6FBAD2D973F9/0/cm6269_future_capabilities.pdf, 8.
30. Building Combat Capability, Australian policy statement, http://www.liberal.
org.au/documents/1998_election/defence/defence.html
31. Chief of the Defence Staff, Shaping the Future of the Canadian Forces: A Strat-
egy for 2020 (Ottawa: Department of National Defence, 1999); Defence Planning Guid-
ance 2001 (Ottawa: Department of National Defence, 2000); Canadian Department of
National Defence, Defence Plan 2001 (Ottawa: Department of National Defence, April
2001).
32. Delivering Security in a Changing World, 1.
33. Canadian Department of National Defence, Defence Plan 2001, 5–2.
34. Gerry Gilmore, ‘‘Rumsfeld: NATO, like U.S., Needs to Transform its Military,’’
American Forces Information Service, 22 September 2002.
35. North Atlantic Treaty Organization, ‘‘Prague Summit Declaration,’’ press release
(2002) 127, Prague NATO Summit Meeting, 21–22 November 2002, 21 November
2002, http://www.nato.int/docu/pr/2002/p02-127e.htm.
36. Daniel S. Hamilton, ed., Transatlantic Transformations: Equipping NATO for the
21st Century (Washington, DC: Center for Transatlantic Relations, 2004).
37. North Atlantic Treaty Organization, ‘‘The NATO Response Force—NRF,’’
NATO briefing, January 2005, 25 October 2005, http://www.nato.int/docu/briefing/
nrf-e.pdf; NATO, ‘‘The NATO Response Force—NRF,’’ North Atlantic Treaty Organi-
zation, http://www.nato.int/shape/issues/shape_nrf/nrf_intro.htm.
38. Understanding NATO’s Military Transformation, NATO Allied Command Trans-
formation Public Information Office, 12.
NOTES 189
39. Helga Haftendoorn, ‘‘From an Alliance of Commitment to an Alliance of Choice:

the Adaptation of NATO in a Time of Uncertainty,’’ in The Changing Politics of Euro-
pean Security: Europe Alone?, eds. Stefan G€anzle and Allen G. Sens (New York:
Palgrave, 2007), 168.
40. The 2006 Riga Summit Declaration and the Comprehensive Political Guidance
document approved at the summit both commit the Alliance to an ongoing process of
transformation.
41. Understanding NATO’s Military Transformation, 9.
42. The International Institute for Strategic Studies, The Military Balance, 2007
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 15.
43. Nigel Aylwin-Foster, ‘‘Changing the Army for Counterinsurgency Operations,’’
Military Review (2005), 9.
44. Defense Science Board Task Force, Institutionalizing Stability Operations within
DoD (Washington, DC: Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Tech-
nology, and Logistics, 2005), http://www.acq.osd.mil/dsb/reports/2005-09-Stability_
Final.pdf.
45. U.S. Department of Defense, ‘‘Military Support for Stability, Security, Transi-
tion, and Reconstruction (SSTR) Operations,’’ DoD Directive no. 3000.5 (2005), http://
www.dtic.mil/whs/directives/corres/pdf/300005p.pdf, 2.
46. U.S. Department of Defense, Quadrennial Defense Review Report (2006), http://
www.defenselink.mil/qdr/, 3–4.
47. Failed and collapsed states are situations in which state structures, authority, the
law and order system, and political institutions had broken down. See, for example, I.
William Zartman, ed., Collapsed States: The Disintegration and Restoration of Legiti-
mate Authority (Boulder, CO: Lynne Reinner, 1995), 1.
48. For comparative discussions of the changed nature of peacekeeping see Marrack
Goulding, ‘‘The Evolution of United Nations Peacekeeping,’’ International Affairs 69
(1993), 451-464; Adam Roberts, ‘‘The Crisis in UN Peacekeeping,’’ Survival 36 (1994),
93–120; Mats R. Berdal, ‘‘Whither U.N. Peacekeeping?’’ Adelphi Paper 281 (London:
International Institute for Strategic Studies, 1993), esp. 6–25; Thomas G. Weiss, ‘‘The
United Nations at Fifty: Recent Lessons,’’ Current History 94 (1995), esp. 223; Trevor
Findlay, The Use of Force in U.N. Peace Operations (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2002).
49. C. Richard Nelson, How Should NATO Handle Stabilization Operations and
Reconstruction Efforts? Policy Paper (New York: Atlantic Council of the United States,
2006), 2.
50. Michael O’Hanlon, Technological Change and the Future of Warfare
(Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2000).
51. Phillip L. Ritcheson, ‘‘The Future of ‘Military Affairs’: Revolution or Evolu-
tion?’’ Strategic Review 24 (1996): 31–40; Colin S. Gray, Strategy for Chaos (London:
Frank Cass, 2002).
52. Brian McAllister Linn, ‘‘Driving in Reverse: Perspectives on Military Transfor-
mation,’’ in Divergent Perspectives on Military Transformation, eds. Benjamin Schreer
and Eugene Whitlock (Berlin: Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik, 2005), 8.
53. Mackubin T. Owens, ‘‘Technology, the RMA, and Future War,’’ Strategic
Review 26 (1998), 67.
54. Owens, ‘‘The Emerging System of Systems,’’ 69.
190 NOTES
55. Kagan, Finding the Target, ch. 4.

56. Mitchell, Network Centric Warfare, 8–9.
57. Stephen Biddle, ‘‘Afghanistan and the Future of Warfare,’’ Foreign Affairs 82
(2003), 31–46.
58. Colin Gray, ‘‘Stability Operations in Strategic Perspective: A Skeptical View,’’
Parameters (2006), 12.
59. Alex Gliksman and Anthony Fainberg, introduction to Improving the Prospects
for Future International Peace Operations: Workshop Proceedings, by U.S. Congress
Office of Technology Assessment, OTA-BP-ISS-167 (Washington, DC: U.S. Govern-
ment Printing Office, 1995); Milton Finger, ‘‘Technologies to Support Peacekeeping
Operations,’’ in Improving the Prospects for Future International Peace Operations:
Workshop Proceedings, U.S. Congress Office of Technology Assessment, OTA-BP-ISS-
167 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1995), 105–114.
60. Donna G. Boltz, ‘‘Information Technology and Peace Support Operations,’’
Virtual Diplomacy Report Series (2002), http://www.usip.org/virtualdiplomacy/publications/
reports/13.html.
61. Kofi A. Annan, ‘‘U.N. Peacekeeping Operations and Cooperation with NATO,’’
NATO Review 41 (1993), 6.
62. See, for example, A. Walter Dorn, Technology and Cooperative Monitoring for
U.N. Peacekeeping (Toronto: Canadian Forces College, 2004); Reynolds M. Salerno
et al., Enhanced Peacekeeping with Monitoring Technologies (Albuquerque, NM:
Sandia National Laboratories, 2000).
63. Paul F. Diehl, ‘‘The Political Implications of Using New Technologies in Peace
Operations,’’ International Peacekeeping 9 (2002), 6.
64. Gerald Yonas, ‘‘The Role of Technology in Peace Operations,’’ U.S. Congress
Office of Technology Assessment, Improving the Prospects for Future International
Peace Operations: Workshop Proceedings, OTA-BP-ISS-167 (Washington, DC: U.S.
Government Printing Office, September 1995), 128.
65. See Michael and Kellen’s chapter in this volume for a detailed analysis of the
kinds of intelligence necessary in PSOs.
66. David H. Petraeus, ‘‘Learning Counterinsurgency: Observations from Soldiering
in Iraq,’’ Military Review 86 (2006), 2.
67. U.S. Department of Defense, Quadrennial Defense Review Report, 14–15.
68. Hans Binnendijk and Richard Kugler, ‘‘Needed – A NATO Stabilization and
Reconstruction Force,’’ Defence Horizons 45 (2004), 1–8.
69. Stuart Johnson and Duncan Long, ‘‘Transforming for Post-Conflict Operations,’’
in Divergent Perspectives on Military Transformation, eds. Benjamin Schreer and
Eugene Whitlock (Berlin: Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik, 2005), 30–36.
CHAPTER 6
1. Thanks to Kobi Michael, Eyal Ben-Ari, David Kellen, and Jim Fergusson for
their leadership in this project, and to Sean Maloney, Michael Hennessy, Lew Diggs,
Galia Golan, Walid Salem, and Liora Sion for insights and comments.
2. Generals like Sir Michael Jackson, analysts like Gwynne Dyer, and even philoso-
phers like Sam Harris have all pointed out the stupidity and fuzzy thinking inherent in a
‘‘war on terror’’ so I will not belabor that point.
NOTES 191
3. James Carroll, House of War: The Pentagon and the Disastrous Rise of American
Power (Boston: Houghton-Mifflin, 2006); Robert F. Gass, Theory, Doctrine, and Ball
Bearings: Adapting Future Technology to Warfare (Leavenworth, KS: U.S. Army Com-
mand and General Staff College, 1996).
4. Time Benbow, The Magic Bullet? Understanding the Revolution in Military
Affairs (London: Brassey’s, 2004), 10.
5. Donald Vandergriff, The Path to Victory: America’s Army and the Revolution in
Human Affairs (New York: Presidio, 2002).
6. Thomas G. Mahnken and James R. FitzSimonds, The Limits of Transformation:
Officer Attitudes towards the Revolution in Military Affairs (Washington, DC: U.S. Navy
Headquarters, 2006).
7. Pamela Krause, Michel S. Loescher, Chris Schoreder, and Charles W. Thomas,
Proteus: Insights from 2020 (Washington, DC: Copernicus Institute Press, 2000); Ming
Zhang, ‘‘War Without Rules: Western Rules and Methods of War’’ Bulletin of the
Atomic Scientists 6 (1999), 16. Zhang reports on the book by Qiao Liang and Wang
Xianghui, Chao Xian Zhan:Dui Quanqui Hua Shidai Zhanzheng yu Zhanfa de Xiangding
(Warfare Beyond Rules: Judgment of War and the Methods of War in the Era of Global-
ization) (Beijing: People’s Liberation Army Art Press, 1999).
8. Benbow, The Magic Bullet, 154–170.
9. James F. Rochlin, Social Forces and the Revolution in Military Affairs: The
Cases of Colombia and Mexico (London: Palgrave-MacMillan, 2007); Chris Demchak,
‘‘Wars of Disruption: International Competition and Information Technology-Driven
Military Organizations,’’ Contemporary Security Policy 24 (2003): 75–112.
10. RMA might be seen as a culmination of Polanyi’s Great Transformation, in
which the modern world separated first magical thinking (religion) and then economics
from the political. Technology divorced from politics, economics, and society offers no
solutions.
11. John Arquilla and David Ronfeldt, eds., Networks and Netwars: The Future of
Terror, Crime, and Militancy (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation for National
Defense Research Institute, 2001).
12. A chapter by Luther P. Gerlach, ‘‘The Structure of Social Movements: Environ-
mental Activism and its Opponents,’’ in Networks and Netwars cites more than 30 sour-
ces, not one of which could be classed as sociological. A third are by Gerlach himself,
and most of the rest are newspaper and website sources.
13. Frank Kitson, Low Intensity Operations: Subversion, Insurgency, and Peacekeep-
ing (St. Petersberg, FL: Hailer Publishing, 2002). Frank Kitson, Gangs and Counter-
gangs (London: Barrie and Rockliff, 1960).
14. John A. Nagl, Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife: Counterinsurgency Lessons
from Malaya and Vietnam (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002).
15. Ibid, 195.
16. Thomas X. Hammes, The Sling and the Stone: On War in the 21st Century
(St. Paul, MN: Zenith Press, 2006), 2.
17. Ibid, 189.
18. Ibid, 231.
19. John T. Fishel and Max G. Manwaring, Uncomfortable Wars Revisited (Norman,
OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 2006).
20. Ibid., 270.
192 NOTES
21. Stephen H. Roberts, History of French Colonial Policy 1870–1925 (London: P.S.
King and Son, 1929).
22. Walter Nimocks, Milner’s Young Men: The Kindergarten in Edwardian Foreign
Policy (Durham, NC: Yale University Press, 1968); Keith Breckenridge, ‘‘Lord Milner’s
Registry: The Origins of South African Exceptionalism,’’ (sem. paper, University of
Kwazulu-Natal, 2004).
23. Albert Grundlingh, ‘‘Protectors and Friends of the People? The South African
Constabulary in the Transvaal and the Orange River Colony, 1900–1908’’ in Policing the
Empire: Government, Authority and Control, 1830-1940, eds. David M. Anderson and
David Killingray (New York: Manchester University Press, 1991), 168–182; Sam Steele,
Forty Years in Canada: Reminiscences of the Great North-West with Some Account of
His Service in South Africa, ed. Mollie Glen Niblett (Toronto: Prospero, 2000), 365–388.
Steele’s account is interesting because it bridges the end of hostilities seen from a
military point of view, and the establishment of civil policing, including registration of
the civil population.
24. C. E. Callwell, Small Wars: Their Principles and Practice, 3rd ed., (Lincoln,
NB: University of Nebraska Press, 1996).
25. Callwell, Small Wars, 135–137; Ian F. W. Beckett, Modern Insurgencies and
Counter-Insurgencies: Guerrillas and Their Opponents since 1750 (London: Routledge,
2001), 40–41.
26. I use imperialism here as a descriptive rather than a pejorative term. It implies
wars to preserve the established order that suits the hegemonic power, in this case the
United States.
27. V. I. Lenin, Socialism and War (The Attitude of the RSDLP Towards War)
(Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1950), 13.
28. Richard E. Feinberg, The Intemperate Zone: The Third World Challenge to U.S.
Foreign Policy (New York: W.W. Norton, 1983).
29. Thomas P.M. Barnett, The Pentagon’s New Map: War and Peace in the 21st
Century (New York: Putnam’s, 2004); Thomas P.M. Barnett, Blueprint for Action: A
Future Worth Creating (New York: Penguin, 2005).
30. Immanuel Wallerstein, World System Analysis: An Introduction (Durham, NC:
Duke University Press, 2004); Leften Stavrianos, Global Rift: The Third World Comes
of Age (New York: Harper Perennial, 1981).
31. Meghnad Desai, ‘‘The Possibility of Deglobalization,’’ in Globalization, Social
Capital, and Inequality: Contested Concepts, Contested Experiences, eds. Wilfred
Dolfsma and Charlie Dannreuther (Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar Publishers, 2003).
32. Barry K. Gills and John Kenneth Galbraith, Globalization and the Politics of
Resistance (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2001).
33. Mark Duffield, Global Governance and the New Wars: The Merging of Develop-
ment and Security (London: Zed, 2000).
34. Jonathan Nitzan and Shimshon Bichler, The Global Political Economy of Israel
(London: Pluto, 2002).
35. Maury D. Feld, The Structure of Violence: Armed Forces as Social Systems
(London: Sage, 1977).
36. Paul H. Herbert, Deciding What Has to be Done? General William E. Dupuy and
the 1976 Edition of FM100-5 Operations (Fort Leavenworth, KS: Combat Studies Insti-
tute, 1988).
NOTES 193
37. Mai’a K. Davis Cross, The European Diplomatic Corps: Diplomats and Interna-
tional Cooperation from Westphalia to Maastricht (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan,
2007), 60–61.
38. Ibid., 68–137.
39. Georgios (Prince of Greece) The Cretan Drama: The Life and Memoirs of Prince
George of Greece, High Commissioner in Crete, 1898–1908 (New York: R. Speller,
1959).
40. David W. Wainhouse, International Peace Observation: A History and Forecast
(Baltimore, MD: John’s Hopkins University Press, 1966).
41. Stephen C. Schlesinger, Act of Creation: The Founding of the United Nations
(Boulder, CO: Westview, 2003), 24; Margaret Macmillan, Paris 1919: Six Months that
Changed the World (New York: Random House, 2001), 478.
42. Devesh Kapur, John Lewis, and Richard Webb, The World Bank: Its First Half
Century (Washington, DC: Brookings, 1997), 59–67.
43. Nat J. Colletta and Michelle L. Cullen, Violent Conflict and the Transformation
of Social Capital: Lessons from Cambodia, Rwanda, Guatemala, and Somalia (Wash-
ington, DC: The World Bank, 2000).
44. Michael Woolcock, ‘‘Social Capital and Economic Development: Toward a The-
oretical Synthesis and Policy Framework,’’ Theory and Society 27 (1998): 151–208; Ben
Fine, ‘‘The Development State is Dead: Long Live Social Capital,’’ Development and
Change 30 (1999): 1–19.
45. Colletta and Cullen, Violent Conflict, 9.
46. Gordon Marshall, Dictionary of Sociology (New York: Oxford University Press,
1998), 258; Malcolm Waters, Globalization (New York: Routledge, 1995).
47. Philip McMichael, ‘‘World-System Analysis, Globalization and Incorporated
Comparison,’’ Journal of World Systems Research 6 (2000): 68–99.
48. Baruch Shimoni and Harriet Bergmann, ‘‘Managing in a Changing World: From
Multiculturalism to Hybridization—The Production of Hybrid Management Cultures in
Israel, Thailand and Mexico,’’ Academy of Management Perspectives 20 (2006): 76–89.
49. Ken Wiwa, ‘‘It’s the People, Stupid: When Corporations Carry the Flag to the
War Zone,’’ Corporate Knights 1 (2003): 12–13.
50. Yahaya Hashim and Kate Meagher. Cross-Border Trade and the Parallel Cur-
rency Market—Trade and Finance in the Context of Structural Adjustment: A Case
Study from Kano, Nigeria, Nordiska Afrikainstitutet Research Report no. 113 (Uppsala:
Nordiska Afrikainstitutet, 1999).
51. Toby Heaps, ‘‘The Heart of Darkness,’’ Corporate Knights 16 (2006): 19–22.
52. Mary Kaldor, New & Old Wars: Organized Violence in a Global Era (Chicago:
Stanford University Press, 1999); Duffield, Global Governance and the New Wars.
53. Allan Gerson and Nat J. Colletta, Privatizing Peace: From Conflict to Security
(Ardsley, NY: Transnational Publishers, 2002), 104–107.
54. Ibid, 175.
55. Ibid, 155–65.
56. Ibid, 191–99.
57. Andreas Wenger and Daniel Mockli, Conflict Prevention: The Untapped Poten-
tial of the Private Sector (Boulder, CO: Lynne Reinner, 2003).
58. Peter Brand and Michael J. Thomas, Urban Environmentalism: Global Change
and the Mediation of Local Conflict (New York: Routledge, 2005).
194 NOTES
59. David H. Bayley, The Police and Political Development in India (Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press, 1969).
60. Charles Reith, A Short History of the British Police (London: Oxford University
Press, 1948).
61. John Sewell, Police: Urban Policing in Canada (Toronto: J. Lorimer, 1985).
62. Bryan R. Roberts, The Making of Citizens: Cities of Peasants Revisited (London:
Arnold, 1995).
63. Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs, Human Security for an Urban Century:
Local Challenges, Global Perspectives (Ottawa: Department of Foreign Affairs, 2007).
64. Sam Logan, ‘‘Public Security and Organized Armed Violence in Rio de Janeiro,’’
in Human Security for an Urban Century (Ottawa: Department of Foreign Affairs,
2007), 28–30.
65. Graham Willis, ‘‘The Privatization of Security in Sao Paulo: Sure-Fire Security
or Catalyst for Urban Conflict?’’ in Human Security for an Urban Century (Ottawa:
Department of Foreign Affairs, 2007), 30–32.
66. Author interviews with Southern Cross and Mount Everest Security managers,
U.N. Civilian Police, and British Commonwealth Police Training Team, Freetown, June
2001.
67. Nicolas Florquin, ‘‘Small Arms in Urban Environments,’’ in Human Security for
an Urban Century (Ottawa: Department of Foreign Affairs, 2007), 32–38.
68. Katherine Donohue, ‘‘Increasing Stability by Improving Urban Security:
USAID’s Haiti Transition Initiative in Port-au-Prince,’’ in Human Security for an Urban
Century (Ottawa: Department of Foreign Affairs, 2007). 92–94.
69. David Last, ‘‘Balkan Operations in the 1990s: Stepping-Stones to Improved
Peacekeeping,’’ in Give Peace a Chance, ed. Charles Pentland (Montreal: McGill-
Queen’s Press, 2003).
70. Peter Knip, ‘‘Local Governments Work Together to Build Peace in the Middle
East,’’ in Human Security for an Urban Century (Ottawa: Department of Foreign
Affairs, 2007), 104–107.
71. Hilaire Belloc, ‘‘The Modern Traveller,’’ University of Pennsylvania Online
Library, http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/book/lookupid?key=olbp38186.
72. Rupert Smith, The Utility of Force: The Art of War in the Modern World (New
York: Knopf, 2007), 5–6.
73. Ibid., 377.
74. Marshall, Dictionary of Sociology, 137.
75. William Easterly, The White Man’s Burden: Why the West’s Efforts to Aid the
Rest Have Done so Much Ill and so Little Good (New York: Penguin, 2006), 79–80;
James Boyce, ‘‘Development Assistance, Conditionality, and War Economies,’’ in Prof-
iting from Peace: Managing the Resource Dimensions of Civil War, eds. Karen Ballen-
tine and Heiko Nitzschke (London: Lynne Rienner, 2005), 287–315.
76. Colletta and Cullen, Violent Conflict; Gerson and Colletta, Privatizing Peace.
77. Bruce Hoffman and Jennifer M. Taw, Defense Policy and Low-Intensity Conflict:
The Development of Britain’s ‘‘Small Wars’’ Doctrine During the 1950s (Santa Monica,
CA: RAND Corporation, 1991); Anthony James Joes, Resisting Rebellion: The History
and Politics of Counterinsurgency (Lexington, KY: Kentucky University Press, 2004);
Kitson, Low Intensity Operations.
NOTES 195
78. U.S. Department of Defense, Counterinsurgency (Washington, DC: U.S. Army

Headquarters, 2006).
79. Metta Spencer, Two Aspirins and a Comedy: How Television Can Enhance
Health and Society (Boulder, CO: Paradigm Publishers, 2006).
80. Spender, Two Aspirins and a Comedy; Nat J. Cottet, ‘‘The Mimetic Desire,’’
http://www.cottet.org/girard/desir5.en.htm.
81. Mathieu Guidere and Nicole Morgan, Le Manuel de Recrutement d’Al Qaida
(Paris: Seuil, 2007).
82. David Galula, Counterinsurgency Warfare: Theory and Practice (Westport, CT:
Praeger Security International, 2006), 11–42.
83. Ibid., 43–60.
84. There are examples of this from the Bosnian conflict. A former brigade com-
mander, M. Alagic, seized control of the Mayor’s office of Sanski Most in January 1996
and installed his former staff officers and commanders in the town’s key offices.
85. Galula, Counterinsurgency Warfare, 18–19; Kitson, Low Intensity Operations,
36–37.
86. Ward Churchill and Mike Ryan, Pacifism as Pathology: Reflections on the Role
of Armed Struggle in North America (Edinburgh: AK Press, 1998).
CHAPTER 7
1. This chapter incorporates the thoughts from the theoretical chapters of Robert
Egnell, ‘‘The Missing Link: Civil—Military Aspects of Effectiveness in Complex Irreg-
ular Warfare,’’ (PhD diss., King’s College, London, 2007).
(London: Allen Lane, 2005); Lawrence Freedman, The Transformation of Strategic
Affairs, Adelphi Paper, no. 379 (London: International Institute for Strategic Studies,
2006); Martin van Creveld, The Transformation of War (New York: Free Press, 1991);
Mary Kaldor, New and Old Wars: Organized Violence in a Global Era (Cambridge:
Polity Press, 2001).
3. U.K. Ministry of Defense, The Comprehensive Approach, Joint Discussion Note
4/05 (Swindon, UK: Ministry of Defense, 2006), 1–1.
4. Michael Quinlan (lecture, NATO Headquarters, 1993), cited in Christopher Dan-
deker, ‘‘Military and Society: The Problem, Challenges and Possible Answers,’’ (paper
presented at the 5th International Security Forum, 14–16 October 2002) http://www.
isn.ethz.ch/5isf/5/Papers/Dandeker_paper_V-2.pdf.
5. Suzanne C. Nielsen, ‘‘Civil—military Relations Theory and Military Effective-
ness,’’ Public Administration and Management 10 (2005): 61–84.
6. Samuel Huntington, The Soldier and the State: The Theory and Politics of
Civil—Military Relations (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1957), 2.
7. Christopher Dandeker, ‘‘Military and Society,’’ 2–3.
8. Ibid.
9. Kobi Michael, ‘‘The Dilemma Behind the Classical Dilemma of Civil—Military
Relations: The ‘Discourse Space’ Model and the Israeli Case during the Oslo Process,’’
Armed Forces & Society 33 (2007): 519.
10. Samuel Huntington, The Soldier and the State, 229.
196 NOTES
11. Arthur D. Larson, ‘‘Military Professionalism and Civil Control: A Comparative

Analysis of Two Interpretations,’’ Journal of Political and Military Sociology 2 (1974):
57–72.
12. Ibid, 57–72.
13. Anthony Forster, Armed Forces in Europe (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan,
2006), 43.
14. Morris Janowitz, The Professional Soldier: A Social and Political Portrait (New
York: The Free Press, 1960), 420.
15. Richard H. Kohn, ‘‘How Democracies Control the Military,’’ Journal of Democ-
racy 8 (1997): 142.
16. Michael, ‘‘The Dilemma,’’ 522.
17. Nielsen, ‘‘Civil—Military Relations Theory,’’ 75.
18. Provincial Reconstruction Teams are administrative units consisting of a small
operating base from which a group of sixty to more than one thousand civilians and
military specialists work in a coordinated manner to perform small reconstruction proj-
ects or provide security for others involved in aid and reconstruction work.
19. Risa Brooks, ‘‘Political-Military Relations and the Stability of Arab Regimes,’’
Adelphi Paper 324 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), 46.
20. Eliot A. Cohen, Supreme Command: Soldiers, Statesmen, and Leadership in
Wartime (New York: The Free Press, 2002), 209.
21. Deborah D. Avant, Political Institutions and Military Change: Lessons from
Peripheral Wars, (London: Cornell University Press, 1994), 49.
22. Christopher Dandeker, ‘‘Surveillance and Military Transformation: Organiza-
tional Trends in Twenty-First Century Armed Services,’’ in The New Politics of Surveil-
lance and Visibility, eds., Kevin Haggerty and Richard V. Ericson (Toronto: University
of Toronto Press, 2006), 240.
23. U.S. Department of the Army, Mission Command: Command and Control of
Army Forces, FM 6-0, (Washington, DC: US Army Headquarters, 2003), http://
www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/policy/army/fm/6-0/, §1–80.
24. U.S. Department of the Army, Mission Command, §1–79
25. Ibid, § 1–74
26. Richard Lovelock, ‘‘The Evolution of Peace Operations Doctrine,’’ Joint Forces
Quarterly (Summer 2002), 69.
27. C. S. Oliviero, ‘‘Trust, Manoeuvre Warfare, Mission Command and Canada’s
Army,’’ The Army Doctrine and Training Bulletin (Aug 1998), http://armyapp.dnd.ca/
ael/ADTB/Vol_1/August_98/english/Trust_maoeuvre.htm.
28. Dmitry Khodyakov, ‘‘Trust as a Process: A Three-Dimensional Approach,’’ Soci-
ology 41 (2007): 115–132.
29. Lynn G. Zucker, ‘‘Production of Trust: Institutional Sources of Economic Struc-
ture,’’ in Research in Organizational Behavior, Vol. 8, eds. B. M. Staw and L.
Cummings (Greenwich, CT: JAI Press, 1986), 53–112.
30. Anthony Giddens, Modernity and Self-Identity (Stanford: Stanford University
Press, 1991), 38.
31. Khodyakov, ‘‘Trust as a Process,’’ 122–123.
32. Zucker, ‘‘Production of Trust,’’ 53–112.
33. Katinka Bijlsma-Frankema and Ana Cristina Costa, ‘‘Understanding the Trust-
Control Nexus,’’ International Sociology 20 (2005), 261–262.
NOTES 197
34. Khodyakov, ‘‘Trust as a Process,’’ 123.

35. Kobi Michael, ‘‘The Israeli Defense Forces as an Epistemic Authority: An Intel-
Studies 30 (2007), 443–445.
36. Michael, ‘‘The Dilemma,’’ 541.
37. Kobi Michael, e-mail message to author, 4 October 2007.
38. Matthew F. Bogdanos, ‘‘Joint Interagency Cooperation: The First Step,’’ Joint
Force Quarterly, 37 (2005), 11.
39. Cecil V. Crabb and Pat M. Holt, Invitation to Struggle: Congress, the President,
and Foreign Policy (Washington, D.C.: CQ Press, 1989), 9.
40. Clark A. Murdock, ed., Beyond Goldwater-Nichols: Defense Reform for a New
Strategic Era, Phase 1 Report (Washington, DC: CSIS, 2004), 61.
41. Martin J. Gorman and Alexander Krongard, ‘‘A Goldwater-Nichols Act for the
U.S. Government: Institutionalizing the Interagency Process,’’ Joint Force Quarterly 39
(2005), 52.
42. Huntington, The Soldier and the State, 229.
43. Antulio J. Echevarria, ‘‘Towards an American Way of War,’’ (London, Institute
for Strategic Studies, 2004), http://www.iwar.org.uk/military/resources/us/way-of-
war.htm; Nagl, Counterinsurgency Lessons, 43.
44. See Russell F. Weigley, The American Way of War: A History of United States
Military Strategy and Policy (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1973). Nagl,
Counterinsurgency Lessons, 43–44; Robert M. Cassidy, Peacekeeping in the Abyss:
British and American Peacekeeping Doctrine and Practice after the Cold War (West-
port, CT: Praeger, 2004), 111–113; Thomas G. Mahnken, ‘‘The American Way of War
in the Twenty-First Century,’’ in Democracies and Small Wars, ed. Efraim Inbar (Port-
land: Frank Cass, 2003), 78–81.
45. Nagl, Counterinsurgency Lessons (2002), 205.
46. Ibid, 43–44.
47. See James Jay Carafano, ‘‘Post-Conflict and Culture: Changing America’s
Military for 21st Century Missions,’’ Heritage Lecture, no. 810 (22 October 2003),
www.heritage.org/Research/NationalSecurity/HL810.cfm, 2–3; John Garofano, ‘‘The
United States in Bosnia-Herzegovina: Points of Tension and Learning for the U.S.
Military,’’ in Warriors in Peacekeeping: Points of Tension in Complex Cultural Encoun-
ters, eds. Jean Callaghan and Mathias Sch€onborn (M€ unster: Lit Verlag, 2004); Thomas
E. Ricks, Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq (London: Allen Lane, 2006).
48. Cassidy, Peacekeeping in the Abyss, 155, 162–165.
49. Toby Dodge, ‘‘The Causes of Failures in Iraq,’’ Survival 49 (2007), 89–90.
50. James A. Baker, III, and Lee H. Hamilton, The Iraq Study Group Report: The
Way Forward—A New Approach (Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace,
2006), 27.
51. William L. Nash, ‘‘In the Wake of War: Improving U.S. Post-Conflict Capabil-
ities,’’ Council on Foreign Relations, www.cfr.org/content/publications/attachments/
Post-Conflict_Capabilities.pdf, 7.
52. Anthony H. Cordesman, The Iraq War: Strategy, Tactics, and Military Lessons
(Westport, CT: Praeger, 2003), 498.
53. Ibid.
54. Nash, ‘‘In the Wake of War,’’ 7.
198 NOTES
55. Ricks, Fiasco, 180–181; Paul L. Bremer and Malcolm McConnell, My Year in
Iraq: The Struggle to Build a Future of Hope (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2005),
316–317.
56. Larry Diamond, Squandered Victory: The American Occupation and the Bungled
Effort to Bring Democracy to Iraq (New York: Times Books, 2005), 299.
57. Cordesman, The Iraq War, 499–500.
58. Ibid., 500, 502.
59. Alice Hills, ‘‘Something Old, Something New: Security Governance in Iraq,’’
Conflict, Security, and Development 5 (2005), 192.
60. Cordesman, The Iraq War, 502.
61. Christopher H. Varhola, ‘‘American Challenges in Postwar Iraq,’’ Foreign Policy
Research Institute E-Notes, 27 May 2004, http://www.fpri.org/enotes/20040527.america
war.varhola.iraqchallenges.html.
62. Andrew Garfield, Succeeding in Phase IV: British Perspectives on the U.S.
to Stabilize and Reconstruct Iraq (Philadelphia: Foreign Policy Research Institute,
2006), 29.
63. Edwin Samuels and Tim Russel (lt. col.), ‘‘The Comprehensive Approach,’’ (pre-
sentation, UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office, 24 May 2006).
64. UK Ministry of Defense, ‘‘Departmental Framework,’’ www.mod.uk; UK Minis-
try of Defense, ‘‘Key Facts about Defense,’’ http://www.mod.uk.
65. William Hopkinson, ‘‘The Making of British Defence Policy,’’ RUSI Journal
(October 2000), 33.
66. Simon Mayall (brig.), interview with author, November 2004.
67. Bill Jones and Dennis Kavanagh, British Politics Today, 7th ed. (Manchester:
Manchester University Press, 2003), 186–187.
68. Thomas R. Mockaitis, British Counter-Insurgency, 1919–1960 (Basingstoke:
Macmillan, 1990), 64.
69. Avant, Political Institutions and Military Change, 38, 40.
70. Rod Thornton, ‘‘The British Army and the Origins of its Minimum Force Philos-
ophy,’’ Small Wars & Insurgencies 15, no. 1 (2004), 85.
71. Freedman, The Transformation of Strategic Affairs.
72. Louise Heywood, ‘‘CIMIC in Iraq,’’ RUSI Journal 151 (2006), 36–40.
73. House of Commons Defense Committee, Iraq: An Initial Assessment of Post-
Conflict Operations: Government Response to the Committee’s Sixth Report of Session
2004–05, HC 436 (London: The House of Commons, 2005), 15–17.
74. Christopher Meyer, cited in Mary Jordan, ‘‘Blair Failed In Dealing With Bush,
Book Says,’’ The Washington Post, 8 November 2005, http://www.washingtonpost.com/
wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/07/AR2005110701569.html.
75. Heywood, ‘‘CIMIC in Iraq,’’ 36–40.
76. Review of Intelligence on Weapons of Mass Destruction: Report of a Committee
of Privy Counsellors, HC 898, (London: The House of Commons, 2004), 160.
77. See, for example, Human Rights Watch, Basra: Crime and Insecurity under Brit-
ish Occupation, www.hrw.org/reports/2003, 8.
78. U.K. Ministry of Defense, ‘‘U.K. Operations in Iraq: Key Facts and Figures,’’
Defense Fact Sheet, http://www.mod.uk/DefenceInternet/FactSheets/OperationsFactsheets/
OperationsInIraqKeyFactsFigures.htm.
NOTES 199
CHAPTER 8
1. Edgar Sanderson, ed., Bourrienne’s Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte (London:

Hutchinson, 1836), 302–303.
2. Mark Duffield, Global Governance and the New Wars (London: Zed Books,
2001), 11.
3. Ibid, 50–53.
4. Joint Warfare Publication 3-50, The Military Contribution to Peace Support
Operations, 2nd ed. (London: British Ministry of Defence, 2004) 1–8.
5. It is estimated that the U.K. market is worth £1.8 billion. This figure, however,
does not include training, demining, and logistical support. Doug Brooks, President,
International Peace Operations Association, e-mail message to author, 27 November
2006.
6. For details about the role of private security in Iraq see GAO-060865T, Rebuild-
ing Iraq: Actions Still Needed to Improve the Use of Private Security Providers
(Washington, DC: Government Accountability Office, 2006), 5.
7. For a historical account of the development of British PSCs see Christopher
Kinsey, Corporate Soldiers and International Security (London: Routledge, 2006), 43–
51; Clive Jones, Britain and the Yemen Civil War, 1962–1965, (Brighton, Sussex
Academic Press, 2004), 113–135.
8. For a detailed account of EO history, see Herbert Howe, Ambiguous Order: Mili-
tary Forces in Africa States (London: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2001), ch. 5.
9. Eeben Barlow (founder, Executive Outcomes), interview with Jim Hooper, 26
January 1996.
10. Ibid, 4.
11. Ibid, 4.
12. David Shearer, Private Armies and Military Intervention, Adelphi Paper 316
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 46.
13. Ibid.
14. Ibid, 48.
15. Alex Vines ‘‘Mercenaries, Human Rights, and Legality,’’ in Mercenaries: An
African Security Dilemma, Musah Abdel-Fatau and J. Kayode Fayemi, eds., (London:
Pluto Press, 2000), 175.
16. Kinsey, Corporate Soldiers, 63.
17. Barlow, interview.
18. Shearer, ‘‘Private Armies,’’ 58.
19. The company closed down its operations on 16 April 2004.
20. For an account of the Sandline Affair, see Foreign Affairs Committee, Second
Report, Sierra Leone (London: Stationery Office, 1999); Thomas Legg and Robin Ibbs,
Report of the Sierra Leone Arms Investigation (London: Stationery Office, 1998);
Kinsey, Corporate Soldiers, ch. 4.
21. John Holmes (director, Erinys International), interview with author, 8 July 2004.
22. Dominick Donald, After the Bubble: British Private Security Companies after
Iraq, Whitehall Paper Series 66 (London: RUSI, 2006), 36.
23. Bill Sizemore, ‘‘Blackwater Seeks Role in Training Security Forces in Sudan,’’
The Virginian-Pilot, 18 January 2007, http://hamptonroads.com/node/209801.
24. Dominick Donald, interview with the author, 17 July 2007.
200 NOTES
25. Patrick Toyne Sewell (communications director, ArmorGroup International),

e-mail message to author, 3 August 2007.
26. ArmorGroup International, ‘‘Mine Action Services,’’ http://www.armorgroup.
com/services/servicesmineaction/.
27. Peter Singer, Corporate Warriors: The Rise of the Privatized Military Industry
(Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2003), 16.
28. There has been concern over the use of contractors in conflict since the end of
the Cold War. However, since the 2003 Iraq War, that concern has increased signifi-
cantly, especially in the areas of oversight and accountability.
29. Singer, Corporate Warriors, 64.
30. Christopher Coker, The Future of War (London: Blackwell Publishing, 2004),
130.
31. David Isenberg, A Fistful of Contractors: The Case for a Pragmatic Assessment
of Private Military Companies in Iraq (London: British American Security Information
Council, 2004), 7.
32. Coker The Future of War, 15.
33. The bureaucratization of violence actually started much earlier than the industri-
alization and nationalization of war. However, it was not until all three forces came
together at the end of the eighteenth century that significant changes to warfare occurred.
34. Anatole Rapoport, introduction to On War, by C. Von Clausewitz (London:
Penguin Classics, 1982), 24.
35. Russell F. Weigley, The Age of Battle: The Quest for Decisive Warfare from
Breitenfeld to Waterloo (London: Pimlico, 1993), vii.
36. Matthew Uttley, Contractors on Deployed Military Operations: United Kingdom
Policy and Doctrine (Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, 2005), 16.
37. Ibid.
38. Ibid.
39. British House of Commons Defense Committee, A New Chapter to the Strategic
Defence Review, 6th Report of Session, 2002–2003, Volume 1 (London: The Stationery
Office, 2003), 9.
40. Ibid, 10.
41. Kinsey, Corporate Soldiers, 153.
42. Joint Warfare Publication 3-50, 1–2.
43. Robin Moore (lt. col., Royal Logistical Corps), interview with author 27 April
2007.
44. Ibid.
45. Ibid.
46. Jeremy Scahill, ‘‘A Very Private War,’’ The Guardian, 1 August 2007, G2, 6.
Accurate data on the actual number of contractors working in Iraq is difficult to come
by, and there is variation in the limited data available. In a recently published report by
the Congressional Research Service, it was estimated that individuals employed under
U.S. government contracts to perform functions once carried out by U.S. military per-
sonnel had reached 127,000. See Jennifer Elsea and Nina Serafino, Private Security
Contractors in Iraq: Background, Legal Status, and Other Issues, CRS Report to Con-
gress, RL32419, (Washington DC: Congressional Research Service, 2007).
47. United States Government Accountability Office, Rebuilding Iraq: Action
Needed to Improve Use of Private Security Providers, GAO-05-737, (Washington, DC:
NOTES 201
Government Accountability Office, 2005); Alec Klein, ‘‘For Security in Iraq, a Return to
British Know-How,’’ Washington Post, 24 August 2007.
48. Sewell, e-mail message.
49. Donald, After the Bubble, 46.
50. Thomas David et al refer to this as cultural intelligence, the fundamental idea of
being able to adapt to the environment. This includes the cognitive and behavioral abil-
ity required to select and shape an environment. See Kobi Michael, ‘‘Doing the Right
Thing the Right Way: The Challenges of Military Mission Effectiveness in Peace Sup-
port Operations in a War Amongst the People Theatre,’’ in Cultural Challenges in Mili-
tary Operations, Jean Dufourcq and Tibor Szvircsev Tresch, eds., (Rome: NATO
Defense College, 2007), 7.
51. See Marshall Adame, ‘‘Private Security Contractor Behavior in Iraq is Detrimen-
tal and Unacceptable,’’ American Chronicle, www.americanchronicle.com/articles/
viewArticle.asp?articleID=35753.
52. Michael, ‘‘Doing the Right Thing,’’ 7–8.
53. Andrew Kain (managing director, Andrew Kain Enterprises), interview with the
author, 11 March 2005.
54. For a detailed account of how one PSC was able to live and work outside the
Green Zone, see James Ashcroft, Making a Killing (London: Virgin Books, 2006) 129–
269.
55. Ibid., 52.
56. The total cost to the FCO of employing private security firms in (a) Iraq and (b)
Afghanistan during the years 2003, 2004, 2005, and up to 13 September 2006:
Iraq
May 2003–March 2004: £19,121,598
April 2004–March 2005: £45,705,639
April 2005–March 2006: £47,818,682
April 2006–August 2006: £14,611,529
Afghanistan
April 2004à–March 2005: £2,085,000
April 2005–March 2006: £8,534,000
April 2006–August 2006: £5,239,000
àNo private security firms were employed in Afghanistan prior to 2004.
The names of each of the companies involved and the bill for each:
Iraq
Control Risks Group £112,457,849
ArmorGroup £11,888,699
Kroll Security Group £3,014,620
Figures attained from the Foreign Commonwealth Office through a Freedom of Informa-
tion request Ref. No: FOI 0784-06, 22 September 2006.
202 NOTES
57. Deployed capability is provided through MoD’s overarching ‘‘Contractors Logis-

tics’’ (CONLOG) Contract, a ‘‘one-stop shop for packages of commercial support.’’
CONLOG is intended to reduce the number of ad hoc urgent operational requirement
contracts and has been awarded to Kellogg Brown and Root (KBR) under a seven-year
partnering arrangement. The United States Army has a similar arrangement with KBR
called LOGCON. See Uttley, Contractors on Deployed Military Operations, for a
detailed account of CONLOG.
58. Chris Tomlinson, ‘‘US: DynCorp Hired for Somalia Peacekeeping,’’ Forbes, 7
March 2007, http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=14398.
59. R. Williams, Building Stability in Africa: Challenges for the New Millennium,
Monograph 46 (Pretoria: Institute for Security Studies, 2000), 2.
60. DynCorp International, ‘‘Front page,’’ http://www.dyn-intl.com/index.aspx; MPRI,
‘‘Security Sector Reform Programs,’’ http://www.mpri.com/main/securitysectorreform.html.
The FCO also has a contract with ArmorGroup to provide international police advisors in
Iraq. This contract is funded from the Global Conflict Prevention Pool and the costs to date
have been as follows:
Figures attained from the Foreign Commonwealth Office through a Freedom of Informa-
tion request Ref. No: FOI 0784-06, 22 September 2006.
April 2004–March 2005: £3,700,172

April 2005–March 2006: £8,417,243
April 2006–August 2006: £3,331,102
61. Tomlinson, ‘‘DynCorp Hired for Somalia Peacekeeping.’’

62. See Vinnell, ‘‘History of Vinnell Coporation,’’ http://www.vinnell.com/
ArabiaRecruiting/recruiting.htm.
63. Donald, After the Bubble, 62.
64. Ibid, 65.
65. Ibid, 66.
66. Tomlinson, ‘‘DynCorp Hired for Somalia Peacekeeping.’’
67. For details of the Sandline affair, see Tim Spicer, An Unorthodox Soldier: Peace
and War and the Sandline Affair (Edinburgh: Mainstream Publishing Company, 1999).
CHAPTER 9
1. William J. Durch, ‘‘Introduction,’’ in The Evolution of U.N. Peacekeeping: Case

Studies and Comparative Analyses, William J. Durch, ed., (New York: St. Martin’s
Press, 1993), 1–15; Steven Ratner, The New U.N. Peacekeeping: Building Peace in
Lands of Conflict after the Cold War (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1995); Allen Sens,
‘‘Peace-building and State-building in Peacekeeping Operations: Options and Challenges
in the Palestinian Case,’’ in Stabilizing the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: Considerations
for a Multinational Peace Support Operation, Kobi Michael and David Kellen, eds.,
(Jerusalem: The Harry S. Truman Institute for the Advancement of Peace, 2007), 40–69.
2. Frank van Kappen, ‘‘Strategic Intelligence and the United Nations,’’ in Peace-
keeping Intelligence: Emerging Concepts for the Future, Ben de Jong, Wies Platje, and
Robert David Steele, eds., (Oakton, VA: OSS International Press, 2003), 3–10.
NOTES 203
3. Renaud Theunens, ‘‘Intelligence and Peace Support Operations: Some Practical Con-
cepts,’’ in Peacekeeping Intelligence: Emerging Concepts for the Future, Ben de Jong, Wies
Platje, and Robert David Steele, eds., (Oakton, VA: OSS International Press, 2003), 63.
4. Patrick C. Cammaert, ‘‘Intelligence in Peacekeeping Operations: Lessons for the
Future,’’ in Peacekeeping Intelligence: Emerging Concepts for the Future, Ben de Jong,
Wies Platje, and Robert David Steele, eds., (Oakton, VA: OSS International Press,
2003), 14. See also Van Kappen, ‘‘Strategic Intelligence,’’ 3.
5. Rupert Smith, The Utility of Force: The Art of War in the Modern World,
6. Van Kappen, ‘‘Strategic Intelligence,’’ 5.
7. David Pugliese, ‘‘We Need to Know the Enemy: Military Must Learn about
Afghans,’’ The Gazette (Montreal), 3 October, 2007, http://www.canada.com/montreal
gazette/news/story.html?id=4fc8f9a0-5791-4ab0-a90f-74934f14fc70&k=28118 (accessed 7
May 2008).
8. Ibid.
9. Smith, Utility of Force.
10. U.S. Army, Counterinsurgency: FM 3-24 (Washington, DC: US Army Headquar-
ters, 2006). See also ‘‘Think before You Shoot: A New Field Manual Teaches American
Forces How to Fight Elusive Insurgents,’’ Economist, 23 December 2006, 74.
11. Kobi Michael, ‘‘Doing the Right Thing the Right Way: The Challenges of Mili-
tary Mission Effectiveness in Peace Support Operations in a ‘War Amongst the People’
Theater,’’ in Cultural Challenges in Military Operations, Cees, M. Coops and Szvircsev
Tibor Tresch, eds., (Rome: NATO Defense College, Research Division, 2007), 254–263.
12. Gustavo Diaz, ‘‘Intelligence at the United Nations for Peace Operations,’’ in
UNISCI Discussion Paper Number 13 (Madrid: Universidad Complutense de Madrid,
2007), 25–41.
13. Brent Ellis, ‘‘Back to the Future? The Lessons of Counterinsurgency for Contem-
porary Peace Operations,’’ Carleton University, http://www.carleton.ca/e-merge/docs_
vol5/articles/article_Ellis1.pdf.
14. Hugh Smith, ‘‘Intelligence and UN Peacekeeping,’’ Survival, 36.3 (1994), 174–
192; Michael, ‘‘Doing the Right Thing the Right Way.’’
15. Pasi Valimaki, ‘‘Bridging the Gap: Intelligence and Peace Support Operations,’’
in Peacekeeping Intelligence: Emerging Concepts for the Future, Ben de Jong, Wies
Platje, and Robert David Steele, eds., (Oakton, VA: OSS International Press, 2003), 49.
16. Diaz, ‘‘Intelligence at the United Nations.’’
17. Ibid; Ellis, ‘‘Back to the Future?’’
18. Valimaki, ‘‘Bridging the Gap,’’ 50.
19. Ellis, ‘‘Back to the Future?’’
20. Kinsey (this volume).
21. Ellis, ‘‘Back to the Future?’’; Michael, ‘‘Doing the Right Thing the Right Way.’’
23. Bob Hoogenboom, ‘‘Grey Intelligence,’’ Crime, Law & Social Change 45
(2006): 373–381.
26. Michael, ‘‘Doing the Right Thing the Right Way,’’; Diaz, ‘‘Intelligence at the
United Nations.’’
204 NOTES

29. Diaz, ‘‘Intelligence at the United Nations’’; Kinsey, (this volume).
30. Pugliese, ‘‘We Need to Know the Enemy.’’
31. David A. Charters, ‘‘Out of the Closet: Intelligence Support for Post-Modernist
Peacekeeping,’’ The Pearson Papers, No. 4, Intelligence in Peacekeeping (Clementsport,
NS: Canadian Peacekeeping Press, 1999), 34–68.
32. Walter A. Dorn, ‘‘The Cloak and the Blue Beret: The Limits of Intelligence
Gathering in U.N. Peacekeeping.’’ The Pearson Papers, No. 4, Intelligence in Peace-
keeping (Clementsport, NS: The Canadian Peacekeeping Press, 1999), 1–31.
33. Ibid, 15.
34. Ibid, 13.
35. Smith, ‘‘Intelligence and U.N. Peacekeeping.’’
36. Dorn, ‘‘The Cloak and the Blue Beret,’’ 20.
37. Ibid, 14.
38. Douglas H. Dearth, ‘‘Peacekeeping in the Information Age.’’ Global Intelligence
Partnership Network, http://www.oss.net/dynamaster/file_archive/040319/
50bc105e7727ef8f62a7de860d4ab42d/OSS1999-P2-29.pdf.
39. Ibid.
40. Smith, ‘‘Intelligence and U.N. Peacekeeping,’’ 178.
41. Charters, ‘‘Out of the Closet,’’ 51.
42. Dorn, ‘‘The Clock and the Blue Beret,’’ 18–19.
43. Dearth, ‘‘Peacekeeping in the Information Age,’’ 238.
44. Ibid, 230.
45. Ibid, 231.
46. Ibid.
47. Dorn, ‘‘The Clock and the Blue Beret,’’ 13.
49. Smith, 177.
51. Theunens, ‘‘Intelligence and Peace Support Operations,’’ 63.
52. Ibid.
53. Charters, ‘‘Out of the Closet.’’
54. Michael, ‘‘Doing the Right Thing the Right Way.’’
55. Dearth, ‘‘Peacekeeping in the Information Age’’; Diaz, ‘‘Intelligence at the
United Nations’’; Smith, ‘‘Intelligence and U.N. Peacekeeping.’’
56. Dearth, ‘‘Peacekeeping in the Information Age’’; Smith, ‘‘Intelligence and U.N.
Peacekeeping.’’
57. Smith, ‘‘Intelligence and U.N. Peacekeeping’’; Michael, ‘‘Doing the Right Thing
the Right Way.’’
58. Javier Perez de Cuellar, Pilgrimage for Peace: A Secretary General’s Memoir
(New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 1997).
59. Dorn, ‘‘The Clock and the Blue Beret.’’
60. Smith, The Utility of Force.
61. Williamson Murray, ed., Strategic Challenges for Counterinsurgency and the
Global War on Terrorism, Strategic Studies (SSI) Monographs (Carlisle, PA: Strategic
Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, 2006).
NOTES 205
62. David C. Thomas, et al., ‘‘Cultural Intelligence: Domain and Assessment’’ (forth-
coming).
63. Ibid.
64. Ibid.
65. Ibid.
66. Ibid.
67. Ibid.
68. Ibid.
69. Ibid.
70. Ibid.
71. Howard, Michael. ‘‘A Long War?’’ Survival 8 (2006): 7–14.
72. G. I. Wilson, John P. Sullivan, and Hal Kempfer. ‘‘The Changing Nature of War-
fare Requires New Intelligence-Gathering Techniques,’’ in Louise I. Gerdes, ed., Espio-
nage and Intelligence Gathering (Farmington Hills, MN: Greenhaven Press, 2004).

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THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE

Praeger Security International Advisory Board

Page Number: iii

THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE

PRAEGER SECURITY INTERNATIONAL

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be

The paper used in this book complies with the

Foreword by Lars H€ansel vii

5. The RMA, Transformation, and Peace

Page Number: vii

Foreword by Lars H€ansel

Within this framework, we supported the international conference on

Page Number: viii

A recurrent theme in The Transformation in the World of Warfare and Peace

4GW fourth-generation warfare

Page Number: xii

HIC high-intensity conflict

Page Number: xiii

SFOR Stabilization Force

Page Number: xiv

Introduction: Wars and Peace Support Operations in

Eyal Ben-Ari, Kobi Michael, and David Kellen

2 THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE WORLD OF WAR AND PEACE SUPPORT OPERATIONS

TRANSFORMED WARS AND CHANGED CONFLICTS

In much of the vast scholarly, professional military, and journalistic work on

technologically based, precise, distanced, and imagined as near-bloodless.4 4

4 THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE WORLD OF WAR AND PEACE SUPPORT OPERATIONS

the people.’’16 To simplify somewhat, Smith’s argument is that while industrial 16

6 THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE WORLD OF WAR AND PEACE SUPPORT OPERATIONS

to expand the role of humanitarian interventions. These loose coalitions of

TEMPLATES: SHAPING THINKING AND ACTION

Before proceeding on to an analysis of the template at base of contemporary

contemporary theorizing about war. Despite a rather voluminous professional

8 THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE WORLD OF WAR AND PEACE SUPPORT OPERATIONS

alternatives such as asymmetric battles or long wars of occupation.51 The result, 51

10 THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE WORLD OF WAR AND PEACE SUPPORT OPERATIONS

is the set of organizational practices centered on civil-military cooperation

NEW METAPHORS AND NEW KNOWLEDGE?

be modeled on the purported cultural and linguistic capabilities of special

12 THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE WORLD OF WAR AND PEACE SUPPORT OPERATIONS

nation-building.86 No less important, the ultimate goal of creating a safe and 86

14 THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE WORLD OF WAR AND PEACE SUPPORT OPERATIONS

INTER-LINKAGES AND HYBRIDS

contemporary strategic contexts. In addition, such structures provide more in-

16 THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE WORLD OF WAR AND PEACE SUPPORT OPERATIONS

18 THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE WORLD OF WAR AND PEACE SUPPORT OPERATIONS

the former in terms of national military styles of responding to hostilities and

CONCLUSION: PROFESSIONAL VOCABULARY AND SOCIAL SCIENTIFIC LANGUAGE

20 THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE WORLD OF WAR AND PEACE SUPPORT OPERATIONS

much on the way that military transformation influences peace-related missions

The End of War? The Use of Force in the

22 THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE WORLD OF WAR AND PEACE SUPPORT OPERATIONS

In 1999, Mary Kaldor developed an influential distinction between ‘‘new’’

THE END OF WAR? 23

economy and the facilitating condition of fractures in local state authority to be

24 THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE WORLD OF WAR AND PEACE SUPPORT OPERATIONS

These dilemmas of postmodern states preoccupy General Sir Rupert Smith’s

THE END OF WAR? 25

26 THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE WORLD OF WAR AND PEACE SUPPORT OPERATIONS

THE END OF WAR? 27

but a condition in which an acceptable outcome is likely. In the case of Kosovo,