Reports by: Academics

Consolidating the legitimate use of force in the hands of the state is a vital first step in post-conflict peacebuilding. Transitional governments must move quickly to neutralize rival armed groups and provide a basic level of security for citizens.
Two processes are vital to securing a monopoly of force: disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration and security sector reform. Disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration (DDR) involve disbanding armed groups that challenge the government’s monopoly of force. Security sector reform (SSR) means reforming and rebuilding the national security forces so that they are professional and accountable.  U.S. experience in Afghanistan, Iraq, Liberia, Haiti, Bosnia, and Kosovo yielded three crosscutting lessons: go in heavy, tackle DDR and SSR in tandem, and consolidate U.S. capacity to implement both tasks in a coordinated, scalable way.
This report is based on the panel presentation and the views expressed at a September 12, 2011 meeting of the Security Sector Reform working group. The panel included retired Ambassador James Dobbins, RAND Corp., retired Lt. Gen. David Barno, Center for New American Security, retired Ambassador John Blaney, Deloitte Consulting LLP and Melanne Civic, the Center for Complex Operations. Robert Perito, the Director of USIP’s Security Sector Governance Center, moderated the panel.

Since 1999, an increasing proportion of UN peacekeeping operations (UN PKOs) have been mandated to use force to protect civilians from physical violence. Although recent research and UN efforts have helped clarify that the protection of civilians (POC) is a critical and unavoidable requirement for UN PKOs, its implications for UN planning, and particular planning for the military component, prior to and during deployment remain largely unaddressed in formal guidance.  Recent initiatives by DPKO and individual missions to develop guidance, conceptual tools, and working methods to implement POC mandates have demonstrated remarkable ingenuity.

This document is intended to support those processes by drawing on recent scholarship and operational research on the challenges of ending complex civil conflicts. It seeks to apply that research to better employ the military capabilities of UN PKOs to alter conflict dynamics in order to end attacks on civilians. Drawing on lessons from recent UN PKOs and interviews with mission personnel from a wide variety of contexts, it proposes a shift from a primarily reactive approach based on crisis response, to a proactive one that seizes the initiative and applies pressure on armed actors responsible for violence against the civilian populace.

While UN peacekeeping is in need of overarching reforms, it is too easy to forget the essential role it plays in promoting U.S. foreign policy goals. UN peacekeeping missions underpin stability in Lebanon, Haiti, Somalia, and the Indo-Pakistani border region of Kashmir. UN missions are also critical to solidifying American gains after U.S. troops leave; it is UN peacekeepers who have prevented the resurgence of violence in post-conflict areas like the Sinai desert, Bosnia, and Kosovo. In an era where a dwindling number of allies are willing to contribute to international peace and security, the UN is a reliable partner with the United States in many troubled regions--often willing to work alongside, or in lieu of, U.S. soldiers.

As Washington gears up for a tough budgetary fight, the White House must make the case for UN peacekeeping. At no other time in its sixty-three-year history has UN peacekeeping needed the United States more, nor has the United States ever needed UN peacekeeping so much. And only by shoring up support at home can President Barack Obama establish a platform for more vigorous U.S. leadership at the UN.

http://www.cfr.org/peacekeeping/case-un-peacekeeping/p24277

The African Union (AU) dubbed 2010 the year of ‘peace and security in Africa’. For the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) it has been anything but. Not only has AMISOM continued to suffer heavy casualties but several non-governmental organizations have accused it of killing hundreds of civilians through indiscriminate shelling of residential areas. There is near-universal agreement that AMISOM in its current form is incapable of fulfilling its mandate to help bring peace and stability to Somalia, but time is running out to find an alternative.

Read the rest of his essay here on SIPRI's website.