Topic 1:
New/Evolving Military Tasks in Peace Support Operations

Background

Since the early 1990s, significant changes have occurred in the character of international interventions and the environment in which military forces and their civilian counterparts must work when dealing with failing or failed states. The operational challenges have been many and, with the possible exception of East Timor, successful missions have clearly not been the norm. A consensus of common concerns dealing with peace support operations during this era has been outlined as the starting point for this seminar.

The UN itself has recognized the evolving environment in which peace support operations are being conducted today and the new challenges peacekeepers are facing.  Even a cursory glance at the missions conducted during the era in question identifies many areas of concern for the military partner in peace operations:

• The operational theatre is becoming a much more dangerous place for all involved – will the military have a greatly expanded security role to play? How much force protection will be enough? Are there increased security needs for civilian elements of the UN Mission?
• Will the military alone need to perform humanitarian tasks in some circumstances? Will there be a need to consider joint military/civilian teams to work in hostile environments delivering humanitarian aid?
• If there is a need for the peace support operations partners to “stay the course,” will the military need to remain to provide a degree of security? Will there be a greater need for military involvement capacity building with the Host Nation? Will nations be prepared to contribute forces for the time required? What military force structures will be appropriate when staying the course? Will providing out of theatre rapid reaction forces become a requirement?
• Will there be a greater role for the military in law and order issues?
• How will the challenge of dealing with rogue elements be met?
• Close relations with all civilian partners will be required. How will this be done in order to produce efficient and effective partnership operations? 

Task

Close examination of recent missions will enable participants to identify all the military tasks that are new or have changed significantly and help to ensure recognition of what needs to be done in order to succeed in future peace support operations.

Based on their understanding of peace support operations in the post-Cold War era, participants were asked to: Examine those international interventions and identify those military tasks that are new or have evolved significantly; Explain how the military will deal with these new/evolved tasks in future peace support operations; Highlight any tasks specifically related to the issues of  “intelligence,” communications, or training, education and selection.

Topic 1 Results

I. New and Evolving Tasks

Additional military tasks, including those that are new or have evolved significantly, are:

Combat Mission

• Enhanced command and control
• Using humanitarian assistance as a tool of war
• Dependence on peacekeeping mission
• Difference in perspective: western militaries fight an enemy while eastern militaries battle insurgents
• Longer term commitment

Security

• Providing mission-wide security to all components and resources
• Disarming and controlling rogue elements
• Maintaining of law and order, law enforcement and civil penal operations
• Using relations with contract security
• Win hearts and minds
• Transitioning to a police force
• Development of “special police units”
• Using military in support of police to create a safe and secure environment
• Determining what law(s) to enforce
• Establishing de facto penal and judicial systems

Humanitarian Assistance

• Providing emergency aid to local populations until other agencies can take over the responsibility
• Winning hearts and minds through quick impact projects and de-mining of civilian areas
• Assisting other components in fulfilling their assigned missions

Communication

1. Establishing and maintain interface with local military and faction leadership at operational and tactical levels
2. Integrating of all aspects of information operations:
1. Disseminating information to the local population
2. Gathering information from the local population
3. Managing perceptions through effective interactions with professional media
4. Monitoring faction and “unofficial” media
5. Countering misinformation, rumors, lies and hostile propaganda

Nation Building

• Implementing quick impact projects for purposes of restoring key infrastructure
• Assisting with reconstruction efforts
• Enabling law and order and its enforcement
• Determine or re-establish rule of law
• Support to civilian police capability building to ensure improvement in law and order situation in the country
• Facilitating good governance and support to civic action
• Increasing civil military co-ordination
• Assisting civilian Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration programs
• Supporting human rights
• Reporting human rights violations
• Employing humane treatment of individuals
• Training in the area of nation building
• End state dependent upon economic stability or predetermined mandate
• End state determination made from the bottom up

II. Improving Military Management of New and Evolving Tasks

Participants suggested the following strategies for how the military can better manage these new and evolving tasks:

Combat Mission

• Support preventative diplomacy and peace making efforts. Further evolve the role of the military in preventive deployments.  If successful, these efforts may negate the need for a military combat mission.

• Emphasize active rather than passive operations. Take an active role in interagency for intelligence, information sharing, and command and control.

• Engage all of the resources and maximize synergies possible through multinational operations, which will help to meet new tasks not only in purely military in nature but perhaps even more fruitfully, for the long term success of the civil-military operation.

• Support relations between the military force and the host nation government, using the Special Representative to the Secretary General (in the case of a UN mission) as the lead.

• Develop strategies for dealing with non-state actors that are de-conflicted with political/diplomatic activities.

• To meet the challenges of enhanced command and control, train with civilians for leadership and diplomatic skills.

• Replace use of “end state” in communications with the phrase “transition goals.”

• Embed civilian technicians within the military forces during mission planning.

Security

• Plan strategies for dealing with non-state actors who have the potential for violence, in coordination with other security forces.

• The new and additional security needs for International Organizations (IOs) and Non-governmental Organizations (NGOs) civilians are complicated by the fact that while their security is the military’s responsibility. NGOs in particular do not want the appearance of involvement with the military.  Minimizing direct attacks and kidnapping of NGO workers may be partially remedied by improved coordination between NGOs and military through the use of joint teams, sharing of inputs for decision making with NGOs, and educating NGOs on where to obtain the information they require.

• An enhanced security responsibility requires adequate force strength and training, specially trained military police units or paramilitary units such as the gendarmerie or carabinieri, partnering with MSU/justice sector teams, and additional equipment.

• Train local military forces while utilizing UN military forces for security.

• Share inputs for decision making with police forces.

Humanitarian Assistance

• Assume the task of de-mining civilian areas.

• Provide for medical and basic needs when the security situation is too threatening for humanitarians.

• Focus on engineering tasks that the military is particularly well suited for.

Communication

• To make improvements in media coverage, provide situational awareness and training of forces, and of media personnel when possible..

• Utilize radio broadcasts for communicating key information to the public.

• Develop strategies to use media to military advantage to the extent possible. 

• Understand and categorize different kinds of media by audience size and demographics, political bent, intent, etc.

• Recognize and acknowledge publicly that the professional media cannot be managed by the military.

Nation Building

• To address the need to increase civil military co-ordination, synergize the existing mechanisms within the current structure.

• Facilitating good governance can be effected through:
• Protecting of key personnel and installations
• Vetting of military and judicial officers
• Facilitating educational efforts in good governance
• Rebuilding the host nation military
• Supporting the conduct of elections
• Conducting negotiations
• Providing support to existing police forces

• Nation building tasks may be more readily accomplished through the increased use of reserve personnel who have skills and knowledge useful for the rebuilding or building of civil society.

• As nation building is a daunting, complex and resource intense group of intertwined activities, partnership with other stakeholders will contribute to overall success. As one example, support relations with local leaders.

• The military may develop new skills and receive additional training to enhance their ability to complete new tasks that apply to nation building.

• To facilitate law and order, the military can support police actions, provide additional training to its members in riot control, and disseminate intelligence and information to the civilian police.

• Consider development of a civil defence force, carabinieri, or gendarmerie as options to separate military and police.

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