Suchergebnisse

Western armies are masters of the conventional battlefield, but continue to have difficulity prevailing in unconventional conflict. Yet unconventional missions, including peacekeeping, counterinsurgency, counter-narcotics and counter-terrorism, are the only kind that NATO or EU forces are likely to be collectively assigned for the foreseeable future. These, then, should be the focus for NATO and EU planning, training and equipping. While the UN is the cheapest, most generally acceptable and often most effective instrument for managing international military interventions, there is an effective ceiling beyond which the UN will not suffice. The UN does not do forced entries, and has never fielded more than about 20,000 troops in any single operation. Where these thresholds must be surpassed, NATO, the EU or an ad hoc coalition will be needed. Afghanistan is the next test for Western collective defence efforts. Success there will require greater EU as well as NATO engagement. (Survival / SWP)

Explores the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's (NATO's) role in nation-building, challenged by smaller Western armed forces and increasingly populous and urbanized developing societies. While NATO's capacity for peacekeeping should be strengthened, it needs to develop more reliable arrangements with the European Union, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe and the United Nations, the West's nation-builder of first resort, to ensure that these organizations contribute civil assets in support of Alliance-led operations.

Since the end of the Cold War, the United States and the United Nations have both been heavily engaged in nation-building and have developed their own distinct approaches to the conduct of such missions. In the aftermath of its early and widely publicised failures in Somalia and Yugoslavia, the UN's reputation for competent nationbuilding was seriously damaged, and demand for its services fell off noticeably. More recently, the US reputation for competence in the field has suffered as a result of setbacks in Afghanistan and Iraq. A new study by the RAND corporation indicates that UN-led Operations tended to be smaller, shorter, less expensive and, on average, more successful than those led by the United States. This divergence in performance can be explained in part by the greater inherent difficulty of some of the US-led operations, but is also a product of the UNO's greater success in learning from experience. (Survival / SWP)

Since the end of the Cold War the United States has led six major nation-building operations - that is to say, the use of military force in the aftermath of a conflict to underpin a transition to democracy. In Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan and most recently Iraq, the US has renewed with varying success a form of activity upon which it had embarked in Germany and Japan at the end of the Second World War. Study of these past missions suggests a host of lessons applicable today in Iraq, and raises the question of why, in light of its substantial and recent experience, the US government's learning curve appears so flat. (Survival / SWP)

Aus US-amerikanischer Sicht

As the demand for nation-building increases and outpaces the supply of nation-builders, the United Nations should remain the first source of nation-building activities; NATO, as another source of peacekeeping capability, should strengthen its capacity and develop reliable arrangements with the European Union, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, and the United Nations to receive civil assets in support of Alliance-led operations. NATO also needs to generate, train, and equip more troops for peacekeeping operations.