Suchergebnisse

What role did North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the coalition (International Security Assistance Force—ISAF) it led play in the failure of the West in Afghanistan? This essay argues that the ISAF intelligence community's inability to come to grips with the complex operational environment in Afghanistan contributed to the problem. Using three concepts from the complexity literature, requisite variety, learning, and enactment, I analyze critical flaws in NATO's approach. ISAF's weak cross-cultural competence, its inconsistent relationships with international civilian organizations, and its absence of double- and triple-loop learning are identified as key drivers of NATO's weak intelligence performance.

Introduction -- Civil-military cooperation -- Cooperative arrangements for civil-military cooperation -- Process model of civil-military cooperation -- The Kabul case -- The Baghlan case -- The Kosovo case -- Cross case analysis: understanding the performance of civil-military cooperation -- Conclusions, reflections and recommendations -- Reference -- Annex 1: Data collection protocol -- Annex 2: Partnership ISAF and UNICEF -- Index

Peacekeeping helps to prevent conflict and to protect civilians. But how does it work to achieve those aims? Notwithstanding a growing recognition that peacekeeping mandates alone do not directly determine what actually happens in the field, we still know little about how—once deployed—military units translate an ambiguous mandate into action. In this paper, we focus on one dimension of peacekeepers' behavior that has become increasingly important, namely, how peacekeepers relate to other military units with whom they are supposed to implement their mandate. We systematically document how mandate interpretations emerge and how they influence peacekeepers' understanding of other troops they work with. Central to this is peacekeepers' meaning making, a concept we borrow from the sociological literature, which refers to the common and human process through which individuals give meaning to their surrounding context. Drawing on nearly 120 interviews with peacekeepers deployed to the United Nations (UN) mission in Mali (2014–2019), we identify three different ways by which peacekeepers interpret their mandate and interact with other contingents: Voltaire's garden; building bridges; and othering. Acknowledging peacekeepers' agency and the social dimension of peacekeeping has important implications for both scholarly and policy debates.

Coherence is a core objective in most multinational interventions and seems of particular relevance to UN peacekeeping missions with their increasing complexity and multidimensionality. Yet, coherence has rarely been studied empirically. We borrow the concept of 'fit' from organizational theory and use it to develop a conceptual framework to study coherence in peacekeeping operations. Fit is the degree of match between what is required by the mandate, on the one hand, and an institutional set-up and the implemented practices, on the other. We identify three relevant dimensions of fit to study coherence: strategic and organizational, cultural and human and operational fit. Our empirical material focuses on the UN mission in Mali (MINUSMA) and in particular on the interplay between the intelligence components and the rest of the mission. We draw upon a large empirical dataset containing over 120 semi-structured interviews, field observations and participation in pre-deployment exercises and evaluation sessions. Our empirical analysis suggests that low level of fit across several dimensions leads to inertial and widespread frictions in the practice of peacekeeping and could potentially undermine peacekeeping effectiveness. Building on existing scholarship on micro-level approaches to peacekeeping, we hope to further the debate on organizational dynamics within peace operations.

From a management perspective, this article presents a process model to analyze cooperation between military and civilian actors in peace support operations. By means of multiple case study research, the article applies the model to eight partnerships between the Dutch Provincial Reconstruction Team and civilian actors (nongovernmental organizations, district governors, local constructors) in Baghlan, Afghanistan. These partnerships include explosives removal, power plant construction and police training courses. The article shows that civil-military cooperation processes follow six successive steps: decision to cooperate, partner selection, design, implementation, transfer of tasks and responsibilities, and evaluation. It is concluded that there is a lack of unambiguous and useful military guidelines regarding civil-military cooperation; the military are often unaware of other actors operating in the area and their programs, cooperation is frequently supply-based rather than demand-driven, and many military personnel involved in civil-military cooperation have little experience with and training in the subject. Adapted from the source document.

From a management perspective, this article presents a process model to analyze cooperation between military and civilian actors in peace support operations. By means of multiple case study research, the article applies the model to eight partnerships between the Dutch Provincial Reconstruction Team and civilian actors (nongovernmental organizations, district governors, local constructors) in Baghlan, Afghanistan. These partnerships include explosives removal, power plant construction and police training courses. The article shows that civil-military cooperation processes follow six successive steps: decision to cooperate, partner selection, design, implementation, transfer of tasks and responsibilities, and evaluation. It is concluded that there is a lack of unambiguous and useful military guidelines regarding civil-military cooperation; the military are often unaware of other actors operating in the area and their programs, cooperation is frequently supply-based rather than demand-driven, and many military personnel involved in civil-military cooperation have little experience with and training in the subject.