How to Win Peace Operations: Theory Vs Practice

Drawing upon research trips to the Bosnia theatre, this paper compares the actual conduct of Peace Operations (PO) with the theory, based upon Confrontation Analysis, of how they ought to be conducted. A Unified Theory of War-Fighting and PO is proposed. A PO campaign is seen as essentially a sequence of confrontations, whereas a war-fighting campaign is essentially a sequence of battles. But this is a difference of emphasis: the unified theory recognizes that there is a confrontational side to war-fighting also, the difference being that in war-fighting the physical destruction of enemy fighting capacity is decisive, whereas in PO psychological factors predominate. In practice, however, a PO is conducted using doctrine, systems and methods developed primarily for war-fighting. PO commanders are therefore faced with the need to re-interpret and adapt doctrine and methods, and are doing this largely using individual initiative, particularly at company level, which is where doctrine and systems tend to assume that the decisive action will take place. In a PO theatre, however, important confrontations also occur at theatre and divisional level. A commander’s overall confrontation strategy is implemented by himself. It requires to be broken down by himself and his staff into supporting confrontation strategies to be implemented by subordinate commanders in confrontations at their own level. The primary task of a PO is to confront the hierarchies of non-compliant ethnic parties at national, regional and local level. Systems and doctrine tend, however, to lead to it being misconceived as to control areas of land, detect violations in them, and respond by sending resources to points where violations occur. The paper makes recommendations as to how practice can be improved in light of an appropriate theory.