Conclusion: Military rapid response—from institutional investment to ad hoc solutions
The track record of military rapid response mechanisms, troops on standby, ready to be deployed to a crisis within a short time frame by intergovernmental organizations, remains disappointing. Yet, many of the obstacles to multinational actors launching a rapid and effective military response in times of crisis are largely similar. This book is the first comprehensive and comparative contribution to explore and identify the key factors that hamper and enable the development and deployment of multinational rapid response mechanisms. Examining lessons from deployments by the AU, the EU, NATO, and the UN in the Central African Republic, Mali, Somalia and counter-piracy in the Horn of Africa, the contributors focus upon the following questions: Was there a rapid response to the crises? By whom? If not, what were the major obstacles to rapid response? Did inter-organizational competition hinder responsiveness? Or did cooperation facilitate responsiveness? Bringing together leading scholars working in this area offers a unique opportunity to analyze and develop lessons for policy-makers and for theorists of inter-organizational relations. This work will be of interest to scholars and students of peacebuilding, peacekeeping, legitimacy and international relations.
Tangled up in glue: Multilateral crisis responses in Mali
The track record of military rapid response mechanisms, troops on standby, ready to be deployed to a crisis within a short time frame by intergovernmental organizations, remains disappointing. Yet, many of the obstacles to multinational actors launching a rapid and effective military response in times of crisis are largely similar. This book is the first comprehensive and comparative contribution to explore and identify the key factors that hamper and enable the development and deployment of multinational rapid response mechanisms. Examining lessons from deployments by the AU, the EU, NATO, and the UN in the Central African Republic, Mali, Somalia and counter-piracy in the Horn of Africa, the contributors focus upon the following questions: Was there a rapid response to the crises? By whom? If not, what were the major obstacles to rapid response? Did inter-organizational competition hinder responsiveness? Or did cooperation facilitate responsiveness? Bringing together leading scholars working in this area offers a unique opportunity to analyze and develop lessons for policy-makers and for theorists of inter-organizational relations. This work will be of interest to scholars and students of peacebuilding, peacekeeping, legitimacy and international relations.
Introduction: Rapid response mechanisms—strengthening defense cooperation and saving strangers?
The track record of military rapid response mechanisms, troops on standby, ready to be deployed to a crisis within a short time frame by intergovernmental organizations, remains disappointing. Yet, many of the obstacles to multinational actors launching a rapid and effective military response in times of crisis are largely similar. This book is the first comprehensive and comparative contribution to explore and identify the key factors that hamper and enable the development and deployment of multinational rapid response mechanisms. Examining lessons from deployments by the AU, the EU, NATO, and the UN in the Central African Republic, Mali, Somalia and counter-piracy in the Horn of Africa, the contributors focus upon the following questions: Was there a rapid response to the crises? By whom? If not, what were the major obstacles to rapid response? Did inter-organizational competition hinder responsiveness? Or did cooperation facilitate responsiveness? Bringing together leading scholars working in this area offers a unique opportunity to analyze and develop lessons for policy-makers and for theorists of inter-organizational relations. This work will be of interest to scholars and students of peacebuilding, peacekeeping, legitimacy and international relations.
Protecting Democracies from Digital Threats (PRODEM)
How are states responding to the threat of using digital technologies to subvert democratic processes?...
Critical Digital Infrastructures (KRIDI)
Protecting critical infrastructures from digital threats is a key challenge for modern states, how should the state approach and make sense of the security of privately owned infrastructures?...
Multinational Rapid Response Mechanisms: From Institutional Proliferation to Institutional Exploitation
The track record of military rapid response mechanisms, troops on standby, ready to be deployed to a crisis within a short time frame by intergovernmental organizations, remains disappointing. Yet, many of the obstacles to multinational actors launching a rapid and effective military response in times of crisis are largely similar. This book is the first comprehensive and comparative contribution to explore and identify the key factors that hamper and enable the development and deployment of multinational rapid response mechanisms. Examining lessons from deployments by the AU, the EU, NATO, and the UN in the Central African Republic, Mali, Somalia and counter-piracy in the Horn of Africa, the contributors focus upon the following questions: Was there a rapid response to the crises? By whom? If not, what were the major obstacles to rapid response? Did inter-organizational competition hinder responsiveness? Or did cooperation facilitate responsiveness? Bringing together leading scholars working in this area offers a unique opportunity to analyze and develop lessons for policy-makers and for theorists of inter-organizational relations. This work will be of interest to scholars and students of peacebuilding, peacekeeping, legitimacy and international relations.
WPS and Female Peacekeepers
The chapter provides an overview of the participation of female peacekeeping personnel in UN missions, tracing key target and agenda- setting policy events, as well as examining causes for the slow progress in female participation. The chapter considers female participation in the military, police, and civilian components of UN peacekeeping operations. It then critically discusses the drawbacks of the “gender- balancing” agenda advanced by the UN, which critics argue has often amounted to “tokenism.” This necessary, but insufficient goal of increasing numbers alone, has been prioritized over the more comprehensive and potentially transformative goal of gender mainstreaming. Gender mainstreaming in peacekeeping is defined as “a way of guaranteeing that the concerns, requirements and opinions of women and men are included equally into every aspect of peacekeeping.” Moreover, each component of the mission should include a “gender perspective in all its functions and tasks from start- up to draw- down” (United Nations 2014: 21– 22). Failing to address the complexity of gender relations and the militarized, masculine, institutional structures within peacekeeping missions themselves will ultimately constrain gender equality. Seeking to situate the WPS agenda within the broader context of UN peace operations, the chapter concludes by reflecting on some of the possible implications of the trend toward militarization and securitization within peacekeeping which will have consequences for women’s active and quality participation in peacekeeping.
Peacekeeping: Resilience of an idea
This chapter examines the evolution of the idea of UN peacekeeping, asking how an instrument developed in the late 1940s managed to not only survive but also respond to the changing geopolitical and conflict landscape over the last seventy years. Through an overview of major doctrinal developments and institutional adaptations, the chapter analyses how the peacekeeping tool was adapted from a bipolar world, via a unipolar one to today’s multipolar world. Peter argues that peacekeeping started as a conflict management instrument, which was adapted to a conflict resolution mechanism after the end of the Cold War, but has now come full circle and is again increasingly used to manage and contain, not resolve conflicts.
Introduction. UN peace operations: Adapting to a new global order?
The introduction identifies four transformations in the global order, whose implications on the UN peace operations are studied in the remainder of the volume. These four transformations are: (1) the rebalancing of relations between states of the global North and the global South; (2) the rise of regional organisations as providers of peace; (3) the rise of violent extremism and fundamentalist non-state actors; and (4) increasing demands from non-state actors for greater emphasis on human security. With the entry of new actors from the global South as important players in the peace arena, we are entering a more pragmatic era of UN peace operations. At the same time, the UN is facing a classic struggle between the promotion of liberal international norms and realist security concerns.
UN Policing: The Security-Trust Challenge.
The demand for UN police is increasing due to the recognition that functioning local police is a central element of the UN exit strategy. UN policing was never easy, but the combination of an increasing deployment of UN operations in the midst of on-going wars, and the steady increase of UN police tasks without adequate increases in resources or training, has made UN policing even more complicated in recent years. Examining both the security and trust role of police in society, Osland argues that the main challenge for UN police in post-conflict situations is to close the security–trust gap. So far, most of the focus has been on the security aspects. The chapter asks whether the UN is set up to achieve both.