The Next Peace Operation U S Air Force Issues And Perspectives

This study examines the role of the Air Force in future peace operations. The authors draw upon the experience of the US and other nations to improve understanding of how peacekeeping forces operate and shed light on how best to employ American forces. This paper reviews existing US military doctrine and examines the impact on combat readiness. The authors then suggest areas for consideration regarding the preparation for conduct of peace operations. Air Force doctrine is not required so long as appropriate doctrine for various functional areas is incorporated into strategies and operation plans. Coercive airpower can play a role in peace operations, but the most powerful contribution of airpower is likely to come through air mobility As long as the American government and public feel that peace operations will help promote national security interests, the US military will be called upon to participate in those missions alongside many other agencies. This paper neither advocates the use of military forces for peace operations nor recommends they not be employed. It address the current reality, and it should help military members understand the very unusual tasks they will no doubt be called upon to perform in the next peace operations.

This study examines the role of the Air Force in future peace operations. The authors draw upon the experience of the US and other nations to improve understanding of how peacekeeping forces operate and shed light on how best to employ American forces. This paper reviews existing US military doctrine and examines the impact on combat readiness. The authors then suggest areas for consideration regarding the preparation for conduct of peace operations. Air Force doctrine is not required so long as appropriate doctrine for various functional areas is incorporated into strategies and operation plans. Coercive airpower can play a role in peace operations, but the most powerful contribution of airpower is likely to come through air mobility As long as the American government and public feel that peace operations will help promote national security interests, the US military will be called upon to participate in those missions alongside many other agencies. This paper neither advocates the use of military forces for peace operations nor recommends they not be employed. It address the current reality, and it should help military members understand the very unusual tasks they will no doubt be called upon to perform in the next peace operations.

One of the most vexing issues that has faced the international community since the end of the Cold War has been the use of force by the United Nations peacekeeping forces. UN intervention in civil wars, as in Somalia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Rwanda, has thrown into stark relief the difficulty of peacekeepers operating in situations where consent to their presence and activities is fragile or incomplete and where there is little peace to keep. Complex questions arise in these circumstances. When and how should peacekeepers use force to protect themselves, to protect their mission, or, most troublingly, to ensure compliance by recalcitrant parties with peace accords? Is a peace enforcement role for peacekeepers possible or is this simply war by another name? Is there a grey zone between peacekeeping and peace enforcement? Trevor Findlay reveals the history of the use of force by UN peacekeepers from Sinai in the 1950s to Haiti in the 1990s. He untangles the arguments about the use of force in peace operations and sets these within the broader context of military doctrine and practice. Drawing on these insights the author examines proposals for future conduct of UN operations, including the formulation of UN peacekeeping doctrine and the establishment of a UN rapid reaction force.

This CSIS project examined American military culture -- its norms, values, philosophies, and traditions -- and the services' abilities to adapt to environmental stress and the demands of the twenty-first century.

This is the 47th volume in the Occasional Paper series of the United States Air Force Institute for National Security Studies (INSS). Among its many contributions to United States security, two noted repositories of strategic expertise within the United States Army are its foreign area officer cadre and the Department of Social Sciences faculty at the United States Military Academy. This collection of papers on Northeast Asian regional security taps the combined strength of both; its authors are four Army officers with demonstrated regional expertise, all currently or formerly assigned to West Point's Department of Social Sciences. The combined set of papers covers a broad and relevant swath of territory, both geographic and conceptual. The first paper, by Jay Parker, addresses the regional security context with special emphasis on that strategic landscape as viewed from the perspective of Japanese security and the United States' role both in Japanese security and within the broader region. Sue Bryant then fits the Korean peninsula into that regional security context, adding special emphasis on the Korean road toward unification and on the continuing U.S. military presence in Korea both for peninsular and regional security reasons. Finally, Russ Howard and Al Wilner add China to the mix and also add the third level of analysis -- their focus is on post September 11, 2001 issues and opportunities, and the specific military-to-military dimension of the United States' overall military presence and policy. Together, the papers cover the region as well as policy recommendations from macro U.S. security and military policy, to force presence, to the significant roles of individual service members.

"In the first paper, US Policy Towards Secession In The Balkans And Effectiveness Of De Facto Partition, Evelyn Farkas addresses inherently non-military contextual challenges encountered by military forces during NATO efforts to make or enforce peace in Bosnia and Kosovo. She highlights significant problems that have emerged in both former Yugoslavian states; namely, that the initial progress towards establishing stable multiethnic states has been stalled by criminal networks and the lack of functioning central governments. She concludes that civil and military peace implementers must be more aggressive in administering the protectorates NATO has established in order to advance the political and economic reforms that are needed to achieve a lasting peace. Her efforts help to detail the struggle of institution-building that accompanies peace enforcement and peacekeeping efforts."--INSS website.

This is the 49th volume in the Occasional Paper series of the U.S. Air Force Institute for National Security Studies (INSS). Among the many dimensions of national security that face unprecedented changes and challenges after the end of the Cold War, arms control has been as directly affected as any other dimension. The formal, bilateral, and verification-based arms control that was so central to that former period fits neither the new environment nor the expanded focus beyond the strategic nuclear arena. In this paper, Guy Roberts presents yet another of his insightful explanations and analyses of the adaptations and new directions that are required to give arms control continued relevance today and tomorrow. This thorough analysis of the special case of biological warfare controls follows his January 2001 INSS Occasional Paper 36, "This Arms Control Dog Won't Hunt: The Proposed Fissile Material Cut-Off Treaty at the Conference on Disarmament," in chronicling both the failure of continuing emphasis on formal Cold War-type arms control products and the enduring centrality of cooperative arms control processes in the current national security environment. In Roberts' line of argument, arms control is indeed dead, yet arms control can and must be reborn in the form of a wide range of integrally linked and multifaceted legal, diplomatic, economic, and military instruments to effectively fight the spread and use of dangerous weapons and systems.