Looking At so called United Nations Peacekeeping
United Nations peacekeeping is dead. This organization has been proving it since the Sierra Leone ops back in 2001. There is no chance of any success in either Darfur let alone Somalia. It is unable not only to be operationally effective but no nation wants their soldiers killed without the ability to fight back and defeat their attackers, and finally it is even unable to organize its own missions in anything approaching a coherent method. Soldiers abducted, and tortured, ridiculous arguing between commanding generals and hasty retreats of troop contingents by countries such as India, Jordan and Uganda among others are just a few of the festering open wounds.Many of the third world countries that participate in UN peacekeeping operations are paid in hard US. currency for the services of their soldiers. In essence, the UN hires very poorly trained and totally inexperienced "mercenaries" provided by cash-strapped third world countries who view this as a lucrative method for enriching their countries and soldiers for minimum effort. If the soldiers are killed or just don't return, well, so much the better; they have too many people anyway....
All armies are not created equal, let alone equal on a battleground. Third world countries produce third rate armies
and third rate armies make for third rate missions. In NATO or other non-UN operations, it's pay as you go, with a detailed formula developed over many years.
If war is too important to be left to the generals, the keeping the peace in war-torn countries is too important to be left to the international bureaucrats or politicians. These are first and foremost military operations. It has been said that peacekeeping is not a soldier's job, but only a soldier can do it. Rather than appoint a civilian to head the inquiry, how about a decorated combat veteran officer with multiple missions under his belt.
The best tool a peacekeeper has is a tank. The best peacekeepers are the ones with the best training, weapons, logistics, and equipment as well as command, control, communications, and intelligence assets. The missions listed previously all had these essentials and the will to use overwhelming firepower if necessary. This will not be the case in either Darfur or Somalia if, in fact the UN approves the missions. It was not the case in Sierra Leone. The lack of these requirements will only doom the mission before any boots hit the ground.
NATO's 50 years of standardization make it an effective inter-operable force. NATO staff work is identical across the member nations. Technology and nomenclature have all been agreed upon. Tasks and deployment times that are achievable have been assigned and accepted. Even audits to make sure that all meet the NATO standard are normal.
In Bosnia, under the UN, the contingents that were the most effective were from NATO and the ABCA coalition. But everything had to be re-invented, from orders of operational procedures to deployment under the UNPROFOR banner to accommodate third world armies. It was a disaster. But when NATO's Rapid Reaction Corps arrived, order quickly grew out of chaos.
It is deja-vu in Africa, again. Third world bush league contingents are being deployed and we watch another disaster unfold; civilians and soldiers continue to be massacred.
Before the UN dares to launch another military debacle and any European ,U.S./ Canadian personnel become involved, it should be imperative to: Establish a lead nation or alliance from the first-world, first rate armies and set operational standards for the mission; Deploy with overwhelming firepower, being prepared to use it and trained contingents for a bush type war; to move light and fast as did the Selous Scouts of Rhodesia; Do not accept contingents unless they have been properly trained and equipped...no troops with skis , please...Keep the damn bureaucrats out of all military ops. Next time, the UN can get it right.
Comments (4)
I am former USARMY and was a training NCO at our School or Americas
at Fort Benning, GA. On occassion I would train foreign troops, including
some from Panama.
But training either foreign troops or ingenious forces (i.e. our training or
of Iraqi forces) is a tricky affair. Often there is a language barrier.
Often there is little way to make a trusting training environment for them, Yes, soldiers need to trust thier ranking NCOs in the training environment. That he will not place them into some harmful situation.
You are right, not all military forces are equal. No one said war is fair.
Those same Panamian forces that I trained were latter part of the
Panamian Defense Forces. And we know what happened there.
I read the same reports of Dufar and Solomia that you are. Some have fought well. One report I read was that the out manned outpost of peacekeepers fought to the last round against a overwhelming force of Dafur tribesmen. Others will flee at the first hint of trouble.
The US Government has little ability to evaulate these peacekeeper
prior to the contract. And once the contract is done, we have even less
ability to stop new and untrained recruits from assignment to the
deployed unit.
So it is one these night mare circles of events, of decisions, of bad luck on duty assignments for them.
Sure turning everything over to NATO sounds good. But NATO is only as strong as the European leaders that wish to back it with manpower and deployments. How much NATO countries wish to get involved in Dafur and Solomia is open for alot of debate. Maybe the UN needs to better evualate what they are placing these inexpereinced soldiers into, prior to the missioning them.
Maybe leave the rough and hard places for the pros. Send the kids to the cake walks is the answer.
I also know this. Certain foreign military units of any of the countries that you mention are tough and fair as it comes. You send them to pecekeep, they will peacekeep. Even it means a few broken heads along the way.:-) So go easy there, Solitaire.
Also if you think that we can get the politicians and beuacratics from of making miliary assessments and advising career military men after they have just read a book on Alexander the Greats invasion of the Indian Sub content. :-) They simply love to have thier fingers into everything, with little knowledge of anything.
Drink a cold one!
Many of us from around the world have been trying for years to have the UN , and the NATO bureaucrats change their outlooks and operational procedures regarding military deployment into the third world. Hell, I've even gone so far as to give out copies of General De Gaulle's book The Edge Of The Sword...on the need to keep military affairs in the hands of the military. It has changed a few, but not enough minds; they seem incapable of learning from their own created debacles while actually admitting their incompetence, but as Lakhdar Brami has said, they will continue to repeat those same mistakes regardless. This is totally unacceptable to not only the various military forces of Europe, but also to the peoples of Europe whose sons and daughters are the volunteers in those forces whose lives will be on the line. So far, only France has basically allowed the Legion "carte blanche" if ever deployed into the third world. Others are for it, but too many remain timid and shortsighted as to the consequences that could happen , as in Rwanda, with the Canadian General there who allowed the massacres to take place , not acting on his own to even try and prevent it and sadly the Legion troops with the Belgian Paras dropped in too late... and now with Darfur we are getting reports that as the Chines have vested economic interests in Sudan,(oil), some Chinese military are coming in...if so, it could be highly interesting indeed. Stay well, hope you had a good Veterans Day!
The Dutch forces were very out manned and out gunned. Only several companies of the them with light weapons. Surrounding the hills of the city were an estimated two regiments of Serbs with heavy weapons.
Not good odds.
The Dutch commander delayed the release of the Muslims for as long as he could. But the Serbs were basicaly saying release them to us or we shell the city. It was going to be bad either way he choose. He saved the women and children with his decision.
The problem is that with a "fluid situation", peace keepers will get caught in the middle of such often. That is what happened here. One can call the Dutch commander dishonorable for what occurred. But a commander is only as strong as his immediate deployed force on the ground is and what he can bring in via some kind of support. It was winter, the weather was lousey and was not going to let any support coming in for him anytime soon. He was in both a box and a trap.
My thinking is that just as much as it was his failure...he was late in asking for support and failed to see what was coming in his direction.
It was also his command's for placing him there without much possible rapid reactionary support. Without enough intelligence gathering to see the Serbian coming.
These are tough calls all along the command chain. If the chain breaks, is not fully informed, is not prepped with reaction forces, only bad things happen in peacekeeping. The UN and NATO wish to deploy small force strengths in these efforts.......thinking large deployment will only heat things up......but when you don't have reactionary forces in your deployment....your small unit deployments are at risks. You watch what will happen eventually to the French peacekeeping forces in Southern Lebanon.
They have deployed with a small footprint. Hezbollah will eventually test them. By either by deployments of Hezbollah forces near their compounds (eg. just as they did with the UN Peacekeepers) or with some kind of encirclement/kidnapping/hostage taking of French soldiers/compound.
Basically it is a way to say...hey you are in our backyard.....and we have rules here.....and you need to play by our rules. We are not playing by your rules because your did not bring enough to the party.
Have a good one.
Boys would be boys?
some years ago I attended a birthday party. Krzys was 7 years old. There were a lot of guests invited and each one brought a gift for Krzys. The food was delicious: crepes with a powdered white sugar. While the guests enjoyed Krzys birthday party he unpacked and then broke all of the gifts he got into small pieces. That upset the guests horribly. There were broken guns, machine guns, tanks, small and big rackets, and even little lead soldiers all in pieces scattered allover the floor. Interrogated by his parents as why he did it, Krzys responded: I de armed the world so nobody would be killed again.
there is so much we can learn from our children.