Nor is doctrine for the military elements of peacekeeping missions free from thinking of like kind. Doctrine frequently stables peacekeeping with inappropriate companions. Some armies represent peacekeeping on a
spectrum of military activities depicting such things as counter insurgency, intervention and peace enforcement. In deciding when peacekeeping is appropriate, for example, US policy seeks to determine: " ... an understand-ing of where the mission fits on the continuum between traditional peace-keeping and peace enforcement."" Indeed, the perception of a spectrum linking peacekeeping and peace enforcement appears to dominate US thinking at all levels. Its effect is to classify Peacekeeping in an adversarial context with peace enforcement, linking it directly on a common scale separated only by degrees of intensity. Peacekeeping is depicted as a scaled down version of peace enforcement. The pig is, in effect, regarded as a small species of parrot. What makes peacekeeping different from peace enforcement, argue such doctrines, is the level of violence and intensity of activity.
Objection to this goes beyond pedantry. The intellectual confusion of such an approach can have serious practical consequences. It can lead to
peacekeeping being subject to a set of common principles that impose combatant adversary-orientated attitudes on the impartial third-party activities that constitute peacekeeping. Pigs are, as it were, being urged to fly. But the fundamental difference between the two creatures places them on separate scales. Pigs can't fly - just as parrots can't root for truffles. The spectrum approach is characterized by theories that identify some sort of middle ground between peacekeeping and peace enforcement - middle ground that is argued must now be occupied post Cold War. This middle ground is variously termed Chapter VEl, (a much misused term"), 'aggra-vated peacekeeping' or 'Level Two'. John Ruggie illustrates this approach when he argues for a military strategy in the "doctrinal void" between peacekeeping and peace enforcement that seeks to "deter, dissuade and deny". He concludes his proposal:
UN peacekeeping has already been pushed too Jar, and UN-sanctioned military enJorcement will continue to be a rarity. The domain oJ a
potentially enhanced UN military role occupies the space between those two. 41
Such 'middle ground' theory derives from the illusory logic ofa common scale. Peacekeeping requires a referee, peace enforcement demands a player. The referee can be strict or easygoing, authoritative or ineffectual -but he will always be a referee. The player may be good, bad, orderly or disorderly - but he will always be a player. There is no middle ground that lies between player and referee - he can only be one or the other. If tries to be both at the same time his performance of one will prejudice the status of the other. So it is with the peace keeper and peace enforcer. Logic, pragma-tism, experience and history unite to refute such a dangerously
destabilizing philosophical approach. The betraying characteristic of such middle-ground theories is the downgrading of consent from critical deter-minant to take-it-or-Ieave-it option.
Another example of this approach is the draft concept for 'Second Generation Multinational Operations' which propounds a theoretical
130 DEFENCE STUDIES 4f1994
framework for post Cold War peacekeeping operations on the premise that new operational categories of task challenge the traditional thresholds of peacekeeping. The concept argues:
In second generation operations the initiative and support oJ the Security Council remains the primary driving imperative, but success relies less on the consent oJ locally opposed parties ... As the consent oJ local parties in conflict becomes less available, the UN's impartiality will be defined by the terms oJits mandate and not by the traditional acceptance oJ its restricted conduct and presence."
Second Generation Multinational Operations contains much useful analy-sis on the classification of peacekeeping tasks. However, such middle-ground (in this case "Level Two") doctrines tend generally to lack empha-sis on the consent factor and draw insufficient attention to those principles and techniques that might promote consent or develop public perceptions.
Richard Connaughton argues a middle-ground theory using the spectrum approach. Again, the giveaway is his downgrading of consent: "Consent and impartiality are far too fragile to serve as a fulcrum around which a sensible doctrine can be built""
Adam Roberts recognizes the shortcomings of 'middle-ground' theory when he describes the central difficulty in the expansion of UN peacekeep-ing tasks as the blurrpeacekeep-ing of the lines between peacekeeppeacekeep-ing and coercive action. "This is intimately linked" he writes, "to a tendency to down-grade the requirement of consent of the parties as a pre-condition for setting up and maintaining a peacekeeping operation."" He goes on to recognize that this development takes peacekeeping into dangerous territory and warns against too bold an approach to the use of force - another characteristic of the middle-ground approach:
To rush into a generalized advocacy oJthe use oJJorce, all a misguided assumption that the UN can succeed where so many states and empires have failed, is to invite disaster. The risks in the expansion oJthe concept
of peacekeeping which we are CWTently witnessing, and of proposals for increased willingness 10 'LI'e force, are obviollS. Major mililary aclivilies inlhe name of peacekeeping may gelmired in conlroversy, and tainted by failure."
Roberts later administers a healthy dose of realism to emerging tlleories by com-menting:
In face of a bqffling range of problems, and the undoubled need to restore the credibility of some battered UN peacekeeping operations, it is not slOprising that many have come 10 advocale peacekeeping with muscles: including more relicOlce on major military forces and alliances. TVhile events are indeed moving in this direction, the problems peacekeepingfaces are more monerous and comp/et than sllch afonnulation might suggest.-I6
Mats Berdal goes further, arguing tl13t the basic distinction between peacekeeping and enforcement action must be upheld. He cites the forceful measures taken by US troops to disann warring factions in Somalia, although within the mandate of
UNOSOM IT, as highlighting the particular risks of attempting to combine the coercive use of force with peacekeeping objectives." Berdal believes that the
downgrading of consent (as the symptom of middle-ground themy) was taken to its ultimate conclusion in Somalia".
Denying consent its status as fundanlental criterion of what is possible, and its key rOle as detem1inant of operational activity spawns doctrine that fails to recog-nize where the sensible limits to peacekeeping activity lie. Peacekeepers are sent into situations with little or no guidance as to what criteria should guide and control their judgements and activities. The practical consequences of such doctrine and its parent philosophy were indeed annply demonstrated in Mogadishu last autumn.
They were also illustrated ten years earlier in Beirut by elements of the
Multi-National Force. Ifa tree is to bejudged by its fiui~ Mogadishu and Beirut condemn middle-ground theories.
132 DEFENCE STUDIES 4/1994