Peace support operations: A working draft manual for African military practitioners

The aim of this manual is to develop a doctrine to meet the challenges of what could be described as ‘grey area operations’.

In 1998, Kofi Annan, the UN Secretary-General, wrote, “To stand still while the earth moves forward is to slide helplessly backward. The UN must face challenges which do not fit into a neat peacekeeping package: the volatile so called “grey area” operations. If the organisation fails to do this, as was the case in both Bosnia and Somalia, credibility will be eroded even further, and it will become increasingly difficult to find troop contributors.”

When addressing approaches that seem most promising for future UN operations in volatile conflicts, he added: “If consent carries with it certain rewards, and the failure to consent carries certain costs, this obviously affects the decision as to whether consent will be granted ... Let us deal with the coercive aspect, the purpose of which is to intimidate recalcitrants into co-operating. (This was successfully accomplished in the case of UNITAF in Somalia, the Multinational Force in Haiti and, on a more limited scale, Operation Turquoise in Rwanda).”

Annan was clearly promoting a doctrinal approach which utilised a combination of consent promoting inducements and coercion. The approach is reflected in the doctrinal guidance offered in this working draft manual.

The aim of this manual is to develop a doctrine to meet the challenges of what were described above as ‘grey area operations’.