The United Nations has been quite unambiguous in articulating what it can and cannot do in terms of peace support. Basically, it cannot do much beyond Chapter VI peacekeeping in the realm of military intervention. African coalitions, on the other hand, have proven themselves capable of conducting fairly sustained multinational operations that have involved some heavy combat engagements. Since 1990, African multilateral interventions have developed a momentum of their own, and have increasingly leaned towards some type of peace enforcement, rather than regional peacekeeping operations in a benign security environment.

The principles guiding such interventions have yet to find expression in a realistic intervention doctrine, informed by practice, that goes beyond the ‘right of humanitarian intervention’ and paying lip-service to An Agenda for Peace. From an institutional and legal point of view, the issue of developing multilateral intervention doctrine is a global one. In practice, however, the problem is more pressing in some regions than in others. Africa and the Balkans, for example, have emerged as the most dangerous and challenging environments for the conduct of contemporary peace operations.

The member countries of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) have articulated some serious lessons from their experiences in the Balkans, and are at an advanced stage of developing doctrine for more ‘robust’ interventions. On the other hand, the mainstream debate on multilateral intervention in Africa, which is shaped to a large degree by Western powers, continues to focus on the need for more ‘UN-type’ peacekeeping training for African soldiers. There have thus been few meaningful advances in conceptual thinking on the principles and limits of regional or coalition peace operations in Africa.

At the global level, there is also substantial divergence with respect to what should or should not be done under the banner of peace support operations — a divergence rooted particularly in the Cold War division of the world into two opposing military-ideological blocs. The confrontation between the erstwhile USSR and the West effectively divided the world into two large doctrinal blocs, with less developed countries adopting either Western-style doctrines, often modeled on British or French ideas, or Soviet-style doctrines, with active Russian involvement at all levels of their military development. The Cold War doctrinal legacy therefore remains prominent in many developing countries.

A central problem is thus posed by the remaining discrepancy between the Soviet conception of doctrine and the Western conception. When Russians discuss their ‘military doctrine’, they naturally include political principles — such as doctrinal statements about the right to intervene in the so-called ‘near abroad’. This means that numerous international discussions on principles and doctrine for multilateral military interventions in support of peace have never really taken off.

The African debate on peace support operations suffers from all these maladies. The colonial heritage saw a rough divide between those African militaries that espoused French doctrine and those that espoused British military doctrine. The situation was exacerbated during the Cold War, when the armed forces of many countries were trained according to Russian/Chinese-style military doctrine. Indeed, there are some cases (for instance in warlord armies) where it is not clear that there is any military doctrine at all. On the positive side, it may be said that Africans collectively have some direct experience with the military doctrine of four of the permanent five Security Council members — and that they may be uniquely placed to unify or synthesise such thinking into a viable doctrine for multinational peace operations.

It is against this background that an international workshop with the theme Towards a global consensus on peace support operations: The African dimension, was convened in Pretoria from 21-23 October 1999. This monograph is the product of the workshop, which was organised by the ISS under the auspices of the Norwegian-funded Training for Peace Project, in collaboration with the Czech Institute for International Relations (IIR). The Pretoria workshop followed two related events that took place during 1999, with a similar theme. From 28-31 May 1999, an international workshop on Integrated military doctrine: Towards a global consensus on peace support operations was presented in Prague by the IIR and the ISS. This was followed, from 24-26 August, by a Southern African regional workshop on Integrated principles for peace support operations, held at the SADC Regional Peacekeeping Training Centre, Harare, Zimbabwe.

As the theme suggests, the events in this series have been motivated by a need for greater conceptual clarity on principles and doctrine for the conduct of increasingly complex peace support operations. While the Prague event focused on the policy end of the debate, the Harare workshop, attended by military experts, concentrated more on the implementation side of peace support. The results of these two workshops served as an introduction to the Pretoria event, which brought together both academics and practitioners in an effort to advance understanding through a synthesis of both levels of experience and analysis. It would be extremely difficult to capture the essence of three days of intense and informative debate, and to do justice to the contributions of all the dedicated participants who engaged in this debate. This monograph is therefore a compilation of edited texts of most of the formal presentations that were made — interesting reading for anyone who is concerned with the challenges of conflict termination through the medium of third-party military intervention.

The nine articles in this publication are of uneven length and differ in the depth and scope of analysis conducted on the respective topics. Some are the product of academic research and reflection, while others are more descriptive and anecdotal — especially the contributions by former peacekeeping commanders and practitioners. Some of the latter articles also contain a degree of overlap in terms of subject matter, but they have not been excluded as each practitioner interpreted events from a somewhat different angle. The result is a remarkably detailed exposition of the status of international peacekeeping in all its guises — from UN peacekeeping to the NATO and Russian variants, with special focus on the African variety of regional intervention.

Annika Hansen makes an attempt to define or delineate some universally applicable principles on when, where and how third-party intervention should take place. The title, Lines in the sand: The limits and boundaries of peace support operations, is very apt, for it appears that there are more exceptions than rules, and that the limits and boundaries shift with each new act of multinational intervention. Nevertheless, this is a brave attempt at circumscribing what should or should not be done under the rubric of ‘peace support operations’.

Espen Barth Eide’s contribution, entitled Peace support in the Balkans: Lessons for Africa? consists of an appraisal of the decade-long crisis in the Balkans, which has confronted Europe with a seemingly ever-lasting series of challenges in the field of conflict prevention, peacekeeping, peace enforcement and post-conflict peace support. He highlights a series of lessons to be drawn from Europe’s many attempts to make peace in the Balkans, that should be of interest to peacekeeping practitioners, as well as scholars specialising on specific regions — including Africa. This in no way suggests that Europe has anything like an established model of peacekeeping and peace support operations that simply can be transferred to other parts of the world. But Europe’s experiences matter, not the least because the reference to the events in the Balkans is such a central part of contemporary doctrine development in the field of peace support operations — including the trend towards the regionalisation of peacekeeping efforts.

Another potential source of insight for the development of peacekeeping in Africa is the experience that has been gained by the Russian Federation in both UN international peacekeeping and the regional variety of operations in the territory of the former USSR. Michael Yermolaev’s article on Russia’s international peacekeeping and conflict management in the post-Soviet environment reveals that Africa is not unique as a region that seemingly confounds effective intervention by the UN in order to restore or maintain peace and security. Obviously a no-go area for the type of new NATO peacekeeping covered by Eide, instability and conflict in the ‘Near Abroad’ have compelled Russia and some partners in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) to become leading exponents of the art of ‘backyard’ peacekeeping. The lessons that emerge are rather similar to those of Nigeria and its partners in the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) from interventions in the West African region.

Before elaborating on the regional peacekeeping theme, there are two contributions by former UN force commanders on lessons from UN missions in Africa. Henry Anyidoho addresses the topic of Political control and guidance of peace support operations in Africa from the perspective of a UN commander. He highlights the necessity for firm and enlightened political control and guidance of the military in peace support, and advances some practical suggestions on how to improve this aspect of UN missions. Similarly, Philip Sibanda’s paper on United Nations operations in Southern Africa: Mandate, means and doctrine in UNAVEM III points to some of the deficiencies of UN peacekeeping in Africa, without suggesting that the concept should be reinvented.

The following two contributions are by Nigerian Army officers, focusing on regional peacekeeping efforts under the auspices of ECOWAS. Maxwell Khobe provides an excellent and comprehensive overview of The evolution and conduct of ECOMOG operations in West Africa, while E T Dowyaro highlights the concept of ECOMOG operations in his contribution, entitled ECOMOG operations in West Africa: Principles and praxis. Collectively, the contributions by these regional force commanders provide a good deal of thought-provoking insight into one of the most ambitious attempts to foster regional peace and security through the interventions of a regional coalition in ruinous armed conflicts that place entire civilian populations at risk. While there is admittedly a degree of repetition in these contributions, editing has been kept to the minimum in order to preserve the unique perspectives of both practitioners as they relate the tale of ECOMOG.1 Of particular interest are a number of ‘doctrinal statements’ that should inform the debate on the concept and conduct of future regional peace operations in Africa.

Many commentators have looked to South Africa to form the nucleus of a Southern African capability for regional third-party intervention to stabilise situations of ongoing or potential armed conflict, in much the same way as Nigeria has been the lead nation for West African efforts. Pretoria has failed to deliver on these expectations, articulating a clear preference for the world of mediation and peacemaking diplomacy — with the exception of a brief military foray into Lesotho. From this limited experience, Theo Neethling extracts a fairly comprehensive list of lessons in Conditions for successful entry and exit: An analysis with specific reference to SADC allied operations in Lesotho.

The final contribution by Mark Malan, is appropriately titled Peace support operations in Africa: The unresolved issues. The list of issues that need to be resolved in order to arrive at a viable concept for conducting peace support operations in Africa is potentially a mile long. It can feed off the seemingly endless lists of lessons observed from past peacekeeping endeavours, such as those articulated in this monograph, or it can rather focus on a number of big issues which, if resolved, may change the nature of peacekeeping as it is known in Africa. The author has chosen the latter approach, addressing three core questions:

While he does not come much closer than Annika Hansen in reaching clear answers, Malan asserts that the development of an unambiguous policy on how to intervene in African conflicts will go a long way towards clarifying the first two issues.