Contemporary PSOs - The Primacy of the Military and Internal Contradications

Contemporary PeaceSupport Operations:The Primacy of theMilitary and InternalContradictions

Kobi Michael1 and Eyal Ben-Ari2

AbstractIn this article the authors examine two set of issues that constrain contemporarypeace support operations (PSOs): one centered on the kinds of knowledge prevalentin PSOs and the second involving the organizational structures that characterize them.The authors’ aim is to show the deep discursive and structural limitations and contra-dictions that continue to characterize the actions of armed forces and the dominanceof militaristic thinking within PSOs. This article centers on multidimensional peace-keeping marked by emphasizing two main points in regard to the complex natureof such peacekeeping. First, Western military thinking is still dominant in the profes-sional discourse of peacekeeping despite the fact that in many cases it is less relevantto the arenas where it is applied (in weakened or failed states). Second, forces insecond-generation peacekeeping missions are by definition a form of hybrid organiza-tions, and therefore conceptual changes in regard to PSOs not only involve the realmof knowledge but also entail practical consequences for the very organizational meansused to achieve their aims. The authors’ analysis demonstrates the blending, hybridi-zation, and linkages that are an essential part of PSOs as processes that carry bothadvantages and disadvantages for organizational action.

1Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer-Sheva, Israel2Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel

Corresponding Author:

Kobi Michael, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Conflict Resolution, PO Box 653, Beer-Sheva 84105,

Israel

Email: [email protected]

Armed Forces & Society37(4) 657-679

ª The Author(s) 2011Reprints and permission:

sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.navDOI: 10.1177/0095327X10390467

http://afs.sagepub.com

Keywordspeace support operations, hybridization, civil–military cooperation, COIN, failedstates, state building, cultural intelligence, militarized humanitarianism, militarydiscourse, structural violence, social engineering, humanitarian intervention, humansecurity, irregular warfare

Peace support operations (PSOs) have become the most important means for the inter-

national community to intervene in conflict-ridden areas. Their primary aim is creat-

ing political change in these areas by reducing the level of violence and addressing the

deep roots of structural violence to end the conflict. Since the end of the cold war,

most conflicts around the world have been intrastate ones that occur in weakened and

failed states where political systems no longer function by exercising effective sover-

eignty and can no longer ensure a monopoly over the organized use of force. These are

often states where local politics takes place under the patronage or backing of differ-

ent militias serving a diversity of interests including economic ones.1 In such situa-

tions conflict often escalates and local violence travels across state borders to

endanger regional or even global stability and security. In such contexts, change

implies transforming local social and political orders.

The complexity and risk of intrastate conflicts and their potential to become inter-

locking conflicts,2 defined as having geo-strategic meaning—such as Somalia, Iraq,

or the Balkans—very often bring about the involvement of forceful Western interven-

tion by the professional militaries of the industrial democracies . This military inter-

vention is seen as necessary to stabilize the operational arena and to lower the level of

violence so that the police and civilian components of a mission can operate.3

A peace-related mission that is sent to an arena marked by violent conflict and that

does not include a robust professional military force is doomed to failure.4 More

widely, the past twenty years have seen the development of new international norms

that define what is legitimately accepted by state actors. A global discourse on

human rights and humanitarian intervention (developed by intellectuals, nongovern-

mental organizations [NGOs], international organizations [IOs], and other actors)

now encompasses a set of norms, rules, and expectations defining the criteria for

proper use of military force and provides the very basis for justifying and legitimiz-

ing many military interventions.5 The global norms derived from human rights facil-

itate intervention in Third World countries to minimize and resolve suffering and

poverty resulting in the frequent use of mobilizing concepts as ‘‘human security’’

or ‘‘the militarization of aid in conflict.’’6 As a consequence, as Chandler and Rieff

contend, the integration of human rights into humanitarian work has led to the emer-

gence of a militarized humanitarianism.7 Our contention is that terms such as mili-

tarized humanitarianism, or more recently civilian surge, centered as they are on a

combination of contradictory orientations—toward armed force and toward improv-

ing the welfare of humankind—is indicative of the many internal conceptual contra-

dictions characterizing PSOs.8

658 Armed Forces & Society 37(4)

Michael, Kellen, and Ben-Ari traced out the major changes that PSOs have

undergone against the background of changes in the world of warfare.9 Building

on their work, in this article we seek to go beyond their analysis to examine

two set of issues that constrain contemporary PSOs: one centered on the kinds of

knowledge prevalent in PSOs and the second involving the organizational struc-

tures that characterize them. To be clear, our analysis should not be seen as a simple

critique of the efforts of the militaries of the industrial democracies—primarily

those of the United States and Great Britain. As we show, the past decade has seen

the development of many new ideas and concrete organizational practices in regard

to PSOs. The very move from talk about military ‘‘victory’’ to the use of more mod-

est labels as ‘‘success’’ or ‘‘achievements’’ is a prime indicator of such changes.10

Rather, our aim is to show the deep discursive and structural limitations and contra-

dictions that continue to characterize the actions of armed forces within PSOs. To

emphasize, our argument centers on both discursive and practical organizational

aspects. In other words we go beyond many analyses that see the limits of PSOs

as deriving from the dominance of militaristic thinking. We contend that alongside

investigations into discursive limitations, one needs to chart out the concrete

organizational forms and practices that characterize such operations and that

restrict their accomplishments. Without an appreciation of the specific ways—the

concrete processes or what we call tacticization—by which peace support mis-

sions are actually carried out, one misses a crucial dimension of the militarization

of PSOs.

Current-Day Armed Struggles

Since the beginning of the 1990s scholarly authorities and pundits have emphasized

the development of advanced technology and argued about the advent of ‘‘safe, clean

wars.’’11 Indeed, the very emphasis on missile defense, space assets, precision weap-

onry, and information technology in the views of many authorities idealized a very

certain type of warfare:12 armed struggles that would be accurate and distanced and

therefore almost bloodless.13 These features of ‘‘future wars’’ were closely related

to the heightened casualty aversion in the industrial democracies. However, in con-

trast to this technology-driven view, numerous researchers consistently contended that

after the Gulf War of the 1990s contemporary conflicts actually comprise ‘‘messy,’’

local wars in which ground forces continue to be of prime importance. Thus, if any-

thing, there is a growing consensus among scholars that in the ‘‘future’’ battlefield

many of the classic features of warfare on the ground—leadership, group cohesion,

the ability to withstand stress—will continue to be essential.14 Indeed, the current

American imbroglio in Iraq and the Al-Aqsa Intifada in Israel–Palestine attest to the

continued importance of ground forces.15

Kaldor claims that current-day conflicts stem from changes to the Westphalian

order of states.16 Concretely, these conflicts are dispersed in place and time in accor-

dance with the principles of guerrilla warfare because it is often unclear where front

Michael and Ben-Ari 659

and rear are and who are the warriors on the ‘‘battlefield’’ and who the supporters are

at ‘‘home.’’17 Local groups in such conflict arenas become targets for the military

because they provide aid and pools for recruiting enemy combatants.18 Such

clashes, moreover, are often intensified and ‘‘delocalized’’ by the links between dia-

sporas and local armed groups.19 Finally, the boundaries between political wars

motivated by belligerent parties on one hand and local militias, private groups, and

organizations on the other are unclear because state interests often cannot be sepa-

rated from economic, ethnic, or criminal ones.20 The Israeli–Palestinian conflict

around the Gaza Strip is one such example. Unsurprisingly, the heavy saturation

of such arenas with actors and interests makes it difficult to differentiate between

friend and foe, and thus innocents and neutral actors easily can be harmed. In such

situations peaceful activities exist side by side with terror attacks and humanitarian

operations take place in the shadow of armed struggle. Moreover, fighting is not

restricted to relatively isolated sectors but may flare up anywhere and anytime and

as a consequence conflicts ‘‘have neither an identifiable beginning nor a clearly

definable end.’’21

Rupert Smith argues that the broad move has been from ‘‘industrial war’’ to ‘‘war

amongst the people.’’22 His contention is that industrial wars are based on such

assumptions as clear differentiation between front and rear, combat between regulars,

linear organization, and decisive battles. War among the people, however, is non-

linear, is complex, is over hearts and minds, and is about creating conditions for polit-

ical solutions. Wars among the people may take different forms as in Iraq,

Afghanistan, Somalia, Kosovo, and Palestine, but all of these struggles have signifi-

cant commonalities such as malleable objectives, unclear boundaries among the tac-

tical, strategic, political, and military levels, an emphasis on force protection (and not

only mission accomplishment), and asymmetrical relations between nonstate and state

actors.

In addition to the complexity posed by these factors, today’s armed conflicts are

exposed to media and public opinion in ways that previous wars were not. Interna-

tional interventions are critically judged on television screens and in newspaper

columns.23 The media become a strategic component to be considered by strategic

planners as an inseparable part of the conflict. Political and military echelons now

find they need to explain the context of struggles to their domestic constituents, the

international community, and local populations in conflict areas. The challenge

becomes one of ‘‘selling’’ a persuasive narrative; otherwise they will face difficul-

ties in gaining the support of relevant actors. The fact that conflicts cannot be hid-

den raises major questions regarding casualty aversion and the fragility of

legitimacy of many contemporary missions.24 In today’s industrial democracies,

cultural transformations have led to erosion of martial values and less tolerance

of casualties both on ‘‘our’’ side and (to an extent) civilians on ‘‘their’’ side as a

consequence of military operations.25 This social development also explains the

emphasis found in many militaries, as in the American or Israeli ones, on force

protection.26


The Limits of PSOs: Assumptions about StateBuilding and the Role of the Military

While developments related to the contemporary world of warfare have generated a

rich literature written or consumed by military professionals, it is only relatively of

late that the military establishments of the industrial democracies have actually devel-

oped comprehensive doctrines for irregular wars.27 One of the main reasons for the

dearth of such research derives from the problems professional militaries have in con-

ceptualizing civil and political aspects of what Hoffman calls ‘‘complex irregular war-

fare’’ or ‘‘hybrid wars’’ that combine differing elements—such as conventional,

irregular, or disruptive warfare—in ways that blur their purportedly discrete nature.28

But the problem is that for many years and to a great extent still today, many military thin-

kers have used the older paradigms (and their governing assumptions) to develop new

professional vocabulary regarding PSOs. They have done so by implicitly or explicitly

comparing them to conventional wars. Various terms such as ‘‘war and lesser forms of

conflict,’’29 ‘‘lesser operations,’’30 ‘‘war and military operations other than war,’’31 and

‘‘military operations short of war’’32 all use the intensity of the conflict (high, medium,

or low) as the major parameter for defining the ‘‘new’’ conflicts in what is essentially

a military manner. Terms centered on ‘‘irregular’’ wars thus all suggest a military bench-

mark that tends to ignore the social and cultural aspects of many violent struggles.

This situation seems to characterize the first decade of the new century. As a

British commentator on the U.S. military explains, there is a continued peripheraliza-

tion of nonconventional conflicts in the world’s greatest power.

COIN and S&R [stabilization and reconstruction] operations having occupied the major-

ity of the Army’s operations time since the Cold War, and their being an inevitable con-

sequence of the GWOT [Global War on Terror], these roles have not been considered

core Army activities. The Army’s focus has been on conventional warfighting and its

branches into COIN and S&R have been regarded as a diversion, to be undertaken reluc-

tantly, and preferably by Special Operations Forces and other specialists, many of whom

are Army reserves [periphery].33

A broader example is the continued UN emphasis on spectrums of conflict related to

PSOs (peacemaking, peacekeeping, and peacebuilding) where conflicts are waged on

a scale nearer or further away from conventional war.34 Yet another indicator is that

whereas in the 1990s peacekeeping was doctrinally distinct from war fighting, all the

major powers—the United States, United Kingdom, France, and India—now place it

within a range derived from the intensity of conflict.35

Military thought centered on the revolution in military affairs (RMA) has rein-

forced this trend. This ‘‘revolution’’ was basically driven by advances in technology

applied to military munitions, communications, and intelligence and (on the basis of

these improvements) certain organizational and doctrinal changes. Hence, the prob-

lem as Bondy observes is that the language of RMA with its stress on information


dominance, stand-off munitions, and the end goals of a decisive battle excludes alter-

natives such as long wars of occupation.36 The result, as Sens forcefully argues, is that

many concepts such as full spectrum dominance, effects-based operations, network cen-

tric warfare, and ‘‘shock and awe’’ have led to the marginalization of low intensity con-

flict, counterinsurgency (COIN), military operations other than war (MOOTW), and

PSOs. As he ironically, if with overstatement, states, RMA has achieved ‘‘full intellec-

tual dominance.’’37

To be fair, especially since 2001, there has been a sustained wave of research on

new forms of warfare and their relation to PSOs.38 One attempt to deal with this ten-

sion between older and newer forms of military action necessitated in such missions

has been the emphasis on a ‘‘comprehensive’’ approach in the sense of working on

multiple dimensions (military and civilian) and on integrating a variety of specialized

organizations, as usefully stated by Szayna et al., ‘‘the balance of efforts needs to shift

away from military services and toward civilian agencies better suited to the work,’’39

and by Bensahel et al., emphasizing that ‘‘much of the effort under way to develop

capacity focuses on increasing deployable civilian capacity.’’40

Thus, for example, the U.S. National Defense University has published a series of

texts devoted to the place of civilian organizations in complex operations and the role

of the military vis-a-vis these bodies.41 More concretely, recent military doctrines

have been modified to include such subjects as CIMIC (civil–military cooperation),

humanitarian projects, and the increasing importance of civilian and political aspects

of missions. As Burke explains, soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan now understand the

importance of reconstruction and assistance, and U.S. defense budgets have been reor-

iented toward funding COIN and stability operations, language and cultural training for

civil affairs officers, and embedding diplomats within military commands.42 The U.S.

Agency for International Development (USAID) for its part has created an Office of

Military Affairs. While not as advanced as the Americans, the U.K. forces have also

in the past few years established a unit specializing in stabilization skills.43 More gen-

erally, the establishment and work of the Provincial Reconstruction Teams headed by a

variety of countries, which ‘‘have been an effective tool for stabilization in Afghanistan,

strengthening provincial and district-level institutions and empowering local leaders

who support the central government,’’ is another sign of recent developments.44

But the problem is that much of the development of new knowledge and institu-

tional arrangements has been undertaken by the armed forces, and changes on the

civilian side have come much more slowly than among militaries.45 These trends have

led to an imbalance in terms of capabilities, with the American military seen as the

definite leader in militarizing foreign policy with military personnel performing civil-

ian roles. ‘‘Compared with the U.S. Army, USAID and the State Department are rel-

atively small organizations, with limited surge capacity to support large-scale,

complex missions.’’46 Therefore, the military seeks to have more capable civilian

partners in these kinds of operations. One of the most vexing problems derived from

this imbalance ‘‘centers on the issue of civilian agency participation in strategic plan-

ning and implementation.’’47


More significantly, the basic approach in most new missions is still derived from

the predominant forms of modern warfare where definitions of aggression are

ensconced in international law.48 New attempts at conceptualizing contemporary cir-

cumstances are Hoffman’s definition of ‘‘hybrid wars’’ characterizing the multiple

dimensions and omnidirectionality of modern warfare and Smith’s definition of ‘‘war

amongst the people’’ that suggest alternative paradigms to that of industrial war.49 But

these two exceptions as well still use the term war as a central core for considering

present-day struggles.

A major report for the U.S. Institute of Peace suggests that what is essentially lack-

ing in many contemporary missions is simply guidance for (a comprehensive) strat-

egy.50 We, however, argue that problems in such operations center on their

continued militarization. It is in this light that terms such as humanitarian intervention

and human rights protection operations should be seen.51 Similarly, notice how

‘‘other’’ missions are militarized in a statement by the then U.S. Secretary of State

Colin Powell: ‘‘The NGOs are such a force multiplier for us, such an important part

of our combat team.’’52 Such instances are based on the premise that present-day mis-

sions are and should be carried out within what are essentially military modes of

action. Similar premises underlie claims about the importance of security considera-

tions over other concerns and the predominance of the military over other organiza-

tions in PSOs.

Such assumptions are related, no doubt, to sequential aspects of many missions in

which security and stabilization must precede any other effort.53 But when exam-

ined closely, it seems that the very concepts with which PSOs are reasoned about

are essentially military in nature. One example is intelligence, which remains basi-

cally biased toward military needs and perceptions and often is lacking in analyses

of unique local cultural dimensions that are so essential for PSOs. Therefore, it is not

surprising to find a military–academic monograph suggesting that ‘‘it may be pos-

sible to weaponize culture, specifically through the use of cultural intelligence.’’54

Put more strongly, we have no argument with the need for the military to secure

ground-level circumstances before moving on to other assignments (e.g., state build-

ing). Rather, our argument is that once civilian organizations arrive on the scene the

local arrangements, the dominant organization and (often) the continued considera-

tions centered on security are all military in nature. To reiterate, this conclusion is

not a blanket criticism of PSOs but rather an attempt at understanding their inherent

limitations.

‘‘Cultural Intelligence’’: A New Kind of Knowledge?

‘‘Cultural intelligence’’ has become a rather prevalent concept in current deliberations

about military missions.55 The move toward cultural intelligence—centered on

knowledge of the culture of adversaries—is plainly not an organizational fad for many

armed forces have adopted concrete measures to institute this kind of knowledge. For

instance, aspects of cultural knowledge are now integrated into military education,


intelligence systems, and new organizational entities, known also as ‘‘human ter-

rain,’’56 and they belong to what Hoogenboom calls ‘‘grey intelligence,’’ or the

increasing mix of intelligence gathering operations involving public and private enti-

ties and formal and informal initiatives.57 In one example, the Pentagon has initiated a

program through which social scientists are embedded with brigades in Iraq and

Afghanistan to serve as cultural advisors to their commanders.58 Other instances are

the new Center for Languages, Cultures and Regional Studies at West Point and the

American Marine Corps’ Center for Advanced Operational Culture Learning.59 Along

similar lines, NATO has begun to carry out simulations and workshops aimed at

exposing forces to the importance of religious and cultural issues in missions

abroad.60 In examining the importance of cultural intelligence for PSOs, both Michael

and Michael and Kellen contend that the production of such knowledge is primarily a

response to the militarization of intelligence in such missions.61 They differentiate

between two types of cultural intelligence, claiming that the first is environmental and

necessary to develop cognitive and behavioral abilities to adapt to the context of a

mission, while the second is operational in nature and needed for understanding the

enemy and the theater of conflict. They argue that the first type of cultural intelligence

is the necessary qualification for the second that plays an important role in developing

strategies and allocating resources within PSOs.

To be sure, given the instability of the new conflicts and the number and variance

of actors within them, there is an acute need for the kind of information and analysis

this kind of intelligence may provide military and political leaders. But instituting

these measures may also create problems. Take the fact that because such intelligence

requires intensive engagement with locals it may actually go against military training

and assumptions about enemies (especially during insurgencies). More broadly, as a

number of commentators have remarked, the problem is that what is labeled by one

party as strategic intelligence may be labeled by the other as espionage involving sub-

terfuge and secrecy.62

Finally, many academics and especially anthropologists (who often have the great-

est store of knowledge about areas where PSOs take place) are highly suspicious of

collaborating with states and especially the armed forces.63 Indeed, note the very label

of a potentially innovative program, ‘‘the Human Terrain System,’’ designed to inte-

grate cultural knowledge into operational formations. The very term—likening topo-

graphy to human landscapes—is military in nature and intended to serve ends where

military thinking envelopes and integrates social scientific knowledge. Similarly, such

dichotomies as kinetic and nonkinetic as part of the discursive armature of the armed

forces in PSOs are all subordinate to military logic.

But the problems with the new kinds of knowledge necessitated by PSOs do not

end with cultural intelligence as an organizational aspect of military action. As noted,

the past decade has been marked by missions aimed at state building. While such mis-

sions usually take place in postconflict theaters, such operations are increasingly con-

ducted in situations of ongoing conflict as in East Timor, Haiti, Somalia, Iraq, and

Afghanistan. Similarly, around the world there is increasing involvement of world and


regional bodies in the reduction of violence as part of removing hindrances to national

development.64 Because of this situation, both Canada and Germany have established

formal government structures focusing on state building while the United Nations has

set up a similar Peacebuilding Commission. When looked at closely, however, it

appears that the models at the base of most efforts at state building do not differ much

from those used by social scientists in the 1950s, during the heyday of modernization

theory. In fact, while peacekeeping scholars have adopted these terms, they have also

taken on certain assumptions that many contemporary social scientists—in sociology,

anthropology, and certain parts of political science—no longer hold.

One case is the handbook titled ‘‘A Beginner’s Guide to Nation-Building,’’ pub-

lished by RAND.65 While such primers are important and sometimes useful for prac-

titioners, it is important to get at their hidden assumptions for what they reveal about

contemporary missions. First, we are told that the overall responsibility for any recon-

struction and rebuilding efforts undertaken by the United States has been given to its

Department of Defense, an agency without experience in such projects and dominated

by security considerations. The basic assumption is that such missions necessitate the

use of armed forces: ‘‘Nation-building, as it is commonly referred to in the United

States, involves the use of armed force as part of a broader effort to promote political

and economic reforms with the objective of transforming a society emerging from

conflict into one at peace with itself and its neighbors.’’66 The objectives of peace

and stability are very much oriented to security, and the very definition of state

building as a ‘‘mission’’ is indicative of its militarization.67 As mentioned earlier,

the concept of intervention, stabilization, transformation operations expresses the

military point of view on nation building missions (we prefer the term state building,

which is less patronizing), although such assignments are far more complex and

should not be reduced to only security considerations.68 A comprehensive report

published by RAND in 2009 describes the imbalance between the security and mili-

tarily considerations versus the civilian and political ones by stating and warning

that

if nation-building remains a foreign-policy priority for the United States but the majority

of resources and capabilities for that priority are concentrated in DoD, that organization,

which already has the military missions under its control, will become the lead agency

for a major component of U.S. foreign policy. Such a development would weaken the

role of the State Department, both at home and abroad. It would raise concerns about the

weakening of civilian control over military policy and undermine U.S. diplomatic efforts

around the world.69

The second hidden assumption in these materials is that nation building is predicated

on the state as the proper unit for any kind of transformation. The ultimate goal of cre-

ating a safe and peaceful country is to be achieved, according to the guidebook,

through a linear (albeit complex) process. This assumption is reflected in the way that

the report’s text is constructed with each stage forming a precondition for the next.


The final goal of this linear process, moreover, is envisaged as a country that is very

similar to Western liberal democratic states: ones with stable legal frameworks; inde-

pendent political parties; a free press; civil society; constitutional frameworks for free

elections; and fostering economic growth, the reduction of poverty, and improvement

in infrastructure.70 Here the end state—including rule of law, participatory politics, a

sustainable economy, and social well-being—is very much constructed along the lines

of an ideal Euro-American state. Such expectations reflect a rather ethnocentric

approach in that the key endeavor of state building appears to be to try to adapt the tur-

bulent conflict arena to Western political norms.71

The third hidden assumption at base of such handbooks is that the complex set of

processes encapsulated in state building can be implemented through planned and

intentional social engineering. Thus, for example, the report uses such words as ‘‘refa-

shioning’’ societies or ‘‘close oversight, mentoring and institutional change’’ to char-

acterize the kind of action needed for a successful state building mission to take

place.72 This basic approach rooted in metaphors of industrial engineering is encap-

sulated in the following statement: ‘‘Mismatches between inputs, as measured in per-

sonnel and money, and desired outcomes, as measured in imposed social

transformation, are the most common cause for the failure of nation-building.’’73 Sim-

ilar postulates deriving from this manual that provides recipes for action are found in

the suggestion to ‘‘dial down the objective if resources are likely to be limited.’’ In the

practical world, this social engineering orientation has already begun to be implemen-

ted with the recruitment by the Pentagon of academics from engineering, statistical

sociology, mathematical economics, and computer science to model the social beha-

vior of Iraqis.74 This kind of emphasis, unsurprisingly, fits very well with the military

viewpoint that is basically oriented to top-down processes. But the problem is that the

processes of creating social trust or even a modicum of agreement in most of the soci-

eties where one finds PSOs necessitate bottom-up processes.

Against this background it may be clear that new types of knowledge are necessary

for successful PSOs. Given that the academic disciplines within which studies of

peace-related missions have been rooted are overwhelmingly political science, inter-

national relations, and security and conflict scholarship, it is not surprising that on top

of the militarization of concepts one also finds their securitization. Problems, chal-

lenges, and threats are mainly framed by military-security lens and concepts, and

therefore it is not surprising that most problems are characterized as security problems

that should be handled by security means. As Michael ironically observes, a surgical

diagnosis can never lead to a homeopathic prognosis.75

But if one wants to understand the broader social context of PSOs, then it seems

that the real challenge lies in bringing in knowledge rooted in political economy,

anthropology, and sociology. This kind of knowledge, it appears, is the key to any

kind of long-term transformation of the violent societies within which peace forces

are deployed. As Last asserts, theorists of MOOTW and COIN are almost totally

oblivious to the growing literature on moral economy or social capital in societies

around the world.76


More broadly, Bhatia contends that whereas the various forms of political involve-

ment in peace-related missions are by now predictable, economic reconstruction has

hardly been examined.77 And indeed Bhatia calls for a renaissance of research on the

economic dimensions of postconflict situations like the one that is already occurring

in regard to war economies. More concretely, Last argues that it is crucial to examine

the incentive structures and political arrangements that may lead to change in war-torn

societies.78 For instance, the differing incentive structures that women and men are

embedded within may provide different levers for change. Hence, in working for

reconstruction, we need to be aware of how local power structures are an inherent con-

sideration in providing for livelihood or how nonstate actors in regional and informal

economies should be part of any long-term solution.79 One example is thinking about

how to bring criminalized elements such as warlords and gangsters who want to legit-

imate themselves from the black and gray economies into the lawful market.80 More

broadly, Bellamy argues that one needs to add critical, theoretical thinking about

peacekeeping to the more instrumental problem solving, which characterizes many

missions.81 Only such an addition will allow us to understand whether well-

meaning PSOs do no more than reproduce the social and cultural structures that cause

violent conflict in the first place. To conclude this section, then, what seems to be

missing is a demilitarization of thinking about PSOs. Thus, underlying our analysis

is a critique of approaches that disparage any such focus on discourse as ‘‘mere rheto-

ric.’’ We strongly argue that while discourse does not fully carry over into conduct on

the ground, its power lies in framing understandings of the world in which we live and

in guiding us in acting upon it. It is for these reasons that for any real change in PSOs

to take place one needs to demilitarize the way they are reasoned about and the ways

in which such reasoning guides concrete prescriptions for action.

Military Formations: The Tacticization of Strategy

Tresch persuasively argues that despite variations among them, military cultures

around the world (and especially in alliances like NATO) have strong commonalities

facilitating their working together.82 These commonalities center on such character-

istics as a focus on collective violence necessitating close coordination, strong hierar-

chies, clear chains of command, readiness of soldiers to put their lives and bodies at

risk, and the importance of morale and cohesion. The relative straightforwardness

with which different armed forces work together, however, has inevitably raised spe-

cial questions about cooperation with civilians because PSOs are multidimensional

entities composed of diverse organizations (e.g., state bodies, IOs, NGOs, and private

companies). PSOs involve large numbers of civilians to handle political and develop-

mental responsibilities and police to handle security tasks.83 This trend has meant a

greater need for coordination and cooperation in interagency, interministerial, or indeed

intergovernmental projects because of the entities they involve, each of which brings

different approaches, capabilities, interests, and commitments to missions. As a conse-

quence, a number of administrative measures have been put into place to facilitate


interorganizational collaboration and assistance. To cite one example, in 2005 the U.S.

State Department established a new Office of the Coordinator for Reconstruction and

Stabilization to help organize the transition from conflict to ‘‘sustainable stability.’’84

Along these lines, a number of commentators have suggested that the main prob-

lems with PSOs are technical or organizational in nature. Among the difficulties that

missions in Iraq and Afghanistan have encountered are a lack of language skills

among CIMIC officers, heavy restrictions on civilian movements in conflict areas,

lack of funding on the part of the state department and other foreign offices, lack

of support for diplomats to pursue careers through cross-agency postings, and a short-

age of U.S. foreign service officers.85 Hence, in such places soldiers ‘‘occasionally

grumble about either the absence or ineffectiveness of diplomats or humanitarian

assistance or development officials. But they have essential moved on, willing to take

on tasks conventionally seen as the remit of civilian agencies.’’86

Yet the technical and organizational problems plaguing PSOs are broader. For

example, there are deficiencies in organizational learning in many missions given

their ad hoc nature and short-term orientation, limiting training opportunities where

staff turnover is high. These predicaments are intensified by the multinational and

multilateral character of PSOs, making them organizational frameworks that lack

innate coherence and unified command systems. A further set of issues that has

caused much consternation involves the (lack) of civilian oversight and monitoring

of the military to make sure that it does not set policy.87 Yet, while serious, such

problems can be solved in a variety of ways such as greater allocation of resources,

more effective means of organizational learning, and supervision of military plan-

ners by civilians.88

Related arguments have been made about the necessity of creating greater

flexibility among the armed forces. For example, much has been made of the ambi-

dexterity or omnicompetence of present-day militaries, that is, their ability to move

physically, operationally, and psychologically between peacekeeping and COIN.89

These capabilities are epitomized in the idea of military units moving between tasks

in three-block warfare. But we seriously question this celebration of multiaptitude. As

Durch and England argue, it is not clear ‘‘that soldiers are collectively capable of

doing much role-shifting, as rapidly, as doctrine now seems to require.’’90 Such an

ability to adapt could be expected of a special force sergeant aged thirty-four (with

fifteen years of experience) but less of a new nineteen-year-old infantry man.

This last point touches on the very character of the military as an organization: it is

a very rational, goal-oriented organization based on maximizing effectiveness (and to

a lesser extent efficiency) with very well-defined roles and missions. These character-

istics, in turn, are very often intensified by the attitudes of commanders and troops.

For example, the ‘‘US Army’s laudable and emphatic ‘can-do’ approach to operations

paradoxically encouraged another trait, which has been described elsewhere as dama-

ging optimism’’ in briefings, appraisals, and measures.91 Moreover, the armed forces

reflect the culture of civil society form which they are drawn. In the American case—

and this is the most important one given the complete dominance of its armed forces in


Iraq and Afghanistan—the Army reflects domestic society by an aspiration to achieve

quick results, creating a command and planning climate that appear to promote those

solutions that appear to favor quick results. In conventional war-fighting situations

this is likely to be advantageous, but in other operations it often tends to prolong the

situation, ironically as the quick solution turns out to be the wrong one. In COIN terms

the most obvious example is the predilection for wide-ranging kinetic operations

(seek, search, and destroy) in preference to the longer term hearts and minds work and

intelligence-led operations.92

Against this background, we argue there is something deeper than the need for

new conceptual frameworks, a lack of civilian resources, or the greater adaptability

of the armed forces and that it is related to structural issues centered on implemen-

tation of the goals of PSOs by the military. In all of the PSOs, the assumption is that

the military continues to be the central actor even beyond the stage of pacification

and stabilization. This assumption is often reinforced by the idea that the armed

forces is the only organization capable of carrying out such missions given that

as an organization it is large, disciplined, and used to working under trying circum-

stances and wields resources. But the unintended consequence of this situation in

which the military is the central actor tasked with implementing most of the goals

of PSOs is the continued centrality of military ways of thinking and operations.

More concretely, the very assignation of the new missions to the armed forces car-

ries with it a certain partiality toward what may be called the tacticization of PSOs: the

embedding of various tasks within the ‘‘logic’’ of the military in which any goals are

translated along the command hierarchy into tactical tasks. The ‘‘engagement doc-

trine’’ implemented first in Iraq by General Petraeus and later by General McChrystal

in Afghanistan indicates the change that has begun in the conventional approach of the

American military with an emergent understanding that defeating insurgents requires

winning the hearts and minds of the population through the armed forces engaging and

empowering the local population.

The process of tacticization is further related to a structural differentiation within

military organizations between the planning and implementing levels. In our case

while in the planning sections one can often find an internalization of the new modes

of knowledge necessitated by PSOs and sometimes close coordination with civilians,

the problem is operationalizing this knowledge. Put somewhat simply, but not sim-

plistically, while the staff and planning elements are often very aware of the overall

strategy of an operation, the actions of the implementing units are often accompanied

by overtacticization. The reason for this process is that the translation between higher

and lower levels inevitably involves simplification (e.g., basing action on simple cau-

sal assumptions) so that missions goals can be translated into action. A former Chief-

of-Staff of the Israel Defense Forces once explained this process as a move down nine

levels of hierarchy between the head of the military and the strategic corporal.93 This

situation creates huge difficulties in operationalizing the abstract insights and under-

standing of the strategic level down to the level of the combat units. To be sure, civil-

ian organizations need to devise tactics as well if PSOs are to succeed. But our point is


that when the military is the dominant organization and when a plethora of so-called

civilian tasks are carried out by military forces then the translation of directives into

concrete tactical decisions is heavily colored by the very logic of the armed forces.

Moreover, as one proceeds down the chain of command, the military ethos of the

combat arms becomes stronger and therefore the resistance to the civilian sides of

PSOs becomes stronger. For example, when missions are seen as diverging from com-

bat they are often labeled negatively, as temporary tasks before returning to the ‘‘real’’

thing or as peripheral to the serious side of soldiering. To be fair, however, we should

mention that militaries may differ in this respect with the Nordic and many South

American countries deriving much pride, prestige, and (sometimes) monetary incen-

tives from participating in many aspects of PSOs. Thus, for many such countries that

have not had much experience in conventional war but are seeking professional expo-

sure and for governments wishing to focus their militaries on external rather than

internal missions (e.g., Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay), PSOs are quite beneficial and

considered the ‘‘real thing.’’ But the point to note is that no PSOs have been initiated

or led by such countries. Our point thus remains pertinent to the main PSOs where the

dominant actors are the United States, Britain, and politically and militarily leading

countries from Western Europe.

One illustrative example deriving from these debates, centered on military pro-

fessionalism, is debates about ‘‘training down’’ for ‘‘wars among the peoples’’ from

industrial war (rather than the reverse). Dandeker and Gow hence contend that while

there are differences between combat units (paratroopers vs. light infantry) and

between nations (the United Kingdom vs. Sweden) in terms of suitability for PSOs,

there still is an underlying culture of the military that contrasts with peace-related

missions.94 Indeed Aylwin-Foster’s critique of the U.S. forces in Iraq attests to this

continued emphasis.95 One major cause of the persistent emphasis on the template of

conventional war even in peacekeeping is its emotional resonance with most troops

whose self-images are centered on idealized conventional battles. This situation, in

turn, implies difficulties for motivating and allocating prestige to soldiers in peace-

related missions. As Burk dryly observes, ‘‘One strains to imagine a movie about the

‘Blue Helmets’ that would rival the ‘Green Berets.’’’96 Indeed, although there may

be differences between militaries in this respect,97 the template of conventional war

(distance from or nearness to ‘‘real’’ combat) continues to resonate emotionally with

troops from professional militaries around the world.98 And it is this continued emo-

tional resonance that may further contribute to militarized thinking about PSOs.

Organizational Hybridity: Not Civ-Mil ButMil-Civ Formations

Let us apply these ideas to two sets of innovative organizational means developed by

militaries to handle the diverse goals, mixed practices, and assorted actors in PSOs.

The first set includes the increasing proliferation of hyphenated military roles. The

move of the militaries of the industrial democracies toward adding policing or


constabulary roles to war-fighting ones during the past half century has fueled debates

about tensions between the ethos of warriors and that of police officers. Yet to the ini-

tial formulation of the postwar soldier–police officer, Moskos added the soldier–dip-

lomat, soldier–statesman, and soldier–scholar. His line of reasoning was that officers

of such armed forces need to master such hyphenated roles to perform successfully in

contemporary circumstances.99 At present, however, there seems to be an explosion of

such military roles appropriate to PSOs, so that one could easily add soldier–consul-

tant, soldier–relief worker, and soldier–alderman as well as soldier–media expert, sol-

dier–social scientist, soldier–social worker, soldier–state builder, and (the somewhat

unwieldy) soldier–infrastructure restorer.100 Yet in all of these cases it is another role

that is integrated into the military one. To put this point by way of examples, being a

soldier–relief worker or soldier–media expert always necessitates a beginning point

that is military in nature. Another difficulty with hyphenated roles involves what

sociologists term role tensions, or the kinds of internal tensions among distinctive

components of behavior of military officers.

The second form is what we call organizational hybrids, CIMIC officers that blend

different structures and modes of action within one framework. The advantage of

organizational hybrids—like those of hyphenated roles—is that they are means for

militaries to adapt to complex environments: they bring together elements of disorder

with elements of order and thus may meet the complex goals of many PSOs. Hence,

hybrid organizations are often measures militaries use to manage relations with

groups in the civilian environment and whose values, needs, and identities may con-

tradict its own. Let us explain this point through a focus on CIMIC, which, despite

its name, is actually a military creation and dominated by military considerations.

Headed by military officers, such organizations are aimed at achieving mission ends

by linking representatives of the armed forces to civilians—such as ‘‘local’’ popula-

tions, NGOs, or civilian officials of the United Nations. While the definition of the

actual components of the role of CIMIC officers differs between organizations such

as the United Nations and NATO, in general they are charged with all or a majority

of the following tasks: planning and coordinating between elements of a PSO; run-

ning joint operations centers centered on human rights, political and civil affairs,

and public information; and handing information sharing, mutual support, and joint

assessment with partners.101

The unique complexity of the role of CIMIC officers lies in the fact that they are

analytically speaking ‘‘between and betwixt’’ the military and its environment and

hence are part of actions that are not fully military or fully civilian. Officers staffing

these bodies are part of hybrid organizations because they are mediators or boundary

spanners linking the military to civilian entities and, more importantly, military to

civilian thought. They are hybrids because they embody through their actions the

logics of two or more organizations. In effect, in CIMIC organizations members wear

uniforms but also represent part of the military’s responsibility for civilians. As such,

the strength of such hybrids lies in flexibility that allows them to perceive the needs

and views of civilians and ‘‘translate’’ them into concrete suggestions that


commanders and troops can take into consideration through their actions. From an

organizational point of view, while standardization is the organizing logic of the mil-

itary under usual circumstances, in hybrid forms the opposite is true, for they are con-

stantly mixing logics, ways of action, modes of thinking:

There is also a different orientation between strictly civilian agencies and military ones.

The focus of the former is on the steady state, whereas the focus of the latter is contin-

gency response. In a nutshell, the difference boils down to a contrast between the ways a

police department and a fire department operate.102

To illustrate this point by way of example, through the work of such hybrids, the mil-

itary concurrently displays its ‘‘humane,’’ caring aspects, reacts to some civilian

demands, maintains overall control of the situation, prevents potential disruptions,

and seeks to accomplish its more strictly military missions. In this way, CIMIC offi-

cers may help to facilitate and enhance coordination through consultative and partici-

pative processes and awareness training for the military.103

But from the strictly military point of view, the problem is that while elements of

the armed forces continue to be military units they may be changed by their very

relationships with others. The difficulty in many of these hybrids, in other words,

is how the constituent units collaborate but also retain their separate identity. The

potential military disadvantage of hybrids is thus the loss of identity and special

skills of the constituent units and roles. In concrete terms this point implies that offi-

cers who serve for too long in CIMIC entities may lose some of their identification

with the armed forces and even become ‘‘pressure groups’’ or representatives of

civilian bodies. To be sure, hybridity is a need that emerges out of the complexity

and the manifoldness of the missions and components of PSOs. But because hybrids

are problematic they continue to be conceived of as peripheral to the military com-

ponent and identity. The fact that CIMIC continues to create problems is indicative

of the problems with how the military has problems with different ‘‘languages’’; that

is, different ways of thinking or reasoning. It is for these reasons that hybrid orga-

nizations have difficulties in generating motivation for success. Think of the gen-

darmerie, the border police, and the military police as examples.

The vast majority of military professionals still see their ‘‘real’’ mission as centered

on the waging of a conventional war against a threat from the regular armies of orga-

nized states or asymmetric war against insurgents using terror and guerilla methods;

professional combatants do not like protracted peace missions. One could presumably

make the argument that members of such forces as the French Gendarmerie, Argen-

tinean Gendarmaria, Italian Carabeneri, and Chilean Carabenros would not have the

kind of motivational problems that members of regular forces have. However (per-

haps unfortunately), the role of such institutionalized hybrids has been very minor

in PSOs. Thus, the dominant viewpoint continues to fit with the self-image of soldiers

(‘‘we are not ‘mere’ policemen’’) as propagated in the myriad arenas of textbook mil-

itary socialization (professional training courses), military journals and books, and


imagery in popular (military and civilian) culture derived from ideas about conven-

tional wars. From the perspective of soldiers and officers composing the ground

forces of most armed forces, policing is at best treated as ancillary to ‘‘real’’ soldiering

and at worst as something that is to be actively avoided. Moreover, military policing is

often categorized by troops as temporary before they return real missions. Indeed, this

view continues to shape the structure of incentives (and sanctions) for military perfor-

mance in the direction of regular combat duty as being more important (and therefore

to be more highly rewarded) than policing. Thus, we would conjecture that even sol-

diers from such countries as Brazil or Argentina who participate in PSOs see more

intense engagements (even firefights) as being more prestigious than ‘‘mere’’ patrol-

ling or observing as part of peacekeeping arrangements.

Conclusion

In this article we have examined the complexities involved in multidimensional

peacekeeping. Let us end by underscoring two points: one centered on knowledge and

the other involving organizational frameworks. First, military thinking in the armed

forces of the industrial democracies is the outcome of changes in the world of war dur-

ing the past two decades. As we showed, missions related to PSOs—where state build-

ing is central—are complex arenas and unequal meeting points between military

forces and other civilian components. The complexity derives from the necessity for

cooperation among the many components in a turbulent environment, while the

inequality characterizes two kinds of applied knowledge: highly developed military

thinking and rather underdeveloped (sometimes incoherent or disjointed) knowledge

about the civilian side of the mission. This inequality is reinforced by the fact that

Western military thinking is still the dominant one in the professional discourse of

peacekeeping despite the fact that in many—if not most—cases it is irrelevant to the

arenas where it is applied (in weakened states). Indeed, we would suggest that, in

effect, as the military component of a PSO is more robust, so grows the influence

of military thinking on the peacekeeping mission.

Second, forces in second-generation peacekeeping missions are by definition a

form of hybrid organizations: that is, organizations mixing not only diverse compo-

nents but also different (sometimes contradictory) logics of action and marked by pro-

blematic internal cohesion. In such organizations the encounter between the military

component of the mission and its civilian ones involves the confrontation among dif-

ferent interests, ways of thinking, and assumptions about suitable ways of action.

Moreover, as we have demonstrated, the very centrality of the military implies that

the goals of PSOs have to be somehow translated into actions that military units can

undertake. We thus suggested that this process of implementation carries an inherent

bias toward the tacticization of strategic goals. Hence, our second point is that concep-

tual changes in regard to PSOs not only involve the realm of knowledge but also entail

practical consequence for the very organizational means used to achieve their aims.


Acknowledgments

We wish to thank the editor of Armed Forces & Society Patricia Shields and the reviewers of

earlier versions of this article for excellent comments.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interests with respect to the authorship and/or

publication of this article.

Funding

The authors received no financial support for the research and/or authorship of this article.

Notes

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43. Ibid., 4

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45. Binnendijk and Cronin, ‘‘Executive Summary.’’


47. Ibid., 17.

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51. Rieff, Bed for the Night.

52. Ibid., 236.

53. Szayna et al., ‘‘Shifting Terrain.’’

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of War and Peace Support Operations, 157–72.

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in Cultural Challenges in Military Operations, ed. Cees M. Coops and Szvircsev Tibor

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66. Ibid., 12.

67. Ibid., 12.

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by the U.S. Institute of Peace titled ‘‘Guiding Principles for Stabilization and Reconstruc-

tion.’’ Another reflection regarding the American ethnocentrism in the Afghan case is

well illustrated in an essay titled ‘‘Defining Success in Afghanistan,’’ written by Stephen

Biddle, Fotini Christia, and J. Alexander Their, published in Foreign Affairs, July/August

2010, http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/66450/stephen-biddle-fotini-christia-and-j-

alexander-thier/defining-success-in-afghanistan.

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Managing International Conflict, ed. Chester A. Crocker, Fen Osler Hampson, and Pamela

Aall (Washington, DC: U.S. Institute of Peace Press, 2001), 697–718; Roland Paris,

‘‘Peacekeeping and the Constraints of Global Culture,’’ European Journal of

International Relations 9 (2003): 441–73.

72. Dobbins et al., ‘‘Beginner’s Guide,’’ 23.

73. Ibid., 24.

74. Yudhijit Bhattacharjee, ‘‘Pentagon Asks Academics for Help in Understanding Its Ene-

mies,’’ Science 316 (2007): 534–35.

75. Kobi Michael, ‘‘Who Really Dictates What an Existential Threat Is?’’ Journal of Strategic

Studies 32, 5 (2009): 687–713.

76. David Last, ‘‘Transformation or Back to Basics? Counterinsurgency Pugilism and

Peace-Building Judo,’’ in Michael, Kellen, and Ben-Ari, The Transformation of the World

of War and Peace Support Operations, 101–21.


77. Michael Bhatia, ‘‘Postconflict Profit: The Political Economy of Intervention,’’ Global Gov-

ernance 11 (2005): 205–24.

78. David Last, ‘‘Transformation or Back to Basics?’’, 101–21.

79. Sarah Collinson, ed., ‘‘Power, Livelihoods and Conflict: Case Studies in Political Economy

Analysis for Humanitarian Action’’ (Humanitarian Policy Group Report No. 13, Overseas

Development Institute, London, 2003); Kaysie Studdard, ‘‘War Economies in a Regional

Context: Overcoming the Challenges of Transformation’’ (Policy Report, International

Peace Academy, New York, March 2004).

80. Gordon Peake, ‘‘From Warlords to Peacelords?’’ Journal of International Affairs 56

(2003): 161–72.

81. Alex J. Bellamy, ‘‘The ‘Next Stage’ in Peach Operations Theory?’’ International Peace-

keeping 11 (2004): 17–38.

82. Tibor Tresch, ‘‘Multicultural Challenges for Armed Forces in Theatre,’’ Military Power

Revue, August 2007, 35.

83. Center for International Cooperation, ‘‘Annual Review of Global Peace Operations’’ (New

York: New York University, 2006).

84. Nina M. Serafino and Martin A. Weiss, ‘‘Peacekeeping and Conflict Transitions:

Background and Congressional Action on Civilian Capabilities’’ (Washington, DC:

Congressional Research Service, 2005).

85. Burke, Leaving the Civilians Behind; Szayna et al., ‘‘Shifting Terrain,’’ 22–23.

86. Burke, Leaving the Civilians Behind, 1.

87. Ibid., 2; Durch and England, ‘‘Purpose of Peace Operations’’; Bensahel, Oliker, and Peter-

son, ‘‘Improving Capacity,’’ 64.

88. Szayna et al., ‘‘Shifting Terrain,’’ 16–23.

89. Joseph L. Soeters, ‘‘Ambidextrous Military: Coping with Contradictions of New Security

Policies,’’ in The Viability of Human Security, ed. Monica den Boer and Jaap de Wilde

(Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2008), 109–24; Durch and England, ‘‘Purpose

of Peace Operations.’’

90. Durch and England, ‘‘Purpose of Peace Operations,’’ 6.

91. Aylwin-Foster, ‘‘Changing the Army,’’ 7

92. Ibid., 10.

93. Kobi Michael, ‘‘The Israel Defense Forces as an Epistemic Authority: An Intellectual

Challenge in the Reality of the Israeli–Palestinian Conflict,’’ Journal of Strategic Studies

30, 3 (2007): 421–46; Eitan Shamir, ‘‘Peace Support Operations and the ‘Strategic Cor-

poral,’’’ in Michael, Kellen, and Ben-Ari, The Transformation of the World of War and

Peace Support Operations, 53–64.

94. Christopher Dandeker and James Gow, ‘‘Military Culture and Strategic Peacekeeping,’’ in

Peace Operations between War and Peace, ed. Erwin A. Schmidl (London: Frank Cass,

2000), 58–79.

95. Aylwin-Foster, ‘‘Changing the Army.’’

96. James Burk, ‘‘Introduction, 1998: Ten Years after the New Times,’’ in The Adaptive Mil-

itary, ed. James Burk (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, 1998), 9.


97. Donna Winslow, ‘‘Strange Bedfellows: NGOs and the Military in Humanitarian Crises,’’

International Journal of Peace Studies 7, 2 (2002): 35–55; Maren Tomforde, ‘‘Motivation

and Self-Image among German Peacekeepers,’’ International Peacekeeping 12 (2005):

576–85; Liora Sion, ‘‘Too Sweet and Innocent for War? Dutch Peacekeepers and the Use

of Violence,’’ Armed Forces & Society 32 (2006): 454–74.

98. Michael and Kellen, ‘‘Cultural Intelligence.’’

99. Charles Moskos, ‘‘Towards a Postmodern Military?’’ in Democratic Societies and Their

Armed Forces: Israel in a Comparative Perspective, ed. Stuart A. Cohen (London: Frank

Cass, 2000), 3–26.

100. Karl W. Haltiner, ‘‘Do New Military Missions Require New Military Structures? Reflec-

tions on the Constabularization of the Military Form from the Perspective of the Sociol-

ogy of Organizations’’ (manuscript, Swiss Military Academy, Zurich, 2005).

101. Gary Lloyd and Gielle van Dyk, ‘‘The Challenges, Roles and Functions of Civil Military

Coordination Officers in Peace Support Operations: A Theoretical Discussion,’’ Scienta

Militaria 35, 2 (2007): 68–93.


103. Lloyd and van Dyk, ‘‘Challenges, Roles and Functions,’’ 83.

Bios

Kobi Michael, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev–Israel, Program of Conflict Resolution,

previously served as a senior advisor at the Israeli National Security Council. He is a recipient

of the Israeli Political Science Association Prize for the Best Book of the Year (2009) for his

book Between Militarism and Statesmanship in Israel, the Tshetshik Prize (2005) for the best

research on National Security, and the Yariv Award (2002) for the best publication about the

Israeli–Palestinian conflict. His recent book The Transformation of the World of War and

Peace Support Operations (coeditors David Kellen and Eyal Ben-Ari) was published in

2009 by PSI. He has edited five books about peacekeeping operations and the Israeli–Pales-

tinian conflict and has published more than thirty articles and monographs about civil–mili-

tary relations, peacekeeping operations, security cooperation, and Jerusalem’s future political

status.

Eyal Ben-Ari is a professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at the

Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He has carried out research in Japan, Israel, and Singapore

on white-collar communities, early childhood education, business expatriates, the Israeli and

Japanese militaries, and peacekeeping forces. His previous publications include Body Projects

in Japanese Childcare (1997), Mastering Soldiers (1998), and (with Zev Lehrer, Uzi

Ben-Shalom, and Ariel Vainer) Rethinking the Sociology of Combat: Israel’s Combat Units

in the Al-Aqsa Intifada (2010 ). Among his recent edited books are (with Edna Lomsky-Feder)

The Military and Militarism in Israeli Society (2000), (with Daniel Maman and Zeev Rosenhek)

War, Politics and Society in Israel (2001), (with Smita Jassal) Echoes of Partition (2006) and

(with Kobi Michael and David Kellen) The Transformation of the World of War and Peace

Support Operations (2009).


Contemporary PSOs - The Primacy of the Military and Internal Contradications

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