The Foreign Service Journal, July-August 2003

War and Peace(keeping) What a pity that just as U.S. and coalition forces are confronting the dangerous and untidy process of restoring order in Iraq, the U.S. Army’s Peacekeeping Institute (PKI), established a decade ago to study post-conflict peace operations, is about to be shut down. The Pentagon, ostensibly as part of the Army’s transformation process, decid- ed in 2002 to close this uniquely valu- able operation at the Army War College in Carlisle, Pa. I say “ostensi- bly” because this move appears to have as much to do with the antipathy of the Pentagon’s top civilian leader- ship toward the idea of “peacekeep- ing” — a concept associated with “nation-building” and the Clinton administration — as it does with cost- cutting and organizational streamlin- ing. The PKI’s functions are report- edly to be transferred to the Center for Army Lessons Learned at Ft. Leavenworth, Kan., this coming October. From 1997 to 2000 I was interna- tional supervisor of the Bosnian city of Brcko, a Balkan flashpoint. Along with other civilians involved in imple- menting the Dayton Peace Accord, my staff and I relied for security on the NATO-led Stabilization Force in Bosnia in which the U.S. Army con- tinues to play a vital role. Without the visible presence of these armed peacekeepers, we civilians could not have continued to implement our multi-pronged mandate to bring order and democratic, multiethnic government to a society fractured by war. In Iraq, too, the long, painstaking process of restoring order will require coalition military forces to provide a safe environment for civilian peace- keepers — and not just for weeks or months. The need exists, therefore, for our military to understand and support the flip side of war fighting: peacekeeping. And that need looks ready to expand over time. The Bush administration, however, seems reluc- tant to acknowledge this inevitable consequence of America’s emergence as the world’s “hyperpower.” Inscribed on the Army War College’s entrance gate are the words of Elihu Root, Secretary of War in the McKinley administration (1897-1901) and, later, a Nobel Peace Prize recipi- ent: “To keep the peace is as much the Army’s role as fighting wars.” These words are even more apt today. At no time in our history has an understand- ing of post-conflict peace operations been more important to our national security. Since 1993, the Army’s PKI has become a focal point for the study of peace operations within the military because no other service branch has established such a learning center. The institute has also drawn national security policy-makers, diplomats, academics, think tank and nongovern- mental organization representatives together with their military counter- parts for wide-ranging discussions on peacekeeping operations in “post- conflict environments.” Moreover, the PKI has published studies, pro- ceedings, and book-length documents that enrich the public’s understanding of the critically important role peace operations now play in U.S. foreign policy. Many colleges and universities rely on PKI publications for under- graduate and graduate courses in this growing field of study. Faced with a power vacuum in Iraq, the Pentagon is sparring with the State Department on how best to cre- ate an interim indigenous authority to pull Iraq back from a complete break- down of public order. What better place to turn for precedent and insight than the PKI, whose charge is the study of “postwar complex contingen- cies” — a phrase that precisely fits the current situation in Iraq. The Army’s Peacekeeping Institute would have been the ideal venue for military and civilian administrators of postwar Iraq to have assembled and forged an integrated recovery plan. Instead, an alarming and embarrass- ing spectacle of near-anarchy is unfolding in Iraq as seemingly hap- hazard calls for more troops, new administrators, more police, and health workers go out to help curb the rising lawlessness. The PKI was made to order for the kind of advance plan- ning, the Pentagon’s putative hall- mark, required for postwar Iraq. Apparently, it was not used. If the PKI is moved to a distant place and its functions disassembled, a L ETTERS J U LY- A U G U S T 2 0 0 3 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 7