Military Forces in 21st Century Peace Operations: No Job for a Soldier?

This book is about Civil-Military Relations in Peace Support Operations. The essential themes of this book are: - Neither military nor civilian agencies can act effectively alone in resolving modern conflicts; - Joint civil-military efforts are needed, and those efforts must be deliberately planned from the outset of an operation; - These efforts cannot be added on as afterthoughts when all else has failed. The record of our efforts over nearly a decade and a half since the end of the Cold War demonstrates that we are doing badly at creating civil-military partnerships, and that we are not getting better. The issues are neither structural nor organizational, they are cultural. They involve attitudes, beliefs, perceptions - positive and negative, true and false. The solutions will involve changing attitudes, moving beyond prejudices, replacing competition with cooperation. The principal mechanisms for this will be common civil-military training and education.

James V. Arbuckle is a member of the Faculty of the Lester B. Pearson Canadian International Peacekeeping Training Centre.