PEACEKEEPING INTELLIGENCE: Emerging Concepts for the Future
Preface—De Jong Platje Steele
Preface
‘Peacekeeping and Intelligence: Lessons for the Future?’ On 15 and 16 November 2002, this subject brought together international historians, journalists, intelligence experts and military personnel in The Hague at a conference organised by the Netherlands Intelligence Studies Association (NISA) and the Netherlands Defence College (IDL).
Until recently ‘Peacekeeping and Intelligence’ was a hardly touched upon issue in military and political studies and deliberations. However, the dramatic events in the former Yugoslavia during the last decade of the previous century, clearly indicate that the planning and execution of international peacekeeping operations can only be carried out successfully when supported by adequate and timely intelligence.
The conference coincided with an inquiry by the Netherlands parliament into the dramatic events in Srebenica in the summer of 1995, when a UNPROFOR battalion belonging to the Royal Netherlands Army failed to prevent the massacre of five thousand Bosnian Moslem men. Dr. Cees Wiebes, who was a member of the team of the Netherlands Institute for War Documentation which investigated the massacre, concludes in his Intelligence and the war in Bosnia 1992-1995: The role of the intelligence and security services (LIT Verlag: Berlin/London 2003), that the lack of knowledge about Serb plans to overthrow the UN enclave contributed to the failure of this peacekeeping mission. Apart from the fact that this UN mission, for various reasons, was ‘destined’ to be unsuccessful, Srebenica was also an intelligence failure.
With this book, NISA wishes to contribute to a better understanding of the necessity of timely and adequate intelligence support for political and military decision makers during international peacekeeping operations.
The editors express their gratitude towards the speakers at the conference in The Hague. Without the high quality of their presentations and their willingness to participate in the project, the publication of this book would not have been possible. Originally based on the papers presented at the conference, the addition of six seminal past publications (and two extracts) by prominent authors has added extra value to this volume. We are grateful to the publishers for their permission to reprint.
Finally, as the editors completed their work, it was realised that three forms of reference material would be helpful to UN leaders and others engaged in the vital task of devising concepts and doctrine for peacekeeping intelligence. Therefore we added extracts from the Brahimi Report, as this mature vision could become the primary guide for broad UN reform. We agreed that a more concise version of the book, organised by level of war and by intelligence function, would be helpful even through it would repeat some points. Also we added reference pages pointing to mostly free online references, among which the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation documents on Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) have special relevance to any UN intelligence endeavour.
As the book goes to press, Canada has agreed to host the second annual peacekeeping intelligence conference—details are at the back of the book. It is our hope that this book will be the beginning of a new era in which UN peacekeeping missions have added strength from strategic intelligence (the right mandate and the right force structure), operational intelligence (complex situational awareness spanning civil as well as military dimensions) and tactical intelligence (avoiding surprise, substituting intelligence for violence).
The Netherlands Intelligence Studies Association and the Netherlands Defence College (sponsors of the conference), and OSS (sponsor of the book), dedicate this reference work to all UN peacekeepers: not only military men and women sent abroad to restore peace and stability and to protect the lives of people in a hostile environment, but also the increasing numbers of law enforcement, relief, and other civilian personnel who help the UN address complex emergencies.
Ben de Jong Wies Platje
Robert David Steele
Editors
x