Soldiers and Civil Power: Supporting or Substituting for Civil Authorities in Modern Peace Operations (review)

In the troubled decade that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union, the military forces of several Western powers were frequently called upon to perform peacekeeping, peace-enforcement, and peace-building missions in regions ravaged by conflict. By definition, such peace operations occur in environments that are chaotic, unstable, and often lacking any semblance of civilian infrastructure. In such circumstances, military forces often find themselves responsible for tasks normally associated with civilian authorities (e.g., law enforcement, civil administration, humanitarian activities, and political reconstruction). In an ambitious and timely study, Thijs W. Brocades Zaalberg examines how military forces have fulfilled this role by comparing the experience of Dutch, Australian, and American military forces engaged in peace operations in Cambodia, Somalia, Bosnia, and Kosovo during the 1990s.

Zaalberg divides his study into four parts. Part I provides a historical "frame of reference" for the subsequent case studies by describing the Western Allies' experience with civil affairs and military government in Europe during and immediately following the Second World War. This is followed by a discussion of counterinsurgency in the 1950s and 1960s, focusing on the importance of civil-military cooperation and contrasting the British experience in Malaya with the American experience in Vietnam. Part II examines the United Nations operation in Cambodia (1992–93), focusing on the experience of a battalion of Dutch Marines. Part III examines United Nations operations in Somalia and NATO-led efforts in Bosnia. In Somalia, Zaalberg contrasts the frustrations experienced by the Americans with the largely successful experience of an Australian battalion. In Bosnia, the author examines the role of NATO's Implementation Force (IFOR), examining the consequences of IFOR's reluctance to define its mission in any but the narrowest, and strictly military, terms. Part IV examines the uneven but generally successful performance of NATO's mission in Kosovo.

The existing body of literature on peace operations is extensive. Much of this work, however, tends to analyze specific case studies in isolation, or approaches the subject of peace operations from Olympian strategic-political perspectives. Zaalberg's study is unique in that he adopts a comparative approach to peace operations and seeks to reconstruct events at the tactical level. In focusing on the tactical level, Zaalberg demonstrates that the degree of flexibility displayed by battalion commanders and their soldiers in the first months of an operation is key to the ultimate success of the mission. Conversely, an overly rigid resistance to "mission creep" will likely lead to failure.

It is somewhat disappointing that a study of this type published in 2005 does not include a brief postscript addressing the current challenges faced by coalition forces in Afghanistan and Iraq. Although clearly not peace operations, the state and effectiveness of civil-military cooperation in these two theaters of conflict is not without some relevance to the themes of this study. Nevertheless, Zaalberg has produced an insightful, comparative study of peace operations that should appeal to members of the academic, policy, and military communities.