The Future of African Peace Operations: From the Janjaweed to Boko Haram ed. by Cedric de Coning, Linnéa Gelot, and Jonh Karlsrud (review)

The Future of African Peace Operations is a call for a new African peacekeeping model specifically tailored for deploying the type of short-duration, intense, multi-actor stability operations that have become essential to African security. The book’s singular purpose is to propose specific mechanisms that will reconcile the way that African peace operations are planned and implemented with the new realities on the ground. In this sense, it is a narrowly focused book. There is little discussion of the broader role of the United Nations, the history of non-African peacekeeping, or models of regional peace operations that have been deployed elsewhere in the world.

Instead, the book delves deeply into the mandates and challenges of modern peace operations, the role of the African Union in these operations, newer mechanisms such as the African Standby Force, and other prominent issues currently facing African peacekeeping. Specifically, this volume was created to provide concrete recommendations, such as the need for a high-level comprehensive review of African peace operations in conjunction with the U.N., a greater focus on regional niche capabilities in these operations, and a new system of predictable, sustainable mission support and funding

This collaborative work emerged from a 2014 seminar on the future of African peace operations held in South Africa. To its credit, the book reproduces the dynamic of this seminar as well as some of the more successful international conferences on peace operations—the value of experts with different subject-matter expertise coming together to address a common topic in a practical manner. The contributors to this book include outside (primarily Nordic) experts on African security, researchers from a number of peacekeeping training centers, and academics from a range of African universities.

With its liberal use of acronyms (memorably, shortening Ebola into EVD—the Ebola virus disease) and technical jargon, this volume may intimidate readers who are not familiar with the African Security Framework. However, if one can get past the daunting array of terminology presented in the first chapter, The Future of African Peace Operations provides a good narrative background for the myriad threats challenging Africa and the mechanisms that have developed in response. The authors intended this book to be read outside the narrow expert policy circles that have generally dominated the discussion. While it is hard to imagine that someone with no stake whatsoever in African peacekeeping would delve into this work, there is enough variety of information among the chapters to appeal to a range of interested readers.

At its core the book provides a practical rather than theoretical look at African peace operations. Readers seeking a critical debate about the legitimacy of intervention, the legacy of colonialism on African intervention, and the merits of the peacekeeping project more generally may be disappointed. However, the book’s focus on practical measures to modernize the African security framework is made clear from the outset, and the authors’ basic assumptions about peace operations are implicitly, if not explicitly, presented. Furthermore, there is a lot of original research and personal perspective contained in this book. While references to secondary sources and outside materials are made where appropriate, the authors clearly draw on their respective areas of expertise to make their own mark on the topic.

One of the key themes that permeates this volume is the existence of connections among various issues. Nearly every contributor notes the links that connect terrorism to transnational organized crime, climate change to infectious diseases, and regional African organizations to international bodies like the U.N. or European Union. Linkages are also drawn among the subregional threats facing different parts of Africa, as well as the impact of modern technology on all of these concerns. By highlighting these links, the authors...