Review: Policing the New World Disorder–Peace Operations and Public Security

4 Star, Atrocities & Genocide, Complexity & Resilience, Culture, Research, Force Structure (Military), Humanitarian Assistance, Insurgency & Revolution, Justice (Failure, Reform), Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Security (Including Immigration), Stabilization & Reconstruction, Threats (Emerging & Perennial), Truth & Reconciliation, Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized)

Amazon Page
Amazon Page

4.0 out of 5 stars From Missile Gap to Cop Gap–Heart of Stability Operations,

October 13, 2000
Robert B. Oakley
EDITED 18 September 2007 to add links to other books. Still Ref A.

In excruciating detail, with substantial commonality between a number of case studies, this book examines the traditional public security (police, internal order) function in relation to failed states and external interventions.

This is not a book about the larger issue of when and how to intervene in the internal affairs of states beset by internal conflict and it is not a book about the actual conditions around the world that require some form of imposed or reinforced public order. Rather, it is the most detailed book one could hope for on the need for an international law enforcement reserve that is capable of rapidly filling the gap in local public police services that occurs when the indigenous capability collapses and traditional military forces arrive unprepared to meet this need.

All of the case studies are world-class, with primary source detail unlike any normally seen in the literature. All agree that this is a “force structure” issue that no government and certainly not the United Nations, has mastered, but most give due credit to UN civilian police operations for being the best available model upon which to build a future capability.

The summary of conclusions by Ambassador Oakley and Colonel Professor Dziedzic are alone worth the price of the book. If the Cold War era might be said to have revolved around early perceptions of a “missile gap”, the 21st Century with its Operations Other Than War (OOTW) could reasonably be said to have two issues-natural conditions such as depleted water resources, which is not the book's focus, and the “globo-cop gap”, which is-the book documents in a very compelling manner the fact that there is a major capabilities (and intelligence) chasm between preventive diplomacy on the one side, and armed military forces on the other, and that closure of this gap is essential if we are to improve our prospects for rescuing and maintaining public order around the world.

The capabilities of U.S. military police and civil affairs specialists are touched on by several pieces, but I for one would have liked to see more emphasis on what changes in their force structure is required-my understanding is that we have not increased their numbers in the aftermath of the Cold War despite the fact that these units are being used up all over the world, without relief.

The conclusion highlights the need for constabulary forces, and helpfully identifies the following specific national capabilities as being relevant (in this reader's interpretation) to a future standing international gendarmerie: U.S. Military Police and Special Forces, French gendarmerie, Spanish Guardia Civil, Chilean carabineros, Argentine gendarmes, Italian carabinieri, Dutch Royal Mariechaussee). I would add the Belgian Gendarme, the first national force to establish an open source intelligence network across all police precincts in the entire country.

It is clear from both the conclusion and the case studies that this constabulary-police capabilities requirement needs agreed-upon international concepts, doctrine, training, earmarked resources including surge capabilities and transport, and so on. We do not appear to have learned any lasting lessons from the various interventions, in that civil affairs and military police continue to be “last in line” for embarkation into areas where military forces are being introduced, and there is no U.S. program within Program 150 where we can demonstrate a real commitment to “law and order” as part of our contribution to peace in the 21st Century.

The book lacks an index, a typical shortcoming of think tank and defense educational institutions, and this is a major flaw that should be corrected in the next printing. This book is “Ref A” for every foreign service, military, and law enforcement officer interested in doing a better job of integrating diplomatic, gendarmerie, and military capabilities in every clime and place.

See also:
Breaking the Real Axis of Evil: How to Oust the World's Last Dictators by 2025
See No Evil: The True Story of a Ground Soldier in the CIA's War on Terrorism
Sleeping with the Devil: How Washington Sold Our Soul for Saudi Crude
Deliver Us from Evil: Peacekeepers, Warlords and a World of Endless Conflict
The Unconquerable World: Power, Nonviolence, and the Will of the People
The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic (The American Empire Project)
War of the Flea: The Classic Study of Guerrilla Warfare
The Road to 9/11: Wealth, Empire, and the Future of America

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Review: Deliver Us from Evil: Peacekeepers, Warlords and a World of Endless Conflict

5 Star, Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, Humanitarian Assistance, Military & Pentagon Power, Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Stabilization & Reconstruction, Threats (Emerging & Perennial)
Amazon Page
Amazon Page
5.0 out of 5 stars Fundamental Primer on Real-World Security Challenges
August 29, 2000
EDIT of 23 Feb 08 to add links. This remains a priceless reference work.This book is serious, scholarly yet down to earth, compassionate, insightful, terribly relevant and most useful to any citizen, overseas practitioner, or policymaker. By the books own rendering, “good will without strength can make things worse.” Most compellingly, the author demonstrates both the nuances and the complexities of “peace operations”, and the fact that they require at least as much forethought, commitment, and sustainment as combat operations. Food scarcity and dangerous public health are the root symptoms, not the core issues.

The most dangerous element is not the competing sides, but the criminal gangs that emerge to “stoke the fires of nationalism and ethnicity in order to create an environment of fear and vulnerability” (and great profit). At the same time, humanitarianism has become a big part of the problem-we have not yet learned how to distinguish between those conflicts where intervention is warranted (e.g. massive genocide campaigns) and those where internal conflicts need to be settled internally.

Continue reading “Review: Deliver Us from Evil: Peacekeepers, Warlords and a World of Endless Conflict”

Review: War and Anti-War–Making Sense of Today’s Global Chaos

5 Star, Diplomacy, Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, Intelligence (Government/Secret), Intelligence (Public), Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, War & Face of Battle

Amazon Page
Amazon Page

4.0 out of 5 stars 3rd best of his works, absolutely essential,

August 22, 2000
Alvin Toffler
Alvin & Heidi Toffler have always written and spoken as a team, but this is the first book where Heidi has been included. Future Shock and PowerShift remain their two most important works, this one comes in third. They start off with a compelling reason for buying the book, a quote from Trotsky: “You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you.” Today, right now, there are 26 conflicts going on around the world killing more than 1000 people a year; 78 “low intensity” conflicts killing more than 100 but less than 1000 people a year; and 178 violent political conflicts causing fewer than 100 deaths per year–source is the PIOOM project in The Netherlands. There are also 16 genocidal campaigns ongoing as we speak, and another 18 emerging–from Rwanda and Burundi to Sri Lanka to East Timor to obscure sections of China and Russia. This is a serious book by serious researchers who had the good fortune to be prescient and to become world-renowned futurists. The book is strongest on Third Wave wars and niche wars, does a very creditable job of covering a wide range of unconventional forms of conflict, and ends, somewhat disappointingly, with a useful but less than gripping discussion of “peace forms”. Fun to read, including the chapter on “The Future of the Spy.”
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1998 JFQ The Asymmetric Threat: Listening to the Debate

Articles & Chapters, Asymmetric, Cyber, Hacking, Odd War, Complexity & Catastrophe, Complexity & Resilience, Diplomacy, Disaster Relief, Intelligence (Government/Secret), Intelligence (Public), Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Strategy, Threats (Emerging & Perennial), War & Face of Battle
Asymmetric Threat
Asymmetric Threat

FIXED 31 March 2013

PDF (7 Pages): JFQ Asymmetric Threat Steele

“The Asymmetric Threat: Listening to the Debate,” published in the Winter 1998-1999 issue, is a concise summary of the Army Strategy Conference of 1998.  Click on the icon below to read the summary of the Army Strategy Conference of 2008, which JFQ has declined to publish.

Frog Transparent

1997 USIP Conference on Virtual Diplomacy Virtual Intelligence: Conflict Avoidance and Resolution through Information Peacekeeping

Articles & Chapters, Intelligence (Government/Secret), Intelligence (Public), Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Security (Including Immigration), Stabilization & Reconstruction, Truth & Reconciliation, United Nations & NGOs, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution, Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized), War & Face of Battle
Virtual Intelligence
Virtual Intelligence

See the formally published version:

1999 Virtual Intelligence: Conflict Avoidance and Resolution through Information Peacekeeping (Journal of Conflict Resolution, Spring 1999)