Where's the Peace?

By Charlie

International peacekeeping seems to be taking a beating this week, following attacks on UNFIL in Lebanon and AU troops in the Darfur region.

KHARTOUM (Reuters) - Armed men opened fire on a U.N./African Union supply convoy in Sudan's war-torn Darfur region, the first attack on the newly formed joint peacekeeping mission, officials said on Tuesday.

A diplomatic source working in the region told Reuters Sudanese Army soldiers had fired at the convoy from the UN/AU Mission in Darfur (UNAMID) late on Monday, apparently confusing the peacekeepers for rebels.

Two Irish soldiers working as part of a United Nations force were injured today when their vehicle hit a roadside bomb in south Lebanon.

The blast smashed the windows of their white UN four-wheel-drive vehicle near the village of Ramiliya, about 35km south of Beirut shortly before 1pm today.

My post yesterday on Darfur noted Bin Laden's Jihad declaration against a peacekeeping effort in Darfur, and it looks like the first shots of that jihad were fired today. This probably will not be the last attack on the mission, and because of the training and equipment of the UN/AU troops, two things are possible here:

1. The next time a convoy rolls outside the wire, the soliders will be scared, and vulnerable to more attacks. Plus, if they get itchy trigger fingers and kill any civilians, it will further alienate the populace toward their mission.

2. The UN/AU troops simply won't leave the wire, and the mission will languish on for months and even years, with zero progress as the opposition to their presence grows stronger unopposed.

The UN is pretty good at opption number 2, but I wouldn't rule out option number one. Meanwhile, in Lebanon, Hezbollah seems set on continuing its attacks on the UN force:

[Irish] Minister for Defence Willie O'Dea also conveyed his wishes and those of the Government, for a speedy recovery of the soldiers. "The incident is a stark reminder to us all of the dangerous yet vital work our brave troops do in the cause of peace," he said.

Today's bomb was the third attack on the 13,500-strong Unifil force since it was expanded after a 34-day war between Israel and Lebanese Hizbullah guerrillas ended in August 2006.

FYI, the UN resolution that authorized UNFIL also called for the disarming of Hezbollah, which hasn't happened yet (and won't) and no one seems to mind. As much as the US defense establishment is bashed for lagging in Assymetric warfare tactics, it seems that the rest of the world isn't really good at it either, and that forces that are opposed to international peackeeping efforts have been taking note of insurgent tactics in Iraq and Afghanistan, and are moving closer to Open Source Warfare.

The bottom line is that we may be at the end of an era where traditional peacekeeping efforts work. Tactially, this may mean scrapping the whole concept of stability/support operations in favor of counterinsurgency. Strategically, this may mean a new embrace of Unconventional Warfare, or a militarization of foriegn aid. Stay tuned.

January 8, 2008 05:15 PM The Long War