On April 6, 2009, CNA and the U.S. Army Peacekeeping and Stability Operations Institute hosted a conference in Washington, DC, on governance, security sector reform, and economic growth. During the latter part of the conference, the participants examined the findings of a workshop on stabilization and economic growth of November 2008 that had focused on economic initiatives to be pursued during stability operations. These operations “encompass various military… activities con­ducted outside the United States in
coordi­nation with other instruments of national power to [1] maintain or reestablish a safe and secure environment, and to [2] provide essential governmental services, emergency
infra­structure reconstruction, and humanitarian relief effort.” 1 The counterinsurgency that we are pursuing in Afghanistan—the “military, paramilitary, political, economic, psychological, and civic actions” that we are taking “to defeat [the] insurgency”2—is a subset of stability operations. It is hoped that this article will help focus our civil ­military economic effort in Afghanistan, our premise being that “correct thinking leads to correct actions; incorrect thinking leads to incorrect actions.” Read more...

In an effort to better understand “transitions” the U.S. Army Peacekeeping and Stability Operations Institute and its 13 co-sponsors convened the “Transitions: Issues, Challenges and Solutions Conference” at Carlisle Barracks in November of 2010. Resulting from an open call for papers, this text is a series of essays from across the international spectrum of government, military, academia, and assistance non-governmental organizations that develop and share what the community knows about “transitions.” Read more...

In December 2010, the U.S. Army Peacekeeping and Stability Operations Institute (PKSOI) and the Harvard Kennedy School’s Carr Center for Human Rights Policy co-hosted a workshop on Mass Atrocity Response Operations (MARO). The event followed the earlier publication of the MARO Military Planning Handbook, and was attended by 85 people from a diverse range of organizations. Read more...

This is a concept paper. Its overall purpose is to discuss the viability and potential of the author’s War to Sustainable Positive Peace analytical framework for better understanding the elements and dynamics of a peace and stability operation environment, and preparing leadership and personnel for related planning, decision making, and engagement. The data shown is real data from the author’s Bosnia in-country field-testing (2009) of the framework. Read more...

Despite recent events that have called its future into question, to include the 23 August death of its former leader Yevgeny Prigozhin, the Wagner Group, or some successor to it, appears likely to maintain its entrenched position in Africa. Over the past five years, Wagner has rooted itself in several African countries to include those with significant peacekeeping missions. Out of the six active United Nations (UN) peacekeeping missions in Africa, Wagner has a presence in three: Mali, the Central African Republic (CAR), and, until the recent civil war, Sudan. Specifically, in CAR, Wagner has combined offensive clearing tactics, concerted disinformation campaigns, and material support from the Russian state to position itself as a viable alternative to peacekeeping. This has proven to be a winning strategy, especially in the face of rules-based limitations surrounding UN peacekeeping missions, and Wagner has successfully carved out a favorable position within the CAR government with its top operative in the country, Vitali Perfilev, acting as a national security advisor to President Faustin-Archange Touadéra. Though there is little evidence to suggest CAR would follow the Malian junta in demanding the departure of the UN-led Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in the Central African Republic (MINUSCA), Wagner’s entrenchment in the country still offers key lessons for future peacekeeping efforts, which should consider a host nation’s desire for unscrupulous allies that could threaten human rights as well as the peacekeeping mission itself.

Read more...

The Security Force Assistance and Stability Integration Directorate (SFASID) is excited to announce the launch of J3O P-US900-Stabilization 101 on Joint Knowledge Online (JKO)!

Read more...