Deterrence in Peace Operations: Look Beyond the Battlefield and Expand the Number of Targets and Influence Mechanisms

Abstract

AbstractThe peace operations literature suffers from a narrow focus on battlefield deterrence. It ignores the need to deter actors beyond the battlefield from supporting the combatants using force, and analyses the use of military threats and force in peace operations in a vacuum without taking into account the other instruments that deterring actors employ simultaneously to influence the combatants, combatant allies, combatant supporters and bystanders that undermine deterrence in peace operations. Since most peace operation forces lack the capacity and willingness to threaten and use force in accordance with the requirements stipulated by rational deterrence theory, influencing actors beyond the battlefield is more important with respect to deterring violence than the military efforts undertaken by peace operation forces to deter combatants from using force or to compel them to stop doing so. Accordingly, this chapter develops a new analytical framework that will enable peace operation theorists and practitioners to target all the actors that undermine deterrence on the battlefield and beyond with all the tools at their disposal—persuasion, inducement and coercion. The framework will improve both theory and practice by providing a better understanding of the conditions under which peace operations can contribute to deterring and, if need be, compelling combatants from using force as well as identifying the tools that practitioners can employ to this end. It highlights that peace operations merely constitute the top of the deterrence iceberg, and that peace operation forces must be supported by other actors and tools to succeed with respect to deterring violence and facilitating conflict resolution.