Use of Force to Protect Civilians in United Nations Peacekeeping: Military Culture, Organisational Learning and Troop Reticence

ABSTRACT

Combining empirical examples from domestic counterinsurgency operations, with historical and primary field data in longitudinal cases of peacekeeping participation by the Indian troops, we develop a preliminary theory of troop reticence. We find that while there is significant learning around civilian protection on the part of Indian troops from internal counterinsurgency operations, there are also important operational differences. Problems with insubordination to international command, gaps in intelligence analysis, and ambiguity over the rules of engagement amidst host-state directed armed attacks on civilians, can make troops hesitant to execute the protection of civilians (PoC) mandate more robustly.

Introduction

The use of force to protect civilians is almost an unspoken ethical code and a core expectation of contemporary peacekeeping operations. Soldiers who control the use of force are expected to use that force to protect the weak (Tripodi 2006, p. 221). Explaining variance in how troops understand, and respond to the PoC task, presents a highly significant area of emerging research. Variations in the peacekeeping behaviour of troops can be studied between different contingents (Ruffa 2014, 2017), or by observing troops from the same country in different contexts; and over time. In this article, we choose to focus in-depth on the Indian example, given the diversity of missions (traditional as well as more robust), that Indian troops have deployed in. India’s official statements at the United Nations have argued in favour of ‘a cautious and pragmatic approach’ (Mukerji 2013). In the field, Indian troops have demonstrated variation in their willingness to be robust. Early examples of a forward leaning posture during the Katanga crisis in the 1960s (see Rikhye 2002), are qualified by more recent examples of passive action in South Sudan (Foltyn 2016). There is little scholarly analysis of why this is the case. We use India’s peacekeeping experience as a theory-building case of troop reticence. We aim to explore the role of learning from domestic COIN operations in determining why peacekeepers might adopt a more passive or humanitarian approach to protect civilians.

While most studies on military behaviour are designed at the organisational level, we focus on the views of the soldiers on the ground, to understand, why they do, what they do (Friesendorf 2018, p. 4). Specifically, we asked Indian military peacekeepers on the ground to reflect on their tactical actions, or lack thereof to explore the link between military culture, organisational learning and peacekeeping performance. Such an approach we feel can help theorise individual military behaviour towards robust peacekeeping through the aggregation of individuals actions, responses and attitudes (Ruffa and Soeters 2014, p. 223). To identify variations that are recurring and systematic within national operational styles we selected case studies of Indian peacekeeping participation over a longer timeline. Such an approach allowed us to capture continuity and discontinuity in soldiers’ peacekeeping actions relating to the use of force to protect civilians.

The article proceeds as follows. After explaining the research design, data and methods, we present the theoretical arguments on the link between military culture, organisational learning and troop reticence. This is followed by an exploration of operational learning to be robust from domestic operations such as COIN. This section presents broad differences in the COIN approaches between western and non-western militaries. An institutional analysis of the Indian Army’s COIN approaches follows to gauge the core tenets of COIN learning from internal operations. We apply the theoretical framework to the three cases of Sierra Leone, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), and South Sudan. Based on our theoretical and empirical discussions we find that India’s military culture and organisational learning favours non-kinetic elements of people centric COIN, that involves a minimum use of force. India’s political posture at the UN regarding the use of force to protect civilians also adopts a cautious approach. Political factors, military culture, and COIN learning explain the reticence on the part of the Indian troops when operating in UN peacekeeping operations (UNPKOs).

Data and methods

Data used here was collected in New Delhi, India (March–April 2018), and through in-person Skype, email, and phone-based interviews with both military and non-military respondents (November 2018-October 2019). Informed consent was secured from all participants. Ethical clearance for the research was secured from the University Research Ethics Committee. Thirty semi-structured interviews were conducted with Indian military officers both retired and in active service, and from different ranks ranging from major to lieutenant-general. A further 10 UN mission staff and humanitarian actors who had served in various military and civilian roles in the UN missions in Sierra Leone, the DRC and in South Sudan were interviewed either in person or via Skype during 2019. These three cases form the empirical basis of our findings. They were selected based on our respondents’ deployment experiences.

All interviews were conducted in English. With both respondent samples, a purposive sampling strategy was followed. Tracking former Indian military peacekeepers through random selection was not possible, as there are no open-access lists on deployments, and, attempts to recruit respondents through the Centre for UN Peacekeeping (CUNPK) in New Delhi, India (which is the government’s international peacekeeping training institute for both national and international peacekeeping units deploying on UN missions) was unfruitful due to official restrictions. Therefore, a snowball sampling process was used. Respondents who were in active service were invited to take part in the study based on introductions through retired senior military officers of major-general rank and higher. Strict anonymity was followed in the case of active service officers. Some retired officers provided their consent to be quoted. In the case of UN mission staff and civil society actors, interviews were conducted by the first author during fieldwork in Sierra Leone and South Sudan during 2013-2017, and through remote interviews during 2019.

Explaining troop reticence through the lens of military culture and organisational learning

The willingness to participate in robust peacekeeping missions anticipates that participating troops would be more willing to take risks in defence of the mission mandate (Bove and Elia 2011, p. 699). This is rarely the case however. Most troops in fact shy away from using force altogether, failing to respond when civilians are under imminent threat or responding too late when civilians already have been attacked. Images of the Dutch troops in Srebrenica, and the Belgian troops in Rwanda spring to mind (Barnett 1997, Van de Bildt 2015), alongside more recent cases of inaction by the Indian troops during the Kiwanja massacre (2008) and the Chinese contingent during the Juba massacre (2016) (Sengupta 2016, Mampilly 2018). Given the gap between expectation and performance, civilian protection norms have emerged as the site of political contestation between different UN member states with different national leanings towards the use of force in peacekeeping. These national leanings can be broadly divided into a generally favourable position towards the use of force taken by countries from the global north, and a less permissive position taken by countries from the global south (Karlsrud 2015, p. 49–50; Rhoads 2016, p. 10; Berdal 2019). This, however, is not a strict configuration (Blocq 2010, p. 291). Among the global south countries, Brazil, Indonesia and Mongolia, have been active in enforcing peacekeeping’s coercive turn, while others like India, Ghana, and Bangladesh have been more reticent to use force (Duarte Villa and Jenne 2020).

As a concept, troop reticence alludes to the range of actions including passive action, hesitation, or the refusal to demonstrate robust intent to protect civilians by peacekeeping troops. It is the reverse of a forward leaning posture adopted by troops that are more willing to take risks to protect civilians. At a policy level, the UN Capstone doctrine defines robust peacekeeping as force against ‘spoilers whose activities pose a threat to civilians or risk undermining the peace process’. The Kigali principles (2021) require that peacekeepers ‘be prepared to use force to protect civilians’ (Principle 3), ‘not hesitate to take necessary action to protect civilians’ (Principle 8), and that states be prepared to ‘take disciplinary action … if, and when, personnel fail to act to protect civilians’ (Principle 13) (cited in Howard 2019, p. 545). The UN expects robust action to be calibrated along a use of force continuum. The 2019 UN Department of Peace Operations (DPO) policy on the protection of civilians (PoC) articulates a three-tiered operational concept for realising PoC mandates on the ground. Tier 1 involves protection through dialogue and engagement; Tier 2 includes the provision of physical protection and Tier 3, entails support for the establishment of a protective environment. Use of force for PoC can therefore involve a range of proactive, reactive or deterrent activities (Bellamy and Hunt 2021, p. 151).

For several legitimate and understandable reasons, few UN troop contributors are willing to take the considerable risks involved in executing Tier 2 and Tier 3 actions (Goulart 2021, p. 42). In the most difficult and politically controversial missions, western countries are often reluctant to provide troops that might be placed at risk (Van der Meulen and Soeters 2005, p. 483–86). Caveats are negotiated by their national governments to ensure that troops are offered less risky deployments, or allocated mission tasks that do not place them in physically risky areas (Holt et al. 2009, p. 36–40; Kjeksrud and Ravndal 2011, p. 7; Saideman and Auerswald 2012). This ‘risk averseness’ (Van der Meulen and Soeters 2005), is informed by western hypersensitivity to body bags (Podder and Manzillo 2021). By contrast, troops from the developing countries, the so-called UN mercenaries, tend to pick up the most difficult or risky deployments (Spearin 2011). They often arrive in theatre lacking necessary equipment, have less caveats that they negotiate while deploying troops, and are often placed geographically in more ‘riskier’ areas (Polman 2013, p. 40). While often criticised for inaction or for surrendering when faced with armed attacks (Albrecht and Cold-Ravnkilde 2020), statistically speaking, troops from the global south, have suffered more casualties than their western counterparts. For example, of the 3,737 peacekeepers who have died between 1948 and 2018, 163 have been from India, the highest total from any troop contributing country (The Economic Times 2018).

Existing explanations

A combination of operational, logistical and ethical challenges has been put forward in the literature to explain troop reticence. Scholars argue that troop size, mission diversity, and the quality of troops – well-trained with advanced military hardware can enhance civilian protection capabilities relative to ill-equipped troops (Hultman et al. 2013, Bove and Ruggeri 2016, Haass and Ansorg 2018, Fjelde et al. 2019, Bove et al. 2020). It is a well-accepted fact that some UN missions are resource scarce, as the UN routinely faces troop and equipment shortfalls that affect mission effectiveness (Passmore et al. 2018, p. 366–67). In other cases, the inability to internalise and understand the rules of engagement (RoE) under difficult conditions of civil war, displacement, and war crimes can create prominent ethical and moral dilemmas for troops with different training, experiences and cultural views on the use of force (Ruffa 2017, Friesendorf 2018). Explaining how well troops respond to the task of robust action to protect civilians from armed violence therefore requires not only analysing operational factors, but also the study of military institutional culture of the troop contributing nations (Kier 1997, Ruffa 2014, Bell 2016, p. 488–518).

Military culture represents the core set of beliefs, norms, attitudes, and values, that is shared by members of a national army and guides its perception, and decisions about strategy, operations, and tactics. It incorporates both traditional and contemporary elements through the incorporation of cognitive schemas, frames, codes, narratives, habits, styles, language, symbols, and assumptions, that inform a military’s strategic approach (Hajjar 2014, p. 119). The way each military approaches its tasks, its self-image and public image, as well as its standard operating procedures are part of what Weiss and Minear (1993, p. 69) refer to as agency culture (cited in Duffey 2000, p. 148). Militaries by virtue of their status as formal organisations possess both formal and informal cultures. Through their linkage with the state, they are subjected to a bureaucratic chain of command. Consequently, they are characterised by an organisational rather than an individualistic orientation. Military culture is also not static, drawing roots from the early formative moments of an army; it modifies over time in response to new and specific domestic conditions such as shifts in the nature of civil–military relations (Ruffa 2017, p. 392).

Armies that have a long tradition of conscription, a system of compulsory enrolment of civilians into the armed forces, develop a less aggressive military ethos than professional armies. In their military culture, the use of force is perceived as a last resort, to be used strictly in self-defence along the sliding use of force spectrum (Tripodi 2001, p. 156). Therefore, the pre-existing beliefs, norms, attitudes, and values that constitute military culture influence the doctrins around force escalation, as well as the norms of restraint. When soldiers are deployed in PKOs, they put into practice, culturally derived norms, ideas, and beliefs about the use of military force (Mirow 2009, p. 74). The logics and repertoires of action learnt from their societies’ context, organisational traditions of civil–military relations, and through their domestic operational experience and training (Ruffa and Soeters 2014, p. 219) can restrict the range of actions that peacekeepers consider available and viable, and thus influence their ultimate behaviour (Ruffa 2017, p. 394–395). The institutional and societal influences that originate from peacekeepers home societies can also help explain variance in the human rights abuses committed by peacekeepers across various missions (Rodriguez and Kinne 2019).

The reverse trend here is how far peacekeeping experiences can reorient the military mindset or can lead to greater ‘civilianisation’ (Martínez and Durán 2017). Studies have found that in the case of Brazil, Uruguay and Argentina, no perceptible shift in military mindset towards more liberal democratic values was attributable as a result of peacekeeping experience (see Sotomayor 2014). Rather, robust domestic operations against local criminality as a result of experiential learning from robust peacekeeping engagements have been observed in the Brazilian armed forces (Harig 2019). The motivations soldiers need to fight for national causes, and the motivations necessary to face risks in UNPKOs can also vary based on the differences in military culture, and in social and individual values and beliefs as well as national political interest (Goulart 2021, p. 31–2). In the failed UN mission in Somalia (UNOSOM II), while American troops sought to coerce cooperation using force that was not sufficiently discriminating in its effect, other units like the Indian contingent, adopted less confrontational approaches, relying on fostering local support rather than the explicit use of force (Duffey 2000, p. 164).

The different approaches adopted by the American and India troops in Somalia can be attributed to the different organisational routines and to experiential learning (Friesendorf 2018: 51). This lens of organisational learning helps us to understand how military organisations process information, how soldiers internalise the methods of engagement with the enemy including when to use force during combat (Huber 1991, p. 88–115; Hasik 2013, p. 205). Scholars have found some consistency between previous experiences of the military in their country of operation to operational learning more broadly. The observable reticence on the part of troops to use force can be attributed in part to their experiential learning from domestic operations. Bearing these linkages in mind, we analyse the parallels between COIN and robust peacekeeping and how this influences western and non-western approaches to the use of force. We then turn our attention to the Indian Army’s learning from COIN in the domestic context, to ascertain how far this learning has transferred in the peacekeeping context.

Learning to be robust or reticent?:: The parallels between COIN and robust peacekeeping

In the literature, there are several arguments about the parallels between COIN and robust peacekeeping, and how these create opportunities for inter-operational learning. These learning processes can be an important ‘transmission belt’ for moving hard-won lessons from the field into enduring changes in training and doctrine (Dyson 2020). While not attempting to amalgamate the COIN experiences of all Western powers under a single rubric, it would suffice to say, the British Army unlike the United States (US) Army has lacked high-technology heavy weapons in large numbers. It has also experienced COIN on its home turf in Ireland. Unlike the British, the US military have conducted all of their COIN operations in foreign territories after the American Civil War (1861–5). Given these differences, the use of coercive, compellent force by western forces during COIN operations and related collateral damage has been variable.

Some military historians have argued that the British Army has used minimal force selectively during COIN operations, opting for a hearts and mind strategy instead to win the war against insurgents (Cassidy 2006). Huw Bennett, however, asserts that rather than minimum force, the British Army used ‘exemplary force’, while fighting the insurgents in Malaya, and in Kenya (Bennett 2007, p. 638–84). Dixon (2009, p. 353–81), also asserts that ‘winning the hearts and minds’ of the populace in the insurgency prone areas is a myth. British COIN has been characterised by human rights abuses, and a high degree of coercion (Dixon 2009, p. 353–81). Scholars of hegemonic masculinity, like Joane Nagel, have further argued that the normative demeanour, thinking and action styles of imperialist armies are expansionist, conquest-oriented, aiming to ‘defeat or tame savage men of colour’ (Nagel 1998, p. 251). Coercion was also a defining feature of the population centric COIN strategy followed by the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) International Security Assistance Force for Afghanistan (ISAF). In his Counterinsurgency guidance elaborated for soldiers deployed in the Afghan theatre, US General Petraeus, explicitly mentions that troops should ‘ … pursue the enemy relentlessly. Together with our Afghan partners, get our teeth into the insurgents and don’t let go … Seek out those who threaten the population. Don’t let them intimidate the innocent. Target the whole network, not just individuals’ (cited in Pomarède 2020, p. 202).

At the operational level, soft approaches and cultural intelligence became an enabler for the troops to accomplish their protection tasks more effectively (Yalçınkaya and Özer 2017, p. 440; Tripodi 2020). This population centric COIN strategy was based on principles that resemble the UN developed protection of civilian concept (UN 2019). Scholars like Friis (2010) therefore underline doctrinal similarity between the DPO ‘capstone doctrine’ and the US Counterinsurgency Field Manual. These include an integrated approach; a focus on civilian rather than military solutions; the use of intelligence in support of operations; the need for unity of effort, host nation ownership, and finally, an acknowledgement of the limits of the use of force (Friis, 2010, p. 50). The second area of complementarity is tactical. While peacekeeping and COIN operations vary in the types of tactical problems that they face, and the levels of impartiality expected in responding to parties to the conflict, in many recent operations there has been a rise in enemy centric robust peacekeeping strategies. For example, in the UN-backed African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM), troops have been deployed into areas where the Al Shabaab, the main Islamist armed group has been openly hostile and combative. Eliciting deadly contact with insurgents, is not only expected but actively sought out on the part of the AMISOM troops (Anderson 2014, p. 941).

This growing push towards the use of proactive and pre-emptive action by peacekeepers to protect civilians as expressed in documents like the Kigali principles (2021), and the Cruz report on ‘Improving Security of UN Peacekeepers’ (Cruz et al. 2017) aligns robust peacekeeping closely with counterinsurgency tactics (Cruz et al. 2017, Howard 2019, p. 545). In the DRC, the Forward Intervention Brigade (FIB) was mandated to ‘carry out targeted offensive operations’ against various armed groups, ‘either unilaterally or jointly with the government forces, in a robust, highly mobile and versatile manner (UNSCR 2098/2013, para 9, 13). Composed of three infantry battalions, an artillery company, special forces and a reconnaissance company, the Force Intervention Brigade (FIB) came to push even the boundaries of robust peacekeeping and therefore was closely verging on COIN (Tull 2018, p. 167–68).

The Indian Army and COIN

The COIN experience of non-western militaries like India stands far removed from the type of compellent coercive force familiar to Western powers (Howard 2019, p. 546). The Indian Army’s COIN doctrine postulates that the insurgents are citizens, and have legitimate grievances. Insurgencies are viewed as political problems, and there is no purely military solutions to counter armed rebellions. This COIN doctrine makes Indian Army’s policing less violent (Rajagopalan 2008, p. 185). The colonial inheritance of the Indian Army also matters. Austin Long argues that the organisational culture of an army is sticky, and is mainly shaped by its formative influence. The British-Indian Army from which the postcolonial Indian Army descended generally conducted COIN (except in a few cases) with the minimum force formula (Long 2016).

General J.J. Singh Chief of the Army Staff (COAS) of India (2005–7) sums up the Indian Army’s COIN doctrine as follows: “The mantra for success in counterterrorism and insurgency operations is an ‘iron fist’ for the terrorists, and a ‘velvet glove’ for the people” (quoted from Singh 2012, p. 97). For example, in the insurgency plagued North-East India, a range of non-kinetic measures have been implemented alongside troop deployment. This was the case with the Naga insurgency that started in 1956. Influenced by the British Army in Malaya, the Indian Government initially tried to resettle the Nagas in ‘new villages’. It increased discontent among the Nagas and the Naga insurgents claimed that India was out to destroy their way of life. To salvage the deteriorating situation, instead of depending on the Indian Army, the government gave the task of policing the Naga Hills to the Assam Rifles. This paramilitary formation included local personnel who were accustomed to the local culture. This cultural bridge between the Indian security personnel and the Nagas was a positive step for both the government and the locals and helped improve the security situation (Shekatkar 2009, p. 9–27).

Working with rather than against civilians

The military support for organising locals against the insurgents can be traced back to 1957, when the Naga militants forcibly requisitioned supplies from the Naga villagers. When the latter refused, the militants shot them and burnt their villages. This turned the villagers against the rebels, and they demanded weapons from the Indian military for self-protection. Lieutenant-General S.P.P. Thorat, then commanding the Indian units in Nagaland, armed the villagers and organised them into Village Guards. Not only were the locals happy, it also drove a wedge between the Naga militants and their home communities. Being indigenous to the area, the villagers knew the terrain well and provided effective and timely intelligence to the Indian security force fighting the Nagas (Thorat 1986, p. 182–84). In addition, to winning the hearts and minds of the Nagas, the Indian Army provided medical facilities to the locals. This was followed by the devolution of political power to the regional elites. In 1963, the state of Nagaland was created, and elections were held in that state next year. The Shillong Accord, signed in 1975, brought many insurgents on board through a political solution, although sporadic insurgency continued until a ceasefire agreement was concluded in 1997 (Routray 2010, p. 125–49).

This political accommodation approach has been accompanied by the ethos of a developmental army. For example, as part of the Operation Sadhbhavana, that was launched in 1998, the Indian Army has undertaken a massive civic action programmes to improve literacy, public health, relief and rehabilitation in the insurgency-affected areas (Jammu and Kashmir and the north east). Through the provision of medical facilities, including veterinary doctors, and building and repairing roads, bridges and schools, the army has attempted to present a pro-people face (Cariappa et al. 2008). Traditionally, scholars have credited the British tutelage in the colonial era for the present-day Indian Army’s pro-people centric policing (Cohen 1971). Such an assertion is qualified by the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre on 13 April 1919, and the Quit India Movement in 1942 when British COIN in India was quite brutal.

The Indian political leadership after 1947 played a role in generating the culture of humane COIN to be conducted with very limited force. The first thing that Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first Prime Minister did after independence was to abolish the post of Commander-in-Chief. This position part of the British Raj’s leadership hierarchy was too strong for the viceroy/governor-general to control. In fact, when Lord Curzon, the Viceroy of India (1899–1905) tried to control Lord Kitchener, the Commander-in-Chief of India (1902–9), the former was recalled by the British government in London. To assert greater civilian control over the military, the posts of the Chief of the Army Staff (COAS), Chief of the Naval Staff (CNS) and Chief of the Air Staff (CAS) were created. These three Chiefs were place under the oversight of the civilian Defence Minister (Raksha Mantri). Nehru further civilianised the Ministry of Defence by bringing a layer of civilian bureaucrats (Indian Administrative Service personnel) who constitute a further layer between the Raksha Mantri and the COAS, CNS and CAS (Roy 2010 pp. 61–101).

The differences in western and non-western approaches to COIN and the Indian Army’s institutional characteristics bring with it learning around doctrine and tactics that prefer caution and a mixture of humanitarian and political solutions. This learning should transfer seamlessly into traditional peacekeeping environments. Yet, as Major-General Indar Jit Rikhye from the Indian Army, who served in the UN in senior leadership roles, notes, ‘peace-support operations are multifunctional operations involving diplomats, military forces, and humanitarian agencies’ (Rikhye 2002: 240). General Rupert Smith of the British Army who commanded the UN forces in Bosnia in 1995, notes, that when the conflict is civil in character, the objectives of COIN and UN operations must create a ‘conceptual space for diplomacy, economic incentives, political pressure and other measures to create a desired political outcome of stability, and if possible democracy’ (quoted from Smith 2006: 270). General Mike Jackson, Chief of the General Staff of Britain (2003–6) has noted that as regards COIN and UN operations: ‘The trick is to get the right balance between political desirability and military feasibility’ (quoted from Jackson 2003, p. 140).

The growing trend towards robust peacekeeping, however, does not align with the Indian Army’s experience of COIN within its borders that rely on a pro-people policing approach. The learning from domestic COIN encourages caution and the limited use of force. As a result, the Indian military has been criticised for being passive and reticent when there is a need to be robust. In the final section, we apply our theoretical arguments to test whether experiential learning from domestic operations on COIN, civilian protection, and the permissibility of force becomes engrained within a military culture and whether this then drives the way in which peacekeepers behave. We do this to explain troop reticence in the context of robust peacekeeping using empirical illustrations to elaborate the mechanism through which military culture has an impact on troop reticence in the field.

The Indian military and civilian protection: learning from COIN and troop reticence during peacekeeping

The case study material is arranged chronologically to allow for observation over time. The first case is that of the UN operation in Congo (ONUC) in the 1960s. The Congo became independent of Belgium on 30 June 1960. Even as the elected government led by Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba took charge, the southern province of Katanga seceded. The Belgians backed the secessionist leader, Moise Tshombe, with troops and weapons. Katanga held more than 60% of the country’s natural resources and minerals that were extracted by Belgian corporations headquartered in Brussels (Raghavan 2016). Following Lumumba’s murder at the hands of Katanga-based secessionists (including mercenaries from Belgium part of the Katanga gendarmerie), the then UN Secretary General, Dag Hammarskjold advocated more robust measures to confront the problem. In a resolution passed on 21 February 1967, the ONUC was given the authority to launch a major initiative to deal with the civil war. Operation Rum Punch and later Operation Morthor (planned by Major K.K. Sundarji, later to become the Chief of the Indian Army) were early examples of robust peacekeeping to end the secession. The UN’s robust action, in which a 4,700 strong Indian Army brigade took part was unsuccessful. Notably, a 200-strong Irish unit were forced to surrender and held captive for 5 weeks (Rikhye 2002, p. 150–53). The failure of Operation Morthor, in which India lost 39 soldiers (Ramachandran 2014), confirmed that UN peacekeepers are best suited to a role that did not involve the use of force.

Many decades later, when an Indian Force Commander, Vijay Jetley took charge in Sierra Leone, the UN mission was already faltering. Under Resolution 1270 adopted in October 1999, UNAMSIL had been given the first explicit mandate to protect civilians from the threat of armed violence. Advances by the main rebel group, the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) made troop deployments into more remote areas of the country necessary to arrest wartime atrocities. Convincing the various units to execute operational orders proved tricky however. For example, operational orders directing the Ghanaian unit to deploy to Kenema, a town in the east, were refused. Jetley had to try and convince the unit personally, before one platoon of 30 members left for Kenema, with the agreement that other units were to follow. This personal intervention on his part, was criticised by the Deputy Force Commander (from Nigeria), the Ambassador of Ghana, and the Battalion Commander, who complained to the UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan. Jetley was summoned by the latter to explain his position.¹

Later, when the capital Freetown fell under RUF control, the Nigerian battalion was designated the task of clearing the critical road between Lungi airport and the capital. The Nigerian troops did not follow through on the task as they were unwilling to confront the rebels. Jetley had to use a reserve Indian company to do the job, only to invite criticism from his own government for using reserve troops (Malone and Thakur 2001, p. 11). In January 2000, after being ambushed by the RUF, peacekeepers from Kenya and Guinea surrendered their weapons and equipment, including armoured personnel carriers. By May 2000, the RUF began to take more peacekeepers hostage. More than 500 soldiers and their equipment were captured within several days (Reno 2001, p. 219, 233). Among various debacles, the RUF detained and disarmed the Zambian battalion sent to break the RUF siege of the Kenyan battalion in the town of Makeni. This siege effectively ended the peace agreement with the RUF signed in July 2009. The captured peacekeepers did not defend themselves, nor did they use force to protect the civilians. In the literature there is limited evidence of any contingents that took a more robust stance to protect civilians. In fact, in several instances the UN troops started giving up their position ‘at the mere rumour that the RUF was advancing’ (Bullion 2001, p. 80). Civilians continued to be murdered, raped and mutilated at the hands of the rebels. Operational factors related to dual chains of command and interference from national governments brought the mission close to a collapse (Berdal 1996).

A well-publicised spat between Jetley and other members of the UN/UNAMSIL leadership ensued. An informal memo, called the Report on the Crisis in Sierra Leone, written by Jetley was stolen from his office and leaked to the press (McGreal 2000). In the memo, Jetley accused the Nigeria troops of compromising his efforts to free 500 Indian peacekeepers taken hostage by the RUF during May 2000. He stated that:

It is my opinion that the ECOMOG force commander along with the Special Representative of the Secretary General (SRSG) [Oluyemi Adeniji] and the Deputy Force Commander (DFC) [the Nigerian Brigadier-General Mohammed Garba] have worked hard to sabotage the peace process and show Indians in general, and me in particular in a poor light … Keeping the Nigerian interests was paramount even if it meant scuttling the peace process and this also implied that UNAMSIL was expendable … To this end, the SRSG and the DFC cultivated the RUF leadership especially Foday Sankoh behind my back

(quoted in McGreal 2000).

These failures prompted a British intervention in 2000, to prevent the RUF from seizing power. In an interview with The Guardian newspaper, British General David Richards, who served as part of the UK mission to Sierra Leone, said he was ‘staggered’ to find that Jetley interpreted his mandate as that of a neutral intermediary. In Richards’ view, the UN should have been siding with the elected government and against the rebels who were breaking the peace agreement. ‘They [the Indian hierarchy] were very reluctant to fight, and that [reluctance] permeated quite a lot of the other contingents as well’ (quoted in McGreal 2015). Jetley’s perception of troop performance, and his operational explanations for troop reticence differed from that of the British military leadership. This invited western criticism around the Indian reluctance to use force. Cultural differences between troops and their different thinking and reasoning styles are known to give rise to different interpretations that are in line with their learned patterns of behaviour (Rubinstein 2005, p. 29–30, 35). Jetley’s management style demonstrated a combination of caution, personal persuasion, and over-reliance on the Indian units to execute complex tasks. His application of learning from the Indian way of COIN however fell short of the standards of robustness expected by his British counterpart. As things unfolded, the UN lost confidence in Jetley, and when Kofi Annan, the then UN Secretary General, tried to remove him, the Indian government pulled out all its forces (McGreal 2015).

In the DRC, at the time of the Kiwanja massacre (November 2008), the Indian contingent in MONUSCO were rotating out to be replaced by the Uruguayan contingent. Due to the rotation, the two contingents lacked the necessary military intelligence and most importantly the ability to analyse the intelligence that they did possess. About 150 civilians were killed less than a mile away from the UN base where the Indian troops were stationed (HRW 2008). Unavailability of a French/Kiswahili-speaking interpreter at the time of the armed attacks meant that troops did not act swiftly to prevent the attacks on the innocent civilians. Similar practical issues were reported during the Goma incident that involved an attack on civilians precipitated by Laurent Nkunda’s Congrès National pour la Défense du Peuple (CNDP) (Mampilly 2018). Remedial action by the Civil Affairs Section of the UN mission followed. Rather than simply hiring more interpreters, peacekeepers were encouraged to engage with local communities through community liaison assistants (CLAs) (Kullenberg 2016, p. 44). The Indian contingent based in north Kivu introduced further low-cost reforms to enhance human intelligence (HUMINT) gathering. Standing combat deployment units of 30–35 troops were temporarily deployed to vulnerable towns without UN bases, and a more decentralised structure was encouraged to allow commanders to make decisions outside of their strict military remit. Direct reporting channels to the military were established, and the self-protection strategies of the civilian population were enhanced through the distribution of mobile phones. These measures similar to the COIN practices used by the Indian soldiers on home turf enabled the translators and CLAs to report movements by the rebel soldiers more frequently (Mampilly 2018, p. 190–92).

At the mission level, the trend was different. A growing reliance on photographic or imagery intelligence (IMINT) collected by Italian-made drones from 2011 onwards, resulted in a withdrawal of foot patrols and other low-cost reforms designed to increase the interaction between the peacekeepers and the civilians. Retraction of community-friendly local reforms was followed by the M23 rebellion in March 2012. Fall of towns like Rutshuru, despite the presence of an Indian continent at the Kiwanja base in North Kivu caused further reputational damage for the Indian troops; and for MONUSCO (Raghavan 2013, O’Grady 2015, Andrews Morrell 2017, p. 7). Similar to the protection failures in 2008, the available or actionable intelligence was limited. While drones can generate a huge amount of data, there was a limited capacity to interpret and analyse this data both at the mission, and the unit level. ‘When actionable information is limited, it is not possible for any one actor to decide on a clear action plan’.² Unless battalions are able to operationalise the intelligence effectively, inaction or troop reticence can happen even when there is advance warning of armed group activity.

With regard to intelligence sharing in MONUSCO, respondents noted that, ‘… the contingents did not share intelligence readily among themselves. Intelligence sharing between the civilian organisations, the military, and various humanitarian agencies was also either missing or too unstructured to make a difference. Intelligence updates were mainly channelled through the headquarters (HQs) in Goma, Kinshasa and New York, thereby making the flow more vertical than horizontal’.³ The inability to process all of the available information; together with the limited ability on the ground to determine the reliability of the different sources of information resulted in ‘too much noise’.⁴ Low-cost innovations involving close cooperation with local communities to gather HUMINT were preferred by the Indian troops in line with their domestic COIN experiences. These also proved more effective for some time. Troop reticence examples were linked to a shift from soft approaches to gathering HUMINT to a reliance on IMINT. This shift proved ill-suited to the DRC context, given the limited ability of the peacekeeping troops to translate the IMINT into actionable plans.

In South Sudan, since the renewed violence between the Salva Kiir and Riek Machar loyalists (mid-December 2013 onwards), the government soldiers launched ethnically targeted attacks on opposition sympathisers; and on Nuer settlements including in the protection of civilian (PoC) sites. In response, in March 2014, the UN Security Council reviewed its mandate, and shifted the focus of the UNMISS from peacebuilding to PoC.⁵ The shift in the mission mandate did not improve troop performance on the ground. UNMISS troops became uninvolved witnesses to civilian massacres. During the attack on the Malakal PoC site in February 2016, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) called UNMISS ‘missing in action’ (UN 2016). Ambiguity over the identity of the attackers (government soldiers or pro-government militias) contributed to troop reticence. For example, in Tomping, Unity State, there were numerous reports of rapes of internally displaced peoples (IDPs) near the perimeter of the UN compound, while the UNMISS troops looked on. A group of Nuer women returning from a trip into town were ambushed by armed men in a highly organised attack by pro-government forces (predominantly from the Dinka ethnic group). The attack was executed not far from the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army-in government (SPLA/IG) position, right on the periphery of the heavily guarded UN camp. UN troops held back, as it was not entirely clear if the SPLA-IG were the one instigating these attacks (Allen 2014).

A lack of clarity over the appropriate rules of engagement (ROE) contributed to other PoC failures in UNMISS (Centre for Civilians in Conflict 2016). Bentiu the capital of Unity state, changed hands between the SPLA-IG and the SPLM-in opposition (IO) forces several times between December 2014 and December 2016.

… a particular community would attack the other, instigating rape and pillage, holding ground for some time, while the other community retreated into the bush, only to regroup and attack again. It was not clear which affiliation the armed attackers had, and more importantly, how they were re-grouping. At the UN mission level, and in New York, there was only limited understanding of support bases for these groups. While majority of the recruits were local male youth, they were also heavily armed with AK-47 and RPGs.⁶

For the Indian soldiers based in Bentiu, determining the right response was a challenge due to problems with how ROE was to be applied to the host government soldiers. As one officer noted, ‘ROE in India and in the UNPKOs are very different. In UNPKOs, traditionally, blue berets would mainly fire in the air to disperse rebels … in India, the Army is not used in a civil situation, until the situation gets out of hand’.⁷ Others noted, ‘the job was taxing as there was no apparent enemy … communal or politically motivated skirmishes between different ethnic groups, and at times launched by the government army, made intervention by the peacekeepers challenging’.⁸ Weak host state consent, made robust action using kinetic measures in UNMISS more difficult to execute.

This operational complexity was made worse by the organic growth of the PoC sites adjacent to the UN compounds in Juba, Malakal, and Bor among other places (Murphy 2017). One officer noted that: ‘the Malakal PoC site was hosting nearly 45,000 civilians. It meant that perimeter security required more patrols. Proper picketing, building of hedges and boundary building, alongside visual surveillance created multiple and overlapping tasks …’ ⁹ ‘Keeping the civilians safe from indirect firing of aerial weapons such as mortars, artillery and rockets that both sides fired at each other required the construction of 10-ft. high berm walls. While we could keep the flat trajectory munitions out, we could not create any bunkers with overhead protection from high trajectory bombs. A few of these bombs did land in our compound. These injured three of my Nepalese peacekeepers’.¹⁰ The ever-expanding demand for protection in the PoC sites generated trauma and stress for the peacekeepers. While post-traumatic stress (PTSD) and COIN are not unrelated; the trauma and stress related to peacekeeping has increased considerably in the context of increased risk to peacekeepers from armed actors (Dirkzwager et al. 2005). A recent dataset on peacekeeping fatalities recorded 935 unique incidents of violence involving peacekeepers between 1989 and 2009 (Lindberg Bromley 2018: 125–27). In contrast, the Indian military has faced limited armed attacks from insurgents on home turf.

The PTSD related to protection failures in the context of robust peacekeeping are also incomparable with COIN. For example, in the Malakal PoC, Indian officers felt overwhelmed by the health, food and hygiene needs of the civilians seeking protection.

Nearly 16,000 people amassed in an area of 500 × 500 metres were served by only 10 field toilets. Nearly 1.6 tons of human waste was being generated every day. The accompanying stench, flies and the constant humming was a health hazard for the peacekeepers, and for the civilians taking refuge in the PoC sites. We lost 84 children below five years age to an outbreak of measles that happened in those inhumane conditions. The most difficult job for my men was to bury those little bodies inside the protected area as per the Red Cross manual.¹¹

These protection challenges are unique to peacekeeping in contexts like South Sudan, where there is no peace to keep. Learning from COIN was helpful in so far as offering support to the civilians through developmental services like veterinary camps, hospitals and medical units (Garg 2017). These activities did not, however, resolve the considerable ambiguity with regard to RoE faced by the soldiers in the light of the government instigated ethnic targeting of civilians. In South Sudan the unique challenges with regard to unclear RoE, meant that a cautious approach was adopted that contributed to troop reticence.

Conclusion

The primary aim of this study was to investigate the link between military culture, organisational learning and troop reticence. Using a new theoretical framework and combining this with empirical case studies and primary data gathered with Indian military peacekeepers and UN staff, we offer three innovations. First, we use the Indian example to examine variations in the peacekeeping behaviour of troops from the same country in different contexts and over time. Second, we explore the role of learning from domestic COIN operations in determining why peacekeepers might adopt a more passive or humanitarian approach to protect civilians. Third, we focus on the views of the soldiers on the ground, to understand, why they do, what they do.

Theorising cultural influence and organisational learning offers two prominent findings that have both policy and scholarly relevance for those interested in making PKOs more effective. First, military culture including India’s colonial institutional legacy, and organisational learning from domestic COIN operations can explain the adoption of a cautious approach by Indian soldiers in recent robust PKOs only partially. In the Indian case, organisational learning from COIN does transfer into the peacekeeping context. This transfer is not seamless however. We find that a mismatch between the kinetic elements of COIN on Indian soil and the demands of robust peacekeeping in Africa does not encourage Indian troops to take a more enemy centric or robust approach. Instead, Indian troops continue to apply a people-centric COIN lens to peacekeeping environments with mixed results. This explains reticence on the part of the Indian troops in ways not previously explained in the literature on the use of force to protect civilians in UNPKOs.

Second, protection of civilians under conditions of civil war, genocide and internal displacement, present unique operational and doctrinal challenges relating to rules of engagement with armed groups including host state troops, that do not exist in the domestic COIN context. Apart from armed threats to both civilians and peacekeepers, the insubordination and dual chains of command that compromise operational effectiveness of UNPKOs are rarely a problem during COIN. Domestic COIN operations also do not face challenges with collecting, sharing and analysing intelligence. In fact, the types of challenges we examined in the three cases of Sierra Leone, DRC and South Sudan are typical of multinational and multi-agency peacekeeping operations where joint-ness with different troops and humanitarian and civilian agencies is a necessity.

Finally, the differences in western and non-western approaches to COIN and the Indian Army’s institutional characteristics bring with it learning around doctrine and tactics that prefer caution and a mixture of humanitarian and political solutions. This learning also falters in the context of robust peacekeeping. While it is not possible to fully generalise our findings from the Indian case to other global south peacekeepers, our preliminary theory of troop reticence offers empirical support for future research examining the link between military culture and organisational learning from domestic operations to explain troop performance. It also offers cues for studying how troop willingness to be robust and a nation’s forward leaning posture can change over time in line with shifts in domestic civil–military relations.

Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank all the respondents for their time and participation in the study. An earlier draft of the paper benefited from comments by Stian Kjeksrud, Kseniya Oksamytna, Major General (retd.) Apurba Kumar Bardalai and Allard Duursma.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Funding

The study was supported by a Faculty Research Grant, at King's College London.

Notes on contributors

Sukanya Podder

Sukanya Podder is a Reader in Post-War Reconstruction and Peacebuilding at King's College London.

Kaushik Roy

Kaushik Roy is Guru Nanak Professor of Military History at Jadavpur University, Kolkata, India.

Notes

1. Interview with Vijay Jetley, New Delhi, 5 April, 2018.

2. Interview with R09, who was a military observer in MONUSCO.

3. Interview with former British major in charge of planning in MONUSCO; Skype Interview with (retd.) Lieut.-Gen. Chander Prakash Wadhwa, the Force Commander for MONUSCO during 2010–2013.

4. Interview with R09, who was a MILOB in MONUSCO.

5. Interview with R15.

6. Ibid.

7. Interview with R11.

8. Interview with R19; R11 and R15.

9. Ibid.

10. Interview with R25.

11. ibid.