Peacekeeping in the Abyss: British and American Peacekeeping Doctrine and Practice After the Cold War

Peacekeeping in the Abyss: British and American Peacekeeping Doctrine and Practice After the Cold War. By Robert M. Cassidy. Westport, Conn.: Praeger Publishers, 2004. 284 pages. $67.95.

"Can, and how, do great powers adapt their military organizations to prosecute small wars, or operations other than war, successfully?" This is one of the author's questions in Peacekeeping in the Abyss: British and American Peacekeeping Doctrine and Practice After the Cold War. Indeed, the book's greatest contribution is its consistent demand that the reader reflect on the current trials of our military forces in places like Iraq and Afghanistan in answering such questions. The book is timely and relevant.

Peacekeeping in the Abyss connects international relations with military history and strategy to explain British and American military culture with regard to a preference for the use of force. The author, Lieutenant Colonel Robert Cassidy, makes the argument that the first iteration of post-Cold War peace operations doctrine, as well as the conduct of operations in Bosnia and Somalia, was a direct outcome of long-standing military culture and the great powers' inability to keep tempo with changes in the international environment. The argument is well-supported and so well documented that its dissertation-in-disguise feel is palatable to the reader. Lieutenant Colonel Cassidy has a Ph.D. from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, has served in Operation Enduring Freedom in Iraq, and speaks French and Russian fluently. His command of the English language is noteworthy, as well, to the point that the reader may want to say, "huh?" to phrases like "an Uptonian paradox and a Cardwellian conundrum."

Peacekeeping in the Abyss is logically laid out, but reader be warned--pay attention within chapters, as the arguments jump back and forth in time and points that appear to be mere details become important later on. In Chapter One, the author presents an overview of the relevant literature, setting the reader up for the next two chapters on the origins and evolution of British and American military strategic culture. He then describes the weak state of existing peacekeeping and operations other than war (OOTW) doctrine at the end of the Cold War in both Great Britain and the United States. Application of this doctrine and its adaptation (or failure to adapt) to address the complexities of operations in Bosnia (British) and Somalia (US) comprise the next two chapters. The main thrust of the book is fully developed in Chapters Seven and Eight. In Chapter Seven, the first British and American post-Cold War peacekeeping operation doctrines are compared and analyzed for continuity or change; and in Chapter Eight, the relationship between the major restructuring of the international system, change or continuity in the military strategic culture, and doctrinal outputs are examined, as are the implications of that relationship for further adaptation of doctrine and future policy decisions. Cassidy concludes with a few cogent recommendations for military and political policy direction in the Global War on Terrorism.

The comparison of the British and American experiences in their doctrine and on the ground in armed humanitarian and other low-intensity operations is enlightening. One comes to clearly understand that the British enjoy broader success in such operations for reasons beyond the much touted British-soldiers-wear-softcaps explanation (vice helmets, American style) when speaking with a theretofore hostile Serbian population in Bosnia. In the same vein, the fact that many British peacekeepers have served in Northern Ireland is just one of several explanations for the British ability to adapt to the challenges of the past decade. The irony of the recent British peacekeeping story, however, is that British successes are no more a result of adaptation than was the American success in using overwhelming force to quickly topple Saddam Hussein. History, albeit growing distant, is on their side. Many years of policing a vast empire imbued in the British several important tenets of operations other than war and insurgency operations: the primacy of politics; the need for flexibility in military response; restraint in the use of force; the direct subordination of the military to political masters; and the recognition that the military is only one instrument used to execute a broader strategy.

The author suggests that the United States has much to learn from the British despite the fact that, in actuality, both countries have more experience with small wars than big wars. The American military has been shaped by geography and the corresponding tendency to favor the strategic defense, an aversion to casualties, the strong influence of a few thinkers like Emory Upton, and the unique relationship that the professional military has developed with its civilian masters. While one may argue (and be correct) that the Vietnam War had a profound effect on the US Army and Marine Corps, in reality it had little effect on strategic thinking and the deeply embedded culture of the American armed forces. To this day, impediments to innovation remain a result of the cultural predilection for maneuver warfare, a strong aversion to casualties, the division as the ultimate building block, and a bigarmy mindset.

Another related point of interest in Peacekeeping in the Abyss is the author's assertion that while the US military "ostensibly worships Clausewitz as the principal philosopher/oracle of war on the one hand ... on the other hand it exhibits a Jominian predilection to divorce the political from the military when the shooting starts." Likewise, a specific application of force may achieve a short-term victory but jeopardize the long-term strategic objectives. Somalia has become the modern-day case in point.

In his final assessment of US and British peacekeeping strategy, Lieutenant Colonel Cassidy makes the argument that OOTW doctrine, under which peacekeeping is subsumed, exemplified more continuity than change from the Cold War until 1994. If one were to criticize the author's analysis (and I make a distinction between his final conclusions and those targeting only Bosnia and Somalia), it may be that the evidence of an inability to overcome cultural preferences for the use of force lies too heavily on the shoulders of doctrine. His argument is well made that the Cold War OOTW principles were merely stretched for application to peace operations (perseverance, legitimacy, restraint, objective, security, and unity of effort) and that doctrine subsumed Armed Humanitarian Operations under the higher-intensity Peace Enforcement Operations. Nonetheless, one could make an argument that over the course of the five years on which this study primarily focuses, a new Peace Operations manual was written, and that the words captured therein did indeed say many of the right things.

Readers will appreciate this book's well-researched facts and analysis, but my strong recommendation to read it is based rather on the applicability of the questions it raises to current operations. The concepts, historical facts, and recommendations succinctly laid out by Lieutenant Colonel Cassidy will surely add strength and substance to the ongoing transformation efforts partially aimed at boosting the US military from its peace operations and small wars abyss.

Reviewed by Lieutenant Colonel Kimberly C. Field, a Strategic Planner at the George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies.

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