Peacekeeping and Related Stability Operations: Issues of U.S. Military Involvement

Peacekeeping and Related Stability Operations:
Issues of U.S. Military Involvement
Updated January 24, 2007
Nina M. Serafino
Specialist in International Security Affairs
Foreign Affairs, Defense, and Trade Division

Peacekeeping and Related Stability Operations: Issues
of U.S. Military Involvement
Summary
The 110^th Congress may well face several decisions regarding the preparation
of U.S. military forces for stability missions, a major subset of which is peace
operations. A November 28, 2005, Department of Defense (DOD) directive that
designates stability operations as “core missions” of the U.S. military marks a major
shift in attitudes regarding peacekeeping and related stability operations (also known
as stabilization and reconstruction operations). Since then, DOD has worked to
define specific changes that must be made to better accomplish such missions, some
of which the U.S. military could implement on its own, while others would require
Congressional approval.
For well over a decade, some Members of Congress expressed reservations
about U.S. military involvement in peacekeeping operations. The Bush
Administration initially opposed such missions and took steps to reduce the
commitment of U.S. troops to international peacekeeping. This action reflected a
major concern of the 1990s: that peacekeeping duties had overtaxed the shrinking
U.S. military force and were detrimental to military “readiness” (i.e., the ability of
U.S. troops to defend the nation). Many perceived these tasks as an inefficient use
of U.S. forces, better left to other nations while the U.S. military concentrated on
operations requiring high-intensity combat skills. Others thought that the United
States should adjust force size and structure to accommodate the missions.
The events of September 11, 2001, brought new concerns to the fore and
highlighted the value to U.S. national security of ensuring stability around the world.
The 9/11 Commission report, which cited Afghanistan as a sanctuary for terrorists,
pointed to the dangers of allowing actual and potential terrorist sanctuaries to exist.
In 2003, the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq, often referred to as a “stabilization and
reconstruction” operation (which manifests some characteristics of a peace
operation), reinforced the argument.
Thousands of U.S. military personnel currently serve in or support peacekeeping
operations, although the number of troops serving in U.N. operations has decreased
dramatically since the mid-1990s to some 26 in five operations under U.N. control.
In the Balkans, some 1,700 U.S. troops serve with the NATO Kosova Force (KFOR).
About 35,000 more serve in or support peacekeeping operations in South Korea, and
roughly 700 serve in the Sinai. In Iraq and Afghanistan, U.S. troops are involved in
a variety of stability tasks, including “nation-building” activities that have been
undertaken in some peacekeeping operations as well as combat operations.
A major issue Congress continues to face is what, if any, adjustments should be
made in order for the U.S. military to perform peacekeeping and stability missions
— in Afghanistan, Iraq, or elsewhere — with less strain on the force, particularly the
reserves. Of particular interest is whether the size and configuration of U.S. forces,
especially the Army, should be further modified. Additional issues are whether to
augment civilian and international capabilities in order to take on more of the burden.

Contents
The Evolution of U.S. Military Involvement in Peacekeeping Operations......2
Evolving Terminology and Definitional Problems....................6
Current U.S. Military Participation in Peacekeeping and Related
Stability Missions..........................................7
The Bush Administration’s Policy.................................9
Reductions in Bosnia and Kosovo.............................9
NATO Peacekeeping and U.S. Operations in Afghanistan..........9
Airlift in Africa..........................................10
The Extended U.S. Military “Stabilization” Presence in Iraq.......11
DOD Directive 3000.05: Mandates, Background, and Related Legislation....11
Improving Military Capabilities..................................13
Force Size and Structure...................................13
Stability Operations Curricula and Training....................15
Apportioning Responsibilities...................................15
Civilian Capabilities to Perform Nation Building Tasks...........16
Improving Inter-Agency Cooperation and Coordination ..............17
Military Personnel and Contractors...............................17
Improving International Capabilities..............................18
The Global Peace Operations Initiative........................19
Section 1206 Train and Equip Authority.......................19
Providing Flexible Funding.....................................20
List of Tables
Table 1. DOD Incremental Costs of Peacekeeping and Security
Contingency Operations, FY1991-FY2005.........................21

Peacekeeping and Related Stability
Operations: Issues of U.S. Military
Involvement
U.S. policymakers have grappled for a decade and a half with issues involved
in deploying U.S. military personnel to conduct “peacekeeping” missions. This
broad, generic term is most generally used to denote missions to maintain peace and
establish the basis for representative governance and economic growth. Since the
first U.S. troops were deployed to post-Cold War peacekeeping missions in the early
1990s, Congressional debate has ranged from the broad strategic question — how
and when do such operations serve U.S. interests? — to a myriad of practical
questions that has evolved over time. See Table 1 at the end of this report for a
breakdown of the Department of Defense (DOD) Incremental Cost of Peacekeeping^th
and Security Contingency Operations, FY1991 to FY2005. For the 110 Congress,
the most salient practical issues focus on two central questions: how are U.S. forces
to be best prepared to undertake such missions and what part of the responsibility
should they bear for such missions?
The Bush Administration has launched several initiatives intended to equip the
United States to conduct peacekeeping and related post-conflict operations (such as
the occupation of Iraq in 2003) more efficiently and effectively. Most importantly
for the U.S. military, on November 28, 2005, the Department of Defense (DOD)
issued a directive setting forth a new DOD policy regarding stability operations,
particularly peacekeeping and related post-conflict operations. DOD is developing
recommendations that are likely to become the center of Congressional debate
shortly.
This report will provide background information on the development of U.S.
military involvement in peacekeeping and related stability operations, the evolution
of terminology, and current U.S. participation in such operations. It will then discuss
DOD Directive 3000.05, providing a guide to the issues addressed by the directive,
as well as proposed reforms and legislation pertaining to it. These issues involve
practical questions such as: How should the U.S. armed forces be resized,
reorganized, educated, trained and equipped to perform these operations effectively
without detracting from its ability to perform combat missions? What tasks must be
performed by the U.S. military in such operations and which can be delegated to
other entities? This report will provide an overview of these issues and references¹
to other sources which explore them. It will be updated as warranted.

¹ Although the costs of peacekeeping assistance and participation are not as salient an issue
as in the 1990s, when the United States participated in or provided substantial military
assistance to several U.N. peacekeeping operations, the incremental costs (i.e., costs over
(continued...)

The Evolution of U.S. Military Involvement in
Peacekeeping Operations²
The 1990s was the first decade in nearly half a century in which the U.S.
military was deployed on missions that involved the reconstruction of governments,
infrastructure, and economies after quelling the chaos of internecine conflicts. The
post-World War II occupations in Germany, Japan, Italy and Austria were the most
prominent and successful mid-century precedents. Before that, U.S. military troops
were active in attempts to install more democratic governments in the Phillippines,
Central America, and the Caribbean in the last years of the 19^th and early years of the
20^th century. The most recent round of such activity began soon after the end of the
Cold War in 1989 with a rise in the number of intrastate conflicts.
Such “peacekeeping” missions require limitations on the use of force by combat
forces, as well as the assignment of numerous personnel to provide security and to
carry out political and economic activities to construct or reconstruct state
institutions. These requirements have been problematic for many policymakers and
for the U.S. armed forces, which have preferred to confront an enemy with the degree
of force necessary to quickly defeat armed opponents (often referred to as “decisive”
or “overwhelming” force) and to reserve its highly-skilled troops for combat
missions. Nevertheless, in the post-Cold War years of the 1990s, peacekeeping and
related limited force operations became a staple of U.S. military forces, particularly
the U.S. Army.
During the 1990s, the United States took a leading role in four large
multinational operations with peacekeeping phases under U.S, or NATO and U.N.
auspices: Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, (all under U.N. mandates) and Kosovo. At the
same time, it provided varying degrees of support through the Department of Defense
(DOD) for U.N. missions in which few or no U.S. soldiers took part, e.g., Cambodia,
Angola, the Western Sahara and East Timor.

¹ (...continued)
and above the cost of maintaining, training, and equipping the U.S. military in peacetime)
of the larger stability operations in Iraq and Afghanistan are a continuing concern. This
report does not address cost issues. For more information on incremental costs and attempts
to create more efficient methods of funding such operations, see CRS Report 98-823,
Military Contingency Funding for Bosnia, Southwest Asia, and Other Operations: Questions
and Answers, by Nina M. Serafino; and CRS Report RL32141, Funding for Military and
Peacekeeping Operations: Recent History and Precedents, by Jeffrey Chamberlin. For
information on the cost of U.N. operations, see CRS Report RL33700, United Nations
Peacekeeping: Issues for Congress, by Marjorie Ann Browne.
² Numbers of troops in this section were taken from CRS Report RL30184, Military
Interventions by U.S. Forces from Vietnam to Bosnia: Background, Outcomes, and “Lessons
Learned” for Kosovo, May 20, 1999, except for figures in the paragraph on UNOSOM II,
which were compiled from The Blue Helmets: A Review Of United Nations Peace-keeping,^rd
3 edition. New York: United Nations Department of Public Information, 1996, p. 317 , and
Kenneth Allard. Somalia Operations: Lessons Learned. Washington, DC: NDU Press,

1995, pp. 18-19.

U.S. military involvement in this new era of state-building (or “nation-
building”) missions began with the U.S.-led ad hoc multilateral coalition operation
in Somalia. The Unified Task Force or UNITAF with 25,800 U.S. troops at peak and
over 10,000 from other countries, was launched in December 1992 as a humanitarian
aid mission to provide protection for relief workers and food convoys. (It was
preceded by a smaller U.S. humanitarian relief mission from August-December
1992.) Nevertheless, contingents from other countries were active “in community
development projects such as rebuilding schools, building roads, and repairing
irrigation canals and tube wells...” and the “Australians, Canadians, and French
worked hard to revive broad community leadership, encouraging the creation of local
councils and Somali police units.”³ Informal political development at the local level
and the repair and rebuilding of physical infrastructure (including road and bridge
building, well-digging, and the establishment of schools and hospitals) became de
facto UNITAF tasks, although the participation of U.S. military personnel in such
activities appears to have been limited. U.S. military personnel were involved,
however, in the development of a Somalia police force, even though that was never
officially a UNITAF function.⁴
The U.S.-led Somalia operation was turned over in May 1993 to the smaller
U.N. UNOSOM II force, with an authorized strength of 28,000 military personnel but
which operated for the most part with fewer. UNOSOM II included some 2,800
civilian staff and had a broad mandate to build new local, regional, and national
political and administrative institutions. Some 3,000 U.S. soldiers served in the U.N.
mission, primarily providing logistics support. (Another 17,700 in a separate
operation under U.S. command supported UNOSOM II, including a 1,150-soldier
Quick Reaction Force.) The failure of the Somalia operations led to chaos. The U.S.
assisted with the U.N. withdrawal in March 1995, in the midst of continuing
instability. The U.S. had withdrawn its separate combat force in March 1994, five
months after Somali rebels dragged the body of a U.S. soldier through the streets of
Mogadishu, the capital city.
U.S. troops were deployed in September 1994 to Haiti to restore to power
deposed President Jean Bertrand Aristide. When U.S. troops were dispatched, it was
with the expectation that the multinational force (MNF) would complete its limited
mission and soon cede to a U.N. force with a state-building mandate. Largely
comprised of U.S. soldiers, who totaled 21,000 at peak strength, the MNF turned the
operation over to the follow-on U.N. Mission in Haiti (UNMIH) in March 1994. This
was not, however, before the general lawlessness throughout Haiti drew U.S. troops
into assisting with the reconstruction and improvement of rule of law institutions and
facilities (i.e., the police, court system, and prisons), as well as in disarming and
demobilizing Haitian soldiers.⁵ In the absence of sufficient civilian personnel, the

³ John L. Hirsch and Robert Oakley. Somalia and Operation Restore Hope: Reflections on
Peacemaking and Peacekeeping. Washington, DC: U.S. Institute of Peace, 1995. p 75.
⁴ Ibid, pp 81-89.
⁵ See Michael Bailey, Robert Macguire and J. O’Neil G. Pouliot. Haiti: Military-Police
Partnership for Public Security in Policing the New World Disorder: Peace Operations and
Public Security, edited by Robert B. Oakley, Michael J. Dziedzic, and Eliot M. Goldberg.
(continued...)

U.S. military became involved in revamping the police, judicial, and prison systems
as part of its primary task of establishing security. A large number of U.S. soldiers,
some 2,400, were assigned initially to the 6,000-man UNMIH force.
U.S. military experiences in Somalia and Haiti stigmatized peacekeeping and
nation-building for many Members as an inefficient and inappropriate use of military
resources, leading to restrictions on U.S. involvement in dealing with deteriorating
conditions in the Balkans in the mid-1990s. U.S. involvement in that region began
in 1992 when the United States contributed a relatively small number of troops, about
1,000 of the 38,000-soldier UN Protection Force (UNPROFOR) that was deployed
in February to Croatia and in June to Bosnia-Herzegovina. The United States took
a leading role, however, in NATO air operations which supported the UNPROFOR)
to quell the conflict that accompanied the 1991 break-up of Yugoslavia, as well as
related air drops of humanitarian relief. The NATO air operations provided
UNPROFOR with information collected by reconnaissance aircraft, supervised
established no-fly zones, and supported UNPROFOR troops when they came under
attack.
The United States also took the initial lead role in the two subsequent NATO
ground forces that were sent to enforce the December 1995 Dayton Peace Accords
among Bosnia’s warring factions: the one-year Implementation Force or IFOR, with
16,500 U.S. troops of a total of 54,000 soldiers, and the 1996-2004 Stabilization
Force or SFOR, with 6,900 U.S. troops at peak. In the Bosnia mission, responsibility
for state-building tasks was divided among many organizations. The Dayton accords
assigned disarmament and demobilization to the NATO force, which also provided
security for elections organized by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in
Europe (OSCE). The U.N. Mission in Bosnia (UNMIBH) was responsible for the
establishment of a police force, as well as other law enforcement assistance, and
coordinating other U.N. agencies. Overall coordination of civilian contributions and
monitoring of the implementation of the Dayton accords was carried out by the High
Representative for the Implementation of the Peace Agreement, an innovative post
established by the Dayton accords. Foreign military troops carried out “nation-
building” civic action projects as a supplement to their patrolling duties. U.S.
military troops mostly did not because of U.S. policymakers’ concerns for their safety
and political opposition to concept of “nation-building” as an appropriate role for
U.S. troops.
The United States led the NATO air mission in Kosovo in April-June 1999 and
the initial NATO ground mission — Kosovo Force or KFOR — but the civilian U.N.
“transitional” administration (UN Mission in Kosovo or UNMIK) has overseen most
tasks of administering governmental tasks from the outset.
Each deployment was accompanied by vigorous debate as to what U.S. interests
were served by that particular mission and by peacekeeping operations in general.
In the wake of the Cold War, with the demise of U.S.-Soviet superpower competition
and support for clients in strategic areas, some policymakers cherished hopes that the

⁵ (...continued)
Washington, DC: National Defense University Press. 1998.

“new world order” would provide the opportunity for the spread of freedom and
democracy. Instead, the number of intrastate conflicts rose as weakened autocrats
faced challengers who perceived new possibilities to achieve power, often with
assistance from neighboring states and influences. Many argued that the prospects
for global instability and humanitarian concerns demanded an international military
response to such conflict, with U.S. participation or leadership, to forestall the
immeasurable but often nonetheless substantial human, social, and economic costs
of instability and conflict.⁶ They argued that the U.S. should be willing to commit
forces to prevent abuses of power and to support other peoples’ struggles for
freedom. Others argued that instability in many other countries did not meet the test
of a threat to U.S. vital interests, which was the threshold for many policymakers for
the use of U.S. force.⁷
The terrorist acts against the United States of September 11, 2001, changed the
debate. It illustrated for many policymakers and analysts the dangers of allowing
instability to fester and conflicts to go unchecked, even in areas of minimal or no
strategic or economic interest. While there is not a universal consensus around the
argument that international terrorists will find safe haven in weak and failed states,
there are powerful examples. The perception that they may do so has convinced
many policymakers of the need to enhance the ability, including the military capacity,
of the United States and other countries to deal with instability and conflict.⁸

⁶ In addition to the social costs of lives lost and the creation of many, indeed sometimes tens
or hundreds of thousands of internally displaced persons and refugees seeking safety in
other nations, political instability — including tensions between armed groups, sporadic
hostilities, and continuing conflict — has significant economic costs. These include new
or continuing defense expenditures for the countries involved and perhaps also for
neighboring countries seeking to protect their borders. lost opportunities in trade, contracts,
and domestic and foreign investment. For international donors, they include the costs of
providing food, shelter, medical care and relocation assistance.
⁷ The “Weinberger doctrine” of Secretary of Defense Caspar W. Weinberger, outlined in a
speech before the National Press Club in Washington, DC, on November 28, 1984, that
combat forces should only be committed where a “particular engagement or occasion is
deemed vital to our national interest or that of our allies.” George Schulz countered in a
speech at Yeshiva University, New York, on December 8, 1984, with the guidelines that
U.S. power was legitimately used if it “can help liberate a people or support the yearning
for freedom ...” and “prevents others from abusing their power through aggression or
oppression....” Both speeches are reproduced in CRS Report 94-805 F, The Use of Force:
Key Statements by Weinberger, Shultz, Aspin, Bush, Powell, Albright, and Perry (archived;
available from author).
⁸ For arguments on the dangers of weak and failed states, see The 9/11 Commission Report:
Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States, New
York: W.W. Norton and Company, 2004, and On the Brink: A Report of the Commission on
Weak States and US National Security, sponsored by the Center for Global Development,
May 2004. Countering arguments are found in: Patrick Stewart. Weak States and Global
Threats: Assessing Evidence of “Spillovers.” Working Paper No. 73, Center for Global
Development, January 2006; and Justin Logan and Christopher Preeble. Failed States and
Flawed Logic: The Case against a Standing Nation-Building Office. CATO Policy Analysis
Paper No. 560, Cato Institute, January 11, 2006.

Evolving Terminology and Definitional Problems
Over the past decade and a half, there has been an evolution in the vocabulary
used to refer to activities that are undertaken to maintain, enforce, promote and
enhance the possibilities for peace in unstable environments. “Peacekeeping” has
been the traditional generic term for the operations undertaken for those purposes by
the United Nations and other international organizations, and sometimes ad hoc
coalitions of nations or individual nations. More recently, in an attempt to capture
the ambiguity and complexity of such operations, and perhaps also to avoid the
stigma of failure attached to peacekeeping, they have become known as “stabilization
and reconstruction” (S&R) operations, or, more simply, “stability” operations. Use
of any term with the word “peace” created a semantic dilemma, conveying the
misleading impression that an operation is without risk, when in fact, peacekeeping
operations can place soldiers in hostile situations resembling war. As knowledge
increased about the conditions needed to establish peace, operations increasingly
included extensive “nation-building” (or state-building as some prefer to call it)
components to build or reform government structures.
The term “peacekeeping” gained currency in the late 1950s, when U.N.
peacekeeping mostly fit a narrow definition: providing an “interpositional” force to
supervise the keeping of a cease-fire or peace accord that parties in conflict had
signed, but it continued to be used as the range of activities grew. In 1992, the U.N.
began to use a broader terminology to describe the different types of activities in
securing and keeping peace. It created the term “peace enforcement” to describe
operations in unstable situations where peacekeepers are allowed to use force to
maintain peace because of a greater possibility of conflict or a threat to their safety.⁹
“Peacebuilding” was adopted as a term for activities that are designed to prevent the
resumption or spread of conflict, including disarmament and demobilization of
warring parties, repatriation of refugees, reform and strengthening of government
institutions (including re-creating police or civil defense forces), election-monitoring,
and promotion of political participation and human rights. Organizing and providing
security for humanitarian relief efforts can be a part of peacekeeping and peace
enforcement operations. The U.N., NATO, and ad hoc coalition missions that the
United States participated in with significant forces in the early 1990s (Bosnia, Haiti,
Somalia) were generally referred to by the generic term of “peacekeeping” by
Congress, even though U.S. executive branch agencies replaced “peacekeeping” with
“peace operations” as the generic term.
Recently, such operations have been referred to by an Army doctrinal term
“stability operations” that also encompasses the diverse missions of operations in
Afghanistan and Iraq. This may be a more precise term for such operations, as many
include not only peace operations (i.e., peacekeeping and peace enforcement), but
also related missions such as humanitarian and civic assistance, counterterrorism,
counter-drug, and counter-insurgency (i.e., foreign internal defense) efforts, all of

⁹ For some analysts, there is virtually no difference between peace enforcement operations
and low-intensity conflict, save the existence of a peace plan or agreement that has a degree
of local consent.

which also are included under the term “stability operations.”¹⁰ Stability operations
are sometimes referred to as “Phase IV” or “post-conflict” operations, although
reoccurrences of conflict are often possible.
In the wake of U.S. military action in Iraq, the question of continued U.S.
military involvement has been framed in terms of whether the U.S. military should
do “nation-building,” and if it does, how it should prepare for it. Like peacekeeping,
nation-building is not a precise term, but rather one that is used for both a concept
and a variety of activities. On one level, nation-building is used to refer to the
concept of creating (or a decision to create) a democratic state, often in a post-
conflict situation. The term is also used, however, to refer to any of the range of
activities that militaries or civilians undertake to advance that goal. (A 2003 RAND
report, America’s Role in Nation-Building from Germany to Iraq, uses the term to
encompass the full range of activities undertaken by the United States, including by
its military forces, in operations that have been variously known as an occupation,
peacekeeping, peace enforcement, and S&R.)
As most often used when referring to the U.S. military, nation-building refers
to a range of activities to assist civilians beyond providing security and humanitarian
aid in emergency situations. These can include projects such as the repair,
maintenance, or construction of economic infrastructure, including roads, schools,
electric grids, and heavy industrial facilities, and of health infrastructure, such as
clinics and hospitals, and water and sewage facilities. They can also include the
provision of a variety of services, such as medical services to refugee and
impoverished populations, and training and assistance to police, the military, the
judiciary, and prison officials as well as other civil administrators
The November 2005 DOD stability operations directive cites the specific tasks
of rebuilding indigenous institutions (including various types of security forces,
correctional facilities, and judicial systems) necessary to stabilize a situation;
reviving or building the private sector, including bottom-up economic activity and
constructing necessary infrastructure, and developing representative government
institutions as among those tasks that are performed in stability operations. These
tasks are also part of the continuum of activities that fall under the term “stabilization
and reconstruction” (S&R) which also has been used to describe these complex
operations.
Current U.S. Military Participation in Peacekeeping and
Related Stability Missions
The level of U.S. military participation in peacekeeping is much reduced from
the 1990s, if the occupation force in Iraq is excluded. Still, thousands of U.S.
military personnel participate full-time in a variety of activities that fall under the
rubric of peacekeeping operations, most endorsed by the U.N.

¹⁰ The other types of operations are security assistance, support to insurgencies,
noncombatant evacuations, arms control and shows of force. For further information on the
activities which fall under each of these types of operations, see Army Field Manual FM-

307, Stability Operations and Support Operations, February 2003.

Very few U.S. military personnel currently serve under U.N. command. As of
December 31, 2006, 26 U.S. military personnel were serving in five U.N.
peacekeeping or related operations. These operations are located in the Middle East
(3 U.S. military observers or “milobs” in the Sinai operation), Georgia (2 milobs),
Ethiopia/Eritrea (7 milobs), Liberia (5 milobs and 6 troops), and Haiti (3 troops).
Other U.S. forces are deployed in unilateral U.S. operations and coalition operations,
most undertaken with U.N. authority.¹¹
In the Balkans,¹² U.S. troops were largely withdrawn from Bosnia with the
December 2, 2004 end of the NATO operation there, but as of December 2006 some
100 U.S. troops supported the European Union operation in Bosnia as part of
NATO’s supporting headquarters unit. A U.S. peacekeeping contingent, numbering

1,700 or so as of December 2006, remains with NATO operation in Kosovo (KFOR).

Roughly 700 U.S. troops serve in the Sinai-based Multilateral Force and Observers
(MFO) ad hoc coalition operation, which has no U.N. affiliation.¹³
The United States also has thousands of other troops abroad in operations that
are related stability operations, but are not counted as peacekeeping per se. As of
December 2006, about 10,400 U.S. military personnel were assigned to the NATO
International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan. (See section on
Afghanistan below.) Roughly 29,500 U.S. troops are serving in South Korea under

¹¹ While the reduction in U.S. troops involved in peacekeeping, especially U.N.
peacekeeping, from the early 1990s responded to perceptions that peacekeeping excessively
strained U.S. forces without significantly serving U.S. interests, some analysts continue to
argue that greater participation of U.S. forces in U.N. peacekeeping would be desirable.
In June 2005, the Congressionally-mandated Task Force on the U.N., chaired by former
Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich and former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell,
called for greater U.S. support of U.N. operations. The Task Force report recommended that
U.N. Member States should substantially increase the number of trained and equipped forces
for rapid deployment for peace operations and that the Department of Defense should
“prepare options for additional means to support U.N. peace operations with logistics,
capacity-building assistance, and other means” and “for U.S. engagement in peace
operations consistent with U.S. national interests.” It specifically recommended that the
United States “consider upgrading its participation” in the U.N. Stand-by Arrangements
system, through which countries volunteer capabilities for U.N. peace operations.
(American Interests and U.N. Reform: Report of the Task Force on the United Nations.
Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace, June 2005. Quotes taken from pp. 11, 24
and 97.)
Some military analysts argue that the U.N. does not necessarily need more U.S. troops
to place in field-level observer slots in U.N. missions. What is needed, they say, are staff
officers at the headquarters command level whose training and mindset enables them to
think proactively about dealing with developing problems. Others believe that U.S. soldiers
with engineering and skills using advanced communications technologies would also be
useful.
¹² Numbers of U.S. troops in Bosnia and Kosovo are taken from the Text of a Letter from the
President to the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the President Pro Tempore
of the Senate, dated December 15, 2006, as posted on the White House website
[ ht t p: / / www.whi t e house.gov/ news/ r el eases/ 2006/ 12/ 20061218-5.ht ml ] .
¹³ Information on the U.S. and other nations’ contributions to the MFO can be accessed
through the MFO’s official website [http://www.mfo.org].

bilateral U.S.-Republic of Korea agreements and U.N. authority.¹⁴ (Although
technically “peacekeeping,” this deployment has long been treated as a standard U.S.
forward presence mission.) An ongoing drawdown is scheduled to reduce the
number still further.
The Bush Administration’s Policy
Despite President Bush’s stated dislike for open-ended “nation-building”
missions involving U.S. ground forces during his first presidential campaign, as
President he has been willing to maintain troops in peacekeeping missions to the
extent he deems necessary. During his Administration, President Bush sought and
achieved substantial reductions in Bosnia and Kosovo and thus far has resisted calls
to provide U.S. troops for patrolling and other peacekeeping tasks with the
international peacekeeping force in Afghanistan.
Reductions in Bosnia and Kosovo. The Bush Administration sought to
minimize forces in the two NATO Balkans peacekeeping operations through
negotiations with U.S. allies, following established NATO procedures. The U.S.
presence in Bosnia dropped steadily during the Bush Administration from some
4,200 participating in the NATO Bosnia Stabilization Force (SFOR) at the beginning
of 2001 to under 1,000 in 2004. U.S. participation ended on December 2, 2004,
when the European Union assumed responsibility for the operation. A small number
of U.S. troops, some 100 as of the end of 2006, work with the NATO Headquarters
unit providing support to the EU in Bosnia. (See CRS Report RS21774, Bosnia and
the European Union Military Force (EUFOR): Post-NATO Transition, by Julie
Kim.) Similarly, the U.S. presence in Kosovo dropped from some 5,600 involved in
the NATO Kosovo Force (KFOR) in early 2001 to about 1,700 of the total 16,000-
17,000 KFOR force from about 35 nations. (These numbers can fluctuate by the
hundreds due to rotations.) In both cases, these reductions have taken place in the
context of an overall reduction of forces.
NATO Peacekeeping and U.S. Operations in Afghanistan.¹⁵ With
the 2006 geographic expansion of the responsibility of NATO’s International
Security Assistance Force (ISAF) to encompass all of Afghanistan, NATO assumed
the lead for international military operations and the responsibility security
throughout the country. As a result, a large number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan
which previously had been attached to the U.S.-led Operation Enduring Freedom
(OEF) were assigned to ISAF as of early October 2006. As of December 2006, the
number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan totaled roughly 21,000, with some 10,400

¹⁴ This number was obtained from an on-line Associated Press news dispatch of January 18,

2007, U.S. General in S. Korea Warns of Changes, as posted at [http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/

20070118/ap_on_re_as/skorea_us_military], accessed on January 23, 2007.

¹⁵ For more information on military operations in Afghanistan, see CRS Report RL33503,
U.S. and Coalition Military Operations in Afghanistan: Issues for Congress, by Andrew
Feickert; and CRS Report RL33627, NATO in Afghanistan: A Test of the Transatlantic
Alliance, by Paul Gallis.

assigned to ISAF and the remainder participating in OEF.¹⁶ According to the NATO
website, ISAF now comprises some 30,000 troops from 37 NATO and non-NATO
nations (including the United States).¹⁷
The ISAF mission in Afghanistan has expanded steadily since it began in
January 2002 as an ad hoc coalition operation of some 5,000 troops from 18 nations
under British command. Its original purpose, under a U.N. Chapter VII mandate was
to patrol Kabul and the immediate surrounding area. NATO assumed command of
ISAF just 18 months later, in August 2003, shortly before the UN expanded the
mandate to include other areas. At the time of the transfer of responsibility for
Afghanistan’s security to ISAF in October 2006, most U.S. military personnel
deployed to Afghanistan (which ranged in number roughly from some 10,000 to
some 23,000) were engaged in continuing combat (hunting Al Qaeda). Others,
numbering in the low hundreds, were engaged in support, training, and reconstruction
missions. U.S. troops provided some assistance to the ISAF (i.e., logistical,
intelligence, and quick reaction force support), but they did not engage in ISAF
peacekeeping. U.S. troops do, however, provide training and assistance for the
formation of an Afghani national military force, an activity which some analysts label
“nation-building.”
The most salient non-combat U.S. role has been the establishment and operation
since December 2002 of Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs), which were
designed to create a secure environment for aid agencies involved in reconstruction
work in areas outside Kabul. These teams consisted of both military and civilian
personnel.) As of April 2006, the United States operated 13 PRTs. ISAF
involvement in PRTs began on January 6, 2004, when ISAF marked the beginning
of its operations outside Kabul by taking over the German-led PRT in Konduz. ISAF
assumption of responsibility for security in all Afghanistan in 2006 includes running
all 25 PRTs operating at the time. Although the U.S. military role in PRTs is not
identified as “peacekeeping,” its objectives — enhancing security, extending the
reach of the central government, and facilitating reconstruction — are similar to those
of peacekeeping operations. Some analysts consider it “nation-building.” Thus far,
the PRTs have not proven controversial in Congress, although some humanitarian
organizations have taken issue with them.¹⁸ (See discussion on nation-building in the
section on Apportioning Responsibilities, below.)
Airlift in Africa. The United States military occasionally provides airlift
assistance for peacekeeping missions in Africa. For instance, the United States has
participated under NATO in airlifting African Union troops to the AU mission in
Darfur, Sudan.

¹⁶ Numbers of troops in Afghanistan and assigned to NATO taken from Text of a Letter from
the President to the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the President Pro Tempore
of the Senate, dated December 15, 2006, op. cit.
¹⁷ Accessed January 24, 2006: [http://www.nato.int/issues/isaf/index.html].
¹⁸ For more on PRTs, see CRS Report RL30588, Afghanistan: Post-War Governance,
Security, and U.S. Policy, by Kenneth Katzman; and the United States Institute of Peace’s
Special Report 147, Provincial Reconstruction Teams and Military Relations with
International and Nongovernmental Organizations in Afghanistan.

The Extended U.S. Military “Stabilization” Presence in Iraq.¹⁹ U.S.
troops in Iraq are engaged in a wide variety of activities, the most visible of which
are counterinsurgency operations, but some of which are generally classified as
peacekeeping duties. The activities undertaken by U.S. troops varies from area to
area, and some commanders have noted that their troops are doing a mix of both
types of operations. The United States is also establishing military-civilian
Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs) in Iraq such as it established in
Afghanistan.
DOD Directive 3000.05: Mandates, Background, and
Related Legislation
In the wake of the coalition invasion of Iraq, the debate over the appropriate role
for the United States military in activities encompassed by the term peacekeeping has
again moved to the forefront. Although the current military occupation of Iraq falls
in a gray area that defies easy definition, with a level of instability that many define
as low-intensity conflict rather than peace enforcement, many of the activities that
the U.S. military has undertaken there also have been undertaken in past
peacekeeping operations. Critics of the Bush Administration have charged that its
disdain for peacekeeping has led it to ignore the lessons of past operations and to err
in its judgment of the number and type of forces necessary in Iraq, putting the United
States and its allies at risk of “losing the peace” there. Yet, the situation in Iraq²⁰
appears to have prompted the two Defense Science Board (DSB) studies that
constitute the foundation for Department of Defense (DOD) Directive 3000.05.
DOD Directive 3000.05 sets forth a radically new policy regarding missions
known as “stability” operations, a major subset of which are peacekeeping and other
peace operations. The Directive on Military Support for Stability, Security,
Transition, and Reconstruction (SSTR) Operations designates stability operations as
“a core U.S. military mission.” By elevating stability missions to the same priority
level as combat missions, DOD seems to acknowledge expectations that future
operations will regularly include missions to stabilize areas during transitions from
war to peace and to assist with reconstruction during those transitions. For several
years, some military officers and defense analysts have argued that such efforts
required the systematic development of doctrine, training, education, exercises, and
planning capabilities to enable the armed forces to perform those operations

¹⁹ For more on the U.S. military present in Iraq, see CRS Report RL31701, Iraq: U.S.
Military Operations, by Steve Bowman; CRS Report RL31339, Iraq: U.S. Regime Change
Efforts and Post-Saddam Governance, by Kenneth Katzman; and CRS Report RS22449,
U.S. Forces in Iraq, by JoAnne O’Bryant and Michael Waterhouse.
²⁰ Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics.
Defense Science Board Summer 2004 Study on Transition to and from Hostilities, December
2004, and Report of the Defense Science Board Task Force on Institutionalizing Stability
Operations within DOD, September 2005. (Access through the Defense Science Board
website [http://www.acq.osd.mil/dsb/report.htm]. The Board was tasked in August 2005
with a further study on the organizational changes that would be needed within DOD to
conduct, support, and manage stability operations. This has not been completed.

proficiently, as well as the reconfiguration and acquisition of organizations,
personnel, facilities, and materiél to support them. The directive catalogues such
needs and calls for the development of specific recommendations to fulfill them.
Two more recent documents make no mention of any further steps to enhance
DOD capabilities for such operations. The DOD February 6, 2006 Quadrennial
Defense Review report (QDR), the document in which senior DOD civilian and
military leaders identify the capabilities and resources needed to carry out a
comprehensive defense strategy, did not specifically address the issue of post-conflict
operations. DOD officials state privately, however, that proposals regarding these
types of operations are being considered under the category of “irregular warfare”
because of problems arriving at a consensus on the appropriate terminology for
categorizing them. The March 2006 National Security Strategy mentions the
development of U.S. civilian and international military capabilities to carry out post-
conflict operations, but does not mention augmenting U.S. military capabilities.
The U.S. military, particularly the Army, has made many adjustments over the
past several years to enable troops to perform more effectively in peacekeeping
operations in places such as Bosnia and Kosovo.²¹ Nevertheless, events in Iraq since
the United States invaded in 2003 have reinforced arguments that still greater efforts
must be made to raise the possibilities for successful transitions. The directive
provides the basis for instituting significant changes and dedicating substantial
resources to prepare troops to perform proficiently in such missions, although the
eventual effect on armed services is not known.
The directive calls for changes in a wide variety of areas, some of which could
be implemented in short order, others of which would take considerable time. DOD
is beginning to develop specific proposals to implement Directive 3000.05. There
are still areas where the directive lays out policy, but DOD currently is unsure of the
steps that it will take to implement it. DOD may bring to Congress during 2006 and

²¹ The increased frequency of operations (“optempo”) demanded by peacekeeping operations
in the 1990s took time from necessary maintenance, repairs, and combat training. The
problem of frequent deployments of individuals (“perstempo”) was particularly severe for
the Army. For several years, the Army was deploying the same units over and over to
peacekeeping operations, and the pace of deployment was viewed as too demanding,
affecting morale by keeping personnel away from families for too long, and, some argue,
affecting recruitment. In one of the first publicly-available studies of peacekeeping stresses,
in March 1995 the GAO reported (GAO/NSIAD-95-51) that increased deployments due to
peacekeeping together with reduced force structure taxed certain Navy and Marine Corps
units, and “heavily” stressed certain Army support forces (such as quartermaster and
transportation units) and specialized Air Force aircraft critical to the early stages of an major
regional contingency (MRC) to an extent that could endanger DOD’s ability to respond
quickly to an MRC. A July 2000 GAO report (GAO/NSIAD-00-164) found shortages in
forces needed for contingency operations, including active-duty civil affairs personnel,
Navy/Marine Corps land-based EA-6B squadrons, fully-trained and available Air Force
AWACS aircraft crews, and fully-trained U-2 pilots. The Army took steps to deal with
some of its problems by the realignment and better management of its resources, as did the
Air Force, and by limiting deployments to six months (although this was overridden by
deployments to Iraq).

2007 several requests for changes in laws, authorities, and regulations necessary to
implement the directive and the QDR, as well as for additional funding.
The House Armed Services Committee (HASC), in its report accompanying the
FY2007 DOD authorization act (H.R. 5122, H.Rept. 109-452) noted that it was
pleased that DOD had issued the directive and stated its belief that DOD “should
integrate, to the greatest extent possible, SSTR-related requirements across its
doctrine, training logistics, organization, materiel, personnel, and facilities (DTLOM-
PF).” HASC directed the Secretary of Defense to submit to the armed services
committees of both chambers an implementation report for all items, with “a special
focus on professional military education and training, including but not limited to
revisions to Academy and War College curricula, if any; training plans at the service
and joint operational levels; the possible creation of SSTR [Stability, Security,
Transition, and Reconstruction] fellowships within the Agency for International
Development or related organizations (including non-governmental organizations);
and any reorganization that will be required to implement the Directive.”
Improving Military Capabilities
The Directive states that the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and
Readiness should identify the personnel and training needed for stability operations
and evaluate DOD progress in developing those forces and training. It does not
provide specific recommendations regarding the size and structure and specific
capabilities needed for stability operations, but does call for the incorporation of
stability operations instruction at all levels of education and training.
Force Size and Structure. Whether U.S. military forces should be sized and
organized specifically to facilitate peacekeeping and related stability operations has
been a longstanding issue. Since the 1990s, many Members have questioned whether
U.S. military forces could maintain their “readiness” to perform their “core” war-
fighting mission if they engaged extensively in other activities.²² The size of the
force and the numbers of troops devoted to specific tasks have been recognized as
two key factors in the military’s ability to perform peacekeeping and related stability
operations while retaining its preparedness to fight wars. (Also important are the

²² Critics were disturbed by declines in ratings which measured combat readiness in the
1990s. There were a variety of reasons for these declines, some of which were addressed by
changes in military practices: (1) military personnel could not practice all their combat skills
while engaged in peacekeeping operations; (2) in the 1990s, the U.S. military performed
these operations at the same time the armed forces, particularly the army, were reduced
substantially; (3) funds for training and equipment were diverted in the past to fund
peacekeeping operations; and (4) units were disrupted by the deployment of an individual
or a small number of individuals. If one looked at the larger readiness problem of the 1990s
and early 2000s, that is the perception that U.S. military personnel were overworked, that
military equipment was in poor shape, that spare parts were in short supply, and that the
military could not recruit and retain needed personnel, the relationship of peacekeeping to
readiness was less pronounced, according to some analysts. Some have argued that the
readiness problem was exaggerated or non-existent, given the successful combat
performances of U.S. troops in Afghanistan in 2001 and in Iraq in 2003.

size, length and frequency of deployments and opportunities for training in combat
skills while deployed on such operations.)
The November 2005 stability operations directive points to possible increases
in the numbers of certain specialities in high demand in peacekeeping and related
stability operations (i.e., civil affairs officers, foreign area specialists, military police,
engineers, and psychological operations personnel) as mentioned above, but no
further changes in size or structure.²³ Others have urged more extensive changes in
the force to better accommodate such missions. The Army has long rejected
proposals for dedicated peacekeeping forces, primarily on the grounds that they
would divert resources from combat functions. (For information on proposals for
dedicating forces to peacekeeping and related operations, see CRS Report RS22473,
Peacekeeping and Related Stability Operations: Proposals for Army Force Structure
Changes.)
Any recommendations regarding force size and structure for stability operations
are likely to provoke intensive debate. Proposals to add troops are controversial in
large part because the basic cost of each added soldier is high and increases in troop
strength involve either additional costs or trade-offs with other military requirements,
particularly modernizing equipment and weapons systems. In the mid- to late 1990s,
some policymakers and military experts suggested that 520,000 to 540,000 troops
would be a more appropriate size for the Army if it were to prevail in the scenario
involving two major theater wars (which was then the standard for sizing force
structure) and also to engage in peacekeeping missions. (For the 14 years after the
end of the Vietnam War in 1975 through the end of the Cold War in 1989, the Army
had averaged some 778,000, with fluctuations.) The extent to which additional
military U.S. forces are needed for such roles may depend heavily on what other
capabilities are developed for such operations, including civilians and foreign
military forces.

²³ The September 2005 DSB report on institutionalizing stability operations notes that DOD
lacks “a sizing concept” that would enable the department to prepare “for concurrent
domestic stability operations, foreign stability operations and foreign combat operations; all
of which will call upon some of the same resource base.” (p. 11.) The 2006 QDR report
states that Army end-strength should be stabilized at 482,400 Active and 533,000 reserve
component personnel by FY2011 (p. 43). The 2006 QDR report calls for further increases
in certain specialties. It calls for increasing the number of Special Forces battalions by one-
third starting in FY2007 and expanding psychological operations and civil affairs units by
one-third (3,700 personnel). In another area that may be at least partially related to conflict
transitions and post-conflict operations, it also calls for the establishment of a Marine Corps
Special Operations Command of 2,600 personnel to train foreign military units and conduct
direct action and special reconnaissance.
For FY2007, the House and Senate versions of the National Defense Authorization
bills (H.R. 5122 and S. 2766) would increase the active duty Army end-strength to 512,400,
an increase of 30,000. The legislation would also increase the size of the Marine Corps by
either 5,000 (House) or 10,000 (Senate). (For further information, see CRS Report
RL33405, Defense: FY2007 Authorization and Appropriations, by Stephen Daggett, and
CRS Report RS21754, Military Forces: What is the Appropriate Size for the United States?,
by Edward F. Bruner.)

Stability Operations Curricula and Training. The directive calls on DOD
to ensure that military schools and training centers incorporate stability operations
curricula in joint and individual service education and training programs at all levels.
It particularly calls for developing and incorporating instruction for foreign language
capabilities and regional area expertise, including “long-term immersion in foreign
societies.” It would also broaden the exposure of military personnel to U.S. and
international civilians with whom they would work in stability operations by
providing them with tours of duty in other U.S. agencies, international organizations,
and non-governmental organizations.
Apportioning Responsibilities
Establishing security in a post-conflict environment is indisputably a military
responsibility, but assigning specific responsibility for the state-building tasks is
problematic. Some policymakers and military officials have long believed that
nation-building is an inefficient and inappropriate use of military force.
Nevertheless, some policymakers and analysts assert the need for military
involvement in such tasks, particularly when others are not available to undertake
them in the immediate aftermath of major combat.
Nation-building tasks are often viewed as essential elements in stabilizing post-
conflict situations because they provide the physical and organizational infrastructure
populations need to help re-establish normal lives. Such activities are also viewed as
enhancing the legitimacy and extending the presence of weak central governments
as they try to assert control in such situations, and as reassuring local populations of
the friendly intent of foreign military forces. Sometimes, involvement in such
activities may enable armed forces to make more informed judgments about the
security situation in an area. Some analysts view U.S. military nation-building as an
essential element in the U.S. toolkit to respond to the Congressionally-mandated 9/11
Commission’s recommendation to use all elements of national power “to keep
possible terrorists insecure and on the run....” ²⁴
In immediate post-conflict situations, or extremely dangerous environments,
military forces may be the only personnel available to perform such tasks. In hostile
environments, armed forces may be needed to provide security for relief workers
providing such assistance. In less problematic circumstances, however, some argue
that the use of the military for such tasks can be detrimental to humanitarian and
reconstruction tasks. Such critics feel that the use of troops for such purposes can
detract from a sense of returning normality and establishment of civilian control.
Where military and civilians are delivering assistance in the same areas, some
civilians feel that the military presence confuses the civilian role, and makes them
targets of armed opponents. Because of that, many humanitarian groups have
objected to the concept of the Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs) that are well
established in Afghanistan and are being set up in Iraq.

²⁴ The 9/11 Commission Report, op. cit., p 367.

Civilian Capabilities to Perform Nation Building Tasks.²⁵ Several
proposals to build civilian capabilities to perform nation-building tasks, especially
rule of law tasks, in peacekeeping operations have been advanced. No legislation
was passed in the 108^th Congress despite the introduction of three bills, but some of
the proposed ideas were taken into consideration in the State Department’s
establishment, in July 2004, of a new Office of the Coordinator for Reconstruction
and Stabilization (S/CRS). S/CRS’ function is to develop mechanisms to enhance
civilian capabilities, and to improve inter-agency coordination in planning and
conducting S&R operations.
Defense analysts and military experts have provided much of the impetus for the
concept of developing civilian capabilities for S&R missions. The DSB’s summer
2004 study supported the development of civilian capabilities. According to the
unclassified version published in December 2004, the study described the S&R
mission as “inescapable, its importance irrefutable” and argued that both DOD and
the Department of State need to augment S&R capabilities and to develop “an
extraordinarily close working relationship.” In addition, the study found that the
State Department needs “to develop a capacity for operational planning [that] it does
not currently possess” and to develop “a more robust capacity to execute such
plans.”²⁶ The follow-up September 2005 DSB study expressed concern that S/CRS
“is not getting anywhere near the level of resources and authority needed.” If DOD
actions in critical areas where there is an overlap between DOD and civilian
responsibilities “are not complemented by growth of capabilities in other agencies,
the overall U.S. ability to conduct successful stability operations will be far less than²⁷
it should be.” The February 2006 QDR stated that DOD will support “substantially
increased resources” for S/CRS and for the establishment of a Civilian Reserve Corps
and a conflict response fund. (p 86)
The Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC), in its report accompanying the
FY2006 DOD authorization bill (S. 1042, S.Rept. 109-69), commended DOD’s
“active support of and cooperation with” S/CRS and urged DOD “to continue to
deepen its coordination with the Department of State on planning for and
participating in post-conflict stability operations and reconstruction efforts. The
conference version of the National Defense Authorization Act for FY2006 (H.R.
1815, P.L. 109-163) provided authority to transfer in each FY2006 and FY2007 up
to $100 million in defense articles, services, training or other support to the
Department of State and other federal agencies for reconstruction, security or
stabilization assistance. The Administration had requested $200 million for a State
Department Conflict Response Fund for such purposes, but neither authority nor
funding was provided in non-military legislation. According to a DOD official, this
authority is intended to support S/CRS in carrying out its activities.

²⁵ For further details on S/CRS and relevant legislation, see CRS Report RL32862,
Peacekeeping and Conflict Transitions: Background and Congressional Action on Civilian
Capabilities, by Nina M. Serafino and Martin A. Weiss.
²⁶ Transition to and from Hostilities, op. cit., pp 38-39.
²⁷ Institutionalizing Stability Operations, op. cit., pp 5-6.

FY2007 Legislation. Section 1035 of the FY2007 DOD National Defense
authorization bill (P.L. 109-364, signed into law July 16, 2007) requires the President
to submit a report to Congress no later than April 1, 2007, “on building interagency
capacity and enhancing the integration of civilian capabilities of the executive branch
with the capabilities of the Armed Forces to enhance the achievement of United
States national security goals and objectives.” The report is to include
recommendations for specific legislative proposals that would build interagency
capacity by removing statutory or budgetary impediments to improved interagency
cooperation and coordination in SSTR operations and by enhancing the integration
of civilian and military capabilities when deployed on national security missions. It
is also to include a plan to establish interagency operating procedures for the
planning and conduct of SSTR operations.
Improving Inter-Agency Cooperation and Coordination
Responding to calls to enhance the ability of the wide variety of participants in
stability operations to work together, the directive provides a number of ways to
improve inter-agency (and international) cooperation and coordination in
multinational operations. To that end, the directive called for the incorporation of
military personnel and civilians of many backgrounds in military education and
training courses, including personnel from U.S. departments and agencies, foreign
governments and security forces, international organizations, non-governmental
organizations, and members of the private sector in stability operations planning,
training, and exercises. It also proposes that DOD ensure that instructors and
students from elsewhere in the U.S. government be able to receive or provide
instruction in stability operations at military schools.
The directive also calls for the creation of “a stability operations center to
coordinate operations research, education and training, and lessons-learned.” The
U.S. military has two institutions currently devoted exclusively to such operations,
neither of which serves a coordinating function: the U.S. Army Peacekeeping and
Stability Operations Institute (PKSOI) at Carlisle Barracks, PA, and the Naval Post-
Graduate School’s Center for Stabilization and Reconstruction Study (CSRS).
PKSOI assists with the development of Army doctrine at the strategic (i.e., the
leadership and planning) and operational levels, and helps the Army’s senior
leadership develop operational concepts. It works with the UN, U.S. government
interagency groups, inter-service groups, and foreign militaries
([http://www.carlisle.army.mil/usacsl/divisions/pksoi/]). CSRS’s mission, according
to its website, is “to educate the full spectrum of actors” involved in S&R activities
through educational, research, and outreach activities ([http://www.nps.edu/CSRS/]).
Military Personnel and Contractors
The directive reflects longstanding concerns that the U.S. armed services may
not possess enough people with the skills necessary for stability operations, in
particular peace operations. The directive calls on the department to identify the
personnel needed for such operations and to develop methods to recruit, select, and
assign current and former DOD personnel with relevant skills. The Under Secretary
of Defense for Personnel and Readiness is directed to recommend all necessary

changes in laws, authorities, and regulations to accomplish this. In particular, the
directive reflects concern about developing enough foreign area officers, enlisted
regional specialists, civil affairs personnel, military police, engineers, and
psychological operations personnel. These specialities have long been noted as
having insufficient personnel to meet the demands of the last dozen years. The DSB
Task Force report of September 2005 report recommended that DOD develop special
strategies to recruit at mid-career, 35-45 year old professionals, with the skills
needed for stability operations, to serve as Civil Affairs officers.
Certain points of the directive also suggest that DOD may wish to depend on
contractors for any additional personnel needed in stability operations. In addition
to the mandate mentioned above that would bring former DOD personnel into the
mix of persons participating in stability operations, the directive mandates a check
for adequate oversight of contracts in stability operations and in the ability of U.S.
commanders in foreign countries to obtain contract support quickly. The DSB Task
Force on institutionalizing stability operations labeled the private sector as DOD’s
“fifth force provider” for stability operations (in addition to the four branches of the
armed services) and recommended that DOD design a new institution that would
effectively use the private sector in stability operations.
Many analysts raise concerns about the appropriate role for private for-profit
contractors in stability operations. Private contractors — both armed and unarmed
— have been used by the United States as well as other countries and the United
Nations to perform a wide variety of functions in peacekeeping as well as other
stability operations. The costs of unarmed contractors for tasks such as facility
construction, facility and equipment maintenance, and food and housekeeping
services have generated controversy. More sensitive, however, is the appropriateness
of armed contractors for security and other services. Many analysts argue that private
contractors should not carry out inherently governmental functions as the government
cannot exercise the same control over them that it does over government personnel,
nor hold them accountable in the same way for offenses. Some also argue that
contractors — both armed and unarmed — can be unreliable in dangerous
circumstances, complicating military operations or jeopardizing mission objectives.
In a paper prepared for the 1994-1995 Commission on Roles and Missions (CORM),
two analysts argued that private contractors are not appropriate when the specific
actions for achieving desired ends are very important, unpredictable, or politically
sensitive.²⁸
Improving International Capabilities
Directive 3000.05 calls for DOD to support the development of other countries’
security forces in order to ensure security domestically and to contribute forces to
stability operations elsewhere. This includes helping such forces, including police

²⁸ Christine Cervenak and George T. Raach, “Contracting and Privatization in Peace
Operations,” in Antonia Handler Chayes and George T. Raach. Peace Operations:
Developing an American Strategy. Washington, D.C.: Institute for National Strategic
Studies, National Defense University, 1995, p. 145.

forces, develop “the training, structure, processes, and doctrine necessary to train,
equip, and advise large numbers of foreign forces in a range of security sectors....”
Thus far, the United States supports training for international peacekeepers in
two ways, through the Global Peace Operations Initiative, run by the State
Department, and through DOD-sponsored training. The February 2006 QDR report
stated that DOD would continue to support initiatives such as GOPI, and that it also
supports efforts to develop a NATO stabilization and reconstruction capability, a
European constabulary force, and the African Union’s development of a
humanitarian crisis intervention capability. It also stated DOD “stands ready to
increase its assistance” to the U.N. peacekeeping operations department for doctrine,
training, strategic planning, and management.
The Global Peace Operations Initiative.²⁹ The Bush Administration
proposed a five-year, multilateral Global Peace Operations Initiative (GPOI), to
prepare other, largely African, nations to participate in peacekeeping operations.
GPOI’s primary goal is to train and equip some 75,000 military forces, and to
develop gendarme forces (also known as constabulary police, i.e., police with
military skills) to participate in peacekeeping operations. The Administration
estimated the U.S. cost at $661 million from FY2005-FY2009. Funding provided for
the program in FY2005 and FY2006 was roughly $100 million each fiscal year.
Section 1206 Train and Equip Authority. In 2005, Congress authorized
DOD to establish a new program for training and educating foreign military forces
under Section 1206 of the FY2006 DOD authorization bill (H.R. 1815, P.L. 109-163,
signed January 6, 2006). This provision permits U.S. military personnel to train
foreign military forces for counterterrorism operations and for military and stability
operations in which U.S. armed forces participate. Training and education under
Section 1206 are intended not only to increase the ability of foreign forces to take
part in military operations, but also to increase “interoperability” with U.S. forces.
(Interoperability is the ability of military forces to communicate and otherwise
interact effectively in order to avoid losses due to increased confusion in hostile
situations). Congress turned down the Administration request to broaden the
authority to include train and equip for police forces, but through Section 1206 of the
FY2007 National Defense authorization bill (P.L. 109-364) it did raise the amount
of funding from $200 million to $300 million per year through FY2008 for training
purposes. That section also increased flexibility by permitting the Secretary of
Defense, with the concurrence of the Secretary of State, to authorize the training
rather than requiring a presidential order. SASC did not broaden the authority, as
DOD requested, to include other security forces (i.e., police forces) nor raise the
amount of funding.
Two related sections of P.L. 109-364 provide new authorities to support training
and education of foreign forces. Section 1205 (Participation of the Department of
Defense in Multilateral Military Centers of Excellence) provides authority for the

²⁹ For more information on GPOI and relevant legislation, see CRS Report RL32773, The
Global Peace Operations Initiative: Background and Issues for Congress, by Nina M.
Serafino.

Secretary of Defense to assist multilateral Centers of Excellence (CoE) with up to $3
million (in total) to pay the U.S. share of operating expenses of CoEs in which the
United States participates, and with other personnel, facility, and equipment support.
Section 1207 (Authority for Distribution to Certain Foreign Personnel of Education
and Training Materials and Information Technology to Enhance Military
Interoperability) allows DOD to provide electronic educational materials, along with
related technology and software, for the train and equip of military and civilian
personnel of a friendly foreign government. In cases where such train and equip is
not authorized by another provision of law, the Secretary of State must concur with
the provision of such assistance.
Providing Flexible Funding
DOD Directive 3000.05 calls for the Under Secretary of Defense Comptroller
to “institutionalize procedures to achieve rapid distribution of funding, goods, and
services, with appropriate accountability safeguards, by U.S. commanders deployed
in foreign countries in support of stability operations.” Many defense analysts argue
that Congress should provide geographic Combatant Commanders with flexible
funding through discretionary funds for humanitarian relief and reconstruction to
benefit local populations, based on the model of the Commander’s Emergency
Response Programs (CERP) funds for Afghanistan and Iraq. Section 1206 (c) of the
SASC version of the FY2007 National Defense authorization act (S. 2766) would
have authorized such funding in FY2007 and FY2008 for all commanders of a
geographic combatant command, (with an annual limit of $200,000 per commander).
The conference version of the bill (P.L. 109-364, signed into law July 15, 2006) does
not contain this particular provision. However, a similar effect may have been
obtained through the Section 902 expansion of the uses of the Combatant
Commander Initiative Fund. These now incorporate “civic assistance, to include
urgent and unanticipated humanitarian relief and reconstruction assistance.”

CRS-21
Table 1. DOD Incremental Costs of Peacekeeping and Security Contingency Operations, FY1991-FY2005
(Millions of current year dollars)
^FY^1991-^FY²⁰⁰⁵
^Op^erati^on^FY¹⁹⁹⁵^FY¹⁹⁹⁶^FY¹⁹⁹⁷^FY¹⁹⁹⁸^FY¹⁹⁹⁹^FY²⁰⁰⁰^FY²⁰⁰¹^FY²⁰⁰²^FY²⁰⁰³^FY²⁰⁰⁴^(Est.)^TOTAL
^{OF ONGOING OPERATIONS}
^hw^e^s^t^A^sⁱ^a^/^I^r^a^q
^r^a^{tion I}^r^a^{qi Fr}^e^e^dom⁽^O^I^F⁾^38,322.0^52,148.0^56,200.0^146,670.0
^ide^C^o^m^f^or^t/N^or^the^r^{n W}^a^tc^h^773.1^88.9^93.1^136.0^156.4^143.7^148.6
^1,372.4^626.2^—^—^Southe^rⁿ^W^a^tc^h/Aⁱ^r^Ex^pe^ditiona^r^y^Fo^r^c^e¹^{,517.3 576.3}^597.3¹^,497.2^954.8^755.4^963.5
^11,023.7^e^r^t^Strⁱ^k^e^/I^ntrⁱ^ns^ic^A^c^tion/D^e^s^e^r^t^Sprⁱ^ng^102.7⁵^.6^13.8^239.8^261.6
^ila^{nt W}^a^r^rⁱ^or^257.7^—^—^—^—^—^—^—^—^—^—^257.7
^e^r^t^T^hunde^r⁽^F^or^c^e^B^u^{ildup 11/98)}^43.5^—^—^—^—^—^—^43.5
^x^(A^{ir Strik}^e^{s, 1}²^/⁹⁸⁾⁹²^.⁹^—^—^—^—^—^—⁹²^.⁹
^I^K^O^M⁽^U^N^/^I^r^a^{q O}^b^s^e^r^v^e^r^G^r^oup)^32.4^—^—^—^—^—^—^—^—^—^—^32.4
^T^o^t^a^{l So}^u^t^h^w^e^s^t^A^s^ia^/I^r^a^q²^,580.5^665.2^793.1¹^,638.8¹^,^261.4¹^,138.9¹^,373.5¹^,372.4^38,^948.2^52,148.0^56,200.0^158,120.0
^h^ani^s^t^a^{n (}^O^peratⁱ^{on E}^nduriⁿ^g^F^reedom^,^OE^F⁾^15,788.1⁹^,849.2^11,800.0^37,437.3
ⁱ^{ki/CRS-RL33557}^{er Yug}^o^sl^avi^{a (}^K^osovo)
^g/w^an^Calm^(Ob^s^erv^e^{r Missio}ⁿ^,^P^r^e-Aⁱ^{r W}^a^r)³⁴^.⁶^—^—^—^—^—^—³⁴^.⁶
^s^.or^l^e^Ey^e⁽^A^ir^Ve^rⁱ^fⁱ^c^a^{tion, 10/98-}^03/99)^20.3^—^—^—^—^—^—^20.3
^le^ak^Aⁿ^v^{il (A}^{ir W}^a^r)^1,891.4^—^—^—^—^—^—^1,891.4
^u^a^r^diaⁿ⁽^K^FO^R⁾^1,044.5¹^,803.¹¹^,383.9^938.2^590.4^552.9^693.3⁷^,006.3
^://wiki^t^aⁱ^{n H}^ope⁽^R^e^f^ug^e^e^A^s^sⁱ^s^t^aⁿ^c^e⁾^141.6^—^—^—^—^—^—^141.6
^h^ttp^T^o^t^a^{l Ko}^s^o^v^o^3,132.4¹^,803.1¹^,^383.9^938.2^590.4^552.9^693.3⁹^,094.2
ⁱⁿ^ess*^160.6^—^—^—^—^—^—^—^—^—^—^160.6
^P^{LETED OPERATIONS}
^{er Yug}^o^sl^avi^{a (}^B^osni^a)
^R^/SFO^R^/^J^o^{int For}^g^e²^,231.7²^,^087.5¹^,792.8¹^,431.2¹^,381.8¹^,213.4
^932.9^742.2^667.8^150.7^14,405.1^r^For^m^e^r^Y^u^g^o^s^l^a^v^ia^O^p^e^r^a^tions^*^784.0^288.3^195.0^169.9^155.4^101.3^79.4
^a^{l B}^o^sⁿ^ia^784.0²^,520.0²^,282.5¹^,962.7¹^,586.⁶¹^,483.1¹^,292.6^932.9^742.2^667.8^150.7^14,405.1
^{ls o}^f^H^a^{iti, So}^m^a^lia^{, Rw}^aⁿ^d^a^{, An}^go^la^,^2,458.2^86.9^—^—^1.5^56.8^—^—^3.1^—^—^2,606.5
^b^odⁱ^a^,^W^e^stern^S^a^h^a^ra,^{East Ti}^m^o^{r an}^d
^eri^a
^TALS^5,^983.3³^,272.1³^,075.6³^,601.5⁵^,^981.9⁴^,481.8⁴^,050.0³^,243.5^56,^072.0^63,217.9^68,844.0^221,823.6
^rce:^D^e^f^e^ns^e^Fina^nc^e^a^nd^A^c^c^ounting^Sy^s^t^e^m^da^ta^thr^oug^h^FY^{2002; O}^f^fⁱ^c^e^of^the^Se^c^r^e^t^a^r^y^of^D^e^f^e^ns^e^Fis^c^a^l^Y^e^a^r⁽^F^Y⁾^{2005 B}^udg^e^t^Es^tim^a^t^e^s^{: J}^u^s^tif^ic^a^{tion f}^o^r^C^o^m^pone^{nt C}^onting^e^nc^y^O^p^e^r^a^tions
^Ov^e^r^se^a^s^Conting^e^nc^y^Ope^r^a^{tions T}^r^aⁿ^sf^e^r^{Fund, f}^o^r^{FY2003; FY2004, a}^nd^{FY2005 (e}^{st) prov}^ide^d^by^the^{DOD Com}^p^trolle^r’s^O^f^fⁱ^c^e^,^J^une^24,^2005.^T^h^e^FY^{2005 f}ⁱ^g^u^r^e^s^a^r^e^f^r^om^the^FY²⁰⁰⁵
^m^eⁿ^ta^{l Re}^que^s^t^of^Fe^brua^ry^{2005 a}^{nd do not re}^f^l^e^c^t^a^pprox^im^a^t^e^l^y^{$31.6 billion in othe}^{r s}^{upport a}^{nd re}^la^te^{d c}^o^s^t^s^a^pplic^a^ble^{to O}^I^{F a}^{nd O}^E^F.
^T^h^is^c^h^a^r^t^c^{onsists of}^{DOD inc}^r^e^m^eⁿ^ta^{l c}^o^{sts in}^v^o^lv^e^d^{in U.S. support f}^o^{r a}^nd^pa^rtic^ipa^tionⁱⁿ^p^eacekeepⁱⁿ^{g an}^dⁱⁿ^rel^a^t^e^d^h^u^m^anⁱ^t^a^ri^an^an^d^secu^ri^t^y^o^p^e^ratⁱ^oⁿ^s^,ⁱⁿ^cl^u^dⁱⁿ^g^U.^S^.^uⁿⁱ^l^a^t^e^ral^o^p^e^ratⁱ^oⁿ^s
^luding^O^I^{F in I}^r^a^{q a}^{nd O}^E^{F in A}^f^g^h^aⁿ^is^ta^{n, w}^h^ic^{h a}^r^e^c^o^m^b^a^t/oc^c^upa^{tion ope}^r^a^tions⁾^,^N^A^T^O^ope^r^a^tions^{, U}^.^N^.^ope^r^a^tions^{, a}^{nd a}^{d hoc}^c^o^a^{lition ope}^ra^{tions. U.N. re}^im^burse^m^e^{nts a}^r^e^{not de}^duc^te^d.
^e^tota^ls^{do not a}^{dd due}^{to r}^ounding^.^O^t^he^r^For^m^e^r^Y^u^g^o^s^l^a^v^ia^ope^r^a^tions^inc^l^ude^A^b^le^Se^ntr^y⁽^M^a^c^e^donia⁾^{, D}^e^ny^Flig^ht/D^e^cⁱ^sⁱ^v^e^Edg^e^{, U}^N^C^R^O⁽^Z^a^g^r^e^b)^{, Sha}^r^{p G}^u^a^r^{d (}^A^dr^ia^tic⁾^.^P^r^ov^ide^P^r^om^is^e
^anⁱ^t^a^ri^an^assi^st^an^ce),^Delⁱ^b^erat^{e F}^o^rge.^Becau^{se Ko}^{rea Read}ⁱⁿ^{ess h}^a^{s l}^oⁿ^g^b^een^coⁿ^sⁱ^d^ered^an^oⁿ^-^goⁱⁿ^{g p}^eacetⁱ^m^e^f^uⁿ^c^tⁱ^oⁿ^o^f^{U.S. troops, DOD only}^c^{ounts a}^bov^e^-^norm^a^{l le}^v^e^{ls of}^a^c^tiv^ity^the^r^e
^crem^en^t^a^l^co^st^s