Dysfunction junction intelligence, peacekeeping, and the United Nations

United Nations peace operations continue to play a vital role in international security, with 15 missions underway in 2007. The UN, however, lacks the institutional intelligence capacity to provide guidance, high-level assessments, and tactical/operational intelligence support for the over 100,000 peacekeepers around the world. The UN's lack of focused capabilities is particularly surprising in the post-9/11 world and the 2003 bombing of its headquarters in Iraq. Since the UN's first foray into peacekeeping in 1948, member states, fearful of violations of their sovereignty, have blocked previous reform attempts. This has forced UN operations to rely on ad hoc measures to meet their intelligence requirements, while the Secretary General and Security Council are at the mercy of member state intelligence agencies for their information. Despite this handicap, some improvements have been made, particularly at the mission level. Further, Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) holds great promise for addressing many of the UN's intelligence requirements. This study concludes that the UN would be well-served by adopting the existing NATO model for OSINT production, enabling the organization to effectively collate and analyze the vast information stores at its fingertips.

Department dc:contributor.department

National Security Affairs

Grantor dc:publisher

Monterey, California. Naval Postgraduate School

Year dc:date.issued

2007

Author dc:creator

• Maceda, Steven E.

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Dombroski, Kenneth

Statement dc:rights

• This publication is a work of the U.S. Government as defined in Title 17, United States Code, Section 101. As such, it is in the public domain, and under the provisions of Title 17, United States Code, Section 105, is not copyrighted in the U.S.

Handle dc:identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/10945/3275

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:calhoun.nps.edu:10945/3275