Page 10 - Coespu Magazine 2017-2

Currently, Italian Armed Forces deploy approximately 7,000 soldiers in 32 operations in 21 different
crisis areas, while 7,100 are engaged in homeland security operation in close coordination with
national police forces.
International organizations with the instruments at their hands, are the only that can ensure consensus,
legitimacy and proportionate
use of force, and develop a
coherent intervention path
from prevention to stabilization
and normalization. This is the
reason why we must sustain
with renewed attention the role
of International Organizations
in dealing with crisis.
Referring to the UN missions,
thirteen traditional
peacekeeping missions were
established between 1948 and
1978, while none between
1978 and the collapse of Soviet
Union. Those missions, consisting mainly of unarmed observers, typically occurred only after a
conflict had ended and with the consent of belligerent parties.
The end of Cold War, instead, created new demand, opportunities and incentives for intervention,
leading to an unprecedented increase in the number and scale of military interventions conducted
under the flag of UN. Consider that between 1988 and 1995 – thus in only a 7-year time window – 20
new peacekeeping mission were established.
As a result, we have seen a more active role of United Nations Security Council and the content of its
mandates. They have become increasingly wider in scope, up to and including peace building, conflict
prevention, and peace enforcement tasks in scenarios where peace has not already been made or
marked by the widespread presence of insurrectional movements, implying a deployment of a more
robust military force with a wider range of tasks.
This circumstance has represented the biggest, marked change in the strategic posture of UN in the
framework of peace support operations in the last 25 years. Such a change in UN’s strategic approach
to worldwide peace and security begun with the first operations launched in the wake of the Berlin
Wall’s collapse – and ONUMOZ was among the very first operations – and, after some ebbs and
flows, it reached a complete maturation in Lebanon, with post-2006 operation UNIFIL. I have
personally witnessed those two operational experiences, both in a command position.
The reason behind the success of ONUMOZ was, first and foremost, the synergistic effort of the
diplomatic and the military components of the mission. Together, they relentlessly pressured the
warring factions to sign an agreement that both could accept, so that threats could be significantly
reduced in magnitude and scope.
Not less important was the application, from a conceptual and doctrinal point of view, of those same
principles that the widely known and acclaimed “Petraeus Doctrine” has embraced later, the
expression “live with the people” being a case in point. By understanding the complex mechanisms of

4