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Since the end of the Cold War, the number of UN peacekeeping operations deployed and their expenditures have significantly increased. Out of an estimated total amount of $44.81 billion spent on 61 UN peacekeeping operations, approximately $41.02 billion, or almost 92%, went to financing 50 missions between 1990 and 2006. There are two main reasons for this significant increase in spending: one is that international security is now threatened with multiple conflicts arising within nations; the second is the significant increase in UN responsibilities in international security. With the end of the Cold War, international strains have been replaced with civil unrest. Intrastate conflicts that were contained until then freely emerged in many developing countries, particularly in Africa. These sorts of conflicts can quickly spread to neighboring countries and seriously affect international security if no measure is taken for their resolution.

According to the 2005 Human Development Report, if the number of conflicts has decreased since 1990, the last two decades are still ridden with violent disputes. These conflicts are distinct from previous periods in the sense that victims are no longer primarily soldiers or military personnel, but also civilians. Women and children are the most vulnerable in these conflicts (the number of civilian loss today is about 90%, the majority being women and children). Because of their social status and sex, women are subjected to several types of violence: rapes, sexual slavery, forced pregnancy, mutilation, or forced sterilization. Far more than the number of victims, the consequences of these conflicts on human development in terms of growth reduction due to infrastructure damages, and to food, health, and education system dislocations are important cost factors and must be taken into account (UNDP, 2005). And nevertheless, all of which revolves around the conflicts has always been considered as men's prerogatives. National and international institutions responsible for these issues are generally composed of men. Decisions, made about conflicts and peace, are often issued by men. Women's needs, opinions, and expectations are rarely taken into account. The specificity of the woman's role has not yet been put in integrated decision-makings, whether concerning the reintegration of women fighters after conflicts, their participation in the resolution process and the prevention of conflicts, or whether concerning postconflict reconstruction. Women associations have worked a lot to be heard and to be represented in various political authorities.L’absence des femmes dans les lieux de décisions et de pouvoir (ou quand elles sont représentées la place singulière qu’elles occupent) est l’un des symptômes qui révèlent un dysfonctionnement de la démocratie et oblige à reconsidérer les contours mêmes de la notion de citoyenneté, étant entendu que les femmes ne sont pas le seules cibles de l’exclusion et que ces questions s’inscrivent dans un contexte politique plus large ou exclure est devenu un mode de gouverner¹. (Apfelbaum, 1996)

This chapter aims to present the implementation of the United Nations 1325 resolution about the rights of women, including their protection against violence. This resolution is the main international instrument which incorporates and mandates a gender perspective in all aspects of peace building, from prevention to conflict resolution. It is part of a necessary evolution of gender relations in peace building since 1975 and the Conference of Mexico. More broadly, this text would lead to improve the women’s representation presence in the social and economic sphere and their important role in development.

This study attempts to introduce South Korea's unique experiences of civic operations made in Iraq and Lebanon. Koreans approached it with extreme caution since they are seeing through two different lenses: “paying back syndrome” from the Korean War experiences is colliding with the “Vietnam syndrome” from the experiences of Vietnam War. Expanding its regional role through revitalizing PKOs is not an easy job for the ROK government despite the fact that President Lee has committed himself to increase its efforts since his campaign days. South Korea recently decided to send its KDX-II type destroyer to Somalia for joining the maritime peacekeeping while people in Korea strongly suspect that the Obama administration would soon request to send its troops to Afghanistan as a part of International Security Assistance Force (ISAF). As the Korean society is getting democratized, progressive NGOs have been opposing the government decision to send forces to assist the U.S. war efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan. It remains to be seen how President Lee persuades people to bear the burden and endure sacrifices. At least, four problems need to be addressed for Korea to become a major troop-contributing country (TCC): first, Korea needs to enact laws to deal with South Korea's participation in the UN PKOs. Second, Korea needs to find a way to include civilian experts in future activities of UN PKOs. Third, it needs to increase the budget and size of standby forces. Lastly, it needs to educate people to understand why Korea has to contribute further to make a safer world. It remains to be seen whether South Korea will continue to focus on its stabilization and reconstruction efforts without sending its combat troops.

In asymmetrical wars the asymmetry does not refer to a quantitative difference in belligerants’ strength or power, but to the qualitative differences in means, behavioral standards, goals, and values of conflicting parties. In the asymmetrical conflicts it seems that war functions have changed.

The purpose of this paper is to put in evidence the various expertises and skills that a soldier must have to operate in such a changed context.

In order to reach this purpose, the diversity model has been applied to the new conflicts, as already used to analyze the difference between CROs and the traditional soldiers’ job. To these respect, the definition of the further evolution of the role of a soldier called upon to intervene in the new operational environments can be considered as a preliminary finding: such a soldier must always be flexible and able to operate in a Constabulary context, but with more points in common with the warrior ideal type than with the peacekeeper one. A soldier who has to be able to gear his action in terms not of “dissymmetry” but of asymmetry as defined above. This implies a perception of the qualitative as well as quantitative differences in their own characteristics and in those of the adversary. In particular behavioral style, values, and strategic culture. However, there is no question of a return to the past, but the latest evolution in the range of flexible soldier that is so important in the asymmetric conflicts.

Practical implications of this analysis are bound to offer a deeper understanding of the events concerning asymmetrical conflicts, in the education as well as training of soldiers deployed in these kinds of conflict theaters.

The aim of this chapter is to present and discuss the theoretical framework that the group has set up for the research presented here. We deal here with the following topics:•a clarification of the general concept of culture adopted by us, and especially of culture of democratic countries•the concept of military culture, along with its subcultures, and the process of change in its dimensions of de-militarisation of societies and re-militarisation of the militaries•a discussion on the possibility of a cross-national research on the subject.Discussion leads us to realise the possibility and the convenience of a research as such. Therefore, we materialise our intent to carry on an empirical research on the civil–military cultural differences in Europe in comparison with results already obtained for the U.S. (but it can be employed in non-European countries too, where living conditions can be assumed to be that of all modern democratic societies).In order to do that, we agreed with several guidelines for our research project, i.e., one basic assumption and three working hypothesis.

The European Union (EU) is commonly, and vaguely, labelled as a sui generis foreign policy actor. The European Security Strategy (2003) advances, in an imprecise manner, the possible use of ‘robust’ responses to international challenges, when needed. The military dimension of the EU has to be found in its evolving but still incipient Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP)/European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP). Since the launch of ESDP and its first missions in 2003, the EU has been able to conduct a noticeable progress on two fronts. On the one hand, it enhances internal capabilities for crisis management; on the other hand, it favours the principle of participation of third countries in missions. The present analysis considers EU international military cooperation in a strategic neighbourhood: Eastern Europe. We take into account the EU necessity to rely on relevant non-EU players to launch missions. We argue that ESDP missions' success depends not only on these external actors, namely on the consideration of power gaps, but also on domestic EU constraints. We explore the causes of poor cooperation with Russia on ESDP and the perspectives for crisis management in Europe. Considering ESDP activities in Eastern Europe, we conclude that the balance between civilian and military tools is not adequate to engage more seriously with Russia towards the stabilisation of the ‘common’ neighbourhood.

Slovenia has joined the club of peacekeepers in 1997. The decision was made under pressure of foreign expectations that a country which strives for NATO membership should prove its willingness to co-operate in common defence efforts. First military units, sent to UN-led peacekeeping operations, comprised volunteers on an ad hoc basis and were very small (platoon level). There were also a few policemen who joined missions abroad, first under WEU leadership in Albania. The governmental need ‘to show the flag’ in many operations increased the number of soldiers needed for peace operations and the number of policemen. Currently, there are around 200 soldiers and 30 policemen in different operations abroad. In the period 1997–2001 all soldiers and policemen entered the missions on a voluntary basis. In 2002, there was the first contingent of Slovenian SFOR soldiers that used its home military structure (infantry motorised company) in a peace mission. It marked the end of ad hoc units, comprised to serve the goals of the mission only, and the start of more organised, and also more ordered co-operation of soldiers in missions. They could still refuse participation in the mission, but that would have led to risks of losing unit cohesion. In the transition from voluntary peacekeepers to peacekeepers on duty, or by order, the Slovenian Army realised the need to understand what helps soldiers to fully accept the terms of operations abroad.

This Chapter is written in an era in which the United Nations (UN) routinely deploys Missions to environments that satisfy the armed conflict threshold. Such Missions often require personnel to employ significant levels of force, whether to safeguard mission and humanitarian personnel, to protect civilians, to neutralise violent armed groups or, in pure self-defence. But use as well as non-use of force can readily frustrate the very objectives these troops are deployed to uphold, in turn creating gaps between the Promises they make and the Outcomes they actually secure. On the other hand, current Missions such as MINUSMA in Mali have proven to be amongst the deadliest for UN troops in the entire history of UN Peacekeeping. The thin line between use and non-use of force must therefore be trodden with utmost care. This Chapter tries to find answers to this dilemma from a moral perspective and considers how the peculiar nature of the morality of resort to force by the UN influences that of its use of force. It assesses why the latter should be calibrated or adjusted to comply with the former, and how this can consequently channel UN troop conduct towards the objectives pursued through deployment. It is only where these realities are understood and addressed, the Chapter submits, that the aforementioned Gaps between Promises and Outcomes can be redressed and closed.

During the past two decades, both West Africa and Central Africa have suffered a large number of intertwined wars. In both regions, these ‘webs of war’ have included interstate conflicts and rivalry, as well as wars over the control of many of the involved states. Existing perspectives tend to reduce these intertwined wars to a series of parallel civil wars within each of the various states. They see states as operating at the regional level, whereas the armed opposition to those states operates only at the national level. This chapter argues that many armed, non-state groups in West Africa and Central Africa should be seen as regional actors, and thus that conventional two-level analysis does not catch the complexity of conflict in those regions. Although major violence continues in Central Africa, it has largely been contained in West Africa. This needs to be seen in relation to the level of institutionalization of security and military cooperation in the two regions. In both regions, regional organizations carried out military operations that were highly controversial among their member-states. In West Africa, a series of interventions strengthened both regional cooperation and cooperation with external partners, whereas in Central Africa this was not the case. In West Africa, peace support operations have increasingly been carried out within a regional perspective. Not so in Central Africa. The chapter concludes with an examination of efforts to build a capacity for peace support operations within the African Union, based on subregional organizations but with strong involvement by external actors.