ABSTRACT

The second archetypal operation is enforcement. Enforcement operations are coercive in nature and are typically undertaken in support of Chapter VII of the UN Charter or of an international organisation such as NATO or the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE). They involve third-party intervention in conflicts where consent is missing, and their objective is to restore or maintain peace and promote diplomatic, humanitarian or political objectives, usually against some of the disputants’ wishes. As a result, responsibilities often include potentially conflicting tasks such as forcibly separating belligerents, guaranteeing or denying movement and enforcing sanctions, while establishing and supervising protected areas, and protecting humanitarian operations and human rights. Combining force and aid in one operation is a strong trend (as such it is addressed in Chapter 7), but the key factor in enforcement operations is that they are mandated to use warfighting techniques. It is this that allows enforcement to encompass a wide range of operations, from the raids, specific strikes and small-scale seizure operations United Nations Operation in Somalia (UNOSOM II) undertook in Mogadishu to the bombings of NATO’s 1994 Operation Deliberate Force in Bosnia. Deliberate Force, for example, was an air attack designed to reduce Serbian military capabilities to threaten or attack safe areas and UN forces. It was in direct response to the warring factions’ disregard of UN mandates for

safe areas and heavy weapons exclusion zones, and their targeting of NATO and UN aircraft and ground forces. But the NATO-UN partnership also provided humanitarian relief to cities (principally the besieged city of Sarajevo) from early 1993 until 1996, at the same time as conducting air strikes to relieve them. The stated intent was always to preserve as much of the infrastructure of cities as possible while destroying the military foundation of Serbian power.