ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on those difficulties and explains the sorts of serious problems that routinely face armies in the conduct of peace and stability operations. Thematic approaches to the subject, looking first at a foundation problem, the operational environment, before moving on to look at conceptual and practical difficulties. One might think that peace and stability operations simpler than conventional warfare, but experience suggest that often they are not. Land forces have a great deal of theoretical flexibility even in operations other than high-intensity conventional warfare, but this should not blind us to the fact that peace and stability operations have remained challenging. The working environments in which they take place are complex and difficult; the key principles difficult to make work in practice; there are often variations in how different armies approach peace and stability tasks and there are those who argue that the more ambitious nation-building tasks are simply beyond our abilities to achieve.
