Peacekeeping missions are becoming more dangerous and increasingly involve more “robust” rules of engagement, Ireland’s most senior UN officer has said.
Maj Gen Maureen O’Brien, who serves as the deputy military adviser at UN headquarters in New York, was speaking ahead of the UN peacekeeping ministerial which begins this week in South Korea.
The ministerial is intended to encourage countries to pledge troops and resources to fill capability gaps in peacekeeping missions.
“We want to tell politicians we need their country’s capabilities. We need them to step up and support us,” Maj Gen O’Brien told The Irish Times.
Maj Gen O’Brien and the UN’s office of military affairs is responsible for managing and supporting 68,000 troops on missions around the world. Only the United States has more troops deployed overseas.
One of the main goals of the conference is to fill capability gaps in peacekeeping missions. These gaps include a need for helicopters, unmanned reconnaissance drones, aeromedical evacuation units and “quick reaction forces” that can immediately respond to attacks on peacekeepers or civilians.
‘Challenging missions’
Maj Gen O’Brien said the UN is moving away from “the traditional missions where you are trying to place yourself between two forces and you are trying to keep them apart” and towards more challenging missions with “more robust rules of engagement”.
“That role there is mostly about protection of civilians and that requires more positive action, I would say.”
She said missions are getting far more complex and facing increasingly difficult challenges, “including attacks on our own peacekeepers”.
Mandates of missions are also becoming more complex, with UN officials expected to fulfil a wide variety of non-military roles.
“They require everything to be done. We call them Christmas tree mandates.” There is also an “increasingly complex threat landscape” due to the use of technology such as drones by different parties, she said.
Ireland currently operates on two large missions, in Syria and south Lebanon, as well as a number of smaller missions elsewhere.
Maj Gen O’Brien said the commitment Ireland has made to peacekeeping is “extraordinary”, noting that the Defence Forces contribute a far higher proportion of its soldiers to the UN than most other countries. Last year, more than 24 per cent of Irish Army personnel were on overseas duty or in pre-deployment training, a proportion higher than any other military in the western world.
In 2015, the figure was 15 per cent.
Maj Gen O’Brien said it is getting “increasingly difficult” to sustain peacekeeping deployments due to the continuing reduction of Defence Forces numbers.
This may result in more soldiers being ordered to go on missions rather than volunteering, she said.
“We do operate on a voluntary basis but if there is a lack of capacity, we do have to mandatory select people. That is not becoming an issue just yet, but it could become an issue.”
She said it is likely Ireland will maintain its commitment to Syria and Lebanon rather than pivoting to more specialised missions in Africa.
Female peacekeepers
“The thing with specialised units, you have to have the capability to support them long term. If you’re getting into more specialised, technology-based, niche areas, you’re going to have a problem sustaining the numbers of people going on those missions,” she said.
A major focus of the ministerial will be increasing the number of female peacekeepers on missions.
Maj Gen O’Brien, the most senior female officer in Defence Forces history, is to give an address on the subject to delegates this week.
“I don’t like doing it all the time but I am very conscious that as a senior general here I am a role model. We can show countries it can be done and ought to be done.”
She declined to comment on recent allegations of harassment and abuse of Irish female soldiers detailed in the Women of Honour documentary.
Only about 5 per cent of peacekeepers are women, well short of the “conservative” UN goal of 8 per cent, Maj Gen O’Brien said.
Part of this is due to a ban in some militaries on women serving in combat roles. “The goal is to convince troop-contributing countries that having more women peacekeepers is more effective.”
