influenced by an ongoing or proposed peace operation. Nations will be either unwilling to provide sensitive information to a UN intelligence organization that cannot ensure security — as occurs now at the UN Situation Center and occurred in Somalia-or will feed in information with a distinct bias. Those states whose interests are most closely associated with regions of conflict are likely to have the best information, but also the greatest incentive to provide filtered or biased information. While U.S. and UN officials maintain that information from a single nation cannot be relied upon for UN decisionmaking, effective U.S. domination of the system may ultimately place the UN in a dilemma. Moreover, the potential to cause political embarrassment exists when a decision made by the UN is based on a member state's information. For example, target-of-attack intelligence in a peace enforcement environment might form the basis for a UN assault that inadvertently kills civilians.

Information-Flow Disconnects

The U.S. has aided the UN in creating an intelligence structure oriented toward the conduct of military operations. The structure envisions intelligence information collected, analyzed, and produced at higher-level intelligence facilities (the U.S. National Military Joint Intelligence Center in the Pentagon and the UN Situation Center at UN headquarters in New York), and then disseminated down to an operational commander in the field, the UN Force Commander, through both military and diplomatic channels. Simultaneously, relevant tactical information from the UN Force Commander is expected to move upward to decisionmakers in UN headquarters via the Situation Center. The system breaks down because the UN intelligence cycle is dysfunctional and discontinuous at all levels.

Tactically relevant information provided to the Situation Center is extremely limited. The intelligence provided is rarely disseminated down to the field because of inadequate communications capability. Intelligence that is collected in the field by UN peace missions (considered the best information because of its human intelligence content) is not routinely disseminated back to the Situation Center because it is not needed by the Center's customers. Information critical for the protection and operations of UN troops in the field can only be supplied by intelligence resources located in-country, as the situation in Somalia demonstrated. Unfortunately, provision and practice of intelligence support to

UN peace operations challenges U.S. multilateral intelligence doctrine.

The Consumer: The Critical Issue

Discontinuities in information flow within the current UN intelligence support organization point to the underlying issue that remains unresolved: Who is the ultimate consumer of intelligence? A divergence of views exists between the U.S. Department of Defense and the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations as to where the emphasis of intelligence support should be placed. U.S. intelligence support networks currently in place are oriented toward supporting military operations in the field. UN efforts are focused toward informing policymakers in the UN bureaucracy. U.S. government policy advocates an enhancement of the latter capability. Neither approach, working through the Situation Center, is likely to be successful, given the UN's structure and management of peace activities.

Any tactical information fed into the Situation Center, whether from the U.S., other member states, or the field, is just that— information, and not intelligence. Intelligence influences decisionmakers' choices, but other than seconded military officers in the UN situation center, there are no military decisionmakers within the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO). The DPKO is a staff support organization of the Secretary-General and Security Council. It is concerned with the political, diplomatic, and logistical aspects of peace operations, not the orchestration of military operations. This lack of an effective military command and control capability proved a major UN failing in Somalia. Like the rest of the UN, DPKO decision and policymaking relies upon careful deliberation and consensus building, hardly a process in need of the rapid intelligence exchange capability promoted by the U.S.

The UN vision of intelligence support aiding the organization's policymakers to make better informed choices about peace activities also faces numerous stumbling blocks inherent to the UN environment. Policymaking for the full scope of UN peace activities requires the same consensus building necessary within the DPKO, with the added bureaucratic impediment of coordination of the process across many competitive UN Departments (DPKO, Department of Political Affairs, Department of Humanitarian Affairs). Forecasting of global trends and disputes to provide early warning of crises requires intelligence input and analysis. Member states are reluctant to contribute information into that process out of concern over security

and sovereignty. National interests filter the availability and content of information member states are willing to share with the UN. As William Durch asserts:

[W]here the SG's [Secretary-General's] good offices and UN action might help to head off, later larger troubles, what the UN needs and what it can get from member states may not be a good match (Durch c: 8).

Analysis the UN performs on information received from member states or in open sources will be suspected of partiality if input is dependent upon a few states or analysis is perceived to be performed by nationals of a few countries. The negative U.S. reaction to Soviet efforts to dominate the abortive Office of Research and Collection of Information (ORCI) under Secretary Perez de Cuellar is relevant in this regard.

WHAT DIFFERENCE CAN INTELLIGENCE MAKE?

Obstacles encountered in providing effective intelligence support to UN policymakers on peace activities beg the question of whether better intelligence input in the UN context would make a difference in the world body's decisionmaking process. Can intelligence provide the UN the means to "know when to say no" to a peace operation with a limited chance of success, as President Clinton has asked? (Marcus: A1). Would information that helped to accurately discern an operation's scope, duration, and cost in dollars and lives dissuade the UN from embarking on a peace mission? The debates in the Security Council prior to passage of the resolution which expanded the mandate in Somalia from humanitarian assistance to open combat with General Aideed, and later authorized deployment of a peace mission into the carnage of Rwanda, suggest the members of the Council had a full appreciation for the existing conditions, yet authorized these actions nonetheless.

The UN is, above all, a reflection of international politics and the desires of its most powerful members, expressed thorough the Security Council. As former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Chester Crocker notes:

It is simply irresponsible (as well as dishonest) for American commentators to blast "the UN" for problems arising from illconceived or poorly drawn [peace operation] mandates. We need forcefully to remind ourselves, our media and our public opinion

that the UN Security Council is a mirror of the action, inactions, fudges and fantasies of its leading members, who can veto anything they do not like (Crocker: C4).

It is unrealistic to expect intelligence information provided to or produced by the UN bureaucracy to overcome the currents of world politics or compensate for fundamentally flawed decisionmaking by a Security Council which dispatches UN troops into a civil war. While U.S. and other nations' intelligence agencies may be able to deliver information of tactical significance to forces in the field, as was seen in Somalia, or supply the DPKO with data to facilitate mission planning, the ultimate success of UN missions depends upon their deployment where conditions for their success exist. Most important among these are consent of the belligerents to the mission and impartiality of the peacekeepers in performance of their mission. Success of peace operations that are mounted in contradiction to recognized conditions for peacekeeping, without effective command and control for military operations, and with inadequate logistics is open to question. It is the responsibility of the U.S. and the other fourteen members of the Security Council - especially the Permanent Five-to employ the available capabilities of their national intelligence agencies to assess the prospects of a proposed UN peace mission and vote against those with little chance to succeed.

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(b) "Statement at Confirmation Hearing of U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations." Statement before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Washington, DC, 21 January 1993. U.S. Department of State Dispatch 4, no. 5 (12 April 1993): 229-231. (c) "Testimony Before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on U.S. Role in UN Peacekeeping, 20 October 1993.” Foreign Policy Bulletin 4, nos. 4 and 5 (January/April 1994): 50-54.

(d) "Use of Force in a Post-Cold-War World." Speech at the National War College, 23 September 1993.

Allard, Kenneth. Somalia Lessons Learned. Washington, DC: National Defense
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