The UN, peacekeeping, and the troubled concept of intelligence: A comparative case study on the UN understandings of intelligence

Abstract

When then UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld expressed his desire to ensure the UN would refrain from any intelligence, few questioned his words. Having been founded upon the wishes to make something right in a world haunted by the millions that perished in conflict not long before, the idea of the UN engaging in intelligence was not acceptable to an organisation that stood for the rights of all people instead of the interests of the few. But the world is changing and conflicts are becoming ever more complex. The UN cannot afford to ignore the concept, something the organisation realised after the horrors of the 90s. The genocides and famine of the early post-Cold War era have opened the floor for a strong discussion on intelligence. Using a generic peacekeeping missions of each of the three different peacekeeping generations - UNPROFOR, MINUSTAH, and MINUSMA - this thesis examines how the understanding of intelligence as a concept has transformed at the UN. It examines key policy documents on conflicting state and UN interests; looks at differences between the strategic and operational level; and researches the key methods used by the UN during peacekeeping missions. This research argues that the UN has developed its own understanding of intelligence in a parallel way to that of intelligence...