Peace through Knowledge - Understanding the last decade of United Nations Peacekeeping Intelligence

Abstract

This dissertation addresses the following research question: What are the main features of contemporary intelligence processes for United Nations Peacekeeping Operations? It did so by considering two distinct elements: what happened in practice on the field, and which lessons were learned from this experience. Answers to these questions were respectively obtained by a case study on the peacekeeping intelligence of the UN Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali, and a deep dive on some of the recent standardized manuals published by the Department of Peace Operations. This work has willingly adopted a purely open-source approach to the study of intelligence and has also sought to bring a novel tentative addition to peacekeeping intelligence research via the consideration of standardized guidelines. It found that contemporary PKI was still struggling with the nature of UN peacekeeping, such as cultural differences, unclear structures, lack of communication protocols and insufficient means. At the same time, it considered that the recent push towards standardized practices and procedures started by the DPO in the past years showed a marked improvement towards clarity and common references, but raised concerns on dependency with institutions such as NATO and rising militarization of...