JP 3-07.3 Peace Operations are activities intended to build, keep, enforce, or make peace, or when necessary, prevent conflict. They include crisis response and limited contingency operations and frequently involve international military missions to contain conflict, restore peace, and shape the strategic security environment to support reconciliation and rebuilding, as well as to facilitate the transition to legitimate governance. They include peacekeeping operations (PKO), peace building, peacemaking, conflict prevention, and peace enforcement operations (PEO). Peace operations may be conducted under the sponsorship of the United Nations (UN), another international organization, within a coalition of nations, or unilaterally. The UN and other international organizations often refer to a peace operations organization as a mission.

To read JP 3-07.3 Peace Operations on JDEIS (CAC required) : JP 3-07

In complex conflict systems, it can be challenging to measure the progress of initiatives intended to gain peace and stability.  Lessons in this Sampler focus on the importance of Monitoring & Evaluation for Peace and Stability, examining best practices and providing diverse examples of M&E from a variety of military and civilian initiatives in conflict environments across the globe. 

This Stability Operations in Kosovo 1999-2000: A Case Study examines the intervention and stability operations in Kosovo from March 24, 1999 through approximately 2 years thereafter. Set during the dissolution of the former Yugoslavia and preceded by ethnic carnage in Bosnia, Croatia, and elsewhere, the intervention, named Operation ALLIED FORCE, was executed in order to protect Kosovars of Albanian descent from the ethnic cleansing of the Serbian leaders of the remaining federation of Yugoslavia.

Operation UNITED ASSISTANCE (OUA), which deployed to Liberia between September 2014 and June 2015, provides an example of how a Joint Force can support a lead federal agency (LFA), in this case the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and other interagency and international partners to end a raging epidemic of Ebola Virus Disease (EVD).

This publication provides lessons on 6 leadership topics – moral and ethical decisions critical to operational success, understanding decisive change, preparation and repetition, knowledge management, coalition partner leadership, and junior leader development – all of which are topics of the 10th International Lessons Learned Conference

The stability operation in Haiti from January 14 to June 1, 2010 demonstrated how over a dozen U.S. Government departments and agencies worked together effectively in an unprecedented large-scale foreign humanitarian assistance/disaster relief (FHA/DR) effort. The 7.0 magnitude earthquake that struck Haiti on January 12, 2010, precipitated the operation. The Haiti action, known within the U.S. military as Operation UNIFIED RESPONSE, was not only a whole-of-government, but also a whole-of-nation and global undertaking. The United States played a significant role in the Haiti earthquake relief effort in collaboration with more than 140 countries and over 1,000 non-governmental organizations (NGOs).

This Sampler features lessons from a Civil Affairs (CA) perspective.  It first showcases challenges for the integration of civil considerations into military culture and then highlights lessons from recent/ongoing exercises and operations, many of which draw upon personal experiences of CA personnel working with interagency and international partners in the context of disaster relief, medical partnership, and displacement.

For three years now, the Civil Affairs Association and its partners have provided the Civil Affairs Regiment a way to provide experience-based feedback and advice to institutional and policy level leadership on the future of the Civil Affairs force through an annual fall symposium. These symposia result in Civil Affairs Issue Papers published and presented at the spring roundtable. With every successive year, the discussion has become increasingly impactful, improving the Regiment as a learning organization by advancing a unified, whole of CA force view of professional and force development discussion using this unofficial, collegial platform.

This SOLLIMS Sampler [Special Edition] comes at a critical moment as global forcible displacement reaches an all-time high, surpassing levels post-WWII, and as violent conflicts driving displacement continue without abate, echoing in war-ravaged Aleppo.  While Refugees & Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) often result from conflict, if the needs of both displaced people and host communities are not addressed, displacement itself may produce further instability.  This publication specifically examines lessons from Syria’s ongoing refugee crisis in the Middle East and Europe, drawing on insights from prior situations of displacement to inform response to current crises.

In the lead-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the short-lived Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance (ORHA) briefly held a mandate to lead post-war reconstruction efforts. The Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) under L. Paul Bremer replaced ORHA before its plans could be implemented. Autopsies of replacing the ORHA and the consequences of the CPA’s subsequent handling of the Iraq mission abound, but they focused on the Iraq mission as a historical narrative. However, the United States (US) now faces a lengthening list of probable reconstruction and stabilization (R&S) missions in the near future. Rather than burying the autopsies, the contrast between ORHA’s plans and the CPA’s implementation offers instructive lessons for future R&S missions.