The United States Experience in the Balkans and its Implications for Post-Conflict Operations in Iraq
Abstract
Post-conflict operations and their associated difficulties are not unique to the current military intervention in Iraq. During the last decade the United States conducted post-conflict peacekeeping operations in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo. The U.S. experience in the Balkans provides strategic lessons learned for the application of ends ways and means of national strategy in post-conflict peacekeeping in Iraq. This paper critically examines the ends ways and means of U.S. military intervention in post-conflict operations using the two case studies of on-going peacekeeping operations in the Balkans. Despite long-term commitment of military forces the United States has yet to achieve the strategic endstate of stable multiethnic democracies in the Balkans. The risk of not applying lessons learned from the ends ways and means of the American experience in the Balkans will be that the United States with no evident endstate or exit strategy will win the war in Iraq but lose the peace.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Mar 19, 2004
- Accession Number
- ADA423933
Entities
People
- Thomas M. Muir
Organizations
- United States Army War College