bout de papier, Vol. 20, No. 2 (2003) — Fall/Winter 2003 // Automne/Hiver 2003, pp. 23–24
CEES WIEBES, INTELLIGENCE AND
THE WAR IN BOSNIA, 1992-1995,
Muenster, Germany: LIT Verlag, 2003,
Ary .. OM A NEN TO
and Boston. He is in the process of completing a PhD at Carleton University.
The first volume in a new series titled Studies in Intelligence History, this book is a masterful undertaking which merges an excellent primer on modern intelligence methods with information on how these same means were applied to, and influenced, the war in Bosnia. Cees Wiebes brings first-rate scholarship to his undertaking, having taken a leave of absence from the University of Amsterdam to be a member of the research team investigating the Srebrenica massacres for the Netherlands Institute of War Documentation, from which activity this study has emerged.
A densely packed study which provides a detailed overview of modern intelligence means and the war in Bosnia, where Canadian troops were also active, this is a ’must-read’ book for those with an interest in intelligence, the Balkans, peacekeeping, Canadian military activities overseas, and war crimes.
Early in 1994, Dutch peacekeepers relieved Canadian soldiers who had spent the past year in Srebrenica. One year later, Bosnian-Serb forces attacked Srebrenica. The Bosnia-Herzegovinian Army could not defend the Srebrenica enclave and the Dutch soldiers stationed there had neither the resources nor the mandate to intercede. Several thousand of the more than 10,000 men and boys who sought to flee Srebrenica, for areas controlled by the Bosnian government, were killed by Bosnian Serbs or the armed forces of Republika Srpska. The Dutch faced great anguish over the perceived failings of its troops to prevent the massacres.
With Canadian forces present, and dying, in peacekeeping efforts around the globe, we should reflect on what could as easily have been a Canadian trauma but for the accident of time.
The book is a detailed look at the war in Bosnia, particularly as the intelligence war was fought. The author places intelligence methods and the access to intelligence in the context of United Nations peacekeeping operations, and seeks to establish who knew what, when, and how much about the events at leading up to the massacres at Srebrenica. The study is not limited to the intelligence knowledge of the peacekeepers but includes detailed insights into the intelligence capabilities of the various warring factions. To place what happened at Srebrenica in a textured context, Wiebes brings in the influence, impact, and availability of intelligence in other United Nations peacekeeping operations.
For Canadians, this book portrays the very real dilemma of peacekeeping operations. Very real problems exist in the sharing of intelligence between nations. There are good reasons and historical reasons which explain these predicaments without mitigating the need for some solution for peacekeeping efforts. The United Nations is not the major culprit in this regard although its distaste for bout de papier Vol. anything relating to intelligence does little to advance the agenda. More significant is the variation in intelligence capabilities of different nations and different alliances which imposes restraints on access to intelligence by peacekeepers who do not belong to one or more of these groupings. Interestingly, Wiebes cites a number of examples of where those in the trenches moderated the rules to provide life-saving assistance to peacekeepers “in the next valley.’
The author does an excellent job of demonstrating the complexity of gathering intelligence in a civil war environment. A graphic picture of the confusion of a challenging geographic neighborhood and a cast of characters impossible to keep straight, is vividly portrayed. Wiebes demonstrates how the danger of reliance on high-tech intelligence-gathering employing satellites and complex SIGINT means which could be stymied by small scale insurgencies whose troops arrived at battles by buses, used old-tech and short-range communications equipment which could not be intercepted by equipment more than a few kilometers away, and where the arrival of one or two tanks could be decisive to a conflict involving a handful of combatants.
The enormity of intelligence gathered through modern collection means often challenged the human ability to evaluate it in time to disseminate it as actionable data. Non-governmental organizations, relying on talking to people and ’sensing’ events on the ground, comparable to HUMINT collection, often had a better understanding of the unfolding of decisive events.
Wiebes provides a scathing indictment of peacekeeping missions, which often flounder in the dark because of an absence of intelligence. In some cases, CNN was the prime source of information to some national units in the front lines. Equal blame is placed on the United Nations and many of the nations providing peacekeeping troops. Intelligence is anathema to the United Nations for a host of very good reasons, which are relevant in New York but less so to the troops manning observation posts in unfamiliar environments and with little available information on events occurring only a few kilometers away.
The book provides valuable insight into the workings of the United Nations and its cynical institutional rejection of any intelligence which cannot be made equally accessible to all members of the organization. By being unable to address the very real need for timely and actionable intelligence in increasingly confrontational peacekeeping operations, the United Nations does less than it could to protect those who wear its blue beret. Wiebes paints a picture of an institutional inadequacy which has emerged since United Nations peacekeeping operations evolved from monitoring demarcation lines between peoples who largely wanted an end to conflict. Today, the United Nations is facing a more complex situation with less emphasis on peacekeeping and more on peace-making with ’blue berets’ not welcomed by all the warring factions or indeed respected by these as an international presence to protect the weak.
This excellent book, however, is not without faults. The index is limited to citing names with no references available on locations, organizations, armed units, or intelligence methods. This is a serious omission which makes it difficult to use the study as a resource not only on the war in Bosnia, particularly the experiences of the Dutch Battalion, but as an up-to-date primer on intelligence means employable in insurgency cituatione
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Originally published in bout de papier, Vol. 20, No. 2 (2003) — Fall/Winter 2003 // Automne/Hiver 2003, pp. 23–24. Read the rest of this issue →
