| dc.description.abstract | More than 50 peace operations have deployed in Africa since 2000, including multiple Africanled or hybrid African Union/United Nations initiatives. The frequency of these deployments
underscores the ongoing importance of these operations in the playbook of regional and
multilateral bodies to prevent conflict, protect civilians, and enforce ceasefires and peace
agreements. Recent operations have featured increasingly ambitious goals and complex
institutional partnerships. The achievements and shortcomings of these operations offer vital
lessons for optimizing this increasingly central but still evolving tool for addressing conflict and
instability.
The paper presents a critical review of the concept of the mechanism of hybrid operations, as one
of the emergent post-Cold War peacekeeping trends. While the experiential and diagnostic
features of hybrid operations have previously appeared in some theatres, the dynamics of its use
by the AU and the international community in the conflict in Darfur have raised considerable
difficulties. The argument in this paper is that the proposed hybrid AU-UN operation in Darfur is
a political construct that makes its practical application in Darfur extremely difficult. The paper
concludes that the lessons should be learned from the experiences with the Darfur hybrid
operation, for future operations, while giving recommendations for further effectiveness of the
peacekeeping operations. | en_US |
