Europe rediscovers peacekeeping? Political and military logics in the 2006 UNIFIL enhancement. Egmont Paper No. 34, October 2009

The war between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006 came to an end when both conflict parties accepted the plan of reinforcing the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) as a means to enable a ceasefire. In political as well as military terms, European nations were the driving force behind this UNIFIL ‘enhancement’ – marking a difficult return to the UN peacekeeping system since the debacles in the former Yugoslavia. This Egmont Paper explores both the political and military logic underlying the UNIFIL enhancement. On the basis of a detailed analysis of both the political decision-making process and the military planning cycle of the operation it develops two interlinked arguments