The Price Of Peacekeeping? Too High

By Mark Thompson Monday, June 30, 2003
    • Is Donald Rumsfeld afraid to give peace a chance? Academically, at least, it appears the answer is yes. The Army War College's Peacekeeping Institute in Carlisle, Pa., the only government entity dedicated to the task, will close by summer's end, even while the military struggles to keep the peace in Iraq. Army officials say the closure, endorsed by Rumsfeld, is a money-saving measure, though the institute's $1 million annual budget represents only .00025% of the military's annual $400 billion outlay. "Closing the Peacekeeping Institute reflects the Army's priorities, but we're in danger of losing in Iraq because we haven't figured out how to do postwar missions," says Peter Galbraith, a former U.S. diplomat now lecturing military officers at the National Defense University. "We should be strengthening the peacekeeping component of our military, not diminishing it."

    Alas, any "lessons learned" during the Peacekeeping Institute's 10-year life are not readily available to the public. That's because its website shut down May 1--the same day President Bush declared, from the deck of the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln, that "major combat operations" in Iraq were over.