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The sociological literature on peacekeeping has consistently projected or reported the resistance of military personnel to missions that diverge from their primary goal of fighting and winning wars. Little attention has been paid to the reasons why American military personnel might accept or even benefit from peacekeeping service.
Whether soldiers should serve as peacekeepers has been an ongoing debate for as long as the United Nations has been deploying peacekeeping forces.l In 1976 Charles Moskos recorded what was already a common saying: "Peacekeeping is not a soldier's job, but only a soldier can do it."2 But do military personnel believe that no one else can do it? Do they think that certain types of soldiers make better peacekeepers than others? Even if they believe that soldiers make good peacekeepers, are they convinced that the American military should take this role? Does participation in peace operations change soldiers' perceptions? Do soldiers clearly oppose these new missions, or do they perceive some benefits from these deployments as well?
In this article, I closely examine a case in which U.S. soldiers, predominantly from the combat arms, are deployed in a preventive diplomacy mission as part of the United Nations' Protection Force (UNPROFOR) in the former Yugoslav republic of Macedonia.3 Both interviews and survey responses from two rotations of soldiers who served in Macedonia in 1994 reveal why these troops believe they should or should not be charged with what was essentially a monitoring mission, and how they believe this service will affect combat readiness. The United States' capabilities and liabilities as a superpower figure prominently in the soldiers' assessments.
I found that military personnel have mixed feelings about such deployments for several reasons. First, many recent peacekeeping operations are not pure types; they include elements of low-intensity conflict. Second, even a pure, relatively quiet peace operation such as the preventive diplomacy mission in Macedonia can offer some training benefits for troops. Finally, although combat units recognize that some of their skills deteriorate in noncombat deployments, many believe that combat readiness can be regained in as little as a month's time.
Soldiers who disagreed with the decision to send U.S. military forces to Operation Able Sentry differed, on several related issues, from those who agreed with the mission. Those...