Engineering Peace

Book excerpt: In practically all the peacekeeping operations of the 1990s, a postconflict reconstruction gap of almost one year separates the end of military peacekeepers' mission of halting mass violence from the start of removing mines as well as rebuilding and repairing the host country's physical infrastructure: roads and bridges, public utilities, and buildings.In this timely work, Colonel Garland Williams analyzes the postconflict reconstruction gap in three case studies Bosnia, Kosovo, and Afghanistan and shows how military engineering brigades accompanying peacekeeping contingents can be put to use immediately after the conflict ends to restore vital infrastructure and social institutions. In the book's concluding chapter, Williams proposes changes in U.S. national security decision making to integrate military engineering brigades into postconflict reconstruction, thus making U.S. military officials less wary of mission creep and nation-building."