Des Balkans à l'Afghanistan : les opérations de stabilisation complexes

Résumé Fr En

Le modèle des opérations de paix hérité des Balkans des années 1990 ne correspond plus à la complexité des crises d’aujourd’hui, pas plus qu’aux moyens susceptibles d’être mis en œuvre par les puissances occidentales. Les situations de crise actuelles – en particulier dans leur dimension asymétrique – appellent un concept nouveau d’opérations de stabilisation, rendant possibles la reconstruction sur le long terme d’États et de sociétés viables, et la sortie de crise pour les puissances intervenantes.

The Yugoslavian crisis in particular forced Western governments and militaries to design an original strategy where initial coercive operations, generally through air operations, would lay the basis for a large and long-term peacekeeping and occupation operation. The financial and military costs of this approach virtually warrant that it could not and would not be applied elsewhere on the same scale. As Afghanistan has demonstrated, success can be achieved with low ratios of troops and spending per local inhabitant and in large and difficult countries. Premised on a light footprint, this new approach seems particularly relevant in a context where asymmetrical foes try to disrupt the peace operation. When counterinsurgency, state-building, and reconstruction are inextricably linked, stabilization operations may indeed proved more appropriate than traditional peacekeeping.