How to navigate within these essays: Initially these essays were meant to form a book. I have decided to publish them, step by step, on this blog. By nature of blogging, the most recent article appears on top of all other articles, whether they are part of this anthology, or they address other issues. If you want to read these essays like a book, HEAD OVER HERE and navigate through the content of the entire set of essays on policing.
… for words can be communicative only between those who share similar experiences…
Alan Watts
an analytic, interpretative, or critical literary composition usually much shorter and less systematic and formal than a dissertation or thesis and usually dealing with its subject from a limited and often personal point of view
“Bloss keine Spuren hinterlassen – Don’t leave traces behind”
A sub-title with a smile. A rhetorical device, a pun (humorous use of words with multiple meanings or words to create wordplay), both referring to what criminals would try in order to evade being caught, but also an attitude moving through the world without leaving an impact, or sometimes used ironically for police officers not doing the work they are expected to do. Not applicable to those officers who violate rules of engagement. These guys are astonishingly open, even in the age of body cameras adding to the ubiquitous street cams. An absolutely appalling example out of many can be found here. I’ll never stop being ashamed of these, and I met quite a few of them.
This collection of essays represents a part of a larger writing effort which has been ongoing for more than ten years now. To write these essays was only possible after I came to a certain point within my work on a project carrying the working title “After The Storm – Who Am I?”.
“After The Storm – Who Am I?” is an unpublished memoir. The first third in it is about how I grew up, from the very first moments I can remember, until I left my family home, at the age of eighteen years. “essays on policing” pick up at the very moment when I left my parental home and became a police officer.
From a methodological viewpoint, “essays on policing” are different from “After The Storm”. These essays deal with fundamental aspects of policing, how I was facing them early on, which lessons I took, and how this pervaded into my international work on policing. They try to capture statements which I have found relevant for what I would name “ethical policing”. “essays on policing” have values written all over them. Values relating to human and citizen rights, values related to democracy, values related to the essential role of a rule of law within an understanding which I will attempt to capture, and which is based on a definition of the rule of law developed by the United Nations. “essays on policing” reflect also on the work of some passionate individuals extending the work reflected within a universal notion of a rule of law, by attempting to come up with a universal notion of policing, an essence which would be acceptable for every Member State of the United Nations. It led to the Strategic Guidance Framework of the United Nations for international policing in peace operations.
In that way, there is something like a twin-track approach in my larger work which becomes visible here. Whilst “essays on policing” is based on the successful professional path which I took after leaving my parental home, in “After The Storm – Who Am I?” the second out of three parts is dealing with my experiences in my personal life. I am locked in a never-ending debate with myself whether this should be published, or remain a personal notebook.
Ultimately, there may be another set of essays, if I manage to stick to my large plan: “essays on trauma and reconciliation” would attempt to capture both my private and my professional experiences with the impact of, and the lifelong consequences of, trauma. If I would manage, then those parts of the entire narrative would be out there which might contribute to storytelling on what my friends and I call “experience, strength, and hope”. I hope you, the reader, will find some things useful. Take it, and leave the rest.
Whether “After The Storm – Who Am I” remains unpublished, or not, my own work in this mothership project then would see its finishing line by describing how I entered into that phase of my life in which I am now. I changed the course ten years ago (at the time of this writing in October 2023), my awakening began there, and my writing began. The third part would deal with how I woke up and what happened on that bumpy road. How I realized what was wrong, from the outset on, and what impact the beginning, those early years I am writing about in the other project had on my survival strategies. I name them survival strategies, since I only thought they were life strategies, and I would not know how limited these strategies were.
In my professional life however, everything I learned in my early years was allowing me to become an ethical and successful police officer. But my path since ten years has made me more humble in why I do, professionally, what I do. The compassion and humility has increased, the attempt to be recognized for contributing something important has gone down at the same time. I wish I can say, one day, that I got that entirely out of my system. It is one of the reasons why I ultimately decided against publishing a book. I have no interest in monetising this endeavor.
During these ten years I started to write this blog (https://durabile.me) on all things I feel strong about in the fields of peace&security, and trauma&reconciliation. Policing related topics were always a core part of this blog. And once I knew, in this long process of scattered writing on book projects, mixed with writing up memories in order to understand myself better, and to heal, and mixed up with writing stuff on my blog, I now reached the point where the first element can become publicly visible: To write about my experiences with policing, in the national and international work that I am doing since four and a half decades.
This is the framework in which my writing makes sense. Like it is helpful to know where the artist was when she painted a picture, in order to interpret the picture, it is useful to know that these essays are the first to be published. They are not the first I have been working on, though. The other work continues. One day at a time.
The developments in our contemporary global world of peace & security, and war & conflict, these developments make me feel it is perhaps useful to start with putting these “essays on policing” out. My policing views are global, as is my related experience. Perhaps my thoughts help in shaping your thinking, and also your contribution to forming the world we all would like to see, to preserve, and to be guardians of, for the sake of our children, and life iself.
In memory of Sven
December 06, 2000, a large number of people gathered on the stairs of the Pristina sports stadium in Kosovo. All those different uniforms on the picture were police uniforms. At least one representative from each Nation contributing police officers to the United Nations Interim Mission in Kosovo, also known as UNMIK, made it into this picture. Meaning that 53 different national police uniforms are on display here.
We did this in honor of the outgoing Police Commissioner, late Sven Frederiksen of Denmark. He was moved to tears. He also was deeply exhausted, had no energy left. A few of us brought him to the airport and I won’t forget his happy smile, knowing this time would be the final departure after a grueling tour of duty between 1999 and 2000.
In fall 2001 I visited Sven and his wife Annie in their summer house in Denmark. I was so glad to see him, he had lost some weight, had gained some energy, and Annie was visibly happy.
In Kosovo I had been Sven’s Deputy Police Commissioner for Operations, and I had left UNMIK five months after Sven left the Mission. I knew I wanted to go back, and so would I. A few months after I visited Sven I became Police Commissioner of the UNMIK Police.
Sven, on the other hand, had set his mind on the upcoming transition from the United Nations International Police Task Force IPTF in Bosnia & Hercegovina to a follow-on mission, the European Union Police Mission in Bosnia & Hercegovina, known as EUPM. Sven became the last Commissioner of the IPTF and first Head of Mission of the EUPM.
Also on the picture: Michael Jorsback of Sweden, UNMIK’s Deputy Police Commissioner for Administration. He left UNMIK in January 2001 to become the second person establishing the Office of the Police Adviser to the Secretary General of the United Nations in New York, after Halvor Hartz of Norway.
So, I arrived back in Pristina for the United Nations, Sven was in Sarajevo for the European Union, Michael was in New York for the U.N.
Late in January 2004 I was in Berlin, briefing a parliamentary committee on the work of the United Nations Police in Kosovo. It was during that time that I received news about Sven’s untimely death. He died in Sarajevo, at the age of 56 years.
Sven was my first international boss, and had become a close friend. I followed him in his footsteps twice, in Kosovo, where I took the helm of UNMIK Police between 2002 and 2004, and in Bosnia&Hercegovina, where I continued with the work of Sven and two of his successors, between 2008 and 2012.
I would follow Michael’s footsteps too. 2013 I was appointed as the United Nations Secretary General’s Police Adviser and I held that function until November 2017.
For Sven, on behalf of uncounted others from all over the World. Police, soldiers, civilians, those who need help, and those who assist them
Why these essays?
Since four and a half decades I am concerned with policing. Half of the time in a national police career, rising through the ranks and performing many different specific functions related to policing.
Half of the time I have been doing something different. I have brought my policing expertise into international policy implemented by the United Nations or the European Union, or directly into German foreign policy. Efforts to contribute to help others. That’s the most simple way how I could describe it. Whether it was peacekeeping or peace building as understood by the United Nations, or civilian crisis management, a tool of the European Union’s Common Foreign and Security Policy, or in direct support of the German Federal Foreign Office, it always was, at it’s core, about helping others.
I use this simplification because the tools in the “international toolbox” of what we also name the Peace&Security Architecture, those tools change. Some have a long history with phases running through decades, such as U.N. Peacekeeping. NATO knows Peace Support Operations. Other regional organisations, such as the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, or the African Union, have adopted their own terminology for operations of their own, often under a U.N. Security Council Mandate, or on direct invitation by a State requesting help. The European Union has civilian and military crisis management as a tool at their hands, either on invitation by States involved, or upon authorization by the U.N. Security Council.
In all these operations, policing plays a role, sometimes small, sometimes it was a very large role. Now times are fundamentally changing, and that feels pretty scary. I don’t know whether, in addition to adding to a public record, these experiences with peacekeeping throughout many decades make sense when, at the same time, elements of the international peace&security architecture are under severe threat to fall apart, to be ripped into pieces by individuals, networks, States, who do not adhere any longer to the underlying contract. The Charta of the United Nations itself has been challenged, recently. A member of the Permanent Five in the United Nations Security Council violated it through a War of Aggression against the Ukraine.
There also is conflict intervention, or what could be named peace enforcement. These operations exist as well in the post-World War II – architecture. These operations are meant to run under authorizations which ultimately refer to the Security Council of the United Nations. In certain cases, this legal cover of the United Nations’ highest body in the field of international peace and security was not there, because it was impossible to get it. Remember, the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council can, and do, exercise vetos. Selfish reasons have become the predominant factor for these vetos. They nibble, bite, and rip at the DNA of the function of the U.N. Security Council, to safeguard international peace and order.
Whilst some peacekeeping operations with an executive mandate were, in my view, successful, they were sometimes preceeded by some form of international armed coercion during a conflict. As the Security Council was not able to authorize those, this haunts the discussion about the legitimacy of armed coercion of warring parties into peace, until today. By extension, the notion of “robust peacekeeping” later added. The international community comprised of diplomats and legal scholars worked on reconciling lessons learned from some efforts by creating a “Responsibility to Protect” (R2P) as a new international legal principle. At the same time, the capacity of the Security Council to work as expected in the United Nations’ Charta deteriorated. The principle of R2P exists since 2005 through the commitment of United Nations Member States. However, its practical application suffers heavily from the growing inability of the Security Council of the U.N. to resolve conflicts. The use of their veto rights by some of the Security Council Members increased over time in situations when the application of R2P would have been practically against the fundamental opposition of some of the permanent members of the Security Council with great power to allow national sovereignty issues being affected by this new principle. These Member Sates acted in national selfishness by blocking efforts to intervene in conflicts where we feared the possibility of genocide. Thus, currently R2P has had its heydays of discussion a long time ago. A very similar development happened around the establishment of the International Criminal Court ICC.
Back to peacekeeping, and compared with it, some more regional conceptual frameworks have a shorter history, and are also somewhat more vulnerable to change on shorter timelines, such as E.U. crisis management. There was a high level of ambition at the beginning, it has seen its share of many transformations, it struggled with criticism of having become less meaningful, and may be some new hopes for reviving its strength are more than dreams, but that will depend on credibility of implementation during very unstable times. Policing was strong in the E.U. field at the beginning, got less visible through integrated mission concepts over time, but its expertise is still alive.
Then, sometimes when tools such as peacekeeping or other forms don’t work, there are coalition efforts. My work and travel related to Iraq and Afghanistan dealt with situations when military campaigns in both countries required more than military engagement. Inside these military coalitions there was a requirement for civilian capacity building almost immediately after the heavy military operations succeeded with some form of victory. At the same time international efforts within coalitions of willing States attempted to build up civilian capacity related to the aftermath of conflict and war in parallel to growing efforts of civilian capacity building inside military missions. Afghanistan is a prime example for such developments. Both in Iraq and Afghanistan there was heavy engagement on the policing side by many actors. It was very difficult, very challenging, and success was rare, and in my view, often unsustainable. Depending on the viewpoint, others may differ on this assessment.
I left international peacekeeping in November 2017 at the end of my tenure as United Nations Police Adviser. I continued with my contributing to German efforts to sustain an international order of peace and security with an assignment inside the German Federal Foreign Office. After my retirement as a police officer in January 2020, I continue to contribute my expertise into the work of the German Federal Foreign Office. Currently through a long-term project in the Western Balkans. To some extent, this project sits between the end of Peacebuilding and increasing European integration.
Over those past years after I left New York, I witnessed the development within the international framework of peace&security somewhat from an outsider perspective, meaning that I have to be careful with assessing current states of play. But I feel it is correct to say that I belong to those who deplore deeply an erosion of the capacity of the International Community to do things together. The less the unity of the International Community exists, the more likely nationalism and also conflict and war occur. We can see this, right now. And it makes also sense by turning the argument around: The more nationalism, the more disruption of international peace and security. At some point, the disruptive and devastating effects become self-fulfilling prophecies within a downward spiral. At the time of beginning to write these lines, I was even not sure about where the World stands when taking a larger view onto the war of aggression of the Russian Federation against the Ukraine. I was writing this introductory essay in February 2023. One year earlier this war in the Ukraine started. One morning I read Thomas L. Friedman’s OpEd in the New York Times titled “Year Two of the Ukraine War is Going to Get Scary”. At that time I wrote that I am sure I will need a few more months before even a first draft of my essays will be ready, and that, therefore, I will have an opportunity to do a reality check in hindsight, whether Thomas L. Friedman is right with assuming that a war between Great Powers is what may be looming, if we don’t find a way out. I agree with Friedman. We are either so close to an abyss, or we are already in free fall. I hope not, but I don’t now.
I am finishing writing these lines and publishing this essay by October 25, 2023. October 07, Hamas and other terrorist organizations unleashed a horrific terror attack with unspeakable atrocities against Israel, and Israeli people. The world is changing again. We try to stem ourselves against a tide of terror, violence, and war. Not even mentioning the erosion of democracy, terror, and civilian suffering in, for example, an increasing number of African States. In some of them I was twenty years ago. Like in Darfur, where people suffer again, as if these 20 years in between would never have happened.
In today’s visible and public discussions, international policing within peace operations therefore has a very small role to play, compared to twenty, or ten years ago. There is no discussion about it within war contexts, like in the Ukraine. There was little recognition about all policing efforts which we undertook in Afghanistan when things imploded there 2021. It was mostly a military view how we looked at the aftermath, and what went wrong. And where international policing still plays an important role, meaning in United Nations peace operations in Africa, the interest we collectively take in those struggling operations within the West has significantly decreased. Wagner mercenaries now roam freely in the international supermarkets in Bangui, Central African Republic, pushing shopping carts and lining up at the cashier together with international peacekeepers. Could a picture be more sad? I am so sorry for my many African friends. And MINUSMA in Mali is in the final stages of being thrown out of Mali by the military nomenclature cooperating with Wagner. What next?
So, is this a discussion about demise?
I don’t think this way. In my heart of hearts I am inspired by Buddhism. There, the Buddha says “All composite things are impermanent”. By that very logic, peacekeeping had its heydays, and currently it has not. International policing faces the same. But in Buddhism, especially in Tibetan forms of it, there is great emphasis on the transitional nature of everything. Things just simply change. The perception of a beginning or an end is, from that viewpoint, an illusion. I believe this is what we see today. Things we took for granted, they simply change.
And it is up to us to be part of this process. Thus, my reflections on policing, and international policing, they are meant to be a tiny contribution to describing how it worked, and where it did not work, and may be why, so that there is a chance that we can preserve the great value that policing, done right, has in societies, in democracies, and in international support of peace & security, once we find a joint way ahead again.
Stefan Feller 