Is a Peacekeeping Culture Emerging Among American Infantry in the Sinai MFO?

Abstract

The United States has had infantry battalions serving six-month deployments as part of the Multinational Force and Observers in the Sinai Desert in support of the Camp David Accords since 1982. This is America's longest standing peacekeeping operation. This article, based on field observation, participant observation, and hundreds of individual and group interviews by an interdisciplinary group of researchers over a thirteen-year period, focuses on a set of these battalions to ascertain whether a mission culture is emerging among the regular army paratroopers and light infantrymen and National Guard infantry soldiers who have served on this mission. Although differences among units were observed, these soldiers interpreted the peacekeeping mission, and their roles as peacekeepers, in the context of the more martial missions of the army. Nonetheless, they all adapted to the mission and its norm of impartiality and performed it effectively.