One of the biggest questions in the field of international security today, perhaps even this century, is whether Sino-US rivalry will metastasise into war. Taiwan is one of the most likely flashpoints. Will the People’s Republic of China (PRC) absorb the island state against its will, or will America commit whatever it takes for Taiwan to remain free to determine its own course? Responses to these questions from all sides are rendered in some form of strategic ambiguity. Each of the big players involved—Taipei, Beijing, and Washington, DC—eschews clarity and keeps the others guessing on key elements of its policy. Taipei is ambiguous about the form of independence it claims. Beijing is ambiguous about when it will consummate a unification it calls ‘inevitable’. Washington, despite President Biden’s May and September 2022 statements that US forces 66Defence Strategic Communications | Volume 12 | Spring 2023DOI 10.30966/2018.RIGA.12.4would defend Taiwan, is ambiguous about what it would be prepared to do to prevent a forceful takeover by the People’s Republic. But how much of that ambiguity is truly ‘strategic’? Do some benefits of strategic ambiguity come at the expense of good strategic communications?
New understandings of operational and security challenges in multidimensional missions have provided the momentum to overcome resistance to the establishment of an intelligence capacity in UN field missions. Joint Mission Analysis Centres (JMACs) have been set up in several missions and are beginning to fulfil this function, both with respect to security aspects of operations and (to a lesser extent) in support of integrated management. However, the contribution JMACs could make to integration is not being fully realized. This is partly a result of the choice to focus expectations for integration at the level of the head of mission, while neglecting to give institutions at a higher level the backing they need to effectively harmonize the priorities and impulses of the Security Council and other parts of the organization. This has led to a perception of integration as a technology of subordination that favours a security agenda over other goals of the UN system. Consequently, the JMAC has been unable to gain the trust and commitment it needs to fully realize its potential to support the strategic management of integrated missions.Rising demand for improved situation awareness in UN peacekeeping missions in recent years has prompted efforts to integrate the management of information held in the various parts of the UN system that work side by side in the field. The Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO) has taken the initiative by developing the concept of the Joint Mission Analysis Centre (JMAC) to meet this demand. A DPKO policy directive of 2006 describes the purpose of JMACs (together with their sibling Joint Operations Centres (JOCs)) as to ensure that 'all peacekeeping missions have in place integrated operations monitoring, reporting and information analysis hubs at Mission headquarters to support the more effective integration of mission-wide situational awareness, security information and analysis for management decision-making'. 1 The JMAC is a multidisciplinary, analytical team, reflecting the spectrum of expertise found in multidimensional peacekeeping -political, development, humanitarian, human rights, rule of law, socio-economic and security -with the task of producing balanced, timely and systematically verified information tailored to support ongoing operations and senior management decision-making. Widespread discomfort with the idea of 'intelligence' in the UN is gradually giving way to acceptance that its production does not necessarily entail underhand or illegal methods such as theft of secrets or subversion. 2 Despite any remaining misgivings, intelligence is the most accurate term for the methodical approach by which the JMAC collects information, and then evaluates and analyses it to provide
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