FEAS RESEARCH E-BULLETIN FEAS RESEARCH E-BULLETIN DECEMBER 2017 | Page 6
Author: Aslan, Murat
Title: NATO in Peace Support Operations: Efficiency of Intelligence and Propaganda in Bosnia
Herzegovina and Afghanistan
Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Ebru Boyar
Department: International Relations
Date: June 2017
This thesis examines the efficiency of propaganda and affiliated intelligence functions of NATO in
peace support operations. For this purpose, the research scrutinizes the context of peace support
operations, NATO’s conceptualizations of propaganda and intelligence, their practice in the field,
and the shifts that have occurred in these conceptualizations. In order to analyse such issues, the
NATO operations in BosniaHerzegovina and Afghanistan are examined in detail as case studies.
Both cases are used to pinpoint the discourse of propaganda and affiliated intelligence activities of
NATO in peace support operations as well as challenges, which are encountered by NATO in such
operations. It is argued that as NATO failed to shift its conventional thinking, stemmed from the
Cold War environment, it is late to respond newly emerging threat types, actors, and the
requirements of peace support operations. NATO’s experiences in Bosnia-Herzegovina and
Afghanistan demonstrate to what extent NATO was unable to address the population centric
concerns which peace support operations should have taken more interest in and to what extent
intelligence and propaganda efforts of NATO in such operations proved to be successful in
responding to the actual needs and necessities for (un)successfully completing peace support
operations.
2