WASHINGTON--The U.S. Institute of Peace announces publication of Where Is the Lone Ranger When We Need Him? America's Search for a Postconflict Stability Force by former senior fellow Robert Perito. The book examines the current challenge faced by the United States in establishing sustainable security in the Balkans, Afghanistan, and Iraq.

The book analyzes repeated U.S. failures to prevent widespread looting and breakdowns in public order following successful military interventions from Operation Iraqi Freedom to Operation Just Cause in Panama. These failures, according to Perito, resulted in the rise of political extremism and organized crime that thwarted the peace process and raised the human and material costs of the operations. Perito chronicles U.S. military reluctance to perform police functions and the lack of capacity among U.S. civilian government agencies to establish the rule of law. He describes the tragic consequences that result from the U.S, refusal to take on this responsibility and instead to look elsewhere for the forces required to establish law and order in post-conflict environments.

Rather than rely on the "Lone Ranger," Perito proposes the creation of a civilian U.S. Stability Force—composed of federal constabulary, police, and judicial teams of lawyers, judges, and corrections officers—to serve as a post-conflict partner for U.S. military forces. Such a force, he argues, would give the United States the ability to rapidly establish the rule of law and create conditions for the successful implementation of the other aspects of reconstruction.

A career Foreign Service Officer in the U.S. State Department, Perito was also deputy director of the international police training program at the Justice Department, where he directed programs in Bosnia, East Timor, and Kosovo. He was deputy executive secretary of the National Security Council and has taught courses on peace operations at Princeton, American, and George Mason Universities. Currently he heads the Iraq Experience Project in the Professional Training Program at the Institute.

For more about the book, including how to order, please visit the Institute's online bookstore.