This important book offers an in-depth look at the peacekeeping tasks, experiences and challenges of one of the United Nations most reliable and proficient peace building partners. Kotia’s highly readable and detailed strategic conflict assessment of Ghana’s peacekeeping experiences in Liberia and Lebanon provides not only a long-overdue description of this small West-African country’s impact on global security and conflict management, it also serves as a model for analyzing multi-dimensional peace operations and for drawing lessons that may shape the planning and conducting of future missions.

Volker Franke, Kennesaw State University

Existing works on participation of Africans in peace operations are often too general for understanding country-specific contexts. Kotia’s book successfully challenged this situation by focusing exclusively on Ghana and comparing the contexts of two operations in which the country participated: Lebanon and Liberia. The work deepens our understanding of the changing context in which national interests define Africans’ participation in peace operations and provides students of African politics, peace, conflict and security studies with a fresh comparative research methodology.

Isaac O. Albert, University of Ibadan

Kotia is an intellectual soldier who has produced a rich and detailed comparative study on Ghana’s experiences in peacekeeping operations in Lebanon and Liberia. This book is particularly useful for scholars and practitioners as it provides a broad range of conceptual insights and is based on the practical experiences of the author in participating in both peacekeeping missions.

Adekeye Adebajo, Centre for Conflict Resolution