Abstract
Peace operations of the United Nations (UN) have changed significantly since the 1990s. The turn towards "stabilisation" operations increasingly allows the use of military force against armed groups. For some troop contributing armies, this means that peacekeeping has become the first occasion on which soldiers gain combat experience. Yet, what are the consequences of this development for eventual internal public security roles of armed forces? Contributing to discussions on conditions for organisational change, this article develops a model for blending the analysis of bottom-up adaptation and top-down military innovation with studies on civil-military relations. This model is used for examining military learning that resulted from the reciprocal relationship between the Brazilian military's internal "Guaranteeing Law and Order" (GLO) operations and coercive operations against urban crime groups during the UN Stabilisation Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH). The article finds that a complex interplay between bottom-up adaptation and top-down innovation - enabled by politicians who supported the transfer of lessons - led to a process in which internal missions and peacekeeping deployments mutually informed military change. Soldiers' adaptation to coercive operations, changes in the legal framework for internal missions, and the development of appropriate doctrine for urban operations resulted in the institutionalisation of military learning.