Monday, May 19, 2025

Surviving the United Nations by Robert Bruce Adolph



This post is part of a virtual book tour organized by Goddess Fish Promotions. Robert Bruce Adolph will be awarding a $25 Amazon/BN GC to a randomly drawn winner. Click on the tour banner to see the other stops on the tour.

Five Things You Might Not Know About Robert Bruce Adolph


1 . At last count, and due to my Army and United Nations assignments, I have lived and worked in 17 different countries in Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. Today I move between three homes, one in Italy, one in Mexico and one in Washington DC

2. I trained as a Hostage Negotiator not in the Army but at Scotland Yard! The British perspective is… different.

3. Of all the things that I have accomplished in my many years, and aside from saving lives, I am most proud of my writing history. Unlike all I did in my military career, writing I had to figure out all by myself.

4. If I could meet one person throughout all of human history it would be Sir Isaac Newton. He was without question one of the most impactful humans to have ever lived. Today’s science exists in large part due to Newton’s curiosity, focus and determination. His influence will still be felt in a thousand years.

5. I am driven - first as a senior US Army Special Forces soldier and then later as a UN Chief Security Advisor. Now, as an international speaker, commentator, and author. Perhaps it is because I began life in a large poor family. We didn’t have much. If I was to prosper, the work would have to be my own. I had to earn my way. Nobody, ever, gave me anything. Today, I feel grateful that I was able to achieve so much in life. But it was all sweat and toil.



This is the astonishing true story of a US Army Special Forces soldier who became a warrior for peace. In his humanitarian and peacekeeping missions for the United Nations he dealt with child-soldiers, blood diamonds, a double hostage-taking, an invasion by brutal guerrillas, an emergency aerial evacuation, a desperate hostage recovery mission, tribal gunfights, refugee camp violence, suicide bombings, and institutional corruption. His UN career brought him face to face with the best and worst of human nature and he shares it all here.



Read an Excerpt

In 1996 a former UN official, Ahmad Tejan Kabbah, was elected President. The new President’s first order of business was to sign a peace treaty with Sankoh that rapidly failed. Sankoh continued to maintain control of the most valuable diamond-producing areas. The following year, the fledgling President was overthrown by Major Johnny Paul Koroma and the Sierra Leone Army. Koroma immediately suspended the Constitution, outlawed demonstrations, and abolished all political parties. President Kabbah beat a hasty retreat to the country of Guinea, immediately to the north and east of Sierra Leone.

Two years later, the Nigerian-led Western African Intervention Force entered Freetown to cheering crowds. The cheers died quickly when the RUF later attempted to take Freetown by force. The UN Military Observer mission in Sierra Leone evacuated its staff northward to Conakry, Guinea. Its headquarters compound was subsequently burned-out by the RUF.

The West African Intervention Force subsequently retook Freetown. The RUF returned to the bush, while maintaining control of the diamond-producing areas in the south and east of the country. The UN then arranged a ceasefire. Later, in Lomé, Togo, an UN-brokered peace agreement was signed between Kabbah’s government and the RUF. Not many in Sierra Leone believed that the peace agreement would hold. Fear was omnipresent. Nobody knew what the future might hold. 

Confirmed reports spoke to many RUF atrocities. Because they had lost the previously held general election, their revenge was to cut off the hands of over 1,000 residents of Freetown. This equated in their minds to punishment for voting the wrong way.

About the Author

Robert Bruce Adolph is a retired UN Chief Security Advisor & US Army Special Forces Lieutenant Colonel. He holds master’s degrees in both International Affairs (Middle East Studies) from American University’s School of International Service and National Security Studies and Strategy from the US Army’s Command and General Staff College.

Adolph served nearly 26-years in multiple Special Forces, Counterterrorism, Psychological Operations, Civil Affairs, Foreign Area Officer, and Military Intelligence command and staff assignments in the US and overseas. He also volunteered to serve on UN peacekeeping missions in Egypt, Israel, Cambodia, Iraq and Kuwait.

After he retired from active military service in 1997, he began a second career as a senior UN Security Advisor. Among his positions he served as the Chief of the Middle East and North Africa in the UN Department of Safety and Security.

Website: https://robertbruceadolph.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robert-bruce-adolph-904597a/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/robert.adolph

 

 

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3 comments:

  1. Thank you for featuring Robert Bruce Adolph and SURVIVING THE UNITED NATIONS today.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Not only does the book sound interesting, but the author does too based on those answers. Would love to know why he trained with Scotland Yard instead of, say, the FBI for hostage negotiations.

    ReplyDelete

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