De-suung (Guardians of Peace)

De-suung (Dzongkha: བདེ་སྲུང་), literally "Guardians of Peace", is a Bhutanese civilian volunteer corps established on 14 February 2011 under the direct command of King Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck. Its volunteers, called desuups, wear an orange uniform and are trained in first aid, search and rescue, disaster management, civic values and Driglam Namzha. The programme has become one of the most visible expressions of Kidu, the Bhutanese royal tradition of welfare and service, and operates from the De-suung Office under the direct authority of the throne rather than the elected cabinet.^[1]

From an inaugural batch of 124 graduates in 2011, the programme had expanded to more than 42,000 trained desuups by early 2024, with cohorts now running several times a year at the De-suung Training Academy in Tencholing, Wangdue Phodrang, and satellite sites.^[2] Desuups became highly visible during Bhutan's COVID-19 response, when they managed quarantine facilities, patrolled the southern border and distributed Kidu relief. A parallel vocational arm, the De-suung Skilling Programme (DSP), was launched in 2021 to train unemployed youth in construction, culinary arts, IT and other trades. De-suung should not be confused with Gyalsung, the compulsory national service programme introduced by a separate 2022 law.

Origins and Royal Command

The programme was initiated personally by the Fifth Druk Gyalpo, who presented it as a voluntary citizens' service to build a disciplined, community-minded reserve that could be mobilised in emergencies. The first cohort of 124 volunteers completed a month-long course at Tencholing in Wangdue Phodrang and graduated on 14 February 2011, the date now marked as De-suung Day.^[3] The name combines Dekyid (peace, well-being) and Sung (to guard). The King took part in elements of early training alongside volunteers and has continued to address each graduating batch.

Unlike most Bhutanese government initiatives, De-suung does not sit under a ministry. It is administered by the De-suung Office, which reports directly to the throne, and is funded through a mix of royal grants, government contributions and development partners. This structure places it within a wider pattern in which the monarchy has built institutions of direct royal command — alongside bodies such as the Royal Kidu Foundation and various royal projects — that operate outside the normal chain of cabinet accountability.^[4]

Training

Integrated and Accelerated Programmes

The core De-suung Integrated Training Programme typically runs for four to five weeks at Tencholing and other camps. It combines physical conditioning, basic drill, disaster response, first aid, fire safety and search-and-rescue drills with classroom sessions on civic values, environmental care, Gross National Happiness and Driglam Namzha, the Bhutanese code of etiquette. Shorter Accelerated Training Programmes compress the core curriculum for larger intakes; the 71st Accelerated cohort announced in 2024 enrolled around 2,200 candidates.^[5]

Training is open to Bhutanese citizens aged 18 and above, with no educational prerequisites, and is delivered free of charge. Civil servants and corporate employees are granted leave to attend, and cohorts mix farmers, students, civil servants, monks and private-sector workers. On graduation, desuups receive an orange scarf and uniform and are placed on a volunteer roster in their home dzongkhag, where they can be called up for specific deployments.^[1]

De-suung Skilling Programme (DSP)

The De-suung Skilling Programme was launched in 2021 as a direct response to rising youth unemployment and the mismatch between school leavers and the labour market. DSP offers short-term vocational courses to graduated desuups — mainly those in their twenties — in more than 150 disciplines, including carpentry, plumbing, welding, tailoring, electrical trades, culinary arts, hospitality, agriculture, IT and emerging technologies. Courses are delivered in cohorts by Bhutanese and international trainers. According to the De-suung Office, by October 2022 the programme had run 257 training sessions for around 5,591 desuups, involving 146 foreign experts, across 11 skilling domains.^[6]

DSP is framed as a Kidu initiative: training, accommodation, uniforms and stipends are funded so that participants bear no costs. Its stated goal is to channel graduates into self-employment, entrepreneurship or the domestic job market in sectors where Bhutan relies heavily on foreign labour, particularly construction. Kuensel has reported DSP cohorts moving into hotel projects, carpentry workshops and agricultural cooperatives after completion.^[7] Critics note that outcome data on employment and retention has been limited, and that the emigration of young Bhutanese to Australia has drawn many DSP graduates abroad despite the programme's domestic focus.

Deployments and Roles

COVID-19 Response

De-suung's largest single deployment came during the COVID-19 pandemic from 2020 to 2022. When Bhutan imposed national and local lockdowns, desuups were activated alongside the Royal Bhutan Army, the Royal Bhutan Police and health workers. They managed quarantine hotels, patrolled the open southern border to deter unauthorised crossings, supported contact tracing, staffed checkpoints, delivered essential supplies and Kidu rations to households under lockdown, and assisted vaccination drives. At peak periods several thousand desuups were simultaneously deployed. International observers and the World Health Organisation cited Bhutan's pandemic outcomes — including one of the world's lowest case-fatality ratios and rapid vaccination coverage — as exceptional, and official accounts credited the desuup network as a central enabler of that response.^[8]

Disasters and Civic Duties

Desuups are a standing reserve for natural disasters in a country prone to earthquakes, landslides, flash floods and glacial lake outburst floods. They have been deployed after monsoon flooding in southern dzongkhags, landslide events on the Thimphu–Phuentsholing highway, and in ongoing GLOF preparedness work around high-altitude lakes. Beyond emergencies, desuups provide traffic control and ceremonial duties during royal events, tshechus and state visits, and have been mobilised for environmental clean-ups, tree planting and construction of community trails and footbridges.^[9]

Relationship to Gyalsung and the Royal Bhutan Army

De-suung is often confused with Gyalsung (National Service), which was established by the Gyalsung Act passed by Parliament on 11 November 2022. Gyalsung is a separate, compulsory one-year programme required of all Bhutanese citizens reaching the age of 18, combining three months of basic military training with nine months of specialised instruction. Gyalsung is rooted in Article 8 of the Constitution, which lists national service among the fundamental duties of citizens. De-suung, by contrast, remains voluntary and open to adults of any age. Official materials describe the two as complementary: Gyalsung is framed as the universal foundation, while De-suung is the lifelong volunteer track that Bhutanese can join after completing Gyalsung.^[10]

Desuups do not form part of the Royal Bhutan Army and are not soldiers. However, the 2022 Gyalsung Act and subsequent royal decrees have expanded the institutional linkages: desuups receive a short block of basic military-style instruction from the Royal Bhutan Army in some batches, and the De-suung Office has been designated as a delivery partner for elements of Gyalsung. These developments have blurred the line between the volunteer corps and Bhutan's security establishment in the eyes of some observers.^[11]

Funding, Structure and Scale

The De-suung Office is headed by a director appointed under royal command and operates training camps, regional offices and logistics units across the twenty dzongkhags. Funding draws on royal grants, annual budget allocations from the Royal Government of Bhutan and contributions from bilateral partners and philanthropists; the programme has also received in-kind support from foreign trainers and equipment donors. According to the De-suung Office and Bhutanese media, cumulative trained desuups passed 42,775 in early 2024, a figure that continues to grow with each Accelerated batch; more recent totals should be read as ranges pending updated official releases.^[2]

Reception and Critique

Within Bhutan, De-suung is broadly popular. Surveys and Bhutanese media coverage describe high public trust in the orange uniform, and the programme is frequently cited by officials and by Kuensel as evidence of Bhutan's capacity to mobilise citizens for national purposes without a large standing military. International development partners, including UN agencies and the World Bank, have pointed to De-suung as a model of community-based disaster preparedness in a small, geographically vulnerable state.^[12]

At the same time, De-suung has drawn criticism from commentators outside Bhutan and from exile publications, largely on structural rather than operational grounds. The Bhutan News Network, an exile outlet, has argued that the programme — together with Gyalsung — represents an expansion of extra-parliamentary institutions in which civilians perform quasi-military functions under direct royal command, with limited legislative oversight. It has also raised concerns about the use of desuups in border surveillance during the pandemic and about the blurring of volunteer and compulsory service categories.^[13] Academic writing on Bhutan's democratic transition more broadly has noted that the Fifth King has continued to build institutions of direct royal welfare and service alongside the elected government; scholars such as Marian Gallenkamp have described this pattern as a form of monarchical guided democracy, in which the crown retains significant prerogatives even after the 2008 constitution.^[4]

Coverage of these concerns inside Bhutan is limited. Kuensel, BBS and other Bhutan-based outlets have focused on De-suung's humanitarian and skilling work rather than on questions of constitutional accountability, reflecting wider patterns of self-censorship in Bhutanese media. Independent documentation of De-suung's internal governance and finances remains thin.