The 75th Anniversary of UN Peacekeeping

Metropolitan University Journal, 2008

So far 20 UN peacekeeping missions have already been working in different parts of the world since its first launch in 1956 as a result of the Suez crisis. These UN peace operations have succeeded to save the world from another third world war. The peacekeepers have been busy with the duty of peacekeeping, peacemaking and peacebuilding from its inauguration to this modern 21st century. As the nature of the conflicts is changing, the peacekeepers have been undertaking different activities like the prevention of conflict, assisting in political process, reforming, restructuring, training and strengthening institutions, electoral assistance, assisting in human rights and judicial mechanism, humanitarian assistance etc. Despite of some problems, the UN peacekeeping operations have achieved enormous success to the peaceful coexistence among and within the nations which was the primary objective of the United Nations itself. A successful coordination between the various factors within and outside the United Nations is necessary for their better performance.

The challenges of preserving global peace and security have never been easy. At the end of the Second World War, the victorious allied powers believed that they could build on the failed League of Nations experiment that followed the First World War, and create an organization that united the nations of the world under their leadership to preserve peace. That United Nations organization was given the force of arms to use if need be to put down aggression and it was contemplated that the combined forces of the five great powers would act in concert, under their combined Chiefs of Staff, to react with massive power of modern armies to overwhelm an aggressor and to restore peace. But it didn’t quite work out that way. The two superpower protagonists – the United States and the Soviet Union -- suspicious of any move by the other, prevented united efforts to solve most world crises. Nevertheless, the United Nations achieved notable success in a number of minor crises that could have spun out of control. The UN entered “peacekeeping” tentatively; acting always with the consent of disputing parties, maintaining neutrality between the parties, and using minimal force to defend its personnel and property, and then only when attacked. The end of the Cold War removed many of the barriers to minor conflict. National actors and sub-national groups no longer feared that one or the other superpower would, in order to maintain the superpower peace, prevent them from acting with force to achieve their goals. Moreover, a new phenomenon threatened regional peace and security – failed states – in which no one wielded the power to maintain order. Especially in these failed states, but elsewhere as well, racial, ethnic and religious animosities that had been subsumed by the Cold War, began to erupt. The UN, freed from the shackles of a superpower Security Council veto, sought to contain these eruptions of discord. But in the early 1990’s, UN missions to restore peace in Somalia, Rwanda and Bosnia failed to accomplish their goals, leading many to question whether the UN should take any role in global security. Several nations, dismissive of the UN’s role as world peacekeeper, undertook to solve regional disputes on their own, although still seeking the sanction of UN ratifying resolutions. Today, the United Nations is grappling with defining its role in global security, especially as we enter an era of widespread terrorism. Much has been written over the past fifty years suggesting improvements to UN peacekeeping capabilities. But many of these well-researched writings propose ideal solutions that are simply not politically acceptable. In contrast, this study examines past UN peacekeeping operations to discover the challenges and recommends structures and procedures for improving the planning and execution of UN peacekeeping operations – improvements that are possible to accomplish under existing UN structures and possibly within current funding – hence, the subtitle “Embracing the Possible.” The study begins with a detailed look at the UN peacekeeping and peace enforcement missions in Somalia in 1992 to 1995. The UN Somalia mission is used because it was the first Chapter VII peace enforcement mission and because it embodied most of the challenges faced by the UN in complex peacekeeping missions since then. Using the Somalia mission also provides insights into peacekeeping challenges by reference to historic examples to validate the challenges and to serve as a basis for recommendations for improvement. For example, many authors have stressed the need for clear mandates, but without closely examining the mandates in use, the reader would not realize that the real issue is that “mandates” are not contained in one document to which a UN Force Commander can refer, but instead are scattered through several Security Council resolutions that refer to recommendations in other documents not included in the resolution. The recommended fix is simple: state the actual “mandate” in a separate document that contains all terms of the UN mission and is attached to the Security Council resolution to provide a comprehensive guide for UN peacekeeping forces. The second chapter examines the current UN peacekeeping structure and many of the improvements already adopted by the Secretariat. The third chapter reviews some of the major previous recommendations for UN peacekeeping reform, and offers suggestions as to why those recommendations were never adopted. Realistic recommendations for improvement are offered in Chapter four, and are summarized in the chart below. The recommendations include revitalization of the Military Staff Committee and use of regional sub-committees to establish regional contingency planning and an early warning system for crises; activation of the UN Field Service as a company-size early response force, and use of Article 43 agreements with regional organizations to provide one coherent brigade-sized unit on standby for deployment to peacekeeping missions on a rotating basis. This document is a “must read” for anyone interested in preserving the role of the United Nations as a viable alternative to world chaos. Realpolitik works for only so long and only when responsible state actors form a consensus on rational world peace. As nations wrestle with increasing multi-party ethnic and religious terrorism, sponsored not by state actors, but by transnational non-state entities, the ability to rapidly exchange information and intelligence, and rapidly emplace force, when necessary – either military, economic or otherwise -- must be controlled by some centralized body. The United Nations can fulfill that role, but first it must regain the confidence of its member states that it is competent to accomplish this complex mission. It will regain that confidence, in part, by making incremental improvements to its ability to prepare and deploy forces in complex peacekeeping missions.

The United Nations (UN) peacekeeping operations were introduced in 1948 after turmoil in the Middle East. Since then, peacekeeping has matured and evolved in order to try to provide stability and security around the world. Many challenges and missions have crossed the path of UN peacekeeping operations, which consequently brought a great forum of discussion between the pro-peacekeeping advocates and the groups that critique it. This essay argues that UN peacekeeping operations are difficult to justify, and need a reform in order to meet the needs for 21st century security threats in order to guaranty a sustainable peace. It needs to be emphasized that peacekeeping was and still is unique in its features as each mission is different and has its individual areas of issues and successes. Thus, it is advised to look at peacekeeping as a toolbox that provides specific solutions for specific issues, rather than a complete practice that fits all. This diversity creates gaps and leads to criticism that this paper will address. Since the post Cold War, UN peacekeeping operations (UN PKO, also known as DPKO, UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations) have evolved from their initial purpose of “facilitate[ing] ‘liberal international relations’ whereby states resolve their differences through open diplomacy… [to a] concept [that acknowledges that] violent conflict is related to illiberal governance” (Bellamy, 2004: 151). This paper acknowledges that UN PKO, or a similar body of reaction and protection is necessary. In order to lay fundamental grounds to this study, this essay will trace the emergence and development of peacekeeping in the context of the UN. It is important to discuss the UN in great details, as it is the driving vehicle that makes peacekeeping what it is. It sets the ground rules of conduct and gives its legitimacy. Second, realist, and neo institutionalism ideology on its course of actions will further deepen the understanding of the concept of peacekeeping. It will look at three stages of peacekeeping: the 1990s, period of trial and error with the example of Somalia, then the 2000s, dominated by Iraq and Afghanistan, and the 2010s and the first mandate of the use of force strategically in DRC. It needs to be said that Iraq and Afghanistan were not UN peacekeeping missions. However, for this study it is crucial to include them, because these conflicts were decisive in the re-evaluation of UN PKO structure. Therefore, this essay will show through these examples that peacekeeping since its initial mandate is weak, unclear, and becomes difficult to justify due to the changing nature of warfare. This essay also aims to clarify the concept of governance because the main features of traditional peacekeeping were engraved in the notion of liberal international relations through open diplomacy to illiberal governance within conflict. Third, this paper will look at US policy for peacekeeping such as the Clinton policy review and the brief example of Guatemala. This will demonstrate that governmental willingness and cooperation remains a vital part in the whole process of peacekeeping. Despite good intentions and efforts to make it work, UN PKO do not provide a balanced account of power between stronger and stable states against weaker and destabilized states. Therefore, by looking at the undermined position of the UN and UN PKO, this paper will conclude that peacekeeping is not an effective practice post Cold War. In addition, it does not meet the demands to alleviate security threats and provide a sustainable peace around the world. Importantly, for the purpose of this argument, this study is only focused on criticizing UN PKO in the post Cold War era without incorporating any aspects of the role and power of the media in the 20-21st century and robust peacekeeping.

MODERN UNITED NATIONS PEACEKEEPING: TOWARDS A HOLISTIC APPROACH TO ADDRESSING CONFLICT, 2015

2018

The United Nations has the largest deployed force in the world today. More than 110,000 UN peacekeepers are charged with keeping the peace in 1 6 operations across the globe. In both scholarly work and in American public opinion, UN peacekeeping has been assessed as largely successful.1 Peacekeepers have patrolled borders to prevent states from going back to war, and they have helped to knit many countries back together after civil war. In a very few but horrific and memorable instances, UN peacekeepers failed miserably to implement their mandates (in Somalia, Rwanda, and during the genocide in Srebrenica, BosniaHerzegovina). As a result of those failures, peacekeepers have been granted more robust "peace enforcement" mandates to protect civilians. However, in far more but less -noted places Namibia, El Salvador, Mozambique, Cambodia, Croatia (Eastern Slavonia), Timor Leste, Burundi, and Sierra Leonepeacekeepers have successfully implemented complex mandates, without using...

Mediterranean Journal of Social Sciences, 2013

UN has carried out 67 peacekeeping operations since 1948. Surprisingly, 54 of them have taken place since 1988. As international relations are dominated by Great Powers to analyse their attitudes through peacekeeping after 1990, it can be clearly seen how realpolitik still shapes the political world. Peacekeeping was adopted during the Cold War as a substitute for collective security and in response to the stalemate between the Permanent Members of the Security Council. In practice, UN peace operations have developed as ad hoc responses to particular crises. Therefore the key concepts of traditional peacekeeping (consent, impartiality, minimum use of force) are often interpreted differently in different missions, broadening the way in which the international community understands what a threat to international peace is. Andersson (2000) asserts that the increasing number of peacekeeping operations after 1990 was due to a change from realpolitik to idealpolitik. UN Secretary-General Boutros-Ghali reflected in his document Agenda for Peace the same universalist and communitarian approach; and has declared the commitment to the primacy of values over interests in the international community. The egoistic passions and self-interests of Great Powers who are the permanent members of Security Council have motivated the increasing number of UN peacekeeping operations after 1990. The proposed paper will try to explore such a paradigm shift in the UN Peacekeeping operation.

Decades after the deployment of the first peacekeeping operation (PKO)—United Nations Truce Supervision Organization (UNTSO)—in 1948, the United Nations (UN) cannot boast of too many successes. The continued relevance of UN PKOs has thus come under criticism. In order to determine whether UN PKOs are still relevant, it is necessary to obtain a clear understanding of the reasons/factors for their success and failure, and thereafter assess their performance. Based on the author’s personal experience of peacekeeping and prior research, this article seeks to highlight a few factors that have an overriding influence on the outcome of a PKO. The article also attempts to provide a perspective on the relevance of the PKO in context of the challenges they face regarding planning, deployment and execution of such operations.

Although the demand for UN peacekeepers shows little sign of abating, a sense of uncertainty and malaise continues to colour discussions about the future of UN peacekeeping. Of the many issues facing the UN High Level Panel on Peace Operations that was set up by Secretary-General in 2014, the use of force by UN peacekeepers is likely to attract particular attention. It is also likely to prove divisive, as it has proved to be both among member states and within the Secretariat. While there are steps that can be taken to strengthen the capacity of the UN to mount and conduct field operations, Mats Berdal and David Ucko argue that the way forward does not lie simply in entrusting UN forces with ever more 'robust' war-fighting mandates. Instead, more systematic attention needs to be given to the vital task of linking, in a strategically meaningful sense, the activities of UN peacekeepers to political processes aimed at bringing violent conflict to an end. Among other things, this will require far greater honesty than has been displayed to date among member states about their own responsibility in enabling the UN to do what they ask of it.

This chapter examines the evolution of the idea of UN peacekeeping, asking how an instrument developed in the late 1940s managed to not only survive but also respond to the changing geopolitical and conflict landscape over the last seventy years. Through an overview of major doctrinal developments and institutional adaptations, the chapter analyses how the peacekeeping tool was adapted from a bipolar world, via a unipolar one to today’s multipolar world. Peter argues that peacekeeping started as a conflict management instrument, which was adapted to a conflict resolution mechanism after the end of the Cold War, but has now come full circle and is again increasingly used to manage and contain, not resolve conflicts.