1 May 2025, NIICE Commentary 10782
Mainak Bhattacharya
"We the peoples of the United Nations are determined to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war." This foundational principle has guided the United Nations (UN) since its inception after World War II, with a primary focus on safeguarding world peace and stability. The UN has been a global forum where every distressed voice is heard, and it has achieved significant success in advancing humanitarian objectives. While agencies like the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) have provided critical support in disaster zones, such as supplying clean water and health services to children in earthquake-hit Turkiye and Syria, the UN's peacekeeping efforts have been at the forefront of protecting civilians and maintaining peace in conflict zones. The UN Peacekeeping Forces have achieved notable successes, such as the successful resolution of conflicts in countries like Cambodia, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mozambique, Namibia, and Tajikistan. These operations have not only helped end conflicts but also fostered reconciliation and supported democratic processes. Despite these achievements, the UN Peacekeeping Forces also face significant challenges. Failures in Rwanda and Bosnia highlight the limitations and vulnerabilities of peacekeeping operations, particularly when faced with inadequate mandates or insufficient resources. Furthermore, the changing nature of conflicts, from inter-state to intra-state to ethnic, has presented new challenges for peacekeeping missions, which must now address complex issues such as civilian protection and the disarmament, demobilization, andreintegration of former combatants.
This paper will explore the successes and challenges of UN Peacekeeping, examining its structural fallacies, its relevance in today's global system, and the concepts that justify its continued presence as a vital tool for international peace and security. By analyzing these aspects, we can better understand the role of UN Peacekeeping in maintaining global stability and promoting lasting peace.
Changing Roles
Goulding (1993) considers the period between 1956 and 1974 as the "golden age" of UN peacekeeping, marked by successful interventions in regional conflicts, particularly in the Near East. After a period of relative inactivity, peacekeeping experienced a revival in 1988 due to improved cooperation between the United States and the Soviet Union. The early 1990s saw the establishment of numerous new operations, including the large-scale UNPROFOR in the former Yugoslavia. This period was marked by a significant increase in the number of personnel deployed in peacekeeping operations.
On its long journey of evolution, UN peacekeeping has been guided by several key principles: UN command and control, consent of the parties, impartiality, voluntary provision of personnel and equipment by member states, and the use of force only as a last resort. However, the role of peacekeeping forces has expanded to include more nuanced tasks such as civilian protection, supporting democratic processes, and disarming and reintegrating former combatants. These expanded roles require peacekeeping forces to engage in activities beyond traditional military observation and monitoring, highlighting the evolving nature of their responsibilities (Goulding, 1993).
Complexities
It would, in line with the flow of this paper, be necessary to transition from discussions on the historical development of peacekeeping initiatives to plaguing complexities at the ground level. Historically, the Peacekeeping Forces have often suffered from confusing mandates, ranging from observation and protection to active intervention. Lessons learned from botched operations have resulted in the formulation of the Capstone Doctrine in 2008, the guiding light of the Peacekeepers, outlining approaches to a variety of problematic situations. However, the adoption of documents is not confirmation of apt action, as has been seen throughout history, and complexities of target regions raise more questions than answers. Recently, owing to the Russia-Ukraine ‘conflict,’ several contributing nations withdrew from the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA), the peacekeeping mission in the Sahel region, reinforcing the notion that national political decisions play a part in determining the sustenance of such missions. Moreover, as developments in Mali indicate, lines have definitely been blurred between neutral peacekeeping in line with international law and active enforcement of ‘peace,’ coloured by deliberate political decisions. Now, on to one of the more curious stories surrounding peacekeeping missions, the United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda (UNAMIR) to be specific. During the time of the genocide in 1994, the Peacekeepers were tasked only with protecting foreigners and acting in self-defence, but owing to the obviously chaotic situation where innocent lives were being lost by the second, soldiers had to intervene. Had it not been for individual pragmatism, eventualities can only be imagined. One such example is of Peter Sosi, a retired Ghanian army officer, who negotiated with Hutu child soldiers to transfer Tutsi civilians to a UN safe zone with apparently a formidable
bargaining chip – a can of Coca-Cola. Such instances are unfortunately not uncommon with mandates being far removed from the gravity of circumstances. The deeper problem, as Sosi has pointed out, lies in the glaring existence of a cultural gap between the locals and the officers, despite official training targeted towards cultural sensitivity. The reasoning behind such a proposal becomes clearer when the situation in the Democratic Republic of Congo is examined. The United Nations Organization Stabilisation Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (MONUSCO) has not been successful, as local activists Espoir Ngalukiye and Sankara Bin Kartumwa point out. The local populace has not responded well to MONUSCO’s presence, in large part due to the uselessness of said presence, as conflict among armed groups is still a reality and anti-MONUSCO protests have been brutally supressed by the forces in conjunction with government support. A 2021 Council on Foreign Relations report stresses on the dearth of troops from nations which actually fund operations. Such initiatives usually involve troops from countries affected by the conflict zone, though their influence on the mandate, surprisingly, is minimal.
The concurrent presence of significantly serious issues complicates matters further. For example, there is the ever-present tendency of troops to indulge in acts of sexual violence since UN accountability in such cases is negligible, the burden of trial being shouldered by contributing nations themselves. As far as inefficiency mitigation is concerned, it remains to be seen how the Action for Peacekeeping (A4P) initiative (2018) pans out. In addition, solutions such as greater coordination with regional blocs, leadership of behind-the-scenes nations in providing military training to peacekeepers, inclusion of women in the forces, etc must be considered. One conclusion is certainly clear from this assessment – the progression of UN reforms has reached a crossroads where informed decision-making is of the essence, particularly to ensure the organisation’s long-term survival, and more importantly, relevance.
Conclusion
Such an examination of the UN props up convincing arguments questioning its viability in the modern geopolitical scenario. Should the organisation brought into existence by one of the greatest horrors known to humankind, be given a second chance? In its current state, the organisation is certainly not functioning at its highest capacity. There exist a lot of dimensions to the problem, especially when aggressive nations are factored in. The idealism of the UN as a harbinger of peace is being opposed by the very nations that helped build it and remain its constituent parts. Reform thus needs to be centred on creating a resilient structure which would effectively counterbalance the currently restless world. It needs to shed its reactive tendencies in favour of a confident, proactive approach. If an optimistic conclusion is to be drawn at all from the pessimistic overtones of this paper, it is that if the United Nations was not here at all, we surely would have been trying to invent something like it.
Mainak Bhattacharya is a Postgraduate Scholar from the Department of International Studies, Christ University, India.
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