In light of the uncertainty around the role UN peacekeeping will play in future, the UN Secretary-General’s New Agenda for Peace that was released in July 2023, includes a recommendation that “the Security Council and the General Assembly, undertake a reflection on the limits and future of peacekeeping in the light of the evolving nature of conflict with a view to enabling more nimble, adaptable and effective mission models while devising transition and exit strategies, where appropriate.”[1] In this paper I will reflect on the effectiveness of UN peace operations and how peacekeeping may evolve over the short- (next 5 years), medium- (following 5-15 years) and longer-term (beyond 15 years)?[2]
Effectiveness of Peacekeeping
Looking back over the past 75 years of UN peacekeeping, the most enduring question is whether peace operations work? Lise Morjé Howard argues that the majority of quantitative studies of UN peace operations have come to a similar conclusion: “UN peacekeeping has a positive and statistically significant effect on containing the spread of civil war, increasing the success of negotiated settlements to civil wars, and increasing the duration of peace once a civil war has ended.”[3] Howard finds that since the end of the Cold War, two-thirds, or 11 out of 16 UN peacekeeping operations, successfully ended and withdrew.[4]
Despite this historic record, peacekeeping is currently experiencing a significant trust deficit, largely because the stabilization operations in Central African Republic (CAR), Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Mali are not meeting the expectations raised by their mandates when it comes to protecting civilians, helping host states to counter insurgents and to end conflicts.
The major difference between those peacekeeping missions that were successful and these three contemporary stabilization missions is the lack of a viable political project they can support and protect. This implies a cease-fire agreement, a peace agreement or a peace process to which the major parties to the conflict have committed themselves, or a clear political roadmap towards such a peace process that is realistically achievable.
Protection and stabilization mandates in a context where there is no viable political project, produce a dilemma: the more effectively a peace operation protects civilians and helps to achieve stability, the less incentive there is for ruling political elites to find long-term political solutions.[5] This stabilization dilemma has not only undermined the credibility of these specific UN operations, but also the credibility of UN peacekeeping as an instrument.
The UN Security Council has a broad range of tools at its disposal, ranging from the good offices of the Secretary-General and other forms of peace diplomacy at the one end of the spectrum to enforcement on the other. Peacekeeping is one of the instruments in the toolbox. It is effective in certain contexts but performs poorly in others. If some form of enforcement is necessary the Security Council can turn to regional organizations like the African Union or it can authorize a coalition of the willing, as it did on many occasions in the past. The Council and Secretary-General can also innovate and develop new instruments that is not currently part of the toolbox. The point is that the Security Council should not turn to peacekeeping operations because of budgetary or political expediency.
How is UN peacekeeping likely to evolve?
In the short-term, UN peacekeeping operations are likely to continue to contract. No new peacekeeping operations has been deployed since 2014. The number of missions, the number of personnel in the remaining missions and the peacekeeping budget all contracted with approximately 30 to 40% since 2010. This contraction is driven by financial pressure, rivalry among the major powers and frustration with the inability of the stabilization missions to end the conflicts in CAR, the DRC and Mali. The Security Council withdrew the peacekeeping mission from Mali at the end of 2023 because of a breakdown in trust with the new transitional government. The UN mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo is also in the process of drawing down and withdrawing.
In the medium-term (5 to 15 years), whilst the global order is still in transition and characterised by rivalry, turbulence and uncertainty, there is unlikely to be much appetite or political space for significant new policy or doctrinal developments, or large-scale ambitious peacekeeping operations. The UN peace operations that will be maintained or deployed are likely to be those that have widespread support, that are limited in scope, size and cost, and that are relatively uncontroversial.
Almost all the new peace operations that have been deployed since 2014 fall in this category. The UN verification mission in Colombia, the UN mission to support the cease-fire in Hodeidah (UNMHA), and the UN mission in Sudan (UNITAMS), have all been deployed as special political missions.[6] These political missions have no armed uniformed personnel, although some have guard units whose role is limited to protecting the mission’s premises, equipment, and personnel. They are significantly smaller and are thus less costly than peacekeeping operations. Because of their lighter footprint and less intrusive mandates, they are seen as less of an imposition on the sovereignty of the host state. There is also less risk of reputational harm because they are not mandated to protect civilians or otherwise provide security guarantees to a peace process. As they don’t have large numbers of personnel there is less risk of sexual exploitation and abuse (SEA) and other forms of misconduct. Should the peace process or cease-fire fail, the blame is more squarely on the parties to the conflict as the UN presence is small and mandated only to support the process. The combination of these factors meant that it has been easier for the members of the UN Security Council to find agreement to deploy special political missions rather than UN peacekeeping operations over the last decade. The other type of operation that is also relatively uncontroversial is observer missions like the ones in Cyprus, Western-Sahara, Golan Heights and Kashmir. Currently, more than half of all UN peacekeeping operations are observer missions. It should be noted, however, that Sudan, Somalia and Iraq have all in recent months asked the UN Security Council to end the mandates of the special political missions that have been deployed in these countries. It is thus not only peacekeeping missions that are contracting, but special political missions seem to be equally under pressure. In both the Ukraine and Gaza contexts, some member states have explored how UN peacekeeping operations could support the implementation of cease-fire agreements, but no concrete proposals for such operations have been submitted yet.
In the longer-term (beyond 15 years or longer), when the transition in the global order may start to settle into a new more stable pattern, the UN system, and peacekeeping as an institution, is likely to have space again to play a more prominent role in maintaining international peace and security. This probably implies a focus on political accompaniment, cease-fire observation, third-party impartial mediation, stability and technical assistance with recovery and state-building that is perceived as value-neutral, so that national systems can emerge that build on local cultural, historic and contextual foundations. At the same time peacekeeping will have to contend with a number of new peace and security challenges, some of which are already now starting to emerge, and others that can’t be foreseen at this stage. Those that have already started to emerge include climate change, new disruptive technologies like artificial intelligence and mis- and disinformation.
Conclusion
UN peace operations has continuously adapted to new challenges over the past 70 years, and there is no evidence to suggest that it will not continue to do so into the future. Despite the significant changes currently underway in the global order, and the uncertainties that come with such turbulence, most countries and regional blocs, such as the African Union, European Union, the Nordic region and the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa), agree on and repeatedly emphasize the importance of the UN, and UN peacekeeping, as the centerpiece of global governance and a rules-based multilateral order.
Despite the short-, medium- and longer-term challenges that UN peacekeeping need to adapt too, it is likely to continue to be the flagship enterprise of the UN. This is because UN peacekeeping remains one of the most visual symbols and practical achievements of the UN and the multilateral system of global governance.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Cedric de Coning is a research professor with the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI), senior advisor for ACCORD, and the coordinator of the Effectiveness of Peace Operations Network (EPON).
[1] UN Secretary-General (2023) A New Agenda for Peace, Our Common Agenda, Policy Brief 9, United Nations, New York.
[2] Cedric de Coning (2021) The future of UN peace operations: Principled adaptation through phases of contraction, moderation, and renewal, Contemporary Security Policy, 42:2, 211-224, DOI: 10.1080/13523260.2021.1894021
[3] Lise Morje Howard (2019) Power in Peacekeeping. New York: Cambridge University Press.
[4] These 16 missions are Namibia, El Salvador, Cambodia, Mozambique, Eastern Slavonia/Croatia, Guatemala, Timor Leste, Burundi, Sierra Leone, Cote d’Ivoire, and Liberia. Howard (2019) judge that the following missions have failed: Somalia in 1993; Angola in 1993; Rwanda in 1994; Bosnia (Srebrenica) in 1995; and Haiti in 2017. Since then, the hybrid African Union (AU) – UN mission in Darfur has also been withdrawn with mixed results, bringing the total to 17.
[5] Cedric de Coning (2023) How Not to Do UN Peacekeeping: Avoid the Stabilization Dilemma with Principled and Adaptive Mandating and Leadership. Global Governance: A Review of Multilateralism and International Organizations, 29(2), 152-167. https://doi.org/10.1163/19426720-02902008
[6] In the UN context, there is a spectrum of peace operations, which include special political missions and peacekeeping operations. The differences between the two are somewhat political and budgetary, as there has been civilian only peacekeeping missions, but in general peacekeeping operations include armed and/or unarmed uniformed personnel, and multidimensional operations typically imply military, police and corrections, and various civilian functions, including political, civil affairs, human rights, etc. Special political missions are backstopped by the Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs (DPPA) and peacekeeping operations by the Department of Peace Operations (DPO) but the personnel responsible for managing these missions at headquarters are collocated in regional desks. For example, there is a UN peacekeeping operation in the DRC (MONUSCO) managed by DPO, but there is also a special envoy for the Great Lakes Region managed by DPPA, and the personnel overseeing these missions would all report to the same director responsible for missions in this part of Africa. There is a variety of both types of missions and sometimes a combination of aspects of both, for example special political missions that include a rule of law component, including with police and corrections officers, supported by the rule of law division (OROLSI) of DPO. All mission are supported by civilian mission support staff (finance, logistics, engineering, information technology, etc.) backstopped by the Department of Support (DOS).