United Nations peacekeeping faces an uncertain future. Widely seen as a cornerstone of the UN’s contribution in world affairs, in recent years it has been marred by scandal, hostility in countries where missions are deployed and declining appetite for it among member states amid deepening global divides.
“Peacekeeping faces formidable challenges,” Jean-Pierre Lacroix, the undersecretary-general for peace operations, told the Security Council in September. “As geopolitical tensions have mounted . . . operations are increasingly unable to rely on member states to act in a strong, unified manner to support peacekeeping efforts,” he said.
One result of the increasing disaffection is that peacekeeping often seems to muddle along, achieving meaningful reductions in violence and suffering but without helping to end conflicts. Countries have also grown more reticent to turn to blue-helmet operations as a tool for conflict management.
These challenges have prompted soul-searching within the UN on how best to adapt peacekeeping to the reality of a fracturing world. On Nov. 1, the organization published a new independent study on the subject, titled “The Future of Peacekeeping, New Models, and Related Capabilities.” It was written by three experts hired by the UN’s Department of Peace Operations: El-Ghassim Wane, who headed the peacekeeping mission in Mali before it was ousted by the country’s military-led government in 2023; Paul Williams, a professor at George Washington University; and Ai Kihara-Hunt, a professor at the University of Tokyo.
The paper seeks to stir reflection ahead of the Peacekeeping Ministerial, an intergovernmental conference on UN peacekeeping held every two years. The next gathering is scheduled to take place in May 2025, in Berlin.
“Our view is that the track record of peacekeeping is actually quite good,” Williams told PassBlue. “As a result, it’s still very much a worthy investment.”
The study, Williams said, pushes back against the prevailing dour mood about peacekeeping. Recent setbacks and short memories have tended to obscure its achievements over its long history. “Our point was to remind people and refresh their memories about the many things peacekeeping has done in over seventy-five years.” The study concludes that “for the most part, peacekeeping works; it remains one of the UN’s most effective tools.”
The report lays out a series of 30 “models” that describe what peacekeeping has done in the past and could do in the future. They include deploying peacekeepers to stem a looming conflict (model 1), supporting the organization of free and fair elections (model 11) and protecting shipments and convoys of humanitarian aid (model 22).
Williams described the models as a “menu of options” for UN member countries to choose from as potential solutions to given problems. Each model describes the strategic objective it seeks to fulfill, the tasks that peacekeepers would perform to meet that objective and the assets an eventual mission would need to be successful.
“The models presented by the independent study team could feed into the discussion on what peacekeeping might look like in the future and could provide useful examples for UNSC members or host-states,” wrote Patricia Patz, a spokesperson for the German delegation to the UN, in an email to PassBlue. (UNSC refers to the United Nations Security Council, which mandates peacekeeping missions; host states are countries in which missions operate.) Germany, as host of the next Peacekeeping Ministerial, was one of the countries that commissioned the study.
A main aim of the study, Williams said, is to let UN member countries know that peacekeeping missions “can come in many different shapes and sizes.” Peacekeeping may often be associated with large operations, such as those in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, South Sudan and the Central African Republic, but missions can be tailored flexibly. As the study notes: “The models could be used to establish narrowly focused missions based on a single model, or operations with a broader set of objectives that encompass multiple models.”
Asked for an example of how the models could be applied to a real-life case, Williams said a small explosive-ordnance removal mission (model 18) could eventually be dispatched to Gaza. Disposing of undetonated bombs and mines will be necessary when the conflict ends and is more likely to garner initial consensus in the Security Council than more ambitious aims, he said.
Experts say the future of UN peacekeeping is likely to lie in smaller, bespoke missions with relatively narrow objectives. António Guterres, the UN secretary-general, has also called for future operations to be more “nimble and adaptable.”
Ultimately, peacekeeping’s viability and success hinge on the political will among UN member states to find consensus on solutions to conflicts. But this has been proving hard to achieve. The study observes: “While such polarization and political tension persist, no amount of technical and operational reform will deliver peacekeeping success.”
As Jenna Russo, the director of research at the International Peace Institute, a think tank, told PassBlue: “There is such a narrow political environment in the Security Council. What is required on the ground is not necessarily politically feasible.”
We welcome your comments on this article. What are your thoughts on UN peacekeeping's future?
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Dali ten Hove formerly served in the United Nations peacekeeping mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Monusco.
As a veteran of both UNTAET and MONUC/MONUSCO, I would hope that any assessment of UN Peacekeeping missions would view each mission in context – viz, the entire geopolitical situation surrounding each mission , with an honest evaluation of the roles played by local leaders and actors. For example, the relative success of UNTAET was only possible with the active support of political leaders like President Jose Ramos Horta and Xanana Gusmao, as well as the Catholic Church and the Timorese people, in general. This active support enabled the mission to navigate through some difficult times which might otherwise have proved problematic.
UNTAET was not a success as it has created a very bad relationship between Indonesia and the UN
Dali, let us be serious, asking El-Ghassim Wane who led a recently failed UN Peace Keeping Mission in Mali to think about this process could be an insult to the intelligence. In addition of somebody in the University of Tokyo and the Georgetown University very far remote from Goma, Bangui, Timbuktu, etc.!
I have seen many peace keeping missions in Haiti, CAR, DRC, Somalia, Lebanon, Mali, etc and none was a success. Let us rethink this process and invest money and time into conflicts prevention strategies and refuse to satisfy the wishes of the UNSC with the majority of its member states governed by entities sponsored by the weapon industries.
The world will know peace only when the weapon-industries will stop sponsoring political parties in the world! The UN needs to work on this area along the Conflicts prevention (Prevenir vaut mieux que guérir —- Mr Lacroix knows this very well)
While I agree that prevention is key and less expensive, and it’s equally a softer approach in dealing with political crisis, there has been limited success due to intractable differences among warring parties. This differences have been compounded by external interests in most occasions. One then wonders if really there’s faith when we talk of prevention. Examples are numerous when we talk of mediations process that have either stalled or prolonged resulting in humanitarian consequences. Let’s look at Sudan, South Sudan, Libya and DRC, among others. It is because of these type of challenges associated with prevention that makes peacekeeping and peace enforcement a useful tool to enable or strengthen other peacemaking or peace building initiatives. A blend of all these approaches will be necessary in addressing the new emerging types of conflict.
Do you think that the resignation of Abdoulaye Bathily from the peace keeping process in Libya was a success? or do you think that the UN peacekeeping process after many years in DRC is a success? Do you think that the many UN peace keeping missions in Haiti were successes? What about UNIFIL in Lebanon? Let us be clear and understand the roots causes of conflicts so to develop effective tools for the prevention, dissuasion and dialogue which could bring about peace in an environment where economic and social development is promoted and supported by the UN.
Another way to address conflicts could be through regional entities e.g. ECOWAS missions in West Africa were able to actively bring about peace in Sierra-Leone, Liberia and the Gambia using regional ressources and entities.