The limits of peacekeeping

THIS YEAR marks half a century since the United Nations launched its first large-scale peace operation -- a deployment of troops to the Sinai desert during the Suez crisis. But 2006 also could mark a tipping point for the organization’s overstretched peacekeeping forces. U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, for example, has called for a U.N. force for Darfur, Sudan, double the size of the current 7,000-strong African Union mission. For all of the tensions between Washington and the United Nations, President Bush has strongly backed this proposal.

The international community is pushing the United Nations to take on a new strategic role without providing it with adequate resources, men and materiel. This is all the more shortsighted given that, despite a reputation for waste, U.N. peacekeeping is remarkably cheap. The combined cost of its missions in 2005 was $5 billion, or 1/20th of U.S. costs in Iraq.

Despite the frequent criticisms of the U.N. over the last decade, its operations are larger than the foreign military deployments of any country other than the United States. In the last five years, the number of U.N. peacekeepers has risen by nearly 500%. At the same time, the number of peacekeepers deployed by other regional organizations (often seen as the wave of the future) has shrunk by about 55%.

This boom in U.N. peacekeeping, although obscured by the war on terrorism, is saving lives and allowing people emerging from war to choose their political futures. In 2005, the United Nations oversaw or assisted elections and referendums in various countries, affecting the lives of more than 100 million people. And it has proved adept at stabilizing small trouble spots such as Timor and Sierra Leone.

But since 2003, the U.N. has taken on a very different type of operation: large-scale deployments to vast areas such as the Democratic Republic of Congo, southern Sudan and now Darfur. In 2000, the U.N. deployed nearly 13,000 troops in Sierra Leone, or one soldier for about every 3 1/2 square miles. In late 2005, it was maintaining a force of more than 15,000 in Congo, but with a ratio of one soldier for more than 90 square miles. Such a force cannot secure such a vast space consistently.

As the U.N. continues to take on larger and more dangerous missions, there is a real risk that the pressures will begin to show in the field. It is likely that the proposed mission in Darfur will consist not of well-equipped peacekeepers but of troops already deployed in the region by the African Union who will just operate under a new flag.

Such missions also put a strain on the greatly stretched headquarters staff. Whereas NATO, now running three peace operations worldwide, has about 1,000 military planners, the U.N. has 18 missions and 157 planners. It is not surprising that internal U.N. investigations have found evidence of serious corruption affecting peacekeeping finances. Where there is overstretch, there is limited oversight -- and effective oversight is crucial.

More seriously, the will and resources of U.N. member-states are being tested. In 2005, the mission to Sudan took nine months to get just two-fifths of its authorized strength on the ground. When the U.N. Secretariat requested an extra 3,000 troops for Congo later that year, the proposal was rejected.

Giving the U.N. a significant financial boost would cost the world very little. For example, a report released by the U.S. Government Accountability Office last week on the U.N. mission in Haiti noted that its first 14 months had been budgeted at just $428 million; “a U.S. operation in Haiti of the same size and duration would cost an estimated $867 million,” it added.

But if throwing money at the problem lacks political appeal, there are more targeted options. One (partly accepted at last year’s reform summit) would be for nations to develop strategic reserves of their own troops to provide rapid relief to overstrained U.N. missions. Another is to give Africa -- where 80% of the U.N.’s peacekeeping troops are deployed -- the resources to mount its own missions without having to constantly turn to the United Nations for support.

But the one option that is no longer viable is to set the U.N. more goals without giving it more means.