concluded that, if between 2001 and 2013 the UN had invested $200 billion – about $15.4 billion per year – in peacekeeping operations with strong mandates, major armed conflict worldwide would have been reduced by up to two-thirds relative to a scenario without such missions, and 150,000 lives would have been saved compared to a no-peacekeeping operation scenario (Hegre et al. 2019). How we understand the challenges confronting peace operations and the specific failings of individual missions or the system as a whole must be set against this general context in which, overall, peace operations clearly help to mitigate armed conflict and reduce civilian victimization.
Conclusion
It is important to recognize the concepts and theories that inform our understanding of peace operations and their relationship with world politics more generally. Otherwise, we are likely to overlook the way in which unspoken theories and assumptions determine what is considered important and the political commitments that shape the theory and practice of peace operations. It is vital to scrutinize our theoretical assumptions, to understand which level or unit of analysis we are adopting, and to remain curious about the perspectives, interests and values being marginalized or excluded. Until very recently, one of the most obscured perspectives in this field of study was that of the subjects of peace operations – the very people that the peacekeepers are ostensibly trying to help.
Having set out some basic parameters for the study of peace operations, in chapter 2 we identify who deploys peacekeepers, the most important institutions that guide what they do, and how peace operations are assembled and financed.
2 Who Deploys Peace Operations?
Peacekeeping is often closely associated with the United Nations. Many analysts credit a Canadian diplomat, Lester Pearson, with the invention of peacekeeping because of his efforts to establish what is often considered the UN’s first such operation, the UN Emergency Force (1956–67). This was deployed to Egypt shortly after that country had been invaded by the UK, France and Israel in what became known as the Suez Crisis (see chapter 7). But the UN is not the only actor that conducts or authorizes peace operations. Rather, peacekeepers have been authorized by a range of international organizations and coalitions of states.
This chapter provides an overview of these different types of peacekeepers. In doing so it shows that, although the UN has deployed more peacekeeping operations than any other actor and enjoys the most international legitimacy when doing so, it does not have a monopoly on peace operations. The first section therefore summarizes how we define ‘peace operations’ and explains the universe of cases from the end of the Second World War until the present day. The next sections then analyse some of the general characteristics of states and international organizations acting as peacekeepers. We devote most space to summarizing the legal, bureaucratic and financial frameworks of the UN as the most significant peacekeeping actor. The final section describes the trend towards ‘partnership peacekeeping’ – situations where collaboration occurs between two or more multilateral institutions and/or various bilateral actors in the same mission theatre. This has become a more prominent part of the global peace operations landscape, especially in Africa and Europe, and has raised some important new opportunities and challenges for the UN.
2.1 The universe of modern peace operations
There is no single accepted or uncontested definition of peace operations. Scholars continue to define these missions in different ways (e.g. Jetschke and Schlipphak 2019; Berman 2019; SIPRI 2019). In this book, ‘peace operations’ involve the expeditionary use of military personnel (troops, military observers and experts) with an explicit mandate (whether from the UN or a non-UN entity) to assist in the prevention of armed conflict by supporting a peace process; to serve as an instrument to observe or assist in the implementation of ceasefires or peace agreements; or to enforce ceasefires, peace agreements or the will of the UN Security Council in order to build stable peace.
Table 2.1 Peace operations: a typology with examples
Notes: † Missions subsequently welcomed by the UN Security Council in either a resolution or a presidential statement.
†† Missions conducted without host-government consent.
* ‘N/A’ refers to the fact that these categories do not apply, whereas ‘no examples’ mean that this category is theoretically possible but as yet untried.
Defined in this manner, it is not a requirement for a peace operation to be authorized by the UN Security Council; many of them are, but not all. When the Security Council doesn’t want the UN to lead a peace operation, it can authorize other actors to carry out actions on its behalf to maintain what the UN Charter refers to as ‘international peace and security’. But, sometimes, international organizations, coalitions of states or, in rare cases, individual governments can conduct peace operations without the Security Council’s authorization. The legality of these operations derives from the consent of the host state.
Thinking about peace operations in these terms enables us to develop a broad typology based on the type of actors that conduct these missions (i.e. individual states, coalitions of states or international organizations) and their relationship to the UN (i.e. whether they are UN-led ‘blue helmet’ operations, UN-authorized operations or non-UN operations). Table 2.1 sets out this typology with some examples:
UN-led or ‘blue helmet’ missions are those authorized by the UN (usually the Security Council, but occasionally the General Assembly) and managed at the operational level by the UN itself (today through the Department for Peace Operations).
UN-authorized missions are those expressly mandated by one of the UN’s principal organs (usually the Security Council) but managed at the operational level by a non-UN entity such as a regional arrangement, coalition of states or lead-state.
Non-UN operations are neither mandated nor managed by the UN but meet our definition of a peace operation. They are managed at the operational level by a non-UN actor; usually deploy at the invitation of the host state; and may be welcomed or supported by one of the UN’s principal organs but not mandated or authorized by them.
Figure 2.1 Number and type of peace operations, 1947–2019
Source: Compiled by authors from Appendix.
Applying this definition to the period between 1947 and 2019, we identify 194 peace operations (see figure 2.1 and the Appendix, although UNIKOM in Kuwait/Iraq, MONUC in DR Congo and the IMT in Mindanao each receive two entries in our dataset). It is the experiences of these operations that form the empirical basis for this book’s analysis. In compiling this list, we excluded operations that did not involve military personnel (troops and other military personnel, military observers/experts). This decision ruled out a large number of peacemaking, monitoring and/or peacebuilding missions carried out solely by civilians (including police), among them numerous examples conducted by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), the European Union (EU) and what the UN calls special political or peacebuilding missions, most of which have been managed