United Nations Peacekeeping Operations in the Post-cold War world: Less Means More

Abstract

This article provides an analysis of the of United Nations (UN)
peacekeeping, one of the hottest topics in international politics of the post-cold war era. Numerous books, articles, and Ph.D. thesis have already been
written about UN peacekeeping operations. Although differing vastly in
their scope and quality, most of the recent critiques have pointed out the
pressing need to re-define and strengthen the cold war era concept of UN
peacekeeping so that it becomes a viable conflict resolution method in the
21st century. Some scholars have, however, expressed serious doubts about
the actual conflict resolution capabilities of UN peacekeeping operations.
They argue that premature, short-term and under funded UN peacekeeping
operations may well do more damage than good. One of the few things the
majority of conflict resolution scholars and practitioners can nowadays
agree on is that no UN intervention can bring peace to a place where it is
not wanted. This article aims to enrich the current peace research by
introducing an alternative analytical approach to the study of the UN
peacekeeping. It is divided into seven sections. The introduction is followed
by a theoretical section where I briefly summarize two basic theoretical
approaches to the study of the UN peacekeeping (Conflict Management &
Conflict Resolution). The third section provides an analysis of the changing
nature of armed conflicts in the post-cold war period. The fourth section
deals with the adjustments that were made to the concept of UN
peacekeeping operations in reaction to the changes in the nature of current
armed conflicts. The analytical concept Capabilities versus Expectations Gap
is introduced in the fifth chapter, followed by the core section of this article -
the analysis of the United Nations peacekeeping using the analytical
concept Capabilities versus Expectations Gap. The analytical concept
Capabilities versus Expectations Gap was first introduced by Christopher
Hill in 1992 as a handy tool for analyzing the evolving European Common
Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP). The unique advantage of this concept is
that it provides a sensible assessment of both the actual and potential UN
capabilities. By comparing these with the existing UN expectations, the
Capabilities versus Expectations Gap analysis of UN peacekeeping enables
us to sketch a more realistic picture of what the UN is capable of doing in
the area of conflict resolution than that presented either by its more
enthusiastic supporters or by the demanders among the UN Member
States. Consequently, building further on this realistic picture of the UN
conflict resolution capabilities, I attempt to answer the key research
question of this article: Is the UN, with the current level of its conflict
resolution capabilities, capable of providing high quality treatment to as
many conflicts as it nowadays attempts to provide? Based on the findings of
the Capabilities versus Expectations Gap analysis of the UN peacekeeping
problematic, I argue that since the end of the cold war, the UN has several
times attempted to carry out more peacekeeping operations than it was
capable of performing well in light of the current level of its conflict
resolution capabilities. In other words, the most important conclusion of
this article is that there is a gap between the UN capabilities and
expectations in the area of conflict resolution and that the only option how
to bridge this gap in the foreseeable future is to decrease the excessive UN expectations to meet the currently available UN capabilities. As paradoxical as it may sound, in practical terms this means that the United Nations is
nowadays more likely to succeed in meeting its basic function ("to save
succeeding generations from the scourge of war") by carrying out fewer but
high quality peacekeeping operations.