Has the UN been effective in it's peacekeeping role?

So what is the UN and what's it got to do with peacekeeping?

The United Nations, for all it's faults, is the most important international organisation in history. Established through the San Francisco Conference in 1945, it is effectively the League of Nations 2.0. Except this time it was a truly global organization with 193 member states (the latest state to join being South Sudan). It has 4 main principles, laid out in the UN Charter:
- Safeguard peace and security in order 'to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war'
- To 'reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights'
- To uphold respect for international law
- To 'promote social progress and better standards of life'.

We can see that maintaining peace and security is an important aspect of the UN, but just how effective is the institution when it comes to peacekeeping?

It is hard to ignore the failures of the UN, for example the thousands of executions in Bosnia in the presence of UN troops. However, the most horrific of these failures has to be the genocide in Rwanda in 1994. At least 800,000 people died in the space of 100 days because of Hutu extremists. The UN failed to supply the mission with adequate resources, gave unclear directions which in turn resulted in peacekeepers unable to use force to defend themselves let alone stop the slaughter. To make matters worse most of the 2,500 UN peacekeepers in Rwanda at the time were withdrawn after the deaths of 10 Belgian soldiers. The UN procrastinated, holding onto the false hope that a political process could be achieved- they stood by whilst populations were being murdered by the thousands. In 2000 the UN's accepted full responsibility for failing to prevent the genocide, and in April last year the Secretary General Ban Ki-moon stated the UN was "still ashamed" over the issue.

In response to such failures, Chapter 7 allowed the UN to use force to keep the peace. In many was the mission in Congo was a test, but this test was failed after the town of Kiwanja was taken over by rebels while the UN stood by and did not open fire. 150 people died, and less than a mile away 100 UN troops were stationed at a base. These troops had orders to protect the people, using force if necessary. A local human rights worker called the base for help during the massacre- the UN told him there was nothing they could do.

These failings are also due to the lack of political will and conflicting priorities of the Security Council- for example the consistent veto blocking from Russia and China over UN action in Syria. Another problems with UN peacekeeping is it's capacity to keep the peace is being stretched thin as it takes on more asymmetric and complex threats when the UN security council can only muster so many troops. Former US Ambassador Susan Rice described this as a "growing gap between supply and demand".

Even the head of the peacekeeping operations admitted there are problems. He called for the security council to consistently support peacekeeping operations and ensure that they have adequate resources to perform the mandates that the security council sets. As the UN doesn't have it's own army it relies on other member states to volunteer resources, this means negotiation which takes time. Furthermore, UK, US, and other western countries failed to step up and put troops in Congo. The majority came from India, Pakistan, South Africa and Nepal. Only 2% of UN troops in Africa came from North America and Europe. With richer countries not contributing this means the UN lacks resources as it relies on member states for equipment. 

Furthermore, a significant amount of sexual abuse by peacekeepers have been reported. According to a report released by UN's Oversight body, one-third case of reported sexual abuse by peacekeepers between 2008-2014 were on children. The UN has recently (November) sent a fact-finding team to investigate new allegations of sexual exploitation from peacekeepers in the Central African Republic. These new allegations follow 63 allegations of misconduct (confirmed by the UN) since the operation began last year.

Having said that, we have to give credit where it's due. The UN can be seen to learn from it's mistakes, for example following the 1992 report An Agenda for Peace the UN has acknowledged that peacekeeping is not enough on it's own- rather peace-building is required in order to prevent a relapse of conflict.

Bibliography/Further Reading

• Can The UN Keep The Peace? (documentary) 
• UN Peacekeeping Mission in CAR Probes Sexual Assault Allegations 
• Rwanda Genocide: UN Ashamed, says Ban Ki-moon

To what extent did the war on terror affect US hegemony?

Another post on America, Amercianisation is affecting the blogs now... So to start with we have to define what a hegemony is exactly. Most of us would agree that there is a range of great powers currently operating in the international system, from the UK to Russia, China, etc.  Yet a hegemon implies more than simply possessing great military and economic power- in fact it is possible to be a hegemon without being the leading state in these two areas. Hegemony implies domination of a system. It was first used by the neo-marxist Gramsci to describe the bourgeoisie ideological dominance over the subordinate classes, but in terms of international politics it refers to a leading state that possesses structural power within a collection of states, allowing it to shape the actions of said states. 

The end of the Cold War saw the decline of the Soviet Union and, therefore, the end to bi-polarity- which was replaced by a unipolar system. i.e. America was able to take advantage and assert it's position as a global hegemon. However, following the 9/11 attacks and the 'war on terror' that followed arguments that the US is declining as a hegemon began to surface. I don't know what Bush thought would happen when he attempted to wage war on an abstract noun but there you go. 

The invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq did see early success, e.g. the overthrow of the Taliban and Saddam's Ba'athist regime- however the US soon found itself fighting asymmetrical wars. The change in the nature of warfare to guerrilla warfare exposed the limits of the US military power in that it wasn't prepared to fight the tactics of terrorism and suicide bombing. Additionally, the 'war on terror' exposed a range of tactical and strategic flaws rooted in the US approach, for example failing to deploy a sufficient number of troops in Iraq. 

Perhaps the biggest blow the 'war on terror' inflicted on US hegemony is to it's 'soft power'. In a world where military power is becoming increasingly redundant due to unwinnable wars 'soft power', i.e diplomacy and influence, is fast becoming an important requirement for a global hegemon.

America's moral authority has certainly been damaged since the problematic reasoning behind invading Iraq has come to light. This damage was then further reinforced by the torture of prisoners at Abu Ghraib and the Guantanamo detention camp. In turn US diplomatic influence has been weakened, the pressure it is able to exert on countries is limited for example countries such as China and Russia seem immune to US diplomacy- you only have to look the recent bombing campaign in Syria. 

Some economists such Joseph E. Stiglitz would argue that the failings of the Iraq war highlight the fact that the US can't solve any problem, even with all its economic power. Furthermore, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan under the 'war on terror' showed how the US's military power has become in many ways redundant. While the US can certainly achieve destruction, it doesn't always achieve its political gains. It was the difficulties in fighting these wars that forced the Bush administration to adopt a more multilateral approach to the 'war of terror'. 

If America continues this path of multilateralism and 'smart-power' (Joseph Nye) as opposed to 'hard power' then perhaps it will maintain its position on the international stage. Following Bush, President Obama has certainly adopted a more cooperative tone, for example acknowledging in 2009 that "no system of government can or should be imposed upon one nation by another". Personally I would argue this shift in approach is merely style rather than substance, after all Obama has recently put troops on the ground in Syria, breaking his earlier promise. 

As it stands currently, the US still has extensive power over elements of the international system- e.g. it's leading role in economic institutions like the IMF and intergovernmental organisations like the UN. Therefore, whilst the 'war on terror' has undoubtedly negatively affected US hegemony it still remains just that- a hegemon.