The United States and the Future of Peacekeeping
The Obama Administration and UN Peacekeeping
Despite intermittent enthusiasm and rhetorical support for UN peacekeeping at the UN and in the National Security Strategy, Quadrennial Defense Review, and Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review, the United States lacks a clearly articulated strategy for peacekeeping. Inattention to UN peacekeeping comes at the United States’ peril, several participants suggested, given emerging threats around the world as well as China’s increasing involvement.
Other interlocutors were more sanguine about Washington’s approach, contending the Obama administration is attuned to the need to get inside the UN and aspires to be deeply engaged in multilateral affairs and to partner with international institutions. The United States is focusing diplomatic attention on marrying the political strategies of peacekeeping with successful mission function. If mandates do not match capacity, or if peacekeeping becomes unhinged from the political track, missions will fail. In recent months, the U.S. government has engaged diplomatically in numerous countries to support the goals of the UN peacekeeping operations there: Cote D’Ivoire, Sudan, DRC, Liberia, Haiti, and Somalia.
Of course, the fruits of engagement are not immediately apparent. Some participants suggested expectations for the Obama administration’s multilateral engagement set the bar too high. Even as the United States has engaged on Sudan and Somalia, UN member states accuse Washington of “selective engagement” and criticize the lack of attention to other hotspots with a UN presence. The NGO community expected a high-profile rollout of a new peacekeeping strategy; when this effort stalled after the January 2010 Haiti earthquake, many experts concluded that the Obama administration was doing nothing on peacekeeping.
Given American commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan, DPKO is looking to Washington mostly for political and financial support. Even though the United States contributes 27 percent of the UN peacekeeping budget, its paltry personnel contributions engenders negativity from large TCCs and PCCs. Leadership on peacekeeping by the Obama administration could pay large dividends: when President Obama met with major TCCs at the UN in September 2009, the response was overwhelmingly positive. There is a need for leadership in the search for creative solutions to UN peacekeeping’s problems, and the United States can fill this gap.
Congress and UN Peacekeeping
Given the legislative environment in Washington, workshop participants questioned whether Congress would be supportive of more vigorous American engagement with the UN on peacekeeping—for example, extra-budgetary support for high-priority initiatives. There was particular concern that the new Congress would push for cuts in American contributions to the UN, or make contributions contingent on reforms. As one participant noted, the “quietness” of the Obama administration’s approach to peacekeeping may be gaining points at the UN in New York, but it is losing political capital in Washington. Another warned that the State Department’s failure to give precise accounting of its expenditures on peacekeeping would have dire consequences for future budgets in Congress. Others were more optimistic, describing a bipartisan consensus about the importance of the UN in Lebanon, Haiti, and Iraq and Afghanistan over the long term. The best way to ensure congressional support for the peacekeeping agenda would be better reform management, accountability, effectiveness, and budgetary oversight.
Mechanisms for U.S Peacekeeping Support
Going forward, the U.S. government should increase the quantity and quality of its linkages with the UN. The current administration must build on the enduring bureaucratic architecture devoted to peacekeeping to make ongoing programs as effective as possible.
— Global Peace Operations Initiative: The Global Peace Operations Initiative (GPOI) is the primary mechanism of U.S. support for international peace operations, including the UN. It is responsible for U.S. efforts to build and maintain capability, capacity, and effectiveness of peace operations through seven objectives and activities: training and equipment, regional and institutional capacity building, clearinghouse activities, transportation and logistics support, deployment equipment, stability police, and support for sustainment and self-sufficiency. The UN hopes to work more closely with GPOI in aligning U.S. resources with UN needs.
— Africa Contingency Operations Training and Assistance: The U.S. State Department’s Africa Contingency Operations Training and Assistance (ACOTA) program implements about half of GPOI’s funding. ACOTA has invested in training peacekeepers as well as trainers. Since most peacekeepers in Africa are from African TCCs, ACOTA has built up national training center capacities in TCCs such as Uganda, Ethiopia, and Senegal. Ninety-two percent of peacekeepers trained by ACOTA deploy to peacekeeping missions; training peacekeepers for deployment to AMISOM is a top priority, followed by UNAMID, other missions in Africa, and regional standby brigades. While success is difficult to determine, peacekeepers trained by ACOTA are tracked through after-action review conferences. DPKO hopes to work with GPOI and ACOTA to evaluate staff officer candidates as well as infantry performance.
— Staff Officers: Although President Obama pledged to increase American staff officers at the UN, due to the UN’s regional quote system, there are few opportunities for U.S. personnel. Americans are at a disadvantage because few have the requisite prior peacekeeping experience, and the inter-agency recruiting process takes a prohibitively long time. The U.S. government is working to circumvent this lengthy process by having eligible personnel on hand, but it is unclear whether and when this change will occur. Still, the question of congressional approval remains, though participants viewed Congress as favorable to U.S. personnel “enabling” UN peacekeeping, though not “directly participating.” DPKO is interested in recruiting more staff officers from the United States and other western countries that do not contribute contingents to build understanding of UN peacekeeping.
Building a Peacekeeping Strategy
- Workshop participants offered a diverse set of prescriptions for a renewed American peacekeeping strategy:
— Intelligence Sharing: The United States could provide situational awareness as well as early warning information to the UN. While overt U.S. intelligence support would be toxic, the United States could pass information to DPKO that would increase mission safety on the ground and bolster existing early warning and analysis functions. Beyond information, the United States could also provide situational awareness technology and analysts to the UN.
— Women in Peacekeeping: Increasing deployment of women police and peacekeepers would advance the UN’s goal of gender mainstreaming. The United States has a comparative advantage in deploying women because it allows women in combat and police roles.
- Advocacy in Turtle Bay: U.S. advocacy on the following issues could have positive impacts on UN peacekeeping:
The United States can send a strong message to UN leadership that the most important criterion for selection of senior mission leadership (such as special representatives of the secretary-general and their deputies, force commanders, and police commissioners) must be quality, rather than political considerations.
The United States can advocate for more coherent interventions on the ground, particularly better transitions from heavy military deployments, which are expensive, to lighter civilian-led operations.
— Training Metrics: To improve training of peacekeepers through GPOI, the United States could improve the tools used to measure trainees’ success. A better understanding is needed of the gaps in training by American trainers, as well as trainers trained by the United States.
— Lessons Learned: With enhanced niche capacities resulting from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the United States can leverage new expertise and repurpose it for UN peacekeeping operations.
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