The UN Cannot Afford to Turn Its Back on Peace Enforcement
By Brandon Brooks
United Nations peacekeeping is seldom at the forefront of foreign policy discourses, yet its success is critical to promoting peace and stability. This is especially apparent in Sub-Saharan Africa, where poor governance, porous borders, and a thriving arms trade have contributed to protracted armed conflicts, often extending beyond the countries in which they originated.
The UN has enjoyed several notable successes, particularly in West Africa. In Does Peacekeeping Work?: Shaping Belligerents’ Choices After Civil War, Virginia Page Fortna, a professor at Columbia University, notes that many civil society activists, government officials, and former militants credit the 1999–2005 UN Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL) for facilitating an end to the eponymous civil war. Robert A. Blair, a professor at Brown University, similarly credits the UN Mission in Liberia (UNMIL) for helping restore Liberians’ trust in the rule of law.
The UN has encountered far greater difficulties operating in Central Africa. In April, hundreds of Congolese activists engaged in weeks-long protests in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s (DRC) North Kivu Province to demand the departure of UN peacekeepers, insisting they had failed to protect civilians from local armed groups. That same month, thousands of demonstrators gathered in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital city of Bangui to protest efforts by the UN peacekeeping mission (MINUSCA) to salvage a peace deal between the national government and opposing armed groups, some of which had scorned a previous peace agreement facilitated by the UN and resumed hostilities with the Central African government.
Protests against UN peacekeepers are hardly novel. Similar incidents have occurred in Haiti, Mali, and South Sudan. However, the magnitude of the protests in CAR and the DRC call into question whether peacekeepers can effectively operate in an environment where large segments of the local populace doubt the UN can protect them.
Worse still, the UN’s inability to effectively respond to armed conflict has prompted some governments to turn to private actors to meet their security needs. This is especially apparent in CAR, where an estimated 2,300 private military contractors (PMCs) are engaged in ongoing combat operations in support of the national government.
PMCs have been essential in helping the Central African Armed Forces (FACA) recapture territory from opposing armed groups. On January 26 alone, Russian PMCs helped the FACA kill 44 enemy combatants.
Yet the introduction of PMCs into this conflict carries enormous risks, including a possible deterioration in the ongoing humanitarian crisis and worsening sectarianism. While pursuing opposing armed groups, PMCs have allegedly attacked humanitarian workers and engaged in extrajudicial killings and acts of sexual violence and torture. While these actions may exacerbate anti-government sentiment within the communities terrorized by PMCs, many supporters of the Central African government appear willing to tolerate their presence so long as they appear capable of restoring order and stability to the country. Worse still, the perceived success of PMC interventions may encourage neighboring countries to employ them in their own internal conflicts.
These developments underscore the need for the UN to adjust the manner in which it conducts peace operations. While the international organization should continue to prioritize conflict management, reconciliation, and other civilian-led activities, the UN Security Council should grant peacekeepers operating in highly unstable environments the latitude to exceed the robust force posture currently authorized in existing mandates and employ direct military force against armed actors when necessary to protect civilians and uphold peace agreements.
For such a policy to work, the UN must acquire the requisite equipment to support a more mobile operational force. As of June 2020, MINUSCA had only seven rotary aircraft to support a contingent of more than 10,800 troops. An effective UN force must have greater air assets, including those with vertical take-off and landing capabilities, to conduct intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance operations in remote areas, transport peacekeepers to conflict hotspots, and pursue armed actors responsible for violating peace agreements and targeting civilians. This would reduce the time required for peacekeepers to respond to attacks and undercut the rationale for employing PMCs, that the UN is perceived to be less capable of responding to local security risks.
To be clear, military force alone is incapable of addressing the underlying factors fueling violent conflict in CAR and the DRC. Nor should it supersede diplomacy; disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration; or development activities, which are just as essential to securing long-term peace and stability. Rather, an enhanced UN military capacity is intended to convincingly pressure belligerents to pursue their objectives through nonviolent means, as well as deter them from reneging on peace deals. The UN cannot expect to achieve such outcomes so long as the warring parties believe it lacks the ability to meaningfully contribute to the attainment of a secure and stable end-state.
Undoubtedly, these policies would encounter considerable opposition. Several senior UN officials have expressed concern over the current direction of UN peace operations. UN Under-Secretary-General for Peace Operations Jean-Pierre Lacroix has contended that the UN is “not suited for peace enforcement.” A 2015 report by the High-Level Independent Panel on Peace Operations similarly argued that the UN would likely struggle to effectively respond to “situations of sustained armed conflict” and suggested that “ad hoc coalitions of member states or regional actors” may be more capable of operating in said environments.
These comments appear to echo the concerns of prominent peacekeeping scholars, such as Lise Howard and John Karlsrud, who maintain that institutionalizing the use of force into UN peace operations would undermine the success of these missions and called for the organization to establish a clear division of labor between military and peacekeeping forces. However, relying on ad hoc coalitions or regional organizations to carry out peace enforcement operations presents its own issues and dilemmas, including the need to balance regional rivalries, obtain adequate financial support, and ensure the mission addresses the security needs of the local populace.
Furthermore, an expanded peace enforcement mandate would require the support of both the UN Security Council, which includes Chinese and Russian delegations that have long advocated against external interference in another country’s internal affairs, as well as troop contributing countries, whose forces would be at greater risk of sustaining casualties while conducting said operations.
These challenges are formidable. The Chinese and Russian delegations appear much less enthusiastic about peace enforcement than their Western counterparts. Consider China’s public statements concerning the establishment of the Force Intervention Brigade (FIB) — the UN’s first “‘offensive’ combat force” — in the DRC, for example. While the UN Security Council unanimously adopted Resolution 2098, authorizing the creation of the brigade, China claimed that its support for the FIB was based on the condition that it “would not create a precedent or undercut traditional peacekeeping principles.” Russia has voiced similar concerns about the UN Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA) citing a “growing shift towards the military aspects of United Nations peacekeeping” that could result in “unpredictable and unclear consequences.” Despite these pronouncements, both China and Russia have consistently allowed the UN Security Council to extend the mandate of the UN peacekeeping missions in the DRC and Mali, suggesting the two may be willing to negotiate the terms of future peace enforcement mandates.
Diplomacy will be just as crucial to convincing UN member states to contribute troops in support of peace enforcement operations. Undoubtedly, some of the traditional troop contributing countries may be wary of undertaking the heightened risks associated with peace enforcement in Central Africa. Pakistan, for example, acknowledged having numerous reservations concerning the creation of the FIB in 2013. This could be offset by the increased involvement of African peacekeepers, who have played a prominent role in UN peace operations over the past decade. Chad, Rwanda, and Tanzania are among the leading troop contributing countries supporting UN peace operations and may be more receptive to broader mandates that could help stabilize the states along their borders. However, for such an operation to work, the UN must adopt robust accountability mechanisms to prevent the abuses that have undermined prior peacekeeping missions on the continent.
All of this would require the UN to reassess the traditional assumptions undergirding peace operations. While minimal use of force should still inform the basis of UN peacekeeping, the international organization must be willing to move beyond the traditional norms that have often been used to constrain UN peace operations and take action when necessary to protect civilians and deter armed groups from reneging on peace agreements. Relying on others to do so undermines the credibility of the UN to maintain peace and stability, and empowers armed actors who are less sensitive to collateral damage.
The views and opinions expressed in this piece are the author’s, and do not represent those of any other institution with which he is associated.
Brandon Brooks is a humanitarian based in Washington, D.C. A graduate of King's College London's Department of War Studies, Brandon has worked overseas in Nigeria, South Sudan, and Uganda.
Photo is by United Nations Peacekeepers and is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0.
