PEACEKEEPING
Think Regional
Somewhere in the world this year, a war will be fought. And once it ends, someone else will arrive to enforce the peace. But deciding who should do it will continue to bedevil the international community. The United Nations now deploys 40,000 peacekeepers in 15 missions around the world. Yet hardly anyone thinks the blue-helmet battalions are really up to the task of separating combatants and stabilizing war-ravaged countries. An independent study concluded last year that the U.N. "over the last decade has repeatedly failed to meet the challenge, and it can do no better today."
But can anyone? Because of the reluctance of major powers like the United States to send troops on open-ended humanitarian missions, the future of peacekeeping will fall into the hands of regional enforcers. In Sierra Leone, the U.N. hopes to turn over primary responsibility for peacekeeping to Nigeria. The U.S. has already spent $80 million training troops from Nigeria, Ghana and Senegal to police the West African region.
Trouble is, the flashpoints likely to require international intervention this year can't be handled by local actors. The two bloodiest civil wars in Africa are in Congo and Burundi, neither of which is easily policed by the Nigerians. If India and Pakistan end their struggle over Kashmir, don't expect China to get a peacekeeping call. Southeast Asian countries don't have the collective muscle to keep peace in Cambodia on their own. So expect more of the same in 2001: multinational U.N. forces stepping in nobly to give peace a chance — and failing more often than not.
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The Year Ahead
Politics
- United States
- Europe
- Asia
- Africa
- The Middle East
- Peacekeeping
- Arms Control
- Viewpoint: Globalization, the Sequel
Business
Technology
Arts & Media
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