This week, defense ministers are meeting in Vancouver to talk about UN peacekeeping. This follows a conference hosted by President Obama on UN operations in New York in 2015 and a follow-up event in London last year. The idea is that countries with advanced military capacities that would otherwise stay away from blue helmet commitments will pledge units to the UN. In 2015, for example, David Cameron promised to send British personnel to Somalia and South Sudan. Despite a bit of a wobble around Brexit, the UK has followed through on both.
In August, Japan hosted a preparatory meeting on training and capacity-building needs for peace operations in Tokyo. Paul Williams and I wrote a background paper — you can read it at the link below. We’ll see if any of our ideas get picked up in Vancouver (I’ll report back if they do).
Tokyo PKO Prep Meeting Background Paper
