So, it’s not only me and my fellow-wonks who are worried about the state of peacekeeping. Jean-Marie Guéhenno, outgoing head of peace ops at the UN, pops up in today’s FT to ram it home. Here are the edited highlights:
The head of United Nations peacekeeping has urged the Security Council to satisfy itself there is a peace to keep before sending troops on further large-scale missions such as the one in Darfur.
“I would say very bluntly that there are good reasons to be hesitant,” said Jean-Marie Guéhenno, who leaves his post this month after eight years. “The danger is that you do something and then, if you go into a failure, you compromise an instrument that could make a real difference in other places. And so you haven’t helped really those you meant to help but you have done a disservice to all those where peacekeeping could make a real difference.”
Referring to Darfur, where the Security Council a year ago ordered the biggest deployment in UN peacekeeping history, he said: “I’ve always been worried about it. We’re reaching the outer limit of peacekeeping. But I do see the enormous plight of the people in Darfur.”
“The fundamental error is to think of UN forces as if they were the world police. I think very often now there’s an overemphasis on what force can achieve. The more troops I have had under my responsibility, the more convinced I’ve become that – on the one hand – they are very important in places where trust has been destroyed, but at the same time they are a means to an end, an instrument in a tool kit to build a political process and support that political process.”
Mr Guéhenno said the Security Council had to weigh the risks carefully before deciding on new deployments, noting armed force was not a universal medication that could be used in all circumstances. “One failure can damage the whole of UN peacekeeping … The Security Council faces tough decisions and it is not easy to say ‘no’. But it should never say ‘yes’ for the wrong reasons.”
He said he was concerned by growing division within the Security Council that has pitched Russia and China against its western members on a number of peacekeeping issues. “One big worry that I have today is the risk of a more divided Security Council. We can fudge a resolution, we can fudge a statement, we can’t fudge a strategy.”
But could we – to return to the point with which I conclude my most recent survey of the state of peacekeeping – start to think of how to develop minimalist but achievable strategies that even a divided Council might be able to live with?
I share JMG’s belief in the need for strategy, but there is sometimes a “strategic = bigger” mentality in the UN (as in all organizations). That results in the “Christmas Tree” approach to peace operations, which involves overloading a mission with unmeetable responsibilities. Better to do less, but do it credibly. That is, of course, what JMG is saying about Darfur here… I have a feeling that once he returns to civilian life, he is going to sweep the floor with insta-pundits like me.
