United Nations Peacekeeping Operations: Causes for Failure and Continuing Relevance

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Decades after the deployment of the first peacekeeping operation (PKO)—United Nations Truce Supervision Organization (UNTSO)—in 1948, the United Nations cannot boast of too many successes, writes A.K. BARDALAI. The continued relevance of UN PKOs has thus come under criticism.
In order to determine whether UN PKOs are still relevant, it is necessary to obtain a clear understanding of the reasons/factors for their success and failure, and thereafter assess their performance, he asserts in an article titled "United Nations Peacekeeping Operations: Causes for Failure and Continuing Relevance" in the Journal of Defence Studies.
Based on his personal experience of peacekeeping and prior research, BARDALAI seeks to highlight a few factors that have an overriding influence on the outcome of a PKO. He also attempts to provide a perspective on the relevance of the PKO in context of the challenges they face regarding planning, deployment and execution of such operations.
"The situation surrounding the conflict and circumstances leading to the peace agreement, availability of the consent of the disputants, support of the international community, the decision-making process, and relevance of the principles of peacekeeping are the most common causes impacting the outcome of the peace process," BARDALAI writes. "Furthermore, factors like the support of the UN Security Council, intensity of the debate therein, and funding for the operation also affect the peace process. However, unless there is coherence between the mandate, strategies, plans, programme initiatives, structures, processes and networks, a PKO cannot be a success."
Despite many studies undertaken to find ways to meet these challenges, BARDALAI asserts, nothing much has changed from Rwanda in 1994 to South Sudan in 2016. "This is because there is a huge gap between what is professed conceptually and how it is interpreted during its implementation. The way the basic principles of peacekeeping are interpreted is the biggest challenge impacting all PKOs and, most importantly, those nations who contribute with their peacekeepers in large numbers."
BARDALAI maintains that the subject of success and failures will remain an enigma because, first, defining success itself is a problem. Second, while there are common causes for success and failure, these vary from conflict to conflict.
Given the challenges and the slow progress in peacekeeping reform, the relevance of the PKOs will have to be examined in the context of availability of an alternate mechanism to restore normalcy in the conflict zone. In the absence of any other, better, substitute, he asserts, "it is reasonable to believe that UN PKOs are going to stay as one of the main alternatives for restoring peace in conflict zones."