Why Peacekeeping Fails Dennis C. Jett
For Lynda whose inspiration and support made this possible. WHY PEACEKEEPING FAILS Copyright Dennis C. Jett, 1999. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. First published in hardcover in 1999 by St. Martin s Press First PALGRAVE TM edition: April 2001 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010 and Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire, England RG21 6XS Companies and representatives throughout the world. PALGRAVE is the new global publishing imprint of St. Martin s Press LLC Scholarly and Reference Division and Palgrave Publishers Ltd (formerly Macmillan Press Ltd). ISBN 978-0-312-23942-8 DOI 10.1057/9780312292744 ISBN 978-0-312-29274-4 (ebook) Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Jett, Dennis C., 1945- Why peacekeeping fails / Dennis C. Jett. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0 312 22698 5 1. United Nations Peacekeeping forces. I. title. JZ6374.J48 2000 327.1 7 09 dc21 99 27685 CIP A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Design by Letra Libre, Inc. First paperback edition: April 2001 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contents Acronyms Preface and Acknowledgments Current Peacekeeping Operations Completed Peacekeeping Operations Foreword to Paperback Edition iv v vii viii xi Chapter 1: Introduction 1 Chapter 2: A Brief History of Peacekeeping 21 Chapter 3: Failing Before Beginning 35 Chapter 4: Similar Histories, Different Outcomes 61 Chapter 5: Failing While Doing 75 Chapter 6: The External Factors 113 Chapter 7: Humanitarian Aid and Peacekeeping Failure 133 Chapter 8: Getting Out and Afterwards 145 Chapter 9: Inconclusion Why Real Reform Might Not Be Possible 169 Notes 197 Bibliography 223 Index 231
Acronyms AA ACRI AWEPA CCF CCFADM CIVPOL CNE COMINFO COMPOL CORE CSC CG DHA ECOMOG ECOWAS EU FADM FAM FRELIMO GURN MPLA NATO NGO OAU PIR PKO PCPB RENAMO SADC SOFA UNITA UNHCR UNOHAC UNRISD USAID WEU Assembly Areas African Crisis Response Initiative Association of West European Parliamentarians for Southern Africa Ceasefire Commission Commission for the Joint Armed Forces for the Defense of Mozambique UN Civilian Police National Elections Commission National Information Commission National Police Affairs Commission Reintegration Commission Supervision and Control Commission Consultative Group UN Department of Humanitarian Affairs Economic Community of West Africa States Monitoring Group Economic Community of West African States European Union Armed Forces for the Defense of Mozambique Mozambique Armed Forces Mozambique Liberation Front Government of National Unity and Reconciliation People s Movement for the Liberation of Angola North Atlantic Treaty Organization Non-governmental organization Organization of African Unity Rapid Intervention Police Peacekeeping operation Post-conflict peace-building Mozambican National Resistance Southern African Development Community Status of forces agreement National Union for the Total Independence of Angola UN High Commission for Refugees UN Office for Humanitarian Assistance Cooperation UN Research Institute for Social Development US Agency for International Development Western European Union
Preface and Acknowledgments This book will attempt to identify the reasons why peacekeeping fails, principally by comparing the success in Mozambique and the failure in Angola. It will also draw on other peacekeeping experiences and consider why peacekeeping has become so difficult to do. If the chances for the success of peacekeeping can be improved, it could help shorten the suffering of those who live in countries that are attempting to bring an end to their conflicts. It might also help ensure that peace is not just a temporary respite from a war waged by those who think that if they can have power, no price is too high for others to pay. I would like to thank those who were generous with their time and with their research. The insights they provided were invaluable in this effort.those people include, but are not limited to,william Durch, Michael Pugh, Aldo Ajello, Richard Edis, Otto Denes, Brian Urquhart, Cameron Hume, Yvonne Lodico, Sam Barnes, Sean McCormick, Laurie Shestack, Donald McHenry, Jackie Cock, LTC Bill Price, Behoz Sadry, Erick de Mul, Tim Born, Roger Carlson, Joe Synder, Hank Cohen, Chester Crocker, Miguel de Brito, Mike McKinley, Tim Sisk, Greg Mills, Jeffrey Herbst, Laurie Boulden, Glen Oosthuysen,Adrian Guelke, Don Steinberg, Eddie Banks, Ramiro Lopes da Silva, General Sibanda, LTC John Pullinger, Richard Fritz, Herb Howe, Agostinho Zacarias,Virginia Gamba, Brazao Mazula, Don Matteo Zuppi,Tom Callahan, Norah Niland, Charles Bradley, Mary Jo McDonough, and Eric Berman. I also drew inspiration in a sense from Paul Fauvet of the Mozambique Information Agency (AIM), the journalists of the other governmentowned media such as Domingo and Noticias, and Joe Hanlon, all of whose writings so clearly demonstrate the need for more objective assessments of Mozambique, and from Bill Minter, Richard Synge, and others who also let their ideology affect their analysis.this book was prompted by a desire to provide a more objective and insightful perspective (although I m sure some would assert still biased) on peacekeeping in Mozambique.
vi Why Peacekeeping Fails A long-term observer of a peacekeeping operation like the one in Mozambique cannot help being affected by it. Such first-hand experience, however, can help overcome the UN s normal lack of transparency. This work was originally written as a dissertation for a Ph.D. in international relations form the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa. I am therefore most indebted to my advisor, Dr. Chris Alden, who guided me through that process. I also owe a great deal as well to my wife, Lynda Schuster, and to my children Brian, Allison, and Noa for their support and understanding during this effort. The Department of State has reviewed the manuscript of this book to ensure that its contents do not compromise national security. This review should not be construed as concurrence with the text. Opinions and characterizations are those of the author and do not necessarily represent official positions of the United States government.
Current Peacekeeping Operations (as of June 1999) Acronym Name Date Begun MINURCA UN Mission in the Central African Republic April 1998 MINURSO UN Mission for the Referendum in Sahara April 1991 MIPONUH UN Civilian Police Mission in Haiti December 1997 UNDOF UN Disengagement Observer Force (Golan June 1974 Heights) UNFICYP UN Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus March 1964 UNIFIL UN Interim Force in Lebanon March 1978 UNIKOM UN Iraq Kuwait Observation Mission April 1991 UNMIBH UN Mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina December 1995 UNMIK UN Interim Administration Mission in June 1999 Kosovo UNMOGIP UN Military Observer Group in India and January 1949 Pakistan UNMOP UN Mission of Observers in Prevlaka January 1996 UNMOT UN Mission of Observers in Tajikistan December 1994 UNOMIG UN Observer Mission in Georgia August 1993 UNOMSIL UN Mission of Observers in Sierra Leone July 1998 UNTSO UN Truce Supervision Organization (Middle June 1948 East)
Completed Peacekeeping Operations (as of June 1999) Acronym Name and Location Dates DOMREP Mission of the May 1965-October 1966 Representative of the Secretary General in the Dominican Republic MINUGUA UN Verification Mission January-May 1997 in Guatemala MONUA UN Observer Mission in July 1997-February 1999 Angola ONUC UN Operation in the July 1960-June 1964 Congo ONUCA UN Observer Group in November 1989-January 1992 Central America ONUMOZ UN Operation in December 1992-December 1994 Mozambique ONUSAL UN Observer Mission in July 1991-April 1995 El Salvador UNAMIC UN Advance Mission in October 1991-March 1992 Cambodia UNAMIR UN Assistance Mission October 1993-September 1994 for Rwanda UNASOG UN Aouzou Strip May-June 1994 Observer Group Chad/Libya UNAVEM I UN Angola Verification January 1989-June 1991 Mission UNAVEM II UN Angola Verification June 1991-February 1995 Mission II UNAVEM III UN Angola Verification February 1995-June 1997 Mission III UNCRO UN Confidence March 1995-January 1996 Restoration Organization in Croatia UNEF I First UN Emergency November 1956-June 1967 Force
Completed Peacekeeping Operations ix UNEF II Second UN Emergency October 1973-July 1979 Force UNGOMAP UN Good Offices April 1988-March 1990 Mission in Afghanistan and Pakistan UNIIMOG UN Iran-Iraq Military August 1988-February 1991 Observer Group UNIPOM UN India-Pakistan September 1965-March 1966 Observation Mission UNMIH UN Mission in Haiti September 1993-June 1996 UNOGIL UN Observation Group June-December 1958 in Lebanon UNOMIL UN Observer Mission in September 1993-September 1997 Liberia UNOMUR UN Observer Mission June 1993-September 1994 Uganda-Rwanda UNOSOM I UN Operation in April 1992-March 1993 Somalia I UNOSOM II UN Operation in March 1993-March 1995 Somalia II UNPREDEP UN Preventive March 1995-February 1999 Deployment Force- Macedonia UNPROFOR UN Protection Force March 1992-December 1995 Former Yugoslavia UNPSG UN Civilian Police January 1998-October 1998 Support Group Croatia UNSF UN Security Force in October 1962-April 1963 West New Guinea (West Irian) UNSMIH UN Support Mission in July 1996-July 1997 Haiti UNTAC UN Transitional March 1992-September 1993 Authority in Cambodia UNTAES UN Transitional January 1996-January 1998 Administration for Eastern Slavonia, Baranja and Western Sirmium UNTAG UN Transition Assistance April 1989-March 1990 Group Namibia UNTMIH UN Transition Mission August-November 1997 in Haiti UNYOM UN Yemen Observation July 1963-September 1964 Mission
Foreword to the Paperback Edition Entering a New Era Since the writing of the hardcover edition of this book, a number of events have occurred which merit comment in introducing this edition. In part, this is because any analysis of peacekeeping is akin to shooting at a moving target. Peacekeeping is an instrument for dealing with conflicts and the instrument evolves almost as quickly as the conflicts. In addition, although it was not evident as this book was first being readied for publication, peacekeeping was about to enter a new era. In late 1999, the six years of relative disuse, which is referred to as the Contraction Period in the history of peacekeeping in chapter 2, came to an end. New peacekeeping operations were launched or greatly expanded in Kosovo (UNMIK in June 1999), East Timor (UNTAET in October 1999), Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL in October 1999), the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUC in December 1999), and Ethiopia/Eritrea (UNMEE in July 2000.) UNMIK and UNTAET were initiated because of the interests of major powers.the operation in Kosovo was an extension of earlier missions dealing with the remnants of the former Yugoslavia. Once NATO forced the withdrawal of the Yugoslav army from Kosovo, the situation was handed off to the UN. On the instructions of the Security Council, the Secretary- General established an international civilian administration designed to give the people of Kosovo substantial autonomy. The mission had a broad mandate that included not only functions performed by the UN (civil administration and humanitarian affairs), but also the activities of three non-un organizations. Under the UN s overall jurisdiction, reconstruction efforts were assigned to the European Union, institution building to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, and a NATO-led force was made responsible for security.
xii Why Peacekeeping Fails In East Timor, after a referendum on August 30, 1999 where 78.5 percent of the people voted for independence from Indonesia, widespread violence broke out. In response, the Security Council authorized a multinational force (INTERFET) to restore order. This force was led by Australia, which committed between a quarter and a half of its army, navy, and air force to get the effort underway.when order was restored, the operation evolved into UNTAET, which has the broadest powers ever given a peacekeeping operation. UNTAET is responsible for the administration of the entire county during its transition to independence. With the UN making new and extraordinary peacekeeping efforts in Eastern Europe and the Indian Ocean, it was perhaps inevitable that the argument would be raised that the UN should do more in Africa. Chapter 3 describes how when Boutros-Ghali was Secretary General, he called attention to the rich, white man s war in Bosnia and used the statement to get the UN more deeply involved in Somalia.The result of that venture was a disaster for the UN and had a profoundly negative effect on American support for peacekeeping. 1 Yet that experience in 1993 did nothing to inhibit demands six years later for peacekeeping in Sierra Leone, the Congo, and the war between Eritrea and Ethiopia. Despite the unwillingness of any major power to lead such efforts, the UN could not resist calls to do more in Africa when it was doing so much elsewhere. The lack of major power leadership for these missions is not their only problem. Sierra Leone became the UN s largest peacekeeping mission, after it nearly became the UN s biggest peacekeeping debacle. In May 2000, the rebels of the Revolutionary United Front took over 500 peacekeepers hostage. The RUF troops are unspeakably brutal to civilians, but will not stand up to any determined military force. Yet the UN peacekeepers, with few exceptions, handed over their weapons including armored personnel carriers and meekly became prisoners.when the British briefly deployed 1,600 of their troops to their former colony, the situation rapidly stabilized and a complete UN defeat was averted. Since Britain wanted to quickly reduce its forces, the UN increased the size of the operation to 13,000 men. It still was unable to accomplish much. 2 This was due to more than the poor quality of the peacekeepers. The force commander, Indian General Vijay Jetley, in a memo that was leaked to the press, accused Nigerian officials of dealing in stolen diamonds with the rebels. The UN s reaction was not to investigate, but to remove Jetley instead.the Indian government, in response, pulled its troops out of the operation.
Foreword xiii The UN saw the Nigerians as essential to UNAMSIL and the Indians and integrity as secondary considerations. With the British unwilling to commit more than a few hundred trainers for the longer term, the Nigerians seem to be the only ones willing to provide backbone for the operation. In nearly a decade of leading a West African peacekeeping force, however, the Nigerians were never able to impose a military solution in either Sierra Leone or Liberia. Liberia s president, Charles Taylor, provides support to the RUF because he profits personally from the trade in Sierra Leone s diamonds.the key to peace is therefore not more peacekeepers; it is curbing Taylor s greed.the UN s ineffective efforts to stop Angola s diamonds from fueling its civil war do not give much reason for optimism that the UN will be anymore successful in Sierra Leone. In the Congo the situation is even more inhospitable to peacekeeping than in Sierra Leone.The Congo has 10 times the population and 32 times the land area of Sierra Leone, and, most importantly, no peace to keep.the country s unelected president, Laurent Kabila, is only interested in maintaining himself in power. Angola, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Rwanda, and Uganda, for strategic reasons or the personal profit of their presidents all have troops involved. Instead of walking away or punishing those responsible, the UN keeps looking for a chance to plunge 5,000 peacekeepers into a truly hopeless situation. Without an agreed political solution and the Congolese parties cannot even agree on a venue for discussing one violence will continue to be the tactic of choice and peacekeepers will be bystanders, if not victims. Even when the UN is given a job it can do, it will not do it efficiently. The war between Ethiopia and Eritrea is one of the few conflicts today between two countries fighting over territory. Civil wars are struggles within one country over political power and nation building is required to ensure that a peace holds. In the war between Eritrea and Ethiopia, the UN s task is much simpler. It must get between the opposing forces, monitor the contested territory until a permanent peace is established and the territory divided.the UN has often been able to succeed at these classical peacekeeping efforts. In the operation approved for this conflict, most of the peacekeepers will not contribute much. Three quarters of the 4,200 troops authorized are three infantry battalions that were added late in the mission s planning. They are supposed to maintain static checkpoints and provide security for members of the commission that is helping to implement the cease-fire. It is not clear why such extensive protection is needed unless it is from irate taxpayers. Having 3,000 troops standing around doing very little will not
xiv Why Peacekeeping Fails be cheap. Apparently, questioning beefed up security measures in the wake of the humiliations the UN suffered in Sierra Leone was impossible, however, even if no one could identify any credible threat. Threat or no threat, the addition of UNMEE to UNMIK, UNTAET, UNAMSIL, and MONUC clearly demonstrated the Contraction Period is over. So does the mounting cost of peacekeeping. After falling from $3.5 billion in 1994 to less than a billion in 1998, the cost of peacekeeping rose to $1.5 billion in 1999 and the UN estimated it would hit $2.2 billion in 2000. 3 A congressional study asserted the UN estimate was about $600 million low. 4 An appropriate name for this new period of peacekeeping activism may be as hard to define as its costs. It might be better left unnamed until a clearer trend is evident. For the moment, the new operations consist of efforts led by major powers with good chances for success and operations in Africa with much dimmer prospects. The Millennium Summit and Getting It Wrong The tendency to insert peacekeepers into the middle of a conflict rather than deal with its root causes is not unusual at the UN. Another example of the institution s capacity for missing the point was the rhetoric used in September 2000 at the UN s Millennium Summit. At the Summit, which was the largest gathering of heads of state in history, the main topic was the role of the UN in the twenty-first century. Each president or prime minister was given five minutes to express their thoughts on the significance of the occasion. 5 There were several speakers, including President Clinton, who used their time at the podium to draw a connection between poverty and conflict. The general thrust was that the former is a cause of the latter. While this made for nice rhetorical flourishes, poverty is not the cause of war. Iraq did not invade Kuwait because the Iraqi people were hungry. The various groups in the remnants of Yugoslavia did not spend the last decade killing each other with such enthusiasm because they had a low standard of living.they engaged in ethnic cleansing because of centuriesold hatreds and because their leaders exploited those animosities to keep themselves in power. The poverty-causes-war theory is equally untrue in Africa.This book is mainly devoted to comparing the different outcomes of peacekeeping efforts in Angola and Mozambique. In Angola, a country rich in oil and di-
Foreword xv amonds, the UN failed miserably. In Mozambique, a much poorer country where the main resources are shrimp and cashews, the UN supposedly succeeded. Use of the term supposedly is appropriate even though Mozambique has been at peace since 1992. That will not continue indefinitely if FRE- LIMO, the ruling party, does not stop maintaining its monopoly on power by suppressing real democracy. Limited local elections in 1998 were so manipulated by the government that the opposition boycotted them and only 15 percent of the voters bothered to go to the polls. In the country s second presidential election in December 1999, government election officials inflated what was probably a margin of victory of only 20,000 votes out of 5 million cast to about 200,000. As The Carter Center, which monitored the elections, put it with considerable diplomatic understatement: Although the election was peaceful and orderly, there was a lack of transparency in processing the final vote count. 6 In November 2000, there were riots throughout the country by opposition party members who firmly believe the election was stolen. The protests resulted in 41 people being killed. According to Mozambique s Human Rights League, in some cases the police fired on the demonstrators without provocation. 7 Following the disturbances, the police in one town arrested 119 people and crammed them into a cell. Its two small openings for air were insufficient and 75 of the prisoners died of asphyxiation. 8 An even more tragic event in terms of its implications for Mozambique s future was the murder on November 22, 2000 of the country s leading journalist. Carlos Cardoso, one of few reporters not employed or intimidated by the government, was assassinated two blocks from the president s residence in the middle of the capitol. While President Chissano professed to be shocked and promised an investigation, the killers will probably never be caught. 9 Cardoso was well known for his criticism 10 of the gangster faction in FRELIMO. 11 While there was no immediate evidence of Chissano s direct responsibility for Cardoso s death, at a minimum he is indirectly responsible and there is considerable and growing doubt that he has any interest in seeing justice done. 12 The rampant government corruption and the refusal of his party to share any significant measure of political power created the climate that led to Cardoso s murder.those responsible for the killing know they can carry out such an act without fear of punishment. Under such rule, a new war, or at least more rioting and deaths, are inevitable. After spending a billion dollars on peacekeeping in Mozambique, the UN may yet have little to show for it.
xvi Why Peacekeeping Fails The poverty-causes-conflict theory may in a perverse way have some limited validity in Mozambique s case. The fear of poverty of the ruling elite, who have become accustomed to wealth, prompted the election fraud, the riots, and Cardoso s murder.the more general poverty-causes-war theory is wrong, however, and worse still, ignores the issue of who is responsible for starting such conflicts. Wars between countries are caused by leaders like Saddam Hussein who are unrestrained by democratic institutions. When there is a legislature that is more than a rubber stamp, an independent judiciary, a free press, and civil society, they can provide the checks and balances needed to limit a leader s worse tendencies. Without them, such leaders invariably show themselves to be corrupt, incompetent, dictatorial and, when it suits their purposes, aggressive. Civil wars do not start because people lack food, but because they lack hope. They feel they have no power to change their political system and affect the course of their own future. In frustration, they resort to changing things through the force of arms. If poverty is the cause of war, political leaders are absolved of the responsibility for starting conflicts or ending them. Instead, more aid from rich countries to poor countries becomes the price of peace. But more humanitarian and economic aid will not reduce conflicts if the question of who causes them is not addressed. Furthermore, the political and military aspects of these conflicts must be dealt with. As is discussed in chapter 7, aid alone not only will not resolve them, it may prolong them. Rather than blame war on hunger, the leaders at the Millennium Summit should have considered the words of Amartya Sen, the 1998 Nobel Prize winner for economics. He has written no substantial famine has ever occurred in an independent and democratic country with a relatively free press. It is also true that democracies generally do not start wars. If the participants at the Millennium Summit really wanted to reduce both war and hunger, they would put democracy into practice and not just in their proclamations. The Brahimi Report The discussion about the cause of conflict is important for peacekeeping because it demonstrates the UN s inability to assign the blame, deal with all the factors involved in a conflict, and come up with a solution that addresses those factors. In other words, its inability to deal with the root
Foreword xvii causes of the conflict so that peacekeeping has a chance to succeed. Another example of that inability is the report on peacekeeping done by a high-level panel established by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan and headed by the former foreign minister of Algeria Lakhdar Brahimi. The Brahimi Report, 13 which was issued in August 2000, was at least refreshingly honest. It suggested a number of organizational reforms that could help the UN do a better job at peacekeeping.the reality is, however, significant improvement will not happen because of the UN s organizational culture, the way its members use it, and the nature of today s conflicts. The UN is both a bureaucracy and an organization of member states. The report admits frankly that the quality of UN bureaucrats varies widely, and suggests that the UN must become an open and responsive meritocracy.that would be a radical break with UN tradition. A bureaucracy that has protected itself by avoiding oversight or measurements of its performance will not make such basic changes simply because a short-lived commission says it should. The Brahimi Report also stresses that the 189 UN member nations will have to support peacekeeping politically, financially, and operationally more than in the past.the problem is that member states pursue national interests through the UN. They will not increase their support in any of those three areas simply for the common good if it means sacrificing their individual interests. Greater financial support is unlikely even though the report assumes the $50 to $100 million cost of its recommendations will be forthcoming. No country is willing to raise its peacekeeping bill and the United States is determined to reduce its traditional share of the tab. Even the representative of one country that paid only $4,000 a year to support peacekeeping argued emotionally for a dramatic reduction. 14 Many member countries see peacekeeping not as a financial obligation, but as a pork barrel of patronage jobs. The Brahimi Report laments that there are only 32 officers in New York trying to lead 28,000 peacekeepers around the world. One reason there are so few is that developing countries complained when developed countries provided officers for free to do such work. They argued such jobs should be distributed on an equitable geographic basis.yet objections are not raised when developed countries pay 97 percent of the costs of peacekeeping missions that all happen in the developing world. While developed countries were willing to dispatch a few officers to New York, their operational support for peacekeeping in the field is limited and haunted by the experience in Somalia. As a result the countries
xviii Why Peacekeeping Fails with the most capable armies are the least willing to contribute troops for peacekeeping. Those with the least capable armies are the most eager to provide soldiers that often prove to be the least capable peacekeepers. With the American Congress only interested in limiting financial and operational support for peacekeeping, more political support is impossible without presidential leadership. During the recent American presidential campaign, however, the two candidates demonstrated that they had no more interest in peacekeeping than Congress. In their first debate, Governor Bush twice declared with little attempt to hide his disdain for such efforts that he would allow no American troops to be used for nation building. In the second debate both he and Vice President Gore agreed that they would not have used American troops to stop the genocide in Rwanda.While the UN may have forgotten the lessons of Somalia, candidates who see the deaths of 800,000 Africans as not worth putting any American soldiers at risk have become hostage to them and can display no flexibility even when the situation clearly calls for it. The hope that more political, operational, and financial support will be forthcoming is not the only point where the Brahimi Report loses contact with reality. It clings to the idea that the bedrock principles of peacekeeping are the consent of the local parties, impartiality, and the use of force only in self-defense.at the same time, it acknowledges that in today s conflicts often none of those principles are possible.yet it fails to describe effective ways to deal with these facts.the report recognizes that the struggle over local resources like diamonds and the conduct of neighboring countries can make peacekeeping impossible, but it makes no suggestions about how to get those elements under control. The report does make many sound administrative recommendations, but the UN will have to go beyond internal bureaucratic reforms if peacekeeping is to improve.a more effective bureaucracy will help, but it will not make a major difference. As this book explains, any attempt to improve peacekeeping will not matter if a country s leaders, resources, or neighbors are allowed to conspire against peace. If the UN makes no effective effort to address such factors, peace will remain a distant dream. Unfortunately, given the UN s past record and the likely absence of U.S. leadership in the future, there is little reason to think peacekeeping will do much to ensure peace.