Week 7 : Nailah

With outbreaks of conflicts around the world, the United Nations peacekeeping missions have expanded in 2023. The criticism that UN peacekeeping efforts are unsuccessful and they fail to protect the lives of thousands of civilians have been echoed for years. The Rwandan Genocide in 1994 which resulted in 800,000 Tutsis deaths, the ethnic minority in Rwanda, have many times been blamed on the failure of the UN peacekeepers. We briefly discussed in class how the US contributes the largest amount of troops to NATO, but in the UN peacekeeping efforts the largest contributors of soldiers are Bangladesh, Ethiopia, and Rwanda. These nations are not known for their military, which means the largest percentage of troops in peacekeeping efforts are poorly skilled. Those who are being sent to ongoing conflict zones are not prepared which further worsens the situations and let them escalate. 

 The reading, “The Crisis of Peacekeeping: Why the UN can’t End Wars,” points out many of the failures of the UN in their approach to peacekeeping, such as their failure to adapt to their situations and their top-down approach. But it fails to highlight the largest factor in the failures, which is the United Nations itself. We are supposed to view an international organization as a governing body, in a world where nationalism and a country’s sovereignty reigns supreme. The UN cannot force nations to act in the interest of unity and peace, they can’t force nations to do anything. The structure of the Security Council makes it close to impossible to pass anything when the US, China, and Russia are permanent members and have veto power. No country wants to give up its own sovereignty and national interests even if it is to enact international peace efforts. The idea of an international government isn’t possible as each actor wants to be responsible for their own citizens instead of the international stage. The United Nations was created to allow for international cooperation, but in a world where sovereignty is prioritized, this fails. That’s why nations who are poorer and don’t have well developed militaries are the ones who contribute the most to the peacekeeping missions. 

 The United Nations Peacekeeping Mission needs to rethink many of their strategies, including how to successfully have members oblige and forgo their national interests in order to promote international peace.