U.N. Peacekeeping

Eight long-standing U.N. peacekeeping operations, many of them in the Middle East, are mired in conflicts that have defied diplomatic resolution and have become costly, indefinite commitments. Since 1948, these eight conflicts have consumed more than one-third, or $6 billion, of the U.N.'s total budget for peacekeeping operations. Despite the long-standing operations' cost and mixed performance in carrying out their mandates, U.S. policymakers support continuing these operations because, in their view, they help to stabilize conflicts that could threaten U.S. foreign policy objectives. They believe that ending these operations--or even modifying them substantially--would risk renewed conflict and could damage future peacemaking efforts. In continuing to support what have become essentially open-ended commitments to peacekeeping, however, the executive branch does not appear to adequately weigh other factors articulated by U.S policy that seek to ensure that peacekeeping operations are limited in duration, linked to concrete political solutions, and have exit criteria and identified end points for U.N. involvement. GAO summarized this report in testimony before Congress; see: U.N. Peacekeeping: Issues Related to Effectiveness, Cost, and Reform, by Harold J. Johnson, Associate Director for International Relations and Trade Issues, before the House Committee on International Relations (GAO/T-NSIAD-97-139, Apr. 9).

GAO noted that: (1) the eight long-standing operations are deployed in environments where the underlying conflicts have defied diplomatic resolution, sometimes for decades, and have become, essentially, costly and open-ended commitments; (2) only two of these operations had successfully carried out their mandates, while the remaining six either had only partially carried out their mandates or had not carried them out; (3) although all but one of these operations were undertaken to create stable, secure environments to assist diplomatic efforts aimed at settling these underlying conflicts, diplomatic efforts to resolve these conflicts had stalled in all but one case; (4) the eight operations accounted for about $6 billion, over one-third of the $17 billion that the United Nations has spent on peacekeeping operations since 1948, and continue to account for a substantial share of current U.N. peacekeeping budgetary and personnel costs; (5) under current law, the U.S. share of the estimated annual cost of these operations for 1996 was about $148 million; (6) despite repeated calls from the U.N. Security Council for the parties to make progress toward settling the underlying conflicts, as of February 1997, only the conflict in Angola was the subject of ongoing talks between the disputing parties; (7) despite the long-standing operations' cost and mixed performance in carrying out their mandates, U.S. policymakers support continuing these operations because, in their view, they help to stabilize conflicts that could threaten U.S. foreign policy objectives; (8) in their judgment, ending these operations, or even modifying them substantially, would risk renewed conflict and damage future peacemaking efforts; (9) U.S. officials told GAO that some of these operations probably would not have been initially approved under current U.S. and U.N. peacekeeping policies; (10) at this time, however, U.S. officials see no reasonable alternative to continuing these operations indefinitely, given their assessment of the potential harm to U.S. foreign policy objectives if the underlying conflicts resumed, balanced against what they consider to be these operations' moderate cost; and (11) in continuing to support what have become essentially open-ended commitments to peacekeeping, however, the executive branch does not appear to give adequate consideration to other factors articulated by U.S. policy that seeks to ensure that peacekeeping operations are limited in duration, linked to concrete political solutions, and have exit criteria and identified end points for U.N. involvement.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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