Introduction

The ongoing multidimensional UN peacekeeping operations represent both continuity and change from the completed missions that I analyzed in the previous chapters of this book. In terms of continuity, the overall argument of the book extends to the current missions in that the three major factors determining success and failure continue to hold – the situational difficulty, great-power interests, and learning or dysfunction in the UN Secretariat's peacekeeping mission. The basic argument also holds that when the powerful members of the Security Council are very interested and involved in UN peacekeeping missions, such missions tend to be less successful. Similarly, when operations are able to move into a first-level learning mode while in action on the ground (facilitated by a devolution of decision-making power from headquarters to the field), this generally leads to success in mandate implementation.

As of the end of 2005, there were eight UN multidimensional peacekeeping operations in the field, employing peacekeepers in numbers not seen since 1993. The operations came in two “waves” and one “ripple.” First, in 1999, between June and December of that year, four new multidimensional missions were launched in Kosovo, Sierra Leone, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and East Timor. There were no major new operations initiated again until September 2003 when, within the space of ten months, another four major, multidimensional missions began in Liberia, Côte d'Ivoire, Burundi, and Haiti. A ripple operation was mandated to begin in Sudan in the spring of 2005.