from the end of the Second World War until the present day. The next sections then analyse some of the general characteristics of states and international organizations acting as peacekeepers. We devote most space to summarizing the legal, bureaucratic and financial frameworks of the UN as the most significant peacekeeping actor. The final section describes the trend towards ‘partnership peacekeeping’ – situations where collaboration occurs between two or more multilateral institutions and/or various bilateral actors in the same mission theatre. This has become a more prominent part of the global peace operations landscape, especially in Africa and Europe, and has raised some important new opportunities and challenges for the UN.
2.1 The universe of modern peace operations
There is no single accepted or uncontested definition of peace operations. Scholars continue to define these missions in different ways (e.g. Jetschke and Schlipphak 2019; Berman 2019; SIPRI 2019). In this book, ‘peace operations’ involve the expeditionary use of military personnel (troops, military observers and experts) with an explicit mandate (whether from the UN or a non-UN entity) to assist in the prevention of armed conflict by supporting a peace process; to serve as an instrument to observe or assist in the implementation of ceasefires or peace agreements; or to enforce ceasefires, peace agreements or the will of the UN Security Council in order to build stable peace.
Table 2.1 Peace operations: a typology with examples
Notes: † Missions subsequently welcomed by the UN Security Council in either a resolution or a presidential statement.
†† Missions conducted without host-government consent.
* ‘N/A’ refers to the fact that these categories do not apply, whereas ‘no examples’ mean that this category is theoretically possible but as yet untried.
Defined in this manner, it is not a requirement for a peace operation to be authorized by the UN Security Council; many of them are, but not all. When the Security Council doesn’t want the UN to lead a peace operation, it can authorize other actors to carry out actions on its behalf to maintain what the UN Charter refers to as ‘international peace and security’. But, sometimes, international organizations, coalitions of states or, in rare cases, individual governments can conduct peace operations without the Security Council’s authorization. The legality of these operations derives from the consent of the host state.
Thinking about peace operations in these terms enables us to develop a broad typology based on the type of actors that conduct these missions (i.e. individual states, coalitions of states or international organizations) and their relationship to the UN (i.e. whether they are UN-led ‘blue helmet’ operations, UN-authorized operations or non-UN operations). Table 2.1 sets out this typology with some examples:
UN-led or ‘blue helmet’ missions are those authorized by the UN (usually the Security Council, but occasionally the General Assembly) and managed at the operational level by the UN itself (today through the Department for Peace Operations).
UN-authorized missions are those expressly mandated by one of the UN’s principal organs (usually the Security Council) but managed at the operational level by a non-UN entity such as a regional arrangement, coalition of states or lead-state.
Non-UN operations are neither mandated nor managed by the UN but meet our definition of a peace operation. They are managed at the operational level by a non-UN actor; usually deploy at the invitation of the host state; and may be welcomed or supported by one of the UN’s principal organs but not mandated or authorized by them.
Figure 2.1 Number and type of peace operations, 1947–2019
Source: Compiled by authors from Appendix.
Applying this definition to the period between 1947 and 2019, we identify 194 peace operations (see figure 2.1 and the Appendix, although UNIKOM in Kuwait/Iraq, MONUC in DR Congo and the IMT in Mindanao each receive two entries in our dataset). It is the experiences of these operations that form the empirical basis for this book’s analysis. In compiling this list, we excluded operations that did not involve military personnel (troops and other military personnel, military observers/experts). This decision ruled out a large number of peacemaking, monitoring and/or peacebuilding missions carried out solely by civilians (including police), among them numerous examples conducted by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), the European Union (EU) and what the UN calls special political or peacebuilding missions, most of which have been managed (since 1992) by the UN’s Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs (formerly the Department of Political Affairs). Our list also excludes cases of ‘humanitarian military intervention’ (i.e. the use of military force by external actors without host-state consent aimed at preventing or ending genocide and/or mass atrocities). Hence the US, French and UK no-fly zones established in Iraq (1991), as well as the NATO-led coalitions in Kosovo/Serbia (1999) and Libya (2011), are omitted. Nor does our list include what we call ‘regime support operations’ (see also Coleman 2011). These are missions that involve the deployment of foreign uniformed personnel to help the host-state authorities quell some form of insurrection and/or insurgency but generally take place in the absence of a peace agreement. In legal terms, they are based on collective self-defence (see Article 51 of the UN Charter). We exclude them when they are not undertaken with an explicit mandate to support a peace process. Examples of such regime support operations are Operation Sovereign Legitimacy in Democratic Republic of the Congo and Operation Boleas in Lesotho, both of which were conducted by factions within the Southern African Development Community in 1998. We have also excluded on these grounds the Multinational Force in Iraq (2004–13) and NATO’s Resolute Support Mission in Afghanistan (2015–). This category also rules out several ad hoc coalitions in Africa: the G5 Sahel Joint Force; the Multinational Joint Task Force against Boko Haram authorized by the Lake Chad Basin Commission; and the Regional Task Force against the Lord’s Resistance Army in Central Africa. Another problem with these missions was that the majority of the operations involved domestic troops operating on their home territory. Finally, we also excluded expeditionary missions that deployed uniformed personnel for tasks such as disaster relief, humanitarian assistance, the evacuation of nationals, maritime security tasks, including anti-piracy operations, and containing infectious disease.
Figure 2.2 Generic structure of a multidimensional peace operation
Most of the peace operations in our list are multidimensional. This means that they involve uniformed and civilian personnel, usually broken down into military, police and civilian components (see figure 2.2) as follows.
Troops deploy in contingents, as military observers and experts, or as staff officers in the force headquarters.
Police deploy as individual officers, formed police units (FPUs) or specialized police teams that deal with issues such as forensics or financial crimes.
Civilian components can involve numerous substantive
