Talk:Peacekeeping

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• Talk:Peacekeeping/Sandbox
• Talk:Peacekeeping/Template

Archive of Old Article

I feel this page should be more of a disambig page. Right now, it just redirects to United Nations Peacekeeping, but there are other peacekeeping missions, like the KFOR lead Kosovo Force. Under is a suggestion:

---

The word Peacekeeping can refer to different peacekeeping forces:

• UN Peacekeeping (United Nations)
• KFOR (The Kosovo Force, NATO)

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Please come with suggestions etc. before I make the change! --Vikingstad 19:20, Mar 17, 2004 (UTC)

Contents 1 IPKF issues 2 UN peacekeeping is highly cost effective 3 Sources on participation 4 UN peackeeping??? 5 First sentence appears misleading 6 UN endorsement necessary, or not? 7 POV template placed on article 8 United Nations Peacekeeping Forces 9 Rant 10 Nature of the article 11 Misconceptions 12 Split? 13 Nomenclature 14 IPKF 15 IPKF Was not part of UN Peacekeeping 16 Canadian Public Opinion 17 Featured article status 18 New version 19 Kosovo 20 Contradictory Figures 21 Potential Harm To Troops

[edit] IPKF issues

It says here on the peacekeeping page that the IPKF did not have the equipment to rout the LTTE but that is not true. The main reason for the Indian withdrawal was because it was the request of the Sri Lankan prime minister who signed a peace agreement with the LTTE. If anyone disputes this claim, they can check the IPKF Wiki article which states:

Supported by Indian Army tanks, helicopter gunships and heavy artillery, the IPKF temporarily routed the LTTE. But this victory came at a price, as the IPKF lost over 200 soldiers.

The article clearly mentions that the IPKF had more than one helicopter for air support and it also deployed Indian Army Tanks.

Also, the article at the beginning mentions the failure of the IPKF but doesn't talk of the US's failure in Somalia, Vietnam, Lebanon and the failure of other countries. It seems to me like an NPOV issue so I am deleting the line.

[edit] UN peacekeeping is highly cost effective

I believe this sentence is subjective. To say that UN peacekeeping is cost effecive suggests that it is efficent and low cost. I belive this is open to debate. I could raise many question: what is considered efficient, what is considered low cost, what about peacekeeping failures in this cost effective assesment, etc. I do not suggest that this statement be supported with evidence, but simply be remove to keep a neutral point of view. Any thoughts on the matter are welcome!

• Cost effective? No way. Most of the funds that the UN needs to keep running come from US tax dollars, about 3 Billion dollars a year. And thats just to the peacekeeping operation.

-Jakub 12/04/04

Most statements on complex issues have an element of subjectivity to them, and most statements about complex issues on Wikipedia are also open to debate. :) But to advocate that an existing statement which has some elements of subjectivity to it (or is open to debate) should therefore be removed -- is not NPOV as I understand it.

As the paragraph after the line you want removed states: "The UN spends less per year on peacekeeping worldwide than the City of New York spends on the annual budgets of its fire and police departments. UN peacekeeping cost about $2.6 billion in 2002. In the same year, Governments worldwide spent more than $794 billion on arms — a figure that represents 2.5 per cent of world gross domestic product and shows no sign of decreasing."

Wars are horribly expensive. The economic costs (alone) of repairing war-damaged societies are far, far higher than the costs of prevention. The human costs are beyond economic measure.

IMO, advocating the removal of this statement is an attempt to remove accurate content from the article -- content which is positive about UN peacekeeping -- and actually make the article less informative, more critical of peacekeeping, and less NPOV. The article already features several subsections of open criticism of peacekeeping in the current section 4, 'Issues with Peacekeeping'. Those subsections can of course be expanded if a more NPOV is appropriate.

However, I would suggest any questions or debate about peacekeeping costs or efficiencies be confined to this page prior to editing the existing content. Especially when the fairminded Wikipedian raising this issue and sincerely seeking editorial change for a more NPOV doesn't actually appear to be a real Wikipedia login. :) Cheers, Madmagic 21:21, Dec 6, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Sources on participation

What's the source on how many soldiers each country contributed in 2004? Is there an updated list? I'd like to look at the list (either old or new) to see where otherr countries fall, e.g. Canada and Belgium, and I'd like to re-order the list myself as number of soldiers/population. I'ma also asking this on the reference desk. Thanks. moink 18:43, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Copied from Reference Desk, for the sake of completeness:

Are these documents anything like what you're looking for? They're from the official UN website, so they should be reliable. -- Vardion 06:25, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] UN peackeeping???

I don't think that should redirect it to here. UN peacekeeping deserves it's own page. I would think that this article should talk about how peackeeping works and it's history with mention of the United Nations, Nato,and individual nations peackeeping forces(such as India's IPKF) and a link. Am I wrong? Falphin 23:39, 2 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] First sentence appears misleading

This following sentence seems to me misleading: "Peacekeeping is a way to help countries torn by conflict create conditions for sustainable peace"

I would say that peacekeeping is a way to facilitate peace negotiation in countries that have been torn by conflict.

One example: Rwanda in 1994 was definitely torn by conflict. However, UN peacekeepers certainly did not create conditions for sustainable peace, because the genocide happened after they arrived.

What they did do was provide a somewhat more positive environment in which leaders could negotiate a peace.

Please respond if you have an objection to this proposed change. --Zaorish

Changing the wording to emphasize the past tense of the verb would not solve the valid problem you bring up. What about changing it to "Peacekeeping attempts to assist contries torn by conflict to create conditions for sustainable peace." --Morph

I would say it depends on the level of conflict and how late the UN arrived. Anyways, the article only says that the UN defines it that way. There are probably different definitions elsewhere. --Yboy403

I think the example of Rwanda was not fully thought out. The aticle on UNAMIR - the United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda - states: "Among the first targets of the genocide were the Prime Minister and 10 Belgian members of the UNAMIR forces. These troops were murdered after handing over their weapons to Rwandan government troops. They were advised to do so by their battalion commander who was unclear on the legal issues with authorising them to defend themselves, even though they had been under fire for about two hours already.This confusion over legal protocols typified the response of UNAMIR to the escalating chaos. The misson's vague mandate, created under Chapter VI of the UN Charter was unclear about the right to use force, particularly in defence of civilians. The mission's original intention was to oversee the implementation of the Arusha peace agreement. However, by the time of the genocide, the peace agreement was completely irrelevant and UNAMIR was legally powerless." The UN peacekeepers were unable to intervene during the genocide because it wasnt clear as to what rights they had to fire there weapons. I would also like to point out the recent UN resolution for the crisis in Lebanon. The Resolution and deployment of a UN Peacekeeping force intends to assist both Israel and Lebanon create conditions for the citizens of both countries to live. So in this case the peacekeepers are creating a buffer zone between the countries, and focus the negotiations to the real issue: Hezbollah which created the unrest within the region. It could be changed to "Peacekeeping is a system which creates peaceful conditions in regions that by themselves are unable to create sustainable peace" --alias_pizzaman

[edit] UN endorsement necessary, or not?

The U.S., like many of our allies, also participates in peacekeeping operations that are not run by the UN but which have an international stamp of approval in the form of a supportive UN Security Council resolution. The UN is not in charge of such operations, and the U.S. undertakes them for national security reasons, with no expectation of reimbursement. An example of this is the on-going "no-fly" zone in Iraq, undertaken by the U.S. and British governments. [1]

The article states that the UN "authorizes" certain peacekeeping operations that it doesn't run itself. This implies that the UN has sovereignty over the entire world, which is a debatable point. Many people wish for the UN to gain sovereignty; one tactic to empower the UN as sovereign is to assert that it and it alone has the "authority" to require, permit or refuse various things. Then expand the scope of these things.

The US position, for example, is contrary to this position. It asserts that each nation is sovereign - not the UN as a whole (or any of its agencies or councils). It argues thus that the US is not bound in any way (legal or moral) by the UN.

Unless the article wants to assert the POV that no peacekeeping operation may be undertaken without UN approval, we should rephrase this. We should make it clear that it is a United Nations POV or the POV of certain advocates. -- Uncle Ed (talk) 13:44, May 11, 2005 (UTC)

Note the second paragraph of the article, quoted below almost entire:

"The Charter of the United Nations gives the UN Security Council the power and responsibility to take collective action to maintain international peace and security. For this reason, the international community usually looks to the Security Council to authorize peacekeeping operations. Most of these operations are established and implemented by the United Nations itself with troops serving under UN operational command. In other cases, where direct UN involvement is not considered appropriate or feasible, the Council authorizes regional organizations such as the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, the Economic Community of West African States or coalitions of willing countries to implement certain peacekeeping or peace enforcement functions."

I don't see the problem. The UN is the largest and best-known world organization created for the purpose of trying to reduce the tragedy of war and armed conflicts. The article does not directly state -- or IMO imply-- the UN has political sovereignty over the entire world.

Are you trying to say the UN does not have the moral authority to judge whether a peacekeeping mission is or isn't an actual peacekeeping mission? Cheers, Madmagic 13:28, May 19, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] POV template placed on article

Today I added a POV template to the Peacekeeping article. IMO, this article is about a serious and important subject in current world politics, and in world history for more than half a century. This subject deserves a Wikipedia article of very high quality. IMO, this article is of very, very low quality.

(Disclaimer on personal POV issues: I generally support UN peacekeeping operations. I'm also a Canadian. My family members have gone on UN peacekeeping operations and I've listened to their criticisms. I'm also well aware of Rwanda, Roméo Dallaire, and of many of the recent and historical criticisms of peacekeeping. I am not at all opposed to including those criticisms, and I would welcome clear descriptions of when, how and why UN peacekeeping has gone wrong. In balance with where it has gone right.)

I am personally upset -- and offended -- to see included in this article descriptions of UN peacekeepers as "smurfs" and multiple references and external links to prostitution -- when the article makes little or no mention of dozens of successful UN peacekeeping missions, or of longstanding peacekeeping committments such as Cyprus.

If one-half of the negative POV expressed repeatedly in this article -- and the lack of clearly-written factual content -- was stated about (for two examples) the United States Marine Corps or the Royal Navy, then Wikipedians would be screaming -- and I do mean screaming -- foul. Again, IMO, this article very badly needs balance, much more well-written content, and clarity.

End rant. :) I hope it will help provoke and produce a good article. As the article states: since 1948 at least 1,450 UN peacekeepers have lost their lives trying to help make a more peaceful world. They deserve better memorials than this. Madmagic 05:48, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

I find it extremely interesting that you have direct contact with Blue Helmets, or former ones. The closer I have been to this was stalking on Internet forums devoted to Bosnia in the hope of interesting people to contribute to Wikipedia, spend hours shearching for Free (or "liberable") photos (by the way, the one on top of the article is just the only photo of a Blue Helmet that I was able to find, do not read it as an attempt to colour the whole article), and reading books.

Short, I am interested in working on the article, and I think that aiming toward "Featured article" status would be nice. Do you have a plan ?

Thanks and cheers ! Rama 08:40, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] United Nations Peacekeeping Forces

As Falphin noted above, UN Peacekeeping redirects here. I placed the Category: Nobel Peace Prize winners on that redirect so it would show up correctly inside the category.--Bookandcoffee 07:50, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for fixing that. It was the legacy of a article about a person/editor who was supposedly a UN peacekeeper who insisted on placing the Nobel Peace Prize winner category on the bio. As a compromise we created the Peacekeeper category, put him in it, then gave the prize to the category. After all that work it turned out the article was a hoax. Since no one has ever been added to the category, it appears useless. (Odd that there haven't been any real notable UN Peacekeepers.) Cheers, -Will Beback 08:35, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Rant

I know wikipedia ain't a forum, but I just want to say that peacekeepers can be described in one word: armed social workers. The little military uniform, blue helmet and gun are just to make them look like soldiers so as to seemingly act as a symbol of internation authority. AllStarZ 04:15, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Your one-word description is Armed Social Workers? That description is three words, not one. :-) Just joking around with you, I see your point...Jporcaro 15:01, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

I agree. I'm pro-multilateralism and international cooperation, but I think that will only have a chance if the UN toughens up. Disgraces like Rwanda where (Belgian/French/Canadian) UN forces run away as soon as shots are fired are one of the reasons why there is so little faith in UN peacekeeping. Wouter Lievens 16:40, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

The Canadian/French/Belginan troops didn't have adequate numbers to prevent what occured in Rewanda. Perhaps you have a source for claiming that those soldiers "ran away as soon as shots are fired".

Actually, Belgium pulled their contigent out when they lost 10 soldiers on a single day at the beginning of the genocide. The Canadian part of the mission was small and consisted of a handful of HQ/ higher command staff (if I remember correctly) and France wasn't even part of the original UNAMIR. I have two issues with the above statement: first, members of UNAMIR received hostile fire even before the genocide started in April 1994 so it's plain wrong to say that they ran away as soon as shots are fired. Second, the original UNAMIR mandate was based on chapter 6 of the UN charta. Which was (more or less) fine as long as they tried to keep the peace, but wholly inadequate when peace enforcement would have been in order beginning in April. That it took the Security Council much too long to upgrade UNAMIR's strength and mandate was surely not UNAMIR's fault. Those of UNAMIR who made it through the genocide in Rwanda are among the bravest military people anywhere in the world. --Uwe 23:08, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

I wouls hate to dispute your facts, but the whole of the 1st Canadian Engineering Division (sounds like a lot of troops but it was more around 600-800 soliders and engineers) was in Rawanda as well as the initial command staff.

Just a point: many Canadian Peacekeepers are RCMP so they're really not soldiers they're police officers. And get real people! International Justice is not the same as national. You can't go into someone else's country and tell those people what to do and control them by force. This has a history of failing. DotDarkCloud 00:24, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Nature of the article

This article is poorly designed, it should be more concise and contain a brief synopsis of the origin of peacekeeping, its legal and command structure, and a list of missions. Most of the article could go into a "peacekeeping controversies" page.

You are not making any argument here. (this should be deleted)

I removed some of the references about peacekeeping/sex trade connections. They appear to be have been intentionally placed there just to make peace keepers look bad. I left a few to allow the truth to be said, without it being excessive.

[edit] Misconceptions

Criticisms of UN peacekeeping and its effectiveness are just that. The "criticisms" and "reform" sections should be summarized here in one sentence and given a page of their own. Many seem to have opinions of peacekeeping and peacekeepers based on received notions and little else. Prejudice, hearsay, and emotional reactions do not constitute knowledge.

Not all peacekeepers are "blue helmets" -- that distinction goes to soldiers under peacekeeping command. Civilian police and military observers perform different roles within peacekeeping operations, and are not referred to as blue helmets... sometimes blue berets. Civilians are never called blue helmets or peacekeepers; they are peacekeeping staff or UN mission staff.

More emphasis should be given to the civilian aspect of peacekeeping and the expansion of the UN peacekeeping model since the 1990s. Large peacekeeping missions integrate political and humanitarian efforts on a broad scale, involving many UN agencies. During UNTAET 2000-2002, the UN was effectively the government of East Timor, the first and only time the UN acted in the role of national administration.

UN political and peacebuilding missions are not usually administered by the UN dept. of peacekeeping (DPKO); they often have military observers and police advisors, but no armed soldiers and no military mandate. There is no mention anywhere of this distinction.

UN peacekeeping is a complex issue that deserves a lot better technical synopsis and a lot less opinion mongering. --slammyapple 04:45, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Split?

Seems like UN Peacekeeping should have its own article and this should be about the general concept. The other peacekeeprs (NATO, etc.) should have their own articles too. Thoughts? savidan^{(talk) (e@)} 05:33, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

I'd agree with that...Mike McGregor (Can) 08:50, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

By the way, what exactly is the nuance convoyed by "Blue Helmet" ? Is it very informal ? I often hear it in official discourse... Rama 09:02, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Blue Helmet is just a metonymy like the crown for the British monarchy. No one has objected, but where do we go from here? savidan^{(talk) (e@)} 02:37, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

I'd say UN peacekeeping already has its own page: List of UN peacekeeping missions, including links and wikipedia pages for most missions. A bit more text and a title change of that page to UN Peacekeeping would probably be sufficient (as well as excising some text from this article). --M4-10 05:48, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

What about an article on ‘peacekeeping controversies' (eg: bias of peacekeepers, links to forced prostitution etc)? Chwyatt 14:44, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Nomenclature

I don't know why, but I'm not liking the title of the section "Issues with Peacekeeping". Perhaps "Criticism" would be more appropriate. Crabbyass 04:52, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] IPKF

In the following paragraph:

"In 1987 an Indian peacekeeping force, IPKF, entered Sri Lanka to help maintain peace. With similar results to the US mission in Vietnam, India was forced to withdraw in 1990. However, the reasons for withdrawal were different in that the IPKF did not have necessary military equipment such as tanks or air support (other than one helicopter)."

The reasoning for withdrawal mentioned here is incorrect.

I believe the undisputed reason was because under the agreement, the Sri Lankan government asked the IPKF to leave (see the join comminique http://www.tamilnation.org/intframe/india/89ipkfwidthdrawal.htm). This was since the IPKF took sides in the Sri Lankan ethnic conflict, going against one of the protaganist, namely the LTTE and led to about 1200 casualties [2] on the IPKF side. As having seen IPKF forces in Sri Lanka at that time and seen their armaments, I should mention having seen T-72 tanks and fighter jets and probably more than one Mi-24 hind gunship. I don't have references to the number of military equipment etc used and hence I wanted to make this point and let someone here/maintainer followup on the leads I have pointed out and make the corrections.

There is also an official set of reasons for India's withdrawal, see the following link from the Jain Commision for the Indian Govt. official stand. http://www.india-today.com/jain/vol8/chap39.html

Johnathan1155 05:57, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] IPKF Was not part of UN Peacekeeping

I agree with the above statement but will also like to comment that if the nature of this article is focused on UN Peacekeeping, the inclusion of this peacekeeping mission, which was not endorsed in any way by the United Nations, seems to be irrelevant. This comment comes directly from Ambassador Jamsheed Marker, a professor and friend of mine, who was involved and the directed the peace mission in east timor. NeoXtremeX 04:54, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

• Take a look at the introduction of the page. Other missions such as the one in Kososvo are also mentioned. This page would be biased to only focus on U.N. Peacekeeping. So, perhaps the entirety of that small article should be merged as a section of this article. The main reason for the focus on UN peacekeeping is that it is the most common form. Falphin 01:48, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

UN Peacekeeping should be a separate article or there should be only a brief section talking about non-UN attempts to keep the peace between nations.

[edit] Canadian Public Opinion

Where is the source for your stating that Canadians support peacekeeping? Is this the result of a public opinion poll, or are you Canadian?

[edit] Featured article status

Re a comment above, I'm interested in working towards featured article status (see WP:FA). There are of course very stringent requirements for achieving this, but I think we can manage. First, let's come up with an outline of what we want and need. Any ideas? --Tjss(Talk) 05:29, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] New version

I've drafted a new version (see Talk:Peacekeeping/Sandbox) and will be posting it within a few days unless there is significant objection. It's not a final draft, but I've organized and cleaned up a lot of stuff, and it should provide a basis for future edits. --Tjss(Talk) 22:02, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

New article has been posted. --Tjss(Talk) 21:45, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Kosovo

I've got some concerns about the presentation of the Kosovo bit on peacekeeping. The presence of NATO troops on the ground in Kosovo in 1999 was a result of all parties agreeing to the conditions established in the Rambouillet talks of February/March of that year. By all sides agreeing to the presence of ground troops, it became a bona fide peacekeeping mission, not a unilaterally imposed peace. Although it can be argued that the NATO bombing campaign was convincing enough to agree to the talks, the majority of the points of the talks had been accepted before the air campaign started. In summary, this was not a peace enforcement mission, as it is stated in the article. Somalia was peace enforcement. It was a peacekeeping mission, although not in the "classic" sense. I would recommend removing the whole section on Kosovo and peace enforcement. UEL 08:32, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Contradictory Figures

One section of this article states that Canada has lost the most people on Peacekeeping missions, another states that it is India. In addition, the total number of dead varies between the two sections. In addition, the article states that Canada (currently 53rd in peacekeeping contributions) is "the most experienced" peacekeeping nation. What does this mean, how is it quantified, and what is the source for this claim?--Ggbroad 17:48, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Potential Harm To Troops

"However, the government of one of the world's most experienced peacekeeping nations, Canada, has asserted the costs of peacekeeping are worthwhile ^{[citation needed]}."

Irrelevent to start. Next, the Conservative government has said no such thing. And I can almost guarantee no one can find a statement from the previous three Liberal governments that weighs psychological damage to peacekeepers to mission benefits. Go ahead and prove me wrong.

"...most Canadians believe the high cost is justified in order to create a more peaceful world ^{[citation needed]}."

Irrelevent, again, and not linked at all to psychological damage. Also where is the poll that asks Canadians "if peacekeeping is worth the costs"? A more relevent (but probably non-existent) poll would ask that question to veterans of UN peacekeeping missions (Canadian or otherwise). I know most Canadian soldiers think the UN is a joke and peacekeeping is a dirty word.

"Also, the Canadian government says experience gained in peacekeeping operations has been invaluable to the Canadian Forces when Canadian troops were called out in domestic situations - such as during the Oka Crisis.^{[citation needed]}"

Irrelevent and not linked to psychological damage. Also, the Conservative government has said no such thing. I doubt the the previous 3 Liberal governments linked peacekeeping to Oka.

And this is why I previous deleted the whole ugly paragraph, and will again in a couple days. --M4-10 00:56, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm for cutting it, too. Not sure it's relevant or fixable. --Ggbroad 01:05, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

This article is just stupid. Troops of all kinds in just about all conflicts suffer these things. I'm deleting the whole bloody article.

Thank you for your constructive input.--Ggbroad 12:59, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

I think what this section of the article needs to state is that peacekeeping, while not the same as combat operations, involves significant risks.--Ggbroad 13:02, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Acutally, specific risks. Normal soldiers on combat operations reply when shot. They are not taken hostages. They do not come back home traumatised for having been forced to watched civilians get butchered without begin able to do anything about it (exceptions for Rwanda). I think of the film Warriors, but lots of other references could be as or more relevant. Rama 13:25, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

I know people who've been to peacekeeping missions and they do come out a little bit traumitised. Its not fun been shot at, or being held up in an eight hour fire-fight, or seeing a dead body lying on the side of the road with its head hacked open by a machete but this happens to soldiers in all conflicts, and its completely pointless in stating them. Like I said, I'm deleting the whole section. As for that crap about peacekeeping eroding the will of soldiers, who ever said that has probably never even met someone who has been peacekeeping. If it does anything, it hardens them and makes them more efficient soldiers.

The point that needs to be made is one that the general public who turns to an article such as this may not be aware of - the peacekeeping involves considerable risks. This isn't self-evident to many people.--Ggbroad 02:31, 7 September 2006 (UTC)