Global Policy Forum

By Jean-Marie Guéhenno*

Recent headlines notwithstanding, fewer people are being killed by war than at almost any time in the past century. Some 25,000 were killed in armed conflict in 2002, barely one tenth the number killed each year during the 1990s. Even Sept. 11, and wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, have not reversed the decline. There are two basic reasons for this decline in war deaths: Fewer wars are starting and, even more important, many old wars are ending. This is particularly true in Africa. Wars in Angola, Congo and Sudan - in which some 7 million people have died - are over, or soon may be. Sierra Leone, recently home to the limb-hacking rebels, is stable. Neighboring Liberia seems to be moving in the same direction.

Nor is the trend limited to Africa. Europe and East Asia, which lost some 60 million people in the wars of the last century, are almost entirely at peace. Even the smouldering Balkans, after the recent violence in Kosovo, is more stable now. India and Pakistan are talking about a resolution of their differences. On April 24, the Annan plan for Cyprus will be put to a referendum in both parts of the divided island.

A word of caution, though, before concluding that world peace is about to break out. In 1914, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace declared that the great powers were "manifestly unwilling" to make war, just in time for World War I. The present positive trend could be reversed at any moment. Only one thing is certain: A large number of conflicts are moving towards resolution, and millions of lives are being saved.

To ensure that some of these conflicts really do have a chance of ending completely, the UN Security Council is creating a number of new peacekeeping missions. Those for Liberia and Ivory Coast are already on the ground. In Haiti, a multinational force will soon be replaced by a UN force. There is a paradox, though, in this growing peace: The military resources needed to help keep the peace are being strained by so much peace to keep.

There are already 15 UN-led peacekeeping missions on three continents. Some 50,000 soldiers and police personnel are wearing the United Nations' blue helmet, mainly from developing countries, led by Pakistan and Bangladesh. The numbers could rise to 70,000 or more by the end of 2004. In the scheme of world military activity, this is not much. Even if the bill for UN peacekeeping rises to $4 billion a year, which is possible if the Security Council calls for new missions in all of the places currently on its list, UN peacekeeping will still cost less than 1 percent of what the United States alone spends each year on defense.

But in the UN context, the current surge will push the system to the outer limits of its capacity. For every person in the Peacekeeping Department at the New York headquarters, there will be more than 100 in the field, creating major challenges in the areas of planning, force generation, logistics, procurement and command and control. If this wind down in war is to work at all, there will have to be some hard decisions by the international community. Four well-established principles might help guide those decisions.

First, no UN engagement in hot wars. The United Nations cannot fight wars, and cannot keep the peace where there is no peace to keep. At best, it can stare down some of the "spoilers" who renege on peace agreements after the UN is deployed. If there is real campaigning to be done, then military coalitions, such as the one the Security Council authorized in the Gulf in 1990, should be used.

Second, partners count. The last few years has seen the rise of partnership peacekeeping – the U.N. working alongside the regional organizations like the European Union, NATO and ECOWAS, the West African grouping. These arrangements have their complications, but the neighbors and friends have an interest in seeing problems through. In a world of short attention spans, there is a need for those who won't turn away.

Third, no job without the tools. When U.S. forces withdrew from Somalia a decade ago, the UN mission failed. If the community of nations wants peacekeeping to be done, the support must be there to do it well – the men and women in uniform from developed and developing countries alike; the specialized military support services from those countries that have them, the financial resources, the strategic force reserves, the sustained commitment. Without that support, the peace will invariably fail.

Fourth, stick with it until peace takes root. Building peace from the ashes of war takes time and the international community must be willing to work with local institutions until they are ready to shoulder responsibility for democratic governance, the rule of law and continued economic development. Peacekeeping operations must be linked to a longer term plan for achieving this sort of stability.

There is a peace dividend to be had, but not without a clear-headed investment.

About the author: Jean-Marie Guéhenno is United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping.