Research and Explre Why Peacekeeping Missions Fail

WHY PEACEKEEPING MISSIONS FAIL
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The international community establishes peacekeeping missions to maintain peace during a war aftermath. Leading sovereign states, international organizations, non-governmental organizations, consulting companies, and international financial institutions usually give out huge sums of money into post-civil war peace building and reconstruction. The quest for peace consumes huge amounts of international community’s money, policy attention, and moral energy. Since the end of Cold World War, at least 32 major peace agreements have been reached as well as many other ceasefires, interim accords, and peace initiatives. The peacekeeping mission practice has evolved significantly in the past fifteen years as it has been used increasingly in civil wars. Although there has been a considerable progress, some peacekeeping missions are associated with failure than successes. Betts notes that since the end of the Cold War the peacekeepers were deployed to mediate in civil conflicts around the world, they have achieved their peacekeeping mission in some cases while in others they have unknowingly extended the distress instead of relieving it. Such rare cases unfortunately happen even after all efforts have been put to have a happy ending. This paper investigates these unfortunate instances that seem to paint a negative picture of the much needed peacekeeping missions whenever communities or nations are at war and suggests what can be done to have a turnaround.
Failing Peacekeeping Missions
Fortna indicates that peacekeepers in a peacekeeping mission are usually unarmed or at most lightly armed as they are only allowed to use force in self-defense, and they operate with the consent of the belligerents. She further argues that the effectiveness of peacekeeping mission has been focused on civil wars and not on traditional peacekeeping between sovereign states. This may seem logical since civil wars are more common that war between states. However, the recent interstate wars between Ethiopia and Eritrea, and between the US and both Afghanistan and Iraq is an indication that interstate conflict needs to be considered. A war starts only when two sides in dispute choose to fight than compromise and it would end when the two sides agree on who will control whatever is in dispute. Each war is unique and complicated but the main cause is always similar to another. Wars between erupt because of sovereignty issues over disputed territory or influence over international transactions. Wars within states may be caused by disputes over power to reign or how the nation should be divided so that opponents can have separate governments. Therefore, any peacekeeping mission must put this into consideration otherwise forcing peace may make matters worse when the fighting parties have not yet kept away their differences.
There are no specific studies showing whether there will be peace when peacekeepers intervene or not. Only a few studies of general UN involvement in discussion and resolutions, fact-finding, mediating, and peacekeeping in interstate crises can be traced. Fortna cites a study by Wilkenfeld and Brecher who found that when UN is involved in a crisis, chances are...