Talk:Peacekeeping

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:

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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 UN peacekeeping is highly cost effective 2 Sources on participation 3 UN peackeeping??? 4 First sentence appears misleading 5 UN endorsement necessary, or not?

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!

-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)

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 (http://www.un.org/Depts/dpko/dpko/contributors/) 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)

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)

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

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] (http://www.betterworldfund.org/factsheets/o_21567.shtml)

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)