ABSTRACT
United Nations (UN) peacekeeping has grown in significance over the years, with an ever-increasing demand for troops to serve in more complex and continued armed conflict environments. Today, UN peacekeepers are mandated to complete their tasks in contexts where peace remains fragile or where there is ‘no peace to keep’. Before the 2000s, peacekeeping forces were usually deployed after a peace agreement to separate the conflicting actors. Today, multidimensional peacekeeping more often involves peace enforcement or stabilization into situations of recurrent conflict. After delineating some contemporary trends in peacekeeping operations, this chapter explores three key themes: a) major policy advances; b) types of peacekeeping operations; and c) the tendency towards robust mandates, the use of force, and stabilization in recurrent conflict. Subsequently, the chapter offers some remarks on ongoing efforts to evaluate peace missions and their impacts. In this way, this chapter identifies peace operations as a challenge for defence studies at various levels, sketches a few cases, and outlines future tendencies. It is concluded that there are limits to what UN peace operations realistically can achieve in conditions where there is ‘no peace to keep’.
