Providing Peacekeepers ─ The Politics, Challenges, and Future of United Nations Peacekeeping Contributions

During the first decade of the twenty-first century, the rising demand for peacekeepers saw the United Nations (UN) operate at a historically unprecedented tempo, with increases in the number and size of missions as well as in the scope and complexity of their mandates. The need to deploy over 120,000 UN peacekeepers and the demands placed upon them in the field have threatened to outstrip the willingness and to some extent capacity of the UN's Member States. This situation raised the questions of why states contribute forces to UN missions and, conversely, what factors inhibit them from doing more? Providing Peacekeepers answers these questions. After summarizing the challenges confronting the UN in its force generation efforts, the book develops a new framework for analyzing UN peacekeeping contributions in light of the evidence presented in sixteen case study chapters which examine the experiences of the United States, the United Kingdom, France, the People's Republic of China, the Russian Federation, Bangladesh, Pakistan, India, Nigeria, Ghana, Nepal, Uruguay, Brazil, Turkey, South Africa, and Japan. The book concludes by offering recommendations for how the UN might develop new strategies for force generation so as to meet the foreseeable challenges of twenty-first century peacekeeping and improve the quantity and quality of its uniformed peacekeepers.

Alex J. Bellamy serves as a Non-resident Senior Adviser at the International Peace Institute in New York, Honorary Professor of International Relations at the University of Queensland, Director (International) of the Asia Pacific Centre for the Responsibility to Protect, and Director of the Human Protection Hub. He is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia. He is Professor of International Security at the Griffith Asia Institute, Griffith University, Australia.

Paul D. Williams serves as a Non-resident Senior Adviser at the International Peace Institute in New York and as a Visiting Professor at the Institute for Peace and Security Studies at Addis Ababa University. He is Associate Professor in the Elliott School of International Affairs at the George Washington University, USA.