I'm not sure whether Mark Malan is trying to make a realist or idealist case for Somalia, but no force of the sizes contemplated would be able to control the southern half of that country, on the ground, against the will of its fighting factions. But if we are talking coalition, how about one with a primarily maritime and maritime air component? Somalia is just the right shape for naval aviation (including helicopters). Most of the NATO Response Force is afloat and not doing so much; why not use it to halt piracy in east African/Horn waters, promoting commerce, and to interdict the airborne khat trade, forcing Somalia to sober up? Then, under its wing, try some well-protected, on-scene mediation. Meanwhile, any group that interferes with food distribution gets a prompt visit from the overwatch.

In principle, the same sort of overwatch could support UNAMID, as Darfur is about the same size and shape as southern Somalia. But Darfur isn't lucky enough to have an ocean--or a stable, friendly country with big airbases--a few minutes flying time from trouble. Meaning that supportive airpower would need to be based in Sudan, and why not? That's where the problem is. UNAMID faces a functional, predatory state manipulating the fate of peoples and peacekeepers to its ongoing advantage. That is why I previously stressed the limits of dealing with symptoms when causes run free; the government in Khartoum has played the international community--and its own population--for two decades, yet those who would help persist in trying to drink from a full-pressure fire hose instead of changing the decisions of those who control the hydrant. This will require concerted major power pressure on Khartoum, with Chinese cooperation, in pursuit of a solution that will do a better job of keeping the oil flowing than will continued instability.

The Secretary-General's last report on Somalia provides necessary but not necessarily sufficient requirements for a hope of success with a UN integrated mission, implicitly one which would try to build a whole state apparatus. I agree with you, we need to heed the lessons of 1993 and not blunder into another "mission impossible" -- a point that I have been trying to make.

The S-G does present a less aspirational scenario and contingency plan -- for a robust (8,000 strong) "stabilization force" to replace the Ethiopians and hopefully reduce political polarization while committing fewer human rights abuses, reducing "collateral damage" (see the latest) and maybe even helping to create a bit more humanitarian space. He rightly says that this is not a job for the UN, but requires a coalition of the willing made up of nations with high-end military capabilities. The chances of actually generating such a force have to be as poor, if not worse, than those of producing another UN "super mission".

The prognosis is not good, and it is indeed a lot easier to raid suspected terror cells in the ungoverned space than it is to create a semblance of a state that can uphold some kind of rule of law. For example, no one squealed too loudly when two U.S. sea-launched cruise missiles hit a village in southern Somalia last month. Great score, perhaps, for the war on terror -- but not so great for humanity. Tomahawks are not cheap, but they are a cheaper and easier option than actually saving lives and protecting the weak, which is what Eric hopes UNAMID can do in Darfur. Creating a democracy out of dust, or even establishing a viable rule of law may not be possible, but providing sufficient security for humanitarian workers to feed 4 million people at risk of starvation should not be beyond the art of the possible.

If Darfur indeed heralds the demise of UN peacekeeping, we all lose some of our humanity -- and any claim we may have had to morality in international relations.

I'd like to pull out and discuss one line in Mark Malan's latest entry: "The Secretary-General adds that the majority of the parties should state their agreement to the deployment of an integrated United Nations peacekeeping operation..." Majority consent. Isn't that what the UN had the last time it went into Somalia? As in, minus the major fighting faction? To me, the conditions and objectives specified in the report that Mark cites are essentially identical to those in spring 1993 when the UN last got badly burned in Somalia, except that the occupying force there this time--the Ethiopian army--is not nearly so careful or impartial in its use force or its political sentiments as was US-led UNITAF in winter 1992-93. The outside world keeps trying to build a modern state in this place that's never really had one. That absence didn't matter much until the West began worrying about "ungoverned spaces" as potential havens for terrorists. Well, news flash: it's a lot easier to raid an ungoverned space when you have intel on a terror cell there than it is to build and fund a whole state apparatus just to keep out the guys who want to build that cell.

As to Somalia being UNPK's final straw/bridge too far/barrel over the falls: too late, done that, gone there: Darfur.

I have been reluctant to contribute to this conversation because I have so little background in the broader issues. I have for the past nine years worked exclusively in attempting to secure a just peace for Sudan and in improving humanitarian access to Sudan's immensely distressed populations. My efforts have nonetheless touched on issues that are obviously central to this broader discussion of peacekeeping, so I offer this very modest contribution, focusing exclusively on Darfur (the UN Mission in Sudan [UNMIS] peace support operation in southern Sudan, deployed following the January 2005 "Comprehensive Peace Agreement," is a complex topic in itself, and cannot be easily or unambiguously assessed; it is certainly not readily folded into the issues I see before us in Darfur).

Currently there are, according to the UN, more than 4.3 million conflict-affected civilians in Darfur, and perhaps another 1 million in eastern Chad, including not only 260,000 Darfuri refugees, but almost 200,000 Chadian Internally Displaced Persons, and hundreds of thousands of Chadian host families that have been severely affected by the spill-over from Darfur and Chad's many indigenous political, economic, and military problems.

There is no peace to keep in Darfur; and in eastern Chad the success of the European Union force (EUFOR) is far from clear, though it seems likely to provide significant security if the force is able to maintain its independence from longstanding French military presence, which has in the past supported the cruel regime of Idriss Déby. Even so, eastern Chad hardly has a peace to keep and in too many ways resembles Darfur. UN DPKO recommended strongly that EUFOR be four times the deployment goal of approximately 4,000 personnel.

The question I see before us in thinking about the UN/African "Hybrid" Mission in Darfur (UNAMID), with the Chapter 7 authority of Resolution 1769 (July 2007), is not whether peace can be "kept" or "enforced," but whether more than 4 million highly distressed civilians will face the coming rainy season/hunger gap without humanitarian assistance. For make no mistake about it: humanitarian organizations, with whom I speak regularly, including those of the UN, are all at the breaking point.

They operate in security conditions that would preclude the entry of humanitarian organizations in any other circumstances. Organizations and workers stay because they know the cataclysmically destructive consequences of their withdrawal at this point---and what would happen to civilian security if there were no international witnesses. But they all have their breaking point, and far too many are simply one violent incident away from leaving altogether or hunkering down in the el-Fasher and Nyala (el-Geneina, capital of West Darfur, would be too dangerous were security to deteriorate any further).

Some measure of civilian security, and security for critically necessary humanitarian operations, is all that UNAMID will be able to provide for the foreseeable future. The securing of road corridors for UN World Food Program convoys is the most desperately urgent task, along with the introduction of Formed Police Units in the most unstable IDP camps, now housing more than 2.5 million civilians (many of these camps are tinder-boxes poised to explode, with uncontrollable consequences). We might debate about what prevents UNAMID from becoming more effective, or whether it would be adequate to keep any peace that might be negotiated in the future; I would be dismayed if we could not agree that the international community must provide as much security as possible---even in the face of variable and very considerable risks. This may not be peacekeeping in any historically recognizable form, but with so many lives at risk, I believe we need to broaden the discussion of how the military resources of the international community are used.

If UNAMID were to become actively targeted on a continuing and significant basis, indiviSenegal has in the past been quite explicit on this point, and their troops are some of the most important on the ground. There are certainly ways in which even incremental improvements in civilian and humanitarian security could be prevented by combatants on the ground in Darfur. But again, the human stakes are simply too great to ignore the potential security that UNAMID might provide.

The answer your second question is undoubtedly "yes." Promising a peacekeeping mission -- then not being able to deliver -- would be worse than not authorizing one at all. It would be worse for the credibility of the UN Security Council and UN peacekeeping, and it would be much worse for the people of Somalia. My colleagues, Patrick Duplat and Erin Weir, visited Somalia last month and concluded that: "A Security Council mandate that amounts to no more than a symbolic gesture would be one more betrayal in two de­cades of missed opportunities and broken promises." Their mission report and related briefing materials also hint towards answers to your first question: Can we take it as a given that a mission to Somalia would be as slow to generate forces as UNAMID, and if so, does that mean we should abandon the whole premise of a UN Peacekeeping mission to Somalia?

The title and contents of their report -- Proceed with Caution -- suggest that there is an urgent need to proceed, indeed to move forward vigorously with peacemaking processes that deliver substantive results before trying to deploy UN peacekeepers. Positive results from political negations will not come quickly or easily because of the peacemakers' assumption that the Transitional Federal Institutions constitute a viable, legitimate basis upon which to build a government in Somalia -- while many Somalis interviewed by the RI team view the TFG as an illegitimate body propped up by an occupying power (Ethiopia).

I don't think that the idea of a UN peacekeeping mission to Somalia should be abandoned altogether, but I do think that there is indeed a need to proceed with extreme caution -- despite the horrendous suffering of ordinary Somali people and the natural humanitarian impulse to do "something." Again, the Brahimi report (and a couple of decades of bitter experience) point clearly to the limits of what can be accomplished by UN peacekeepers -- and to some basic preconditions for their deployment in the first place. The 14 March 2008 Report of the Secretary-General on the situation in Somalia also specifies a number of minimal requirements that should be met before Council authorizes an integrated UN mission for Somalia. The most important are viable agreements on political power-sharing, legalization of the economy, laying-down of arms and monitoring of heavy weapons, respect for human rights, facilitation of humanitarian assistance, and development of governing institutions at the central and local levels. The Secretary-General adds that the majority of the parties should state their agreement to the deployment of an integrated United Nations peacekeeping operation and commitment to support the implementation of its mandate.

The last condition will obviously no be met before there is real political compromise and accommodation, and if there are no solid agreements in place, then no member state is likely to step forward and volunteer troops and police towards the recommended total of 28,500 uniformed peacekeepers. Even with the requisite agreements in place, force generation will not be easy. Under his best case scenario, the S-G warns that contingents deploying to Somalia will require protection from an array of direct and indirect fire weapons and IEDs, and that troop contributors would have to come up with armored vehicles, electronic IED countermeasures, EOD capabilities, air reconnaissance assets, well-equipped medical facilities and "a robust quick reaction force to extricate force elements if required." In addition, the envisaged concept of operations requires transport and attack helicopters and a range of other mission enablers that are as scarce as hens' teeth, if Darfur is anything to go by.

In short, if UN peacekeeping is to survive a second major test in Somalia, there is a very obvious need to heed past lessons and the S-G's advice, to take a hard look at present realities, and to observe at least the one Brahimi recommendation I mentioned last week: "The Security Council should leave in draft form resolutions authorizing missions with sizeable troop levels until such time as the Secretary-General has firm commitments of troops and other critical mission support elements, including peace-building elements, from Member States." These he won't get, of course, unless there are credible political agreements in place and broad consent among the parties to UN deployment -- if not a peace to keep.

Mark makes an interesting point---that the proposed mission to Somalia may be the straw that breaks the camels back. Still, it seems as if we are inching ever closer to the authorization of a large peacekeeping force there. My question is this: Can we take it as a given that a mission to Somalia would be as slow to generate forces as UNAMID, and if so, does that mean we should abandon the whole premise of a UN Peacekeeping mission to Somalia? Another way of putting this is: Is promising a peacekeeping mission--then not being able to deliver--a worse outcome than not authorizing the mission in the first place?

If we accept the fact that UNAMID is a failure, then we need to ask a number of questions as to why. Questions that produce answers that go beyond the obvious point that mandates are too convoluted and that peacekeeping is overstretched, and that produce useful lessons -- for example, for the Security Council as it continues to consider authorizing a UN mission for Somalia.

I will touch on some of these, but first want to make the point that failure implies blame. Should Rodolphe Adada and General Martin Agwai be blamed for UNAMID failure? Obviously not at this point; they cannot be expected to deliver effectively on an ambitious mandate with only a third of their authorized peacekeepers on the ground. UNAMID points not so much to mission failure, but rather to a failure to deploy: To a failed force generation process; to failures in analysis and decision-making -- not in El Fasher, but in New York City; and to the failure of UN member states to pony up what they promised.

A number of reasons for UNAMID's failure to deploy that have been bandied about over the past months, often together with apportionment of blame. Council and DPKO blame Khartoum for its obstructionism, Khartoum blames DPKO for not getting its act and its mission assets together, and DPKO blames member states for not proving helicopters and other mission enablers -- and for pledging troop contingents that are not up to standard and that lack means of sustainment in the field. There is plenty of blaming being done, and there are plenty of excuses being made. However, the biggest failure is arguably that of the Security Council, especially, to implement a number of fundamental recommendations that were made years ago -- and a failure of DPKO to insist to Council that these should be heeded.

I refer of course to the August 2000 Report of the Panel on United Nations Peace Operations, better known as the Brahimi Report. This report, which Bill Durch played a big role in producing, is the most definitive study of peacekeeping "lessons learned" ever produced, and contains the most practical and sensible recommendations ever made about how to improve peacekeeping. Many of the Brahimi recommendations have been ignored in the process of standing up UNAMID. However the following two that have obvious explanatory value for the failure to deploy the full mission in Darfur (within 90 days, according to Brahimi standards):

• The Security Council and the Secretariat must be able to win the confidence of troop contributors that the strategy and concept of operations for a new mission are sound and that they will be sending troops and police to serve under a competent mission with effective leadership.
• The Security Council should leave in draft form resolutions authorizing missions with sizable troop levels until such time as the Secretary-General has firm commitments of troops and other critical mission support elements, including peace-building elements, from Member States.

Peacekeeping is overstretched, but I do not think it is broken. There are too many missions currently deployed that are doing a good job. But the camel's back must have a breaking point, and authorizing a mission in Somalia while ignoring past lessons and sound recommendations may well be the last straw.

Determining the success of a peace operation implies a longitudinal evaluation of where a country such as Cambodia or Mozambique or Sierra Leone is today. It involves a focus not just on the security dimension, but also on aspects of democracy, governance, economy and development.

On the other hand, the multi-functionality of contemporary peace operations and the perceived need to incorporate peace-building aspects as early as possible in the mission, means that longer-term concerns are also pertinent to attempts to determine success in a particular peace operation.

However, mission complexity and the integration of many elements -- from disarmament to civilian protection and the promotion of gender equity, human rights, and democracy -- into the mandate of a single mission also provides a ready excuse for short-term failures. Where interventions are conceived as multifaceted and multi-agency affairs, culpability becomes blurred, as does the ability to actually to learn from failure. Obviously, long-term outcomes matter, but so do short-term outcomes (like saving the lives of 800,000 Rwandans). When tens of thousands of people have been killed and many more are likely to be killed, the challenge of creating a functioning democracy is not really the burning issue.

It is easier to determine failures if one concentrates on the mandate of a single element of the mission - the force, which is also the largest and most expensive, and which has since 1999 had a common task in all
missions: To protect civilians under imminent threat of violence, etc. In terms of ongoing missions, then, it is easy to point to UNAMID as a big failure in terms of its delivery of secure environment for the host population and for other mission elements and humanitarian actors.

MONUC also does not measure up well, given the massive displacement and gross human rights abuses that have continued in the east for more than a year after the mission oversaw national and provincial elections.

However, such judgments are incredibly simplistic and harsh, given the lack of support for bringing UNAMID up to strength and the incredible progress MONUC made since it was launched as a small observer mission back in 1999, with a mandate to help end "Africa's first world war." It is easier and fairer to point to short-term success stories like UNMIL in Liberia. UNMIL was blessed with a relatively huge force, and was established in the wake of intense ECOWAS engagement that included some very robust operations in the '90s. This should not detract from the fact that UNMIL has provided Liberians with the foundations for creating a peaceful future and that the mission has been essential to broader regional stability. Going further back, Mozambique is clearly a much happier place than it was a decade ago - but it is difficult to assess exactly how essential OMUMOZ was to this transition.

In short, I do not think it is fair or constructive to judge entire missions as successes or failures. All missions have had some very dedicated and courageous people on board, and several have had visionary and committed senior leaders. All have arguably done way more good than harm. Africa is certainly much better off than it would have been without UN peacekeeping engagement.

Mark and Bill make a number of great points. Mark's emphasis on the participation of permanent Council members in missions as both a signal and as a way of avoiding unrealistic mandates is very appealing. But it's interesting to note that one of the missions with most significant great power presence -- UNPROFOR in Bosnia -- was also one of the most disastrous. More broadly, I'd love to hear the input of the group on which ongoing missions have achieved the most in terms of sustainable peace and political development and which have produced the fewest results.

Permit me to wade in on both of David's comments and Mark's initial input. Getting the mandate right is like getting the re-entry angle right on Apollo capsules return from the moon: too shallow and they'd skip off into space; too deep and they'd burn up. And they couldn't be steered once re-entry started. Peacemaking and peace accords set the initial "re-entry angle" for peace implementation: too shallow and the polity doesn't recover (Haiti 1994+); too deep and the commitment may burn out (Somalia then, perhaps Afghanistan now). As I tell my students, the international community has the resources for many shallow or a few deep interventions but not both and not in big places. Unlike Apollo, mandates can be steered, but ultimate results may be above their pay grade. Thus, MONUC in DRC evolved from protected observation into a big, violent holding action but its problems will not be solved by whatever the mission might do, even with different nationalities in its troop makeup, because the fundamental problem is higher-grade, in the political leadership decisions of Congo, the surrounding states, and those in Congo who periodically serve as their proxies. The "weight to do right" must be felt in those capitals. Darfur is not even, as yet, a holding action, its fate tied more closely to politics in Khartoum than to whatever peacekeepers might manage to do in the field.

Regarding David's note on the novelty of developed state participation in complex UN ops: it was norm for a few years after the Cold War, with large Western contingents in UNPROFOR (Bosnia -- Britain, France, Spain, the Netherlands, and the Nordics) and UNOSOM II (Somalia -- US, France, Italy, Australia, Belgium). Plus Rwanda (Belgium again). Since then, command and control complaints have been the excuse for non-participation in UN ops but Western hands were all over the control levers in Bosnia, Somalia, and Rwanda. But the issue of whether UN C2 has improved enough in 15 years is mooted by western commitments of troops under other flags (NATO, EU).

I agree with Mark that the gap between the Security Council's mandates and what is achievable on the ground has often been startling. In part, this is just hope prevailing over good sense. But it also reflects a deeper reality: when the Security Council authorizes a mission, it may actually be less concerned with the situation on the ground than it is with the political effect of the action at home or vis-a-vis other Council states. This points to an important political role that peacekeeping missions can play: providing political cover for the Great Powers. Historically, peacekeeping evolved in this way and, in a sense, little has changed. The early observer missions to Palestine and then the larger Suez mission in 1956 were explicitly designed to help major powers out of tight spots. Having small states provide troops made sure that the peacekeeping forces didn't themselves become triggers for great power conflict. Obviously, there have been exceptions to the rule that peacekeeping contributors should be small states and "middle powers." (The British have contributed large numbers of troops to several missions, including Cyprus and Bosnia.)

It's important to keep this context in mind, however. In the larger geopolitical game, peacekeeping forces have been buffers between the major powers. Bill Durch suggests that the major powers -- or at least more developed states -- should start providing manpower for the missions. I think he may be right. But we should acknowledge that this would be a significant conceptual shift and that it might involve political complications. The danger of great power conflagration is much reduced, though it will obviously be prudent to keep certain great powers out of certain regions. China has shown increased interest in peacekeeping, and there was grumbling by human rights activists about the participation of Chinese personnel (mainly engineers) in Sudan. The great powers have troops, but they also bring some heavy political baggage.

David Bosco raises a legitimate concern about "bang for the buck". However, it is very difficult to measure results with any degree of accuracy when mission mandates are increasingly broad and often patently-over ambitious. I'd like to turn the question around, and ask if mandating authorities (like the UN, EU and AU) are not expecting way too much of peacekeeping -- regardless of the financial costs?

For example, UN Secretariat officials repeatedly warned of the overwhelming obstacles to deployment to Darfur, but their warnings went unheeded by a Security Council that mandated 26,000 uniformed peacekeepers for the mission -- with one of the main mandate elements being implementation of the defunct Darfur Peace Agreement.

The African Union Mission in Somalia managed to deploy only a quarter of its authorized strength of 8,000 due to a combination of logistical constraints, financial shortfalls, and a lack of peace to keep. With only 2,000 AU troops in Somalia and only 9,000 in Darfur, in March 2008 the UN Security Council was seriously debating the notion of deploying 28,000 UN troops to Somalia.

The widening gap between aspirations and the implementation of successful peace operations is very evident. The multi-billion dollar question is: How do we close this gap? By simply saying "enough" and retreating from the peacekeeping enterprise, as happened in the mid '90s after the last big peak in global peace operations and some nasty experiences in the Balkans and Africa? By trying to expand the available means with the likes of the US-sponsored Global Peace Operations Initiative (GPOI), which aims to train a total of 75,000 peacekeeping troops -- mostly Africans -- by the year 2010? By commissioning another expert panel, like the one led by Lakhdar Brahimi in 2000 which produced very substantive recommendations on how to get the operational mechanics of UN peace operations right? Or by taking a really hard look at the mandate end and the peacemaking processes that precede the crafting of seemingly impossible mission mandates?

Even as we discuss the logistical, manpower, and financial pressures on DPKO, I hope we do not leave aside the question of what precisely the international community is getting for its (admittedly modest) investment in peacekeeping. Is the current crop of missions producing political and humanitarian results? The UN, of course, endured intense soul searching during the 1990s about the efficacy of peacekeeping in the wake of the Bosnia and Rwanda missions. Today's missions are far less scrutinized but I suspect that has more to do with a distracted media than it does an easing of the operational dilemmas facing peacekeepers in the field.

First, just so we're clear, DPKO has been growing -- nominally, 25 percent in the past year alone -- just not as fast as its operational commitments. Eight years ago, 520 people in New York supported roughly 40,000 military, police, and civilian personnel in the field. Today, about 1,200 support up to 140,000 mission personnel who work in more violent places than before (like eastern DR Congo, south Sudan, and Darfur).

Exactly how many work where at what time is hard to measure, as it takes the UN many months to fill a new position in NY or in the field. That inability to respond fast (apparently treasured by many of its member states), the growing combat risks posed by new missions, and the sheer size of the enterprise (spread over nearly 20 countries on four continents) mean that the UN is indeed approaching the breaking point (as it not only has to staff 140,000 field positions but find rotation replacements for most of them every 6-12 months). Pile on the departure in June of Under­secretary-general Jean-Marie Guehenno, who has ably managed UN peacekeeping's expansion for nearly eight years, and the simultaneous scattering of UN personnel across NYC as their iconic but aging headquarters is gutted and rebuilt, and you have the makings of a severe morale and management crisis.

UN peacekeeping has a future if only because it will take years to finish the tasks it has already started, and because NATO is already jammed in Afghanistan, the EU risk-averse (though its new "battle groups" make ideal reinforcements for UN operations in crisis), and the African Union is broke. The AU has ambitious plans for peacekeeping but nothing like the money it needs, and donor train-and-equip programs may suck funds from development and good governance -- and bad governance breeds war. So, UN peace­keeping has a future; it would be a better one if more developed state troops showed up on UN rosters outside the Middle East or if those same states paid their share of UN mission costs on time. UN PK costs $6.7 billion a year but its arrears are a fairly steady $2 billion, and it can't borrow (at US insistence) even to stop wars (making for two-edged irony). When short of funds, it pays vendors first and troop contributors last. Both are needed but vendors quit sooner. Still, no troops, no peacekeeping. Tick, tock.

As Bill Durch aptly points out in the paper (pdf), the surge in UN peacekeeping has been neither met by commensurate increases in the number of staff in the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO), nor by commensurate increases in the funding streams available to DPKO. Is peacekeeping reaching its breaking point? Is there a future for UN peacekeeping? If so, what can be done to boost peacekeeping's capacity to deal with the multitude of challenges it faces?

On January 20, 2009, the next President will have a unique opportunity to create a new global agenda for the United States and right the course of America's foreign policy. William Durch, from the Stimson Center, has published a paper (pdf), through the Better World Campaign, that discusses the importance of confronting the challenges and opportunities of UN peacekeeping through that agenda.

To foster that discussion, UN Dispatch and Foreign Policy Passport are hosting an online salon, in which the following have graciously agreed to participate:

• David Bosco
• William Durch
• Tod Lindberg
• Mark Malan
• Eric Reeves

Mark Goldberg and Blake Hounshell, the Web editor at Foreign Policy, will moderate.

Over the next few days, they will discuss Bill's ideas, as well as their own. We hope you will join this discussion too. You can submit comments, subscribe to the salon RSS feed, bookmark the salon archive, or submit your own ideas on OnDayOne.org. Enjoy.