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".<!--break-->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 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.<!--break-->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).<!--break-->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? <!--break-->