Issue No. 93

The Slow Death of Peacekeeping

The heyday of multilateralism appears to be well and truly over, with nearly all bodies, from the UN to the African Union to the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), increasingly depleted and wrestling with crises of legitimacy and relevance in 2025. The erosion of the norms that underpinned these institutions that have anchored the international peace and security architecture has many origins-- and many casualties. Principal among the losses from this multilateral decline has been peacekeeping operations, with the traditional international community ever less willing to invest in cumbersome, multinational missions. Yet the Horn of Africa still hosts two-- increasingly fraught-- peacekeeping missions in Somalia and South Sudan.

This decline of peacekeeping is rooted in the broader collapse of the effective multilateral system, being replaced by a far more ad hoc system, one perhaps better defined by aggressive Middle Powers and transactionalist foreign policy. Created in a particular post-World War II bipolar context, the UN and others are adrift, and with no easy solutions for the climate crisis and illiberal globalisation that is flourishing. In the space of Pax Americana, we are entering –or returning perhaps– to a phase of global politics akin to the wars of conquest of the 17th and 18th centuries. Gold, data, land, rare earth minerals, and strategic waterways are all up for grabs, and the Horn of Africa is one of the frontlines of this shifting global order. But with shrinking budgets and eyes trained on Russian aggression, European coffers are being directed more sharply and closer to home, while the US continues to retrench from decades of its established foreign policy. 

In these days of 'might is right,' little consideration is being given to peacekeeping operations, protection of civilians, or the principle of the Responsibility to Protect. The track record of multilateral peacekeeping deployments is more chequered and inherently more political than many have been framed, underwritten mainly by the US. In theory, though, large, multi-national deployments – funded primarily by Western donors – were justified as tools for stabilisation and democratic transition. Many have served in important roles, providing civilians with safe zones amidst wars or policing contested boundaries, such as in Abyei. However, in many countries wrestling with endemic conflict and insurgencies where these operations have been conducted, a fatigue has set in regarding their efficacy and relevance today. 

Part of the long-standing issue is that peacekeeping operations in the Horn have generally been established with the aim of helping to reestablish a functioning state. But in the context of South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), and Somalia, the state remains subordinated to broader dynamics of elite bargaining and capture, with restoring the 'functioning' of a state collateral to vested interests. How, then, to ensure that peacekeeping missions do not stretch on for years in contexts that make peace unlikely? This is perhaps particularly true of South Sudan, where conflict can be understood as an auction of loyalties and violence in continual flux. And these peacekeeping missions often have little space or mandate for establishing the necessary elite-level agreements to limit the violence that frequently emanates from key political actors, and particularly the government.

In turn, a gulf can exist between the security provided by these seemingly endless peacekeeping operations and what is required for the country's populations. Such weariness and frustration were central to driving the exodus of peacekeeping missions in Mali and Burkina Faso, replaced by the Russian state-aligned Wagner paramilitaries (now Afrika Korps) that have taken payment in diamonds and other minerals. Their ability to counter the jihadist movements has been far more questionable, however, and these forces have been implicated in a host of atrocities. But they have partially succeeded in their principal aim-- to protect the regime, and this trend of bilateral, covert deals to prop up ailing authorities and governments over multilateral peace forces is another broader and particularly troubling trend. And it is one that is both readily apparent in South Sudan and Somalia. With the African Union Support and Stabilisation Mission in Somalia (AUSSOM) providing some general security from Al-Shabaab, Villa Somalia has been able to deploy Turkish-sourced military material and a politicised Somali National Army (SNA) against its own domestic opposition in Jubaland. Similarly, in South Sudan, even with the UN peacekeeping mission to protect civilians present, it has not stopped Juba from aggressively courting Kampala to indiscriminately bomb villages and towns in Nasir County earlier this year.

Simultaneously, with this waning enthusiasm for larger multi-national peacekeeping models, regional forces have increasingly stepped in, at times with vested interests in the conflicts. With Western governments, whose strategic priorities have shifted elsewhere, perennial violence in South Sudan and Somalia is not perceived as of direct relevance to their own security. As a result, regional states are frequently the only actors willing – or compelled – to absorb the political and military costs of intervention, a dynamic that entrenches legitimacy deficits and ensures peacekeeping serves perhaps more strategic than protective ends. Kenya and Ethiopia, for example, have clear reasons for deploying their troops into Somalia against Al-Shabaab, with the Somali jihadist group being violently irredentist. In another and perhaps less justifiable case, such a blurred line between self-interest and 'peacekeeping' is also readily apparent in relation to Uganda, whose soldiers are supposed to be hunting the Daesh-affiliated Allied Democratic Forces in the DRC, but in reality continue to extract rare earth minerals.

Moving towards leaner, meaner operations with a regional framing appears inevitable, offering cheaper and more rapid mobilisation and logistical readiness that few external actors can match. Alongside this, such regional deployment can provide the cultural and linguistic affinities that enable them to better understand local social dynamics. But this is a double-edged sword, and partly why an unspoken rule for decades typically prevented countries from deploying their forces into neighbouring conflict zones. In Somalia's context, Ethiopia and Kenya may bring considerable military capacity, but they also carry the weight of contentious political and security histories-- which Al-Shabaab continues to exploit.

Host governments, too, are posing increasing dangers to peacekeeping operations in Somalia and South Sudan. In the past 18 months, AUSSOM has best encapsulated many of the problems with peacekeeping missions today, ranging from vested interests of neighbouring countries to funding issues to static and diminishing forces. But pre-eminent has been the repeated attempts of Villa Somalia to corral and politicise the operation. Initially, Mogadishu sought to draw down thousands of troops, insisting that the feeble SNA could somehow handle their absence in 2023 and 2024, despite the advice of AU advisors. It couldn't, and helped set the stage for Al-Shabaab sweeping across central Somalia earlier this year. That has not stopped Mogadishu, however, from calling on Ethiopian troops to withdraw from Gedo on successive occasions in the past year, amidst deteriorated relations, and threatening to deploy Egyptian soldiers along the border. 

In South Sudan, meanwhile, it is difficult to argue that the UN Mission in  South Sudan (UNMISS) is currently anything but an abject failure at delivering its primary goal of civilian protection from Juba at this current juncture. Though, of course, this can be partially attributed to issues such as diminished funding, it is also a lack of political bravery. In its caution of confronting state security forces – even in cases of documented atrocities this year -- it reflects a broader dilemma. When a host government is itself implicated in violence, an overly deferential mission risks undermining its mandate. The seeming inability of peacekeeping operations to move beyond a 20th-century focused state-building project and into the gritty realities of elite and political bargaining context in the Horn of Africa dooms them to continue ad infinitum-- and fail to protect civilians from their own government.

However, that too may be coming to an end, as the clamour for funding continues to grow, and the protection of civilians falls off the international agenda. Since 2014, no new large-scale UN peacekeeping operation has been authorised, even as global conflict has intensified and existing missions today face chronic funding shortfalls. In 2017, UN Secretary-General António Guterres signalled a shift away from "military-heavy peacekeeping" towards political solutions, but has struggled to find these either, with repeated Security Council deadlock over mandates in Syria, Gaza and other conflict zones. Amidst the wave of war crimes and severe human rights violations in recent years, one might think it was time for a rethink on the use of peacekeeping operations in, say, Sudan or Gaza. But Guterres has not budged, and the UN has continued to be diminished in its relevance and standing as a consequence of its seeming inability to reform and reinvent itself for the 21st century. 

Looking ahead, the protection of civilians in armed conflict appears certain to continue to be relegated to the back burner in the international system and agenda in the coming years, with the global surge of violence showing no sign of abating. While the liberal humanitarian and peacekeeping agendas of the 2000s were by no means perfect and desperately required greater political nous within the complex context in which they operated, many undoubtedly saved thousands of lives. The alternative is already upon us, as witnessed in Tigray, Sudan, and Gaza. And staring down the barrel of a return to the brute force of two centuries ago in such a fractured and polarised world should be of concern to all.

The Horn Edition Team