USUN: STRATEGY FOR MORE EFFECTIVE PEACEKEEPING

UNCLAS USUN NEW YORK 000193 SIPDIS SENSITIVE SIPDIS E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: PREL MOPS UNSC KPKO SUBJECT: USUN: STRATEGY FOR MORE EFFECTIVE PEACEKEEPING OPERATIONS ¶1. Sensitive but unclassified - entire text. This is an Action Cable; please see paragraphs 9 and 11. ¶2. SUMMARY AND COMMENT: UN peacekeeping effectiveness has diminished in the wake of proliferating deployments into increasingly challenging geographic, security and political environments. UN troop numbers and peacekeeping costs continue to expand, and as the UN nears the 100,000-troop mark, qualitative and quantitative shortfalls are emerging. We believe one reason for this is that the Security Council is not exercising sufficient oversight over the PKOs it creates. Too often, missions are launched without defined goals or benchmarks, and continue into perpetuity without advancing the situation on the ground. Since effective PKOs can promote U.S. national interests, the U.S. needs to take the lead in asserting Security Council oversight over PKOs with the intent of instilling a "goal-oriented" approach. This approach would put various missions on timelines for success and/or termination. The best argument for shutting down obsolete PKOs is that focus, forces and funds may be better utilized elsewhere. END SUMMARY. -------------- Proliferating Peacekeeping Operations: Numbers and Costs are Higher Than Ever Before, Straining the System -------------- ¶3. With an unprecedented 90,883 peacekeepers deployed across seventeen peacekeeping operations (as of January 2008),the UN has become the second biggest projector of force in the world. Moreover, this is nowhere near the ceiling: Security Council-mandated deployments in support of the African Union-United Nations Hybrid Operation in Darfur (UNAMID) alone should push the UN's numbers over the 100,000-person mark. In neighboring Chad and Central African Republic, the UN anticipates additional deployments in support of the UN Mission in the Central African Republic and Chad (MINURCAT), and the Security Council has instructed DPKO to begin planning for a possible UN operation in Somalia (UNSCR 1772) which would involve the deployment of as many as twenty-thousand more blue-hatted peacekeepers to replace the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM). ¶4. These growing deployments are reflected in the bulging peacekeeping budget. At over $7 billion for 2008, the peacekeeping budget is the highest ever. The U.S. bill for peacekeeping comes out to approximately $2.2 billion for FY08, more than any other Member State, nearly four times our assessed contributions for the regular budget. -------------- The Need for Greater Security Council Oversight of PKOs -------------- ¶5. As a substantial and strategically significant investment, we have a strong interest in ensuring that UN peacekeeping is as effective as possible. Historically, PKOs have often been launched swiftly in response to perceived crises, and then have continued without substantial review or oversight by the Security Council. The result is an insufficient focus on how to develop and advance the political and humanitarian Lines of Operation (LOO) in a given country so that as the security LOO improves, real progress can be made towards ending the conflict. Missions thus continue in perpetuity without benchmarks to help assess progress, and without a clear strategy towards advancing the situation on the ground. Mandate renewals are largely pro forma, without substantive and objective analysis and discussion. The sum of these problems is a missed opportunity for more effective peacekeeping that genuinely improves the lives of people caught in conflict. ¶6. Therefore, it is our view that a shift in thinking is required. Instead of rubber-stamping existing PKOs, the Security Council needs a mandate renewal process that takes account of an objective assessment of the viability and efficacy of a given PKO, emphasizes accountability within a strategic framework, and, where appropriate, seriously considers termination of PKOs. Furthermore, as new PKOs are considered, mandates should have clear mission statements built around goals, timelines and clear cost assessments. ¶7. The result should be a framework in which the Security Council can evaluate proposed PKOs for viability before authorization, and assess the progress of existing PKOs against actual benchmarks as they continue on. -------------- The U.S. Must Lead the Security Council Towards A Goal-Oriented Approach to Peacekeeping -------------- ¶8. The U.S. will have to lead this approach, primarily by pressing through the Council to insist that the Secretariat approach planning and execution with a goal-oriented approach before a new operation is created, and also by emphasizing that mandate renewals will be the tool to ensure that existing operations are on track. ¶9. In order to be prepared to do so effectively, we must have our own internal assessment process in place. Our concept is the formation of a compact interagency team that can analyze both existing and proposed PKOs and offer strategic assessments along political, military, and budgetary lines. The team would analyze both existing and proposed peacekeeping operations. For existing PKOs, the team would evaluate the mission, objective, force structure, political component, cost and lifespan, and make recommendations as to whether the PKO is effective and warranted on its merits, and what adjustments could be made to ensure its efficacy. For those that termination is recommended for, a second-order analysis could then be conducted to analyze whether the PKO is in fact necessary for other (political and/or diplomatic) reasons. As part of this approach, our various Posts need to be proactively and systematically tasked to respond with field assessments as to how a given operation is proceeding, and this input should be incorporated into the analysis. Then, specific questions to pose for the Council and the UN Secretariat would be developed by this team as each mandate SIPDIS is coming up for renewal, to encourage a rigorous and thoughtful renewal and/or termination of mandates. For new PKOs, the team would help craft mandates with clear mission statements built around goals, timelines and clear cost assessments. (ACTION REQUEST #1: USUN requests that the Department respond to this proposal.) ¶10. A perfect opportunity to implement this approach is with the current planning for a UN follow-on PKO to AMISOM in Somalia. We intend to ask the tough questions of DPKO early on in the planning process in order to know what we are walking into before the Security Council stands up another PKO. For example, we expect DPKO to include three courses of action and associated costs for each, and an assessment of whether or not DPKO expects that the TCCs can be found to provide the equipment and troops. Additionally, we expect DPKO to offer a likelihood of and a timeline for success. This will ensure that to the extent we consider authorization of a PKO there, it has a clear mission-oriented mandate and a reasonable chance of success. ¶11. Going forward, the same analysis should be applied to existing PKOs as their mandate renewals come up. For example, in the case of the UN Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus (UNFICYP) or the UN Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO),good arguments have been made already that the presence of peacekeepers in each country actually precludes progress towards political settlement of these conflicts. Clearly, any decision for closure must take careful consideration of the potential for renewed violence if UN troops are removed, and the full spectrum of geopolitical interests the US must balance. Nevertheless, it is incumbent on both the U.S. Government and Security Council to give due diligence to an assessment of efficacy and strategy in renewing all PKOs, including these two long-standing ones. (ACTION REQUEST #2: USUN requests an update on Department thinking as to a strategy towards the closure of UNFICYP and MINURSO, and for specific points that could be made at the respective mandate renewals to ensure a serious discussion within the Council. MINURSO mandate renewal is 30 April. UNFICYP mandate renewal is 15 June.) ¶12. Finally, the Security Council has a critical oversight role to play with respect to the behavior of the host country of a peacekeeping operation. As exemplified by the current treatment by the Eritrean government of UNMEE, host countries currently can act with impunity to render a given PKO impotent. The Council's inability to muster a substantial response to Eritrea's obstructionism calls into question the credibility of the entire mission and emboldens others to challenge similar missions in other operational theaters. The U.S. needs to be prepared to lead the Council towards an oversight process of PKOs that includes responding with political and/or other measures against the host country, and even withdrawal. -------------- Conclusion -------------- ¶13. Given the substantial investment and interest the U.S. has in peacekeeping, we should take the lead in the Security Council and elsewhere to ensure that UN peacekeeping remains viable and consistent with U.S. national interests. This would entail a rigorous up-front assessment of nascent PKOs as well as an equally thorough in-progress assessment of existing PKOs as they come up for mandate renewal in the Security Council. We should begin to press through the Council to insist that goals and timelines for a PKO are articulated before a new operation is created, and then emphasize that mandate renewals will be the tool to ensure that existing operations are on track. If, after a prescribed time period, the parties involved are not able or willing to move forward, we should be prepared to take a hard look at reducing or closing the PKO. KHALILZAD