UN peacekeeping operations (catch all)

[davidbfpo]

Excluding the now quite small UK contingent in Cyprus, with UNCYPF, the UK has ten military personnel wearing a blue beret. Although the UK does pay a lot for peacekeeping by others.

The price in blood others paid:

The tragic loss of 456 UK service personnel in Afghanistan between 2001 and 2016 has quite rightly dominated the media in the UK but how many of us are aware that 1,733 UN peacekeepers have also died in the line of duty during the same period?

Link:http://defenceindepth.co/2016/03/02/...-back-in-blue/

[davidbfpo]

A NYT article by Anthony Banbury, an American senior UN official who has resigned after thirty years service. Here is key reason:

But in terms of its overall mission, thanks to colossal mismanagement, the United Nations is failing.

His slim Wiki bio:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Banbury

Some harsh comments on several UN peacekeeping missions: Haiti, Mali and CAR too.
Link:http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/20/op...ling.html?_r=0

[davidbfpo]

A book review spotted today via twitter of 'The fog of peace: a memoir of international peacekeeping in the 21st century'. By Jean-Marie Guhenno. Washington DC: Brookings Institution Press:http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/1...346.12564/epdf

Here is one passage:

The fog of peace is not only one of the very best books to have been written about UN peacekeeping for a long time; it is one that also offers profound insights into the political, practical and moral dilemmas and challenges presented by international eorts, through the UN, to address the causes and consequences of violent conflict in the early twenty-first century.

[davidbfpo]

An article on the very few, four Casspir MRAP vehicles deployed in Mali, with the Chadian-Guinean contingent:http://armamentresearch.com/the-cass...nusma-in-mali/

The Casspir is part of the South African "family" of COIN vehicles from the "bush wars" of the apartheid era. In Mali they are not so heavily armed.

[davidbfpo]

I know South Sudan is lurching, again, into a civil war, but just spotted a Tweet two days old from People's China Daily:

1 Chinese peacekeeper killed, another 6 injured in continuing fighting in Juba, South Sudan, July 10

Not seen that in the BBC's reporting.

Updated from the BBC's long backgrounder on the fighting includes:

Two Chinese UN peacekeepers and one South Sudanese UN worker were among those killed in the fighting.

Link:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-36772762

[davidbfpo]

I have always wondered whether South Korea, with its large military, was a UN troop contributor:

As of June 2016, the ROK Armed Forces had 1,108 soldiers supporting peacekeeping missions in 13 countries.

Here is the answer:http://blog.keia.org/2016/07/south-k...urrent-status/

Oddly the official ROK Foreign Affairs website states in January 2016:

...a total of 647 Korean military officers have been deployed to 6 different PKO missions.

The vast majority (officers and men) were then in South Sudan and The Lebanon
Link:http://www.mofa.go.kr/ENG/policy/pko...enu=m_20_50_10

[davidbfpo]

A WoTR article, with a mass of links, plus two graphs:http://warontherocks.com/2016/10/pla...ent-extremism/

A key section:

Nearly two-thirds of U.N. military peacekeepers and 90 percent of total U.N. personnel deployed today operate in countries experiencing sustained violent conflict rather than a negotiated truce. In other words.....there is no peace to keep in many of these conflicts.

Contingencies for peacekeeping operations are increasingly complex and call for robust capabilities to impose security instead of relying on the permission of opposing parties.