Foreign Policy magazine had a good post on the limitations of peacekeeping and the Obama Administration promise for more resources for the Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO).  One particular paragraph struck me as worthy of comment:

Peacekeeping can only deal with symptoms; but a secondary question is whether it can even do that in the kinds of settings that most concern the United States and the West. The scale of the killing and mayhem in the nightmare zones of sub-Saharan Africa — where so much peacekeeping has been concentrated — constitute a pressing moral obligation as well as a genuine, but secondary, national security interest.

Peacekeeping operations are often a balancing act between humanitarian intervention and the desire for stability.  Wars end one of two ways: (1) a decisive victory by one of the parties to the conflict or (2) without a conclusive victory due to exhaustion of the belligerents.  Edward Luttwak published a very controversial article on the premature termination of hostilities by the international community in the interest of humanitarian intervention.  When hostilities are terminated prior to the culmination of violence and either victory of exhaustion, the seeds are sown for the conflict to resume in the future.  His proposal is to foster stability by not intervening prematurely.

There is certainly a place for peacekeeping to provide a secure environment after conflict, and to staff and administer disarmament and demobilization of combatants  as part of peace settlements, but Luttwak is probably right that a forced settlement imposed from outside does just create conditions for future conflict to erupt.  But this leaves the UN stuck with their mandate under Article 1 and Chapter VII of the UN charter.  When pacific settlement of disputes is rejected by the belligerents and under the contemporary principle of responsibility to protect (R2P) what is the UN to do?  The UN must intervene according to the organization’s mandate and the need to protect civilians, even if this means that it exposes peacekeepers to attack by insurgents and the UN peacekeepers may not be equipped to execute the mission.  The promise for a rapid reaction force and more lethal and logistic equipment is a start.  Although the interventions are probably hopeless in creating conditions for a lasting peace.