Let U.S. Lead: Peacekeeping
With 15 missions and nearly 120,000 troops and civilian personnel in the field, UN peacekeeping operations are the second largest deployed military in the world. The United States provides very few troops to these missions and other countries pick up about 75 percent of each mission’s cost. This helps us share the burden of keeping the world safe, as the U.S. cannot, and should not, shoulder the tremendous responsibility of ensuring international security alone.
H.R. 2829 would compromise global security. The legislation calls for a moratorium on new or expanded UN peacekeeping missions. This makes little sense because currently, all UN peacekeeping missions can only be created or expanded with the express support of the United States in the Security Council. If the U.S. is opposed to a mission, all it has to do is vote against it in the Security Council. U.S. vetoes do not generally happen because UN peacekeeping missions support stability, the transition to democratization, and bring relief for hundreds of millions of people. While some of the legislation’s proposed recommendations are laudable, indiscriminately hitting the pause button on peacekeeping operations until certain unrealistic reforms are met undermines our own interests. Conflict and crisis do not wait for reforms to happen.
H.R. 2829 would also set unachievable guidelines that will not lead to reform. The legislation conditions U.S. support for any new or expanded UN peacekeeping missions in the future on the achievement of unrealistic goals. The U.S. has worked hand in hand with the UN to ensure that all peacekeepers are held to a high standard of personal conduct. By requiring additional impractical guidelines for specified reforms before we pay our dues, we discount the sacrifices made every day by peacekeepers to promote stability and human rights in hotspots around the world.
