Today’s world has no shortage of crises. War in Ukraine has returned large-scale interstate conflict to Europe. The Middle East is convulsing with widespread violence and regional escalation. The war in Sudan has produced a humanitarian catastrophe, while Haiti faces levels of gang violence and state fragility that have overwhelmed national institutions. Across many regions, armed groups, criminal networks, violent extremists, and political spoilers operate in the gray zone between war and peace. Meanwhile, mistrust among major powers has made it harder for the United Nations Security Council to act with unity and purpose.
People experiencing war, civilian suffering, and institutional collapse understandably ask: where is the U.N.? The reality is that the U.N. can act only when its member States task it, authorize it, resource it, and deploy it, and they too often lack the unity of vision needed to do so.
Not since 2014 has the Security Council authorized a new, wholly U.N.-led peacekeeping operation, despite the huge challenges facing the world. In late 2024, recognizing the scale of the challenges facing international peace and security, world leaders gathered at the Summit of the Future and tasked Secretary-General António Guterres with a review of the future of all forms of U.N. peace operations.
The secretary-general’s “Review on the future of all forms of United Nations peace operations,” circulated on Aug. 20, was drafted after extensive consultation with governments, civil society, and other partners. It covers many critical points, perhaps chief among them that all peace operations are fundamentally political, that the U.N. and the Security Council must revitalize their peacemaking role, and that political solutions require concerted international support and consistent policy toward parties in conflict to incentivize them to make peace.
This remains essential, but it also poses a practical conundrum. If member States are less able to find political solutions, but such solutions are essential to successful peace operations, should the U.N. not conclude that its peace operations machinery is becoming obsolete?
The answer is no. The U.N. must maintain its readiness so that it can be prepared to either deploy, in the event political conditions change, or support others to do so. This is also a key message of the review.
A Rare Solution – at Risk of Weakening
Over many decades, peacekeeping operations have given the international community something that remains rare: an institutionalized, legitimate, adaptable platform through which States can help contain violence, support political processes, protect civilians, accompany transitions, and prevent conflicts from spreading.
This platform is at risk of weakening just when it may be needed most. The U.N.’s peace and security toolbox is rich, but increasingly underused. Like a muscle that is not sufficiently flexed, the toolbox can atrophy. Capabilities disappear, expertise disperses, partnerships thin out, and planning cultures become reactive. Then, when a crisis arrives and member States agree that something must be done, the world discovers that the necessary instrument has been allowed to deteriorate.
That is why readiness matters. At stake is whether the U.N. can still respond when the politics align, the Security Council acts, and people in danger need more than statements of concern.
U.N. peacekeeping draws unique legitimacy from the more than 120 countries that contribute personnel. Countries from the global north and south have together built a system of readiness to deploy troops, police, and civilians anywhere in the world, with capabilities to help countries move from conflict to peace.
A Fire Brigade, Prepared
Former Secretary-General Kofi Annan used to compare peacekeeping to a fire brigade that could only acquire its fire engine after the fire had already started. Only after the Security Council authorized a mission would the secretary-general search the world for infantry battalions, field hospitals, police, helicopters, and other assets that only member States held.
That problem has been substantially addressed. The fire station has been built by member States committed to U.N. peacekeeping, who gather every 18 months at the Ministerial level to pledge to the U.N. key capabilities kept ready to deploy. Today, uniformed units generated for U.N. peacekeeping are drawn from the Peacekeeping Capability Readiness System, and those deployed to U.N. peacekeeping are assessed, verified, and brought to agreed levels of readiness before they are needed. Historically, 125 countries have provided more than 2 million peacekeepers, and 115 U.N. member States are providing troops or police now. Selected military and police units can be ready to deploy within 60 days of a U.N. request — troops, police, engineers, medical units, aviation assets, and other specialized capacities identified in advance and prepared to common standards.
In other words, the fire engines are set to leave the station when the alarm sounds.
In addition to this, a global network of peacekeeping training centers also prepares troops from Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Americas with common U.N. principles and practices, giving them the basis of interoperability when they meet in a distant conflict zone.
To continue to increase this readiness, in practical terms, the review highlights what capabilities must remain ready for tomorrow across the full spectrum of peace operations. This includes special political missions as well as large, multidimensional peacekeeping operations and new forms of collaboration with partners.
The report also stresses that readiness must be adaptive: mandates, postures, and capabilities should be reviewed and adjusted as conditions change, allowing the U.N. to lean in when political openings emerge and lean out when circumstances require a different posture.
The evidence for why the U.N. and its member States should preserve this capacity is stronger than public discourse often suggests. Independent researchers have found that U.N. peacekeeping, when properly mandated and resourced, can lower the risk of renewed war, reduce levels of violence, and help protect civilians.
Cost-Effective
They are also relatively cost-effective. The current annual budget for U.N. peacekeeping is less than $5.1 billion, meaning that the world spends more on its militaries in a single day than it does on U.N. peacekeeping for an entire year.
It is financed through a unique burden-sharing system: all member States are legally obligated to pay an assessed share, apportioned by a U.N. General Assembly formula that accounts for relative economic wealth, with the permanent members of the Security Council bearing a larger share because of the special responsibilities that come with their authorities.
Of course, the cost of managing conflict and preventing escalation is almost always lower than the cost of regional war, mass displacement, state collapse, and emergency humanitarian response. Granted, U.N. peacekeeping operations are not the answer to every war. They cannot be deployed effectively where there is no host-state consent, no viable political process, and no minimum level of unity among the States that would need to authorize and support such missions. They cannot manufacture peace where the parties are determined to continue fighting, nor are they a substitute for diplomacy, political courage, or national responsibility.
But these limits do not mean peacekeeping is obsolete – rather, they define the conditions under which it can be useful. Almost by definition, peacekeepers are sent into situations where politics are fragile, conditions are imperfect, and success is uncertain. The possibility of failure must therefore be faced candidly. If the international community wants a tool that can help stabilize volatile situations, it must accept that peacekeeping involves risk. And readiness includes the ability to manage that risk responsibly.
Political, Operational, Institutional Readiness
So, given its value, how can U.N. peacekeeping be kept ready to once again function as one of the U.N.’s pre-eminent tools?
First of all, readiness needs to be understood in a broad sense. It is not just a matter of troops on standby or money in budget lines. It is a political, operational, and institutional quality. As the secretary-general’s report makes clear, peace operations are not merely field presences, but political instruments, able to support diplomacy, help translate mandates into strategies, advise on risks and trade-offs, and provide options to member States.
This requires forward-looking analysis and scenario planning, not a culture that waits for perfect conditions, which in today’s conflicts rarely arrive. Institutionally, a U.N. that tries to avoid all risk will become strategically irrelevant. The practical challenge is to recognize when even a narrow opening can be used to reduce violence, protect civilians, or support a political process, as well as when conditions have changed so dramatically that the U.N. must adjust its posture.
A ready U.N. also is able to deploy quickly when called upon, can operate in different configurations, and can adapt as opportunities open and close. Operational readiness is the crucial prerequisite for this. Few actors are capable of deploying into tough terrain, anywhere on earth — from deserts to high mountains to rainforests — as U.N. peacekeepers have often done. When a mission is authorized, the U.N. must be able to move people, equipment, aviation assets, medical support, communications systems, and logistics into difficult environments quickly and safely. Delayed deployment can mean lost credibility, lost political momentum, and lost lives.
But speed is not enough. The conditions in which peacekeepers operate are changing rapidly. A mission established today to monitor a ceasefire, for example, would likely bear little resemblance to the observation missions of 60 years ago. To verify violations across wide areas, it would need to protect personnel from drones and improvised explosive devices, analyze satellite imagery and other data streams, communicate credibly in contested information environments, and counter mis- and disinformation designed to undermine the mission’s legitimacy.
The Haiti Mission and Others: Options and Adaptability
Haiti shows how readiness built for one purpose can give the international community options for another. The U.N. is not deploying a classic blue-helmet mission there. Instead, a U.N. support office is being established to provide logistical and operational support to a Security Council-authorized Gang Suppression Force (GSF), while the Department of Peace Operations has adapted peacekeeping training tools to support an ad hoc coalition that lacked a common pre-deployment training framework of its own.
So readiness today must include the ability to lead, support, enable, or accompany others, including regional organizations, host States, and coalitions, depending on what the politics and operational realities require. The point is to maintain a toolbox flexible enough to match the political and operational realities of each successive crisis. Crucially, the U.N.’s administrative rules must facilitate this flexibility.
Existing missions show that readiness is not only about launching something new. In South Sudan, UNMISS demonstrates the value of staying power where political solutions remain fragile and civilians face grave threats. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, MONUSCO shows how a long-running mission is adapting to fulfill its new mandated responsibilities as a result of the agreements signed by the parties. In the Central African Republic, MINUSCA has combined protection efforts with support to State authority and political processes.
None of these missions is perfect, but each shows that peace operations are platforms that can evolve as circumstances change.
The key success factors are clear political strategies, more realistic mandates, strong consent by the host State and the parties, disciplined prioritization, and better alignment between objectives and resources. Peace operations should not be asked to do everything everywhere, and they should not be given tasks that are not linked to a viable political goal.
And while cost-effectiveness and reform also need renewed attention, this need not mean a smaller, weaker, less ambitious U.N. It should not mean asking peacekeepers to protect civilians without sufficient mobility or to adapt to emerging threats with yesterday’s tools. Tomorrow’s blue helmets need to be equipped with, and permitted to use, state-of-the-art intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance tools to implement their mandates, as well as tools to counter unmanned aerial systems.
In addition to clearer mandates from the Security Council and predictable financing, today’s – and tomorrow’s – missions also need to ensure that the Secretariat (where I work as a division director within the Department of Peace Operations) has space to plan across a range of mission models, including smaller political missions, multidimensional peacekeeping operations, support offices, transition presences, and arrangements with regional organizations.
Investing Upfront to Prevent the Worst Costs Later
For civilians on the ground who are caught between armed groups and collapsing institutions, the presence of a U.N. mission can make all the difference. And strategically, in an interconnected world, conflicts rarely stay contained. They drive displacement, organized crime, food insecurity, terrorism, regional escalation, and geopolitical competition.
If the international community fails to invest early in political engagement and stabilization, it risks paying later through humanitarian emergencies, refugee flows, military interventions, and prolonged insecurity. Readiness is cheaper than regret.
But readiness, of course, must also be cost-effective. The U.N. must be clear-eyed about the budgetary pressures facing member States. That means using resources better, reducing unnecessary bureaucracy and transaction costs, accelerating decision-making, and ensuring that missions are configured based on clear political priorities. Reform is therefore not separate from readiness; it is one of its conditions.
That reform cannot be delivered by the Secretariat alone. Many of the administrative rigidities that slow peace operations are rooted in the rules, mandates, and oversight arrangements established by member States themselves. Reform must be a shared effort: the Secretariat must continue to improve performance and transparency, while member States must be prepared to delegate, prioritize, and accept the managed risks that agility requires.
Moreover, all of this works only if member States pay their dues in full and on time to finance the missions the U.N. sends into harm’s way. U.N. peacekeeping missions are facing a liquidity crisis, as unpaid and delayed contributions force missions to reduce their footprint. Troop- and police-contributing countries are also facing long delays in the compensation they are owed.
Fundamentally, the U.N. cannot impose peace by itself. It cannot overcome divisions among member States or substitute for the decisions of parties to a conflict. But when political opportunities emerge, the world needs an instrument ready to move — one that can deploy, mediate, protect, adapt, support partners, and stay the course when conditions are hard.
The choice before member States is thus whether they want the U.N. to remain a serious instrument of collective security. If they do, they must keep reforming it, while also keeping it ready, with the mandates, resources, capabilities, political backing, financing, and risk tolerance required to meet whatever crisis comes next.
