Peacekeeping Forces in the International System

The role of foreign peacekeepers in the international system changes with respect to each major IR theory– Realism, Liberalism, and Radicalism. The demand for peacekeeping forces as a moral imperative in certain circumstances has also become a norm of the international system.

Realists, seeing the world as inherently anarchic, would view peacekeepers as a tool to strengthen power, both politically and militarily. Because of the anarchic nature of the world, nations are inherently insecure and constantly in search of security. This insecurity would be increased further if other nations began to suffer from internal strife and chaos, in the form of protests, uprisings or revolutions. A powerful nation might feel even more threatened because of the possibility that another nation’s political and/or social systems could collapse. It is in the best interests of a powerful nation to send peacekeepers into nations plagued by violence, in order to ensure its own safety, but doing so also ensures a more stable international system.

Instead of seeing the world as anarchic, liberals focus on cooperation and view the international system as a process, not a structure. Much like realists, liberals are also concerned with security, but they also recognize the social and economic issues associated with the international system. Thus, liberals would view peacekeepers as an effective means to achieve improvement in social and economic spheres of nations struggling with violence. Liberals would also rely heavily upon a variety of actors, not just individual states. Peacekeepers would be deployed from international organizations, nongovernmental organizations and other actors that realists generally don’t recognize.

 The radical view on the international system is based on stratification: the core, the periphery, and the semi-periphery. Within this stratification, there exists a disparity of possession of natural resources, military power, and economic strength mainly between the core (developed states) and the periphery (developing states), in which the core is always at the advantagous end of the spectrum. Accordingly, radicals would see the role of peacekeeping forces in foreign states as a means for the core to gain more advantages over the periphery. For example, many countries such as Somalia and Nigeria possess a wealth of natural resources, but, being developing states (periphery), they lack the infrastructure and political stability to use them to the advantage of the entire state. When looking at Somalia in particular, the country has oil deposits that could prove lucrative for the state if it were politically capable. Ethiopia has employed a military “peacekeeping” force in Somalia. Though by no means considered a “core” state, Ethiopia has more political stability and infrastructure than Somalia, but not the resources. It is thus in the position to take advantage of Somalias political situation in order to gain access to its natural oil stores and increase the security of its own borders, if not extend them unofficially.

Lastly, the tragedy of the holocaust during World War II sparked an international moral imperative for developed states to intervene during the occurrence of genocide or other large-scale human rights violations. This moral imperative leads to the demand for multi-lateral initiatives, the majority of which involve peacekeeping forces. International institutions like the United Nations and the African Union have been pressured, for example, to intervene in the Rwandan Genocide, the civil war in the DRC, the civil war in Somalia, and most recently, the Darfurian Genocide. Despite their efforts, however, peacekeeping forces overall have had little effect since the push for their implementation came to be established as a norm in the international system. In most cases, forces are either deployed too late in a crisis situation, or not enough forces are deployed to produce a substantial effect. It thus comes as a surprise that such lack of real success has not deterred their demand. The most recent push has culminated in the proposal of the largest peacekeeping force documented to be sent to stabilize the Darfurian genocide– a military body to number 26,000 troops. Whether or not such a force will be effective is in question, but it seems to suffice for the constituents of the international society to know that international institutions are making an effort.