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In order to explore these issues, this book is divided into four parts. Part I, ‘Concepts and Issues’, provides an overview of the main theoretical debates and technical issues relevant to contemporary peace operations. Chapter 1 investigates different ways of understanding peace operations and their relationship to broader processes and trends within global politics. As the number, range and complexity of peace operations has grown, so too has the number of theories and concepts used by analysts and practitioners alike to explain and understand them. Chapter 2 then develops this approach by identifying different types of peacekeepers (individual states, coalitions of states and international organizations, especially regional arrangements and the UN) and explaining how peace operations are assembled.

Part II, ‘Historical Development’, provides a narrative overview of how the theory and practice of peace operations has developed from the 1940s to the present day. Chapter 3 notes some of the historical antecedents of UN peace operations, such as the conference and congress systems of the nineteenth century, as well as the activities of the League of Nations. It focuses, however, on the main theoretical and practical developments in UN peace operations during the Cold War. The story of how peace operations continued to develop after the end of the Cold War in the crucial decade of the 1990s is the subject of chapter 4. This begins by charting how the end of superpower confrontation saw UN member states place an increasing number of demands upon peacekeepers without a requisite rethinking of the nature, role and scale of peace operations. Chapter 5 then analyses peace operations in the twenty-first century, focusing on the steady expansion of UN missions and the increasing prominence of regional organizations to satisfy the world’s growing demand for peacekeepers.

As part II demonstrates, peace operations have not evolved in straightforward ‘generations’ with clear and obvious chronological phases. The reality is far messier and linked to the distinct forms of armed conflict confronting peacekeepers. Part III, ‘The Purposes of Peace Operations’ (chapters 6–11), therefore offers a conceptual framework supported by short practical case studies that highlight the distinct strategic objectives peace operations are intended to achieve. We focus here on the strategic intent behind these operations rather than on the means employed to achieve them. We identify six strategic purposes for peace operations.

 Prevention: Conducted with the consent of the host state, preventive deployments envisage peacekeepers either preventing the outbreak of violent conflict or avoiding another form of crisis from materializing.

 Observation: This is the hallmark of ‘traditional peacekeeping’ where peacekeepers are deployed to monitor ceasefire agreements and act as a confidence-building mechanism, thereby hopefully facilitating peacemaking between the conflict parties. Such observation missions take place in the period between a ceasefire and a political settlement to the conflict.

 Assistance: These multidimensional operations involve the deployment of military, police and civilian personnel to assist the conflict parties in the implementation of a political settlement or the transition from a peace heavily supported by international actors to one that is self-sustaining. They tend to take place after both a ceasefire and a political settlement have been reached. The mandate of such operations revolves around the implementation of the peace settlement and responding to the negative legacies of the armed conflict, such as humanitarian strife, displaced populations, and disarmament, demobilization and reintegration (DDR) issues.

 Enforcement: Peace enforcement operations aim to impose the will of the UN Security Council upon some or all of the parties to a particular armed conflict. Peace enforcement operations are relatively rare but are the closest manifestation of the collective security role originally envisaged for the UN by the authors of its Charter, though they have tended to depart from that vision in important respects.

 Stabilization: These multidimensional but usually military-heavy operations are intended to facilitate a transition from war to peace in the context of failed or partial peace agreements and where organized violence continues. As part of this remit, they are mandated to degrade and contain designated ‘spoilers’, deliver short-term peace dividends to local populations, and support the extension and consolidation of host-state authority.

 Administration: These are also multidimensional operations deployed after a peace agreement, but they are distinguished by their assumption of sovereign authority over a particular territory. In addition to keeping the peace, protecting civilians, supporting peace agreements, and the other activities associated with large and complex operations, transitional administrations have the authority to make and enforce the law, exercise control over aspects of a territory’s economy, infrastructure and borders, regulate the media, and administer the judicial system. In their liberal variant, they are designed to help establish liberal democratic political systems and societies within states as an antidote to future war.

These strategic goals have not developed in chronological order. Nor are they mutually exclusive. A single operation may well pursue various strategic aims at different times or more than one simultaneously. We have made extensive use of case studies in part III to illustrate the complexities encountered by individual missions.

Having so far considered the theoretical debates surrounding peace operations, their historical development, and their different strategic objectives, part IV, ‘Contemporary Challenges’, assesses some of the major operational problems facing peacekeepers for the foreseeable future. The challenges considered in this part of the book can be categorized into two broad types. The first revolves around the problem of satisfying the global demand for peacekeepers. Chapters 12 to 14 therefore examine the challenges of force generation as well as two alternative sources of peacekeepers to augment the UN’s efforts, namely, the use of regional arrangements and private contractors. The second set of challenges for contemporary peace operations revolves around the expansion of their scope and gradual professionalization. In particular, chapters 15 to 20 focus on six of the most prominent areas that have seen major expansion: the use of force, civilian protection, gender, policing, organized crime and exit.

Ten years on from the second edition of Understanding Peacekeeping, it remains our conviction that peace operations play a vitally important role in managing armed conflict, supporting stable peace and – increasingly – protecting endangered populations. Through past experience and theoretically informed analysis, we have a better understanding today of what it takes to build stable peace and the roles peacekeepers can play in the process. Although this has created significant global demand for peace operations, peacekeepers are still frequently sent on difficult missions without the necessary resources and political support. We hope this book can help people understand why they deserve both.