United for Peace of Pierce County, WA - We nonviolently oppose the reliance on unilateral military actions rather than cooperative diplomacy.

A background piece published Saturday in the Financial Times of London reviewed the factors that have swelled the U.N peacekeeping budget to triple the U.N.'s non-military expenditure and caused anxieties that "the growing demands on the world's 'Blue Helmet' forces are running out of control."[1] -- Plans are under review at the U.N. to "field about 90,000 uniformed personnel worldwide in the year from July," Harvey Morris reported, a 10% increase from last year and three times the number deployed (and the amount expended) in 2003. -- There is also a north-south dimension to the concerns: "The average peacemaker is likely to be an Indian, Pakistani, or Bangladeshi," Morris said. "The three states, with well-equipped armies, supply about a third of all U.N. forces deployed. -- But, although peacekeeping amounts almost to an export industry for a poor country such as Bangladesh, these traditional suppliers now find themselves at their limit and increasingly reluctant to face the risks that 21st century Blue Helmets are required to run. -- While developing country forces man most U.N. posts around the world, the U.S., and Europe broadly opt for missions under NATO, European Union, or national flags. This has fuelled resentment that developing countries fill most posts while the permanent five members of the Security Council — the U.S., U.K., France, Russia, and China — maintain control." -- Why the rapid increase in peacekeepers? -- "U.N. peacekeeping is undergoing its second and this time much larger surge since the end of the Cold War," Morris noted. -- "Before the Soviet collapse, superpower rivalries limited the scope for international responses to regional conflicts. In the 1990s, crises in the Balkans, Somalia, Cambodia, and elsewhere saw troop levels rise eight-fold to almost 80,000. Then came the U.N.'s failure to prevent the 1994 genocide in Rwanda and the 1995 massacre in Srebrenica, Bosnia. After this, U.N. member states turned away from the organization for peacekeeping initiatives. But with unrest simmering in many parts of the world, the Security Council is under pressure to respond and its answer is often to put boots on the ground. The DPKO [the Department of Peacekeeping Operations, which now has some 27,000 civilian auxiliary posts] is obliged to carry out its instructions, sometimes against its better judgment." -- Another problem: "Officials worry that the Security Council is too ready to order the deployment of peacekeepers to theaters such as Darfur, Chad, or Somalia where there is as yet no peace to keep. Traditionally, the Blue Helmets were not intended for a fire-fighting role. Their job was to monitor ceasefires between previously warring parties or to act as a buffer between them. Nowadays, in a range of crises worldwide, but principally in Africa, they risk finding themselves in the line of fire." ...

UNITED NATIONS -- As diplomats at the United Nations prepare to sign off on the biggest peacekeeping budget in the organization's history, concerns are being raised that the growing demands on the world's "Blue Helmet" forces are running out of control.

Envoys and officials have been closeted at the U.N.'s New York headquarters for much of this month, poring over the details of a $7.3bn (4.7bn euros, £3.7bn) budget to field about 90,000 uniformed personnel worldwide in the year from July. This is 10 per cent up on last year and an almost threefold increase since 2003, in terms of cash and troops.

The soaring peacekeeping budget is also now three times as high as non-military expenditure by the UN.

It represents just 0.5 per cent of global defense spending or -- as one senior peacekeeper described it -- a "rounding up" figure in terms of U.S. military spending in Iraq. But diplomats on the U.N. General Assembly's budget committee, ultimately answerable to their national treasuries, have been pressing for cost cuts and greater efficiencies. A series of corruption scandals involving procurement of material, and cases of sexual abuse by members of some peacekeeping missions, have also fuelled demands for greater oversight.

A more fundamental worry is that a plethora of new peacekeeping mandates ordained or under consideration by the 15-member Security Council is straining the capacity of troop-contributing states and of the U.N. bureaucracy that supports the overseas missions.

"The Security Council has gone mandate crazy," says Richard Gowan of New York's Center on International Cooperation, which issues an annual global peacekeeping report. Missions strictly within the budget committee's purview currently total 15.

Mr. Gowan said growing pressure from U.N. powers to send up to 27,000 peacekeepers to Somalia, along with the completion of the trouble-plagued deployment of a similarly sized force to Sudan's Darfur province, would amount to some 60,000 troops on the ground in east Africa alone. He said that $7.3bn "might turn out to be just a staging post."

The concerns are echoed within the U.N.'s Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO), which now has some 27,000 civilian auxiliary posts -- many of which it does not have applicants to fill -- a figure 17,000 up on 2003. Officials worry that the Security Council is too ready to order the deployment of peacekeepers to theaters such as Darfur, Chad, or Somalia where there is as yet no peace to keep. Traditionally, the Blue Helmets were not intended for a fire-fighting role. Their job was to monitor ceasefires between previously warring parties or to act as a buffer between them. Nowadays, in a range of crises worldwide, but principally in Africa, they risk finding themselves in the line of fire.

The average peacemaker is likely to be an Indian, Pakistani, or Bangladeshi. The three states, with well-equipped armies, supply about a third of all U.N. forces deployed.

But, although peacekeeping amounts almost to an export industry for a poor country such as Bangladesh, these traditional suppliers now find themselves at their limit and increasingly reluctant to face the risks that 21st century Blue Helmets are required to run.

While developing country forces man most U.N. posts around the world, the U.S., and Europe broadly opt for missions under NATO, European Union, or national flags. This has fuelled resentment that developing countries fill most posts while the permanent five members of the Security Council -- the U.S., U.K., France, Russia, and China -- maintain control.

In the share-out of top jobs at the U.N., administration of peacekeeping is on its way to becoming a French fiefdom. Jean-Marie Guehenno bows out this year after eight years as head of the DPKO, with Jean-Maurice Ripert, a fellow Frenchman and his country's current U.N. envoy, the most likely candidate to replace him.

U.N. peacekeeping is undergoing its second and this time much larger surge since the end of the Cold War. Before the Soviet collapse, superpower rivalries limited the scope for international responses to regional conflicts. In the 1990s, crises in the Balkans, Somalia, Cambodia, and elsewhere saw troop levels rise eight-fold to almost 80,000. Then came the U.N.'s failure to prevent the 1994 genocide in Rwanda and the 1995 massacre in Srebrenica, Bosnia. After this, U.N. member states turned away from the organization for peacekeeping initiatives. But with unrest simmering in many parts of the world, the Security Council is under pressure to respond and its answer is often to put boots on the ground. The DPKO is obliged to carry out its instructions, sometimes against its better judgment.

"The Security Council has to be seen as doing something," says Nick Birnback of DPKO.

Post-Rwanda, the prospect of genocide in Darfur, or further loss of life in cyclone-hit Burma, inevitably prompt public calls for U.N. action.