India has stressed that UN peacekeeping can only succeed if the Security Council is reformed to reflect contemporary realities, ensure wider representation, involve troop contributors, align mandates with resources, and focus on achievable political outcomes.

• The United Nations Peacekeeping Ministerial 2025 concluded in Berlin, Germany.Peacekeeping

About UN Peacekeeping

• UN Peacekeeping is a key mechanism used by the United Nations to maintain global peace and security. It operates alongside other UN efforts, including conflict prevention, peacemaking, peace enforcement, and peacebuilding.
• Components: UN peacekeeping missions are deployed to support ceasefires and peace agreements. However, modern peacekeeping has evolved into a multidimensional effort that goes beyond military presence. It involves:
• • Facilitating Political Processes: Supporting negotiations and governance structures.
  • Protecting Civilians: Ensuring the safety of vulnerable populations in conflict zones.
  • Disarmament, Demobilization, and Reintegration (DDR): Assisting former combatants in transitioning to civilian life.
  • Election Support: Helping organize and oversee free and fair elections.
  • Human Rights and Rule of Law: Promoting justice, accountability, and governance reforms.

Evolution of UN Peacekeeping

• Origins in 1948: The first UN peacekeeping mission, the United Nations Truce Supervision Organization (UNTSO), was deployed to monitor the Arab-Israeli ceasefire. This marked the birth of the Blue Helmets.
• Symbolism of Blue Helmets: Peacekeepers wear distinctive helmets symbolising neutrality, impartiality, and legitimacy under the UN flag.
• From Military to Multidimensional Operations: While early operations were limited to monitoring ceasefires, modern missions are multidimensional, involving military, police, and civilian components to protect civilians, monitor human rights, support elections, assist disarmament, and facilitate peacebuilding.
• Current Presence: As of today, there are 11 active UN peacekeeping missions. 
  • While most of them are indeed located in Africa and the Middle East, there are also missions in Europe and Asia. 
  • The total number of personnel serving in these missions is over 70,000, including troops, police, and civilian staff.
• Guiding Principles: UN peacekeeping rests on three principles—consent of the parties, impartiality, and non-use of force except in self-defence or defence of the mandate. 
  • These principles, however, are being severely tested by asymmetric conflicts and blurred battle lines.

Current Challenges in Peacekeeping Operations

• Outdated Structure of the United Nations Security Council: The UNSC reflects post-Second World War power dynamics, dominated by the five permanent members—United States, United Kingdom, France, Russia, and China—also known as the P5.
  • Major troop-contributing countries such as India, Bangladesh, and Rwanda have no permanent voice in decision-making, even though their soldiers carry out the bulk of peacekeeping responsibilities. 
  • This exclusion undermines both legitimacy and credibility of peacekeeping mandates.
• Overly Complex and Unrealistic Mandates: Peacekeeping mandates are often broad, unclear, and over-ambitious, expecting missions to deliver everything from state-building to counter-terrorism.
  • Such mandates overstretch limited resources and set peacekeepers up for failure, as they are asked to achieve political objectives without corresponding diplomatic backing.
• Funding Uncertainty and Inequity: UN peacekeeping is financed through assessed contributions, where member states pay according to their capacity. The United States alone contributes nearly 25% of the total budget.
  • However, the USA has repeatedly threatened to cut or eliminate contributions, creating chronic financial uncertainty. This forces missions to operate with budget cuts, undermining their effectiveness on the ground.
• Operational and Technological Risks: Peacekeepers today face asymmetric threats like terrorism, suicide bombings, and improvised explosive devices (IEDs), which traditional peacekeeping principles are not designed to handle.
  • At the same time, the UN has been slow in adopting modern technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), drones, and geospatial intelligence, which are critical for enhancing situational awareness and protecting personnel.
• Geopolitical Deadlocks in the UNSC: The use of veto power by permanent members often paralyses collective action. For example, disagreements between the United States and Russia or between the United States and China have blocked decisive action in Syria and Ukraine.
  • This results in mandates being watered down, delayed, or completely stalled, reducing the credibility of peacekeeping as a tool of global governance.

Why are UNSC Reforms Essential for Effective Peacekeeping?

• Ensuring Legitimacy and Representation: Without expansion of both permanent and non-permanent seats, UNSC decisions lack credibility in the eyes of the global South.
  • Inclusion of powers like India, Brazil, Germany, Japan, and African states will democratise decision-making and ensure that mandates represent 21st-century realities, not 1945-era politics.
• Improving Operational Efficiency: Reforms would allow for streamlined, realistic, and achievable mandates.
  • By linking operations to specific political outcomes and ensuring time-bound exit strategies, peacekeeping missions can avoid becoming indefinite deployments with little impact.
• Empowering Troop-Contributing Countries: Nations that provide the bulk of troops and police forces must be included in the drafting and review of mandates.
  
  • This ensures that strategies are grounded in field-level realities and builds ownership and accountability among contributing nations.
• Securing Financial Sustainability: Expanding membership will diversify financial responsibility, reducing overdependence on a handful of countries.
  • Matching the scope of mandates with available resources will also help avoid overstretching and enhance credibility.
• Adapting to Emerging Security Threats: Reforms are needed to reorient peacekeeping towards addressing terrorism, hybrid warfare, cyberattacks, and disinformation campaigns.
  • Integrating modern technologies such as AI-driven surveillance, drones, and geospatial mapping will make peacekeeping more effective and safer for personnel.

Significance of UNSC Reforms for Peacekeeping

• Political Credibility: Broader representation ensures that missions are perceived as legitimate by both host states and international communities.
• Operational Success: Focused, achievable mandates increase the chances of delivering measurable results.
• Resource Optimisation: Reforms align resources with objectives, preventing budgetary mismatches.
• Stakeholder Ownership: Inclusion of troop contributors boosts morale and trust in peacekeeping operations.
• Global Stability: Effective peacekeeping prevents relapse into conflict, reducing the burden of humanitarian crises and forced migration.

Challenges in Reforming the UNSC

• Resistance from the Permanent Five (P5): The United States, United Kingdom, France, Russia, and China are reluctant to dilute their privileges. The veto power, in particular, gives them unmatched influence, which they are unwilling to compromise.
• Competing Claims among Aspirants: Groups such as the G4 nations (India, Japan, Germany, Brazil), the African Union (AU), and the L.69 group of developing countries all demand reform, but with different models of representation.
  • This lack of consensus among reform seekers weakens the momentum for change.
• Geopolitical Rivalries: Intensifying tensions between the United States and China or between Russia and Western powers make consensus on structural reform even harder to achieve.
  • These rivalries are reflected in the paralysis seen in peacekeeping decision-making itself.
• Consensus Deficit in the General Assembly: Any amendment to the UN Charter requires approval by two-thirds of the General Assembly (129 out of 193 states) and ratification by all P5 members.
  • Securing such a high level of agreement is extremely challenging, leading to gridlock in reform efforts.

Global Peacekeeping Reforms and Innovative Models

• Brahimi Report (2000): Called for robust mandates, better resources, and rapid deployment capabilities.
• High-Level Independent Panel on Peace Operations (HIPPO) Report (2015): Stressed the primacy of politics and people-centred peacekeeping.
• UN Secretary-General’s “New Agenda for Peace” (2023): Advocates preventive diplomacy, regional partnerships, and technology-enabled operations.
• Regional Hybrid Models: African Union-led missions, co-funded and supported by the UN, showcase a flexible model that could be scaled globally.

Way Forward

• Structural Reforms of the UNSC: Expand both permanent and non-permanent membership to include powers from the global South, especially India, African Union nominees, and Latin America.
  • Restrict or regulate the use of veto power, particularly in cases of mass atrocities and peacekeeping authorisations.
• Mandate Rationalisation: Mandates must be time-bound, politically achievable, and regularly reviewed to adapt to changing ground realities.
  • Outdated missions with little relevance should be phased out.
• Inclusive Decision-Making: Institutionalise regular consultations with troop- and police-contributing countries.
  • Mainstream women’s participation at every level of decision-making, not just deployment.
• Sustainable Financing: Explore innovative mechanisms like UN Peace Bonds, voluntary trust funds, and public-private partnerships for logistics and technology support.
  • Ensure equitable burden-sharing among both developed and developing nations.
• Technology and Capacity Building: Expand use of artificial intelligence, drones, cyber-defence systems, and GIS mapping.
  • Strengthen training facilities like India’s Centre for United Nations Peacekeeping (CUNPK) to prepare troops for modern challenges.

Conclusion

UN peacekeeping remains vital for global stability, but outdated UNSC structures, weak mandates, and resource gaps threaten its credibility. India’s leadership shows reform is not optional—it is essential for ensuring effective, legitimate, and future-ready peacekeeping.

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