UN better than US at Peackeeping and Nation Building?

Last week’s Economist has this excellent article (sub. req’d) summarizing some important empirical studies being done on failed states and post-conflict state building. The conclusions of a raft of recent studies give grounds for optimism: failed states and those on the brink of failure (sometimes called “Low-income countries under stress” or LICUS) can be saved with relatively low investments in peacekeeping and aid. The article discusses a recent RAND study that concludes that the UN is pretty good, on balance, at post-conflict peacekeeping. Maybe better than the United States:

Of the eight UN-led missions it examined, seven brought sustained peace (Namibia, El Salvador, Cambodia, Mozambique, Eastern Slavonia, Sierra Leone and East Timor), while one (in Congo) did not. An earlier RAND study had looked at eight American-led missions and found that only four of the nations involved (Germany, Japan, Bosnia and Kosovo), were now at peace, while the other four (Somalia, Haiti, Afghanistan and Iraq) were not, or at any rate, not yet.

The comparison is not entirely fair. The Americans took on tougher targets: Iraq has more suicide-bombers than East Timor. On the other hand, the UN had punier forces and budgets at its disposal. The annual cost of all 11 UN peacekeeping operations today is less than America spends in a month in Iraq.

The full RAND study can be found here. It is an impressive quantitative effort, with important lessons for current and future crises. For example, it gives emprical support for the view that the group that brings about peace, either through political processes or through prosecuting the war, is often not the best party to secure the peace and bring good post-conflict governance. (In practice, we tend to make the error of assuming every conflict is like Germany or Japan and needs a robust US-style occupation and “Marshall Plan.” )

As the Economist points out, there a places in the world where the UN is the only good governance (or best governance) they have ever known. In discussions about UN reform, we need to keep in mind those things the UN is good at –and work to strengthen those capacities –and those the UN is bad at — and get them off the UN agenda.