UN peacekeeping is one of the most important tools at the UN’s disposal for conflict mitigation and stabilization. Peacekeeping operations are authorized by the UN Security Council, where the U.S. has long used its position as a permanent member to advocate for strong, clear peacekeeping mandates to effectively meet the world’s evolving security and civilian protection challenges.
At one-eighth the cost of U.S. military operations, UN peacekeeping provides stability in crisis zones key to U.S. national interests but often out of the public eye. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, home to the world’s richest critical mineral deposits essential for U.S. technological dominance, the UN has successfully prevented a relapse of one of the world’s worst conflicts since World War II, in which more than six million civilians were killed. In South Sudan, a Christian majority nation that separated from an authoritarian Islamic regime with bipartisan U.S. support, the UN supported the creation of an independent state in the heart of the strategic Nile basin. In Somalia, where terrorism and piracy threatens maritime shipping lanes critical for U.S. commerce, the UN has contained threats to international security. In disputed Kashmir, a flashpoint for rival nuclear powers who are both significant security partners for the U.S., the UN has successfully sustained deconfliction for decades.
In every case, as a permanent member of the UN Security Council with veto power and unique political capital, the U.S. has an outsized voice in globally shaping every UN mission on the ground while paying a fraction of the cost – roughly equivalent to what the U.S. spends on the defense of Guam each year. That’s why both Republican and Democratic presidents and lawmakers have long acknowledged the value of UN peacekeeping to U.S. national interests.
