UN Peacekeeping Will Be Paralyzed as Long as Putin Is in Power: What Can the US and nato Do about It?

The Russian invasion of Ukraine was a watershed moment in global security affairs comparable to the end of World War ii and the Cold War. UN Secretary-General António Guterres has forewarned “Geostrategic divides … are paralyzing the global response to the dramatic challenges we face.” This article assesses the implications of this paralysis for peacekeeping and suggests what the US and nato can do to cope with the impact. Five of the UN’s six peacekeeping missions addressing internal conflicts are in Africa, and the most likely future for UN peacekeeping is to be endlessly mired in quagmires there, exacerbated by Russia’s mercenary Wagner Group. This paper offers measures to address the threat the Wagner Group poses by bolstering the capacity of peacekeeping operations to deal with its spoiling behavior, as well as that of other criminalized power structures, and to ameliorate the risk of destabilization in Africa.