President-Elect Joe Biden will become the 46th President of the United States on January 20th, 2021. When he takes office, a host of pressing issues such as the pandemic, the recession, and the deep political divisions in this country will quickly occupy his time. While a relatively minor issue for the US president, the US plays a key role in the world of UN peacekeeping. Despite its political transition having more in common with the deeply unstable states that UN peacekeepers operate in, the US is responsible for 27.89% of peacekeeping funding (by far the largest contributor) and as a P5 member it has significant influence in where, when, and how peacekeepers operate. Peacekeeping is not a major part of Joe Biden's platform, or part of the American foreign policy discourse at all. In fact, it appears that he has not mentioned peacekeeping in any of his campaign speeches or campaign policy documents. Thus, in order to determine what the relationship between UN peacekeeping and the Biden Administration will look like, we must look at his relationship with UN peacekeeping as a senator and vice president, the Trump Administration's relationship with UN peacekeeping, and the immediate challenges UN peacekeeping will face going into Biden's term of office.
Joe Biden and UN Peacekeeping
While UN peacekeeping first started in the late 1940s and early 1950s, it was only after the end of the Cold War that the US became a strong and active participant in the UN peacekeeping system. As a prominent member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee during that time period, then-Senator Biden established himself as a strong proponent of the increasing US role in UN peacekeeping operations. Most notable, he sponsored S.J. RES. 112, a 1993 piece of legislation that would have allowed the President to put US military units under UN command. While that specific resolution did not pass, US troops became frequent participants in UN peacekeeping missions during the same time period, serving in Somalia, Haiti, and the former Yugoslavia, often under a parallel command structure (where the US and UN forces frequently coordinate and share the same objectives, but have different commanders). At the time US foreign policy makers thought UN peacekeeping was an effective mechanism for collective security that the US should be a strong participant in. For example, then Senator David Boren (D-OK) said "while Americans want something done, they do not want to do it alone." These feelings would sour a few months after the resolution was introduced, when 19 Americans were killed in Mogadishu.
Almost overnight, American public opinion turned against the UN and UN peacekeeping. The American public did not want to risk the lives of American troops for purely humanitarian reasons. The US pulled out of Somalia, stopped deployments to Haiti, and has never been a major troop contributing country since. Some congressional Republicans, led by North Carolina Senator Jesse Helms, wanted to go even farther, and tried to cut US funding towards the UN entirely. Biden got Helms to stand down and forged a compromise that ensured the US would pay its bills, in exchange for increased UN accountability.
Biden was tapped for the vice presidency because of his extensive foreign policy experience, and because of that he played a key role in guiding the relationship between the Obama Administration and UN peacekeeping. Most notably, he hosted a major summit on UN peacekeeping in September 2014, alongside the Secretary-General and representatives from dozens of major contributing countries. In his opening address he highlighted his personal support for peacekeeping, stating that “men and women sometimes from halfway around the world risk their lives to protect peace on the fault lines of conflict is one of the great achievements of this international system.”
UN Peacekeeping and the Past Two Presidential Administrations
While the Obama Administration never contributed significant numbers of troops to UN operations, it did play a key role in peacekeeping in three major ways. First, it remained the leading funder of UN peace operations, contributing several billion dollars to UN missions over the course of the Administration. In addition, it used its extensive military experience and military budget to increase the professional capability of UN troop contributing countries such as Ghana, Ethiopia, and Rwanda, as well as training for UN forces in the field. Finally, it provided substantial logistical support in the form of air transportation and aerial refueling, especially for UN missions in the Sahel region. In the Security Council, the Obama Administration was a relatively strong supporter of UN peacekeeping, advocating for frequent deployments of UN peacekeepers and strongly supporting ongoing missions.
This would largely change during the Trump Administration once it took over in 2017. Republicans traditionally take the UN, with its multilateral systems, with significantly more distrust than Democrats. President Trump, with his frequent rambling about “globalists'' severely disliked the UN, even by Republican standards. Being openly mocked while giving a 2018 speech to the general assembly certainly did not help matters. While the author is unsure if Trump even knows what UN peacekeeping is, his Administration was extremely detrimental to its smooth functioning. The Trump Administration, led by then-UN Ambassador Nikki Haley, significantly cut US funding for peace operations. It also left the UN Human Rights Council and limited US global leadership on the human rights issues peacekeepers work every day to protect. The administration also stopped paying its bills, accumulating a whopping $900 million dollars in arrears, or overdue payments, for UN peacekeeping missions. This has signficant hampered the UN’s already stretched-thin peacekeeping capacity, impacting mission quality.
Peacekeeping Over the Next Four Years
The pandemic has been the largest disruption of global order since the Second World War. Since they operate in areas most frequently affected by crisis and chaos, peacekeepers are experiencing significant changes in their duties and resources because of the pandemic. In the short term, UN peacekeepers are preparing for COVID outbreaks in their areas of operations, drawing on extensive experience operating alongside Ebola outbreaks in Liberia in 2014 and the DRC in 2019. In addition, major troop contributors are under domestic pressure to limit their troop deployments because of the pandemic. A major report on the matter identified three major long term issues for UN peacekeeping. First, the coronavirus and global recession is likely to decrease state capacity and increase conflict worldwide, necessitating more UN deployments. Second, UN member states will be under financial pressure to cut their UN funding, again due to the recession. Finally, the coronavirus has increased disagreement and conflict on the Security Council, which decreases the efficacy of new and existing UN peacekeeping missions.
Joe Biden will take office in a time when the UN peacekeeping system is under extreme stress due to the pandemic and the recession. As mentioned earlier, we have no clear picture of how President Biden will approach UN peacekeeping. He has given no public statements, speeches, or policy documents on the matter. With that in mind, we can predict how he will act towards UN peacekeeping through his previous interactions with the institution.
That history, written in detail above, suggests that he will be a supporter of UN peace operations. While he can’t solve the many issues that are about to hit the UN, he can help resolve some of them. Most notably, the funding issue. The Obama administration always paid their UN bills, and tried to increase US funding for the UN. The significant arrears accumulated during the Trump terms will finally be paid. In addition, a prospective Biden Administration will most likely be significantly better at managing the Security Council than the Trump Administration was, being less prone to causing major diplomatic rows by, for example, calling the coronavirus the “China Virus” or assassinating an important Iranian official.
In addition, we can determine part of the Bidens administration's attitude towards UN peacekeeping by analyzing his pick for UN ambassador, career diplomat Linda Thomas-Greenfield. The UN ambassador is the primary link between the US and UN peacekeeping, so their attitudes and ideas are particularly relevant. For example Samantha Power, Obama’s UN ambassador, was a strong proponent of robust and aggressive peacekeeping operations, influenced by her experiences as a war correspondent. Thomas-Greenfield was Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs during the Obama years, in which capacity she was responsible for overseeing the logistical, training, and support missions (mentioned earlier) that were the Obama administration's main commitment to UN peacekeeping. She was extremely successful in that capacity, and is well regarded as extremely knowledgeable and competent in peacekeeping affairs. She was also present in Rwanda during the 1994 genocide, generally regarded as UN peacekeepings greatest failure. While it is unclear how that event affected her worldview, frequently witnesses to such tragedies tend to lobby for more robust and capable peacekeeping operations to prevent them from occurring again.
People who want the US to take a more active role in UN peacekeeping will most likely be disappointed. While Biden has a long and strong history with peacekeeping, his administration will represent a continuity, rather than a change, from the Obama Administration. Since the “Black Hawk Down” incident, US presidents have supported peacekeeping operations financially, logistically, and on the Security Council, but never as a troop contributing country. Presidential Decision Directive 25, an executive order signed by President Bill Clinton in the aftermath of the Somalia debacle, put a lid on US troop participation in UN missions and has never seriously been re-examined or challenged. For it to be overturned and for US troops to become a key player in UN operations again, there would have to be a significant shift in public opinion towards UN peacekeeping as an institution, one that is unlikely to occur over the course of Biden’s term. Despite that, the election of Joe Biden should be viewed as excellent news by those in the peacekeeping field. The American support that has been so clearly lacking over the last four years will be restored, in a time where it is desperately needed the most.