V. Conclusions: towards a new consensus?

Chapter:

3. Peace operations: the fragile consensus

Source:

SIPRI Yearbook 2011

Author(s):

Thierry Tardy

Peace operations are simultaneously institutional responses to extremely complex situations and mirrors of states’ foreign policies and interactions, with all the ambiguities and constraints that come with them. They are the product of international organizations’ policies as well as states’ commitment and visions. These two characteristics are central to an understanding of what peace operations can achieve and of their degree of success, failure and possible progress. They also account for the nearly permanent state of crisis in which peace operations find themselves, be it in terms of legitimacy or effectiveness. Since the end of the cold war, policy and academic literature has abounded on the political and operational difficulties that peace operations have faced and on the need to rethink and improve how institutional practice and states’ policies interact in trying to establish sustainable peace in post-conflict settings.