Exploring characteristics and outcomes of UN military protection operations

Abstract

Abstract This chapter provides descriptive statistics of the key characteristics of military operations from 1999 to 2017 where Blue Helmets used force to protect and it estimates the outcomes of operations across time and missions in Africa. The basic statistics are valuable to better understand the phenomenon at the center of this book—the application of force by Blue Helmets—and point to where we should look to learn more about successes and failures. The outcome estimations are a first attempt at analyzing the effectiveness of UN troops’ military efforts to protect civilians from violence across time and place. It finds that UN troops succeed about as often as they fail when they use force to protect, indicating that there is reason for optimism in their ability to provide physical protection to threatened populations, under the right conditions.