The Demand for UN Peacekeeping, 1975–1996

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During 1988-97, UN peacekeeping operations expanded by 32 new missions, more than twice the entire number of missions initiated during the United Nations’ first four decades. These new peacekeeping deployments and their added complexity are reflected in current-year nominal spending on UN peacekeeping, which averaged $208.5 million for 1980-88 before increasing by almost one and a half magnitudes to reach a peak of $3.5 billion in 1994’. Since this peak level, UN peacekeeping spending has declined to $3.2 billion in 1995 and $1.35 billion in 1996. This last decrease is largely due to NATO’s assumption of peacekeeping activities in Bosnia by the NATO Implementation Force (IFOR) in December 1995. Despite this downturn, UN peacekeeping expenditures remain at a significantly elevated level over preceding decades and may increase in response to ethnic conflicts and tribalism that still present threats. Ethnic hatreds, once held in check by authoritarian regimes, have erupted into conflict in Eastern Europe and the ex-Soviet republics with the demise of communism (Carment and James 1998). In Africa and the Middle East, tribalism has resulted in warring factions (e.g., Rwanda, Lebanon) that have placed civilian populations in dire straits. Although recent peacekeeping burdens do not rival defense burdens, which for NATO topped $390 billion (in 1990 prices) in 1996 (NATO 1996), peace