The United States Central Command, for its part, seems to regard peacekeeping as a distraction.
Previously, the US mostly regarded peacekeeping in Africa, in particular, as a humanitarian issue.
Washington regards peacekeeping as a national security issue and a "good bargain", as one official put it.
The White House increasingly regards UN peacekeeping as a US national security issue, in large part because Islamist insurgencies from Mali to the Central African Republic, and entrenched conflicts in Nigeria and Somalia, threaten even wider instability.
Overview of Lesson Plan: In this lesson, students interpret the mission statement of NATO with regards to peacekeeping.
With regard to peacekeeping, Lake argues that America's current course -- reflecting on Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia and Kosovo -- could be "disastrous: a growing number of peacekeeping garrisons scattered around the world with no end in sight".
On July 25, a Sudanese presidential advisor, Bona Malwal, stated in regard to peacekeeping forces that, "We are telling the world that with the indictment of our President al-Bashir we can't be responsible for the well-being of foreign forces in Darfur".
Tough questions must then be asked not only regarding the success rate of UN peacekeeping missions, but also how to deal with the center when it is reluctant or too slow to respond to the needs of the field.
The UN's largest contributors have a caustic view of the committee, regarding it as run by countries who make a minimal contribution to the cost of the UN but decide both the secretariat and peacekeeping budgets.
And so if Sierra Leone was regarded as a recommitment of the international community to peacekeeping in Africa, the mission so far has proven to be an embarrassment for the Western governments, including the Clinton Administration, which supported it.
