Gen. Joseph Dunford told the United Nations on Friday that the organization must monitor its peacekeepers and make sure they don’t do more harm than good as more of them are deployed around the world.
“I think it’s clear to all of us that the U.N.’s record … has been mixed,” the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said. “But while many of the challenges are due to the nature of the conflicts, there’s other challenges that should concern us all. Problems of ill-disciplined units conducting criminal acts, including sexual assault, problems with corruption and shortfalls in equipment, cannot be blamed on the environment.”
Such problems “threaten our collective legitimacy and our effectiveness,” he warned. “To much of the world’s populations, a soldier or policeman wearing a blue helmet and a U.N. patch represents their last best hope for safety and security, and we must work to ensure that image and hope isn’t diminished.”
He also told the U.N. it needs to recruit more women for international peacekeeping operations.
“During my deployments to Iraq and later as the commander of the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan, I learned first-hand that women are an important part of an effective response to today’s challenges,” Dunford said, marking the first time that a Joint Chiefs chairman has addressed the international body.
“Women not only add to the capability of our own forces, they have a unique ability to connect with local populations in areas of instability,” he told those attending the meeting on U.N. peacekeeping operations.
Dunford said that although a U.N.-led mission is not the answer to every global conflict, increasingly it is a good option.
“The current security environment has been described as the most complex and volatile since World War II — and frankly, I believe that. The challenges we face range from conventional conflict to the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, from violent extremism to trans-regional crime, and the character of war has changed.
“No longer can conflict be considered something that is ‘over there,'” he said. “While the international community must develop a wide range of capabilities to respond to today’s challenges, we already have a relevant and potentially very effective tool in the form of the U.N. peacekeeping.
“And I firmly believe that U.N. peacekeeping can play a major role in dealing with the human suffering associated with conflict and by continuing to improve our collective security.”
