United Nations peacekeeping was never intended to win wars. Its mandate is to hold fragile peace long enough for diplomacy and political settlements to take root.
Built on principles of consent, impartiality, and the minimum use of force, peacekeeping represents the international community's attempt to stabilise fractured societies without imposing power.
The blue helmets are not conquerors but guardians of tenuous calm, their very presence meant to reassure civilians and signal to armed groups that violence is not the only option.
A day in the life of the Blue Helmet
Behind the UN flag, the daily work of peacekeepers is often understated yet essential. In South Sudan, patrols may escort children to school so they can study without fear of ambush. In the Central African Republic, troops guard camps where displaced families huddle after fleeing militia attacks. In Lebanon, they monitor buffer zones that could otherwise erupt into conflict.
Elsewhere, peacekeepers escort humanitarian convoys through dangerous roads, stand guard at polling stations during fragile elections, and train local police forces to handle security on their own. The job is unglamorous, unpredictable, and dangerous. A routine patrol can become a firefight in minutes, yet for many communities, the sight of blue helmets means the difference between safety and chaos.
The global footprint of peacekeeping
In 2025, the UN Department of Peace Operations oversees 11 missions across the globe, concentrated primarily in Africa but extending into Europe, the Middle East, and South Asia. Missions such as MONUSCO in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, MINUSCA in the Central African Republic, and UNMISS in South Sudan are among the largest. Others, like UNFICYP in Cyprus or UNMIK in Kosovo, are smaller but politically significant. Peacekeepers also remain deployed in Lebanon, Western Sahara, the Golan Heights, and along the tense India–Pakistan border. These missions operate on fragile ground: they cannot impose peace, only nurture it.
Who pays the bills?
Peacekeeping depends on money as much as manpower. The 2024–2025 budget totals about $5.6 billion, a modest sum compared to national defense budgets but vital to the UN's capacity to field over 80,000 uniformed personnel worldwide. Funding is assessed based on a country's economic weight, with the United States responsible for 26.95 percent, China for 18.69 percent, Japan for 8.03 percent, Germany for 6.11 percent, and the United Kingdom for 5.36 percent. Together, these five countries contribute nearly two-thirds of all peacekeeping funds. Yet payment is not always smooth: U.S. laws cap its contributions below the UN's formula, creating periodic budget shortfalls that ripple through missions on the ground.
Who wears the helmet
While the wealthiest countries finance peacekeeping, the soldiers who wear the helmets overwhelmingly come from the Global South. As of May 31, 2025, Nepal leads all contributors with 6,119 personnel, followed closely by Rwanda with 5,886, Bangladesh with 5,686, and India with 5,393. Ghana, Indonesia, Pakistan, China, Morocco, and Tanzania complete the top ten.
The risks and rewards of service
For countries like Nepal and Bangladesh, peacekeeping offers both prestige and practical benefits. Troops deployed under the UN banner receive steady pay, often exceeding what they would earn at home, while their governments gain international recognition and influence. But the risks are steep. Peacekeepers operate in environments where violence can erupt without warning—ambushes, roadside bombs, and disease outbreaks are constant threats. Families back home often spend months, even years, without seeing their loved ones, while soldiers endure the uncertainty of missions where success is measured less by victory than by preventing further collapse.
A fragile future
The contradictions of peacekeeping are increasingly difficult to ignore. Missions are sent into conflicts where peace barely exists, funding remains vulnerable to political disputes, and troop contributions fall disproportionately on countries least able to absorb the risks. And yet, despite its flaws, UN peacekeeping remains one of the few mechanisms through which the world can respond collectively to crises. Its legitimacy, however fragile, allows it to operate where individual states might be seen as partisan.
The question posed by peacekeeping in 2025 is less about whether the blue helmets can keep every fragile ceasefire intact, and more about whether the international community still has the will to sustain them. As the balance between funding and troop contributions grows ever more uneven, the system endures—but it does so under constant strain.
Mahabubur Rahman is the US bureau chief of Dhaka Stream and former Fulbright Hubert H Humphrey Fellow, University of Maryland
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