Summary: Eight long-standing U.N. peacekeeping operations, many of them in the Middle East, are mired in conflicts that have defied diplomatic resolution and have become costly, indefinite commitments. Since 1948, these eight conflicts have consumed more than one-third, or $6 billion, of the U.N.'s total budget for peacekeeping operations. Despite the long-standing operations' cost and mixed performance in carrying out their mandates, U.S. policymakers support continuing these operations because, in their view, they help to stabilize conflicts that could threaten U.S. foreign policy objectives. They believe that ending these operations--or even modifying them substantially--would risk renewed conflict and could damage future peacemaking efforts. In continuing to support what have become essentially open-ended commitments to peacekeeping, however, the executive branch does not appear to adequately weigh other factors articulated by U.S policy that seek to ensure that peacekeeping operations are limited in duration, linked to concrete political solutions, and have exit criteria and identified end points for U.N. involvement.
