Publication

Since the end of the Cold War, the UN Security Council has authorized or recognized the deployment of more than forty parallel forces that operate alongside UN peace operations. As UN peace operations have come to operate in increasingly non-permissive environments, the division of labor between UN missions and these parallel forces has blurred, and their goals have sometimes come into conflict. In response, this report examines the missions of these forces to identify how to strengthen their partnership with UN peace operations. More specifically, the text’s authors look at 1) the types of parallel forces that have been deployed; 2) the rational for deploying them; 3) key strategic and operational challenges raised by such forces, and more.