United Nations peacekeepers should have the power to engage in offensive operations.

I negate the resolution which states resolved: UN peacekeepers should have the power to engage in offensive operations.Definitions Peacekeepers- provide security and political and peacebuilding support to help countries make the difficult, early transition from conflict to peace. They are guided via three basic principles: impartiality, consent of parties, and only use of defensive operations (what the debate is over) Power - legal or official authority, capacity, or rightOffensive - more robust mandates that go beyond self defense or defense of the mandate given to peacekeepersC1: Offensive operations have failed in the past and will continue to fail. Sloan explains: “UN peacekeeping operations are ill-suited to operations requiring the use of offensive force: they lack the personnel, the equipment, and the effective leadership required (1).“ Point A: Peacekeepers do not have the personnel or the equipment. Global Policy explains, “The UN experiences difficulty in recruiting a sufficient number of well-trained peacekeepers, and providing them with the appropriate equipment (2).” Lacking troops and equipment has been a long standing problem for the UN. The UNDOF mission dealing with Syria and various rebel groups brought these problems to light in 2013. Besheer documents 900 lightly armed troops being caught in a cross-fire and armed opposition, resulting in both abductions and injuries (3). Offensive operations require more personnel and weapons, as they are more dangerous. Seet performed a meta analysis encompassing all of the deaths of UN peacekeepers and found a significant increase in the past 40 years. The analysis documents that on average, death by hostile acts for a UN peacekeeper has increased by over 50%. Seet explains that this increase in deaths happened due to increased use of force and offensive operations (4). These statistics show that offensive operations are risky. Thus, the UN should not engage in such operations when they are already lacking in personnel and equipment. Point B: Peacekeepers do not have effective leadership. Transparency International made a report of corruption and peacekeeping, documenting 28 corruption risks stemming from political framework, troop contribution, and mission operations. Mission operations, the most relevant category, documents problems with bribery, theft, trust funds, resource exploitation, sexual exploitation, and asset disposal among other things. The report explains, “Mandates rarely mention it, and training centres currently do not provide any meaningful guidance on how peacekeepers can prevent corruption from becoming more entrenched in the host nation and in the mission itself (5).” Such a corrupt force can hardly be expected to execute offensive operations well.C2: Failed offensive operations have decidedly negative impacts.It is important to remember than any donor to the UN can withdraw their forces at any time. Thus, once a particular country suffers losses of troops in an offensive operation, they have an opportunity to remove their troops from the peacekeeping force, thus causing the peacekeeping force as a whole to become weaker. This happened with the US in the Somali Crisis, one of the most profound UN failures. Somalia was left without a central government in the 1990’s, resulting in the need for UN intervention in the form of an offensive operation. On October 3, 1993 rebel forces shot down two helicopters, causing the death of 18 US soldiers, 25 peacekeepers, and hundreds of Somalis. This led to something researchers call “Somalia Syndrome.” Patman defines this syndrome as, “a risk averse approach to intervention in civil conflicts, especially if such involvement ran the risk of US casualties (6).” This newfound reluctance the US developed towards sending troops to dangerous areas contributed to the Rwandan genocide and the Srebrenica massacre because the US simply stopped sending troops and getting involved. Thus, these events were not caused solely by the UN’s inability to perform offensive operations; rather, these events were caused by the UN’s fear of engaging in operations due to unsuccessful ones in the past. All it takes is one unsuccessful operation for donors to start withdrawing troops, making the use of defensive force only preferable and necessary if the UN is to maintain a functional peacekeeping force.C3: The aftermath of offensive operations negatively impacts the UN.Offensive operations are undoubtedly of a higher caliber than other UN mandates, meaning that peacekeepers will most likely be unable to perform such operations without doing significant damage to a country. Once the damage is done, it must be fixed (and the responsibility to undo the damage lies with the peacekeepers). Peacekeepers are then forced to devote their resources to nation building during the aftermath of a conflict. Thus, something known as a mission-creep is created. Mission-creep can be defined as “a gradual shift in objectives during the course of a military campaign, often resulting in an unplanned long-term commitment.” Mission-creeps cause two problems. Firstly, mission-creeps drain the UN peacekeeping force of resources, pertaining to both money and personnel. Nation building expenditures cost more than one would think. The UN spent 13 billion dollars on nation building in Kosovo and Srebrenica, a very small area. Also, personnel are often deployed for an unnecessarily long time due to mission-creeps. Bacevich notes that troops can be deployed for 5 years longer than intended due to the shifting of objectives. Secondly, even the thought of a mission-creep will deter donor countries from sending troops (similar to Somalia Syndrome) Mincieli, when talking about the UN’s offensive operation in Congo, explains that “Potential host countries may bar the UN from deploying peacekeepers due to a fear of mission creep, sidelining UN peace operations from exercising responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security (8).” This exacerbates the UN’s perpetual struggles pertaining to lack of personnel. Thus, even if an offensive operation is successful, it still will have a decidedly negative long term impact. Cross Examination Questions:1. Is a force with low personnel and weapon shortages capable of performing more dangerous operations? If yes, why?2. Have the UN peacekeepers actually increased the quality of life for those in Congo? How do you know another rebel group won’t take M23’s place? Would you agree that the long term impacts of the offensive operation are unknown?3. Would you agree that the UN cannot perform offensive operations on a regular basis? If not, what sources support the idea that the situation in Congo can be replicated frequently? Since my sources were already saved as screenshots on my computer for easy access in irl debate rounds, I uploaded my sources to debate.org and put them in an album. All the URL's should be seen at the top of the source and I have the link to each screenshot below. (1) http://www.debate.org...(2) http://www.debate.org...(3) http://www.debate.org...(4) http://www.debate.org...(5) http://www.debate.org...;http://www.debate.org...(6) http://www.debate.org...;http://www.debate.org...(7) http://www.debate.org...(8) http://www.debate.org...