A Peacekeeper in Africa: Learning from UN Interventions in Other People’s Wars

For more than seven decades, UN peacekeeping operations have fulfilled an essential role in managing international crises. Alan Doss has spent a decade at the highest levels of UN peacekeeping in Sierra Leone, Côte d’Ivoire, Liberia, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. At a moment when peacekeeping faces enormous challenges, both politically in the Security Council and operationally on the ground, it is worth reflecting on the successes and failures of the past, and on the insights they may offer for UN peace operations today.

Looking back on his years with the UN, Doss provides a firsthand account of the operations he led. The frustrations he recounts are valuable both as history and for what they tell us about the limits of peacekeeping. The successes and satisfactions he relays are valuable for their reminder of the UN’s ability to rise above its limitations and the important contribution it makes to peace.

A Peacekeeper in Africa is a project of the International Peace Institute published by Lynne Rienner Press.

See more about the book from Lynne Rienner Press.

Contents

  • Foreword—Terje Rød-Larsen
  • A Journey in Peacekeeping

THINGS FALL APART: WEST AFRICAN WARS

  • Sierra Leone: The Search for Peace
  • Côte d’Ivoire: The War of Succession
  • Liberia: From War to Peace

WARS WITHOUT WINNERS: PEACEKEEPING IN THE CONGO

  • Into the Cauldron: Congo Past and Present
  • Crisis Without End: The Kivu Wars
  • The Contagion of Conflict: Other Places, Other Wars
  • Pursuing Peace: Stabilization, Peacebuilding, and Transition

OUT OF THE SHADOWS: THE PROMISE OF PEACE

  • Great Expectations: Intervention and Its Conceits
  • Pipe Dreams and Possibilities: Navigating Pathways to Peace

MOVING FORWARD: PEACEKEEPING TODAY AND TOMORROW

  • A Job Like No Other: Leading Peacekeeping Missions
  • Facing the Future: Actions for Peace