The Fog of Peace: A Memoir of International Peacekeeping in the 21st Century.

Dutton, Yvonne

The Fog of Peace: A Memoir of International Peacekeeping in the 21st Century. By Jean-Marie Guehenno. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2015.

Jean-Marie Guehenno's book is a memoir of his eight years serving as UN under-secretary-general for peacekeeping operations beginning in 2000. Through case studies, he shares details about different country conflicts and the role, if any, the United Nations ultimately played in helping to restore or maintain peace and security. The book contains chapters on Afghanistan, Iraq, Georgia, Cote d'Ivoire, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan, Lebanon, Kosovo, Haiti, and Syria.

Guehenno's memoir, however, is also a work of advocacy. Guehenno argues that the UN's role is to serve the people and fight against injustices. As to how far the UN should go to fulfill its role, Guehenno urges a policy of "prudent interventionism" (p. xvi). He suggests that peacekeeping "can be successful only if it is understood as a highly moral enterprise" (p. xvii) that requires one to make choices between various conflicting goods and evils (p. xvii). He favors engagement in the face of mass atrocities, but also recognizes that "engagement comes with high risks: for the troops, for the reputations of the institutions, and most of all for the citizens on whose behalf we intervene" (p. 317).

Some of these risks help to explain one of the insights that Guehenno shares: "When it comes to the politics of intervention, the international community has no common vision" (p. 311). As a practical matter, this means that the UN faces challenges in obtaining the international community's support to engage to the extent and in the manner proposed. For example, Guehenno describes the difficulties of finding a nation to "lead" the deployment of a multinational force to help stop atrocities that were occurring in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2003 (p. 130). South Africa was a likely candidate because it was located on the African continent, but it was "already stretched" (p. 130). Ultimately, France agreed to lead, but only with conditions, such as a deployment limited to one particular area and "involvement of a coalition to make clear that the operation was not a French operation" (p. 133).

This book offers an insider's view of UN peacekeeping efforts that will be of interest to international relations scholars and curious readers of all backgrounds. Reviewed by Yvonne Dutton