Clingendael Futures | Scenarios Paper: The Future of Peace Operations

The world is at a crossroads, with many old certainties crumbling away. It is therefore important to look ahead in order to anticipate potential changes. The aim of this scenarios paper is to assess how peace operations may develop in the future and what this could mean for armed forces. It concludes with recommendations to assist the EU member states' governments in establishing policy options for their armed forces and security policy with regard to missions.

The analysis below is based on discussions and insights from the academic and policy field. It builds on knowledge from current debates in literature on the future of peace operations, and complements this with insights generated in scenario workshops organised at Clingendael as part of this project.

This scenarios paper provides:

1) A brief description of the probabilities and uncertainties with regard to potential developments and trends for the future of peace operations as aired in the academic/policy debate

2) An outline of the Future Policy Survey scenario grid, with four quadrants describing the possible directions in which the international system may move. Developments with regard to peace operations are assessed for each quadrant, on the basis of which an analysis of alternative futures for peace operations is built.

3) A description of the more likely developments with regard to peace operations and an exploration of their implications for EU member states based on developments in the scenario grid during 2011/12 that were analysed in the 2012 Clingendael Strategic Monitor

4) Conclusions on the probabilities and uncertainties from academic/policy literature and recommendations for EU member states' security policy and the armed forces on future peace operations.