Horrible Wars Nobody Cares About

Well, this is the thread for Horrible Wars Nobody Cares About...

And I'd say that the Srebrenica genocide was pretty horrible.

@Barkey

About Somalia, going by the evolution of the various militias, the one Aidid controlled is part of what is now recognized as the government, though I don't think they have an independant identity anymore.

Lemme add a war no one cares about:

Siachen Conflict. World's highest battlefield, but not paid much attention to since its a subconflict of the Kashmir situation.

@ Barkey

I'm pretty sure Switzerland won't be the place where the peacekeepers will be because they're so neutral. They have... (I checked) 5 police officers deployed right now.

You're more likely to have the UN training base in France. But hey, France... you like wine and women right?

@ China peacekeeping

I don't know if peacekeeping really trains their troops, I think it might help pay for some of them, but really 2k troops out of 2.5 million? That's such a small portion of their military I highly doubt it's the reason why they do it. Also, let me check where most of their troops are...

Hm, looks like it's fairly spread out, and roughly 2000 troops deployed, with the greatest number (around 500+) in UNMIL, which is... Liberia? Oookay.

I think actually, maybe this is just China engaging the UN in a constructive manner to boost their standing. Afterall, the Chinese are all about the wheeling and dealing that goes on in UN so it probably wouldn't surprise me if deals went something like "France wants you to deploy 500 peacekeepers somewhere and we'll support your vote on subject matter A" and then China goes "Okay sure."

@ Thread

I would prefer if we had an automatic peacekeeper deployment system and countries need to "opt out" when illegal hostilities break open.

I think in a way we do, everyone has to contribute to UN peacekeeping but lots of rich countries chose to contribute money rather than troops (and the same but reversed for poor countries). But that may shut be me getting UN peace keeping mixed up with contributions to the UN in general.

You're getting mixed up with UN financial contribution requirements with UN peacekeeping operations. Western nations give money to the general pool which is then used to fund UN peacekeeping. But the UN doesn't maintain a standing army so it needs troops. Most European countries contribute around 2000-3000 troops regardless of their respective military sizes. You don't pay for the deployment of soldiers, so arguments that it is more costly for a "western country" to deploy troops is bs, because equipment and deployment is paid for through UN dues.

So for poorer countries it can completely eliminate the cost of having that soldier yet still have a soldier. Pakistan/India/Bangledesh/Nepal combined contribute over 40 000 soldiers, which is around half of the total peacekeeping force. The entire rest of the world competes with those four countries.

Europeans can be happy that they are next on the list of "giving a shit", and North America is basically dead last.

In other words, they gain Military Experience for free? Sounds like a good deal.

It's a pretty fair exchange.

When the wars in Afghan and Iraq are completely done with, or rather when Iraq is done with and Afghan is winding down, I could see the US possibly contributing our experienced vets to the peacekeeping forces.

It would most certainly help with rampant unemployment of veterans.

Hint hint Do D. TAKE THE FUCKING HINT.

Still hoping the UN gets the nuts to say "I know how they can gain experience, by wiping out Kony and the LRA!" I'd use my huge justice boner to push everybody else out of the line so I could get there first, like a nerd at a midnight release.

edited 16th May '12 2:29:16 PM by Barkey

Too late, we already took out Kony.

Let's be careful about how we perceive the UN though. It's not "the UN". There's no UN officials other than perhaps the secretary-general, and they purposely have little to no power. What you have are individual nations wheeling and dealing in the Security Council and the General Assembly.

The number one reason the UN does not do a proper job peacekeeping is because of super power politics. The worst offender is the US, now that the USSR is gone, second place is Russia, then it is France/Britain and then generally China abstains from most decisions. I have noticed that China has gotten more assertive lately, so it remains to be seen how much that may further hamper UN operations, I don't know. For instance, they blocked military intervention in Syria (although it is hard to say whether NATO actually wanted to do anything), and then subsequently backed Kofi Annan's peace mission while the West did not. It's always such a confusing mess of politics.