Note: This post is part of our online salon, UN Peacekeeping: Challenges and Opportunities for the Next Administration, co-hosted with UN Dispatch.

I agree with Mark that the gap between the Security Council's mandates and what is achievable on the ground has often been startling. In part, this is just hope prevailing over good sense. But it also reflects a deeper reality: When the Security Council authorizes a mission, it may actually be less concerned with the situation on the ground than it is with the political effect of the action at home or vis-à-vis other Council states. This points to an important political role that peacekeeping missions can play: providing political cover for the Great Powers. Historically, peacekeeping evolved in this way and, in a sense, little has changed. The early observer missions to Palestine and then the larger Suez mission in 1956 were explicitly designed to help major powers out of tight spots. Having small states provide troops made sure that the peacekeeping forces didn't themselves become triggers for great power conflict. Obviously, there have been exceptions to the rule that peacekeeping contributors should be small states and "middle powers." (The British have contributed large numbers of troops to several missions, including Cyprus and Bosnia.)

It's important to keep this context in mind, however. In the larger geopolitical game, peacekeeping forces have been buffers between the major powers. Bill Durch suggests that the major powers -- or at least more developed states -- should start providing manpower for the missions. I think he may be right. But we should acknowledge that this would be a significant conceptual shift and that it might involve political complications. The danger of great power conflagration is much reduced, though it will obviously be prudent to keep certain great powers out of certain regions. China has shown increased interest in peacekeeping, and there was grumbling by human rights activists about the participation of Chinese personnel (mainly engineers) in Sudan. The great powers have troops, but they also bring some heavy political baggage.

Note: This post is part of our online salon, UN Peacekeeping: Challenges and Opportunities for the Next Administration, co-hosted with UN Dispatch.

Even as we discuss the logistical, manpower, and financial pressures on [the UN's Department of Peacekeeping Operations], I hope we do not leave aside the question of what precisely the international community is getting for its (admittedly modest) investment in peacekeeping. Is the current crop of missions producing political and humanitarian results? The UN, of course, endured intense soul searching during the 1990s about the efficacy of peacekeeping in the wake of the Bosnia and Rwanda missions. Today's missions are far less scrutinized but I suspect that has more to do with a distracted media than it does an easing of the operational dilemmas facing peacekeepers in the field.

SHAH MARAI/AFP/Getty Images

Last week, our Web editor, Blake Hounshell, ably deflated some of the optimism surrounding the surge. The security gains are impressive, he contends, but the deadly combination of underdevelopment and overeliance on oil make Iraq's political prospects grim. Far better to cut our losses and focus on Afghanistan ("the real fight against Al Qaeda").

But what is it that Blake would have us do in Afghanistan? If Iraq's political prospects are poor, Afghanistan's must be considered even worse. Afghanistan doesn't have oil (yet), but it is one of the world's least developed countries, with infrastructure decimated by a quarter century of war and no history of effective governance. Why then spend billions and risk hundreds of lives propping up a doomed democratic government?

On Blake's logic, it's hard to see the rationale. Commandos and Predator drones can wage the "real fight" against the al Qaeda luminaries in the Pakistani hinterlands with or without an effective central government. Is Blake then willing to jettison the doomed Afghan nation-building project? And, if not, why not?

Blake also believes that cutting Iraq loose will free up America's taxed diplomats to concentrate on managing the rise of China. This has become something of a mantra on the left recently (indeed, it's almost "drearily familiar"). And it's not implausible -- Iraq is consuming vast quanities of senior executive time and energy. But I've never understood what precisely the United States could be doing vis-à-vis China that the Iraq mission now renders impossible. The U.S. has been engaging China economically, tamping down Taiwanese separatism, and working with Beijing diplomatically on North Korea. In sum, an accomodationist stance designed to guide China toward responsible great- power status. What vast benefit would our China policy enjoy once we've cast off the nettlesome Maliki and millions of ordinary Iraqis with him?

So says veteran New York Times correspondent (now London bureau chief) John Burns. He and colleague Dexter Filkins chatted with Charlie Rose about the remarkable security progress the surge has created in the country -- and the still difficult political road ahead. Watch the entire segment:

(Hat tip: TPM)

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The French-Swiss-Spanish humanitarian mission to Colombia has apparently collapsed. There had been hopes the FARC rebel group would at least permit the mission's members to visit and treat ailing hostage Ingrid Betancourt. The former Colombian presidential candidate, who holds French citizenship, has been in captivity for five years. In rejecting the mission, a FARC spokesman placed the blame squarely on Colombian president Alvaro Uribe, whose military recently dealt the FARC a harsh blow.

We profoundly regret that while we were making palpable progress for a prisoner exchange, President Uribe planned and executed the cunning murder of comandante Raul Reyes, mortally wounding the hope for a humanitarian exchange and peace."

The failure of the mission is lamentable and the plight of the FARC hostages is tragic. Still, the high-level French attention to the issue is remarkable. President Sarkozy has declared himself ready to jet to the region if necessary to secure Betancourt's release. Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner regularly wrestles with the details of the case. Betancourt's case has become a cause-celebre, and French politicians may simply be responding to the French street, but the sight of France's leaders hanging on the utterances of FARC guerrillas must have de Gaulle spinning in his grave.

How many votes will the Tibet crackdown swing in tomorrow's elections in Taiwan? Presidential candidate Frank Hsieh is looking to Tibet to salvage a lagging campaign:

Ruling Democratic Progressive Party candidate Frank Hsieh, who has trailed in media polls, has pushed a message that to vote for the more China-friendly Nationalist Party candidate Ma Ying-jeou could make Taiwan "a second Tibet".

These voters, at least, seem a lot more concerned with the sagging economy, and Ma has been touting a potential "common market" with Beijing. We'll soon see whether Tibet has reminded voters that Chinese guns may accompany the butter.

Canada's forces in southern Afghanistan are getting a boost from the U.S. Marine Corps:

Roughly 1,100 of the 3,200 U.S. marines due in Afghanistan have already arrived for what's scheduled to be a seven-month tour in the war-ravaged country, where they are expected to buttress badly stretched Canadian resources. "I think everyone has embraced us, the Canadians in particular," Col. Peter Petronzio, the unit's commanding officer, said Monday.

The deployment is a stop-gap to bolster the Canadians, who have been battling insurgents and insisted on help as a condition of extending their deployment. After Germany, Spain, and several other NATO states refused (again) to send troops south, the U.S. offered a Marine unit. For the next seven months, the North Americans will be fighting shoulder to shoulder in the province. Hell, if the Mexicans chip in a brigade, Kandahar could join NAFTA.

The Iraq war has killed the American "magic," says French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner:

Asked whether the United States could repair the damage it has suffered to its reputation during the Bush presidency and especially since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, Kouchner replied, "It will never be as it was before." "I think the magic is over," he continued, in what amounted to a sober assessment from one of the strongest supporters in France of the United States. U.S. military supremacy endures, Kouchner noted, and the new president "will decide what to do - there are many means to re-establish the image." But even that, he predicted, "will take time."

In a sense, Dr. Kouchner is right: The United States' reputation has been badly dented (for both fair and unfair reasons) and will need time to recover. But there is something remarkably ahistorical about the premise that pre-GWOT America had the world in a spell. I've recently been rereading accounts of the outrage that sundry past American activities created (see, for example, Vietnam, support for Israel, the Grenada invasion, the deployment of intermediate range missiles in Europe, the bombing of Libya, and the invasion of Panama). It's easy to forget the depth of antipathy to past American policies. After a 1983 U.N. Security Council meeting at which dozens of countries condemned America for its forays in Central America, the Libyan ambassador crowed that "America has no friends!" It has often seemed that way. America's "magic" will ebb and flow, but it hasn't run dry.

Taiwan, that's who. The announcement cannot be a surprise, but the parallel is creating a stir in Beijing:

[Taiwan's spokesman] Huang said that Taiwan is a country which upholds democratic values and is pleased to see Kosovo attain independence and the fruits of democracy. He said that contact between Taiwan and Kosovo has been very positive so far. Observers say however that Kosovo may face similar problems to Taiwan in its attempts to join the United Nations. Whereas Taiwan faces pressure from China, Kosovo's sovereignty is rejected by Serbia and Russia."

Kosovo likely won't be able to return the favor. Only a few hardy souls still recognize Taipei and the number is dwindling as Chinese economic and political might grows.

By most accounts, Kosovo will declare independence on February 17th. The province's leadership claims that 100 states are ready to recognize it, and experts are even selecting a new flag. It's not an easy business.

[D]esigns based on Albania's flag, the black double-headed eagle on a red background that flutters above graves of Kosovo Liberation Army guerrilla fighters throughout the breakaway province, would not be considered. The flag is synonymous in Kosovo with the Albanian community and is the first choice of many Kosovars....But officials were adamant that Kosovo's flag would not resemble Albania's. "We will not have the flag of any other country," said Fadil Hysa, the government adviser tasked with heading the Symbols Commission. "It cannot have an eagle," he added.

At least Kosovo gets to choose its own flag. Poor Bosnia had its flag chosen by international bureaucrats.

Why won't leading Russian presidential candidate Dmitri Medvedev debate his opponents? It would take too much time away from pressing the flesh, say his handlers:

Senior United Russia member Vyacheslav Volodin said Medvedev was meeting ordinary citizens in an extensive campaign across Russia and that television debates would disrupt his schedule. "The most important thing for us is real deeds, meeting people and solving actual problems, not wrangling in a TV studio," Volodin was quoted as saying by Russian news agencies.

Why debate your political opponents when you can simply pretend they don't exist? Soon enough, after all, they may not.

JOHN D MCHUGH/AFP/Getty Images

Canadian troops may have finally stopped handing off detainees to the Afghan authorities. That policy—always suspect from a human rights perspective—was the product of twin realities. First, NATO states such as Canada hated the optics of handing detainees to the Americans, what with Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo still on people's minds. Second, the Canadians, British, and Dutch troops fighting in southern Afghanistan had no desire to get into the detention business themselves.

The solution? Shuffle off detainees to the Afghans and pretend that the treatment they're getting is better than they'd get with the Americans. The policy protects delicate European sensibilities but does little to safeguard prisoners or to help NATO get good intelligence on Taliban activities (though I have been told by people in the know that captured Taliban fighters occasionally "fall off" NATO trucks and end up in American hands).

The issue of prisoners in Afghanistan has always struck me as a nettlesome problem that could easily become an important opportunity. My suggestion? Create a jointly run NATO/Afghan detention center in Kandahar or some other locale in southern Afghanistan. Use the detention center to simultaneously train Afghan police and interrogators (which we're doing anyway) and to hash out a common NATO policy on detention that can ease suspicions within the alliance while producing at least some actionable intelligence.

Thus far, American obstinacy and European fecklessness have scuppered common sense solutions. It's well past time to work together.

The European Union is reexamining its biofuels policy after finding evidence that increased demand might be endangering rainforests and causing other nasty side effects:

A couple of years ago biofuels looked like the perfect get-out-of-jail free card for car manufacturers under pressure to cut carbon emissions...Since then reports have warned that some biofuels barely cut emissions at all - and others can lead to rainforest destruction, drive up food prices, or prompt rich firms to drive poor people off their land to convert it to fuel crops.

It's hard not to get excited about the biofuel breakthroughs on the way (switchgrass, anyone?), but sorting out sustainable supply chains will take some time. One thing seems clear: Ethanol from corn ain't the answer. And with the Iowa caucuses now behind us, some presidential candidates may even be able to say so.

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European military commanders have formally approved an EU mission to Chad and the Central African Republic. The mission, to protect and aid refugees from Darfur, has a Security Council mandate and, by most accounts, could help stabilize a dangerous situation.

But there is a danger that France—and perhaps Europe more broadly—is developing a perverse specialty: cleaning up after crimes it doesn't have the will to stop. European peacekeepers labored for several hard years protecting humanitarian aid deliveries in Bosnia as ethnic cleansing proceeded around them. And remember that it was the French who sent a military mission to protect refugees after the Rwanda genocide. That mission, Opération Turquoise, saved some lives (including the lives of many who committed the genocide), but was a pale shadow of the rescue mission that should have been launched weeks earlier.

My fear is that the combination of feel-good war crimes prosecutions and post hoc band-aid operations like this new one in Chad have sapped the will to take the needed hard measures.  

Remember that stunning Lancet report on casualties in Iraq? Released in the fall of 2006, it estimated that 654,965 "excess" Iraqi deaths had occurred since the start of the war in 2003, a figure sharply at odds with other tabulations. National Journal has now given the Lancet study a thorough scrubbing that's revealed some interesting flaws.

Nigeria's top corruption fighter is forced to take a year's sabbatical:

Nuhu Ribadu, who has spearheaded Nigeria's attempts to combat financial crime, is involved in the prosecution of seven former state governors...Nigeria's police chief Mike Okiro called a press conference to say there were no ulterior motives behind the move, and that Mr Ribadu had been ordered to attend a one-year policy and strategic studies course in central Nigeria.

A government official says the course will "make him a better officer." The man was clearly in need of some reeducation.

A few hours ago, the British ambassador popped out of the ongoing Security Council debate—the Russian ambassador hadn't even spoken yet—to declare defeat. He reported that the statements of the Serbian and Albanian leaders made clear that there would be no resolution here today. The debate only served to show how "enormous the gulf is between the parties." The EU, he suggested, should get ready to take the next steps without Council backing. The question is how pugnacious the Russians will be in response.

Update: U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad exited the chamber a short while later to fire off his own broadside. Asked about Russian arguments that previous Council resolutions preclude independence for Kosovo, he said flatly, "They're wrong." He also reported that he made one final plea with the Russians to be reasonable, but to no avail. It's notable that the Brits and the Americans have taken the lead. No word yet from the French or other EU members.

Update II: The Russians and the Serbian prime minister have now left the meeting. The Russian ambassador said negotiations still hold promise but also warned that "any move towards unilateral independence would clearly be outside the limits of international law." Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica said that independence for Kosovo threatens to usher in a new era in which "might is above right." (A bit rich coming from a Serbian nationalist.) The EU and the U.S., meanwhile, issued a statement saying that the potential for negotiations is "exhausted."

That's a wrap for Kosovo—the Council is moving on to Somalia in a few moments. The hits just keep coming...

Not long ago, FP editor-in-chief Moisés Naím looked at the phenomenon of "rogue aid" emanating from cash-rich countries like China, Venezuela, and Saudi Arabia. Their no-strings-attached assistance to the developing world, he argued, threatens to export undemocratic practices. Illiberal lending may foster a world that is "more corrupt, chaotic, and authoritarian." Now it appears the Bank is trying to make common cause with at least one of the lenders:

The World Bank is planning joint projects in Africa with China's Export-Import Bank to address concerns that Beijing is taking more than it gives as it scours the continent for oil and minerals. World Bank President Robert Zoellick, wrapping up a four-day trip to China, said the pros and cons of the country's push into Africa had been an important topic during his talks with senior officials including Ex-Im Bank Governor Li Ruogu.

A worthwhile effort, no doubt, but as long as China remains ravenous for energy and raw materials it's hard to imagine that Beijing will stop cutting deals with African autocrats. Better Chinese aid practices may well depend on a slower Chinese economy. 

ILMARS ZNOTINS/AFP/Getty Images

The lounge outside the U.N. Security Council chamber is bustling with cameramen and beefy security personnel. The Council is scheduled to hold a closed door meeting on Kosovo this afternoon, and top Serbian and Kosovar diplomats are in town to plead their case. Russia is signaling that it's ready to draw a hard line. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov—an old Council hand himself—hinted yesterday that independence for Kosovo would have serious ramifications on other issues:

A unilateral declaration of independence by Kosovo and illegal recognition of this independence will definitely have consequences because I'm sure it will trigger a chain reaction in the Balkans and other regions. And those who nurture such plans should be fully aware of their responsibility for such consequences.

A key issue the Council will consider is whether new U.N. authorization is needed for a planned EU stability mission to the province. Russia says yes; most of the EU says no. Stay tuned...

Suhaila Sahmarani/AFP/Getty Images

Stephen Chernin/Getty Images

Reading through John Bolton's newly released book, Surrender is Not an Option, I had a distinct sense of déjà vu. Bolton's chip-on-the-shoulder account of his tenure as U.N. ambassador seemed very familiar. Then it hit me. In tone and tenor, Bolton's book is a dead ringer for Boutros Boutros-Ghali's Unvanquished. In that book, the former secretary-general bitterly attacked the United States (and Madeleine Albright, in particular) for ending his tenure as secretary-general. Both men methodically—almost obsessively—document the slights they received and the ripostes they offered. They have written rebuttals, not memoirs. By most accounts, Boutros-Ghali and Bolton are driven, highly intelligent, and committed. But both men left the East River in the mood for revenge rather than reflection.