When gang violence overwhelmed Haiti, the international response was to ask for a volunteer.
Kenya stepped forward. In October 2023 the UN Security Council authorised a Kenya-led Multinational Security Support mission. It depended largely on voluntary contributions, and it was widely reported to be underfunded and understaffed, deploying only a fraction of the personnel originally planned while gangs continued to control large parts of Port-au-Prince.
On 30 September 2025, the Council tried again. It voted 12 to 0, with China, Pakistan and Russia abstaining, to replace the mission with a new Gang Suppression Force of up to 5,550 personnel. The US ambassador described it as “five times the size of its predecessor”.
Notice the pattern. Each new crisis triggers the same process: find willing countries, negotiate a mandate, raise the money, recruit the personnel, deploy. By the time a force arrives, the situation it was designed for has usually got worse.
This is one of the central arguments of The Global Peace Alliance by Kizzi Nkwocha. The book proposes a standing force that already exists before the crisis does, trained, funded and ready to deploy rapidly, instead of an improvised coalition assembled each time.
But Haiti also illustrates the strongest objection to that idea. International forces haven’t always been welcome there, for understandable reasons. In 2016, the UN acknowledged its role in a cholera outbreak linked to its previous peacekeeping mission in the country, which killed thousands. A permanent force with more power would need far stronger accountability than anything that exists now.
The book argues for exactly that: independent audits, real-time reporting and clear criteria for intervention. Whether any institution can meet that standard consistently is another matter.
Is a permanent peace force a better answer than finding a volunteer each time? Or does making it permanent create a risk the world can’t afford?
The Global Peace Alliance by Kizzi Nkwocha: https://a.co/d/07HzuID1
#Haiti, #Peacekeeping, #UnitedNations, #SecurityCouncil, #Kenya, #Accountability, #HumanitarianCrisis, #GlobalSecurity, #InternationalRelations, #WorldPeace, #GlobalPeaceAlliance, #KizziNkwocha
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