Peacekeeping

The Heritage Foundation's Brett Schaefer is seemingly apoplectic that the Obama administration would agree to a 1.2 to 1.7 percent increase in its dues payments to UN Peacekeeping.  According to Schaefer this adds and additional $100 million a year to American contributions to UN Peacekeeping  and means President Obama is "letting down" the American taxpayer.

In a meeting at the Security Council yesterday, Susan Rice announced that the United States had officially paid off it's arrears to UN Peacekeeping.  From a Louis Charbonneau in Reuters (in which the Better World Campaign is given a nice shout-out)

Ambassador Rice is set to testify in front of the House Foreign Affairs Committee this Wednesday.  We'll be there, tweeting and live blogging. If you just can't wait, look to her remarks in front of the Security Council in late June where she delineated U.S. commitments on UN peacekeeping.  The highlights:

In his Financial Times column today, Gideon Rachman makes the argument for a "United Nations army." His test case, interestingly, is Somalia, where offshore piracy has galvanized international cooperation, but 18 years of onshore violence and instability has rumbled on unchecked. Would it be easier, or any more advisable, to send UN peackeepers to Somalia if there were, as Rachman proposes, "a proper UN force on permanent stand-by?"