Pay Me Now or Pay Me Later PKSOI Papers | страница 9

ing variety of international and regional organizations
as well as multinational coalitions. In addition, the
range of missions now performed by such operations
has also dramatically increased, going beyond ceasefire monitoring to include many peacebuilding activities such as DDR (disarmament, demobilization, and
reintegration), election supervision, and promoting
the rule of law among others.
The dramatic increase in peace operations, especially in civil war contexts, implies that they are effective options in dealing with violent strife. Yet there
are several voices that question the wisdom of encouraging cease-fires and associated peace agreements to
end civil wars. They argue that it is better in the long
run to allow such wars to “run their course” and permit one side or the other to emerge victorious or allow the parties themselves to reach a peace agreement
based on outcomes on the battlefield.2 These scholars
claim that the countries involved will be more stable
and less likely to revert back to warfare when one
side consolidates power. Similarly, rational choice
approaches to decision-making3 caution against
brokered peace agreements that do not reflect the
prevailing power balance between disputants; such
agreements are said to be more likely to fall apart than
those whose implementation reflects the strengths of
the parties involved.
This study examines the merits of deploying a
peace operation versus letting armed conflict continue. Throughout, we compare wars that received
peacekeeping and wars that did not, recognizing that
the decision to send in a peacekeeping force is not
random.4 Looking at Doyle and Sambanis’ list of civil
wars from 1945-1999 (see Table 1), approximately 61
percent of cases involve no peacekeeping force and

2