Bio
Winrich Kühne is Steven Muller Professor at SAIS Europe
Founding director of the German Center for International Peace Operations (ZiF) in Berlin; former deputy director of the German Research Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP); consultant to the Association of European Parliamentarians (AWEPA); member of the international advisory group to the U.N. Peacekeeping Lessons-Learned Unit; senior adviser to the former EU Crisis Prevention Network; member of the United Nations and Civilian Crisis Prevention Advisory Groups of the German Foreign Office; member of the editorial boards of the
Journal of International Peacekeeping and
Global Governance; election observer in Malawi (1993), South Africa (1994), Mozambique (1994), Bosnia and Herzegovina (2010), among other places; recipient of the
Bundesverdienstkreuz (Order of Merit, Federal Republic of Germany); PhD, international law, University of Munich
Courses
- After Afghanistan: Any Future for Peace Operations, Peacekeeping and Peacebuilding?
In August 2021 the international media and most politicians reacted with much surprise to the dramatic events at Kabul airport. Thousands of Afghans and their families were desperate to get on the last Western flights to escape Taliban rule. Prominent Western commentators were quick to proclaim that the failure in Afghanistan would be the end of the longstanding, Western inspired conflict management strategy to end violent conflict in failing states by deploying peace operations and getting involved in long term peace- and nation building processes. Indeed, “peace operations”, conducted by a variety of international actors like the UN, EU, NATO, AU, have become a strategic pillar of international peace and security policy since the end of the Cold War. But does the failure in Afghanistan really imply that there is no future for peace operations and peacebuilding and that missions like those in the DR Congo, Mali or Somalia will suffer a fate similar to that of Afghanistan? That would, indeed, be a dramatic change regarding the future of global conflict management. However, at the end of June ending the mission in Mali became a top issue in the UN Security Council. In the class, therefore, we will take a thorough look at the history, concepts, changing doctrines as well as unsolved problems of UN-lead peace operations to find a convincing answer concerning the future of peace operations and peacebuilding.
