June 26, 2008: The UN will spend about $7 billion on fifteen peacekeeping operations in the next year. This pays for a force of over 100,000 troops and support staff. It's actually a pretty cheap way of keeping some conflicts under control. The causes of the unrest may not be resolved by peacekeepers, but at least the problem is contained and  doesn't bother the rest of the world too much. Even with that, many UN members are not enthusiastic about all this peacekeeping activity. That's because there's increasing enthusiasm for sending in peacekeepers where they are not wanted (by the government, usually a bad one, that is often the cause of the trouble in the first place.)

Most of the money is going to a few large peacekeeping operations. Three of the largest get over half the cash. Thus the Congo operations get 17.5 percent of the money, Darfur (western Sudan) gets 22 percent and southern Sudan gets 12 percent. Africa has the largest number of "failed states" on the planet and, as such, is most in need of outside security assistance. The Middle East is also a source of much unrest. But there the problem isn't a lack of government, just bad government. Most Middle Eastern nations are run by tyrants, who have created police states that at least keep anarchy at bay. To further complicate matters, religion has become a touchy subject. While Islamic radicalism is more of a problem to fellow Moslems than it is to infidels (non-Moslems), most Middle Eastern governments avoid blaming Islam for these problems. Since it's increasing difficult to pin the blame on "colonialism" or "crusaders," the Middle Eastern nations encourage other UN members to just stay away from the religious angle altogether. This has made it difficult to deal with peacekeeping issues in Moslem nations, since religion usually plays a part in creating the problem. To the UN, this is just another diplomatic problem to be dealt with, not very well.