Stockholm, 24 May 2026
The number of personnel deployed in international peace missions has dropped to its lowest level in roughly 25 years as a severe funding shortfall and growing political obstruction force cutbacks across the globe, according to a new report by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).
At the end of 2025, approximately 79,000 soldiers, police officers, and civilian staff were serving in multilateral peace operations — a 50 percent decline compared to 2016. The total of 58 active missions across 34 countries and territories marked a continuation of a downward trend that has been underway for a decade.
SIPRI researcher Claudia Pfeifer Cruz summed up the core problem: "Im Grunde sind die Staaten einfach weniger bereit, in Friedensmissionen zu investieren - sowohl finanziell als auch politisch." (Basically, states are simply less willing to invest in peace operations, both financially and politically.)
The financial strain has been acute. In July 2025, UN peace missions alone faced a financing deficit of 2 billion US dollars — more than 35 percent of the total budget of 5.6 billion dollars for the 2024–25 period. The crisis forced cuts of about 15 percent in spending and the elimination of roughly one-quarter of peacekeeping personnel.
A Two-Billion-Dollar Hole and Unpaid Bills
A major driver of the shortfall is delayed or withheld payments from key donor countries. "Die Liquiditätskrise der UNO wurde auch dadurch verursacht, dass die USA die vereinbarten Beiträge für die Friedenssicherung nicht bezahlt haben," the report notes, pointing to the United States, whose contribution accounts for more than a quarter of the total peacekeeping budget. Other major donors, including China, have also failed to pay their assessed contributions on time.
The consequences have been severe: all UN missions had to restrict their operations and reduce staff. At the end of January 2026, UN Secretary-General António Guterres warned of a "finanziellen Zusammenbruch" (financial collapse) of the organization if member states did not pay immediately. For the 2025–26 financing period, the UN General Assembly approved the lowest peacekeeping budget in ten years.
Geopolitical tensions are adding to the paralysis. They have intensified especially since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and veto powers in the UN Security Council are increasingly blocking one another. Negotiations over extending or deploying peace mission mandates have become far more difficult, with uncompromising demands and veto threats.
One high-profile example is the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL). Despite frequent violations of the 2024 ceasefire agreement between Israel and Lebanon, the United States demanded the mission's dissolution. A compromise resolution finally extended UNIFIL until December 2026, but only after a bruising political fight.