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.
Political Gridlock Halts Mandates
Regional organizations, though they now conduct more peace missions overall than the UN, face similar blockages. The African Union and others are struggling to maintain or expand operations, partly because of declining European Union funding for peace operations. Sub-Saharan Africa, which hosts over two-thirds of all peace operations personnel, recorded the largest personnel declines.
SIPRI Director Dr. Jaïr van der Lijn issued a stark warning about the trajectory. "Wenn es so weitergeht, könnte es zu einer dramatischen Schwächung der multilateralen Konfliktbewältigung und zu einer fast vollständigen Marginalisierung von Institutionen wie den Vereinten Nationen kommen, bedingt durch das Zusammenspiel von finanziellen, politischen und geopolitischen Faktoren," he said. (If this continues, it could lead to a dramatic weakening of multilateral conflict management and to an almost complete marginalization of institutions such as the United Nations, driven by the interplay of financial, political and geopolitical factors.)
He added: "Die Folge dürften mehr Konflikte sein, und diese Konflikte werden wahrscheinlich noch schwerwiegendere Auswirkungen auf die Zivilbevölkerung haben, da Staaten seit Langem etablierte Normen aufgeben." (The consequence is likely to be more conflicts, and these conflicts will probably have even more severe impacts on civilian populations as states abandon long-established norms.)
Dire Warnings About the Future
Cruz stressed that alternative models cannot simply replace UN-led missions. "Wir sehen, dass solche Einsätze wenig effektiv sind," she said of regional, bilateral, or private military operations. Multilateral peace operations, she emphasized, provide a crucial framework that includes "nämlich die Achtung der Menschenrechte, des humanitären Völkerrechts und so weiter" (namely respect for human rights and international humanitarian law).
The report specifically warns against cutting or prematurely ending missions in regions where conflicts remain unresolved or are flaring up again, citing the Democratic Republic of Congo, South Sudan, and Lebanon. Due to the funding crisis, missions were not deployed in places that urgently need them, such as Syria, Ukraine, and Yemen.
Despite the grim picture, researchers hold out a cautious hope. "Ich glaube, dass sie weiterbestehen werden, nur vielleicht etwas kleiner und auf eine etwas andere Art als bisher," Cruz said. (I believe they will continue to exist, just maybe a bit smaller and in a somewhat different form than before.) She maintained: "Aber ich bin immer noch überzeugt, dass sie die beste Option zum Konfliktmanagement sind, die wir derzeit haben." (But I am still convinced that they are the best option for conflict management we currently have.)
No Easy Alternative
The top contributing countries of peacekeeping personnel in 2025 came from the Global South: Uganda led with 4,657, followed by Nepal (4,299) and Bangladesh (4,275). The UN remained the largest single organizer, running 18 missions and providing one-third of all personnel, though its footprint also shrank.
SIPRI, an independent institute largely funded by the Swedish government, publishes annual data on military spending and the arms industry alongside its peace operations research. Its latest findings underline that the need for peacekeeping is not declining, as ceasefire and peace agreements still demand on-the-ground missions for a sustainable solution.