Participating in one of Harvard University’s CES Berlin Dialogues, associate director of the Global Public Policy Institute in Berlin, Thorsten Benner, evoked the death of UN Special Representative to Iraq in the 2003 terrorist bombing in Baghdad as a turning point for UN peacekeeping operations around the globe. Now marred with a record of smuggling, sexual exploitation, and negligence in areas such as the Congo, the UN is loosing its footing in areas of soft power while options for hard power become increasingly elusive. With the increase of nations preferring unilateral action abroad, the growing number of NGOs, and the hostile power vacuums left behind in regional conflicts, the UN’s greatest challenge in the coming years will be to convince the international community that it is still the most capable international organization in neutralizing conflicts and achieving stability.

An assessment of the UN on its 60th anniversary in 2007 revealed an unprecedented presence of UN staff worldwide. Scattered across several continents, there are over 100,000 UN employees working in a vast array of conflict resolving and nation building capacities. Observably overstretched, ill received and sometimes misdirected, analysts have begun to question the success of what has become the UN’s international "business" of peacekeeping.

Dr. Markus Jachtenfuchs, moderator of the evening and professor at the Hertie School of Governance in Berlin, challenged Benner and Prof. Dr. Thomas Risse, director of the Center for Transnational Relations, Foreign and Security Policy at the Free University in Berlin with some of the most pressing issues facing the UN: What are lessons learned for improving the effectiveness and legitimacy of UN peace operations? Have the US, Europe, and China lived up to their responsibilities? And how does the UN compare to other players in the peace operations business (the US, NATO, the EU and NGOs)?

Benner constructed the argument that navigating a path between serving its own interest and heeding the moral imperatives of human rights has become the focal point of the UN’s increasing lack of functionality. He suggested that the West’s insistence on using its own timeframes and notions of state building as well as its tendency to overlook its deficit of local knowledge have all contributed to its recent trend of inefficiency.

Dr. Risse dealt mainly with the problem of the UN’s eroding legitimacy on the ground. Waning US hegemony, the stagnation of the EU’s common defense initiative, and the relative uncertainty of China’s commitment to a stable international system are all reasons why the UN must dam the drain of its only remaining political capital, widely accepted legitimacy.

The main challenge lies in redirecting the operations and loyalties of the UN peacekeeping personnel. Rather than replacing local governing structures, UN state builders should be working with local owners to build legitimate, permanent and representative states. Instead of working within the timeframes, election cycles, and result-based funding of the West, the UN needs a policy that is tailored to the individual needs of local environments and exhibits short-term patience with long-term diligence. Only after this is achieved can satisfactory exit strategies be legitimately addressed.

In my opinion, international organizations and nations must observe three imperatives in peacekeeping: legality, legitimacy and efficiency. Not every directive is legally permissible, nor is every intervention appropriate or every undertaking feasible. These are considerations that any international organization composed of sovereign nations must grapple with before taking action. In the wake of Iraq, the Congo, and East Timor, the UN must reevaluate itself and where its political capital lies.

When the UN is successful who receives the credit? When a potentially fatal conflict is avoided, where are the heroes on the evening news, riding in on tanks among the liberated masses? That was then; this is now. Peacekeeping, for the most part, is an unglamorous, unrewarded endeavor. Perhaps curbing our reverence for the UN as an ultimate securer of human rights and beginning to view its objectives and tactics as "business" is not that perverse. Recent history has indeed shown, that human rights, regional stability and trade can be strategically intertwined.

Just as a business must convince a client of its competitive advantage, so must the UN show the international community that it is the most capable organization in promoting peace and assisting in nation building, as well as providing a setting for possible democratic conversion; meanwhile restricting itself to areas where it can display legality, legitimacy and efficiency. In so doing, they may be able to assist critical regions in making the transition into productive (dare one say ‘lucrative’) members in the global community.

If this discussion seems convoluted, or inconsiderate in its omission of the human aspects in this debate, we can take comfort that open discussion is an essential step towards reform. In that spirit, Jachtenfuchs, Benner, and Risse have opened a window into the problems of a notoriously complex organization.

For a list of upcoming CES Berlin Dialogues click here.

Ethan Arrow is an editorial intern at the Atlantic Community. He is currently an MA student at the Free University of Berin, studying European Integration within the scope of German Studies.