Latin American Involvement in International Peacekeeping

Latin American involvement in international peacekeeping dates back to the start of United Nations peacekeeping efforts with the Organization's founding in the 1940s but has seen a sharp acceleration in recent years.

The military establishments of the larger nations of Latin America (with the notable exception of Mexico) have consistently supported most of the major peacekeeping missions of the United Nations. In some cases (Argentina, Chile), this has been a long-term historic commitment of a few (3-6) observers in missions that have been supported from the late 1940s to date. In other cases the support has taken the form of major units (at least a battalion in the range of 500-700 personnel), generally for periods of a year. This Latin American support effort has accelerated in the past few years as the UN has taken a more activist and interventionist stance in the peacekeeping field (with some key individuals calling for the UN to be prepared to do peace-enforcement as well as peace-keeping). At least one army (Argentina's) now formally includes such peacekeeping support as one of its basic missions, and others have assumed de facto peacekeeping roles with an extended commitment into the future. Since it is reasonable to assume that such calls for troop contributions for UN peacekeeping missions will continue and even increase in the future, this role will probably be of growing significance.