While high-tech-elements – like the use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), Global Information System (GIS) or nonlethal weapons – are already in frequent use in the NATO or the EU, the UN Nations increasingly committed itself to those elements in the course of the last years. Recent UN reports – like the OCHAs “Unmanned Aerial Vehicles in Humanitarian Response” (2014) or the DKPOs “Performance Peacekeeping” (2015) explicitly deal with strategies of enhancing UN Peacekeeping through high tech. As surveillance of vast and infrastructure-poor areas plays a significant role in UN Peacekeeping, high-tech-elements seem to be a suitable way to meet the respective challenges; however, it is largely unexplored how high-tech-elements actually change UN Peacekeeping.
The following contribution deals concerning the already existing use of high tech elements in five UN missions (the UNIFIL [Lebanon], the MONUSCO [DR Congo], the MINUSMAH [Mali], the MINUSTAH [Haiti] and the MINURCAT [Chad]) –and the (assumed) increase in effectiveness in the three dimensions enhancement of information access, strategic involvement of high-tech-elements in the mission frame and protection of civilians. It comes to the conclusion of a strong increase in information access through the respective elements; however, strategic involvement in the mission frame and the possibility of protection of civilians still vary greatly from mission to mission. The inclusion of high-tech-elements therefore appears to constitute a promising development in UN Peacekeeping; still, much has to be done to streamline and enhance its use.
