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Not to mention the question of why they'll be there at all. As far as I can tell, this seems to be something that none of the Afghans requested during the negotiations in Bonn, and indeed generally were rather cool about. There was one point where the Northern Alliance stated that it didn't want any at all, and then there was some back-room dickering and it changed its mind. So who exactly is it that does seem to think that peacekeepers are such a good idea? It seems to be something that the UN insisted on, most likely the UK, Germany and France. I'm quite certain that the United States was not one of the nations insisting on this; the US has been keeping peacekeepers out (for instance, about 60 French troops who are cooling their heels in Uzbekistan waiting for permission from the US to deploy in Mazar-e Sharif). Let's look at this closely: much of the strategy that the US has adopted in this war has been oriented around making use of local forces so that when the war was over they'd say "We did it ourselves" and thus have a strong commitment to whatever government was formed afterwards. That turned out to be one of the four biggest benefits of using the locals to do the majority of the fighting. (The other three were to permit rapid progress in the war due to not having to wait for massive American deployment, to face the Taliban with other Muslims, which sapped their morale, and to minimize American casualties.) Now the UN (or at least certain powerful nations within it) want to bring a huge number of foreign troops into Afghanistan to patrol and whatever else it is that peacekeepers do, right smacko in the middle of one of the most xenophobic nations on earth who have just spent 25 years fighting to eject foreigners from their nation. If the new government is propped up by foreign troops or is perceived by the Afghans as being propped up by them then it instantly loses credibility with the people of Afghanistan. It ceases to be "we did it ourselves" and becomes "they forced it on us", and by so doing completely shatters one of the biggest accomplishments of the war as it was fought. In terms of lending stability to the new government and letting it gain momentum, it would be much better to continue the policy of using local forces as much as possible. Otherwise it may come to be viewed as a western puppet (just as the Karmal/Najibullah government was viewed as a Soviet puppet). This war has gone well, and so far the peace is also going well. I really think that this insistence on foreign peacekeepers will lead to disaster. Peacekeeping has generally been hit-or-miss anyway, and the local circumstances here suggest it will be particularly counterproductive. I don't think that this insistence on deployment of peacekeepers is actually motivated by an examination of the local situation; it's rather some sort of a kneejerk "of course there will be peacekeepers" reaction; it's just how things are done, you understand? It's in the rules. Well, it wasn't in the rules in Serbia; and yet Serbia managed to put together a demoncratic government anyhow. And it was in the rules in Bosnia, and yet during the time that the peacekeepers were there war continued and the locals continued to be slaughtered. As far as I can tell, there seems to be no correlation between peace and presence of peacekeepers. Peacekeepers are only present at peace when the locals want peace anyway -- and it's not clear but that in such cases they'd make peace themselves even if no peacekeepers were present. Part of the problem is working out rules of engagement. In some cases (e.g. Bosnia) the peacekeepers were under orders to never fire their weapons -- and thus had no ability to stop hostile locals from doing anything non-peaceful. On several occasions the local commander strongly requested, indeed nearly begged, for permission to engage, which was always refused. The hope that they would stop conflict just because they were standing there wearing perky blue berets was shattered in Bosnia, and in many cases they actually stood and watched fighting because they were under orders not to interfere. It was a dismal failure. On the other hand, when the peacekeepers are armed and willing to fight, they can become viewed as just another partisan power among many, as happened in Somalia and Beirut. In all of thsoe cases, a large number of the locals actually did not want peace, and there was nothing the peacekeepers could do about it. Peace is always a side effect; it is not and can never be a goal to be directly accomplished. Peace is not an end in itself. You get peace when you eliminate the sources of conflict; but that is not something peacekeepers can do. Soldiers can do it, and so can diplomats. Peacekeepers get to be present at peace only when they're lucky enough to be someplace where the soldiers or diplomats have done their jobs well. And in Afghanistan, the peacekeepers will be by their very nature introduce a source of conflict if they are foreign troops. Which is why I think 
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