UN Peacekeepers Face New Peril in Trump's Push to Cut Budget

At her January confirmation hearing to become ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley caused a stir among diplomats when she said she’d consider slashing U.S. funding for one of the international body’s most potent symbols: the UN peacekeeping force. For decades, the blue-helmeted troops have been sent to preserve uneasy truces and keep violence from erupting in some of the world’s most impoverished and volatile places.

Haley, the former governor of South Carolina, argued peacekeepers are increasingly asked not just to avert wars but wage them, putting the troops into hostile situations they’re not trained or equipped for and making them targets for rebel fighters who don’t give the UN uniform any special deference. Last year, 99 peacekeepers died on the job.