Due to the horrors of World War II and the devastation of Europe, 51 countries signed the United Nations Charter on June 25, 1945. These are the principles of the United Nations Organization to maintain international peace and security while promoting friendly relations among nations. Considering what has happened since then, some may think this is an invalid document, but member countries allocate billions of dollars each year to carry out peacekeeping missions.

There is also the contribution of the military, and in a very interesting graphic created by VisualCapitalist, we can look at the data of the countries that contribute the most to the United Nations and where the main missions are carried out. And yes, we will talk about the not-so-little debates.

TOP 10 units. The data is constantly changing. In fact, the UN’s latest report, dated June 2024, has 61,788 month-by-month. The chart shows global data for 2023 and gives you an idea of ​​the countries that are most and least supportive of the global quest for peace. The top 10 contributors to unity were:

Hello world powers? It’s notable that there are no military forces beyond India and China among the countries that contribute the most troops. Where are the United States, Russia, South Korea, or Vietnam? These are the countries with the most troops, both active and in reserve, along with the aforementioned India and China. But you have to dig down a bit to find them.

There are currently 120 countries that contribute troops to the UN (excluding Ukraine, which is on the list but had none on the ground in June). To find the forces in question, we need to scroll down the list a bit:

• 29th place – South Korea with 541 people
• 38th place – Vietnam with 275 people
• 58th place – Russia with 84 people
• Rank 76 – United States with 26 people

And the ones who contributed the most moneyMore than 100 of the 120 countries have fewer than 1,000 troops, but that is not the only way to contribute to missions: there is also the financing of operations. As with NATO contributions, member states are required to contribute to the global budget, but as with troops, financial contributions are highly irregular.

Here we see that the main economies of the world are also the main financiers (and here we can see the millions that both China and above all the US devote to the military arm. In fact, the US alone (and almost China alone) contributes more than the total of countries between 11 and 120:

Missions for peace. Okay, and all this… where is it going? As of November 2023, there are 11 active peacekeeping missions. The majority are in Africa, and the conflict between Israel and Palestine is taking place, which will be interesting to check when the UN releases its 2024 report to see if there have been any changes in the personnel assigned to the region despite what’s going on.

The Blue Helmets’ Discussions. The basic principle of the missions is to protect both civilians and human rights. The end of the UN troops, the blue helmets, has come. But we said a few lines ago that there are discussions and that the reason for this is precisely because the UN peacekeeping forces intervene in cases where this intention has failed miserably.

These forces are subordinate to the armed forces of member states, but operate under the authority of the UN Security Council, and there have been cases, such as in Rwanda in 1994, where the blue helmets have abandoned the Tutsis they were supposed to protect, leaving them at the mercy of a Hutu massacre. Another well-known case occurred in Haiti in 2007, when around 100 peacekeepers were accused of sexual harassment and abuse of the population. It got to the point where the troops were withdrawn and replaced by 600 more blue helmets, but this replacement was made up solely of women.

There are other cases of sexual abuse of children by soldiers in a refugee camp in the Central African Republic; this case was investigated and concluded that there was a deliberate attempt by UN officials to silence the children.

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