UNDOF and the limits of peacekeeping reform: persistence without evolution

Abstract

The United Nations Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) has monitoredthe 1974 Israel–Syria disengagement regime on the Golan Heights for half acentury. Its narrow mandate persists largely unchanged despite a profoundtransformation of its operating environment during and after the Syrian civilwar. This article asks why UNDOF endures in its original form, and what itspersistence reveals about the limits of contemporary peacekeeping reform.Drawing on the Secretary-General’s reporting from 2015 to 2025, it traceshow the Syrian state’s collapse, non-state armed actors, and Israeli operationsinside the area of separation eroded the original regime, culminating in theDecember 2024 Israeli incursion. To explain why the mission persists yet doesnot adapt, the article develops the concept of a negative-consensusequilibrium, sustained by institutional inertia, signalling value, and juridicallock-in, and specifies the scope conditions under which it emerges in treaty-bound missions. It then tests the 2025 Berlin Peacekeeping Ministerial’sreform agenda against the case, arguing that its core commitments eachfail for a different reason: modularity, because the mandate lies beyond theCouncil’s reach; political primacy, because the parties withhold consent;and performance accountability, because the equilibrium decouples fatefrom results.