In the last two decades, outrage over the international community’s failures to prevent genocidal massacres in Rwanda and Bosnia led to great strides in one area of reform: strengthening mandates for peacekeeping missions. Thus the peacekeepers’ mandate in Pibor did permit combat to defend civilians. But then a member nation withdrew vital tools at the wrong moment.

United Nations missions enlist contingents of soldiers from different countries. Each reports to the mission’s force commander but also to its own country’s military leaders. The force commander also answers to both his home country and the United Nations. On the ground, the consequences of unwieldy command structures are clear. Critical military assets lie idle; maneuvers that might prevent bloodshed go untried; morale is undermined and confusion reigns.

What can be done? There are many ways to structure sturdier, more unified chains of command and control. Any of them would be an improvement. The most ambitious suggestion often discussed is for a standing United Nations military force. Lesser steps might at least rationalize existing lines of command. The Security Council, meanwhile, must monitor changing threats to a mission, and make sure the force has what it needs to succeed.

But the very architecture of the United Nations — its sovereign members are the ultimate authority — dictates that the most powerful member states hold the keys to any reforms. World leaders must persuade their voters that better peacekeeping is worth the sacrifice of some national control.

Especially in the United States, President Obama must explain to voters that United Nations peacekeeping is more necessary than ever as we shift from a unilateralist military approach to a greater focus on muscular multilateralism. To cut back on support for it is to cave to the worst penny-wise, pound-foolish tendencies of our domestic politics.

If anything, support for the United Nations’ blue-helmeted troops should be increased. They save America untold billions by taking on moral and security imperatives that we cannot manage alone. For the international community to be more than a nice phrase, we must decide it is worth fighting for.