• Future of Peace Operations

Dr. William J. Durch is the director of Stimson's Future of Peace Operations program. Prior to joining Stimson in 1990, Durch served as a foreign affairs officer with the US Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, as a research fellow at the Harvard Center for Science and International Affairs, and as assistant director of the Defense and Arms Control Studies program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Since joining Stimson, he has been seconded as a scientific advisor to the US Defense Threat Reduction Agency, and served as project director for the panel on United Nations Peace Operations (the Brahimi Report). Durch also serves as a consultant to the International Forum on Challenges of Peace Operations, and for the United Nations on projects focused on improving the effectiveness of peacekeeping at headquarters and in the field. He has taught courses on international organization and  peacekeeping at the School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University, at the School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University, and the Elliott School of International Affairs, George Washington University.

Durch holds a PhD from MIT, an MA from George Washington University, and BSFS from Georgetown University.

Selected Publications

“Exit and Peace Operations: When and How to Leave Kinshasa, Kabul, Dili, and Darfur” (Exit Strategies and Peace Consolidation, Oxford University Press, 2011).

“The Economic Impact of Peacekeeping: An Update” (Economic Impacts of Crisis Response Operations, Vienna and Geneva: Schriftenreihe der Landesverteidigungsakademie, in cooperation with the Geneva Centre for Security Policy, 2010).

“United Nations Police: Evolution, Present Capacity and Future Tasks” (Prepared for Organizing Police Forces in Post-Conflict Peace-Support Operations, Tokyo: Graduate Institute of Policy Studies, 2010).

Enhancing United Nations Capacity to Support Post-Conflict Policing and Rule of Law (Stimson Center, 2007, revised/updated 2010).

Improving Criminal Accountability in United Nations Peace Operations (Stimson Center, 2009).

The Purposes of Peace Operations, Annual Review of Global Peace Operations 2009 (Center on International Cooperation, 2009).

Post-Conflict Borders and UN Peace Operations: Part II, A Phased Approach to Post-Conflict Border Security (Stimson Center, 2007).

Twenty-First-Century Peace Operations (USIP, 2006).

Who Should Keep the Peace? Providing Security for Twenty-First Century Peace Operations (Stimson Center, 2006).

The Brahimi Report and the Future of UN Peace Operations (Stimson Center, 2003).