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In August 2021 the international media and most politicians reacted with much surprise to the dramatic events at Kabul airport. Thousands of Afghanis, desperate to flee Taliban rule, were struggling to get on the last planes leaving the country. It die not take long that prominent Western commentators proclaimed that the failure in Afghanistan would be the end of longstanding, Western inspired conflict management strategies to end violent conflict in failing states by deploying peace operations and getting involved in longterm peace- and nation building processes. Indeed, “peace operations”, conducted by a variety of international actors like the UN, EU, NATO, AU, are a strategic pillar of international peace and security policy since the end of the Cold War. In average, more than 150.000 international military, police, and civilians are annually deployed worldwide. No doubt, a number of these missions are struggling with difficulties similar to those in Afghanistan. But does the failure in Afghanistan really imply that there is no future for peace operations and peacebuilding and that missions like those in Mali, Somalia, DR Congo etc. will suffer a fate similar to that in Afghanistan? This is what we want to explore in the class by having a thorough, field based look at the history, concepts, development and unsolved problems of UN-lead peace operations and peacebuilding.