I would say none.

By current international conventions, the local government will not give two hoots. By current American/ British interventional actions: none... we will only make the problem worse.

This is what the human race don't seem to get....

Give people the knowledge, the understanding, the tools and the power to make a better life for themselves, and they will.

It's the "give a man a fish argument."

I just wish politician would give up trying to help for votes, and live in the real bleeding world!

When I was #2 running the Ford dealership in NYC, we had a problem with a Range Rover sold to the daughter of one of the principal Ministers in DRC. She wanted it not repaired, but replaced without cost with a new vehicle -- and she wanted it now!!

I of course had to be the soul of courtesy and restraint; executives do not tell off the customers. But she was the most arrogant, overbearing, self-absorbed, demanding, unreasonable person I ever encountered. She let me know that her father was very, very rich and extremely powerful; and if I did not satisfy her, right away, the President of Ford would hear about it before morning.

Of course, her demands were entirely unreasonable. She certainly was not entitled to immediate delivery of a new car, and repairs on her vehicle would take a good share of the day -- the next day, as this was well into the evening, and the mechanics would not return until the morning. She could not accept that I would not jump and then grovel, before her childish demands.

And this, I believe, is the problem in Congo. The few who are in power have absolute power, to order anything they want. They command almost unlimited money, giving them elaborate residences, servants, fleets of cars and planes, battalions of armed guards, luxury travel everywhere, and so on. Tjey are not going to give that up, for something stupid like the welfare and well-being of the people.

Eliminating that dictatorship would require overcoming a substantial army, staffed with and led by people who enjoy privileges and a standard of living way above the common citizens of Congo. They will fight hard to preserve their position of privilege.

Unfortunately, I think the outlook for Congo is quite bleak. Running a repressive dictatorship is very satisfying for the dictator group, and they apparently have a substantial defense against being overthrown.

Africa as a whole challenges all our liberal ideas. These are murky waters, but knowing myself NOT to be a Nazi, I will proceed anyway.

As with Arabs, there is no tradition whatsoever of democracy and the rule of law in Black Africa. The single most common governmental form is tribalism - in fact,it is virtually ubiquitous. Mugabe's Zimbabwe is based on this,and it will be after he has gone. South Africa is heading the same way very quickly. The Congo has stumbed from one bloody, self-centred and vicious regime to another. Nigeria is blessed with some oil, but the graft is horrendous.
The idea of government FOR the people is non-existent.
The sad reality is that giving black rule back to Africa has meant the continent going back a thousand years in sixty years. And imposing a democratic format has been a wasteof timefor theer is no desire for it.
So the short answer to your question is that there is no size of UN peacekeeping force capable of bringing stability to the Congo: the minute it left, the scramble to become chief would start all over again.
As westerners, the first thing we need to recognise is that African culture is continuing where it left off before the brief interregnum called colonial rule. And that culture is intolerant,repressive, cruel,savage, decadent, simplistic,self-pitying and delusional.
I have no idea what the current mainstream of opinion in the US is on this issue,but in Europe I can observe that views are swinging massively against regimes which (it seems to us) want all the status, money and advantages of participation in the World Community, but none of the rules,responsibilities and ethical standards.
The double-standards, self-enrichment and ridiculous accusations of
African leaders and the media they control beggar belief. Simply read the biggest-selling magazine there - African Today - and read some of the drivel in it. Google Mugabe's speeches over the last five years. The whole continent is becoming an insane asylum - an asylum where one in four of the inmates is now infected with HIV, but their leaders are in denial about it, or advocating traditional African medicine as the cure. Mbeki of South Africa thinks the way to avoid AIDS is to take a shower afterwards!
I tend to agree with most of the civilised black Africans who, like me, deplore what their continent has become: the West (and the East) should butt out and let them make their own mistakes. This willnot happen of course, because multinational business and national energy geopolitics see the developing countries as a bizarre cross between gold mine and safety net. It is neither: it is a black hole.