Institutional ambition without autonomy provides a framework for understanding the African Union’s Peace and Security Architecture, highlighting the gap between normative ambition and political capacity. The argument advanced is that APSA embeds far-reaching norms but lacks the delegated fiscal authority, operational independence, and member-state discipline required to translate them into consistent coercive or preventive action. Drawing on comparative case analysis of AMIS (Darfur), AMISOM (Somalia), MISCA (CAR), and the MNJTF (Lake Chad Basin); budget analysis of Peace Fund contributions; discourse analysis of PSC communiqués; and interviews with AU Commission Peace and Security Department officials, the study engages debates in regime theory, principal–agent approaches to international organizations, and African regionalism. It examines why formally ambitious institutions—PSC, APSA, and ACIRC—underperform relative to their mandates. Three core claims are advanced. First, AU underperformance arises from the interaction of weak financing, cautious member states, and fragmented command arrangements rather than institutional absence alone. Second, donor dependence has enabled operations but constrained agenda-setting, force generation, and the strategic autonomy associated with “African solutions to African problems.” Third, the AU performs most effectively when regional and international partners align around limited mandates, but struggles where incumbents treat peace architecture as a sovereignty shield rather than a mechanism of delegation. The study concludes that Peace Fund reforms must be matched by stricter member-state contribution rules and clearer burden-sharing if financial autonomy is to become politically meaningful. It further emphasizes that AU missions