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Peacekeeping
The nature of peace operations undertaken by the United Nations has changed
dramatically since the end of the Cold War. Not only has the number of operations
expanded exponentially, but their collective scope has also increased. Of the sixty-three
peacekeeping organizations since 1948, sixteen are current operations; $7.1 billion is the
current yearly budget for peacekeeping when only $54 billion had been allocated for
financial support for all peace operations since 1948. (UN DPI, 2009) It appears that this
intervention is certainly needed, when it is thought that “one of the challenges facing the
international community in the post-Cold War era is the increasingly pervasive problem
of civil conflict.” (Paris, 1997) The UN justifies its interventions from parts of Chapter
VI (“to facilitate the pacific settlement of disputes”) (Mayall, 1996, p.7) and Chapter VII
and security”) (Mayall, 1996, p.4) of the UN Charter—sometimes called the Chapter six-
and-a-half solution. This approach was not always in place. In the past, peace operations
were rather limited: they could only be present during cease fires with the consent of the
state involved and have troops as neutral observers (Cockayne, 2005, p.332). In present
(Cockayne, 2005, p.331) There are a number of reasons for the vast increase in quantity
and scope of peace operations, most notably structural and normative shifts.
The structural explanation for the increase of peace operations attributes it to the
end of the Cold War and the new equilibrium of power that ensued. In particular, it
concerns the relatively recent change in the structure of power in the UN Security
Council after the breakup of the Soviet Union as well as the new problems that emerged
specifically due to the breakup of the USSR. Prior to 1990, the Security Council of the
United Nations was ideologically split into two factions: the United States and its allies in
opposition to the Soviet Union and its allies. The Security Council is the only body that
can legitimately authorize force in any case of threat to international peace, as justified in
Chapter VII of the UN Charter that allows the UN to take “action by air, sea, or land
forces as may be necessary to maintain or restore international peace and security.” (UN,
1945) Due to this, along with the fact that the five permanent members of the Security
Council (The United States, France, the UK, China, and the Soviet Union—now Russia)
had to vote unanimously in any significant decision, no decision to intervene was ever
approved; a single veto from any of the permanent members would have paralyzed any
proposed peace operations. (Mayall, 1996, p.6) After 1990, this was no longer true.
The US and its allies among the permanent members no longer automatically
vetoed proposals that Russia supported and vice versa. Furthermore, the remaining ten
elected members of the Security Council no longer had to automatically follow either the
US or USSR due to Cold War politics and funding. An instructive example can be seen in
the case of Cambodia. A Soviet supported Vietnam had invaded Cambodia in 1978 to
replace the Khmer Rouge (which was committing genocide) in direct violation of the
realist principles of noninterference and sovereignty. No action was taken until the past
decade due to the Soviet Union’s stake in the matter. The UN tried to establish a neutral
political environment through elections, but was ultimately unsuccessful. The region
preferred to maintain sovereignty, and a final compromise was reached in which a council
representing all political factions, including the Khmer Rouge regime, took Cambodia’s
UN seat. (Mayall, 1996, p.8)(Yale University 2009) In short, the Cold War had forced a
mindset preoccupied with noninterference and sovereignty that could only (and was)
addressed after the fall of the Soviet Union. Unfortunately, the end of the Cold War itself
and the ensuing shift in power dynamics created many problems to be addressed—as
Ayoob has written, “insecurities and insecurities are largely a function of the historical
juncture where most Third World states find themselves [after the end of the Cold War].”
Ironically, the very freedom that was afforded by the end of the Cold War was the
cause of some of the conflicts that caused the UN to have to intervene. Internal conflict
seems to be the rule among all conflicts since 1990. The conflict in the former state of
Yugoslavia is one case. After the breakup of the Soviet Union, ethnic nationalism erupted
into a very brutal conflict between Orthodox Serbs, Catholics, and Muslims. According to
Kaldor, people abandoned the previously uniting ideology politics for intrinsically
exclusive identity politics based on religious and ethnic lines, using them as a pretext for
fighting towards the goal of “sowing ‘fear and hatred.’” (Kaldor, 2007, p.9) Alternatively,
Huntington claimed that this was the natural tendency for three different civilizations—
regress to their natural state of clashes and conflicts that the Soviet Union had kept in
check after the end of the Cold War. (Huntington, 1996) Thus, 1990 brought not only the
opportunity for the UN to intervene in peace operations in much of the world, but it also
A factor that should be addressed is that along with the cause and ability to
intervene in more conflicts around the world after 1990, the UN was simply able to be
better and faster informed about the conflicts around the world due to globalization and
improvement in telecommunications technology. People in this new era have far more of
the transnational interactions that are a hallmark of globalization, ranging from economic
globalization causes the world to be simply more aware of conflict. Whereas during the
Cold War years the UN may only have a vague idea of what conflicts were occurring far
after many of the original events, today’s world of continuous media coverage ensures
that the world will quickly become aware of atrocities being committed. As Cockayne
notes, “intensive media coverage of humanitarian disasters mobilizes public opinion and
Ultimately, the end of the Cold War provides the causes of many of the conflicts that the
UN intervenes in, the opportunities for it to do so, and the information more quickly and
readily than it was available in the past upon which the UN acts. These three sub-factors
together explain why the end of the Cold War is a good structural explanation for the
However, the structural explanation does not fully address the recently increased
number and scope of UN peace operations. Notably, the aforementioned implications and
effects of the end of the Cold War do not completely explain why the UN decides to
intervene when many conflicts are within sovereign states. A justification for this lies in
the normative explanation for the increase in UN interventions: extensions in
international standards for intervening as well as expansions in the standards for what
Originally, the guiding philosophy for peace operations was that they should be
quite limited. UN personnel were to be present only during cease fires agreed upon by all
parties involved contingent on their being lightly armed and authorized only to use force
(Cockayne, 2005, p.332) After 1990, the standards for becoming involved greatly
changed. First, there was a shift in the referent. The state’s security is no longer the only
thing of concern; the security of the people within the state, of minorities in particular, is
now a matter of great concern. In fact, the state itself can be a source of insecurity under
this new perspective, something that is impossible by the older definitions (Rothschild,
longer are conflicts, though technically domestically originating, thought of as being only
in the state’s domain. Now, the byproducts of these various conflicts, such as rebels,
virtue of harming or having the potential to harm neighboring (and at times quite distant)
states. In other words, “the actions of people in one country actually [cause] events in
other countries.” (Rothschild, 1995, p68) Finally, the agent of security has expanded in
scope as well. While previously only including the state in question, the UN now
security, possibly because the state is perceived to be a “failed state” that cannot provide
security in the case of internal conflict. (Cockayne, 2005, p.335) These new standards are
present in the conception of “new security.” It simultaneously extends the coverage of
traditional security downwards to the individual level in its standards for the referent,
The normative shift also applies to the standards for how far peace operations
should be carried out, both for means as well as objectives. As Ralph Bunch had written,
the foundations of a self-renewing peace.” (Cockayne, 2005, p.331) Far from the lightly
armed neutral observers permitted originally only during cease fires, contemporary
operations try to “resolve internal conflicts.” (Cockayne, 2005, p.334) The UN now tries
to not only halt military hostilities, but also focuses on things as varied as “humanitarian
assistance, civil administration, police monitoring and training, human rights monitoring,
p.335) Old practices still apply. For instance, the primary objectives of the missions still
tend to be military ones. However, there is an undeniable shift in the standards for how
Unfortunately, there are some inherent contradictions and tensions to the new
sovereignty, because by definition the UN’s actions would count as other countries’
acting within the boundaries of another nation. The issue is further complicated by the
UN Charter not being particularly clear on the issue. Article 2 asserts the principles of
sovereignty and noninterference, but the preamble affirms the faith in human rights the
but this is not always a solution. Second, it is inherently difficult to maintain impartiality
and nonuse of force yet still be effective. Long term, use of force would breed resentment
and undermine efforts, but short term gains are difficult when UN forces seem to be
relationships need to be cultivated with the local people for success, but a sense of
acceptable to the intervening countries’ populations) time frame. Overall, the inherent
contradictions facing the new type of peace operations, potentially hampering their
effectiveness.
UN intervention in East Timor is a good example of both of the major parts of the
normative shift, as well as some of the inherent problems to the new standards of peace
operations. In 1999, Indonesia had invaded East Timor and was killing thousands of its
citizens in response to the results of a UN supported election earlier in which the East
eventually having about 11,500 troops stationed in the area, showing its willingness to
militarily intervene in what would previously be left under domestic authority for
humanitarian reasons. It proceeded to “govern the population and the territory” from the
capital of Dili, showing the expanded role in how far peace operations are carried out.
(Chopra, 2000, p.29) The local citizens were considered to be under the full legal control
of the UN, meaning that the international staff had sovereign rule of the territory—
something that would have been unthinkable during the Cold War. Unfortunately, the UN
did not govern the territory well, failing to adapt its bureaucracy to the country’s needs so
that it would be well prepared to be independent after withdrawal. (Chopra, 2000, p.36)
The fact that peace operations grew dramatically after the end of the Cold War in
both number and scope is undeniable. The reasons for the chances are difficult to identify
precisely, however. Structural explanations involving the new dynamics of power after
the end of the Cold War do explain the existence of many of these conflicts needing
Still, not all aspects of the situation are explained in this manner. Normative shifts
conversely provide convincing explanations for the UN’s expanded standards for
intervening and manner of doing so. Together, these two explain a decent amount of the
greatly expanded extent and scope of UN peace operations since the end of the Cold War.
Works Cited
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Cockayne, J (2005).The Ralph Bunche Centennial: Peace Operations Then and Now.
Kaldor, M. (2007) New and Old War: Organized Violence in a Global Era. Stanford
University Press.
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Paris, R. (1997) Peacebuilding and the Limits of Liberal Internationalism. Retrieved May
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