preview

United Nations Peacekeeping Essay

Better Essays

United Nations Peacekeeping
Figures Not Available

“The United Nations is so radically defective that it is incapable of establishing world order; truth be told, not only has the UN failed [to achieve its peacekeeping objectives], but it was always bound … to fail” (Simioni 12). At first sight, it would seem that this is part of just one of the many current debates about the effectiveness of the UN as the main arbitrator of the international community. In fact, it represents one of the view points expressed in August 1947, soon after the failure of the first and only round of negotiations concerning the establishment of a transnational army under direct UN command (DEA 33). Since then, the controversy about the role of the United …show more content…

in DEA 1-5).

However resolute, the mere assertion of peace as the main goal of the organization was not enough. In the tense political situation created after WWII, with the Communist Bloc and the Capitalist West becoming increasingly abrupt in their bilateral international approaches, it was time for the newly established organization to get involved. As the relations between the United States and the Soviet Union soured, the UN became the key stability factor between the two major poles of power. In fact, “[k]eeping the Cold War (1950-1989) from turning hot can be considered the UN’s single biggest job” (Morton 21). Since then the UN has been involved in numerous large-scale operations. Nevertheless, considering the four decades of rising tensions, with increasing amounts of “military machinery and weapons [being] stockpiled for a third world war, which many people believed was inevitable” (Chasmer et al. 280), controlling the outcome of the Cold War remains a great achievement, accomplished not by use of military force, but of diplomatic ingenuity.

In the early years of the United Nations, the Security Council had some successes in

Get Access