A Brief History of UN Peacekeeping

Abstract

In the years since the creation of the United Nations in 1945, peacekeeping has gone through eight distinct phases. The phases reflect a repeated ebb and flow as a period of little to no new peacekeeping activity was followed by a period where new operations were launched and the number of peacekeepers grew. Each period is described in this chapter, but they all reflect the same trends. Peacekeeping expanded or contracted not just because there were wars to deal with, but because it fell in and out of favor. The use of peacekeeping was determined by factors like the level of competition or cooperation between the two Super Powers, the interests of other major countries, the evolution of conflicts and whether peacekeeping’s more notable failures were still fresh in the minds of the international community. The first two expansion periods came about mainly as a response to wars in the Middle East. Tension between the two Super Powers brought both of them to an end and ushered in eras where peacekeeping was confined almost solely to the continuation of ongoing missions. A third cycle of expansion began in 1988 with the end of the Cold War when greater cooperation between Russia and the USA became possible. It also became necessary as the collapse of the Soviet Union led to new conflicts within the countries that once made it up. This period was marked by increasingly ambitious mandates as the UN tasked the peacekeepers with dealing with civil wars.