Peacekeeping: Outspoken Observations by a Field Officer

This study argues, based on the author’s firsthand experience with five United Nations peacekeeping missions, that classic peacekeepers in the Cold War era could play a limited but nonetheless useful role in international conflict control. However, in the post-Cold War period, some new approaches to peacekeeping and ventures into enforcement have been unsuccessful, and the United Nations has lost much credibility in the art of peacekeeping. In a violent world, peacekeeping will always play a minor supporting role to traditional diplomacy among the great powers and to coalition and alliance efforts to control conflict. The author’s involvement in peacekeeping missions in Cyprus, Iran-Iraq, and other parts of the Middle East over the period from 1967 to 1990 gives him a rare and informed perspective on peacekeeping.