United Nations Peacekeeping Operations Before and After the Cold War

How did the historical facts change Peacekeeping operations before and after the cold war? History

In order to understand the concept behind peacekeeping we have to first look at the history of this UN term and how it got established. The initial kick-off year was 1948 (un.org) when the Security Council deployed troops to the Middle East in order to observe the region. It was the outcome of the creation of the state Israel and the rest of the land piece was given and left over to the Palestinian Arabs. The Arab society and the Arab Nation leaders did not accept this division which caused the conflict. At first the UN sent only observers and peaceful troops to the region which should calm down and settle the issue but this didn’t help and the Israeli peacekeeping mission is the longest running UN mission of all time. The Mission goal changed and developed over time because other issues arose and the activities of the UN mandate spread over Egypt, Lebanon and several other Arab nations. (mapleleafweb.com)

Suez Canal Crisis

This spread-over peaked in the Suez Canal crisis in July 1956 (un.org) when Egypt nationalized the Suez Canal Company against the protest of the West especially the United Kingdom and France. On the October 13 the Security Council came together and formed a resolution which included certain rules and guidelines on how Egypt is allowed to operate the Canal. Around 2 weeks after this resolution was proposed the Israeli military in combination with the Brits and the French launched a missile attack on Egypt as they were falling under the power of the soviets and occupied Sinai and the Gaza Strip. (un.org) After this attack soon later the Brits a...

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...ture of Peacekeeping Operations: Fighting Political Fatigue and Overstretch . European Journal of International Law, 1(3), 1-14.

This paper was written in 2009. It’s about the future on peacekeeping and it addresses topics e.g. how the operations could fail?

Jonstone, I., & Gowan, R. (2007). New Challenges for Peacekeeping: Protection, Peacebuilding and the “War on Terror”. International Peace Academy, 1, 4-11.

This paper is a very good paper written by Johnstone and co-authored by Gowan. It mainly talks about the Phenomena which came after 2001 and the terror and how fighting terror could be a new peacekeeping issue.

Alexander Wendt, Social Theory of International Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), p.1

I had to take his ideas as they are the main focus of the view of the constructivists and he is and was the main leader of that ideology.