UN Peacekeeping Essay -- International Politics, Conflicts

Even though, the UN charter does not mention the creation of a peacekeeping force, it has become a major instrument to deter violence and conflict since WWII. Particularly, after Cold War, international peacekeeping has climbed to the top of the agenda of the United Nations (UN) and many national governments (Druckman, et.al, 1997). As result, the UN peacekeeping currently operates in more than 60 disputed areas. Are these peacekeeping are effective in sustaining peace and stability? Or they are not? What are the scholars’ perspective on success and failure of peacekeeping? Did they agree or have divergent perspective? Peacekeeping operations can help to resolve conflict without bloodshed. But, scholars have competing perspective on the role of peacekeeping in resolve conflict. Scholars have also main differences in perspective of peacekeeping effectiveness. On the one hand, they see the contribution of peacekeeping to larger values such as world peace, justice, and the reduction of human suffering. On the other hand, they see limited or absence of contribution peacekeeping (Druckman, et.al 1997). Most observers see how peacekeeping has proven its value in stopping hostilities, maintaining cease-fires, restoring some degree of trust, and involvement of peacekeeping in sustaining peace significantly and substantially (Fisher, 1993; Doyle and Sambanis, 2000; Hartzell, Hoddie, and Rothchild,2001). The U.S. office of General Accounting (1999) also describes the success of the UN peacekeeping for the last fifty years. On the other hand opponents of peacekeeping point the dramatic failures of peacekeeping. Scholars such as (Fortan, 2005; Greig& Diehil, 2005) described little effect of the UN peacekeeping. Therefore, there is no ... ... of post Cold War. However, peacekeeping missions have become an increasingly well-used tool of international diplomacy and conflict resolution. ‘Globally, the deployment of military personnel in PKOs â€Å"surpassed record highs† in 2009, rising by about 9% over the year, with a total of more than 200,000 military, police and civilians in the field’ (CIC 2008, p.2). Again, the increasing choice to peacekeeping continued, with little understanding of its appropriate application and effectiveness. Scholars, however, disagree on the context of peacekeeping operation and how its impact should be evaluated (Druckman, et.al, 1997). In fact, it can be argued that the absence of what peacekeeping â€Å"missions can accomplish and determining the extent to which they have, in fact, achieved goals† (p.150) also created disparity among scholars about effectiveness of peacekeeping.