Lowering Expectations: The Evolution of UN Peacekeeping and Recommendations for the Future

Abstract

United Nation’s Peacekeeping Operations have been contested since the first blue helmets arrived in the Gaza Strip in 1956. Peacekeeping Operations can be divided into three temporal categories, each with their own challenges: Cold War, post-Cold War, and twenty-first century. This article analyzes these three periods of peacekeeping in order to profer advice as to how UN Peacekeeping should be undertaken in the future. Considering that UN member states are shying away from the financial burdens of peacekeeping and that the twentyfirst century has been marked by states’ desire to engage only in conflicts directly in line with national interests, I suggest that the United Nations should return to limited-mandate peacekeeping missions. By combining limited-mandate missions with a greater focus on conflict prevention, the United Nations may continue to play an important role in global peacekeeping.