UN+Peacekeeping+Forces

The United Nations Peacekeeping Forces are employed by the World Organizaton to maintain or re-establish peace in an area of armed conflict. The UN may engage in conflicts between states as well as in struggles within states. The UN acts as an impartial third party in order to prepare the ground for a settlement of the issues that have provoked armed conflict. If it proves impossible to achieve a peaceful settlement, the presence of UN forces may contribute to reducing the level of conflict.
 * UN Peacekeeping Forces **

The UN Peacekeeping Forces may only be employed when both parties to a conflict accept their presence. Accordingly, they may also be used by the warring parties to avoid having a conflict escalate and, in the event, also to have a struggle called off.

two kinds of peacekeeping operations - unarmed observer groups and lightly-armed military forces. only allowed to employ their weapons for self-defence. Altogether, 14 UN operations have been carried out. They are evenly divided between observer groups and military forces. The observer groups are concerned with gathering information for the UN about actual conditions prevailing in an area, e.g., as to whether both parties adhere to an armistice agreement. The military forces are entrusted with more extended tasks, such as keeping the parties to a conflict apart and maintaining order in an area.

The most extensive UN operation in the Middle East is represented by the formation of UNIFIL, subsequent upon the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1978. Its tasks included watching over the Israeli withdrawal, maintaining conditions of peace and security, and helping the Lebanese government re-establish its authority. Such tasks have taxed the capabilities of UNIFIL to the utmost, but the UN forces have made an important contribution by reducing the level of conflict in the area. UN casualities now amount to more than 200.

UN force numbering almost 20,000 helped the Congolese government maintain peace and order. 1960   monitoring the border between India and Pakistan, and maintaining the peacekeeping force that was established on Cyprus on account of the civil war that broke out between the Greek and Turkish populations of the island. The UN force has succeeded in creating a buffer zone between the two ethnic groups.

__UN Successes__: A 2005 RAND Corp study found the UN to be successful in two out of three peacekeeping efforts. It compared UN nation-building efforts to those of the United States, and found that seven out of eight UN cases are at peace, as opposed to four out of eight US cases at peace __ UN Failures __ : Disagreements in the Security Council about military action and intervention are seen as having failed to prevent the 1994 [|Rwandan Genocide] failed to provide [|humanitarian aid] and intervene in the [|Second Congo War], failed to intervene in the 1995 [|Srebrenica massacre] and protect a refugee haven by the authorising the peacekeepers to use force, failure to deliver food to starving people in [|Somalia] , failure to implement provisions of Security Council resolutions related to the [|Israeli-Palestinian conflict] , and continuing failure to prevent genocide or provide assistance in [|Darfur].