Synopses & Reviews
Peacekeeping is a useful tool to manage international conflict and maintain truces, but it will only work in a narrow range of circumstances. Peacekeepers can order punitive airstrikes, depose elected leaders, destroy infrastructure, and enforce peace accords not drafted by the warring parties. They have overstepped their bounds, and peacekeeping is now often a euphemism for any multilateral military action. A CIA analyst who worked closely with Reagan, Bush, and Clinton administration officials on UN issues, Fleitz examines how peacekeeping works, the rash of peacekeeping failures since 1993, and whether peacekeeping can still play a role in U.S. foreign policy. It is a unique realist assessment destined to become the guide to this very important subject for U.S. policymakers, politicians, and students of international relations.
UN peacekeeping disasters in the 1990s occurred because world leaders failed to recognize the rules and precedents that allowed traditional peacekeeping to succeed during the Cold War. Although failed peacekeeping operations damaged the peacekeeping concept, it can still serve as a viable tool to promote international security and promote American interests abroad if used in the right circumstances. Carefully researched and supported by over two dozen maps, charts, and photos, Fleitz boldly challenges dozens of assumptions of the foreign policy establishment about the nature of the Cold War, post-Cold War peacekeeping, and 1990s peacekeeping deployments.
Review
For students of international relations who may be asking questions about why the international system seems so dysfunctional, notwithstanding efforts by intergovernmental organization to maintain peace and security, this book presents contentious answers.[P]resents a useful reminder of the distinctions between peacekeeping and other forms of military operation.Political Science Quarterly
Review
[c]learly written, well researched, infused with commitment, bristling with trenchant characterizations, and offering reasonable solutions to pressing problems, the book will undoubtedly provide plenty of material to offend nearly everybody. In summary, Peacekeeping Fiascoes of the 1990s is indispensable to policy makers, well wishers and skeptics of the United Nations, and students of conflict resolution and international relations in general. pressing problemsUS Army War College Quarterly
Review
...delightfully blunt...Feitz offers some highly practical advice: Continue to use U.N. peacekeepers, but only along the lines of the traditional, limited model that used to work so well. Combine a return to that more modest approach with the adoption by Washington of a realistic foreign policy in which bienpensant internationalism is discarded, American interests are put first, and the isolationist temptation is avoided, and the results could be impressive. It won't be easy, but and intelligent foreign policy never is.National Review
Review
This splendid analysis of peacekeeping in the `90s illuminates the problems encountered by the United States in its effort to utilize the new tool called `peacekeeping' to achieve traditional military goals....Fred Fleitz has a unique understanding of what can and cannot be done through peacekeeping. He understands its potential and the obstacles to its effectiveness. The United States and the United Nations have much to learn from Fleitz's careful, useful, clearly written study.Jeane J. Kirkpatrick Leavey Professor of Government Georgetown University
Review
An indispensable contribution to the literature of conflict resolution and of UN studies. It provides, simultaneously, the record of UN peacekeeping--authoritative in every detail--and an informed critique of its successes, failures, and preconditions. A research necessity for all future UN students--and as pertinent as today's headlines.Charles M. Lichenstein Distinguished Fellow The Heritage Foundation
Synopsis
Unnecessary, avoidable, and predictable, the peacekeeping disasters of the 1990s were the result of world leaders' overeagerness to employ peacekeeping troops for what in fact were belligerent purposes.
Synopsis
Peacekeeping is a useful tool to manage international conflict and maintain truces, but it will only work in a narrow range of circumstances. "Peacekeepers" can order punitive airstrikes, depose elected leaders, destroy infrastructure, and enforce peace accords not drafted by the warring parties. They have overstepped their bounds, and "peacekeeping" is now often a euphemism for any multilateral military action. A CIA analyst who worked closely with Reagan, Bush, and Clinton administration officials on UN issues, Fleitz examines how peacekeeping works, the rash of peacekeeping failures since 1993, and whether peacekeeping can still play a role in U.S. foreign policy. It is a unique realist assessment destined to become the guide to this very important subject for U.S. policymakers, politicians, and students of international relations. UN peacekeeping disasters in the 1990s occurred because world leaders failed to recognize the rules and precedents that allowed traditional peacekeeping to succeed during the Cold War. Although failed peacekeeping operations damaged the peacekeeping concept, it can still serve as a viable tool to promote international security and promote American interests abroad if used in the right circumstances. Carefully researched and supported by over two dozen maps, charts, and photos, Fleitz boldly challenges dozens of assumptions of the foreign policy establishment about the nature of the Cold War, post-Cold War peacekeeping, and 1990s peacekeeping deployments.
About the Author
FREDERICK H. FLEITZ JR. is Special Assistant to the Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security. His previous positions include President of the Board of Directors with the National Collegiate Conference Association, nongovernmental organization representative for the UN, and analyst of United Nations and UN peacekeeping issues for the Central Intelligence Agency. The views expressed in this book are his alone and do not necessarily represent the views of the Department of State, the Central Intelligence Agency, or the U.S. Government.
Table of Contents
Preface
Peacekeeping in Crisis
Traditional Peacekeeping
Roosevelt's Doomed UN Vision
The Genesis of Peacekeeping: The UNEF Model
From Prototype to Doctrine
Peacekeeping Management and Command
Iraq and the UN "Renaissance"
The Post-Cold War Peacekeeping Train Wreck
Expanding Peacekeeping: Theory and Reality
Expanded Peacekeeping Fiascoes
Assessment and Outlook
American Foreign Policy and the Future of Peacekeeping
Appendix: UN Peacekeeping Mission Data, 1947-2000
Bibliography