The role of the United Nations (UN) in peacekeeping evolved since the UN crisis of peacekeeping in the mid-1990s. After the cold war, the strategic context for UN Peacekeeping changed dramatically. In sub-Saharan Africa, there were ethnic wars accompanied by human rights violations. UN thus adopted complex peacekeeping. It entails operations with expanded mandates to implement increasingly comprehensive tasks. From 5 traditional UN operations in 1988, the UN was pushed to deploy 11 operations by 1992 and 17 by 1994. With the collapse of law and order in sub-Saharan Africa, the principles of peacekeeping by the UN became irrelevant. Therefore, the UN failed in their missions to promote sustainable peace.
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UNITED NATIONS (UN) CRISIS AND TRADITIONAL FORMS OF PEACEKEEPING
Traditionally, the role of the United Nations (UN) in peacekeeping was to contain and manage inter-state wars. The officially acknowledged objective of the UN was to stem the escalation of smaller wars into larger ones. Later, UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjold and UN General Assembly President Lester Pearson defined the three underlying principles of peacekeeping. They included the consent of the conflicting parties, the non-use of force, except in self-defense and impartiality. The scope and range of related activity were relatively narrow. However, the Cold War and peacekeeping failures in the mid-90s evolved into complex peacekeeping. Traditional peacekeepers did not pursue political solutions. Lastly, they worked to establish conditions conducive to political settlements.
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EVOLUTION OF PEACEKEEPING BY UNITED NATIONS
The description of the evolution of peacekeeping in terms of generations. However, the principles of peacekeeping remain the same. Traditional peacekeeping is cited as the first generation, followed by multidimensional peacekeeping. The third is peace support operations, following the Dayton Peace Accord and challenging UN experience in Bosnia. The fourth is a complex peacekeeping. Generational peacekeeping serves to clarify temporal trends and approaches. Peacekeeping remains a work in progress, with ongoing pressure to adapt and modernize. Therefore, the role of the United Nations (UN) in peacekeeping continues to evolve as well. Peacekeeping is a continuous reform process driven by persistent challenges.
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