The Use of Force in UN Peace Operations

The Use of Force in UN Peace Operations

Author: Trevor Findlay

Publisher: Oxford University Press on Demand

Published: 2002

Total Pages: 486

ISBN-13: 9780198292821

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One of the most vexing issues that has faced the international community since the end of the Cold War has been the use of force by the United Nations peacekeeping forces. UN intervention in civil wars, as in Somalia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Rwanda, has thrown into stark relief the difficulty of peacekeepers operating in situations where consent to their presence and activities is fragile or incomplete and where there is little peace to keep. Complex questions arise in these circumstances. When and how should peacekeepers use force to protect themselves, to protect their mission, or, most troublingly, to ensure compliance by recalcitrant parties with peace accords? Is a peace enforcement role for peacekeepers possible or is this simply war by another name? Is there a grey zone between peacekeeping and peace enforcement? Trevor Findlay reveals the history of the use of force by UN peacekeepers from Sinai in the 1950s to Haiti in the 1990s. He untangles the arguments about the use of force in peace operations and sets these within the broader context of military doctrine and practice. Drawing on these insights the author examines proposals for future conduct of UN operations, including the formulation of UN peacekeeping doctrine and the establishment of a UN rapid reaction force.


The Paths of Heaven The Evolution of Airpower Theory

The Paths of Heaven The Evolution of Airpower Theory

Author:

Publisher:

Published: 1997

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13:

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Airpower is not widely understood. Even though it has come to play an increasingly important role in both peace and war, the basic concepts that define and govern airpower remain obscure to many people, even to professional military officers. This fact is largely due to fundamental differences of opinion as to whether or not the aircraft has altered the strategies of war or merely its tactics. If the former, then one can see airpower as a revolutionary leap along the continuum of war; but if the latter, then airpower is simply another weapon that joins the arsenal along with the rifle, machine gun, tank, submarine, and radio. This book implicitly assumes that airpower has brought about a revolution in war. It has altered virtually all aspects of war: how it is fought, by whom, against whom, and with what weapons. Flowing from those factors have been changes in training, organization, administration, command and control, and doctrine. War has been fundamentally transformed by the advent of the airplane.