Peacekeeping was pioneered and developed by the United Nations as one of the means for maintaining international peace and security. Since 1948, over 750,000 military and civilian police personnel and thousands of other civilians have served in United Nations peace-keeping operations. And more than 1,450 have died while supervising peace agreements, monitoring cease-fires, patrolling demilitarized zones, creating buffers between opposing forces and defusing local conflicts that risk wider war. Most United Nations peacekeepers have been soldiers, volunteered by their Governments in national contingents to apply military discipline and training to the task of restoring and maintaining the peace. They received the Nobel Peace Prize for their work in 1988.
Since Cold War tensions have subsided, peace has been threatened by resurgent ethnic and nationalist conflicts in many regions. Consequently, United Nations peacekeeping operations have grown rapidly in number and complexity in recent years. While 13 operations were established in the first 40 years of United Nations peacekeeping, 28 new operations have been launched since 1988. At its peak in 1995, the total deployment of United Nations military and civilian personnel reached almost 70,000 from 77 countries. "Traditional" peacekeeping has given way to complex, integrated operations which require a combination of political, military and humanitarian action. Police officers, electoral observers, human rights monitors and other civilians have joined military personnel under the United Nations flag to help implement negotiated settlements of conflicts between previously hostile parties, encouraging former opponents to build a peaceful future together.
As the world has increasingly turned to the United Nations to deal with the conflicts, the cost of United Nations peacekeeping has risen accordingly. The annual cost of all operations in 1995 amounted to approximately $3.0 billion. This investment in peacekeeping must be seen in perspective, however. Global military expenditures at the beginning of the 1990s amounted to about $1 trillion a year, or $2 million per minute. In other words, preparing for war costs in just over a day what keeping the peace costs in a year. The real cost of peacekeeping must ultimately be measured against the cost of the alternative -- war.
Peacekeeping operations are set up by the Security Council -- the United Nations principal organ vested with the primary responsibility for maintaining international peace and security. These operations must have the consent of the host Governments, and usually of the other parties involved, and must not be used in any way to favour one party against another. The success of a peacekeeping operation also requires a clear and practicable mandate, the cooperation of the parties in implementing it, effective command at Headquarters and in the field, and adequate logistic and financial support.
United Nations troops carry light arms and are allowed to use minimum force only in self-defence, or if armed persons try to stop them from carrying out the orders of their commanders. United Nations military observers are unarmed. Only in exceptional circumstances may United Nations troops be authorized to use force in carrying out their responsibilities.