Blue Helmets: The Strategy of UN Military Operations (Association of the United States Army S.) - Hardcover

Hillen, John

3.57

7 ratings by Goodreads

9781574881387: Blue Helmets: The Strategy of UN Military Operations (Association of the United States Army S.)

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1574881388 ISBN 13: 9781574881387

Publisher: Brassey's Inc, 1998

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Addresses the performance of the United Nations as a military force over the last fifty years, focusing on thirty-eight military operations, and explores the role of the UN's armed forces in the future.

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Review:

"* "An insightful analysis of more than 40 military operations by the UN since 1948." - The Wall Street Journal * "A major contribution to the study of the military art of peacekeeping." - Joint Force Quarterly * "An outstanding book." - Strategic Review"

From the Author:

A comprehensive history of UN Peacekeeping & recent travails
I started this book in 1993, just when the UN was gearing up to undertake large, complex, heavily armed, and dangerous peacekeeping missions to the former Yugoslavia, Cambodia, Somalia, and elsewhere. For some reason, few observers seemed to remember the lessons of the fateful Congo intervention of the 1960's - an adventure that came to be known as "the UN's Vietnam." I explore the history of UN military operations in the book, asking the question, "Because of who it is, and how it is structured, exactly what sort of military operations can the UN competently perform?" The answer may surprise many readers. While it is well known now, after the failure of UN missions in Bosnia and Somalia, that the UN should not be in the business of managing complex military operations, nobody knows who to blame. Ironically, it was not the UN itself that was responsible for relearning the lessons of the Congo (at great cost in lives and money), it was the most vigorous supporters of the UN in the United States who doomed the organization to failure and ridicule. In particular, the book lays out how Madeleine Albright and other Wilsonian internationalists thrust a reluctant UN into impossible missions, pulled the rug out from under it, and blamed it when it failed. When Albright, then U.S. Ambassador to the UN, stood alone against the world in opposing the re-appointment of Boutros Boutros-Ghali, she effectively killed the ideas of "assertive multilateralism" that she herself invented. It was rewarding, after three years of archival research, to find the counter-intuitive message that is put forward in this book. The UN can never do certain military missions, and I use my professional military background to explain why. But it is the U.S. that needs watching, as it, being the most powerful member of the UN, is the more likely culprit for getting the UN involved where it should not be. Please check out the review of the book in the July/August issue of Foreign Affairs magazine and a small piece from me in the same issue. Thanks for your interest!!

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