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Its no secret that a major reason for the UN's sketchy record at peacekeeping lies in its attempts to create peace and stability through the utilization of troops that have never known either. However, the core of the problem is not "UN Bullshit". The UN would be thrilled to have first-world nations commit adequate peacekeepers to every mission they launch, however most developed nations, and the US in particular, view peacekeeping wearily due to the lack of vital national interest and the complications of potentially sending troops into harms way under foreign command. As evidenced by the string of UN mandated interventions in West Africa by former colonial powers, imperialist pasts have little to do with it. The UN, like any confederation, does not really have the ability to pick and choose what troops it wishes to assign on peacekeeping missions, and thus it is highly unfair of you to blame them for the inadequacy of the soldiers it has deployed to trouble spots largely ignored by the developed world.

In addition to my previous comments, I would like to add that many third-world nations view peacekeeping as a money making operation- the UN pays a certain amount for each peacekeeper, a portion of which is actually given to the peacekeeper, the remainder is pocketed. Bangledesh, Jordan, and Fiji, to name three I know of, generate substantial sums of money through peacekeeping operations.

In order to begin to respond adequately to your comments, I must contradict the closing statement of your first comment:

"The UN, like any confederation, does not really have the ability to pick and choose what troops it wishes to assign on peacekeeping missions, and thus it is highly unfair of you to blame them for the inadequacy of the soldiers it has deployed to trouble spots largely ignored by the developed world."

While the UN may not have any enumerated powers to forcibly require certain member nations to provide peacekeepers for various operations, it most definitely has the ability to request them. A phenomenon I didn't witness occurring in the case of the Congo. Also, your classification of the Congo as a trouble spot "largely ignored by the developed world," is incorrect, as evidenced by the presence of a French led independently sanctioned EU force recently stationed there.

Moving on, my main argument pertains towards Bangladesh's deservance and capability of eventual control and maintenance of the country's stability. My initial supposition was that they were to be granted full peacekeeping control of the region after the removal of the EU force because they would be viewed by the indigenous population with less suspicion as a result of their lack of an imperialist history, unlike the French. While politically safe, it consequently sacrifices a degree of military efficiency in the region.

But you know what? You're probably correct in your analysis of how developed nations view peacekeeping warily. Therefore after considering the stances argued in your comments, the message I want to convey is one of change and responsibility. Developed nations should instead of shying from peacekeeping responsibilities, embrace them, like the United States has the oppurtunity to do in Liberia. If regions like Europe want to rival the United States in power by forming confederations like the European Union, and creating rival military forces that act on charters independent from the UN's, then they need to accept the responsibility that comes with their initial meddling and broaden their interests from protecting their own citizens to acting as region-wide peacekeepers. If they fail to do so, then the result is less capable mercenary nations like Bangladesh, Fiji and Jordan taking their place.

Nostradamus, your ability to invite dissention within the most conciliatory of statements will never cease to amaze.
Of course we lie in agreement over the necessity of the developed world to fulfill its duties to the UN. However, I must take issue with your statement that the Congo does not lie in the west's peripheral vision due to the most recent French peacekeeping mission. Congo has been in a state of permanent war for the better part of the last quarter century, and only after the last few years has the developed world started to take notice. Only in a place as politcally irrelevant as Sub-Saharan Africa could such a costly war be allowed to drag on for so long.

Lukas - I fear the claims made in your most recent comment appear to be baseless. A quite abridged list of major events in the Congo, available at http://www.facts.com/wnd/conevent.htm shows the inherent inaccuracy of your argument, but for the sake of convenience I will list some instances of western intervention in the region during the last near quarter century.

June 30, 1960--The Republic of the Congo gains independence from Belgium. The army mutinies July 5 and Katanga province (later known as Shaba) secedes. The United Nations sends troops to protect Europeans and maintain order. (The U.N. forces leave in 1964.)

September 14, 1960--Colonel Joseph Desire Mobutu, the army's 29-year-old chief of staff, intercedes militarily in a power struggle between President Joseph Kasavubu and Premier Patrice Lumumba, and arrests Lumumba. Mobutu returns power to Kasavubu in 1961. Lumumba is handed over to Katanga rebels and soon murdered. Evidence later emerges connecting Mobutu and the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to Lumumba's murder.

March 8, 1977--Former Katangan secessionists invade Shaba from Angola, where they had been living in exile. Mobutu suppresses the rebellion with the help of troops from Morocco and military assistance from his Western allies, including the U.S. and France. French and Belgian troops help put down a second Shaba invasion the following year.

October 1990--U.S. Congress cuts direct military and economic aid because of alleged corruption and human rights abuses by Mobutu's regime. The U.S. had supplied hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to Mobutu since 1965.

For more, check the site.

The Western fomentation of the current political atmosphere in Congo does not contradict my statement, but rather reinforces it. Allow me to incorporate your qualification- only in a place as politcally irrelevant as Sub-Saharan Africa could such a costly war be fueled, ignored, and permitted to continue for such a prolonged period of time.

The West helped in the creation of the woeful state of Congolese affairs, then, as the Cold War drew to a close, backtracked and abandoned the region. The interior of of the Congo has long been an impoverished, lawless, and violence striken region much out of sight and mind of the average American. All the events you have chronicalled were buried in the back of the paper at the time they occured, if they saw print at all.

Ok, I can agree with that analysis. But here now is the real question: do you consider the UN to be an instrument of the West, or do you consider it to be truly an impartial globally conscious organization? Because in this case, it is not only the United States whose involvement is absent, but UN's as well, and I bet that if the United States decided to intervene in the Congo unilaterally, no matter the conditions, there would have been world uproar denouncing percieved US imperialism. Thus we have returned to a pertinent question in international politics: Under what conditions is it acceptable for a nation to intervene in a conflict unilaterally if the UN is abdicating involvement through inactivity?

Actually, many unilateral interventions in Sub-Saharan Africa have been lauded by the international community, including the recent examples of France in the Ivory Coast and Britain in Sierra Leone. To the contrary, condemnation generally stems from inaction on the part of the industrialized world to help sort the problems of this troubled region- the UN’s failure to prevent genocide in Rwanda, for example. This leads us to the nature of the UN. I would not describe it as an instrument of the west, though power is certainly vested disproportionately in the five permanent members of the Security Council (It is debatable whether or not modern-day China is representative of the West). However, even the 5 do not wield absolute power; the UN is steeped in political symbolism and rhetoric, acting as a forum through which the developing world can make itself heard. The UN's most effective weapon is international opinion, and in this the five permanent members of the Security Council have no veto.

I'm finding your question- "Under what conditions is it acceptable for a nation to intervene in a conflict unilaterally if the UN is abdicating involvement through inactivity?"- A bit curious. Any major western power interested in leading a humanitarian mission into Sub-Saharan Africa using a large contingent of its own forces is almost guaranteed UN approval- this is the sort of thing they crave for. UN passiveness is generally attributable to a lack of interest on the part of Western nations, either disregarding the problem or entrusting Bangladeshis with its correction.

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