Learning to be likeminded: Chile’s involvement in global security and peace operations since the end of the Cold War

2013 ◽  
pp. 171-188
Author(s):  
Grace Mueller ◽  
Paul F. Diehl ◽  
Daniel Druckman

Abstract Peacekeeping during the Cold War was primarily, and in some cases exclusively, charged with monitoring cease-fires. This changed significantly, as peace operations evolved to include other missions (e.g., rule of law, election supervision), many under the rubric of peacebuilding. What is lacking is consideration of how the different missions affect one another, simultaneously and in sequences. This study addresses that gap by looking at the interconnectedness of missions and their success in the UN Organization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUC), which was mandated to perform eight different missions over a decade. The article examines success or failure in each of those missions and how they relate to one another guided by theoretical logics based on the “security first” hypothesis and mission compatibility expectations. Early failure to stem the violence had negative downstream consequences for later peacebuilding missions. Nevertheless, MONUC’s election supervision mission was successful.


Author(s):  
Joseph M. Siracusa

Nuclear Weapons: A Very Short Introduction covers the scientific, historical, and political development of nuclear weapons, and how they transformed the very nature of war and peace. Nuclear weapons have not been used in anger since Hiroshima and Nagasaki, seventy-five years ago. However, nuclear threats remain fundamental to relations between many states, complicating issues of global security. Their potential use by terrorists is an increasing concern. This book looks at the race to acquire the hydrogen bomb; Ronald Reagan’s Strategic Defence Initiative (‘Star Wars’); contemporary defences against possible ballistic missile launches; and the policies nuclear weapons have generated since the end of the Cold War.


1993 ◽  
Vol 69 (2) ◽  
pp. 348-348
Author(s):  
Eric Herring

Daedalus ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 145 (4) ◽  
pp. 50-61 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. Robert Kehler

While nuclear weapons were conceived to end a war, in the aftermath of their operational use at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, they became the central (and controversial) means to prevent a war. Nuclear deterrence formed the foundation of U.S. Cold War doctrine and the basis of an extended security guarantee to our allies. But the Cold War ended one-quarter century ago, and questions about the efficacy of deterrence, the need for nuclear weapons, and the ethics surrounding them have resurfaced as some call for further major reductions in inventory or the complete elimination of the U.S. nuclear arsenal. Discussed from the perspective of a military practitioner, this essay highlights the continuing need for U.S. nuclear weapons in a global security environment that is highly complex and uncertain, and describes the means by which the credibility of the nuclear portion of the strategic deterrent is being preserved even as the role and prominence of these weapons have been reduced.


1994 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 101-111 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael D. Intriligator

Author(s):  
Joseph M. Siracusa

Does the spread of nuclear weapons make the world safer or more dangerous? ‘Reflections on the Atomic Age’ considers this debate's relevance now and in the future. The clarity of the Cold War world has given way to the ambiguities and uncertainties of a world where global security is threatened by regime collapse, nuclear terrorism, new nuclear weapons states, regional conflict, and pre-existing nuclear arsenals. The prediction of mass destruction has so far proved false, but is that because of effective efforts to stop the spread of nuclear weapons, or is it just luck?


Author(s):  
Niels Blokker

This chapter examines pacific settlement and collective security as the primary instruments of the United Nations for promoting and underwriting international security. It begins by focusing on the development of newer approaches to UN-centred collective security in the new millennium in response to increased security threats. The chapter discusses economic sanctions, consent-based peacekeeping, robust peace operations, the coercive responsibility to protect (R2P), and nuclear security. In particular, it considers the evolution of peacekeeping side by side with preventive diplomacy, as well as the increase in the number of UN operations after the end of the Cold War to resolve outstanding conflicts. It also evaluates the report prepared by Algerian diplomat Lakhdar Brahimi, chair of a high-level international panel appointed by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan to make recommendations for changes in UN peacekeeping. The chapter concludes by considering the shift from collective security to global governance.


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