Has the United Nations been effective in its peacekeeping role?

United Nations brief outline
The United Nations (UN) currently has 193 member states with South Sudan being the most recent as of 2011. When the UN was formed after WW2 there were originally 52 members. The UN was formed due to the fact that the League of Nations was a complete failure after WW1 as the World was plunged back into War just 20 years later. The League of Nations failed in short because many states joined and then left and others such as the USA developed the idea but then never even joined. The UN was therefore set up for similar reasons however this time all of the Nations who were at the meeting joined and are still members to this day. Not only this but the UN has expanded and gained many members rather than lost members along the way just like the League of Nations did.

United Nations and its make up
The UN consists of four main areas and they are as follows; The Security Council (15 members of which 5 are permanent and have vetoing powers whilst the other 10 members are voted in on two year terms. Its main job is the maintenance of World peace and security). Then there is the General Assembly which is dubbed the parliament of nations as this is were all the representatives from each of the 193 member states sit and debate on any matter that is covered by the charter. Thirdly there is the Secretariat which has over 42,000 staff spread across the globe who administer the policies which are laid down by the UN. At the head of this is the Secretary General who at this moment in time is Ban Ki Moon and they are appointed on a 5 year term. Finally there is the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) this council has 54 members who are elected by the General Assembly. This coordinates the economic and social work performed by the UN and its family of organizations such as the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF)




Has the UN been effective in its peacekeeping role?
One of the main reasons as to why the UN was set up was to maintain peace by both peacekeeping and peace building in all nation states throughout the World. There have been many both successful and unsuccessful actions that the UN has been involved in, in the last 60 years or so. But despite its effort have these missions been successful or not? There is no doubting the fact that the UN has carried out many successful peacekeeping missions such as in Cambodia, East Timor and Sierra Leone to name just a few. This missions no doubt saved thousands of lives. However as with everything you are remembered for the worst things that you do whilst everything good is forgotten about. This is no different for the UN who suffer from extreme criticism for the failures in which they have had. The UN has had three major peacekeeping roles since it was founded in 1945, namely Somalia, Bosnia and Rwanda. The Somalian failure did not result in as many deaths as the other two but it was just that the UN failed to enforce western values on the nation and the UN subsequently had to pull out in 1995 which led to the continual warlord like fighting. Not only this but it has far reaching consequences on people all around the World as Somalian pirates continued to take ships and there owners.

Then there is the Rwandan genocide which in my eyes is the biggest failure along with Bosnia in which the UN has faced. In this genocide 800,000 people were brutally murdered (UN  estimate) however recent searches show that the number may actually be closer to 2 million. During the 3 months of continual slaughter in 1994 6 people were killed every minute. Over a quarter of a million were raped during the genocide many then suffering from HIV/AIDS and over 20,000 then gave birth due to having been raped. Of the 400,000 survivors of the Genocide 75,000 were orphans and as of 2007 (13 years later) 40,000 survivors were still without shelter. This was a failure for the UN as they had deployed French and Belgium peacekeepers to Rwanda however they had no grant from the UN to stop the bloodshed. So they ultimately just stood by and watched the continuous 100 day slaughter. The Bosnian crisis was also a disaster for the UN when in 1995 Serbian forces invaded a Dutch help camp that was supposed to be a shelter for the Bosnian Muslims however the attack resulted in the brutal murder of over 8000 people.

In my view the UN has obviously suffered from mass failures through the years however it has prevented many thousands more from dying. But I cannot look past the UN's failure in Rwanda which led to an unthinkable amount of deaths and the UN just stood by and watched this happen. So in my view the UN has not been effective in its peacekeeping role as it has been in certain nations in which it has just been there as an onlooker and almost just there to please the western world but in fact no action has been performed.

To what extent did the War on Terror affect the U.S hegemony?

What does the term Hegemony mean and how does it relate to the USA?
The true definition of a Hegemon is a leading or paramount power. Examples in this current day and age include the USA,China and Russia. However in the eyes of many their is only one hegemon and that is the USA. The US has been referred to as the global hegemon or even hyperpower in some cases since the end of the Cold War in 1991. The US however began its rise to the hyperpower that it is today right from the word get go as a Nation state. When it became independent from the British rule in 1776. Due it then being such a large nation (California is around 3 times bigger than the UK alone), it was then able to internally expand rather than externally. This then led to it being able to overtake the UK in most industrial methods just 100 hundred years after it had formed in the 1880's. Also the USA continues to be a receiver not a sender of people this therefore meaning that their population continues to grow as it always has done when everyone originally arrived on the east coast over 300 years ago. Which means their work force continues to grow and they can then grow economically. Also they can have the potential to grow an already large arm forces. The USA has tended to be the first or leading Nation in the last 100 years or so. For example first man on moon (American) first atomic bomb (American) and the leading military and economic power (America). It has however not been all plain sailing for the U.S.A in it continual place at the top of the hegemony tree. Not only were overseas problems a major factor in the weaking of the US's hegemony dip between the 60's and 80's but was experiencing major problems at home for the first time. For example the Civil rights movement and the continual rise of the anti establishment youth culture. This was only added to by the shock resignation of President Richard Nixon in 1974 after the Watergate scandal. As for the overseas events the list is rather long so I have picked two. The US's defeat in the Vietnam War (1955-1975) in which 58 thousand US troops lost there lives. The other is the holding of 66 US personnel in the US embassy in Tehran, Iran for 444 days. However as we know the U.S.A has remained as a hegemon and this is mainly down to Ronald Reagan coming in as President during the 80's and he then adopted an even more anti-communist policy which ultimately lead to the demise of the USA's main rival in the Soviet Union.

How has the War on Terror affected the U.S hegemony?
Before the September 11 attacks on the twin towers the USA was seen as this "indispensable nation". However the attacks showed that it was in fact able to be touched and threatened in a way no one had ever managed to do before. There are many different reasons and explanations for these attacks however Samuel Huntington's theory of a 'clash of civilizations' gives the best explanation. This then meaning that due to globalisation and therefore cultural homogenization there will inevitably be a back lash from groups of people who do not want to be the same as the rest of the world. So in this case it was and still is West vs Islam. After the attacks on September the 11th this subsequently lead to George Bush Jnr announcing the U.S war on terror. This then lead to the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 and the invasion of Iraq in 2003. However both these Wars lead to a reduction in U.S hegemony as it was again proved that the use of Guerrilla tactics and suicide bombs could be a match for any military force now matter how large and how good there equipment is. Not only did the War on terror affect the U.S hegemony in terms of hard power but it also affected it in terms of soft power. This is due to the fact that it showed that in some cases the U.S and the west (lead by the USA) were not willing to use diplomatic measures to solve a problem this then showing the world that maybe they hadn't changed and that global politics was still based around military power. Due to the US showing that in some cases it was unwilling to use its soft power it lost a lot of respect from the middle east and the Muslim community in particular. This loss of respect is only just be reducing reduced today if at all and it has been 14 years since the first invasion of Afghanistan. Overall I believe that the War on Terror did affect the US hegemony to quite a large extent. This is because due to it focusing most of its efforts on these events other nations such as China have been able to catch up both economically and militarily therefore closing the gap on the US. Also due the the embarrassment of not doing that well in both Iraq and Afghanistan and finding it very difficult to implement democracy in both nations. This then showed that the USA could be defeated and that it could not just implement democracy on who ever it wanted to.