ABSTRACT
How does today’s world regard the UN as a peacekeeper? What distinctive principles underlie the task? What methods are commonly employed? With changes in the international environment such as the relaxed grip of the Cold War confrontation, the doubling of world population, the flooding of lethal weaponry everywhere, the migrations of 23 million refugees, the rise of nationalism and fundamentalism, with changes of this nature and magnitude should things be done differently? Contemporary opinion, as the media mirrors it, seems to regard peacekeeping in three lights: horror, confusion and criticism.
