ABSTRACT
Eclipsed from the international debate for 25 years by the relative success of peacekeeping and the collective relief of the détente, the idea of a UN ‘Legion’ re-emerged in the euphoria that accompanied the crumbling of the Soviet Union. The division of the world into two antagonistic camps, and the belief in the myth of the necessary enemy as a basis of Leninism and Stalinism, had long been seen as the main and durable reasons for the failure to establish international permanent military forces. With the new unanimity in the Security Council, the world organization could at last play its central role as an instrument of international peace. In an address to the UN General Assembly in New York, Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze called for the UN to create the measures that world peace requires, adding that the positive political changes in the world have allowed a partnership in promoting universal human values. At the General Assembly, the Soviet delegation suggested that the Security Council take steps to reactivate the work of the Military Staff Committee.1 As a consequence, a re-evaluation of ad hoc arrangements and the possibility of establishing an international authority with effective means of action could be envisaged. With the end of the ‘all-pervading tension’, the debate on international force re-emerged in conjunction with the Gulf War, in 1991, and the Rwanda Crisis, in 1994.
