ABSTRACT
The UN Security Council has never possessed a monopoly on either the authorization or conduct of peace operations. But the Council has become the predominant source of authority for legitimizing such operations and the UN’s “blue helmets” have conducted more than any other entity-67 missions as of September 2012. By mid-2012, the UN was fielding approximately 100,000 uniformed personnel in its peace operations (i.e. soldiers, police officers, and security experts) at a cost of about US$7bn a year.
