ABSTRACT
The UN-mandated peacekeeping operations in the former Yugoslavia have shown the conceptual development into a new multifunctional type of peacekeeping operations. UN-led United Nations Protection Force (UNPROFOR) can be described as a peacekeeping mission that was caught in the middle of war. UNPROFOR was deployed in the middle of ongoing and continuing fighting, the lessons learned to a very high degree concern themselves with the UN troops' ability to cope with this fact and to establish the capability to fulfil their mission under very unfavourable conditions. For UNPROFOR, the hostile conditions put a premium on the ruggedness of the force as such, and on the robustness of the military units assigned. UNPROFOR introduced a number of interesting concepts for peacekeeping. A substantial amount of time went by from the beginning of the conflict in the former Yugoslavia, and until a peacekeeping force was deployed and in place.
