ABSTRACT
In 1945, the creation of the UN had formalized the balance of power resulting from the Allies’ military victory over the Axis forces. It was also an attempt to embody one of the main lessons that had been learned from the recent conflict: in extreme cases, no single power was strong enough to enforce peace. Above all, the organization had been designed to minimize the risk of a Third World War; thus the expectations raised by it were immense. By early spring 1948, it had become evident that no agreement on the implementation of Article 43 could be reached in the Military Staff Committee, and the Secretary-General and his advisers cast about for possible alternatives.1 The test of the UN’s first military experiments would be decisive, leading to the first attempts – and failures – to establish a directly recruited force by and for the organization. In the very first years of its existence, two major crises calling for new approaches to the question of international force would challenge the ability of the UN to carry out missions: the Arab invasion of Palestine in mid-May 1948 and the North Korean attack of 25 June 1950.
