ABSTRACT
On 27 March 1953, Dag Hamarskjöld was selected by the Security Council to replace Trygve Lie who had resigned on 10 November 1952, his support for the Korean War having provoked outrage from the Soviet Union. The nationalization of the Suez Canal Company by President Gamal Abdel Nasser on 26 July 1956, and the subsequent invasion of Egypt in the autumn of the same year, created a far-reaching precedent. The sending of a 6,000strong United Nations Emergency Force (UNEF) to monitor a ceasefire between the parties opened the ‘Age of Peacekeeping’.1 On the one hand, as later explained by Sir Anthony Eden, the fact was that ‘the United Nations had never been equipped by an armed force of its own which would see to it that the resolutions of the Security Council were observed’, which made the Anglo-French action ‘essential’.2 On the other hand, the creation of UNEF was the realization of the hopes of some of the founders of the United Nations. Once again, as in the case of Korea, both the possibilities and the limits of the United Nations military role were highlighted, and the challenges posed by the operation stimulated reflection on international force.
