ABSTRACT
It is often said that change was the only constant characterizing peace operations during the 1990s. While it is a great way to start a chapter or a lecture, it is still an exaggeration and quite illustrative of the lack of historical perspective which characterizes most of the post-Cold War
literature on peace operations. Many of the ‘new’ problems confronting the peace operations of the 1990s were actually old; the UN had already struggled with them in the Congo and in Lebanon. This said, the geopolitical and normative context and the operations themselves changed fundamentally. The traditional peacekeeping and observer missions did not disappear, but they were overshadowed by a new breed of multifunctional
or complex peace operations, mandated by the UN, or regional organizations such as the EU or the OSCE, to achieve humanitarian goals, create the basis for lasting peace settlements, or at their most ambitious, as in Kosovo and East Timor, to build democratic states virtually from scratch. Most operations enjoyed limited consent from the parties, the threat and
use of force beyond self-defence was required more often than not and the traditional concept of impartiality became morally untenable in the face of gross violations of human rights. These changes pulled the rug from under the Cold War peacekeeping
model, and the purpose of this chapter is to analyse what changed and why, identify the challenges post-Cold War peace operations are up against and finally use the lessons learned in the 1990s to outline the new requirements for success that the Nordic countries and other personnel
contributors must honour to be effective in the new era. The chapter falls in three parts. The first part presents the changes and explains why they took place. The second part identifies the operational challenges posed
by the new operations as well as the lessons learned in the course of the 1990s. The final part derives the requirements for success that personnel contributors must meet to be effective in post-Cold War peace operations.
