ABSTRACT
The most serious effort to resolve the military problems of an international force took place in 1946 and early 1947, at the hinge between allied wartime cooperation and Cold War competition. The tendency has been to look for Cold War motivation in the US position. If the permanent members were to hold talks today on the establishment of a United Nations (UN) force, most of the issues that were discussed in 1946—both those that were agreed upon and those that were not—would need to be re-examined in light of present national interests. The place to start would seem to be a clear definition of the purpose of a UN force. If the primary purpose of the UN system is not to expel aggressors from the territory they have seized—the "peace-through-war" function, as it has been called—but to prevent them from starting wars they cannot win, the size and composition requirements of a UN force change significantly.
