Since the end of the Cold War, there has been a dramatic rise in the number of peace-keeping operations implemented world-wide. Most of these operations have been under the auspices of the United Nations, but other organizations like NATO in Europe and ECOWAS (Economic Community of West African States) in Western Africa. Although it is logical to assume that the UN would have the broadest, and perhaps least biased, perspective on conflict resolution, there are many who argue that the UN does not have the operational resources to pursue successful peacekeeping operations. This argument is particularly compelling when the region under scrutiny is Europe and the regional organizational that could take the UN's place as a peacekeeper is NATO. There are several reasons for this tension between NATO and UN peacekeeping roles.

• The UN has perennial budgetary problems, with its largest contributor, the United States still in massive arrears on its budget contribution.
• The UN is at the mercy of member states for personnel contributions.
• UN peacekeeping operations are governed by the Security Council, which still confronts the difficulties of the great power veto system.

Your job in this exercise is to make up your own mind about who is better able to conduct peacekeeping operations in Europe. You should start by examining the web-sites of the two organizations in question:

• United Nations Peacekeeping Operations - this is the web-site which specializes in data on UN peacekeeping operations.
• NATO Official Homepage - this is the general NATO web-site, but also has a great deal of information about NATO efforts in Bosnia and Kosovo.

In making up your mind, you should try to find answers to the following questions:

• What are the basic missions or goals of each peacekeeping organization?
• What are the operational capabilities (number of troops, budgets, geographical scope) of each organization?
• Who or what governs each organization? Who makes the decisions to intervene? Who commands the forces when they are in the field?

Now it is time to put your knowledge to the test. You have been asked to create and send a peacekeeping mission to a violent (and unnamed) area of conflict in Africa. A civil war between two ethnic groups has broken out in Country X, and hundreds of people are being killed, both combatants and civilians. Both groups are fighting for power over the country’s government. Your peacekeepers must go into Country X, establish a cease-fire agreement, and bring the warring parties to the negotiation table, all while protecting and meeting the humanitarian needs of the civilian population.