Somalia was the first big failure for UN intervention in 1992. In Srebrenica in 1994, a Dutch force under UN command failed to prevent a massacre of the local population, and in Rwanda in the same year there was full-scale genocide of nearly a million people, despite a peacekeeping force of 5,000.

Four UN missions to Angola failed to stop civil war breaking out again and again. It seems only if there is a real will to turn away from war, can peacekeepers be effective.

The attack on UN headquarters in Baghdad in 2003 has also called into question the respect for being impartial which the organization thought it had.

Nevertheless, most people agree that the world still needs some kind of neutral body, backed by force if necessary, for helping former enemies make the transition from war to peace.