| The United Nations Charter includes provisions for the peaceful settlement of conflicts and the use of collective security to ensure international peace and security. In practice during the Cold War, the United Nations failed to implement collective security provisions largely because of the division between the great powers in the Security Council. As a result, peacekeeping was invented as a middle ground to face the challenges that originated from Cold War politics. However, peacekeeping in the Cold War period depended heavily on the attitudes of the great powers. Peacekeeping operations were introduced in areas of great power influence in order to protect the interests of their allies and to avoid the possibility of great power confrontation. After the end of Cold War, the Security Council was free from Cold War politics and the great powers were initially willing to expand peacekeeping into areas of conflict resolution and peace enforcement at the interstate and intra-state level. However, the selectivity of peacekeeping operations and reluctance of great powers to support operations outside their vital interests or sphere of influence limited the ability of the UN to resolve conflict. Drawing upon the case studies of Kashmir and Sri Lanka, this thesis posits that without significant great power interests in conflict, and without taking the interests of the regional power on board, the likelihood of more robust, if any, successful peacekeeping operation is low. |
