The U.N. Participation Act authorized the United States to commit military forces to U.N. mission only when approved by Congress. The law requires the president to return to Congress for authorization of any additional forces to an existing U.N. mission.Just five years after the law went into effect, however, the U.N. Participation Act was undermined when President Harry S Truman committed American troops to the Korean War without congressional approval. The weight of that law has been in question ever since. (12)POST-COLD WAR UPHEAVALIn an effort to define the U.N.’s place in this changing environment, Secretary-General Boutros-Ghali began his tenure in 1992 with a call to redefine U.N. peacekeeping goals to include humanitarian relief, economic assistance, the reconstruction of institutions destroyed by conflict and election oversight.Among the strategies Boutros-Ghali recommended in his report to the General Assembly for future peacekeeping efforts were: preventive diplomacy, aimed at preventing disputes from erupting into conflict; peacemaking, promoting negotiations between hostile parties as envisioned in Chapter VI of the charter; peacekeeping, the presence of U.N. personnel to oversee cease-fires, help resolve conflicts and provide humanitarian relief; peace enforcement, restoring peace, by armed force if necessary, under Chapter VII of the charter; and peace-building, fostering interaction between former enemies to prevent a relapse of hostilities. (13)With Russia struggling to enter the world marketplace and the Western powers focused on economic issues at home, it has fallen largely to the United Nations to take the lead in mediating these disputes and trying to keep the peace. In 1990, there were eight peacekeeping missions operating with a total of ten thousand troops. By the end of June 1995, the U.N. was running sixteen peacekeeping missions, manned by more than sixty-seven thousand troops at an annual cost of ...
