ed by the animosity of the two major superpowers from playing more than a marginal role in the modulation of great power conflicts. It did, however, play an important part in performing various peace-making and peacekeeping roles in Third World areas such as the Congo, Cyprus, Kashmir and the Arab-Israeli conflicts. Roberts & Benedict say that "the involvement of the UN . . . helped isolate conflicts from great power rivalry" (1994, Introduction, p. 33).
Some such efforts failed, notably in Sinai in 1967. In the Congo in the 1960s, "the first phase of UN peacekeeping ha
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