thorized interventions, such as the first Gulf War in 1991, the United Nations has no operational authority at all. Viewed from a strictly military perspective, such interventions are indistinguishable from a non-United Nations intervention, as by an ad-hoc coalition.
However, while all of the above points are technically correct, they are too narrowly focused on the purely military aspects of an intervention. The true role of the United Nations is exercised in the all-important political dimension of an intervention. In many respects this political dimension comes most to the fore in the latter stages of an intervention, when the military situation has been brought under control and the process of reconstruction must begin. However, the most important role of the United Nations is one that is felt from the very outset of an intervention: the role of international legitimization of an intervention action. The United Nations Charter provided the Security Council with the authority to "to impose, and required the membership to comply with, firm enforcement measures" (Russett, 1997, p. 3).
The military capability to carry out an intervention anywhere is inherently a function of military strength. Small nations (or even large ones that have limited military forces) are obviously incapable of intervening militarily save on a very limited scale. Contrariwise, militarily powerful states -- and, currently, above all the United States -- have the physical military means to intervene in a broad range of situations around the world, and may do so unilaterally if they so choose.
This has been very nearly the case in the current war in Iraq. Although the US news media speak grandly of a "Coalition" -- a term that evokes the first Gulf War of 1991 -- the only significant military contingent, apart from the American forces, is British. Some Australian special forces are involved, and purely token representation from a handful of o...