Salvador. Of these, nine missions still continue, in addition with earlier ongoing missions. The large number of active operations places an enormous strain on the United Nations.
Not only is the UN more involved than previously, the nature of the peacekeeping activities has also changed. Peacekeeping originated primarily in response to border disputes that emerged from the rapid process of decolonization. The operations that were authorized during the Cold War generally followed the pattern that UN forces could only be positioned between disputing parties on the basis of a cease-fire agreement. Peacekeeping, thus, was a stop-gap measure used to nurture already-agreed upon negotiations.
But the new generation of conflicts in Kampuchea, Somalia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Haiti, among other hot-spots, highlighted a new definition of peacekeeping for the United Nations. The operations in Somalia and the former Yugoslavia worsened, eve
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