The desire for an organization that would help the international community "avoid future conflicts" and the recognized need for a global body that would "promote international economic and social cooperation" led the powerful states emerging from the rubble of WWII to develop the United Nations. The newly formed United Nations "represented an expression of hope for the possibilities of a new global security arrangement and for fostering the social and economic conditions necessary for peace to prevail" (Mingst and Karns 2). The need for mutual cooperation amongst the states following the second of the global wars was vital to the reconstruction of war-torn Europe, and for the development of a new world order. This attempt at cooperation was not the first of its kind. According to Mingst and Karns, "The UN's Charter built on lessons learned from the failed League of Nations created at the end of World War I and earlier experiments with international unions, conference diplomacy, and dispute settlements mechanisms" (2). Despite this "experience" in mutual cooperation, the founding states still faced many problems in the security arena due to the advent of the Cold War.
In order to effectively deal with security issues facing the UN, the Security Council turned to "peace-
keeping" as an alternative to armed aggression. According to the United Nations Department of Public Information, "Peacekeeping was pioneered and developed by the United Nations as one of the means for maintaining international peace and security" (1998), and the UN deals with particular problems through "the prevention, containment, and moderation of hostilities between or within states through the use of multinational forces of soldiers, police, and civilians" (Mingst and Karns 3). This was a very different approach to quelling conflicts that had never before been pract...