'Peacekeeping' as such was almost unheard of when the United Nations was established in 1945. Certainly it found no place in the original UN Charter. Peace, it was then assumed, would be maintained by settling disputes peacefully, and for that the UN would provide good offices under Chapter VI. 'Threats to peace' would come from overt acts of aggression such as were fresh in the minds of all who assembled in San Francisco to draft the Charter in April 1945, and for these Chapter VII made provision. They would be dealt with either by economic and other 'sanctions' of the kind that had been unsuccessfully attempted against Italy during the Abyssinia crisis of 1935, or by joint military action such as the League of Nations had so disastrously failed to take in time against Nazi Germany. For that, the wartime Grand Alliance would be reactivated under the aegis of a Military Committee which would effectively be the wartime Combined Chiefs of Staff under another name.

LRB 9 September 1993 | PDF Download