The United Nations and International Bodies in Peacekeeping and Security

When the founders of the United Nations signed its Charter in San Francisco in 1945, they wrote a powerful goal into its very first lines: to save future generations from the horrors of war. Having just lived through two world wars, fifty-one founding nations agreed that no single country could keep the peace alone. The result was an organisation built to settle disputes through dialogue, deploy peacekeepers when needed, and protect human dignity everywhere. Decades later, the UN remains the centre of global efforts at conflict resolution and peace building. But its record is a mix of remarkable successes and painful failures, and understanding both tells us a great deal about how international cooperation actually works.

Why the United Nations was created 🔗

The UN Charter was signed in San Francisco on 26 June 1945 and came into force on 24 October 1945. Its core purposes were clear: to maintain international peace and security, to encourage cooperation in solving economic, social, and humanitarian problems, and to promote respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. The opening words of the Charter speak of saving future generations from “the scourge of war”-a phrase that captured the determination of leaders who had witnessed the destruction of the Second World War.

The UN replaced the failed League of Nations. The League had been unable to stop the aggression that led to World War II, but it gave the new organisation an important blueprint. The lesson learned was that an international body needs real enforcement powers, not just moral authority. So the Charter created a structure with teeth, centred on a body that could authorise sanctions and even military action.

The Security Council and the veto 🔗

The UN Security Council was established in 1945 as the organisation’s most powerful body for maintaining peace. Five countries-the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Russia (originally the Soviet Union), and China-sit as permanent members, known as the P5. Crucially, each holds the power to veto any resolution it disagrees with. Ten other members are elected for two-year rotating terms without veto power.

This design tied real decision-making authority to the world’s most powerful states, which was meant to ensure that any UN action had the backing it needed to succeed. But the veto also became the source of the UN’s deepest frustrations. As the Cold War set in, the United States and the Soviet Union repeatedly blocked each other, and the collective security system the Charter envisioned-where member states would supply armed forces under a central command-never functioned as originally designed. Peacekeeping, as we know it today, emerged as an improvised response to exactly this paralysis.

How peacekeeping was born 🔗

Peacekeeping is not actually mentioned in the UN Charter. It was invented out of necessity. When the Security Council could not enforce peace directly, it found a creative middle path: deploying lightly armed international forces to monitor ceasefires, separate warring sides, and build the conditions for lasting peace. The first such mission, the United Nations Truce Supervision Organization (UNTSO), was set up in 1948 to monitor the armistice between Israel and its Arab neighbours.

Modern peacekeeping operates on a key principle: it works with the consent of the main parties to the conflict, rather than imposing a solution by force. UN peacekeepers work to protect populations, advance non-violent solutions, and build foundations for stable societies. The troops and police come from member states, while the missions are managed from UN headquarters. Notably, the annual peacekeeping budget is a tiny fraction of global military spending, which makes it one of the most cost-effective tools in international affairs.

The Suez Crisis: peacekeeping’s defining success 🔗

The Suez Crisis of 1956 became the moment peacekeeping truly arrived. The crisis began when Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalised the Suez Canal in July 1956. By late October, Israel had invaded the Sinai, and British and French troops landed in the Canal Zone soon after. The Security Council met to discuss the matter but, as the vetoes of France and the United Kingdom blocked any decision, it could not act.

This is where the General Assembly stepped in. Using the “Uniting for Peace” mechanism, the matter was referred to an emergency special session, which approved the creation of the United Nations Emergency Force (UNEF), the first use of a UN peacekeeping force. The Canadian diplomat Lester B. Pearson played a leading role in designing this force and later won the Nobel Peace Prize for it. UNEF supervised the withdrawal of the invading armies; British and French forces left the Canal Zone by December 1956, and Israeli forces completed their withdrawal by March 1957. The operation demonstrated that even when the Security Council was deadlocked, the UN could find a way to act.

The Congo: peacekeeping’s most ambitious test 🔗

If Suez showed what peacekeeping could achieve, the Congo showed how complex and dangerous it could become. After the Congo gained independence from Belgium in June 1960, the country quickly descended into chaos-an army mutiny, the secession of the mineral-rich Katanga province, and the return of Belgian troops. The UN deployed the Operation in the Congo (ONUC), its first peacekeeping mission with significant military capability and one of the largest it had ever undertaken.

At its peak, ONUC fielded nearly 20,000 military personnel from more than two dozen countries, led largely by India, Ireland, and Sweden. The mission was extraordinarily difficult. Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld, who guided the operation, died in a plane crash in September 1961 while travelling to meet the Katangese leader. His successor, U Thant, eventually steered the mission through its crisis. After Katanga was reintegrated, the operation wound down and the last UN forces left in June 1964. ONUC ultimately preserved the territorial unity of the Congo, but at great cost, and it became a landmark in showing both the reach and the limits of UN intervention.

When the system failed 🔗

For every success, the Cold War produced situations where the UN was helpless. The reason was almost always the same: the veto. When a permanent member of the Security Council was itself the aggressor, no meaningful action was possible.

Hungary in 1956 🔗

In the same weeks that the UN was successfully organising UNEF for Suez, it was utterly powerless next door in Hungary. When Soviet forces moved in to crush the Hungarian uprising, the Security Council tried to respond. But on 4 November 1956, the Soviet Union vetoed the resolution criticising its own invasion of Hungary. The matter was passed to the General Assembly, which repeatedly called for Soviet withdrawal, but the Assembly’s resolutions carried no enforcement power. The Soviet Union simply ignored them. The Council openly acknowledged that the lack of unanimity among permanent members had prevented it from carrying out its primary responsibility for maintaining peace.

Czechoslovakia in 1968 🔗

A similar story unfolded twelve years later. When Soviet-led Warsaw Pact forces invaded Czechoslovakia to end the “Prague Spring” reforms, the Security Council again tried to act. And again, the Council failed to adopt a resolution on the situation in Czechoslovakia because of the Soviet veto. These episodes exposed a hard truth: the UN’s effectiveness in any crisis depends entirely on whether the great powers allow it to act. Where their core interests are at stake, the veto can freeze the entire system.

The contrast between Suez and Hungary is striking, because they happened simultaneously. The UN could mobilise to push back Britain and France-powerful nations, but ones willing to ultimately accept international pressure-while it could do nothing about the Soviet Union’s actions in its own sphere. The difference was not the severity of the crisis but the politics of the veto.

The UN’s quieter work beyond conflict 🔗

Peacekeeping and the Security Council attract the most attention, but a large part of the UN’s contribution to peace happens far from the battlefield. The Charter’s promise to solve humanitarian and social problems gave rise to a vast network of agencies addressing the deeper causes and consequences of conflict.

Caring for refugees 🔗

Conflict forces millions of people from their homes, and the UN Refugee Agency exists to protect them. Established in 1950, UNHCR leads international efforts to protect refugees and other forcibly displaced people. It promotes the 1951 Refugee Convention, helps register displaced people, provides emergency shelter, food, water, and medical care, and works toward long-term solutions like safe return or resettlement. By mid-2025 there were tens of millions of refugees worldwide-a scale of displacement not seen since the Second World War.

Protecting human rights and global health 🔗

The UN also champions human rights as a foundation of lasting peace, on the logic that societies which respect rights are less likely to descend into violence. UN agencies work to ensure displaced and stateless people can access fundamental rights, including the right to seek safety, the right to health care, and the right to a nationality. On health, the UN coordinates global responses through bodies like the World Health Organization. When WHO and UNHCR renewed their partnership to protect displaced people during the COVID-19 pandemic, it showed how the UN treats health crises as inseparable from peace and stability. These efforts rarely make headlines, but they prevent the kind of suffering that often reignites conflict.

India and the blue helmets 🔗

India’s relationship with UN peacekeeping is one of the longest and proudest in the organisation’s history. An original founding member of the UN, India sent the 60 Parachute Field Ambulance to provide medical support during the Korean War in 1950, and it has been deeply involved ever since. More than 200,000 Indian troops have served in dozens of UN peacekeeping operations, making India one of the largest troop-contributing nations in the world.

Indian peacekeepers were central to the Congo operation in the 1960s, and they continue to serve in some of the most dangerous missions today. India has also been a pioneer in including women in peacekeeping. India deployed the first-ever all-female Formed Police Unit to Liberia in 2007, a move that strengthened local security and encouraged women in the host country to take part in their own security institutions. This commitment reflects a foreign policy rooted in non-violence, dialogue, and cooperation-and it has cost lives, with nearly 180 Indian peacekeepers having died in service under the UN flag.

An imperfect but indispensable institution 🔗

The honest verdict on the UN is that it is neither the all-powerful world government some hoped for in 1945 nor the useless talking shop its critics describe. It is a tool, and like any tool, its effectiveness depends on how its most powerful members choose to use it. When the great powers agree, the UN can move mountains, as it did at Suez and in the Congo. When they clash, as they did over Hungary and Czechoslovakia, it can be paralysed.

Yet even in its limitations, the UN provides something no previous era of history had: a permanent forum where nations talk instead of fight, a framework of international law, and an enormous humanitarian machine that protects the most vulnerable. For all its flaws, abolishing it would leave the world poorer and far more dangerous.

What do you think? Should the veto power of the five permanent members be reformed so that no single nation can block action during a humanitarian crisis? And given India’s enormous contribution to peacekeeping, has the time come for it to hold a permanent seat at the Security Council table?

References

1. https://1997-2001.state.gov/background_notes/un_0007_bgn.html
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9. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Operation_in_the_Congo
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12. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungarian_Revolution_of_1956
13. https://www.refworld.org/legal/resolution/unsc/1956/en/9268
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15. https://unhcr.org/us/about-unhcr/our-partners/un-and-international-institutions
16. https://www.unhcr.org/us/about-unhcr/who-we-protect/refugees
17. https://www.unhcr.org/what-we-do/protect-human-rights
18. https://www.who.int/news/item/21-05-2020-who-and-unhcr-join-forces-to-improve-health-services-for-refugees-displaced-and-stateless-people
19. https://www.theindianpanorama.news/featured/un-peacekeeping-indias-contributions/
20. https://www.pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=2109587&reg=3&lang=2