Keeping the Peace: Regional Organizations and Peacekeeping

During the cold war, the United Nations (UN) developed the mission termedpeacekeeping to help manage conflict. These peace operations helped save millions oflives, prevented conflicts from escalating, and provided an environment for thepolitical settlement of disputes despite the superpower conflict. In the aftermath ofthe cold war, the UN found itself freer to act than at any time in its history, and thedemands placed on the organization quickly outstripped its ability to cope. Thisstudy examines the role of regional organizations in the conduct of peacekeeping. Itasks if the international community's singular focus on the UN as the vehicle forpeacekeeping prevented the regional organizations from contributing more tointernational security. Furthermore, if the regional organizations could contributesignificantly to international peace, then what role should the Department ofDefense (DOD) play in supporting these efforts?Regional organizations have conducted peacekeeping operations in the past withmixed results. This study examines the intervention by the Organization ofAmerican States (OAS) into the Dominican Republic in 1965, the OAS role in theCentral American peace process in the late 1980s, and the intervention by theEconomic Community of West African States into Liberia in 1990. These operationsillustrate several salient features of regional organizations conducting peacekeeping.