At the end of the Cold War the hope was that it would be possible to reform international society and create a new world order. This book explores the experience of the United Nations in the three largest peacekeeping operations of recent years, in Cambodia, former Yugoslavia, and Somalia, to explain why it has proved so difficult for the international community to live up to this hope. The introduction explores the common themes and the major contrasts in the three operations, and each case study is accompanied by a chronology of events and a selection of relevant UN documents.