The Political and Philosophical Aspects of U.N. Security Forces

Abstract

This is a conclave of pragmatists. Our concern is with a category of international mechanisms that have grown out of experience, which are known to work, however imperfectly. This is not a constitutional convention of philosophers composing Utopias. The value of our subject matter is that it is related to the real world of conflict, confusion and cross-purposes. We must nevertheless try to see it in persepective, try to set it against what the political philosophers say is required and estimate in what ways it is wanting. We must examine how or whether it fulfils a function in men's progress to a governed world, and even ask whether we are on the right or wrong track. We shall no doubt address ourselves largely to the means by which U.N. peace-keeping practices can be functionally improved for the kind of purposes in which they are now engaged. We shall also have in mind how they might be developed to meet new situations, how they might ease us through the revolutionary upheavals ahead, and what if any relation they have to the international force prescribed for a disarming and disarmed world. The purpose of this exercise in perspective is not only to assess the opportunities for development but also to rid ourselves of illusions. These illusions are often bred of the rhetoric