<p>The aim of this paper is to map out the purposes of the United Nations Peacekeeping Operations. This is done in order to see if humanitarian tendencies have been an increasingly cause for the UN to initiate an intervention with military means. This paper uses the time period from the end of the cold war until today, since that historic occurrence increased the U.N.’s involvement in peacekeeping. By using this time span it enables the survey to indicate changes in the mapping of humanitarian interventions. The results show that the number of operations increased during the period 1990-1999. The end of the cold war enabled the members of the U.N.’s Security Council to cooperate in peacekeeping operations by sending observers. Therefore the change in the number of operations was mostly due to political and not strictly humanitarian purposes. The number of operations then decreased during the period 2000-2008. The study explains this with a more humanitarian approach in the U.N.’s peacekeeping operations. This made the operations fewer, but more comprehensive and more complicated. A consequence of this is shown in an extended average of the time period for the operations. These results is being analyzed by using the theories of realism and liberalism, along with their moral perspectives; skeptics, state-moralists, and cosmopolites. These theories reveal a transformation in the function of the UN from a skeptic realist view during the cold war, to a state-moralist view during the period 1990-1999. And finally the period 2000-2008 indicate cosmopolitan influences with more humanitarian purposes parallel to the state-moralist thinking.</p>

The aim of this paper is to map out the purposes of the United Nations Peacekeeping Operations. This is done in order to see if humanitarian tendencies have been an increasingly cause for the UN to initiate an intervention with military means. This paper uses the time period from the end of the cold war until today, since that historic occurrence increased the U.N.’s involvement in peacekeeping. By using this time span it enables the survey to indicate changes in the mapping of humanitarian interventions. The results show that the number of operations increased during the period 1990-1999. The end of the cold war enabled the members of the U.N.’s Security Council to cooperate in peacekeeping operations by sending observers. Therefore the change in the number of operations was mostly due to political and not strictly humanitarian purposes. The number of operations then decreased during the period 2000-2008. The study explains this with a more humanitarian approach in the U.N.’s peacekeeping operations. This made the operations fewer, but more comprehensive and more complicated. A consequence of this is shown in an extended average of the time period for the operations. These results is being analyzed by using the theories of realism and liberalism, along with their moral perspectives; skeptics, state-moralists, and cosmopolites. These theories reveal a transformation in the function of the UN from a skeptic realist view during the cold war, to a state-moralist view during the period 1990-1999. And finally the period 2000-2008 indicate cosmopolitan influences with more humanitarian purposes parallel to the state-moralist thinking.