Viele betrachten die EU als einen behäbigen Koloss, den widerstreitende Interessen lähmen. Der Autor weist die Kritiker jedoch in ihre Schranken. In seinem flammenden Plädoyer für die EU veranschaulicht er ihre positive Wirkung nach außen. Dabei kommt er zu dem Schluss, dass die Aufgaben Europas als universale Wertegemeinschaft im Bereich des Krisenmanagements und der Friedensstiftung liegen.

Vergleiche für: - Größe der Armee - Länder ohne reguläre Streitkräfte - Wehrpflicht - Militärausgaben - Peacekeeping–Missionen - Beteiligung am Irakkrieg - registrierte Schusswaffen in Mittelamerika

The Scandinavian countries have a long tradition of taking part in peacekeeping missions and also of research in this field. The aim of this thesis is to continue the tradition of research and try to shed some more light on the mental health aspects of peacekeeping operations. Two methods were used to accomplish this. One was to study a Swedish battalion serving for 6 months in NATO´s IFOR mission in Bosnia in 1996, using a longitudinal approach. Questionnaires covering predeployment factors, general mental health, traumatic experiences and effects of support were used. The other method was to perform a register study in which 39 768 individuals who had served in peacekeeping missions were compared to a matched group of the general population with regard to differences in suicide rates. The general level of mental health problems and post-traumatic reactions was low and did not change over time. Traumatic experiences during service only appeared to make a temporary difference in general mental health. There are indications that possible predictors for poor mental health in peacekeepers could be constituted by: lower mean scores on the SOC questionnaire and on the Emotional Stability scale of the FFPI; personality disorders in general; prior family problems or psychiatric problems expressed through suicidal thoughts before deployment and problems experienced post-deployment, such as "relationship problems", death of a close relative", or "financial problems". It was found that the combination of peer support and a defusing session led by platoon commanders had positive effects on the post deployment mental health. The rate of personality disorders appears to be at the same level as or at a slightly lower level than in the general population. Compared to the general population, the suicide rate was showed to be lower in the peacekeeper population.

The thesis investigates how China and the United States used state sovereignty in their official statements provided to the United Nations Security Council when discussing the Darfur conflict during the time period between 2004 and 2009. The thesis looks in particular at the official statements made with regards to the three different measures taken by the Security Council which were: the implementation of sanctions, the referral to the international criminal court and the deployment of peacekeeping. The thesis found that China applied a more cautious, but consistent, approach in which breaches of state sovereignty were never officially supported. The United States use of state sovereignty evolved as it became more willing over time to breach the sovereign rights of Sudan. The investigation into the official stance by China and the United States also provides general conclusions with regard to state sovereignty in contemporary international relations. First, the thesis finds that state sovereignty is still at the core of decision making in the United Nations Security Council, and as well in international relations, and there no present challenges to the role state sovereignty in contemporary international relations. Nonetheless, the different interpretations applied by states such as China and the United States, delays the decision-making process as states disagree on justifiable breaches of state sovereignty. State authorizes, such as the Government of Sudan, use state sovereignty as a barrier to effective international action to prevent atrocities and heinous crimes against humanity. In this application of state sovereignty, the rights of nation -states are protected more than the individual rights of human beings.

The post-Cold War era saw the extraordinary expansion of UN activity in the maintenance of global peace and security. Such a rapid expansion led to organizational over-stretch and failure and many in the international community began searching for ways to improve UN peacekeeping by reducing deployment time. In the mid-1990s, the Dutch, Canadian and Danish governments released proposals for a UN rapid reaction capability. Unfortunately, of the three proposals only the Danish proposed Stand-by High Readiness Brigade (SHIRBRIG) was implemented. The lack of movement toward UN rapid reaction is due to a number of factors, namely the loss of post-Cold War idealism, a disconnection with the political reality of the time and cost concerns. More fundamentally, rapid reaction posed a threat to state primacy. / October 2006

The thesis investigates how China and the United States used state sovereignty in their official statements provided to the United Nations Security Council when discussing the Darfur conflict during the time period between 2004 and 2009. The thesis looks in particular at the official statements made with regards to the three different measures taken by the Security Council which were: the implementation of sanctions, the referral to the international criminal court and the deployment of peacekeeping. The thesis found that China applied a more cautious, but consistent, approach in which breaches of state sovereignty were never officially supported. The United States use of state sovereignty evolved as it became more willing over time to breach the sovereign rights of Sudan. The investigation into the official stance by China and the United States also provides general conclusions with regard to state sovereignty in contemporary international relations. First, the thesis finds that state sovereignty is still at the core of decision making in the United Nations Security Council, and as well in international relations, and there no present challenges to the role state sovereignty in contemporary international relations. Nonetheless, the different interpretations applied by states such as China and the United States, delays the decision-making process as states disagree on justifiable breaches of state sovereignty. State authorizes, such as the Government of Sudan, use state sovereignty as a barrier to effective international action to prevent atrocities and heinous crimes against humanity. In this application of state sovereignty, the rights of nation -states are protected more than the individual rights of human beings.

<p>This thesis aims at finding the reasons for the genocide in Rwanda, not only in the history of the country, but also the reason why the international institutions failed to prevent it. The thesis begins with a historical background of Rwanda where key actors in the conflict are presented and in the end presents an explanatory model which is based upon the facts gathered during the thesis. The model aims at explaining why the genocide happened and it is built up of layers. These layers have their background in Rwanda’s history and also international institutions, such as the UN. The layers of importance which led to the genocide are: Rwanda’s colonial past, the Arusha Accords and the mandate of UNAMIR (failure of the United Nations), a uni-polar world, increasing poverty, and the assassination of President Habyarimana. There were few available strategies in the standard arsenal of international political means that could have been used to stop the genocide, both before it broke out, but especially after it had begun.</p> / <p>Uppsatsen ämnar hitta de bakomliggande orsaker till folkmordet, inte bara i Rwandas historia men också varför internationella instutitioner, så som FN, inte bidrog till att förhindra folkmorden. I det fortlöpande arbetet med uppsatsen har en modell utvecklats vilken ämnar förklara vad som hände, och som är byggd på den information som framkommit under arbetets gång. Modellen bygger på ett flertal lager av händelser. Dessa lager bygger på händelser som inte bara rör Rwandas historia utan också på vad de internationella institutionerna bidrog med i konflikten. De identifierade lagren som ligger till grund för konflikten är Rwandas koloniala bakgrund, Arusha Accords och mandatet för UNAMIR, en unipolär värld, ökande fattigdom samt mordet på President Habyarimana. Det fanns få tillgängliga politiska strategier som kunde ha använts för att stoppa folkmordet.</p>

This thesis studies the peacekeeping, peace enforcement and peace-building efforts undertaken by the United Nations (UN) in the Congo. Part one investigates the UN mission in Congo 1960 to 1964 and the second part looks at the current mission that started in 1999 which is currently ongoing. The final part makes a comparative analysis of the two case studies. Peacekeeping, peace enforcement and peace-building are some of the approaches the UN uses in order to manage and settle conflict. While these concepts are often related to one another, they possess certain characteristics making them distinguishable. I solemnly use these concepts when conducting the two case studies and the comparative analysis. I study the mandates as well as the activities in the field. My main argument is that while the mandates differed between the two peace operations, the actual activities in the field shared many common features. I will show that the first peace operation in the Congo deviated from all others undertaken by the UN thus far. The Congo crisis in the sixties took place at the height of the Cold War. What commenced as a traditional peacekeeping operation eventually turned into a mission of peace enforcement. These enforcement measures were never supported by a Chapter VII mandate. There were also elements of peace-building efforts such as trying to install functioning governmental institutions. As such, it deviated from other peace operations during that time. Although these are considered as pioneering for many current peacebuilding missions, they cannot be considered as broad as today’s efforts. The current peace operation in Congo also started as a peacekeeping operation. As the conflict escalated, a Chapter VII mandate was provided to use force. Similarly to the peace operation during the Cold War, it also went from a peacekeeping operation to one of peace enforcement. However, the ongoing peace operation is provided with much clearer and less arbitrary mandates. The peace-building efforts are also much broader. Central to the mission is to aid in the implementation of a democratic system that will survive once the peace operation has ended. These forms of efforts are quite typical since the end of the Cold War.

This dissertation uses the experiences of Arab Islamist fighters in the 1992-1995 war in Bosnia-Herzegovina (BiH) to rethink prevailing notions of world order. These actors are frequently glossed as “foreign fighters”: rootless, unaccountable extremists attempting to impose rigid forms of Islam on local “moderate” Muslim populations, be it in BiH, Afghanistan, Chechnya, or other sites of conflict with non-Muslim powers. By illuminating some of the many diasporic and imperial circuits linking BiH with other parts of the world, this dissertation provides a richer historical and sociological context in which transnational activist movements no longer seem so aberrational. This study argues that the mobilization to join the “jihad” alongside Bosnian Muslims can be usefully understood as a universalist project: an attempt to incarnate a worldwide Muslim community (umma) theoretically open to all of humanity, in which activists struggle through the experience of racial, cultural, and doctrinal difference vis-à-vis Bosnian and other Muslims. This approach opens up two broad avenues of inquiry. First, it allows an analysis of how Muslims of different backgrounds interacted in contexts of fighting, intermarriage, and doctrinal disputation. Second, it helps analytically situate the jihad in relation to other forms of armed intervention also acting in the name of humanity, most importantly UN peacekeeping and the U.S.-led “Global War on Terror.” This study is based on approximately 12 months of fieldwork in BiH between 2006 and 2012, mostly in Sarajevo, Zenica, Tuzla, and Bugojno. Open-ended life-history interviews were conducted in Arabic and English with Arab residents of BiH and their Bosnian comrades, kin, and critics. Additional interviews took place in Yemen, France, and Egypt. The study also draws extensively on archival materials culled from various sources, including Bosnian army and intelligence documents gathered by the UN war crimes tribunal, U.S. State Department cables disclosed by Wikileaks, and extensive printed and online materials by participants in and supporters of the jihad written in Arabic, the language formerly known as Serbo-Croatian, and Urdu.

This thesis investigates the evolution of Australian and New Zealand peacekeeping operations in the Pacific through a trans-Tasman lens. Both Australian and New Zealand sources are used in order to understand the relationship and interaction between the two nations. This study has a particular focus on the Truce Monitoring Group (TMG) sent to Bougainville in late 1997. This New Zealand-led operation was the first long-term regional peace initiative of recent times, and set the stage for future regional interventions by Australia and New Zealand. The thesis also considers more broadly the subsequent involvement of Australian and New Zealand peacekeepers in the International Force in East Timor (INTERFET) and Regional Assisted Mission to Solomon Islands (RAMSI). These two later operations are considered with particular attention to lessons learnt from previous peacekeeping experiences and the changing tenor of trans-Tasman relations. Since this is a history thesis it sets the argument within a historical and historiographical framework. It seeks to identify long-term trends surrounding Australia's and New Zealand's relationship with the Pacific, defence connection and Anzac heritage. A further aim of this thesis is to investigate whether joint Australian and New Zealand peacekeeping in the Pacific revived the Anzac relationship first formed at Gallipoli. By looking at evidence taken from interviews and first-hand accounts with Australian and New Zealand participants in the TMG, INTERFET and RAMSI, this thesis argues that hallmarks of the earlier Anzac relationship did re-emerge, though in a slightly different form. The phenomenon of New Zealand's reputation as having a cultural advantage in the Pacific is explored in some detail as this is an important aspect of the Anzac relationship.