PEACEKEEPING, PEACEMAKING, & WORLD ORDER

Peacekeeping, Peacemaking, and World Order: A Study of the Post-Cold War UN System, is my master’s thesis completed at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, Canada, 1992-1993. In the early 1990s, the Cold war ended and U.S. President George H.W. Bush’s vision of a “New World Order” based on multilateral cooperation provided optimism that we had reached “the end of history,” supported by a wave of democratization. The euphoria was short-lived. In the years that followed, UN peacekeeping failures in Central Europe, Africa, the Middle East and elsewhere ushered in an era of ethnic, religious, and communal conflicts resulting in failed states on nearly every continent. 30 years later there is still no standing international peacekeeping force that can be deployed in response to interstate or internal threats to peace and security, including terrorism, or facilitate a post-war transition to democratic governance. More recently, climate change, and an artificial intelligence arms race have accelerated instability resulting in the largest ever refugee movements around the globe. In the 21st century, we have witnessed the West’s dismal failure to deliver democratic transitions in the Middle East, irredentist wars in Europe, and large-scale violations of minority rights in Asia and Africa. Many scholars predict that we are heading into an extended period of instability and that World War III may result in a new international system ushered in by a competing civilization. This raises an important question: are we deemed to repeat history, or can World War III be averted? As a new generation of leaders comes to power, technology CEOs have more influence on international peace and security than many heads of state and international organizations. Disruptive technologies such as artificial intelligence, global information and data flows and unprecedented access to new capital sources create opportunities for paradigmatic change led by non-state actors. These discontinuities also present new risks that could result in the extermination of humanity. Perhaps a new generation of global citizens will see the benefits of spearheading a system for peacekeeping and peacemaking while there is still time.