Peace enforcement

Peace enforcement is the use of various tactics, most notably military force to compel peace in a conflict, generally against the will of combatants. Peace enforcement missions permit the use of non-defensive armed force, unlike peacekeeping operations. Only the United Nations, through its Security Council per Chapter VII of its charter, has the ability to authorize peace enforcement missions.

Peace enforcement differs from peacekeeping in that peace enforcement activities are generally used to create a peace from a broken ceasefire, or to enforce a peace demanded by the United Nations. Peace enforcement requires more military force than peacekeeping, and is consequently carried out by heavily armed forces. However achieving lasting peace through peace enforcement is limited, as such missions do not address the underlying problems which caused conflict. While peacekeeping missions utilize personnel from several countries, peace enforcement forces often originate from one state or a small coalition of states.

Perhaps the two most prominent examples of peace enforcement are the Korean War and the Gulf War. In both cases, a country invaded another as part of an illegal war of aggression, only to be repulsed by a UN military coalition.

This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.