The United Nations (UN) was founded in 1945 with the noble vision of maintaining international peace and security, fostering cooperation, and promoting human rights. Over the decades, it has played a significant role in conflict resolution, humanitarian aid, and global development. However, in the face of modern geopolitical complexities, obstacles to fundamental resolutions, lack of engagement mechanisms for major approved …

The European Union as we know today it’s the work of years of reforms and improvements. It started as an economic community, but already there was an idea to transform the institution into a global political power. The European Union dares to call itself peacekeeping actor, despite the well-known failures in past conflict situations, i.e. in the Yugoslav wars of …

The effects of the escalation of violence between Israel and Palestine are likely to be felt in the whole region. With the possibility of wider conflicts looming, it is important to understand the context in which this war is taking place. Particularly, the role other actors had in the instability of the region and how they can now contribute to …

President Joe Biden has found himself at a pivotal juncture, where decisions made in the hallowed halls of Congress reverberate globally.  I do commend the recent efforts to gather world powers to coordinate on Ukraine and emphasize the indispensable role the United States must play in ensuring the country’s stability. In the recent call convened by the United States of …

While originally conceptualized as an interposition force meant to monitor ceasefires and control buffer zones between two waring parties, the United Nations peace operations of today operate in progressively complex and intractable intrastate conflicts made worse by rapidly growing transnational issues such as climate change and terrorism. In response to these unprecedented challenges, the nature of UN peace operations has …

War almost broke out between the two NATO countries in 1996 already over an uninhabited rocky island. This time, however, it’s over much more: the Greek islands of Lesbos, Chios, Samos and Ikaria off Turkey’s west coast, as well as the Dodecanese islands, which are also near the Turkish coast and belong to Greece – the largest of which is …

When South Sudan achieved independence in 2011, its conditions led to hopes for the possibility of positive development for the new nation. The act of self-determination concretised in a remarkably peaceful secession from the parent State of Sudan, combined with a richness in natural resources such as oil and gold, however, were not sufficient to counterbalance some of the structural …

If the West provides aid in Afghanistan, it stabilizes the Taliban’s rule. If it does not, the state and society collapse, triggering new streams of refugees. Who could also reach Europe. The images of how thousands of Afghans rushed to the airport after August 15th 2021 hoping to get a seat on an evacuation flight, remain in agonizing memory. Desperate, …

            Deployed in September 2014, MINUSCA was established at an extremely critical phase of the Central African conflict. On the one hand, the conflict was characterized by inter-communal violence that the military detachments of the African Union Peacekeeping Mission (MISCA) and the French troops of the Sangaris mission were struggling to contain. On the other hand, the transitional government that …

National Atlantic Treaty Organization has been leading a peace-support operation in Kosovo – the Kosovo Force – since June 1999. Kosovo Force was established when National Atlantic Treaty Organization’s 78-day air campaign against Milosevic’s regime, aimed at putting an end to violence in Kosovo, was over. Kosovo Force’s original objectives were to deter renewed hostilities, establish a secure environment and …