by Thomas G. Weiss

About the author: Thomas G. Weiss, associate dean of faculty at Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, is executive director of the Academic Council on the United Nations System.

Euphoria surrounding the Cold War’s demise and optimism about the possibilities for democratization have given way to a more sober appraisal of continuing and even increasingly violent civil wars in “peacetime” that were hardly imagined by the framers of the United Nations (UN) Charter. The search for order may be no less quixotic at present than it was earlier as decolonization gives way to micronationalism and self-determination goes to its logical extremes.

The end of the Cold War has reinvigorated the UN Security Council and enhanced the prospects for international intervention, but at the same time...