Jim Wurst

About the author: Jim Wurst is a journalist based at the United Nations and the editor of Disarmament Times.

In 1992, the secretary-general of the United Nations issued a report outlining an expanded, militaristic role for U.N. peacekeeping forces. U.N. operations in Bosnia and Somalia, which were both failures, resulted from policy changes brought about by that report. The United Nations should retreat from these military-style operations and concentrate on diplomatic and humanitarian efforts.

The United Nations began its 50th year [1995] by reflecting on the wreckage of its experiments in policing the new world order, then taking a deep breath and learning the art of the possible. Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali began the year with a report to the Security Council on the third anniversary of his "Agenda for Peace...