Lincoln P. Bloomfield

About the author: Lincoln P. Bloomfield is professor of political science emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He has served in the U.S. Navy, in the State Department, and on the National Security Council.

After the breakup of the Soviet Union, it seemed that the United Nations would be pivotal in reducing cross-border conflicts much like the one in Iraq and Kuwait in the early 1990s. Instead, most of the recent violent conflict is occurring within national boundaries. The world has a responsibility to intervene to end this intrastate violence, and the United Nations should play a large role in this endeavor. The U.N. should focus its efforts on preventing the ethnic violence and other forms of conflict that threaten...