The North Atlantic Treaty Organization has been involved in active peacekeeping missions since 1994, and coordinates with United Nations peacekeeping operations and directives.
History[edit]
The Former Yugoslavia[edit]
The first NATO peacekeeping mission has its roots on February 28, 1994, when the organization authorized U.S. fighters to fire on Serbian planes violating the no-fly zone over the former Yugoslavia.[1] Previously, NATO had limited itself to solving conflicts within its member states; this operation marked a shift as the alliance worked to keep the peace in regions of Eastern Europe, which was considered to be an "out-of-area deployment."[2] In December 1995, NATO sent an unprecedented 60,000 troops to ensure that all sides would abide by the Dayton accords, which was replaced by a smaller force of 32,000 troops a year later.[3]
Under a UN mandate, a NATO-led Implementation Force (IFOR) entered Bosnia in order to implement The General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina. This was succeeded by SFOR. In a similar manner, a NATO operation (Kosovo Force, or KFOR) continues in the Serbian province of Kosovo.
The NATO-led mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina has since been replaced by a European Union peacekeeping mission, EUFOR Althea.
Current operations[edit]
NATO currently has operations in underway in Afghanistan, previously with the International Security Assistance Force, [4] and from January 2015 with the Resolute Support Mission.
References[edit]
- ^ British American Security Information Council, NATO, Peacekeeping, and the United Nations, Report 94.1, http://www.bits.de/public/pdf/report94-1.pdf
- ^ NATO Review, Lessons Learned, Vol. 49 - No. 2 Summer 2001 p. 12-15, http://www.nato.int/docu/review/2001/0102-03.htm
- ^ Congressional Research Service, Bosnia and the European Union Military Force (EUFOR): Post-NATO Peacekeeping, https://fas.org/sgp/crs/row/RS21774.pdf
- ^ BBC News, Nato's Afghanistan troop dilemma, 26 December 2005, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4526150.stm
External links[edit]
- Paul F. Diehl, "Problems with NATO's Peace Operations in Afghanistan", ACDIS Swords and Ploughshares 16:2 (summer 2008), Program in Arms Control, Disarmament, and International Security (ACDIS) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.