Whilst the collapse of the Soviet Union and, with it, the associated Warsaw Pact, has greatly reduced the threat of a major conflict with Europe, the story of the involvement of the United Nations in so-called 'peace' operations over the past six years makes it abundantly clear that the world-wide incidence of low intensity, intra-state conflict will remain for us as far ahead as we can see and that the resources and procedures which are essential for the success of future UN operations are yet to be produced. Richard Connaughton has already published a philosophical treatise entitled Military Intervention in the 1990s- A New Logic of War in which he validated the nine principles emerging from a study of the conduct of military interventions between 1918 and 1990 against lessons emerging from the Golf War of 1990-91. A subsequent quadripartite conference held at the British Army Staff collage found that those principles applied equally to an intra-state conflict, such as the former Yugoslavia. In this forthright and highly professional study, drawing upon those principles, Richard Connaughton seeks to 'examine the nature of future conflict and knowledge for the benefit of those called upon to make real-time decisions'. He pulls no punches, leaving the reader with a very clear understanding of the defects of our present international machinery of the maintenance of peace. He emphasises the pressing need for a new, free-range study of the UN in it's 50th year, to establish not only the comprehensive reforms to it's organisation and procedures that are so badly needed but also a clear statement of what is required of the organisation's membership as the providers of those resources, without which success is unobtainable
