Conclusion

Summary

This volume has been the story of heroic efforts amid an overall landscape of failure. Problems that the United Nations in its earliest years set out to address remain unresolved today: the questions of Israel/Palestine and of Kashmir are the most obvious examples, and – a little later – Cyprus. In Cyprus at least one may say that, since 1974, there has been no war, and in recent years there have been steady advances towards a settlement. One cannot say the same about the other two. In those, the bright hopes once invested in UN diplomacy have been dashed. Only in two cases dealt with in this volume – Indonesia and Rhodesia – was the international community, whether in the form of the United Nations or of the British Commonwealth, successful in resolving a situation. In those cases a newly independent country was successfully brought into being, and in both cases peacekeepers, including Australians, played a major role.