Jett, a former U.S. ambassador to Mozambique, assesses UN-sponsored peacekeeping since the Cold War and finds it wanting. He argues that vague objectives, inadequate forces, and bureaucratic politics converged to undercut the UN's effectiveness when confronted with civil wars of maddening complexity. Jett's analysis rests largely on a comparison between the failure in Angola and the limited success in Mozambique. This astute choice of cases--two Portuguese colonies that attained independence under similar circumstances--allows Jett to isolate shortcomings specific to the UN and explain why the Angola conflict outstripped the capabilities of UN peacekeepers. Angola's wealth of natural resources, for instance, enabled the combatants to purchase foreign arms in quantity, while superpower backing for the warring factions prolonged the conflict and inhibited negotiation. The relative absence of these factors eased a settlement in Mozambique. Jett concludes that the UN will be underused for peacekeeping in the future. Strongly recommended for academic libraries.

-James Holmes, Inst. for Foreign Policy Analysis, Cambridge, MA