Abstract
The United Nations Force in Cyprus (UNFICYP) was established in March 1964 to help deal with the explosive communal violence that had racked the tiny Mediterranean island since the previous Christmas — violence that threatened to plunge NATO allies Greece and Turkey into a war that would inevitably have involved the great powers. This latest major UN military operation reveals a great deal about the limits and possibilities of UN peace- keeping in volatile Third World trouble spots.
Generally, UNFICYP has been a model of administrative efficiency. And the Force has ably, honorably, and imaginatively performed a wide array of helpful peace-keeping and civic-action functions.
On the other hand, it has become clear that a military operation, even one under United Nations auspices and encompassing extensive civic-action projects, has a limited capacity to mitigate civil conflict and is no substitute for traditional political settlement procedures. The UNFICYP experience serves to illustrate the peace-making limitations of even the most highly effective peace-keeping force to date.
Finally, UNFICYP seems to be a more likely model for possible future United Nations peace-keeping forces than either the Suez or Congo operations.
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