India and the Current Concerns of UN Peacekeeping: Issues and Prospects
Peacekeeping opera tion is amongst the volatile issues in the contemporary debate on the role and activities of United Nations. The United Nations uses the peacekeeping operation as a fire-fighting device, sent to the crisis situations in various corners of the world. It was an innovative method devised by accident rather than by design to deal with the impasse created by the Cold War between the two Superpowers. It began as an unambitious system in 1948 to deal with inter-state conflicts and by late 20th century, it has become a much sought after means to contain, calm and resolve intra-state disputes. The changed circumstances provided a conducive opportunity to finish the unfinished task of resolving some of the remaining inter-state conflicts of the Cold War period. Meanwhile, ethnic cleavages that remained suppressed during the cold-war period erupted, leading to civil war situations and secession movements.
India’s UN Peacekeeping Operations Involvement in Africa
India accords high significance to its participation in the UN peacekeeping in Africa. Apart from examining India’s contribution in quantitative terms and the varieties of personnel involved, it highlights the Indian peacekeepers’ unique characteristics in terms of professionalism, reliability, humane approach and other distinctive features. It also discusses blemishes they brought on the country because of allegations of corruption and sexual abuse, and how India tackles those issues. The major focus is on the driving factors, which motivated India to participate in the risky operations in Africa that have evolved in keeping with the geopolitical shifts at the global level. Initially, the rationale for its participation was to express solidarity with African countries, but now it is more to ensure energy security and to maximize the opportunity for trade and investment. The aspiration for recognition as a great power remains a constant factor of its involvement in UN peacekeeping operations in Africa, and India has been leveraging this contribution for claiming a permanent seat at the UN Security Council since the early 1990s. It discusses the apprehension of a shift in India’s participation due to frustration at the lack of progress in UN reform. However, the indicators direct that the attempt is more to reconfigure its participation and to highlight the need to go back to the traditional root of the peacekeeping operations, keeping in view the diversions that took place in the post-Cold War.
The Internet and the Changing Beijing-Taipei Relations: Toward Unification or Fragmentation?
Information and its technologies facilitate the exercise of what has been called “soft power,” a concept that differentiates information from the conventional dimensions of “hard power,” which is mainly associated with military force and economic influence. Soft power, according to Nye, a former Assistant Secretary of Defense of the United States, means that “A country may obtain the outcomes it wants in world politics because other countries want to follow it, admiring its values, emulating its example, aspiring to its level of prosperity and openness. In this sense it is just as important to set the agenda in world politics and attract others as it is to force them to change through the threat or use of military or economic weapons.”1