U.S. Peacekeeping Policy After The Cold War

World peace and security has been a common issue to the people all over theworld, international peacekeeping operations brings “fresh blood” to the world peaceand stability. Since the founding of the United Nations, people has always paid moreattention to the UN peacekeeping operations, and neglected the peacekeeping policiesand guidelines of the United States, Russia, France, and Britain etc. In fact, theinternational system is composed of sovereign states, the peacekeeping policies ofgreat powers play a decisive role in the UN peacekeeping operations, as well as theworld peace and stability. As the superpower in the world, adjustment andimplementation of U.S. peacekeeping policy are very important to the world peaceand stability.U.S. peacekeeping policy is divided into three types: First, the peacekeepingpolicy is toward the UN-led peacekeeping operations; Second, the peace enforcementpolicy is made by United States itself, authorized by the United Nations, butdominated by U.S. and its allies; Third, the stabilization and reconstructionpolicy,without UN authorization, which is implemented by U.S. alone. The peaceenforcement policy as well as the stabilization and reconstruction policy are thespecial of U.S. peacekeeping policy. In short, the U.S. peacekeeping policy, includingthe UN peacekeeping policy within the UN system, and unilateral peacekeepingpolicy outside the UN system.After the Cold War, U.S. peacekeeping policy has undergone continuing changesalong with the changes during four presidents times. George Bush pursued radicalpolicies of the UN peacekeeping and his peacekeeping operations was mainly withinthe United Nations system. During the Clinton administration, the United Statesadopted a selected UN peacekeeping policy and effective unilateral peacekeepingpolicy. The George W Bush era, the United States observed negative UNpeacekeeping policy, and advocated positive unilateral peacekeeping policy. AfterObama took office, he proposes the smart UN peacekeeping policy and the diversifiedunilateral peacekeeping policy. As can be seen, the evolution of the U.S. peacekeepingpolicy after the Cold War not only reflects the political and foreign policy ofpresidents, but also reflects the strong "unilateralism" color of U.S.Although the U.S. peacekeeping policy focus on different aspects during different period, the evolution of the U.S. peacekeeping policy after the Cold War hasthree characteristics: flexibility, practicality, and contradiction. The reason for theevolution is that the fundamental purpose of the U.S. peacekeeping policy is tomaintain a world dominated by the U.S. political and security order. Thus, theevolution of the U.S. peacekeeping policy is not only the performance of the U.S.foreign policy, but also the result of interaction of domestic factors and internationalenvironment.With the change of international peacekeeping operations, the UN peacekeepingmechanism improves constantly, the rapid rise of the emerging countries, plus U.S.domestic holds different attitude toward peacekeeping operations, U.S. peacekeepingpolicy will face a variety of new challenges. Study of evolution of U.S. peacekeepingpolicy after the Cold War, we can have a better understanding of the relationshipbetween the United States and the United Nations, as well as the source of ideas andtheoretical basis of U.S. national security strategy. This is helpful for China to chooseto participate in UN peacekeeping operations, the national anti-terrorism and nationalhumanitarian relief operations, to better participate in international cooperation, andto establish a good image of international peacekeeping.