The international community is creating a dynamic that threatens to exacerbate the ambiguity concerning Kosovo's political future, rather than resolve it.

Although this brief survey of five current case studies of UN peacekeeping is necessarily summary in nature, I believe that the evidence forms a sufficient pattern to conclude that the UN is substantially overextended and in danger of becoming more so.

The UNis involved in conflicts, or is considering involvement, where it has neither the authority nor the competence to be effective, and its instinctive reaction to difficulties it has encountered has been simply to do more of the same.