THE UNITED NATIONS IS EXHAUSTED. CONFLICTS THAT might once have responded to mediation—as in Namibia in the late 1980s, El Salvador in the early 1990s, and Timor-Leste at the turn of this century—are now marked by nihilistic, sometimes genocidal brutality beyond the effective reach of UN envoys. Budgets for life-saving humanitarian relief—desperately needed in the Middle East, Southeast Asia, and Africa, where millions of refugees are on the move—are dwindling to near-bankruptcy. There are more UN peacekeepers on the ground than ever before, with 124,746 military and civilian personnel deployed in 16 operations in West and Central Africa, the Middle East, and Haiti by the summer of 2015. Yet UN troops, now working with modern weapons of war, face greater dangers, both to their own lives and to the people…
