Intelligence at the United Nations for Peace Operations

Since the end of the Cold War, peacekeeping has assumed a renewed saliency and importance. Intelligence in general and peacekeeping intelligence in particular, has long been highly sensitive subject at the UN. In this sense this piece wishes to contribute to a better understanding of the necessity of timely and adequate intelligence support for political and military decision makers during any international peacekeeping operation. Good intelligence is always important to both soldiers and policy-makers can be crucial in any kind of conflict. The UN intelligence efforts in peacekeeping operations have thus been limited. Some improvements have been made, but the further development of intelligence capabilities raises a number of important issues that point to mayor constraints and possible inherent limits on what the UN can achieve.