As the United Nations, founded in 1945, prepares for the transition from its first half-century to its second, it is undergoing a profound intellectual and political transformation.

We are witnessing a dramatic alteration in the threat to international peace and security. As globalization transforms economic relations, the link between worldwide development and international peace grows stronger.For the United Nations, this has meant a renewed commitment to development as our primary task. But it is in peacekeeping where immediate concerns have arisen.

For most of the United Nations' history, peacekeeping has been a clear and simple concept. Member states have provided troops to serve under the secretary-general.

All parties to a conflict have welcomed them. The mission has been to help keep an agreed cease-fire and thus to keep the peace. Confrontation has not been expected.

Peacekeeping today has become far more complicated.

In the past four years, the United Nations has been called to more peacekeeping operations than in the previous 44 years.

Some 70,000 civilian and military personnel are now serving in 17 operations across the world.

Peacekeeping expenditures have more than doubled in just two years, to $3.3 billion this year. The demand for operations, the number of personnel, the budgets involved - all are of vastly greater magnitude.

Today's peacekeeping involves new situations and new tasks.

Peacekeepers have been sent to areas where there are no agreements, where consent to a U.N. presence is sporadic and where governments do not exist or have limited effective authority.

And peacekeeping is more than just keeping apart the warring parties. It may be aimed at protecting vulnerable populations, delivering humanitarian relief or responding to the collapse of a state. It may entail restoring democracy or building a foundation for national recovery. Often these tasks must go on at the same time, in the same theater of operations.

In this second generation of peacekeeping, there are no easy solutions. Each operation is different. Each requires new concepts, in different combinations, often undertaken by multiple actors.

Today's first major challenge is command and coordination. In today's dangerous settings, member states and regional organizations have been cautious about placing their forces solely under U.N. command.

The second challenge is simultaneously fielding successful multiple operations.

The third challenge is the changing nature of conflict.

Today, conflicts and confrontations inside state borders are more prevalent than interstate wars. But the United Nations cannot and should not intervene on behalf of every troubled nation.

The fourth challenge is the new regionalism.

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Regional entities can enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of U.N. efforts for peace.

But the very features that make regional entities effective may also make regional involvement seem threatening. Those close to a problem and well equipped to handle it may also be too close to its living historical associations.

There are signs that the system of collective security established in San Francisco nearly 50 years ago is finally beginning to work as conceived and that it is proving able to respond flexibly to new challenges.

We are on the way to achieving a workable international system.

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