Warriors Who Don’t Fight: The Post–Cold War United States Army and Debates over Peacekeeping Operations

This article examines post-Cold War debates over the U.S. Army’s participation in peacekeeping operations. Peacekeeping meant different things to policy-makers, army leaders, public intellectuals, and those who served on such missions. Army leaders were generally not enthusiastic about these operations but recognized they were indicative of future trends. Peacekeepers accepted the role, even if they struggled to understand how to navigate the gray zone between peace and war; political commentators sought to use peacekeeping missions to advance their own causes. Participants in these debates articulated not only their thoughts on peacekeeping, but radically different visions of what they wanted the American soldier of the 21st century to be.