Blue Helmets: The Strategy of U.N. Military Operations by John HillenReview by: Eliot A. CohenForeign Affairs, Vol. 77, No. 4 (Jul. - Aug., 1998), p. 127Published by: Council on Foreign RelationsStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20048997 .

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Recent Books

turn out to have acted as much like an

interest group as any group of hyphenated

Americans, and the British governments of Neville Chamberlain and Winston Churchill persisted in an adroit and well

planned effort to get the United States into the war.

They succeeded, and a good

thing too: their wishes and sound policy for the United States (not to mention the

rest of the world) coincided. A fascinating account of some of the activities of the

British, running the gamut from cleverly skewed spurious polls to the creation of

front organizations funded by British

intelligence, although one suspects that

many others are buried in archives or,

alas, hidden from history in files long since consigned to flames.

Debating European Security, 1948-1998. by

willem van EEKELEN. The Hague: SDU Publishers, 1998,371 pp. $29.50.

Van Eekelen has spent nearly 40 years in public service, culminating in his

tenure as secretary-general of the Western

European Union from 1989 to 1994. In

that role he reinvigorated a moribund

organization intended to coordinate

military activities by the Western Euro

pean states. In essentially an extended

memoir of his tenure, van Eekelen relates

historically significant accounts of the gulf and Yugoslav crises. Despite his best efforts,

however, the role of the weu remains

unclear. Once it seemed the appropriate framework for out-of-area operations

by nato countries, but that rationale

has dwindled. More depressingly, this confirmed and dedicated European concludes that Europe cannot create its

own security system, not for lack of capa

bility but lack of will. The old continent will thus, in van Eekelen's view, continue

to rely on American leadership, even in

such obviously European problems as the

Bosnian war.

Blue Helmets: The Strategy of U.N.

Military Operations, by john

hillen. Washington: Brassey's,

1998,312 pp. $26.95. Another contribution to the burgeoning

literature on peacekeeping

as a military

problem. A clear and interesting work,

sponsored by the Association of the

U.S. Army, it makes the now conventional

distinction between traditional and second

generation peacekeeping?the latter

being more "bellicose and complex." Of greatest utility, in addition to a

good

bibliography and a generally sound narra

tive, is the exploration of the organizational

aspects of U.N. peacekeeping operations. The author concludes that the United

Nations should not be expected, or asked,

to conduct real military operations. This

is, therefore, a muted plea for leaving peace

operations that might entail fighting to national armies and traditional coalitions.

Rise of the Fighter Generals: The Problem of Air Force Leadership, 1945-1982. by

mike worden. Maxwell Air Force

Base: Air University Press, 1998, 281

pp. $18.00 (paper).

Military organizations change most

durably and profoundly when they draw

their leadership from new groups. This

interesting sociological study by an active

duty colonel focuses on one such trans

formation. In the late 1940s bomber

generals, such as the famous Curtis LeMay, dominated the U.S. Air Force. By the 1980s fighter generals ran it. The credential of

combat service in Vietnam helps account

for this shift: far more fighter pilots went

FOREIGN AFFAIRS July/August i998 [127]

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