Rules of Engagement

In the terms of peacekeeping operations, the United Nations places real restrictions on exactly what soldiers can do but they had to do that in order to get the agreement from the warring parties to agree to allow the peacekeepers to come in and try to do this job without the UN making those concessions they would not have been allowed to go in and do a peacekeeping operation. So it was more or less forced on us. As the years went by they changed the terms of reference somewhat. I think it was after the former Yugoslavia conflict to enable peacekeepers to be a bit more robust in the way they used their force to counter things that one of the opposing forces was doing that were obviously placing the local populous at risk, for example, or destroying important cultural sights and things like that. So now the usual or the normal rules of engagement for peacekeepers are a little bit more robust than they were back in the sixties when they first started.