August 30, 2006: Six years ago, in the Summer of 2000, the UN had 48,000 peacekeepers deployed, in 17 different operations. Now, with a revival of trouble in East Timor, and a new peacekeeping operation in Lebanon, there will be some 120,000 UN peacekeepers at work in twenty locations by the end of the year.
Currently, there are 73,000 UN peacekeepers in service, costing nearly $5 billion a year. Controlling all this is the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations. But the member nations have deliberately kept this organization small, it has only 600 staff, and handling more peacekeeping operations is very difficult, even if the money can be raised. American conservatives are not the only ones in the world who resist the establishment of a 'UN Army.'