A very perceptive analysis of the problems that affect peacekeeping and humanitarian relief operations. This is not an optimistic work. Jett uses the full range of U.N. peacekeeping & humanitarian assistance operations since 1947 to examine the question of why some succeed and most seem to fail. He makes a number of important observations about the problems of peacekeeping. Noting that peacekeeping has been most effective in interstate conflicts, he goes on to point out that there is no general agreement as to what constitute appropriate grounds for international intervention in the internal affairs of a state.

Four times in the last decade, during the Clinton administration, American political and military personnel were sent abroad to set a foreign country right. The results from these experiments in nation building have been little better than earlier attempts during the postcolonial period. The authors detail the four experiments in trying to recreate and design countries during the 1990s — in Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, and Kosovo.