Prologue -- Afghanistan : 9/11 and the War on Terror -- Iraq : lingering damage to the idea of collective action -- Georgia : the war that could have been avoided -- Cote d'Ivoire : elections are rarely the shortest route -- Democratic Republic of the Congo : the limits of the use of force -- Sudan : dangers of a fragmented strategy for a fragmented country -- Darfur : deploying peacekeepers against all odds -- Lebanon : how to end a war -- Kosovo : the long goodbye -- Haiti : the difficulty of helping others -- Syria : a world out of control -- Making the United Nations relevant in today's world -- Epilogue.

For more than a decade, international peacekeeping forces have been engaged in Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Sudan - yet peace is far from secured. Meanwhile, a skeptical observer is left wondering if anything can be accomplished by costly interventions in faraway lands, especially as fear of more immediate threats - most acutely in the form of terrorist acts orchestrated by individuals or small groups - loom in the streets of New York, London, Paris, and other major cities. Guehenno draws on his experience as the head of the United Nations Department of Peacekeeping Operations from 2000 to 2008, a period that included intense negotiations and spiraling crises in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Sudan, to reflect on some of the most difficult questions facing international interventions today.