The U.S. government should establish a foreign policy...

Well, we are trying really hard to be peacekeepers already. Maybe the question should be...

...can we afford to "establish a foreign policy substantially increasing its support of U.S. peacekeeping operations."

To me though, we don't seem to be doing a very good job of this, taking into account the entire iraq war thing. If this is bieng considered peacekeeping, then I wonder what warfare would be? The ability to cause destruction on a global scale?

The International Criminal Court adds serious legal vulnerabilities to U.S. forces participating in peacekeeping operations. While no one may be interested in filing malicious charges against (say) Nigerian officials, the United States is a far more likely target. So far the UN has shown little interest in accomodating us and that has become a seriously limiting factor.

The UN has little difficulty in finding volunteers among its member nations to fill the required ranks of peacekeepers. For many countries, the money they get is a good financial return on the cost of their military forces..

Bottom line is there is no need for additional peacekeeping forces. This is a solution in search of a problem.

Lastly the UN, at best, represents the lowest common denominator of its member nations - very often that isn't much. We have no interest in putting our security in the hands of other nations whose attitudes toward us may be colored by envy and resentment. Nothing can be done about that fact - we are the big kid on the block and naturally get more envy and resentment than affection from others. Indeed it would be foolish to expect otherwise.

So my proposition is the opposite of what is on this thread. We should pay less attention to the UN and should not expect it to look out for us.

Well, Americans can not see having too good of peace with a country that is not atleast somewhat similar to our own governmental structure (cold war), so we must make war, than peace