There is a troubling sense of deja vu in the tragedy befalling the U.N. peacekeeping effort in Sierra Leone (it is really peace enforcement, a euphemism for getting sucked into someone else's war). And more than just putting at risk future U.N. operations, recent events pose vexing questions about how to manage chaos on the periphery of the globalized world system.

Once again, it has been a case of noble intentions going awry. Earlier this month, rebels took 500 mostly African peacekeepers hostage, stole their weapons and killed others as a peace accord broke down. In Bosnia, peacekeepers were chained to fences. Then there was Somalia. We won't even bring up Rwanda. One may charitably say the United Nations is a slow learner. Remember Karl Marx's adage: History repeats itself, the first time as tragedy, the second as farce. By the fifth or sixth time, it should be obvious that the U.N. has a bit of a credibility problem.

This most recent in a growing list of embarrassing debacles should spark real soul-searching about questions of "humanitarian intervention," and perhaps even the wider philosophy behind assertive peacekeeping -- "collective security," the original goal of the U.N. It is not just a question of the utility or irrelevance of the U.N.; part of the problem is that member states tend to dump problems that are "too hard" on the U.N. Security Council to get them off their own plates. The larger question is whether that phantom "the international community" really exists. Or whether the idea of collective security -- a threat to anyone is a threat to everyone -- can work in a world of nation-states.