In most of its peacekeeping missions the UN's lack of organisation has

been concealed, but Bosnia and Somalia have shown up the problems.

THERE have been 28 United Nations peace-keeping missions since 1948

and each one has been improvised. Even today, with 13 missions in the

field involving 75,000 troops and costing $3000m, there is no command

and control structure within the UN.

Most of the time the peace-keepers get away with it because the

warring parties have fought themselves to a standstill or, as in the

unique case of Iraq, overwhelming power is applied against a regime

universally judged to be evil.

But when these conditions do not apply, as in Bosnia where the UN

forces are ordered back to their barracks by drunken thugs, or in

Somalia where they are now regarded as just another warring faction, all

the weaknesses of the UN's operations are revealed.

Madeleine Albright, US Permanent Representative to the UN, made a

devastating analysis of these weaknesses to a conference on co-operative

security. Her theme was that: ''The United Nations has neither the

resources nor the internal organisation to plan, prepare, organise,

deploy, direct, and service peace-keeping missions.''

There was, she said, a kind

of ''programmed amateurism'' which showed up in the lack of

centralised command and control; in the near total absence of

contingency planning; in hastily recruited, ill-equipped, and often

unprepared troops and civilian staff; in lift arrangements cobbled

together on a wing and a prayer; and in the lack of troop training

standards or standard operational procedures for troops in the field or

under fire.

She also criticised ''the Byzantine and drawn-out budgetary

decision-making process, and the lack of a durable financial basis for

starting and sustaining peace-keeping operations''.

What then can be done? Ambassador Albright said that the United States

is in favour of what amounts to the formation of a UN General Staff and

rapid-reaction force with its own recruitment, training, intelligence,

logistic, and communications services and its own budget -- its own

army, in fact.

Although she did not say so, it is obvious that the United States sees

itself as playing the leading role in this UN army with one of its

senior military officers as commander-in-chief since it would provide

most of the money and the advanced weaponry.

Certainly, since the removal of the Soviet army from the world scene,

the Americans have viewed their role as spreading sweetness and light

round the world. After the Gulf war, President Bush spoke of a ''new

world order'' and President Clinton was happy to follow the same theme.

It is significant that the American forces are rewriting their

training manuals to include ''the mission of civilisation'' as part of

their military code.

The problem is how an American-led United Nations army will enforce

that ''mission of civilisation'' when nationalistic peoples, many of

them newly released from big-power bondage by collapse of the Soviet

empire, refuse to accept it.

After the 100-hour blitzkreig in the desert which wrecked the Iraqi

army, the allied commanders called off the chase to Baghdad. There were

good military reasons for not going into the city, but the allies were

sure that Saddam Hussein would be toppled by his own enraged people.

He is still there, seemingly as powerful as ever, despite sanctions

and Tomahawk cruise missiles, and with every Tomahawk crashing into

Baghdad to cause ''collateral damage'' his position grows stronger.

Then we have the paradox of Bosnia where no military action is being

taken to stop the killing and ''ethnic cleansing'', and Somalia where

some of the most fearsome weapons in the American armoury have been used

with the usual ''collateral damage'' -- death and destruction -- in a

failed attempt to kill or capture a tribal warlord.

In all three cases the UN has been demeaned and, in Bosnia and

Somalia, where the Blue Berets were greeted in joy as liberators, they

are now spat upon as betrayers and enemies.

IT is not the fault of the soldiers, most of whom are doing their best

in an impossible situation, but the strains of failure are causing

dissent between the commanders and governments of the national

contingents.

The most public quarrel has been that between the Italians and the

Americans with the Americans putting pressure on the UN to demand the

recall of the Italian commander, General Bruno Loi, following his

criticism of the American helicopter attack on the command centre of the

warlord, General Aidid.

The Italians, who have a traditional interest in Somalia, furiously

rejected the UN demand with Foreign Minister Beniamino Andreatta telling

the US TV station, CNN: ''There would be heated debate in the

Westminster Parliament if the Foreign Minister reported that there had

been a helicopter bombardment in Belfast in order to capture an IRA

leader''.

Here, then, lies the true weakness of the UN peace-keeping operations,

for what is lacking is not only a properly funded and organised military

establishment but, more important, proper political decisions on aims

and objectives and the means to achieve them.

One of the major lessons of the war in Vietnam was that you do not win

the ''hearts and minds'' of the people by burning down their villages.

Similarly, if you have a ''mission of civilisation'' it must be

conducted in a civilised fashion.