Blue Hulls: Multinational Naval Cooperation and the United Nations

This paper considers the role of the United Nations (UN) in facilitating, sponsoring, coordinating, and/or executing multinational cooperation on the seas. It identifies and discusses nine potential UN naval missions and their supporting naval tasks. These are mission areas in which the UN has or may become involved, independent of the form of cooperation. It then analyzes four different options for organizing UN naval cooperation: UN authorization, UN designation, UN direction of designated national contingents, and UN standing naval forces. Finally, the paper suggests conditions under which particular combinations of mission and organizing options should be pursued, and proposes some courses of action independent of mission or organizing option. Appendixes discuss the UN system for collective security and provide historical lessons learned or precedents for each UN naval cooperation organizing option.