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The article examines the (in)effectiveness of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) as an enforcer of peace and security in the post–Cold War global order and teases out the tensions between the mandate and its enforcement. Through an examination of the cases of Syria and Mali and the related UNSC resolutions, the article demonstrates that the council’s role is primarily guided by the geopolitical visions and interests of its veto-wielding permanent members (P5). The action or inaction of the council depends on whether a particular situation is tangential or core to the concern of a permanent member or a group of members. Geopolitical visions guiding the interests of the permanent members dominate the UNSC-mandated concerns of international peace and security. While the conflict situations in Syria and Mali posed similar problems, the council emerged largely effective in the later and ineffective in the former owing to the clash of geopolitical visions. In the case of Syria the clash of visions eclipsed the global concerns for peace, while in the case of Mali the absence of the clash enabled the council to enforce peace.
