The Council may decide on enforcement measures, economic sanctions (such as trade embargoes) or collective military action. It also deploys UN peacekeeping operations to reduce tensions in troubled areas, keep opposing forces apart, and create conditions for sustainable peace after settlements have been reached. On many occasions, the Council has issued ceasefire directives, which have helped to prevent major hostilities. When a dispute leads to fighting, the Council's first concern is to end it as soon as possible. It may set forth principles for a peaceful settlement. It may appoint special representatives or request the Secretary-General to do so, or to use his good offices. In some cases, the Council itself investigates and mediates. When it receives a complaint about a threat to peace, the Council first recommends that the parties seek an agreement by peaceful means. Over the decades, the UN has helped to end numerous conflicts, often through actions of the Security Council - the organ with primary responsibility, under the United Nations Charter, for the maintenance of international peace and security. Since the UN's creation on 24 October 1945 (the date its Charter came into force), the United Nations has often been called upon to prevent disputes from escalating into war, or to help restore peace following the outbreak of armed conflict, and to promote lasting peace in societies emerging from wars. ' To save succeeding generations from the scourge of war' are among the first very words of the UN Charter (in its Preamble), and those words were the main motivation for creating the United Nations, whose founders had lived through the devastation of two world wars by 1945.

Current armed conflicts