The United Nations-backed US intervention in Haiti displayed the three main characteristics of peacekeeping interventions. Official goals were lofty and idealistic. The United States made little use of its overwhelming military superiority, preferring to rely on local forces to avoid being bogged down in a hazardous political environment. Local factors, namely, the role played by Haitian leaders, determined the eventual failure of the operation. From the initial decision to intervene, to the techniques employed to carry out these objectives, and finally to the outcome of the operation, the political environment, not military factors, shaped events.