Peace enforcement is a practice of ensuring peace in an area or region. Part of a three-part scale between peacekeeping and peacemaking, it is sometimes considered to be the midpoint. Peace enforcement is different from peacemaking where options, possibly including force, are used to bring conflicting parties to negotiations. While it is an approach to maintaining an existing peace, and can thus only be done by an outside party which is recognized as neutral, this is differentiated from peacekeeping largely in the level of force the outside group is willing to use in response to violations of the established peace.