Table Of Content

1604Rostow 10/7/97 2:43 PM Page 100 y r a t n e m m o c Is U.N. Peacekeeping a Growth Industry? By E U G E N E V. R O S T O W 100 JFQ / Spring 1994 Report Documentation Page Form Approved OMB No. 0704-0188 Public reporting burden for the collection of information is estimated to average 1 hour per response, including the time for reviewing instructions, searching existing data sources, gathering and maintaining the data needed, and completing and reviewing the collection of information. Send comments regarding this burden estimate or any other aspect of this collection of information, including suggestions for reducing this burden, to Washington Headquarters Services, Directorate for Information Operations and Reports, 1215 Jefferson Davis Highway, Suite 1204, Arlington VA 22202-4302. Respondents should be aware that notwithstanding any other provision of law, no person shall be subject to a penalty for failing to comply with a collection of information if it does not display a currently valid OMB control number. 1. REPORT DATE 3. DATES COVERED 1994 2. REPORT TYPE 00-00-1994 to 00-00-1994 4. TITLE AND SUBTITLE 5a. CONTRACT NUMBER Is U.N. Peacekeeping a Growth Industry? 5b. GRANT NUMBER 5c. PROGRAM ELEMENT NUMBER 6. AUTHOR(S) 5d. PROJECT NUMBER 5e. TASK NUMBER 5f. WORK UNIT NUMBER 7. PERFORMING ORGANIZATION NAME(S) AND ADDRESS(ES) 8. PERFORMING ORGANIZATION National Defense University,Institute for National Strategic Studies,Fort REPORT NUMBER Lesley J. McNair,Washington,DC,20319 9. SPONSORING/MONITORING AGENCY NAME(S) AND ADDRESS(ES) 10. SPONSOR/MONITOR’S ACRONYM(S) 11. SPONSOR/MONITOR’S REPORT NUMBER(S) 12. DISTRIBUTION/AVAILABILITY STATEMENT Approved for public release; distribution unlimited 13. SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES 14. ABSTRACT 15. SUBJECT TERMS 16. SECURITY CLASSIFICATION OF: 17. LIMITATION OF 18. NUMBER 19a. NAME OF ABSTRACT OF PAGES RESPONSIBLE PERSON a. REPORT b. ABSTRACT c. THIS PAGE Same as 6 unclassified unclassified unclassified Report (SAR) Standard Form 298 (Rev. 8-98) Prescribed by ANSI Std Z39-18 1604Rostow 10/7/97 2:43 PM Page 101 Rostow The Treaty of Vienna called upon the leading powers to take three kinds of action: first, to hold regular meetings of the sovereigns or their ministers; second, to con- sult at those meetings about their common interests; and third, to agree “on measures most salutary for the repose and prosperity of the nations and for the maintenance of the peace of Europe.” This program recognized the special importance of the Great Powers because they have military strength but was meticulously based on the political fact that each state was deemed to be sovereign. Until 1914 the main European powers, sustained in their resolve by the fear of a new Napoleon, followed these prescriptions with remarkable success: they met in Congress from time to time, consulted about threats to the peace, and sometimes agreed on diplomatic or military measures to prevent war or Nations to smother it in negotiations. Save in two in- United sPtraunsscieasn— Wthaer —Ctrhime enaenw Whaabri tasn odf tthhee CFroanncceort- Several recent articles in JFQ and of Europe prevailed, and even then concerted other military journals assume that Great Power diplomacy helped to keep those the sudden increase in the number wars brief and limited. and complexity of U.N. peacekeep- For most Americans the Concert of Eu- ing operations will continue indefinitely. rope is a dim and unattractive memory. The Straight line projections are notoriously un- names of Castlereagh, Metternich, Talley- reliable as a basis for prediction, however. In rand, and Czar Alexander I, the chief dele- this instance, they are particularly unreli- gates to the Congress of Vienna, are hardly able, because the present trend raises serious household words. At most, those men are re- and difficult problems of law and policy, es- called as reactionary enemies of all the pecially for the permanent members of the causes most dear to the romantic liberalism U.N. Security Council. of the early 19th century. Their effort to out- The reasons for this judgment emerge law the slave trade is perhaps the only ex- sharply from even a brief review of the evo- ception to that grim verdict. lution of U.N. peacekeeping in the perspec- Yet the achievement of the Congress of tive of the policies supposed to govern such Vienna has turned out to be as creative and The U.N. Security activities. The U.N. peacekeeping efforts in far-sighted as that of the 55 men who met in Council in session. which we have lately been involved in So- Philadelphia in 1787 to write a new consti- malia, Bosnia, and Haiti are a sub-set of a tution for the United States. Between the much larger class of political and military ac- Congress of Vienna and 1914, the Concert tions, all of which are in fact intended to of Europe gave the world a century of gen- keep (or restore) peace. eral peace which proved hospitable to social As a matter of practical politics, the no- progress as it should be defined: the emer- tion that the major powers of the state sys- gence of democracy, end of slavery, accelera- tem at any given period have a special re- tion in vindicating the equality of women, sponsibility for keeping the peace was first development of trade unions and the wel- proclaimed in the Treaty of Vienna which fare state, and the flowering of science, brought the Napoleonic Wars to an end in learning, and the arts. 1815. The conception of peacekeeping The successors to the 19th century Euro- adopted by the Congress of Vienna was sim- pean statesmen, a group which now includes ple and clear cut. It remains the essence of the idea of peacekeeping today. Spring 1994 / JFQ 101 1604Rostow 10/7/97 2:43 PM Page 102 U.N. PEACEKEEPING y American, Japanese, and Chinese members after disaster was brought on by the inepti- r among others, can claim no such record. tude of governments, the forces of evil a After violent exertions in two appalling wars emerged from their caves, and Russia, Italy, and a prolonged Cold War, they can claim Germany, and then Japan were taken over t only that they barely managed to prevent by regimes of barbarism and aggression n the death of world civilization. It remains to which threatened a return to the Dark Ages. be seen whether they can restore the health Gradually Western countries and the Soviet e of the weakened polity which has survived. Union rallied and barely won World War II. In 1914, of course, the Concert of Eu- In 1919 the peacemakers had made the m rope failed to prevent war. One of the reform of the Concert of Europe their first strongest considerations in President Wil- order of business at Versailles; in 1945, in m son’s decision to lead the United States into San Francisco, they dealt similarly with what the war in 1917 was the conviction that the they perceived as the structural weaknesses Concert of Europe had to be institutional- of the League of Nations. This time, the o ized and strengthened in order to make it an peacemakers were led by a Wilsonian Ameri- effective League to Keep the Peace. Wilson can government, which had worked with c came to realize that, unless the United States Great Britain throughout the war to prepare joined the Western Allies in the war, it the draft Charter of the United Nations. The would have no voice in the peace, and could Charter was in fact adopted even before the not therefore expect to help the Concert of war against Japan was quite finished. Europe develop into an effective interna- The U.N. Charter, going beyond the tional body capable of keeping the peace. Covenant of the League of Nations, flatly For Wilson, this was America’s most vital prohibits the use of force against the territo- stake in the outcome of the war. rial integrity or political independence of The League of Nations was created in any state. The Security Council is vested 1919 as a new Concert of Europe, this time with “primary responsibility” for keeping on a world scale. It was in continuous ses- the peace and endowed with two kinds of sion, had an independent secretariat, and power for achieving that goal: the peaceful embodied the idealism of the Peace Move- methods of conciliation, mediation, adjudi- ment; but its only instruments for action cation, and diplomacy listed in chapter VI of were those of the Concert of Europe—con- the Charter, and, when diplomacy fails, the sultation, persuasion, and recommending novel authority to use military and eco- peacekeeping measures to member states. nomic pressure provided for in chapter VII. The United States was not a member of the So far as the use of armed force is con- League, and the Soviet Union was not ad- cerned, chapter VII provides two equally legal mitted until 1934. And most important of methods for using military force to carry out all, neither the United States nor its West Eu- the Charter rule against aggression. The Secu- ropean allies were ready to accept the bur- rity Council, through the Military Committee dens of peacekeeping in the world of trou- and Secretary General, can conduct enforce- bles which emerged from the wreckage of ment actions which could range in severity World War I. from breaking diplomatic relations to full The history of the two decades between scale war. The Charter provides detailed pro- the wars is a chronicle of almost unrelieved cedures for serious military operations. Under human folly. There was a widespread loss of article 43, member states can make special confidence, nerve, and will among the gov- agreements with the Security Council to pro- erning classes of all the countries. As disaster vide the necessary force. Those troops could be called on by the Security Council when needed and would operate under U.N. com- Eugene V. Rostow is Sterling Professor of Law and Public Affairs Emeri- mand. While the founders of the United Na- tus at Yale University and Research Professor of Law and Diplomacy tions assumed that enforcement actions by at the National Defense University. His latest book was published the Security Council would be the normal simultaneously by Yale University Press as Toward Managed Peace: The and perhaps nearly the exclusive way to keep National Security Interests of the United States, 1759 to the Present, the peace, the elaborate procedures of chapter and by National Defense University Press as A Breakfast for Bonaparte: U.S. National Security Interests from the Heights of Abraham to the Nuclear Age. 102 JFQ / Spring 1994 1604Rostow 10/7/97 2:43 PM Page 103 Rostow VII have never in fact been used. Despite the law and the Charter to defend themselves passionate hopes attached to the Wilsonian against breaches of the peace until the Secu- idea, those articles are and will almost surely rity Council has acted effectively to restore remain a dead letter. They have been tried in the peace. Thus the states would not be pow- the crucible of experience and found want- erless to resist aggression if the Security ing. The great power veto, indispensable to Council could not for any reason undertake the existence of the organization, makes it to enforce the peace itself. impossible for a state to rely with confidence Neither the Security Council nor Inter- on the United Nations as the guarantor of its national Court of Justice has as yet clearly security. And quite apart from the veto, the indicated how long a period the Security tenacious force of nationalism makes any- Council has under article 51 before the right thing like consistent unanimity in the Secu- of self-defense may be required to yield to a rity Council nearly inconceivable. Security Council enforcement action. A few The Charter rule against aggression has people have contended that the right of self- been enforced since 1945, when enforced at defense is suspended in effect when a com- all, by actions of individual or collective self- plaint is put on the Security Council’s defense conducted by victims of aggression docket. This is an absurdly narrow reading of and their friends without permission of the the language and policy of article 51.1 Cer- Security Council. In Korea (1950–54) and tainly state practice gives no support for the Gulf War (1991– ) such campaigns such a view. In the long cycle of Arab wars of self-defense have been against Israel, for example, it has never been peacekeeping forces are blessed by the Security Council, suggested that Israel lost its right of self-de- a move which was welcome to fense when the Security Council took cog- lightly armed troops the victims of aggression and nizance of the conflict and put it on the for police actions in aid their friends but legally unnec- docket. As the ultimate buckler of sov- of diplomacy essary. Nonetheless, those votes ereignty, the right of self-defense cannot be of approval by the Security impaired so lightly, especially if the Security Council have been of enormous emotional Council is relying on inadequate or ineffec- and political significance in invoking U.N. tual measures to restore the peace. symbolism, however mythical. The point is The only way the state’s inherent right of capital importance, because one fre- of self-defense can be forced to yield to a quently comes across the statement that the Security Council enforcement action is by a Security Council is the sole source of legiti- Security Council resolution “deciding” that macy for all peacekeeping operations. the action of self-defense has itself become a Article 51 provides that nothing in the breach of the peace. Such a resolution would Charter “shall impair the inherent right of of course be subject to a great power veto. individual or collective self-defense...until There is a third category of uses of force the Security Council has taken measures nec- considered legal under the Charter, peacekeep- essary to maintain international peace and ing actions recommended by the Security security.” The reason for this provision of the Council or indeed by the General Charter is obvious. The document’s drafters Assembly. In the U.N. vocabulary, peacekeep- were acutely aware that the enforcement pro- ing forces are lightly armed troops for cedures of the League of Nations had failed. demonstrations or police actions in aid of The enforcement articles of chapter VII were diplomacy—the deployment of U.N. forces designed to remedy the perceived weaknesses between belligerents to help monitor a cease- of the League Covenant. The San Francisco fire agreement or demilitarized zone, for ex- Conference which produced the Charter in ample. One U.N. official calls it a “non-coer- 1945 realized, however, that its bold and in- cive instrument of conflict control,”2 a novative enforcement procedures might in definition which accurately characterizes the turn fail. They therefore underscored the im- policy Secretary General Dag Hammerskjold portance of what is called the inherent right and the Security Council of his day thought of states both under customary international they were applying when they invented it shortly after the Suez Crisis of 1956, and then tried to use it again in the Congo crisis of the early 1960s. Hammerskjold called Spring 1994 / JFQ 103 1604Rostow 10/7/97 2:43 PM Page 104 U.N. PEACEKEEPING y these operations chapter six-and-a-half proce- The final days before the Six-Day War of r dures, a way of moving from the entirely June 1967 reveal how dangerous and unreal- a peaceful methods of chapter VI to the far dif- istic Hammarskjold’s second rule can be. The ferent measures of chapter VII. U.N. Emergency Force (UNEF) had been es- t In Hammerskjold’s view, U.N. peace- tablished after the Suez War of 1956 to pa- n keeping operations could be conducted only trol an area between Israeli and Egyptian with the consent of states where they were forces along the Eastern border of the Sinai e to take place. The force was to be scrupu- Desert. As worldwide anxiety focused on the lously neutral between the parties and use Arab forces being deployed in Sinai positions m deadly force only to defend itself or perhaps to attack Israel, Egyptian President Nasser its U.N. mandate. asked U.N. Secretary General U Thant to re- m The Charter makes no express provision move the UNEF troops from parts of the de for U.N. peacekeeping activities of this kind. facto Israeli-Egyptian border. In all probabil- But the International Court of Justice has de- ity, Nasser expected to be restrained by the o cided that the General Assembly or the Secu- strong pressure of the Western powers not to rity Council have broad implied authority to start a war. The Secretary General took the c organize and use such forces as they may position that if Nasser wanted part of the deem “necessary and proper” in order to UNEF forces removed, he would have to re- carry out diplomatic efforts to promote the move them all. This was done over the furi- peaceful settlement of disputes. The Interna- ous protest of President Johnson, and the tional Court of Justice has said with empha- Six-Day War became inevitable. sis that such uses of force are not enforcement The recent crop of peacekeeping opera- actions, but are legitimate activities of the or- tions has blurred the distinction between ganization, part of its armory of diplomatic chapter VI and VII in U.N. practice. If peace- methods for resolving disputes under chap- keepers are authorized by the Security Coun- ter VI by peaceful means.3 cil to use force on a considerable scale, it is The first two large-scale U.N. peacekeep- no longer possible to pretend that they are ing exercises took place in the Middle East present in host states only with their permis- after the Suez Crisis and in the Congo dur- sion and only as neutrals. The Congo ing the 1960s. Both ended in recrimination episode of 1960–64 dramatizes this dilemma. and controversy. Immediately after Belgium liberated the The Secretary General at the time, Dag Belgian Congo in 1960 to become the Repub- Hammarskjold, instructed peacekeepers to lic of the Congo, the rich province of Katanga take no sides in the Congo civil war, save to formally seceded with the help of some Bel- make sure that Belgian or other non-Con- gian officers and European mercenaries golese forces did not participate. Not unnat- claiming recognition as an independent re- urally, it proved difficult to reconcile these public. The Security Council, taking jurisdic- goals, and in the end some U.N. peacekeep- tion at the request of the Secretary General, ers used a considerable amount of force to undertook to help maintain the territorial in- defeat white mercenaries and others who tegrity and political independence of the Re- were helping the secessionist government of public of the Congo within its original Katanga province. The Congolese govern- boundaries, assist in maintaining order, se- ment prevailed, and the civil war ended. But cure the withdrawal of foreign troops and it took an opinion of the International mercenaries, and prevent civil war. Clearly Se- Court of Justice to persuade the French and curity Council policy in the Congo, Somalia, Soviets to pay their assessed share of the Haiti, and Bosnia went beyond the neutral costs for the operation. They had refused to posture for peacekeeping forces which had pay because they thought the peacekeeping been deemed mandatory at an earlier point. effort was illegal under the Charter. There is It is hardly self-evident that U.N. forces still an active controversy about who or- should be or can be neutral between aggres- dered the final attack but no controversy sor and victim. Will the legal advisors of for- about the outcome. eign offices acquiesce in so radical a change in the legal distinction between chapter VI and VII? Can the Security Council authorize peace enforcement actions not through the 104 JFQ / Spring 1994 1604Rostow 10/7/97 2:43 PM Page 105 Rostow special procedures foreseen by article 43, but directed by NATO arrangements for com- through procedures which have emerged in mand and control, not those of the United recent peacekeeping episodes? Is the proce- Nations. That being the case, why should dure prescribed by article 43 mandatory? NATO go through the slow, difficult, and Does it embody a fundamental principle of uncertain process required for a Security policy? As a matter of usage, will peacekeeping Council resolution of prior approval? operations of this kind become the equiva- What bearing does the U.N. experience lent of what have always been regarded as en- with peacekeeping operations of this kind forcement actions? have on the universal aspiration for an effec- The issue will arise shortly if the Security tive system of collective security against ag- Council utilizes the precedent of its practice gression? For large-scale military operations in dealing with the crises in Somalia and like those in Korea, Cuba, Vietnam, or the Per- what once was Yugoslavia as a way of dealing sian Gulf, arrangements of collective self-de- with the urgent problem of failing states, that fense offer the only practicable way toward ef- is, states which the Council finds are inca- fectiveness in enforcing the Charter rule pable of meeting their international responsi- against aggression. Since the procedures of ar- bilities. This is the most striking procedural ticle 43 are not available for reasons men- development and potentially most important tioned earlier it behooves the states to give up substantive development in the recent peace- the quest for a new mechanism, a new bu- keeping practice of the United Nations. reaucracy, which might prevail where the The loose and flexible procedures which League of Nations, Security Council, and the Security Council has pursued in estab- other institutional devices have failed. In this lishing and managing peacekeeping opera- realm, wisdom comes with the realization that tions since the Congo in- while Woodrow Wilson’s insight was correct why should NATO go through cident thirty years ago in viewing the failure of the Concert of Eu- raise the question with rope to find a diplomatic solution for the crisis the process required for a which we began: the which followed the archduke’s murder in Security Council resolution equal legality and legiti- 1914 as the proximate cause of World War I, macy under the Charter his remedy for reforming the Concert was of enforcement actions and actions of collec- misconceived. Neither the shortcomings of tive self-defense in carrying out the Charter the Concert of Europe nor the United Nations rule against aggression. The point is under- can be cured by a new institution and a new scored by the willingness of the Council to bureaucracy, or by reinforcing the Security delegate to NATO the military responsibility Council’s power to pass legally binding deci- for carrying out a peace agreement for sions. In its nature, the state system is still a Bosnia, if one is made. congeries of sovereign states, which can be led Under the Charter, members of NATO only by the achievement of consensus among have the right to use force in the former ter- its leaders. Its basic procedures are still the ritories of Yugoslavia to defeat and reverse meetings, consultations, and recommenda- the consequences there of aggressive acts tions of the Concert of Europe, not the com- and other violations of the laws of war com- mands of a non-existent sovereign. For peace- mitted during the last two years by Serbia keeping, the model of the Concert of Europe and Croatia. The consent of the Security is far more realistic and relevant than all the Council would not be required for such an well intentioned experiments in building the action on the part of NATO. international machinery of a superstate. JFQ The permanent members of the Security Council would have to resist any attempt by NOTES the Secretary General to establish a rule re- 1Eugene V. Rostow, “Until What? Enforcement Ac- quiring Security Council authority before tion or Collective Self Defense?,” American Journal of In- NATO undertakes an action of collective self- ternational Law, vol. 85 (1991), p. 505. 2Shashi Tharoor, “Peace-Keeping Principles, Prob- defense which raises a fundamental ques- lems, Prospect,”Naval War College Review, vol. 47, no. 2 tion. Such a rule would violate the basic (Spring 1994), pp. 9, 10. principle of article 51 of the Charter. As Sec- 3“Certain Expenses of the United Nations,” Interna- retary of Defense William Perry has recently tional Court of Justice, July 20, 1962, pp. 151, 165–66. made clear, NATO forces in Bosnia would be Spring 1994 / JFQ 105