By Amit R. Saksena
UN Peacekeeping Mission. A Pakistani UNOSOM armed convoy making the rounds in Mogadishu, Somalia. Photo by Ctsnow, Wikipedia Commons.
According to many war historians and international relations scholars, the end of the Cold War was the epitome of a shift in the paradigm of a generally accepted or resolved to global politico environment. One of the most closely followed forums, in accordance with President Bush’s ‘collective security’ stance, was the change in the conducting of UN Peacekeeping operations, which were believed to turn for the better, with a new US-Russia partnership. However, such was not the case. This abstract looks at the political transformations which took place, post the Cold War, which shaped much of the intergovernmental dealings, as we know of them today.
Collective security and UN Peacekeeping
During the Cold war, the UN’s ability to engage in collective action was seen to have been impeded by East – West divisions which effectively limited the possibility of cooperation in the UN Security Council. The end of the Cold War was to have introduced an era of peace with an emphasis on the rights and privileges of human rights.
However, expectations of more effective peacekeeping post cold war proved misplaced. As early as 1994, UN peacekeeping has been described as ‘in crisis’. Tried and tested principles and practices had been modified or abandoned and the distinction between peacekeeping and various enforcement activities had become blurred. Certainly the late 1980’s witnessed a number of successful resolutions of conflicts in Central America, Africa and the Middle East, while by the 1990’s there was a significant increase in the number of authorization of new missions. However, UN efforts in Bosnia had exposed the organization to accusations of weakness and the initially successful operation in Angola had been followed by resumption of warfare.
The UN role in these states seemed to do little to address the underlying causes of conflict. These problems and failures had arisen at a time when there was a widespread feeling of optimism that the UN could have a more central role in international security and that peacekeeping could tackle a wide range of international problems. In essence, peacekeeping was a successful concept in the Cold War, but was now being used in contingencies for which it was not designed.
The very visual images of suffering in conflict situations certainly led to a call for ‘international action’, and it could be understood why there was felt a need to act. In Washington and the capitals of Europe, however, there was disenchantment and a growing reluctance to become involved in further peace supporting activities.
The apparent failure of the UN in Somalia, Bosnia and Rwanda, as well as the increasing risk of casualties, left US and many European states reluctant to participate in operations that might be prolonged and likely lead to loss of life. As an issue, this was less prevalent amongst developing states, which, for a mix of motives were still willing to commit forces to such operations, but often found themselves in situations for which they had not been adequately prepared and trained, as seems to have been the case in Sierra Leone. Nevertheless, the UN also had its limited success in the late 1990’s in East Timor, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Afghanistan, suggesting that the UN’s approach might be a factor in helping to resolve the immediate conflict and assist the transition to a state of more permanent peace.
Notably, during the Cold War period the permanent members of the UN Security Council, and especially the two superpowers did not play a significant operational role in peacekeeping. Rather, it was the other military stable countries which contributed to the peacekeeping missions. The level of commitment, the overall training of military personnel, the availability of the equipment and preparedness of such contingents for peacekeeping varied considerably, with some countries developing both good and poor reputations for their contributions.
Much UN peacekeeping during the Cold War, rather than being deliberately planned and properly resourced operations, were little more than hastily organized responses to various crises, that often seemed to lack clear objectives, leadership and guidance. Most of these operations were aimed at monitoring ceasefires and were also normally used to maintain buffer zones and undertake border patrols. There was no ‘government’ pushing its agenda, no military high command controlling and reacting. Unlike conventional military operations, there were no templates to apply and therefore no matching of resources to tasks.
Once on the ground, the international forces were, to all intents and purposes, left to function as best they could. They were frequently denied freedom of movement and had little say in the matter of their deployment. For example, in Lebanon, it was not the UN but Israel, the state whose aggression had lead to the UN presence, which dictated exactly where the ‘front-line’ peacekeepers would deploy.
End of the Cold War and shape of the future
The end of the superpower rivalry and bipolarity raised the prospect of collective security replacing peacekeeping as one means of dealing with violent conflict within the international system. With improved relations between the US and Russia, there existed a possibility of agreement of these states to enforce the will of the Security Council on a state that had broken the peace.
The new world order envisioned by President Bush and Gorbachev would be founded on the rule of law and on the principles of collective security. New political thinking in the crumbling Soviet Union suggested that the East and West had some basic interests in common. The most obvious of these was human survival, which was threatened either directly or indirectly by modern weaponry, poverty or pollution. These problems could be best settled through East – West cooperation using organizations such as the UN. Evidence of the radical change in Gorbachev’s foreign policy was the reaction to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990. Moscow condemned the invasion and despite some wavering before the UN attack on Saddam Hussein’s forces, Russia supported all the UN resolutions against its former ally.
The Paradigm Shift
When the Cold War ended, the era of struggle was, in the opinion of Western academics, supposed to have ended with it. Peace had broken out in Central America, South East Asia, Southern Africa and even the Middle East. Culturally, the world was coming together and other countries wanted to embrace the American ways. Francis Fukuyama argued that with the end of the East-West ideological battle, liberal democracy combined with open market economy would become the only model a state could follow and prevail anywhere. With no country now able to present a military challenge, the US could entrench its pre-eminence or possible dominance in global politics. In many ways the scenario being painted supported a liberal interpretation of international relations. The enhanced cooperation between US and Russia was likely to underpin the new world order. Implicit in these perceptions of the changing world was the notion that a new and better regulated international system was not only possible, but the international community was ready and anxious to embrace it.
But where was the proof that the present scenario was really what the people desired? Or was it reasonable to assume that in less dangerous times, the states would readily accept some vague new US dominated authority? Throughout the Cold War, the superpowers had limited the autonomy of their allies and puppets. Most of the times preventing them from engaging in wars with their neighbors and placing restrictions on other hostile acts. But no longer held in check by their former masters, such states might be free to pursue their own agendas they saw fit without appearing to threaten world peace. There was also the question of perceived new peace. Certainly the threat of the world war had receded, but for many people, the struggles on which they had embarked during the cold war looked likely to continue.
The reality of this era also ignored the national interests of US, Russia, China, as well as the larger European states and the regional powers in Asia and Africa. In conceiving of the international system from a liberal perspective, based on fundamentally western values, most scholars ignored the reality of the situation, namely that state interests might differ. US interests might not always be shared by the European Union and non- Western states might find the newly emergent system deleterious to their own interests. While there was an initial period of multilateralism, the reality was that the permanent members of the Security Council were committed to perusing their own goals. In 1994, the US adopted new guidelines that restricted its possible support and participation in UN Peacekeeping Operations.
It also ignored the changed international map. Most importantly, there was the issue of US’s role in this New World Order. The ending of the Cold War had produced a temptation in the west to recast the international environment in America’s image, but not every state wanted this. In Asia, even within democratic states, the emphasis was on national interests. There was no pretence of collective security or that cooperation should be based on shared domestic values. China remained opposed to military involvement by big powers and opposed the use of force in the name of UN. Russia insisted that political and diplomatic methods be employed as much as possible. The US might envision as normal, a global international order based on democracy, capitalism and international law, but since no such system had ever existed, its evocation would have appeared to other societies as utopian.
Also, the collapse of communism appeared to vindicate US ideals and to represent a triumph for liberalism and democracy but the theory that the emergence of democracy would necessarily bring peace remained unproved. Many third world countries, particularly African states, while democracies in theory had during the Cold War existed in a state of instability or turmoil.
In contrast, Yugoslavia, where multi-party democracy was banned, had, during the same period, experienced its best state of stability. Furthermore, with Vietnam a vivid memory, the US involuntarily continued to be sensitive about sustaining causalities in conflicts where no vital or national interests were at stake, and thus there was no reason why they should now risk lives merely to promote democracy and liberal ideas.
The immediate post Cold War period was marked by a stark increase in the number of UN Peacekeeping operations being authorized by the UNSC. This was a reflection of the willingness of the permanent members to work together, rather than a rise in the number of conflicts. Also, a number of these operations departed from the traditional peacekeeping, to a greater emphasis on peace-building. A further noticeable trend during this time was to increasingly sub-contract UN operations to regional organizations (such as NATO, the Economic Community of West African States, etc.), and ‘collations of the willing’, thereby avoiding directly managing large scale operations, which were likely to be costly and problematic. For example, NATO in Bosnia (IFOR and SFOR) and the International Force in East Timor (INTERFET) led by Australia. However, the growth of the UN intervention in internal conflicts, justified on humanitarian grounds, was not acceptable by some of the UN members, who argued that there was a risk that the UN would stray into the grey area between humanitarian intervention and interference in the domestic affairs of a state. Notably, the UN refused to sanction the NATO led actions in Kosovo (1999) and the US invasion of Iraq (2003); but the UN was also unable to stop these armed interventions.
Expectations and Reality
The high expectations following the end of the Cold War were rapidly being re-evaluated in light of the reality of the failures in Bosnia and Somalia. The limited ability of the UNSC to deploy operations in support of enforcements, as well as the limited resources of the UN and of its existing capacity to meet traditional peacekeeping operations had been widely noted.
Reacting to this poor performance, Gen. Sec. Kofi Annan in 1996 acknowledged that the UN faced challenges that did not fit into a neat peacekeeping package: the so called gray areas. According to the major reforms needed were, firstly, development of a serious capacity for the lawful gathering of intelligence, to be more comfortable with the situation at hand. And secondly, the UN operations would require appropriate capabilities upon deployment and the right force structure to be able to carry out the mandate and to be able to protect the operation. He also admitted to the fact that the UN did not have the institutional capacity to conduct military enforcement measures, and thus must depend on the coalitions of the willing to undertake such operations.
His words were significant as they identified the problems which had long plagued the UN operations. The UN had ventured into Congo without a clear understanding of what and how. It had stumbled into a conflict with an enemy that theoretically did not exist, and in the absence of a proper plan of action, the tenuous command and the control system broke down. ‘Peacekeepers’ died in a military skirmish, for which they were not prepared. Ignoring the lessons in that venture, the UN had intervened in Somalia and engaged in armed confrontation with a party whose resistance to UN designs and whose military capability had been totally underestimated.
Again, at a critical point, the mission command and support system crashed. The post Cold war UN had failed to make a proper estimate of the situation in Angola and through this neglect had, just as in Cyprus, allowed the parties to dictate developments. In both Congo and Somalia, the UN force was composed of contingents, most of which were inadequately equipped and hence operationally inefficient.
The failings and weaknesses of the UN peacekeeping are known to most observers, yet the UN has seemed unable to learn lessons from its past endeavors, both at the political level of the UNSC, and the operational level in the field.
*Amit R. Saksena is an independent researcher and member of the Wikistrat analytic community from New Delhi. He tweets @arsaksena.
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