The forlorn cause: can the UN - can the U.S. - take effective action in the post-cold-war world? Test case: Somalia

National Review, Feb 1, 1993 by Brian Crozier

Can the UN can the U.S.--take effective action in the post-cold-war world? Test case: Somalia.

THE TRAGEDY of Somalia, no less than that of Ethiopia, or Bosnia, or the warring "Independent States" of the ex-USSR, is a legacy of Communism, although one wouldn't think so on reading comments on current events in that sad country.

In July 1974, at the height of Brezhnev's imperialist expansion, Siad Barre, the now ousted Somali tyrant, signed a Friendship Treaty with Moscow. His reward was Soviet support for his program of "scientific socialism," aid and KGB training for his National Security Service, tips on how to repress dissidents, and, of course, advanced weaponry.

The tyrannical worm turned when Somalia clashed with neighboring Ethiopia three years later. The ruling tyrant there, Mengistu Haile Mariam, had actually been trained in Moscow. Ethiopia was bigger than Somalia and more important to Soviet strategy, so Moscow sided with Mengistu. Barre, taking a leaf out of the book of Artwar Sadat, expelled Somalia's six thousand Soviet "advisors."

Siad Barre outlasted Mengistu in power, but his reign ended last April, when he fled to Kenya. A year earlier, Mengistu had chosen Zimbabwe as his refuge. Famine and civil war were the principal legacies of both. Partly, no doubt, because Gorbachev's Soviet Union had not yet collapsed when the Mengistu regime did, United Nations intervention in Ethiopia was limited to food relief. Somalia is enjoying (if that is the right word) the attentions of a heavily armed American contingent to protect the distribution of food and relief supplies.

The legacy of Soviet imperialism is one reason why I cannot, though I wish I could, share Paul Johnson's optimism (NR, Dec. 14) about a new and enlightened use of the United Nations. Another reason is the disquieting challenge to President Yeltsin's reforming program, from the ludicrously styled "conservatives" of the Russian parliament. A third reason is the factor I call "post-crisis impatience," of which the United States shows no convincing signs of having been cured.

Let us look at these more closely. Wherever Soviet-style Communism has reigned, the legacy has been economic collapse, civil war or ethnic strife, and a collective allergy to democratic reform. In fact, in the former Communist world, order reigns only in the countries where Communist parties cling to power, as in Cuba, Vietnam, North Korea, and of course China, where a neo-capitalist economy is in full boom against a background of total repression.

Then there is the Yeltsin factor. I write as an unfashionably early supporter of Boris Yeltsin in preference to Mikhail Gorbachev, the clever selfproclaimed Leninist. Yeltsin showed prodigious courage in standing up to Gorbachev's persecution and in seizing the moment when Gorby's hard-liner appointees were keeping him incommunicado. But even Yeltsin, the genuine reformer, had to cave in when the hard-liners raised the pressure.

Personally, I still support Yeltsin, who could well live on to surprise his critics at home and abroad. But for the moment, he cannot be counted on as a source of international strength.

My third factor, America's post-crisis impatience, is specifically on trial right now. What happened after World War I? The ailing Woodrow Wilson did his best, I suppose, but had to yield to Warren Harding and isolationism. What happened after World War II? The boys were brought home as America demobbed, while Stalin's Red Army did not. True, the Marshall Plan helped enormously, and President Truman did see the light.

More appositely, what happened after the Gulf War? President Bush brought the boys home, leaving Saddam Hussein in power. So what, now, is going to happen in Somalia?

Ideally, this ultimate foreign-policy initiative of George Bush should be pursued until the following objectives are attained: 1) Food supplies reach the needy, and flesh comes back on the bones of the starving. 2) The warring tribal leaders yield to a democratically elected president. 3) The United States secures a naval/military base on the Horn of Africa.

Readers may well ask if I am serious. I am, and you will see why I am also pessimistic. Number 1 is possible, but it will take time. Number 2 is theoretically possible but very remote, straining the patience of President Clinton well into his second term, or the first and second terms of his successor. Number 3 is possible, and could prove strategically useful.

Whatever Mr. Bush's failings, he showed more than once that he has an exceptional ability to coax reluctant governments and even the UN into temporary unity. His coaxing operation in the Gulf War was a masterpiece of its kind. In Somalia, he jumped the gun (an apposite cliche, I would argue) and moved in, in anticipation of Security Council blessing. He will be praised for it; and when the operation fails (as I believe it will, unless Number 3 above materializes) the blame will fall on President Clinton. The UN: Salvageable?