Time for a global peacemaking force? - need for international, volunteer force run by NATO - Symposium - Column

0 Comments | Insight on the News, Nov 21, 1994 | by Ben P. Meredith

Bosnia, Haiti, Liberia, Somalia and Rwanda are just the beginning. The threat of a massive superpower conflagration disappeared with the end of the Cold War, leaving in its place the global challenge of containing and ending numerous, low-intensity regional conflicts. That challenge cannot be met with the ad hoc mechanisms thus far employed by the United Nations or by the United States as the globocop. Ad hoc U.N. responses invite international buck-passing. And the American people cannot be expected to commit their forces and expend their treasure at the sounding of every distant alarm bell.

Needed instead is a competent, multinational, all-volunteer intervention force, one ready for deployment at the order of the U.N. Security Council, funded by equitable contributions from around the world and organized and commanded in the field by an experienced, respected military body.

The idea of a U.N. volunteer force is not new. In 1948, Secretary-General Trygve Lie called for the establishment of an international force, "recruited by the secretary-general and placed at the disposal of the Security Council." The idea was stillborn because of developing Soviet-American hostilities. As the world emerges from bipolarity, it is finding that small, regional conflicts and tensions once overshadowed or smothered by superpower competition are threatening international security.

Recognizing this as early as 1992, Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali has argued that, "The ready availability of armed forces ... could serve, in itself, as a means of deterring breaches of the peace since a potential aggressor would know that the Council had at its disposal a means of response.... Deployment and operation of such forces would be under the authorization of the Security Council and would, as in the case of peacekeeping forces, be under the command of the secretary-general." More recently, Brian Urquhart, a former undersecretary-general, declared, "In the milder post-Cold War political climate, it may be time to revive Trygve Lie's idea."

Adding meat to the idea of a permanent global intervention force means answering three key questions: Who leads and decides where and when to deploy the force? Who organizes the force and commands it in the field? And who pays for it?

On the question of leadership, there is no real alternative to U.N. leadership. The United States cannot and should not take charge. The post-Cold War defense-cutting euphoria has left behind a U.S. military that is too small and underfunded to act alone as the world's police force. In addition, congressional reluctance to send U.S. forces around the world escalates as serious domestic problems remain unaddressed.

The European Union, or EU, is not a viable answer either. Embroiled in its own internal troubles, the EU and its military arm are years from fielding a force capable of the task. The so-called "Eurocorps," the EU's only multinational force, is small and beset by developmental problems that will frustrate it for years to come.

The United Nations is the only leadership choice that can unite credibility with military means by drawing upon the entire international community. Unfortunately, most of the popularly discussed notions of how the United Nations should execute its responsibility for peacekeeping and peace enforcement have important shortcomings.

One solution calls for the United Nations itself to plan and manage -- intervention forces. Presently, the U.N. peacekeeping system is a mission-dependent, ad hoc affair. Conflicting chains of authority, a lack of military expertise and power struggles between military and civilian leaders have made current U.N. operations the epitome of what not to do in military planning and mission conduct. Further, this idea requires increasing the overall size of the United Nations, a prospect that larger contributing states are hesitant to support.

A second popularly discussed solution calls for the United Nations to form a standby force. Under this plan, member states would predesignate units from their armed forces for immediate U.N. use. This plan relies upon a "building block" system wherein the United Nations tailors a force to the situation at hand. In addition, this plan calls for the pre-stationing of modular mission starter kits," supplies that are readily available to the U.N. force, thereby reducing the required pre-mission supply buildup. However, the plan does not address either the problem of standardization between the member states' forces, a serious problem that has affected U.N. operations in Cambodia and Bosnia, or the reluctance of countries to give the United Nations carte blanche with their forces. The United States, for example, is reluctant to place any portion of its armed forces under a command other than its own. Neither does this plan address the ad hoc mission planning that has plagued U.N. peacekeeping and military affairs. Rather than solve problems, this plan increases their number.

A third plan that received consideration before the April 1994 outbreak of violence in Rwanda called for regional organizations to accept a greater portion of peacekeeping and enforcement responsibility. Unfortunately, except for NATO, no regional organization has the financial ability or organizational expertise to field troops in a timely or organized manner.