Underrating Preventive Diplomacy

Stedman imagines only two policy options, "little more than talking" or armed force, whereas governments and nongovernmental organizations (NGOS) have used a gamut of measures to influence parties in disputes. Such instruments include unofficial ("track two") or grass?roots dialogues, human rights and other observer missions, targeted economic aid, confidence?building exercises, membership in international organizations, peacekeeping missions, democracy?building, official good offices or mediation, sanctions, big?power pressures, war crimes tribunals, and others. A mix is needed to allay mistrust, butress the local forces and institutions of accommodation, keep negotiation channels open, control imminent violence, propose settlements, and so on.

Third?party involvement in brewing disputes has certain advantages. For example, the preservation of Macedonia as a fragile new multiethnic Balkan state may be explained in part by the U.N. preventive peacekeeping force, the csce observer mission, U.S. warnings to Serbian President Slobodan Milo sevi'c , ngo dialogues, and other activities that have helped so far to keep external pressures, internal tensions, and local episodes of violence from escalating. Overt, direct U.S. involvement in such initiatives is not always necessary, nor even desirable, but quiet U.S. backing of the efforts of regional bodies like the csce, the Organizaton of African Unity, and private entities has been important. Overt or tacit U.S. backing of a party in a dispute can intensify a conflict, such as when the United States initially indicated it would tolerate Russia's recent handling of Chechnya or when it remained silent after the Algerian military canceled elections in 1992. Even vague messages promoting valid general principles such as territorial integrity or democratic rights can be interpreted as partiality and thus encourage one of the parties to use violence or armed coercion to advance its aims. What seems paramount is that the demeanor and actions of the United States can weigh heavily on behalf of a process of peaceful resolution of disputes.

ADDING UP THE TAB

One can be skeptical, with Stedman, that preventive action would always save more lives, cost less, and obviate the need for humanitarian intervention. But one need not follow him to the opposite extreme, wherein the financial and political cost of preventing such crises is prohibitive. The logic of conflict escalation is prima facie support for the view that less violent and short?lived disputes offer much greater opportunities for peaceful management by mediators. Issues in those types of disputes tend to be simple and singular rather than complex and multiple, disputants are less rigidly polarized and politically mobilized, fatalities and thus passions are low, and communications and common institutions may still exist. Other states or external groups are less likely to have joined one side or another and may even share an interest in keeping local disputes from escalating.

The calculus of deciding whether preventive diplomacy is worth the price must include the costs of alternatives such as mid?conflict intervention and noninvolvement. That includes not only lives lost and injuries but also the price of humanitarian relief, refugee aid, and peacekeeping, if done. It should also include the cost of losses in health, education, infrastructure, trade and investment opportunities, and natural resources. Bosnia, Chechnya, Chiapas, and Turkey's conflict with the Kurds are reminders of the huge political costs that nasty little wars that seem remote and minor at first can nevertheless wreak on U.S. foreign policy goals.

THE WILL AND THE WAY

Stedman thinks that the public will not endorse preventive diplomacy's risks and costs, but the considerations described above put the overstated issue of "political will" in a different light. Preventive efforts are often much less challenging and more prosaic than cases in which a U.S. president must try to rouse the country to send American boys into possible danger. For example, the dispatch of 500 American soldiers to join the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Macedonia was hardly noticed. Preventive efforts may entail nothing more than making adjustments in regulations and procedures developed by the vertically structured, Cold War--era international bureaucracies of the United States. Ambassadors and U.S. field?level staffs may need revised job descriptions and performance criteria, for example, to encourage work with their counterparts in host governments, regional organizations, ngos, and other countries in more proactive responses to the first local signs of potential crises. Effective preventive diplomacy means incipient conflicts would not even reach the desks of the National Security Council, the State Department's upper echelons, and the Pentagon.

THE THIRD WAY

Rather than ignore many potential post--Cold War crises and threats out of some unexamined theory of their imagined "intractability," U.S. and other policymakers might prudently assign a few staff members at various agency levels to track emerging post--Cold War political disputes around the world and to develop policy options for addressing them sooner rather than later. This would enable U.S. decision?makers to better assess whether the United States should act, when, with what means, and with whom. As successes mount, the burden of proof will shift to those who would still defend the notion that current wait?and?see policies and practices are in the U.S. national interest. At any rate, the stakes in these potential crises seem too high to approach them with cavalier analyses of a few frustrating experiences.