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STOPPING SHORT

By John Weston
July/August 2000
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Review Essay
Paving the Road to Hell: The Failure of U.N. Peacekeeping
Max Boot

William Shawcross shows how U.N. peacekeeping has failed but does not draw the obvious conclusion: the world's hot spots need U.S. intervention, and plenty of it.

To the Editor:

One need not be an unreserved defender of the present U.N. system to be mystified by Max Boot's review essay of William Shawcross' new book, Deliver Us From Evil ("Paving the Road to Hell," March/April 2000). He appears to believe that American "benevolent global hegemony" and "liberal imperialism" based on U.S. power are "alternatives to the United Nations." Boot claims that U.N. peacekeeping has failed because "the U.N.'s culture breeds conciliators," and that its efforts to use force are "pathetic." But he sees no good reason (perhaps not knowing the U.N. Charter) why "great powers [should] limit their freedom of action É over their military interventions" by committing more muscle to the U.N. At the same time, he concedes that narrow realpolitik is not enough; that in the modern world, ethnic cleansing must be curtailed; and that humanitarian intervention is sometimes unavoidable. But "wherever possible, the United States should encourage its allies to act without American involvement" because "no nation, no matter how rich, can afford to wage war without end."

On these premises, one would expect greater support for America's newly democratic friends (whom Boot welcomes) in Asia, Latin America, and Europe when they volunteer for collective military action to help keep the peace under the rules of the U.N. Charter -- which was written largely by the United States. Where "the United States may have to make the heartbreaking choice to stay out" (e.g., in Rwanda, although not in Haiti), what about at least giving more consistent political support for the U.N. peacekeeping budget (still hugely in arrears) to help pay for the "Bangladeshis, Bulgarians, Brazilians, and the like" who put their lives on the line and whom Boot so insultingly dismisses? Where a U.N. force as such is not the choice, Security Council authority for regional or coalition action at least underwrites legitimacy. So even with Boot's minimalist definition of the U.N. as "an occasionally useful adjunct to great-power diplomacy," a modicum of respect for multilateral endeavors by others is plain common sense. Nato, even under the new strategy, cannot and should not do everything. That is why all the NATO allies and Japan, as well as major regional players, do their bit for the U.N.

JOHN WESTON

U.K. Ambassador to NATO, 1992-95, and U.K. Permanent Representative to the U.N., 1995-98

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Essay, Special 1992
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"The drama of military intervention and the media's fixation on looters and 'warlords' now threaten to obscure the fact that, prior to late 1992, the international response to Somalia's long agony was indeed abject failure." Bungled, halfhearted efforts by U.N. diplomats, relief agencies and Security Council members contributed to the very circumstances of anarchy and violence that prompted the invasion by 21,000 U.S. Marines of the famine- and war-riven nation. International success in Somalia now depends on fashioning a more forceful U.N. presence and a lasting peace.

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Essay, Spring 1991
The U.N. in a New World Order
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The UN's need for means of military enforcement was foreseen by the Charter, and the post-Cold War international scene is likely, as the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait showed, to require such means to be available. However, the lack of a standing force means that enforcement has always had to be improvised. However, in cases involving major commitment, such as the Gulf war, such an approach "is not likely to be viable unless the vital interests of one or more major military powers is at risk", a limitation which detracts from the global security missions of the UN. A more promising alternative is to create a system for the provision of forces under contract between member states and the UN. A discussion of the contractual and operational command issues involved in such a proposal.

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