Several
factors in recent years have influenced how cooperative the superpowers will
be with the U.N. Security Council in providing troops and equipment
to control a conflict. The first factor is the operation’s cost. Sending
large numbers of troops with appropriate equipment is expensive. The increase
in the number of troops has brought a corresponding increase in expenses,
and the costs now exceed the regular budget of the United Nations. This becomes
a major problem since while sending in fewer troops cuts costs, it can also
lead to major disasters such as we saw in Somalia, Angola, Rwanda and Bosnia.
A second factor is the likelihood of intervention resulting in the death
of troops. Since the crisis in Somalia, the United States and the Western
European nations have been reluctant to send troops into situations where
there are likely to be casualties for the peacekeepers. This seems based
on the principle that one American or European life is more valuable than
that of hundreds of people in a foreign country.
Changing nature of war
There has been a major change in the nature of the conflicts since the breakup
of the USSR in the late 1980s. Previously, conflicts were between nations. With
the growth of international commerce, there is a belief in some quarters that
we are fast becoming one world. But closer interconnection between countries
commercially has resulted in a corresponding fragmentation within countries.
Ethnic groups have revived their demands for separate status as countries. When
denied, they strike out against the larger unit, as Chechnyans have done in Russia.
Or, what seems more frequent nowadays, a larger group practices ethnic cleansing
against a minority, as we have seen in Rwanda and Kosovo. In the past five years,
I’ve been aware of two dozen civil wars and personally talked with professionals
from at least 12 of them. Having worked closely with professionals and victims
in Bosnia and Kosovo in the former Yugoslavia, I am aware of the high cost in
lives and human misery of the breakup of a country. In wars between countries,
the major victims are military personnel; in internal conflicts, up to 90 percent
of the victims are civilians.
In some of these civil wars, it isn’t just two forces against each other,
but multiple forces. That means that while some groups might agree to a cease-fire,
others might not. This places the U.N. peacekeepers in situations where cease-fires
are ignored. Somalia is one such conflict. In 1993, the U.N. Security Council
set up an operation to restore the rule of law and to disarm various Somali militias
that had devastated the country and caused widespread famine. First, 25 Pakistani
soldiers of the U.N. peacekeeping force were ambushed and killed, and U.S. troops
were sent in to capture the guerrilla leader who was responsible. Eighteen of
our soldiers were killed in this operation, and the tragedy of one of our men’s
bodies being dragged through the streets of Mogadishu brought about a strong
reaction from the U.S. public. In reaction, President Bill Clinton announced
the withdrawal of our troops. He then issued a new policy that we would support
U.N. peacekeeping operations only if they served our national interests.
It is generally agreed that this led to the failure of the United Nations to
prevent the genocide in Rwanda in which it is estimated that the majority Hutus
killed nearly a million Tutsis and their Hutu sympathizers. When it was decided
that the U.N. peacekeepers would re-enter the scene, it took seven months to
get equipment and troops back into the country. Speedier action might have saved
half a million lives.
While in Bosnia, I talked with several aid workers from Holland. It was their
troops under the U.N. banner who were guarding a safe zone around Srebrenica.
The Bosnian Serbs were not deterred and, having heavier arms, simply overran
the peacekeepers and killed 7,000 male civilians in defiance of Security Council
resolutions.
