Toward a New Foreign Policy.

Even though there have been more than 50 individual UN peacekeeping missions since 1948, the organization has repeatedly had to improvise. The chronic lack of funds and the absence of a truly permanent, reliable peacekeeping structure usually result in a severe mismatch between the expectations attached to peacekeeping missions and the actual capacity to fulfill them.

Each time a new peacekeeping mission is authorized, UN officials scramble to find governments willing to commit personnel and equipment. This has proven to be an agonizingly slow, months-long process, even though a speedy dispatch can make all the difference between mission success and failure. Often the contingents offered are poorly trained and equipped, particularly in the areas of transport, logistics, and communications. Additionally, national contingents all too often refuse or second-guess orders from the mission commander.

A supportive U.S. policy could make a vast difference. First and foremost, the United States needs to pay off its legally owed arrears quickly and without the crippling conditions that Congress now routinely attaches. New assessments need to be paid in full and on time. Peacekeeping cannot succeed on a shoestring budget. Even an adequately funded UN peacekeeping system is a bargain compared with annual U.S. military budgets of $300 billion or more.

The United States has long opposed the creation of any permanent UN peacekeeping force, considering it an unwanted appendage. However, experience suggests the need for a robust, versatile system that can be available to accomplish a broad variety of delicate tasks in time to make a difference. For that purpose, it would be sensible to establish several different well-coordinated tiers or branches within a larger, permanent peacekeeping structure, staffed by well-trained, well-coordinated, and experienced volunteers.

These tiers could cover the range of specialized activities found in most UN peacekeeping missions, which are currently ad hoc in manner. They could include military observers, to help hostile armies disengage and to patrol cease-fire lines; specialists in disarming and demobilizing former combatants; civilian police, to help reestablish order after a civil war ends; a roster of legal and administrative personnel; human rights observers; demining experts; specialists in electoral assistance; and others. The UN also needs better early-warning capacity and a strengthened conflict-prevention capability.

But consideration should eventually be given to a more controversial idea: the establishment of a rapid intervention force that is able to provide protection for civilians under assault, perhaps by setting up "safe zones" secure enough to prevent the mass killings that occurred in the ad hoc safe zones in Bosnia. Such a force could be relatively small (perhaps in the range of 5,000 to 10,000) but should be backed up by specially trained national forces. By prior arrangement, such forces would need to be designated in advance by their governments and quickly released for UN duty, once a Security Council resolution determined a need for them.

Greater care is needed in training and preparing peacekeeping personnel for the specific challenges awaiting them. Soldiers trained for combat duty cannot be expected to be proficient in the delicate tasks of defusing conflicts and patrolling tense civilian areas. The UN needs to ensure that peacekeepers can be transported quickly to their deployment areas and that they have ready access to equipment commensurate with their tasks. Last, but not least, the personnel strength, contingency planning capacities, and communications infrastructure at UN headquarters in New York need to be substantially scaled up and supplemented by a mobile command headquarters. Currently, there are only 32 UN officers providing planning and guidance to almost 30,000 troops and only nine UN staff for about 8,600 civilian police in the field.

Some of these ideas exceed what current political realities permit. But for starters, the recommendations issued by an independent "Panel on UN Peace Operations" in August 2000 would help reduce the ad hoc character of UN peacekeeping, eliminate many of the arbitrary limitations of the current system, and give the UN a greater chance at succeeding in complex peace missions. If permitting the UN to establish a permanent peacekeeping structure is more than Washington or other UN members states can currently stomach, then they could at least implement the panel's suggestion to set up national pools of experienced personnel, to be made available at the UN's request. The initial U.S. reaction to the panel's report was positive, though it remains to be seen how much U.S. policy will actually change.

Fundamentally, the United States needs to decide whether it wants multilateral peacekeeping to be a serious option. On the one hand, Washington wants to retain the ability to act unilaterally. On the other hand, it does not want to be dragged into conflicts that it judges insignificant or too messy to resolve, like those in Rwanda, East Timor, Sierra Leone, and the Congo. It wants the UN to be available for such purposes and to serve as a convenient scapegoat when things go wrong.

The broader--and more troubling--context is that Washington does not want to be bound by the very rules governing international conduct that it urges others to respect. U.S. policy toward UN peacekeeping bears the tell-tale signs of an exceptionalism that rejects common, reciprocal obligations. The struggle over peacekeeping policy is also a struggle involving the legitimacy of international law and institutions. Both struggles hinge on cooperatively reconciling the contradictions of national sovereignty in a globalizing world.

Key Recommendations

* The U.S. must quickly, fully, and unconditionally pay its legally owed UN arrears and meet new assessments on time.

* The UN should create a robust, permanent, multitiered, and well-coordinated peacekeeping force staffed by well-trained volunteers.

* Other UN needs include greater early-warning capacity, a strengthened communications infrastructure and conflict-prevention capability, and a new rapid-intervention force.

Michael Renner <[e-mail]> is a senior researcher at the Worldwatch Institute.