UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES OF INACTION
When one argues that there are circumstances when war must be made to keep the peace, one should also consider the ramifications of refraining from war. When the decision is made not to use force in the interest of keeping the peace, or appearing neutral, unintended consequences may emerge—among them violence, bloodshed, and even war. History offers too many examples of such cases.
When Kofi Annan was in charge of peacekeeping in the UN-declared “safe area” of Srebrenica in 1995, the UN, UNPROFOR (the United Nations Protection Force), and NATO stood by as some nine to eleven thousand Bosnian men and boys fell victim to mass murder. The men of Srebrenica sought refuge at a UN post, but the local command failed to protect them, and they were bused out by Serb militias to their death.
In Rwanda, where eight hundred thousand people were slaughtered in approximately one hundred days in 1994, neither Annan’s United Nations Peacekeeping Organization nor the permanent members of the Security Council (the United States, the United Kingdom, China, Russia, and France) made a serious effort to take urgent action to prevent or stop the genocide.
In Darfur, since fighting initially broke out between government forces and rebels in March 2003, scores of people have been massacred, and more than a million civilians have fled their homes, pouring into neighboring countries and creating “one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world.”21 The catastrophe in Darfur, a scorched-earth campaign of ethnic cleansing according to Jan Egeland, chief of the UN’s Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Agency, remains a specter before the United Nations and the world community, one that demands resolution in a meaningful and lasting way.
When seventy-five Cuban doctors, teachers, journalists, and librarians were arrested and harshly imprisoned in the summer of 2003, no help was offered by the United Nations. The UN’s Commission on Human Rights did not even mention their arbitrary arrest or harsh treatment.
And the negligence continues. During the conflict between Israel, Lebanon, and Hezbollah in the summer of 2006, four unarmed and defenseless UN observers tragically died when caught in the cross fire. The peacekeepers, part of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), created in 1978, were stationed in Lebanon to confirm Israel’s “withdrawal from Lebanon” and to “restore international peace and security” when they died. At the time, Secretary-General Annan charged Israel with “the apparently deliberate targeting” of a “United Nations observer post.”22
There has been discouragingly little reflection on or discussion of these tragedies. As I contemplate these events, it appears that secretary-general Annan has spoken with more alarm about the use of force by U.S. and coalition forces in Iraq than about these instances of mass murder elsewhere in the world. Little wonder that the United Nations has shown no great vision or inclination to creating an organized and effective response to end these horrors and injustices and to ensure that they cannot recur.
Any death or suffering at the hands of a barbaric tyrant or terrorist is a senseless tragedy. That would include the bombing of the UN headquarters in Baghdad in the summer of 2003, which killed seventeen people and injured at least one hundred. Among the dead was Sergio Vieira de Mello, an admired and veteran UN official. That bombing was one more heartbreaking reminder to all of us that the UN is as vulnerable to terrorism and tyranny as its member states.
Kofi Annan’s departure from the United Nations in December 2006 marks the end of forty years of service, including a ten-year term as the secretary-general. Behind him he leaves a mixed legacy. There are those who recall his tenure with admiration, bestowing honors and awards on him for his efforts to reform the UN, combat AIDS, negotiate peace, and defend human rights. Others see Annan’s legacy in the scandals of his time in office, in the UN’s failures of will in Rwanda and Srebrenica, for example, and in the ongoing crises in Darfur and Iraq. They will question the bitter irony of his actions and words, wondering how and why he deemed himself the arbiter of morality and the rule of law in the face of the grave failures under his leadership.
Annan’s legacy is damaged in particular by the UN’s oil-for-food program, under which—as investigators have determined—“Saddam Hussein raked in $1.7 billion in kickbacks from participating companies and $11 billion in oil-smuggling profits.”23 The corruption of the oil-for-food program, and of many other professionals and programs that came in contact with it, badly tarnished the once-honorable global endeavor, whose noble purpose had been to help the Iraqi people and to keep the peace.
In addition to these more tangible achievements and failures during his tenure, I believe history will show that Secretary-General Annan sought to use his tenure to expand the independent authority of the UN, and his own powers, at the expense of sovereign rights and the rule of law.
In 1945 the UN Charter was crafted, in part, “to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war; to practice tolerance and live together in peace with one another and unite our strength to maintain international peace and security.”24 The secretary-general who replaces Annan, South Korea’s Ban Ki-Mun, admitted in October 2006 that he faces “difficult foreign policy challenges.” But he expressed a determination to “rebuild trust among all stakeholders,” because “the political will of member states cannot be forged in an atmosphere of distrust.” Ban acknowledged the “current divisiveness” at the United Nations as “worrisome,” and vowed to “stay the course with ongoing reform…so that we may build the twenty-first-century Secretariat for a twenty-first-century organization.”25
There has been much debate over the relevance of the United Nations and its future place in our global community. By its very nature, the UN—in a way unlike any other institution—will doubtless continue to challenge member states, the press, and others to remain reform minded. Despite the UN’s inconsistent record of effectiveness, the American commitment to the UN should, and I hope will, remain unwavering. We should look beyond the UN’s deficiencies and focus instead on both the sound principles of law and the hope, however qualified, for greater world stability that is expressed in the UN Charter.
However, it is also wise to approach the United Nations with a clear sense of its limitations in terms of keeping peace and building nations. The UN Security Council, after all, is like a committee, the UN Secretariat like a bureaucracy. And they operate like committees and bureaucracies—only more so. Action is by consensus. Consensus is hard to build, and sometimes watered down by compromise. Consensus is particularly hard to build within the construct of the UN. The Security Council provides each of its members—the United States, the United Kingdom, China, France, and Russia—with veto power on substantive matters. A single veto can overrule all other members of the Security Council, including the votes of the ten nonpermanent members, who serve two-year terms. The veto was devised to account for differences of power and influence in the UN, but it also allows members of the Security Council to protect their sovereign interests. This body was never intended to convene to declare war, but instead to protect the rights of its member states to do so, in the interest of self-preservation and security.
As of this writing, the idea of expanding the Security Council is under reform review. The key issue is whether additional permanent members—with veto power—will be added. Assuming that the Security Council is not deprived of its power, the United States should remain actively engaged with the UN, because its Charter provides us, and the other member states, built-in protections. Yet the question of how to restore confidence in the UN persists, an unexpected outcome of conflict in the Gulf—and in other conflicts around the world where the UN has sought to keep peace, to build nations, and to expand beyond its legitimate bounds. Only the future officers and functionaries of the UN can repair what damage has been done. They can, and must, start by organizing themselves with transparency and functioning with integrity.
As America’s Founding Fathers understood, it is not easy to structure a single government to provide b
oth popular governance and accountability. Democratic government requires that representatives of the people make major decisions and that these representatives be elected by (and remain accountable to) some large portion of the electorate. Foreign policy also requires that those representatives make policy about remote, unfamiliar subjects. The development of the “experience, instruction, habit, and all the homely species of practical wisdom that are required to make sensible rules about everyday life are required for those who would govern and those who would advise those who would govern” of which Alexis de Tocqueville wrote would not come easy to those who endeavor to be governed democratically. As Tocqueville observed in his masterpiece, Democracy in America:
I do not hesitate to state that it is especially in the conduct of foreign relations that democracy appears to be decidedly inferior to other governments. Experience, instruction, habit, and the science of petty occurrences that is called good sense directs the ordinary course of society in the domestic affairs of a country. But it is not adequate for foreign affairs…concrete personal experience is less relevant in making judgments about foreign affairs than it is in domestic affairs.
It requires patience, perspective, and knowledge—not just of one’s own country and its culture, but also of all the countries with which we interact—to ensure that our foreign policy keeps pace with the changing realities of every era and generation. Globalization and technology have confronted us with new and unprecedented issues, with allies and adversaries who can have instantaneous impact inside our borders no matter how remote they may be geographically. Tocqueville’s observations remind us of the importance of vigilance, of the need to balance our desire to promote democracy against the new vulnerabilities of our national security in this new world.
CLASH OF CIVILIZATIONS
Most serious students of foreign policy in our time are familiar with Samuel Huntington’s fascinating book, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of the World Order. I have been an admirer of Professor Huntington all my professional life, but upon its publication in 1996 I was critical of the book’s first chapter and doubted whether such a clash of civilizations was at hand. But it quickly became clear to me that I was wrong. When The Clash of Civilizations was published, we were already on the razor’s edge. September 11, 2001, brought that home to America, and to me.
That lesson eluded Secretary-General Annan, who even a month before his term expired was still resisting the notion that there exists any such clash of civilizations. “We must start by reaffirming—and demonstrating—that the problem is not the Koran, nor the Torah or the Bible,” he declared, and called for increased opportunities for young people as a credible alternative to hate and extremism. “We must give them a real chance to join in improving the world order,” Annan continued, “so they will no longer feel the urge to smash it.”26 But the secretary-general failed to explain how one negotiates with groups whose intent is to smash the world and who cannot be dissuaded by invitations to enfranchisement. Islamic fundamentalism is an ideology of expansionist tyranny, propelled by an unrelenting will to dominate other nations, cultures, and religions. Just as during the cold war, when exporting Communism was the most powerful intellectual paradigm, exporting a radicalized version of Islam—under the cover of its religious status—has become today’s most powerful paradigm.
Today we confront this clash around the world, and it is our most urgent task. In Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere we deal with people who have no experience of democracy and who have no institutions capable of sustaining democracy if left without support. The people of Afghanistan were overrun by the Taliban, in a cloud of chaos and violence, in the power vacuum left after the Soviets withdrew in defeat. The people of Iraq, who lived under Saddam Hussein’s oppression and terror for forty years, have developed habits, values, and a way of life very different from anything we know. We have our lessons—and decisions—before us.
Today, we confront more dangers in the world than at any time in our history. We know now that our policies must be made within the context of an expanding globe, and with an expanding awareness that democracy and the rule of law have little meaning to many nations with which we must pursue constructive relations. We can never predict all the consequences of our actions, but we surely can proceed with greater wisdom if we can adjust our worldview based on understanding our mistakes.
As the Balkan wars illuminated important differences in the political sensibilities and reflexes of the Old Continent and the United States, the Iraq war has illuminated differences with our relationship within the world community itself. One stark disparity that crystallized during the 2003 Iraq invasion was that the coalition of former U.S. allies (including France, Germany, Greece, Norway, and Canada) formed during the first Gulf war could no longer be relied upon to stand with the United States in the second war. Likewise, countries in the region (such as Egypt, Kuwait, Morocco, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and the United Arab Emirates) that had stood with the United States in 1991 declined their support in 2003. With the end of the cold war, however, new alliances were offered in 2003, with nations such as Albania, Azerbaijan, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Romania, Slovakia, and Uzbekistan.27
After the current Bush administration’s stunning and swift success during the initial invasion of Iraq, dramatized by Saddam Hussein’s prompt overthrow, it is clear that some of the lessons learned from the first Gulf war were missed. Former secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld, the architect of the Iraq war, has been quoted as saying, “We are going to go in, overthrow Saddam, get out. That’s it.”28 But what happened in Afghanistan after the Soviets withdrew could not be allowed to occur again when the U.S. attacked after September 11, and neither could it be allowed to happen in Iraq. Iraq presented a very different set of circumstances from Afghanistan, however. These are things we ought to have known and taken into account when weighing our decision to invade in 2003.
Iraq lacked practically all the requirements for a democratic government: rule of law, an elite with a shared commitment to democratic procedures, a sense of citizenship, and habits of trust and cooperation. The administration’s failure involved several issues, but the core concern is that they did not seem to have methodically completed the due diligence required for reasoned policy-making because they failed to address the aftermath of the invasion. This, of course, is reflected by the violence, sectarian unrest, ethnic vengeance and bloodshed we see in Iraq today.
The key to putting Iraq on the path of democracy today is to help to establish law and order. This policy is already part of the Bush administration plan, but as of this writing their strategy remains unclear. However, history offers hope for Iraq’s future. Battles in other countries that had seemed unwinnable have come to peace—and victory. The conflict in the former Yugoslavia was fueled by what once appeared to be endless hatred and ethnic divides, but that nation is now on a slow road to democracy. The centuries-old conflict in Northern Ireland has drawn toward a peaceful close, as have former rivals in South Africa who abandoned apartheid’s animosity and violence in favor of building a multiethnic democracy, stability, and peace.
Today, we battle multiple threats on several fronts, obliging us to develop foreign policy strategies to deal simultaneously with the terrorists and with their state sponsors. As we continue to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan, and grapple with such other hot spots as Iran and North Korea, it is natural for Americans to seek examples to guide our actions in this new world order, with its astonishing potential for mass casualties and its proliferation of outlaw nation-states. Many of the forces we confront today are more barbaric than modern, in their goals and means alike.
When I am asked for guidance as we move forward into this new and uniquely dangerous century, I am drawn to the prescient principles of the Reagan Doctrine.
Like most American “doctrines,” the Reagan Doctrine emerged in response to circumstances. Above all, it was concerned with the moral le-gitimacy of U.S. support—including m
ilitary support—for insurgencies under certain circumstances: where there are indigenous opponents to a government that is maintained by force, rather than popular consent. The Reagan Doctrine addressed such questions as: Is it morally and legally acceptable for the United States to support indigenous armed movements against such governments? Does such support constitute unjustified and illegal interference in their internal affairs?
The Reagan Doctrine expressed solidarity with the struggle for self-government as against one-party dictatorship. It did not require offering armed resistance, but it did permit such measures. It did not address the question of U.S. military involvement or involvement of U.S. forces in any particular contest. It was a broader doctrine that postulated the moral legitimacy of American military aid under certain circumstances and offered moral guidelines for offering such aid. Policy under the Reagan Doctrine was established by prudential determination of the national interest in particular context. It denied that assisting in the overthrow of an existing government is always wrong. Rather, it highlighted the need to weigh the legitimacy of such acts within their political and moral context: the nature of the government, the role of a foreign force, and the existence of resistance.29 Moreover, even if such an act were justified, the Reagan Doctrine did not dictate that such action was always wise; rather, it counseled that the long-term costs and benefits of such action should be carefully weighed before taking any steps. Because once we intervene in a given situation, we are accountable for its outcome.
Making War to Keep Peace Page 35