Paving the Road to Hell: The Failure of U.N. Peacekeeping

Paving the Road to Hell: The Failure of U.N. PeacekeepingDeliver Us from Evil: Peacekeepers, Warlords, and a World of Endless Conflict by WilliamShawcrossReview by: Max BootForeign Affairs, Vol. 79, No. 2 (Mar. - Apr., 2000), pp. 143-148Published by: Council on Foreign RelationsStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20049647 .

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Review Essay

Paving the Road to Hell

The Failure of U.N. Peacekeeping

Max Boot

Deliver Us From Evil: Peacekeepers, Warlords, anda World of Endless

Conflict. BY WILLIAM SHAWCROSS.

New York: Simon and Schuster,

2000,400 pp. $27.50.

The United Nations started the 1990s with such high hopes. With the end of

the Cold War, the U.S.-Soviet rivalry that had paralyzed the Security Council had become a thing of the past, supposedly

freeing the U.N. to become more assertive.

The Gulf War, the U.N.s second-ever

military victory, seemed to vindicate

those hopes?even though, as in the

Korean War, the baby-blue banner was

used as a mere flag of convenience for an

American-led alliance. President Bush

spoke of a "new world order." Candidate

Clinton talked about giving the United Nations more power and even its own

standing military force.

It is hard to find any U.S. officials mak

ing similar suggestions today, only a decade

later. They have been chastened, presum

ably, by the U.N.'s almost unrelieved record

of failure in its peacekeeping missions.

The United Nations itself has recently released reports documenting two of its

worst stumbles. According to these

confessions, U.N. peacekeepers in Rwanda

stood by as Hutu slaughtered some

800,000 Tutsi. In Bosnia, the U.N.

declared safe areas for Muslims but did

nothing to secure them, letting the Serbs

slaughter thousands in Srebrenica. The

organization's meddling was worse than

useless: its blue-helmeted troops were used

as hostages by the Serbs to deter a military

response from the West. Presumably,

Secretary-General Kofi Annan?who

was head of the U.N.'s peacekeeping

department at the time?hopes that an

institutional mea culpa now will wipe

Max Boot is Editorial Features Editor of The Wall Street Journal and is writing a history of America's small wars.

[143]



Max Boot

the slate clean and allow the organization to play a more vigorous role in the future.

The arrival o? Deliver Us From Evil, a new book by British journalist William

Shawcross, provides a good opportunity

to ponder whether this is a realistic expecta tion. Shawcross presents a highly readable, if at times repetitive and scattershot, chron

icle of U.N. diplomacy and humanitarian

interventions in the past decade. Though

predisposed to favor U.N. peacekeeping? much of this book is written from the view

point of Annan, with whom the author

traveled the world?Shawcross is too

honest a reporter to gloss over its failures.

He even concedes that humanitarian aid

may sometimes do more harm than good

by prolonging a war.

BLAME GAMES

Despite the failures he chronicles, however, Shawcross' faith in U.N. peacekeeping? and in Annan?does not appear to have

been seriously shaken. Although the book is generally sober, at points Shawcross gives in to giddiness, as when he describes the

secretary-general as "the world's 'secular

pope'" and "the repository of hope and the

representative of such civilized standards

of international behavior as we have been

able to devise." At another point, Shawcross

quotes (with no discernible irony) a U.N. official who describes the peacekeeping

mission to Cambodia as "a model and

shining example" because of the election

staged there in 1993?never mind that

Hun Sen promptly usurped power after

losing at the ballot box. Wherever possible, Shawcross blames

such messes on the permanent members

of the Security Council, whom he indicts for blocking the expansion of these mis

sions. He dutifully quotes U.N. bureaucrats

who complain that they did the best they could with inadequate resources, and

he suggests they be given more support in the future.

He's being too kind by half. The failures of the United Nations

should not be blamed just on the great powers. They owe as much to the mindset

of U.N. administrators, who think that

no problem in the world is too intractable

to be solved by negotiation. These man

darins fail to grasp that men with guns do not respect men with nothing but

flapping gums. A good example of this

incomprehension was Annan's op?ra bouffe negotiations with Saddam Hussein.

In 1998, Annan undertook shuttle diplo

macy to Baghdad, reached a deal with Saddam to continue weapons inspections, and declared him "a man I can do business

with." Almost immediately Saddam flouted his agreement with Annan. But

even then the secretary-general told Shaw

cross, "I'm not convinced that massive

use of force is the answer. Bombing is a

blunt instrument."

Annan has actually been more pragmatic than many of his predecessors. But his

outlook is inevitable in anyone who has

spent years working at Turtle Bay. Just as

the U.S. Marine Corps breeds warriors, so the U.N.'s culture breeds conciliators.

A large part of the problem is that Annan and his staff* work not for the

world's people but for their 188 (and count

ing) governments. Annan proclaimed last

fall that sovereignty is on the decline?

and so it is, everywhere except at the U.N.

There, at least in the General Assembly, all regimes, whether democratic or

despotic, have an equal vote. Annan and

other employees must be careful not to

unduly offend any member state, and so

[144] FOREIGN AFFAIRS- Volume79N0.2




they wind up adopting a posture of

neutrality among warring parties, even

when one side (such as Serbia or Iraq) is clearly in the wrong.

When the United Nations does use

force, the results are often pathetic. The

various national contingents that make

up U.N. peacekeeping operations?

Bangladeshis, Bulgarians, Brazilians, and the like?are chosen not for martial

prowess but because their governments are willing to send them, often for no bet

ter reason than to collect a daily stipend. The quality of these outfits varies widely: Shawcross writes, for instance, that the

Bulgarians in Cambodia were "said to

be more interested in searching for sex

than for cease-fire violations." Trying to

coordinate all these units, with their

incompatible training, procedures, and

equipment (to say nothing of languages), makes a mockery of the principle of "unity of command." Little wonder that blue hel

mets strike no fear in the hearts of evildoers.

Of course, as Shawcross repeatedly

points out, this sorry state of affairs would

change instantly if only the United States and its allies would commit more muscle

to U.N. operations. But why should great

powers limit their freedom of action by giv

ing bureaucrats from not-so-great powers control over their military interventions?

ENTER AMERICA

At the end of the 1990s, then, the United Nations remains what it has always been: a

debating society, a humanitarian relief

organization, and an occasionally useful

adjunct to great-power diplomacy?but not

an effective independent force. This does not mean we should kill the organization. But it should temper the high expectations of the U.N.'s more idealistic supporters.

It is worth noting that the only interventions that achieved anything

worthwhile in the 1990s were conducted

outside the U.N. For example, although the Balkans today are not a multicultural

paradise, they are relatively peaceful: mass

murder has been halted, refugees returned.

All this was achieved through great-power action and traditional balance-of-power calculations?both anathema to the

Wilsonians at Turtle Bay. In Bosnia, a

Croat onslaught and nato bombing and artillery bombardment combined to

roll back Serb forces and to push Slobodan Milosevic to cut a deal. In Kosovo, a rebel

ground offensive, nato air power, and the

threat of a nato invasion again bludgeoned

Belgrade into submission. The U.N.'s

role was negligible in both cases.

Given his own history, Shawcross is

surprisingly receptive to unilateral U.S.

action. He made his name, after all, with Sideshow, a 1979 book excoriating U.S. attacks on North Vietnamese bases

in Cambodia as a "crime" and blaming

Henry Kissinger for the Khmer Rouge takeover. In Deliver Us From Evil, the

same author now describes the United

States as a "benign force." This is progress,

though Shawcross still seems to put less

faith in U.S. leadership than in "a new

global architecture" made up of interna

tional criminal courts and unenforceable

treaties like the ban on land mines.

Such views will strike some realists as

woolly-headed. But are realists any more

realistic when they deny the need for "humanitarian" interventions? Buchananite

isolationists and Kissingerian realpoliticians

argue that we need to respect state sover

eignty by staying out of other countries'

internal affairs. They speak reverently of the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia, and

FOREIGN AFFAIRS March/April 2000 [145]



Max Boot

warn that we tinker with the inviolable

state system it created at our peril.

SORRY STATES

But most of the world's nations do not

have Westphalian legitimacy in the first

place. They are highly artificial entities, most created by Western officials in the

twentieth century. Now many of these

offspring of European empires, from

Indonesia to Yugoslavia, are breaking

apart. There is no compelling reason,

other than an unthinking respect for the

status quo, that the West should feel

bound to the boundaries it created in the past. There is even less reason why the

West should recognize the right of those who seize power within those borders to

do whatever they want to the people who

live there?just as long as no one crosses

the artificial line separating that domain

from the one next door. If taken to its logi cal conclusion, this sovereignty-centered attitude leads to semantic silliness. On

the day in 1991 when Germany recognized Croatia's independence, did this suddenly transform what had been, the day before, a Serb attack on a rebellious province? an internal matter?into a Serb attack on

a sovereign state?an action presumably

worthy of international intervention?

Western states certainly never felt bound

to respect the sovereignty of others in

the past. Surely Prince von Metternich,

Kissinger's hero, would have lost no sleep over the violated sovereignty of Afghans or Zulus. Sovereignty has never been an

absolute right, but one "for them's that

can defend it" (or can get others to defend

it for them). When, in the nineteenth

century, the Ottoman and Chinese empires

grew too weak to enforce their proclaimed

borders, the great powers of Europe

carved them up into zones of influence

where European citizens enjoyed extraterritorial privileges.

Today the West is once again intruding on the sovereignty of failed states around

the world. The only difference is that this time around, the great powers abjure any desire to annex new territory and act

primarily for what are billed as humani tarian motives?not national security reasons as traditionally understood.

DOG FIGHTS

Such interventions offend the sensibilities of those who argue, as former Secretary of

State James Baker did about Yugoslavia, that "we don't have a dog in that fight."

The realists want U.S. forces to keep their

powder dry until North Korea invades the South, Saddam makes another lunge for Kuwait, or China goes for Taiwan.

Ignore two-alarm fires, the realists advise,

and await the five-alarm blaze that may

(or may not) come.

This cautious attitude, shared by many at the Pentagon, flies in the face of recent

history. Democracy, capitalism, and free

dom have spread across North America,

Europe, and Latin America, and to many

parts of Asia?everywhere except Africa.

At the same time, notes Shawcross, many

parts of the world are being ravaged "by tribalism and by warlordism." As another

book title has it, it is Jihad vs. Mc World.

The United States obviously has a stake in promoting the latter and preventing the spread of the former. The nineteenth

century free trade system was protected

and expanded by Britain's Royal Navy;

today's must be safeguarded by the U.S.

Navy (along with the Air Force, Marine

Corps, and Army). This requires taking

steps, such as stamping out the slave

[146] FOREIGN AFFAIRS Volume79No.2




trade or curtailing ethnic cleansing, that

are hard to justify on a narrow calculus of

self-interest. But idealism?whether em

bodied in religion or a secular doctrine of

"human rights"?is a real force in human

affairs, and one that policymakers cannot

ignore in the CNN age. Nor is idealism solely

a force on the

American left. Ronald Reagan used Amer

ican ideals as a powerful weapon to help

bring down the Soviet empire. Even

George Bush, the arch-realist, felt com

pelled to undertake "humanitarian"

interventions in Somalia and northern

Iraq. Bill Clinton expanded this trend, and it is unlikely to change any time

soon, no matter who wins the Oval Office

this year. Like Britain in the nineteenth

century, the United States today has power to spare. So when the public demands

action and when the cost of acting is

relatively low, it is hard for any president to resist the pressure.

Of course, no nation, no matter how

rich, can afford to wage war without end.

Wherever possible, the United States should encourage its allies to act without

American involvement, as the Australians

did in East Timor. And sometimes, as in Rwanda?a place far removed from

American interests?the United States

may have to make the heartbreaking choice to stay out (or at least to not send

ground troops). But when genocide occurs

in a region vital to American interests, such

as Europe, it is hard to see how Washington

can remain aloof.

When the United States does act, of

course, it must get it right. Shawcross is

correct to criticize the fickle public that

demands action but soon loses interest.

The two U.S. interventions of the 1990s that failed most spectacularly?Somalia

and Haiti?fell into this trap. U.S. troops left both countries too quickly, and both

places immediately reverted to a Hobbesian

state. Both interventions occurred under

the U.N. banner, but Shawcross is right to lay the blame for their failure at the feet of the American leaders who retained

control of U.S. combat forces.

Interventions such as these that address

symptoms (famine or repression, for

example) instead of their causes (such as

bad government) are doomed to disappoint.

This is a lesson the Clinton administration

learned belatedly in Kosovo and Bosnia, and perhaps even in Iraq.

What Shawcross?and his views are

reflective of a certain internationalist

mindset?fails to fully grasp is how

useless, and sometimes counterproductive, U.N. involvement has been. Nato won

a victory in Kosovo but then unwisely turned over management of the province to the world body. The U.N. viceroy

there, Bernard Kouchner, now faces an

impossible task, having to coordinate

myriad agencies while carrying out a

contradictory mandate: to run Kosovo

but to do nothing to prevent its eventual

return to Serbian rule. As a result, his

administration is in a shambles and recon

struction lags behind schedule. Although it may sometimes make sense to seek

the U.N.'s imprimatur for a mission, the

organization should not be given opera tional control. Effective empires require

strong proconsuls, not bureaucrats?

Kitcheners, not Kouchners.

Perhaps because he fails to grasp the

problem, Shawcross doesn't explore alter

natives to the United Nations. But others

do. David Rieff has forthrightly and coura

geously argued for the United States and its allies to undertake "liberal imperialism,"

FOREIGN AFFAIRS March/April 2000 [147]



Max Boot

while William Kristol and Robert Kagan have called for the United States to assume

a "benevolent global hegemony"?which will necessarily involve fighting some

small wars in places like Kosovo.

Contrary to received wisdom, this

would not be a new role for the United

States. Washington has been involved in

other countries' internal affairs since at

least 1805, when, during the Tripolitan

War, the United States tried to topple the pasha of Tripoli and replace him with his pro-American brother. Between 1800

and 1934, U.S. marines landed abroad

180 times. In the nineteenth century, they tended to stay for only a few days. Yet

they helped open up the world to Western trade and influence, their most spectacular successes being Commodore Perry's

mission to Japan and the defeat of the

Barbary pirates. After 1898, U.S. involve

ments lasted longer: American forces

remained behind to run such countries as

the Philippines, Haiti, and Cuba. U.S. rule was not democratic, but it gave those

countries the most honest and efficient

governments they have ever enjoyed.

There are significant obstacles, to be

sure, in the path of reviving "liberal

imperialism" today. But based on the

record, I?unlike Shawcross?have

more confidence in U.S. than in

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[148] FOREIGN AFFAIRS Volume79No.2



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Paving the Road to Hell: The Failure of U.N. Peacekeeping