The Utility Of Expanding The United Nations Permanent Military Force
CSC 1995
SUBJECT AREA - Strategic Issues
UNITED STATES MARINE CORPS
COMMAND AND STAFF COLLEGE
MASTERS PAPER
THE UTILITY OF EXPANDING THE UNITED NATIONS PERMANENT
MILITARY FORCE
by
MAJOR A.W. GUNDER
AUSTRALIAN ARMY
18 APRIL 1995
COMMAND AND STAFF COLLEGE
QUANTICO, VA. 22134
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Title: The Utility Of Expanding The United Nations
Permanent Military Force
Author: Major A. W. Gunder, Australian Army
Thesis: The United Nations (UN) permanent military
capability requires reform to meet the new challenges in the
global security environment. Is the establishment of a
standing UN army appropriate? If not, what reform is
suitable to improve the UN's credibility in peace
operations?
Discussion: Since the inception of the United Nations,
debate has surrounded the limitations to its power. A
number of Secretary-Generals, academics, and military
professionals have advocated the establishment of a
permanent UN army.
During the Cold War, this concept did not materialize
due to the paralysis of the Security Council, the
unwillingness of member nations to expand the
Secretary-General's power, and the pragmatic objections to
the utility of a UN army.
Since the Cold War, the concept has been advanced on
the basis that the obstacles to its establishment have been
removed. However, an analysis of both the present global
trends and the current operational utility of a UN army
indicates that significant challenges remain to be overcome.
Currently, the international community lacks sufficient
enthusiasm and imagination for the task.
Important reform is achievable within the UN
Secretariat. The establishment of a permanent military
staff for the Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO)
would greatly improve UN performance in peace operations.
This reform poses challenges and faces determined
opposition. The reward for its adoption would be a robust
UN capability to prepare and manage peace operations that
would be respected by the international community and help
to restore UN credibility.
Conclusion: The enlargement of the DPKO permanent military
staff should proceed in the areas of command and control,
training and doctrine, logistics management, communications,
and information management.
CONTENTS
Chapter Page
1. INTRODUCTION 1
2. HISTORY OF THE UN ARMY DEBATE 3
3. PRESENT GLOBAL TRENDS 15
4. THE OPERATIONAL UTILITY OF A UN ARMY 23
5. MILITARY REFORM FOR THE UNITED NATIONS 31
6. CONCLUSION 52
Notes 55
Bibliography 61
CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
This is a time when the world community is working to
decide the future role of its UN instrument. The global
security environment, once threatened by nuclear holocaust,
is now faced with threats of unknown quantity and nature.
It has witnessed a dramatic increase in UN peace and
security activities. The quantitative change has been
enormous over the last seven years:
- UN involvement in preventative diplomacy or
peacemaking has grown from eleven disputes to thirty.
- the number of new UN peace operations deployed has
more than tripled to sixteen. The number of military
personnel deployed has risen from 9,570 to 62,333 and the
number of civilian police has jumped from 35 to 1169.
- the number of member nations contributing military
and police personnel has risen from 26 to 74 and the annual
budget for UN peace operations has increased twelve-fold to
$3.6 billion.1
Beyond quantitative change, there have been qualitative
changes of even greater significance. Most of today's
conflict takes place within states. Demands for UN
intervention go well beyond traditional peacekeeping. Many
member nations now consider Operations Other Than War (OOTW)
to be an important part of their security strategies.
Frustratingly, the impact of these new conflicts on the
global security environment remains unclear. What is clear
is that the UN is still the only world organization with the
legitimacy to tackle these dilemmas. There are many
diplomats, academics, and politicians who advocate
increasing the UN's military options in order to deal with
these problems. This concept has frequently offered unique
but untested methods to resolve conflict in the
international arena.
The purpose of this analysis is to explore the utility
of expanding the UN's military capability. It will analyze
the proposal to establish a permanent UN army, how this
proposal fared in the past, and its applicability to the
current global situation. It will also investigate the
expansion of the permanent UN military staff, and explore
the advantages and disadvantages of such a reform. The
analysis combines a rich history with a number of
controversial ideas. It challenges the well meaning
arguments of UN army adherents but also offers an
alternative approach for improving the UN's ability to
manage UN peace operations.
CHAPTER 2
HISTORY OF THE UN ARMY DEBATE
Article 43 of the UN Charter describes the collective
responsibility to provide military muscle to the UN:
All Members of the United Nations, in order to
contribute to the maintenance of international peace
and security, undertake to make available to the
Security Council, on its call and in accordance with a
special agreement, or agreements, armed forces,
assistance, and facilities, including rites of passage,
necessary for the purpose of maintaining international
peace and security.
Under Article 47, the establishment of a Military Staff
Committee (MSC), consisting of the Chiefs of Staff, or their
representatives, from the five permanent members of the
Security Council provides the international mechanism meant
to facilitate this commitment. The MSC is responsible for
the strategic direction of any armed forces placed at the
disposal of the Security Council. The intent of these
provisions, deliberated at the end of World War II, was to
create for the UN continued access to the enormous Allied
forces. Although this concept was noble in vision, it was
soon apparent that the global political trend after World
War II would cause significant difficulties in realizing the
agreements necessary to assemble a coalition when required.
The Secretary-General started the debate for the creation of
a permanent UN force to overcome this uncooperative
attitude. This chapter reviews previous proposals for a
permanent UN army and examines the obstructions that they
faced in the Cold War.
The five permanent members of the Security Council had
differing views on the nature of a UN army from the start.
The U.S., confident of its primacy in future UN affairs,
advocated that the UN needed "a mobile force able to strike
quickly at long range and bring to bear, upon any given
point in the world where trouble may occur, the maximum
armed force in the minimum time."2 The U.S. predicated its
model on strike weapons delivered by strong air and naval
forces. The model's strength rested on a force of 3,500
combat aircraft and two hundred capital warships, half of
which were submarines.3 The USSR, on the other hand,
unwilling to support a force which could complicate its
hegemonic plans, advocated an organization roughly half the
size of the U.S. model.4 The UK, China, and France also
favored a smaller force to preserve the influence of their
own contributions.5
In the period preceding the Korean War, it became
obvious that negotiations conducted by the MSC would not
result in the ratification of the agreements specified in
Article 43. Moreover, failure of the Security Council to
agree on principles governing the conclusion of agreements
under Article 43 made it impossible for the MSC to make any
progress toward establishing levels of strength of the
national contingents to be made available to the Council.
Disagreements over member force contributions, force roles
and missions, command and control arrangements, and criteria
for disengagement produced a stalemate.6 Thus, the Security
Council had no armed forces that would enable it to exercise
power under Chapter VII of the Charter, and a central part
of the peace-enforcement system failed to become operative.
In 1948, in an effort to circumvent the impasse
surrounding the Article 43 negotiations, the
Secretary-General, Mr. Trygve Lie, proposed a plan for a UN
Guard. Mr. Lie described this as a force, internationally
recruited by the Secretary-General, under his immediate
direction, and at the disposal of the Security Council. It
would have truce and plebiscite functions, be lightly armed,
and equipped with organic transport and communications. In
addition it would afford:
security to a field mission's members, secretariat,
premises, archives, and other property; furnish such
transportation, communication, and supply as might be
necessary to supplement services available to a mission
in the field; maintain order during hearings and
investigations of United Nations missions; patrol
points or guard objectives neutralized under truce or
cease-fire orders of the United Nations; and exercise
supervisory and observation functions at polling points
during the conduct of referendums conducted under UN
auspices.
The Secretary-General argued that the Guard did not
constitute an international army, and that its
constitutional authority existed in Articles 97 and 98 of
the Charter, provided that the General Assembly gave
budgetary approval. He contended that under his own
authority he could recruit the force and, pursuant to
Articles 97, 98, 100, and 101, that he could deploy the
Guard to fulfill the needs of United Nations' field
missions.8 He politically downplayed the nature, functions,
and organization of the Guard by emphasizing that it would
be `entirely non-military' in character, have only light
small arms, some transport and communications, and be
organizationally incapable of aggression. The Guard's
powers did not include powers of arrest, quelling of
insurrections, or functions implying the use of force for
other than personal protective reasons. The
Secretary-General estimated that an 800-man Guard, composed
of both active and reserve components, would cost $4 million
dollars per year.9
Even the proposed establishment of this meager
bodyguard met with strong opposition. The Soviet Union,
suspicious of Western motives, argued against the Guard on
the grounds that the Secretary-General could not legally
recruit it, or control it. The Soviets also claimed that
the force was military in character and capable of expansion
into the Article 43 army that they already opposed.10 Other
nations challenged the cost of the Guard and forecast that
its establishment would exceed the UN budget. France,
China, and the UK all raised objections doubting the
practicality of the Guard. They claimed that it was
incapable of achieving even a protective role.11
The recruitment of the force faced obstacles in
language, religion, and training, and morale problems were
considered likely. Overall, most nations shared the concern
that the force had a high probability of acquiring a
paramilitary nature as it matured, leading to a tendency for
non-conventional expansion, and a corresponding burgeoning
budget.
Although the General Assembly voted to study the Guard
concept further, the Secretary-General resolved to explore
other avenues through which to bolster his powers. He
stripped the Guard of its truce and plebiscite functions,
reduced its arms and numbers, and renamed it the Field
Service. The Secretary-General managed to have the
international community adopt the Field Service in 1949.12
This Field Service of some 300 uniformed men became part of
the Secretariat and provided transport and communications
for missions. It also guarded UN premises, and maintained
order during meetings, hearings, and investigations. Except
in isolated circumstances, the Service was unarmed. The UN
Field Service gradually became an integral part of the
Secretariat and its powers remained strictly limited.
The collective response to the Korean War encouraged
the Secretary-General to advocate the establishment of a UN
instrument of coercive policing. In 1952, he proposed that
member nations not only quickly establish the special
agreements required for Article 43 forces but also accept
the establishment of a UN Legion. The Legion was to consist
of volunteers drawn mostly from countries unable to
contribute to the Article 43 forces. Again, the Legion was
to be at the disposal of the Security Council and the
General Assembly. Under the Legion proposal, the UN would
recruit some 60,000 volunteers through the existing national
military establishments of the participating states. The
proposal asked these states to meet the costs of recruiting,
equipping, and training UN volunteer reservists as part of
their advance contribution to collective security under the
UN. In return, the UN would "elastically" arrange command
and control of the force to preserve its international
flavor.13
Not surprisingly, debate in the General Assembly was
very negative. The Secretary-General concluded that:
the creation of any supra-national self-contained
standing force, internationally recruited for a fixed
period of full-time service and subject, not to the
control of any national government, but to a
self-contained United Nations command, was
administratively, financially, and militarily
impractical at the present time.14
Ultimately, the Secretary-General's pessimism and the
lack of interest of both the General Assembly and the
Security Council doomed the Legion to go the way of the
Guard.
As the Cold War polarized the international community,
it became apparent that the Security Council, plagued by
veto conventions, could not direct a UN army even if it had
one. In the late 1950's and early 1960's, both the U.S. and
USSR independently proposed their own global disarmament
plans. These schemes called for the establishment of UN
supervisory forces
to ensure that during and after implementation of
general and complete disarmament, states also would
support and provide agreed manpower for a United
Nations Peace Force to be equipped with agreed types of
armaments necessary to ensure that the United Nations
can effectively deter or suppress any threat or use of
arms.15
In reality, the proposals achieved little consensus
amongst the Security Council and were cynically dismissed as
superpower propaganda.
In 1957, William Frye16 published a comprehensive study
of the relevance of a UN Peace Force to international
security. Witnessing the success of the United Nations
Emergency Force (UNEF) in the Middle East,7 Frye proposed
the possibility of establishing a small permanent UN Peace
Force of approximately 7,000 personnel. Interested members
would contribute troops for periods of six months to two
years. In that time they would train at a UN base or would
participate in peacekeeping operations. Using a rotational
scheme, all states would have the opportunity to contribute
to the Peace Force. Frye estimated that a suitable base
with barracks, airfield, logistics and training facilities,
and associated "quality of life" facilities, would cost $65
million to establish and then require a further $1 million
to maintain. He hoped that original contributors would
shoulder the cost of initially equipping the 7,000 troops
with their arms, uniforms, vehicles, and other necessary
equipment.18
The role of the Peace Force would be to guard borders
of nations struggling to reach peace resolutions against
terrorists and irregular forces causing destabilization.
The Peace Force would also supervise demilitarized zones and
reassure belligerents to reduce tension; enforce arms
embargoes, and other miscellaneous duties. Significantly,
it would also act to block infiltration or invasion
approaches. Frye proposed that an aggressor's attack on the
UN Peace Force would automatically invite international
retribution, and therefore, the Force could be an effective
deterrent.19 Using the example of UNEF's operational
history, Frye demonstrated the benefits to international
security that his Peace Force would bring.20 However, his
proposal did not adequately resolve the unavoidable problems
of base location, homogeneity of the Peace Force,
discipline, and recruitment. More importantly, the member
nations saw the issue of command and control of the Peace
Force as an insurmountable obstacle. This is understandable
considering their continual reluctance to bestow sovereignty
to the UN and to give the Secretary-General an army.
However, Frye did raise some issues which had
considerable utility at the time and are also applicable to
current discussions on UN forces. He argued for a military
logistics planning cell in UN Headquarters. This cell's
role would be to act as an operations quantity surveyor and
maintain a logistical data base for all classes of military
supplies.21 This "horn of plenty" would be beneficial in
allowing mission planners to quickly build a comprehensive
logistics structure from member assets, more likely to suit
the mission conditions than the existing ad hoc method. He
also briefly explored the development of a UN intelligence
organization tailored to meet the operational needs of the
Peace Force and a tactical planning cell. Frye viewed a
rapidly deployable mission headquarters as being useful and
cited the efficacy of a group of ten officers in being able
to reduce the tension in Port Said during UNEF's
operations.22 He even foresaw the need for the planning of
UN recreation as a part of ongoing mission planning.23
Ultimately, Frye designed his UN Peace Force for
peacekeeping using UNEF as a model. He did not configure it
for peace-enforcement.
In 1964, Lincoln Bloomfield24 analyzed a group proposal
to establish a permanent UN force of 25,000 troops recruited
by the UN, based in a neutral country (at the time India),
and trained over five years in readiness for UN peacekeeping
operations. He estimated that the force would cost $10
million annually.25 Again, discussions on this proposal
highlighted problems such as command and control, base
location, and cost.
Debate on the establishment of UN forces in the 1970's
and 1980's centered on efforts to empower the MSC to develop
the agreements suggested in Article 43 of the UN Charter.26
Certain countries promised forces on an earmarked basis, but
they were wholly insufficient and not immediately available.
In addition, international insistence that host countries
have the right to disqualify any country's contingents from
entering their territory, forced the UN to use ad hoc
arrangements. Fortunately, the military benefit of this
situation was the development, notably in Canada and the
Nordic countries, of forces skilled in special requirements
and capabilities of peacekeeping.27 In times of crisis,
these particular nations have been quick to volunteer these
assets to the UN for peacekeeping. With the utility of
these forces generally able to cope with the global security
demand, the debate on a permanent UN army was quelled.
In the twenty years before the collapse of the USSR,
the UN matured and operated in the strangling atmosphere of
the Cold War. Any efforts to establish either a permanent
UN army, or an Article 43 arrangement force, met heated
opposition. The mutual distrust on the part of the U.S. and
USSR contributed significantly to the failure to form a UN
force. Sir Brian Urquhart, Scholar in Residence at the Ford
Foundation and former Principal Officer in the UN Office of
the Under-Secretary for Special Political Affairs, best
summarized this frustration:
We were in the Cold War throughout the period that I
was in the UN. We spent our entire time and energy
tip-toeing around the Cold War, and it was a pain in
the neck. The UN was seen as a sort of fighting ring
for the superpowers--Henry Cabot Lodge and Andrei
Vishinski exchanging insults in the Security Council
was not a very edifying spectacle. It was as much as
your life was worth to get anything sensible done.28
In summarizing the history of UN force proposals up to
1989, it can be determined that several factors posed
insurmountable problems. The ever-present threat of a
Soviet veto, the unwillingness of nations to accept a UN
army directed by a non-sovereign body, and the wealth of
pragmatic objections to the utility and sustainment of a
permanent force, all conspired to keep worthwhile proposals
from being realized. When the Berlin Wall fell, however, it
seemed that one of the main obstacles had vanished. Soon
thereafter, the conflict against Iraq gave the impression
that the international community was capable of being united
in defeating aggression. With two of the three main
obstacles to a permanent UN army seemingly removed, the
Secretary-General was encouraged to rekindle the debate.
CHAPTER 3
PRESENT GLOBAL TRENDS
In 1992, the Secretary-General, Mr. Boutros
Boutros-Ghali, saw new opportunities for the UN. He noted
that:
the machinery of the United Nations, which had often
been rendered inoperative by the dynamics of the Cold
War, is suddenly at the center of international efforts
to deal with unresolved problems of the past decades as
well as an emerging array of present and future issues
.... the international community and the UN Secretariat
need to seize this extraordinary opportunity to expand,
adapt, and reinvigorate the work of the United Nations
so that lofty goals can begin to be realized.29
With the end of the Cold War, the international
security environment has changed significantly and produced
a security phenomenon that surprised the Western World. The
consequences of its ending are emerging in four trends:
(1) diffusion of power in world affairs;
(2) disintegration and failure of states;
(3) expansion in the meaning of international
security;
(4) increasing recourse to collective security.30
Diffusion of power in world affairs
A complex world which has diffused power into different
groupings has replaced the bipolar world. The USSR, its
satellites, and clients have disintegrated, leaving the U.S.
as reluctant hegemon. The U.S. is hesitating over the
challenge of global leadership because of the risks and
costs of doing so. This hesitance may serve to galvanize
reform in the UN. As Madeleine Albright, the U.S.
representative to the UN, recently said in testimony before
Congress, "The goal of the policy directive is to ensure
that we refrain from asking the UN to undertake missions it
is not equipped to do and to help the UN to succeed in
missions we would like it to."31 Conversely, this U.S.
attitude may repel member states and promote the growth of
regional security responses to conflict resolution.
The downsizing of the superpowers' arsenals has also
diffused military technology and capability. This makes the
sale of existing high technology weapons more competitive.
Shifts in conventional arms markets are occurring as weapons
merchants seek new contracts. This trend will alter the
global security situation. In the new century, a
multipolarity of regional powers capable of war-fighting at
levels of intensity previously associated only with the
super-powers, or first-rank middle powers, will characterize
the international environment.32 States with evolving
ambition are anticipating new opportunities that will arise
and are reluctant to promise their military capabilities, or
financial support, to a UN army.
State disintegration
The passing of the Cold War has rekindled nationalist,
tribal, religious, and ethnic conflicts that the superpower
benefactors had held in check. The spread of liberal
democracy has also fostered the desire for
self-determination. These factors have caused a
disintegration of the existing geopolitical template
bringing a fear that some states and their offspring will be
unsustainable over the longer term. This is a significant
problem to peace protagonists as they work to influence the
development of these strife torn nations.
The failure of governmental systems of all types in the
Third World is also responsible for the fragmentation of
states. This is particularly so in Africa and may be so in
Latin America in the future. Lack of economic growth,
population expansion, debt, drought, famine, corruption, and
a lack of tradition in self-government have contributed to
the backward slide in many nations' efforts to become
international players.3a The recent situation in Rwanda has
graphically demonstrated the unscrupulous desire for
sovereign territories based on tribal and ethnic groupings.
Governments in failing states are now less able to
provide the economic and social glue to hold their countries
together. During the Cold War, many Third World states
played East against West to maximize access to development
aid. The Commonwealth of Independent States can no longer
provide this assistance to former client states, and the
growing number of emerging states now compete for a
developmental aid pool which has not grown in a
complementary way.
This trend has had the most significant impact where
there is a volatile intermixing of ethnic, religious, or
national groupings. Savage conflicts have accompanied state
dissolution in the Balkans, Africa, and former Soviet
states. These wars have debilitating consequences for the
protagonists and, sometimes, for their neighbors, but do not
always threaten international peace. Recent history has
reinforced this fact to many UN members and reduced their
ardor for global collective security measures.
The Expanding Meaning Of International Security
Traditionally, we have defined threats to international
security in terms of sovereignty. However, many security
concerns are now beyond the capability of individual states
to cope with. These concerns encompass new sources of
conflict such as water sharing, natural disaster relief, and
regional arms races. These have potential effects for other
states with varying interests in such confrontations. Those
nations that resist external intervention in their domestic
affairs, and there are still many, frustrate effective
international responses to broader security issues such as
weapons of mass destruction (WMD) proliferation.34
There is some consensus that the international
community should compel states which are unwilling to
conform to international standards of behavior to do so.
However, the tools for this enforcement have proven to be
difficult to find. This trend has certainly endowed more
legitimacy to UN missions and allowed for brave ventures
beyond the traditional peacekeeping boundaries. The
character of these interventions has created new definitions
for peace operations.
Peacemaking operations are diplomatic activities or
anything other than military operations short of combat to
rectify a crisis situation through a peaceful process as
Chapter VI of the UN Charter outlines. Peacekeeping
operations are those that help maintain or restore peace and
security in areas of conflict, based on consent and
cooperation. They require the consent of the parties to the
dispute; do not seek to interfere with the affairs of host
nations; maintain strict impartiality; and have no right of
enforcement. Peace-enforcement operations are those
operations that require the use of combat forces as
prescribed under Chapter VII of the UN Charter to create a
cessation of hostilities and restore the peace.35 There is
clearly a dividing line between peacekeeping, which should
be mandated and structured to operate on well-tested
principles; and peace enforcement, which must have the
capability to impose a solution. The discouraging results
in Bosnia and Somalia have severely dampened the General
Assembly's enthusiasm for peace enforcement. This has had
an obvious impact on the motivation to establish a UN army.
Increasing recourse to collective security
The last five years have seen an increasing dependence
on multilateral consensus to resolve conflicts. The
euphoria of the Gulf War victory prompted a new enthusiasm
for collective military action. The UN continues to be the
international forum with the greatest legitimacy for
addressing issues of international security. Moreover, the
UN is accepting more responsibilities and having to
deliberate on a greater number of security issues than
before. In the search for conflict resolutions, the use of
military power has enjoyed a popular resurgence. Nearly
every plan for the resolution of contemporary conflicts
entertains some form of peace operation using military
forces.36
Most nations advocating military solutions to security
problems are eager to seek a multilateral response in order
to share the economic, political, and defense burden.
However, the international community has lacked
understanding of the finite capabilities of armed forces and
the extent of the resources that they consume in peace
operations. Now nations are witnessing these limitations,
as conflicts in Somalia and Bosnia continue to resist
resolution.
The inability of the UN to settle these crises has
prompted many states to reinforce their commitment to
existing, and or new, regional security arrangements.37
Whilst this certainly contributes to peace efforts, it
detracts attention and resources from the debate to
establish a UN army.
In conclusion, since the end of the Cold War, global
dynamics have continued to weaken the General Assembly's
desire and ability to address the issue of true
international security and to develop the tools that the UN
needs for peace enforcement. UN commitment to future peace
missions will likely be subject to closer scrutiny: a goal
that Western nations hope to foster.38 After exploring the
current international environment, it is clear that most
nations remain unready to embrace a UN army. However, there
are still some advocates who favor such a force and claim
that it would have significant political and operational
utility.39 Nevertheless, doubt prevails that even if the
international community was prepared to give the
Secretary-General a standing force under his command, it
would lack utility and longevity.40
CHAPTER 4
THE OPERATIONAL UTILITY OF A UN ARMY
Despite the unenthusiastic mood in the General Assembly
and Security Council with regard to the establishment of a
permanent UN army, under the command of the
Secretary-General, there are still advocates for such a
force. The focus of this paper is not to investigate the
establishment of Article 43 agreements to assemble standby
forces for peace enforcement. Instead, the concept
addressed here is a continuation of that studied in Chapter
One, namely a supra-national force of volunteers for
international military service. The UN would recruit,
train, equip, and finance these soldiers. They would be
subject to a UN military discipline code, and act under the
authority of the Secretary-General for legitimate peace
operations. The popular model that most advocates support
is a brigade-sized force of approximately 6,000 troops with
organic service and combat service support and strategic
mobility assets, capable of rapid deployment to most global
crises.41
Arguably, the practicalities of establishing such a
force are far less insurmountable than in the 1960's. The
Secretary-General has enacted reform to allow for better UN
military financing procedures.42 The downsizing of Western
defense forces has made training areas, barracks, and
logistics facilities more readily available.
The homogeneity issue remains a stumbling block, but
training can gradually overcome the language barrier, and
the recruiting process can address ethnic and religious
incompatibilities. The establishment of training schools
and a staff college could develop military education,
ethical training, and combat skills. A balance of
deployment time, training courses and readiness exercises,
and liaison attachment to member nations' defense forces,
could also maintain career satisfaction and morale.
Moreover, the skilled personnel necessary to adequately
train this force are now readily available.
The Scandinavian nations, Canada, the UK, the U.S., and
Australia have gathered a wealth of experience in conducting
all natures of peace operations. They are major advocates
for the development of a cohesive UN peace operations
doctrine. They have established their own schools,
specifically to train their defense forces for peace
operations.43 In addition, they regularly encourage their
regional allies to participate in this training and seek to
engage new partners in these endeavors. A good example is
Denmark's initiative to coordinate the training of a joint
UN peacekeeping battalion of 600 soldiers. These soldiers
are not Danes; they are Estonians, Latvians, and Lithuanians
volunteered by their governments in an effort to rebuild
their military competence and political worth to the
European security environment. A Lithuanian platoon has
already completed its training and an operational deployment
to Croatia. This is an encouraging example of what can be
achieved if the motivation exists.44
Assuming that consensus for the establishment of a UN
army, based on the brigade model is forthcoming, member
nations can then address the problems of the provision of
support to the unit, particularly in the areas of strategic
mobility, sustainment, and intelligence gathering assets.
If the members cannot reach this consensus, then in both
peacekeeping and peace enforcement, the logistical
sustainment of the brigade upon commitment presents the
greatest obstacle to its establishment.
This brigade global reaction force must be capable of
operating in areas ranging from the Balkans to the Middle
East, from Africa to Asia. Terrain and climate variance
pose significant challenges. The brigade would require the
assembly of a flexible mixture of mobility assets, ranging
from utility helicopters to snow mobiles, from heavy trucks
to light utility vehicles. It would also have to include
engineering equipment to ensure logistical mobility. The
expense of maintaining enough equipment to guarantee
sustainment within theater, let alone strategically, would
be prohibitive.
If such a brigade was available to the
Secretary-General, its size and light capabilities would
limit its utility. Boutros Boutros-Ghali and others see the
advantage of this force in its immediate availability. Sir
Brian Urquhart proposes that
a timely intervention by a relatively small but highly
trained force, willing and authorized to take combat
risks and representing the will of the international
community, could make a decisive difference in the
early stages of a crisis.45
This force could be useful for missions of tactical
deterrence to deploy to a border area or enclave where
clashes appeared imminent.
In the only recent example of such a need, the UN
directed the United Nations Protection Force--Croatia
(UNPROFOR) to deploy part of its force to the Former
Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) to monitor and report
developments in the border areas. This initiative has
worked in buffering FYROM from the conflict to its north.
However, opponents of a UN rapid deployment force for
preventative peacekeeping claim that the responsiveness of
present UN ad hoc procedures is satisfactory. They claim
that the nature of the mission and the preventative
intervention criteria used by the UN will either attract a
member nation to contribute forces or have an existing UN
mission slice off the necessary assets, as was the case of
UNPROFOR with the FYROM. In this scenario, the lack of a
credible UN threat to deter potential aggressors from
attacking the peacekeepers is seen as a critical
vulnerability.
The deterrent threat of U.S. retaliation clearly
protects UNPROFOR elements in the FYROM. This would not be
the case with a lightly-armed UN rapid deployment brigade
inserted quickly into a border area without access to
heavier combat support. If the force was to encounter
trouble, member states, particularly the U.S., would then
come under pressure to act, not simply to deal with an
evacuation, but to escalate the situation in order to
restore UN credibility. This would be an intolerable
endstate far from that initially envisaged for the
commitment of the force.46
A UN rapid deployment brigade would have significant
political deterrence, but it would not have the military
capabilities, or the determined mandate, to resist the
inevitable testing by the belligerents that it seeks to
separate. Historically, there has been little need for
rapid deployments in the area of peacekeeping. When acting
as a symbolic deterrent, an ad hoc collective force, or a
permanent UN rapid deployment brigade, are hardly different
in terms of operational effectiveness or political
viability. In past peacekeeping missions, ad hoc force
arrangements have sufficed. Member nations will not support
the creation of a UN brigade to meet a role for which their
own resources are adequate.41
Obviously, it is even harder to see the utility of a
permanent, lightly-armed UN brigade for the role of peace
enforcement. Unless significantly reinforced by member
states under an Article 42 intervention, or by the
establishment of its own heavy combat and combat support
units, a UN brigade would be largely ineffective in a peace
enforcement mission such as Bosnia or Somalia. A bellicose
environment pays scant regard to the symbolic presence of
peacemakers. Ultimately, the complex and expensive
operational infrastructure and tools that make an impact in
peace enforcement missions would prove too costly for the UN
to acquire or sustain. The challenge of these missions is
beyond even the most aggressive proposals for a UN military
capability. Peace enforcement remains reliant on the
vigorous political and military backing of powerful member
states or strong regional coalitions.
The number of deployable sub-units in the UN brigade
would also be a significant limitation to its versatility.
There were 71,543 military and civilian police personnel
serving in UN peace operations in June 1994.48 A UN brigade
of 6,000 personnel would hardly be able to assume
responsibility for these missions. Even if we were to
assume that the deployable proportion of the force is around
two thirds of its total strength, it would still be
hard-pressed to staff operations in Mozambique (current
strength of operation: 5,413), or Rwanda (current strength
of operation: 5,500).49 There are currently 16,545
personnel serving in peacekeeping missions alone.50 A UN
brigade could not even take care of the majority of these
operations. Member nations would oppose financing a force
that can only augment peace operations and not relieve them
of the major military and financial burden.51
This analysis of the utility of a UN army, based on the
popular brigade model, has revealed several key issues. The
training, basing, and recruitment of the force would be
easier than in the Cold War era. Its cost, if truly
independent of member nation support, would be expensive and
place a significant additional burden on the current UN
budget. The force's operational advantages of rapid
deployment and homogeneity are not significantly advanced
over the present UN systems to justify its cost to
unenthusiastic member nations. Its size and capability
would restrict the force's capabilities, making its
operational versatility questionable in the expanding
spectrum of peace operations. The popular brigade model for
a permanent UN army is unsuitable for peace operations in
the current international environment. Global security
trends indicate that UN members remain wary of such a
force's powers and lack of capability. They prefer to
search for alternative methods for conflict resolution.
Ultimately, the UN remains the only organization committed
to global security and, as such, it needs to remain credible
in the international forum. It requires a military
capability, but not an army, to do this.
CHAPTER 5
MILITARY REFORM FOR THE UNITED NATIONS
The lack of utility of a conventionally designed UN
army, and the general reticence of the UN member nations to
act to establish such a force has compelled the
Secretary-General, and other champions of the idea, to look
for alternative ways to provide reliable and timely military
capability to the UN.52 In particular, a UN proposal exists
to identify units from member states in order to provide a
"grab bag" of capabilities that the UN could assemble when
it authorizes a mission. These would include the full range
of combat, combat support, and service support capabilities
to meet each specific case. This idea has only moderate
support amongst the member nations, although the
Scandinavians are enthusiastic.53 However, the five major
countries, and other global players, are not hurrying to
promise their elite troops and strategic military assets to
a contract with unclear command and control arrangements,
cloudy doctrine for engagement, and unresolved financial
concerns.54
Instead, analysis in Chapter 2 revealed that the global
trend is moving toward conflict resolution through regional
partners or coalitions with common interests. The
advantages of this approach are many. Regional proximity
can lessen response time, share cultural knowledge, and even
provide economic incentives, all of which can increase
political legitimacy for intervention. Collective will to
resolve conflict by interested partners often avoids
cumbersome political and military arrangements and is often
effective. However, it is generally not prone to act
preventatively. Conflict resolution in this manner has
always been a significant step before appealing to the UN
for assistance.
It is encouraging that this trend is beginning to have
success in peace operations. The Economic Community of West
African States successfully undertook--with its peacekeeping
force (ECOMOG) organized by Nigerian President
Babangida--such actions to end the Liberian civil war over a
several-year period.55 Australia and the nations in the
South West Pacific region have also recently commenced a
peacekeeping operation in Bougainville in order to contain
and resolve that island's secessionist battle with Papua New
Guinea. Regional organizations, asking for authorization
under Chapter VIII of the UN Charter, will offer significant
choices to conflict resolutions in the coming decade.
However, to apportion this legitimacy, the UN must
remain responsible for the strategic direction of such
efforts in order to deconflict different organizations'
plans, to monitor the motives of all parties involved, and
to maintain a global perspective. It is, therefore,
imperative that the UN's ability to manage peace operations
loses no further credibility. Reform is now necessary to
preserve the unique global security perspective that only
the UN offers. The analysis so far has determined that a UN
army, based on a traditional military template, is
inappropriate to restore this confidence. The discussion
will now turn to the consideration of how an expanded
permanent staff can address this concern.
The deficiencies of UN peace operations are well
documented. The UN designed the administrative system that
supports these missions to deal with fewer and less complex
operations, and to proceed along a more leisurely pace than
has now become necessary. The UN attempt to meet the
growing demand for peace operations has exacerbated problems
such as unclear mission guidance, inadequate command and
control, poor intelligence, and nonexistent doctrine.56
However, those who criticize these deficiencies are
judging the efforts of an ill-structured and ill-resourced
organization that is struggling to come to terms with
increasing demands, for which it was neither designed nor
accustomed to cope with. This is particularly so in the
Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO), part of the
Secretariat at UN Headquarters. The DPKO must develop
better capabilities across the spectrum of peace
operations.57
Reform in the DPKO since 1993 has been progressive and
has addressed the major deficiency of the DPKO not having UN
logistics and administrative components within its own
bailiwick. Presently, the DPKO consists of some 320
military and civilian personnel seconded from their national
governments for short terms. While effective in the
reporting and monitoring functions, this staff is incapable
of playing a significant role in the preparation, conduct,
and management of UN peace operations.58
What the UN needs are improved arrangements for
planning operations, the establishment of headquarters,
command and control, logistics and procurement, and the
provision of intelligence, or information, as it is less
sensitively termed. Also necessary for the more effective
employment of military forces are clearer political
mandates, the delegation of greater authority to commanders
in the field, and more effective liaison between the UN and
national governments.
These matters are normally the realm of military
professionals in the context of their own national forces.
The challenge to a permanent UN military staff is to
professionalize peacekeeping at the international level. It
is a process that tends to come naturally to the armies of
many countries who share professional values and a common
interest in seeing a job effectively and efficiently done.
There are evident benefits for peacekeeping in such
hallmarks of professionalism as intensive training,
effective discipline, high standards of personal integrity,
familiarity with modern equipment and procedures, and
acceptance of political authority.
The organizational complexity and political sensitivity
of peacekeeping operations often demand the highest
standards of professionalism. Yet the many differences
between armed forces and the varying levels of
professionalism between personnel from different nations
cannot be ignored. It would be a challenging task to raise
the required standards of all those armed forces which will
be participating in UN peace operations. This can be
addressed through the expansion of the permanent military
staff in the DPKO.
Moves towards professionalism will not occur without
resistance. Governments will have to release some of their
best military officers as they are recruited by UN
Headquarters for extended careers within the DPKO. The UN
must be prepared to offer a challenging and financially
rewarding career to these professionals. The
Secretary-General has already noted that it is not possible
to establish permanent structures with staff on short-term
loan from member states. Therefore, career UN soldiers in
the DPKO staff are the only realistic alternative.59
Contributions of personnel will also be critical if the
UN is to develop effective international training
procedures, including a UN Staff College. The recruitment
of professional military logisticians would also be a
prerequisite for the assembly of a capable UN staff. The
problem of information gathering must also be tackled. It
will require states to provide information to UN forces
which they might not prefer to disclose, and to permit the
UN to gather all kinds of data about internal, as well as
international developments. This process of
professionalizing peacekeeping will have to occur against a
wider background of UN reform in the context of the
administration and financing of peacekeeping operations.
This is a daunting problem.
However, military professionalism will offer certain
advantages if reformers persevere. It can get things done.
Given political will, a clear mandate, and a free hand in
its professional sphere, the problem solving capacity of
military professionals is significant. Properly used, a
military organization can be an effective instrument, even
in the most delicate of complex situations. It is incumbent
upon UN members to explore this option.
The first area of reform required is command and
control. In considering reform of command and control
within the DPKO, there remains some debate on the
resuscitation of the defunct Military Staff Committee(MSC).
Some advocates urge that the MSC can provide direction for
UN forces, oversee their training, and secure the necessary
logistical and financial support from member nations.60
However, the most significant problem with integrating the
MSC into peace operations is its UN Charter responsibilities
under Article 47. Here the MSC is charged with
responsibility "for the strategic direction of any armed
forces" under the oversight of the Security Council. Under
all foreseeable circumstances, effective MSC oversight is
problematic at best, particularly in rapidly evolving
situations. Even under optimum battlefield circumstances,
the MSC would be in a position to serve as little more than
a conduit for progress reports to the Security Council and
the Secretary-General.61 The MSC's composition of Chiefs of
Staff of permanent and rotating members of the Security
Council would do no more "than add an unnecessary extra
layer of bureaucracy to the UN".62 Rather than revive a
crippled mechanism, the challenge to reformers is to think
operationally and analyze the military staff requirements
within the DPKO to better prepare for and conduct peace
operations.63
There are many areas in which positive change could
promote a more efficient and dynamic approach to peace
operations. The Security Council must be more accountable
to the General Assembly, but not to the extent that it
inhibits sensible military operations.64 Restructuring of
the Secretariat is required to place all elements associated
with peace operations under a single department to
facilitate more timely, coordinated planning and management
of future missions. Civilian control of the military
commitment should be exercised by a Special Representative
to the Secretary-General (SRSG) responsible for the
horizontal coordination of all components, both military and
civilian, authorized under the mandate. The SRSG should be
involved in negotiations prior to the establishment of the
mission.
A military planning division comprised of
representatives of both Plans and Operations Office and the
Resource Office should be responsible for the following
tasks:
a. determine the military objectives required to
achieve the political objective(s);
b. decide the force structure required to achieve the
military objective(s) within the required time scale;
c. develop command structures sufficient to accomplish
the strategic direction of the force;
d. develop, and advise on changes to, rules of
engagement;
e. monitor and record the status of national forces
available for assignment to UN operations;
f. coordinate, process and disseminate strategic
intelligence and information;
g. prepare and maintain contingency plans for UN
military deployments;
h. develop standard operating procedures for use in
military operations;
i. coordinate logistic, financial, and administrative
functions in support of UN military operations;
j. analyze and collect UN military experience, and
develop a core training curriculum to assist member states
to train national military and civil personnel in the
specialized techniques unique to UN multinational military
operations.65
This division must be supported by a staff capable of
operating a permanent situation room to monitor all deployed
missions, act as the interface between Force Commanders and
UN Headquarters, and conduct ongoing staff preparation of
likely areas of upcoming UN engagement. This staff could
develop SOP, engagement doctrine, and conduct ongoing
mission evaluation.66 It must also be capable of deploying
splinter staffs to missions in support of Force Commanders.
In this role it would complement national military staffs
and provide guidance on the application of UN doctrine and
assist in facilitating an efficient civilian-military
interface.
Complementing the command and control reforms would be
communications improvements. As with logistical
interoperability, communications standardization is also
important to force effectiveness within the mission. Many
missions are plagued by communications problems caused by
unsupervised and uncoordinated set-up procedures implemented
by arriving member forces.67 Professional signalers, as
part of the DPKO military staff, can play a significant role
in preventing this problem by analyzing the mission,
terrain, and the force package. The result would be a
better understanding of communication requirements prior to
mission deployment. This would save the purchase of
redundant equipment or high technology gear that is not
needed.
The communications division of the DPKO should be
capable of contributing to the command staff at UN
Headquarters and be able to deploy reconnaissance and
mission personnel as part of mission staffs. It should also
contribute to the instructional staff of the UN Staff
College and deployable training teams.
UN in-theater procurement systems should be managed by
professional military logisticians responsive to the Force
Commander rather than by a civilian Chief Administrative
Officer. They are better able to recognize the needs of the
force, are more adaptable, and are more likely to empathize
with the blue helmets on the line than their civilian
counterparts.68 These logisticians should be provided from
a logistics staff component of the DPKO. Civilians working
in the procurement system for the military component should
be under command of the Force Commander.
A UN staff college should be established to train
officers for employment in the DPKO at UN Headquarters and
to supplement and standardize the training run by national
defense forces.
The second area of reform required is the establishment
of better UN information gathering procedures. A permanent
intelligence staff working within the framework of the DPKO
would include both military and civilian personnel recruited
from national organizations. Again, this proposal will face
opposition from some members. Intelligence preparation in
potential areas of UN engagement and in current missions
would be conducted by trained UN professionals capable of
utilizing the full spectrum of intelligence gathering and
processing assets.
The concept of UN intelligence is anathema to many
nation's security safeguards. The U.S. complaint of UN
intelligence negligence in Somalia is a case in point. In
order to secure access to member nation's intelligence
networks, the DPKO must quickly establish credibility as a
responsible user. Improvement would come through the long
term employment of professional intelligence analysts and
operatives rather than short term seconded personnel. This
removes the inevitable objection that seconded personnel
would return to their sponsor nation with information
useable for the enhancement of their national interests.
Further improvement would come through the enhancement
and sharing of human intelligence gathered in current
missions. This information, when gathered by permanent UN
operatives on military staffs in the field would enhance
other component intelligence gathering. Trained UN
intelligence operatives would have a greater understanding
of the types of information necessary to identify trends and
triggers in the mission. This information would be
pertinent to the success of the mandate's application. It
would also analyze and monitor the belligerents' objectives
and have a better understanding of the cultural deceptions
and manipulations which plagued missions in Somalia and
Bosnia. UN intelligence teams would play an important role
in ensuring a workable interface with the military component
and the inevitable non-government organization (NGO)
operating in the mission area. This is a critical link to
establish as NGO's are often good sources of information on
many subjects.69 However, more often than not, the military
NGO interface is soured early through mutual lack of
consideration and understanding. Permanent UN staff,
trained in this type of operational diplomacy, would
significantly enhance the quality of information garnered
from NGO's that have been operating in the mission area long
before the military turns up.
The dissemination of such information throughout the UN
force conducting a mission has obvious benefits and goes
some way to address the sharing of intelligence issues. At
first glance the deal seems decidedly tilted in the UN's
favor. But if intelligence exchange with the UN results in
better prepared missions, more appropriate mandates, and
vastly improved operational and tactical information then
surely the investment is well rewarded.
An intelligence division within the DPKO would have an
organization suited to man and operate cells to conduct
staff intelligence preparation at UN Headquarters, to deploy
mission intelligence groups to the field, to contribute to
both deployable training teams and to the instructional
staff on the UN staff college.
The next area worthy of attention is that of logistical
staff management. The Secretary-General suggests that
a pre-positioned stock of basic peacekeeping equipment
should be established, so that at least some vehicles,
communications equipment, generators etc., would be
immediately available.... Alternatively, governments
should commit themselves to keeping certain equipment
on standby for immediate sale, loan, or donation to the
UN when required.70
Should such logistics be made available by nations, the
DPKO staff should have professional logistical planners and
managers. They must be capable of ascertaining the right
amount of UN support required to complement that brought to
the mission by supporting members. They must also assume
responsibility for contracting for the maintenance of
stockpiled equipment--an expensive but necessary task.
Military staff officers are likely to better appreciate the
need for appropriate equipment and maintenance facilities.71
They can conduct contingency planning and logistics
preparation of the mission in better harmony with the main
logistical players in the mission area.
The logistics staff can develop urgently needed
doctrine and standards to address requirements of
interoperability of equipment used by the DPKO at UN
Headquarters and in the field. It can also teach the
comprehensive forecasting and logistical planning
considerations for improving political, economic, and
operational effectiveness. Finally, these professionals
would develop a keen sense for requesting the rejection of
member's offers of forces based on their need for
substantial logistics support. This would lessen the
expensive drainage on limited UN assets.
A logistics division within the DPKO would have an
organization suited to man and operate cells to conduct
logistic appreciation, reconnaissance, stockpiling, and
maintenance both at UN Headquarters and in the field. They
would also contribute to the UN Staff College and to
deployable training and assessment teams.
Another significant area of reform already occurring is
that of doctrine and training. Many middle powers, as well
as several of the major states, have begun to establish
schools or courses of instruction designed to better prepare
their armed forces for peace operations. In South East
Asia, Australia has commenced to operate a UN center,
designed to teach lessons learned from their UN peace
operations experience. In Northern Europe, Sweden has
commenced operating a UN course of instruction to which it
invites officers from many nations. The U.S. Army has
distributed U.S. doctrine on peace operations and begun to
teach the considerations involved in UN operations. These
are promising steps reflecting a growing professional
commitment to improve. However, there are some concerns
that countries are not standardized in their doctrinal
approach, and that their cultural and political biases vary
the quality of the teaching. Ultimately, incompatibility of
procedures can result in a lack of interface, or even
conflict, between staff branches within a UN force
headquarters.72 The requirement is for a clear definition
of the staff procedures to be used and for training to be
provided to potential staff officers. This applies to
administrative and logistics as well as to operations
staffs. The more thought and training given in advance to
the nature and requirements of peace operations, the less
likely mistakes will be made in the operations themselves.
Officers and contingents who do not understand the wider
political context of peacekeeping tend to develop negative
attitudes toward the very difficult tasks they are asked to
fulfill. Those who "persist in comparing peacekeeping to
normal military service and who hanker for the use of
conventional force are likely to end up frustrated and
defeatist."73 For this reason, standardized training and
indoctrination in advance of operations is absolutely
essential.
A positive step in the training direction would be the
establishment of a UN Training Center, or Staff College.
This would enhance unilateral and combined training of
staffs and forces for peacekeeping and humanitarian relief
operations. The center would likely be in the U.S., close
to UN Headquarters and take advantage of the U.S. base
downsizing program for its lodgings. The bulk of the
instructional and administrative staff would be
professionals from the DPKO. The training offered by this
institution would be aimed at three levels. First, a
training program for Peace Operations Force Commanders,
Senior Political Advisors, and Senior Staff Officers. The
syllabus would cover senior level instruction aimed at
integrating UN doctrine with geo-political awareness and
strategic/operational analysis. Second, a training program
for military and civilian professionals, aspiring to become
members of the permanent staff of the DPKO. This would be
an extensive course covering the full spectrum of emerging
UN doctrine, staff procedures, management, and professional
integration. Finally, an exportable training program
focusing on UN doctrine, staff procedures, information
gathering, and military integration at the tactical level.
The first two courses would be taught at UN Staff College
while the third would be introduced to the evolving
structure of national peacekeeping schools in order to
standardize their instruction.
Extracurricular courses in media management, NGO
integration, information gathering, and military integration
would also be offered as the College matures. The
establishment of a UN Staff College would be challenging and
rewarding career for many military and civilian
professionals.
However, the building and operating of a UN Staff
College, and the expansion of the permanent military staff
of the UN will not be achieved without significant
determination. Two primary factors will constantly dilute
efforts to achieve such reform. First, the inherent
anti-militarism of the UN bureaucracy is an awesome obstacle
to overcome. The General Assembly also, has historically
been reticent to adopt military reform. Arguments for the
detrimental effect of an expanded military staff will be
based on the perceived threat that the military poses to UN
impartiality. Opponents will draw on fears that the
military instrument will supersede the civilian control of
the organization. They may argue that the "immediate"
benefits for militarizing the DPKO will result in a focusing
of power into the major five states of the Security Council.
This power will be available for the advancement of those
nation's national interests and not for the general
improvement of global security. Champions will also appear
to insist on equitable recruitment from member nations
rather than an aptitude for the job. This debate will be a
challenge to both sides and it remains to be seen if the
quest for UN efficiency can outmaneuver the advocates of
mediocrity.
The second, and most important, obstacle is funding.
The financial burden of peace operations is staggering. In
the last seven years, the UN annual budget for peace
operations has risen from $230 million to approximately $3.6
billion.74 The UN is hopelessly in debt and is a constant
source of frustration to the Secretary-General, who must
lobby for support for each operation. While the UN and
member nations barter over funding systems, and levels of
member contributions, it is acutely obvious that a call for
significant expansion of the permanent military staff and a
new UN Staff College will likely be met with initial
incredulity. A permanent military staff, manned and
equipped to achieve the capabilities described above, will
require a large amount of capital to start. To recruit good
people requires an attractive career package offering
financial stability, good equipment and a challenging job.
This can not be accomplished cheaply. The production of UN
permanent staff uniforms and the other paraphernalia that
accompanies a military organization will also need to be
purchased and managed. Opponents to the expansion will be
able to resort to a wide range of short sighted objections.
Their challenge will pose the most significant threat to
reform of the military staff. It will be a major task to
convince member nations that a better staff will inevitably
save money.
The above analysis has focused on major reform and
expansion of the permanent military staff of the DPKO as a
viable option in the search for efficiency and
professionalism in the UN. This reform will occur on two
levels. First, military and civilian professionals will be
recruited on a permanent basis to realize the potential
efficiency of an energetic military staff. The staff will
be fully capable to conduct a wide range of planning and
forecasting duties. It will be able to support missions
through a standardization of UN procedures and doctrine that
it has developed and tested. It will also have the
important advantage of cohesion developed among a team of
professionals loyal to the credibility of their
organization. In addition, it will operate at UN
Headquarters and in the field to complement national forces
recruited for missions. Importantly, it will not usurp the
Force Commander role, but rather act as an advisor, guide,
and force multiplier. Ultimately, the staff will become an
integral component working toward the achievement of mission
mandates wherever they may be.
Second, the use of permanent military and civilian UN
personnel to establish a UN Staff College will complement
the first reforms. The advantages of workable doctrine
development, the hard analysis of lessons learned, and the
standardization of peace operations training are obvious.
The need for these types of instruction is urgent as the
global security environment continues to change from a
bipolar configuration.
Challenges to this reform will be great. The
resistance to military expansion in the UN, the initial set
up and maintenance costs, and reticence to share
intelligence will all provide a fertile field for opponents.
It will be a major hurdle to convince the member nations
that investment in the intangible improvement offered by an
expanded permanent UN military staff can guarantee a
significant return in achieving progress in the quest for
global security.
CHAPTER 6
CONCLUSION
In 1948, the first UN Secretary-General, Trygve Lie,
proposed the establishment of a small UN Guard to be placed
at the disposal of the Security Council. The kind of tasks
he envisaged for this force were to put an end to factional
fighting and to shore up truces decreed by the Security
Council. He argued that the force was needed to meet
challenges to UN authority and would be a vital component of
the organization's methods in dealing with breaches of
international peace and security. He hoped that action to
create this force would avoid the paralysis of the Charter
provisions for military forces that prevailed at the time.
However, the Cold War, lack of government support, and lack
of imagination conspired to ensure that the idea would
remain unrealized.
Nearly fifty years later, the idea again took flight as
part of a series of proposals made by Secretary-General
Boutros-Ghali. Worried by the inability of the Security
Council to enforce its decisions in less conventional
military situations, he called for the establishment of a UN
rapid deployment force tied to his authority. However,
present global trends indicate that the international
community is still reluctant to allow the UN to have a
permanent army. Member nations are not convinced that a UN
army offers significant advantages over the present methods
for conducting peace operations. When the operational
utility of such a force is analyzed, it is clear that these
doubts are justified. Advocates for a UN army are yet to
develop a model capable of winning strong political and
military support.
It is clear that the UN must remain a crucial player in
global security. Its credibility, weakened over the last
five years, can be bolstered by taking advantage of the
trend towards regional collective security. The UN must
improve its ability to provide legitimacy to peace
operations. It must lead the world in developing and
disseminating strategic, operational, and tactical doctrine
for these operations. It must be capable of directing
mission commanders and providing timely, useable information
to assist and guide its operatives. These capabilities can
be developed through the adoption of a DPKO military staff
organized on functional lines and staffed by permanent UN
military and civilian professionals. The advantages gained
for command and control, the UN intelligence cycle,
logistics management, and the standardization of training
for peace operations, are significant. The potential gains
outweigh the objections of cost and mercenary stigma.
In 1948, Trygve Lie remarked that the establishment of
a UN army would have required a degree of attention and
imagination on the part of men in charge of the foreign
policies of the principal member nations that they seemed
unable to give. In 1995, that degree of enthusiasm is still
lacking. Instead, the way ahead is to urge further reform
in the DPKO. The improvement that a staff of permanent
military professionals can provide will strengthen UN
credibility. Ultimately, it will help restore political
confidence in the only international organization committed
to the preservation of global security.
NOTES
1Boutros Boutros Ghali, "Peace Making and Peacekeeping
for the Next Century," Vital Speeches of the Day 61, no. 11
(March 15, 1995): 322.
2William R. Frye, A United Nations Peace Force (New York
City: Oceana Publications, 1957), 176.
3Frye, 177.
4Frye, 177.
5William H. Lewis, "Peacekeeping: The Deepening Debate,"
Strategic Review 21, no. 3 (Summer 1993): 30.
6Leland Goodrich, "Efforts to Establish International
Police Force Down To 1950," in A United Nations Peace Force,
ed. William R. Frye (New York City: Oceana Publications,
1957), 175-179.
7Frye, 176.
8Frye, 197.
9Arthur M. Cox, Prospects For Peacekeeping (Washington,
D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1967), 76.
10Frye, 199.
11Frye, 200.
12Cox, 76-77.
13Frye, 210-212.
14Frye, 214.
15Cox, 74.
16At the initiative of the Carnegie Endowment for
International Peace, William Frye, a respected UN
correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor, directed the
efforts of a group of diplomats, academics, and soldiers in
the study of a UN Peace Force.
17Cox, 157. UNEF was established by the General Assembly
to monitor a cease-fire along the Egypt-Israel border in
November 1956. Ten countries provided up to 6,000 troops.
The first UN peace operation by comparatively large scale
military forces.
18Cox, 74-75.
19Frye, 91.
20Frye, 113-118.
21Frye, 85.
22Frye, 86.
23Having spent 8 months peacekeeping in the Islamic
Republic of Iran I share this concern. Battlefield stress
also affects peacekeepers. My research indicates that no UN
mission has adequately addressed this problem. Brigadier
John Wilson, a former Chief Military Observer (UNPROFOR),
has alerted the Australian Government to this deficiency.
24Lincoln Bloomfield served in the U.S. State Department
from 1946 to 1957 as a policy planner for UN affairs. In
1964, as a member of the Board of Editors of the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he edited a study of
international military forces in the role of peacekeeping.
25Cox, 75.
26A wholly original concept for a future global military
unit was developed by an unusual military think-tank working
for the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command between 1978
and 1985. "The First Earth Battalion" was an imaginative
concept based on the recruitment and training of a peace
force to combat the ravages of war and environmental
vandalism. Its author is LtCol. Jim Channon. The concept
was published as a draft operations manual titled OM-1
Evolutionary Tactics but was considered too eccentric for
general distribution to the U.S. Army.
27The Joint Nordic Committee for military UN matters, The
Handbook on Nordic Standby Forces in United Nations Service
(Stockholm: UN-department, Army Staff, 1973) is a good
example of the detail that the Scandinavian countries devote
in the preparation of their military commitment to the UN.
28Lance Morrow, "An Interview: The Man in the Middle,"
Soldiers for Peace - Supplement to MHQ: The Quarterly
Journal of Military History 5, no. 1, (Autumn 1992): 26.
29Boutros Boutros-Ghali, "Empowering the United Nations,"
Foreign Affairs, (Winter 1992/93): 89.
30 Cathy Downes, "Challenges for Smaller Nations in the
New Era of UN and Multinational Operations in Peacekeeping,"
in Peacekeeping, Challenges for the Future, ed. Hugh Smith
(Canberra: Australian Defence Studies Centre, 1993), 13-14.
31Fred Barnes, "Low Priority for UN Peace Operations,"
Asia-Pacific Defence Reporter 21, no. 2/3 (August/September
1994): 29.
32Richard Shultz, "Compellance and Escalation Control:
The Value of Visible Forward Deployed Forces," Perspectives
on Warfighting 2, no. 2 (1992): 8-12.
33Robert D. Kaplan, "The Coming Anarchy," The Atlantic
Monthly, (February, 1994): 49-54.
34Shultz, 8-10.
35Joint Publication 3-07.3, JTTP for Peacekeeping
Operations (Washington, DC: Joint Chiefs of Staff, June
1991).
36Downes, 16.
37David Miller, "Anywhere, anytime: rapid-deployment
forces and their future," International Defense Review
Special Report, (October 1994): 3.
38Barnes, 28-29.
39Richard N. Haass, "Military Force: A User's Guide,"
Foreign Policy, no. 96 (Fall 1994): 34-35.
40John F. Hillen, III, "Policing The New World Order:
The Operational Utility Of A Permanent UN Army," Strategic
Review 22, no. 2 (Spring 1994): 54-62.
41 Lukas Haynes and Timothy Stanley, "To Create a United
Nations Fire Brigade," Comparative Strategy 14, no. 1
(January-March 1995): 11-15. Authors propose a typical
model based on a brigade sized rapid deployment force in
this article.
42Edward C. Luck, "Making Peace," Foreign Policy, no. 89
(Winter 1992-93): 151.
43 Senator Robert Ray, "Peacekeeping and Peacemaking - The
Challege for the Future," Peacekeeping Challenges for the
Future, ed. Hugh Smith (Canberra: Australian Defence Studies
Centre, 1993), 175.
44Hans Haekkerup, "Peacekeeping: a Danish perspective,"
International Defense Review - Defense `95, (1995):
103-106.
45Hillen, 60.
46Haass, 35.
47Hillen, 62.
48Mark Stenhouse, ed., "United Nations peacekeeping
operations history, resources, missions, and components,"
International Defense Review - Defense`95, (1995): 119.
49Stenhouse, 124-125.
50Stenhouse, 121-125.
51The issue becomes a "Catch 22" when the UN spends more
to enlarge the force thus enabling members to justify their
requests for services based on their increased financial
contributions.
52Boutros Boutros-Ghali and Sir Brian Urquhart have both
revised their concepts of UN permanent forces since 1992,
acknowledging the lack of interest for a UN Army in the
General Assembly.
53Haekkerup, 104-106.
54Boutros-Ghali, "Empowering the United Nations," 93.
55David Arnold and Albert Mitchum, "A Note On The United
Nations' Best Laid Plans: Now What?" Defense and Foreign
Affairs Strategic Policy 22, no. 11-12 (Nov.- December
1994): 10.
56Hugh Smith, "Challenge of Peacekeeping," Peacekeeping -
Challenges for the Future (Canberra: Australian Defence
Studies Centre, 1993), 190.
57David Ramsbotham, "UN Operations: The Art Of The
Possible," The RUSI Journal, (December 1993): 26.
58LtCol R. Roan, Military Advisor to the U.S. Mission to
the UN Headquarters, New York, briefing on DPKO reform to
the International Military Students USMC C&GSC, 11 April
1995.
59Boutros Boutros-Ghali, "An Agenda for Peace: One Year
Later", Orbis 37, no. 3 (Summer 1993).
60Lewis, 28.
61Lewis, 31.
62Ramsbotham, 26.
63Ramsbotham, 26.
64R.M. Connaughton, "Peacekeeping and Military
Intervention," Strategic and Combat Studies Institute
Occasional Paper No 3, (1992).
65Admiral Sir James Eberle, "Agenda for Peace: Military
Issues," The Naval Review 8, no. 1 (January 1993): 6.
66Robert T. Grey, "Strengthening the United Nations to
Implement The `Agenda For Peace'," Strategic Review 21, no.
3 (Summer 1993): 22.
67The UN mission to Iran-Iraq (UNIIMOG), set up in 1988,
is a good example. One of the first components into Iran
was a Canadian signals unit. On its own initiative, due to
poor UN HQ direction, and with meager equipment, it set up
an insecure and flawed communications net. Once the net was
established, the unit left the country - its obligation
fulfilled. UN Headquarters and the observers were left with
a system that never worked capably and was plagued by
maintenance difficulties. Author's experience as an
observer March 1989 to October 1989.
68Robert L. Ord, "The US Army Approach To Peacekeeping
Support Operations," in Peacekeeping: Challenges for the
Future, ed. Hugh Smith (Canberra: Australian Defence Studies
Centre, 1993), 143.
69Peter Kieseker, "Relationships Between Non-Government
Organizations and Multinational Forces in the Field," in
Peacekeeping: Challenges for the Future, ed. Hugh Smith
(Canberra: Australian Defence Studies Centre, 1993), 72-73.
70C.W. Hoffman, Jr., "UN Peackeeping Proposals," in
Essays On Strategy II, ed. John N. Petrie (Washington D.C.:
National Defense University Press, 1994), 65.
71Hoffman, 67.
72J.D. Murray, "Military Aspects of Peacekeeping:
Problems and Recommendations," in Peacekeeping - Appraisals
and Proposals, ed. Henry Wiseman (New York: Pergamon Press,
1983), 185.
73Brian Urquhart, "A View From The Operational Center,"
in Peacekeeping - Appraisals and Proposals, ed. Henry
Wiseman (New York: Pergamon Press, 1983), 173.
74Boutros Ghali, "Peace Making and Peacekeeping for the
Next Century," 322.
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Wiseman, 161-172. New York: Pergamon Press, 1983.
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