A UN 'Legion': Between Utopia and Reality

A UN ‘LEGION’ THE CASS SERIES ON PEACEKEEPING ISSN 1367-9880 General Editor: Michael Pugh This series examines all as...

Author: Stephen Kinloch Pichat

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A UN ‘LEGION’

THE CASS SERIES ON PEACEKEEPING ISSN 1367-9880 General Editor: Michael Pugh This series examines all aspects of peacekeeping, from the political, operational and legal dimensions to the developmental and humanitarian issues that must be dealt with by all those involved with peacekeeping in the world today. 1. Beyond the Emergency: Development within UN Missions edited by Jeremy Ginifer 2. The UN, Peace and Force edited by Michael Pugh 3. Mediating in Cyprus: The Cypriot Communities and the United Nations by Oliver P. Richmond 4. Peacekeeping and the UN Agencies edited by Jim Whitman 5. Peacekeeping and Public Information: Caught in the Crossfire by Ingrid A. Lehmann 6. US Peacekeeping Policy under Clinton: A Fairweather Friend? by Michael MacKinnon 7. Peacebuilding and Police Reform edited by Tor Tanke Holm and Espen Barth Eide 8. Peacekeeping and Conflict Resolution edited by Oliver Ramsbotham and Tom Woodhouse 9. Managing Armed Conflicts in the 21st Century edited by Adekeye Adebajo and Chandra Lekha Sriram 10. Women and International Peacekeeping edited by Louise Olsson and Torunn L. Tryggestad 11. Recovering from Civil Conflict: Reconciliation, Peace and Development edited by Edward Newman and Albrecht Schnabel 12. Mitigating Conflict: The Role of NGOs edited by Henry F. Carey and Oliver P. Richmond 13. Ireland and International Peacekeeping 1960–2000: A Study of Irish Motivation by Katsumi Ishizuka 14. Peace Operations after 11 September 2001 edited by Thierry Tardy 15. Confronting Past Human Rights Violations: Justice vs Peace in Times of Transition by Chandra Lekha Sriram 16. The National Politics of Peacekeeping in the Post-Cold War Era edited by Pia Christina Wood and David S. Sorensen 17. A UN ‘Legion’: Between Utopia and Reality by Stephen Kinloch-Pichat

A UN ‘Legion’ Between Utopia and Reality

STEPHEN KINLOCH-PICHAT

FRANK CASS LONDON • NEW YORK

First published in 2004 in Great Britain by FRANK CASS 2 Park Square, Milton Park Abingdon, Oxfordshire OX14 4RN and in the United States of America by FRANK CASS PUBLISHERS 270 Madison Avenue, New York, NY10016 This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005. “To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.” Copyright collection © 2004 Stephen Kinloch-Pichat

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 0-203-30736-4 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN 0-7146-5731-X (Print Edition) Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior written permission of the publisher of this book.

Contents

Acknowledgements

vii

Glossary

ix

Introduction

1

1 Origins

14

2 First Steps

39

3 Revival

72

4 Metamorphoses

101

5 Re-emergence

125

6 Rationale

165

7 Why Not?

202

8 Epilogue

248

Appendix: Tables and Figures

275

Bibliography

286

Index

329

In memory of Atsuhito Nakata and other volunteers who died in the service of the United Nations

Acknowledgements

This book is the modified version of my Ph.D. thesis in Political Science entitled ‘Between Ideal and Reality: The United Nations and the Idea of an International Permanent Military Volunteer Force’, which I completed at the University of Geneva, Switzerland, in 1999. Excerpts have been published in ‘International Peacekeeping, Disarmament and International Force: A Circular Proposition’, Disarmament Forum, 3, June (2000), pp. 5–19 and ‘Pragmatic or Utopian? A UN Permanent Military Volunteer Force’, International Peacekeeping, 3, 4 (1996), pp. 168–92. A description of the experience and context which originated my ideas for the thesis can be found in ‘De Phnom-Penh à Kigali. Réflexions sur le Maintien de la Paix’, Feuille Centrale, 4, July (1995), pp. 254–8. For their help in laying the foundations for this academic construction, I wish to express my gratitude to the following institutions and organizations: the Government of the Netherlands; the Government of Canada; the Project on Defense Alternatives, Commonwealth Institute, Cambridge, MA; the Graduate Institute of International Studies (IUHEI), Geneva, Switzerland (in particular my thesis supervisor, Professor Curt Gasteyger, who made this work an exercise in strategy); the United Nations Volunteer Programme (UNV) (in particular Jean-Claude Rogivue, Diane Conklin and Claude Belleau); the Association Internationale des Soldats de la Paix (AISP) and the Federation Nationale des Anciens des Missions Extérieures (FNAME); the training programme for the Civilian Personnel of the Peacekeeping/Humanitarian Operations and the Election Monitoring Missions, Pisa, Italy; and the Société des Etudiants du Zofingue, Geneva, Switzerland. I would also like to thank the following individuals: Sir Brian Urquhart; General Philippe Morillon; General Jean Cot; Bernard Kouchner; Cornelio Sommaruga; Serge Klarsfeld; General Philippe Coullon; Jacques Dufeu; Alexander Darian; Professor Eric David; Christophe Paillard; Michel Veuthey; Giles Whitcomb; Eric Berman; Raoul Jennar; Vice Admiral Michel d’Oléon, Dr Tomas Ries; Colonel Charles Dobbie; Gary Davis; Captain

viii

A UN ‘Legion’: Between Utopia and Reality

Katherine K. Tucker; Major Gary A. Lambertsen; Dr Mark Braham; Gilles Courrègelongue; Sverre Lodgaard; Gro Skaaren-Fystro; Marie Derôme; and Erick de Mul, my family, the ‘old good friends’, fellow researchers, co-field workers, adoptive families who have been very close to me during this intense period of my life, contributing directly or indirectly to the materialization of this project, including: Sophie, Hyean-Ok, the Vonèche family, Marc, Jerôme, Boris, Pascale and Stéphane, Nathalie, Pascal, Glenn, Jonathan, Vincent, Gudrun, Deirdre, Alexandre, Jen, Elodie, and others. Special thanks to Dr Michael Pugh and Margaret Pugh, to whom I am particularly indebted, and without whom this book would not have seen the light. Last, but certainly not least: my mother.

Glossary

AASA AAUN AFP AGL AHPC AISP AP ARV ASAS ASIL ATGM AU CBC CBI CCD CCM CCUNR CEIP CEREO CGG CGR CID CIPL CQRI CRWPI CSCE CSIA CURE

Acquisition and Across-Servicing Agreement (US–Japan Agreement) American Association of the United Nations Agence France Presse International Automatic Grenade Launcher Ad Hoc Political Committee Association Internationale des Soldats de la Paix Associated Press Armoured Reconnaissance Vehicle Association of the Southern African States American Society of International Law anti-tank guided missile African Union Canadian Broadcasting Corporation Central Bureau of Investigation Conference on the Committee on Disarmament Collective Measures Committee Citizens’ Committee for United Nations Reform Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (Washington DC) Centre de Recherches sur l’Extême Orient Commission on Global Governance Crosslines Global Report Central Intelligence Department Centre for International and Public Law (Australia) Centre Québequois de Relations Internationales Centre for the Research on World Political Institutions Conference on Cooperation and Security in Europe Centre for Science and International Affairs Conference Upon Research and Education

x


DFAIT

Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (Canada) Department of National Defense (Canada) Department of Public Information (UN) Department of Peace-keeping Operations (UN) Department of Peace Operations (UN) Defense Systems Ltd ECOWAS Monitoring Group Economic and Social Council (UN) Economic Community of West African States Eighteen-Nation Committee on Disarmament Executive Outcomes European Union Federal Army for Assistance Abroad Fletcher Forum of World Affairs Force for International Relief on Stand-by (‘FIRST Brigade’) Fédération Nationale des Anciens des Missions Extérieures Foreign Office General Assembly General Assembly Official Record Georgetown Law Journal Her Majesty’s Stationery Office International Affairs International Criminal Court International Conference on the Former Yugoslavia International Committee of the Red Cross Institute of Defense Analysis (Washington, USA) Institut d’Etudes Politiques Internationales (Lausanne) International Economic Studies Institute (Washington DC) Institutt for Forsvarsstudier Implementation Force (in Bosnia and Herzegovina) international organisation International Peace Academy International Relations Interpress Service International International Studies Quarterly Graduate Institute of International Studies (Geneva) International Working Group on the Future of the United Nations Joint Inspection Unit

DND DPI DPKO DPO DSL ECOMOG ECOSOC ECOWAS ENCD EO EU FFA FFWA FIRST FNAME FO GA GAOR GLJ HMSO IA ICC ICFY ICRC IDA IEPI IESI IFA IFOR IO IPA IR ISI ISQ IUHEI IWG JIU

Glossary KNS KRWE LAV LAW LL LMG MNF MoU MP MRC MSC NATO NGO NSP OAS OAU ONU ONUC ONUMOZ OSCE OSPA PANA PCSP PDA PDD PM RDB ROK ROM RRF RSP SAM SC SCOR SDF SEATO SEG SFPDI

xi

Kyodo News Service Keesing’s Record of World Events light armoured vehicle light anti-armour weapon Legion of Liberty (Arthur Koestler) light machine gun Multinational Force (in Lebanon) Memorandum of Understanding Military Police Military Research Committee (New Commonwealth Institute) Military Staff Committee North Atlantic Treaty Organization non-governmental organization National Security Program (John F. Kennedy School of Government) Organisation of American States Organization of African Unity Organisation des Nations Unies United Nations Operation in the Congo United Nations Operation in Mozambique Organisation for Cooperation and Security in Europe Office for Special Political Affairs (UN) Agence Panafricaine d’Information Peace and Conflict Studies Programme (Berkeley) Project on Defense Alternatives (Commonwealth Institute, Cambridge, Mass.) Presidential Directive 25 Permanent Members Rapid Deployment Brigade (Netherlands) Republic of Korea Republic of Moldova rapid reaction force Refugee Studies Programme (Oxford) surface-to-air missile Security Council Security Council Official Records Self Defence Forces (Japan) South East Asia Treaty Organisation Standing Emergency Group (Canada) Société Française pour le Droit International

xii SG SLAV SRSG TG UNAMIR UNCOP


Secretary-General small light armoured vehicle Special Representative of the Secretary-General Tribune de Genève United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda United Nations Corps for Observation and Patrol (L.P. Bloomfield) UNDOF United Nations Disengagement Force UNDP United Nations Development Programme UNEF United Nations Emergency Force UNFICYP United Nations Force in Cyprus UNGCI United Nations Guard Contingent in Iraq UNHCR United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees UNIDIR United Nations Institute for Disarmament and Research UNIFIL United Nations Force in Lebanon UNITAF United Task Force (in Somalia) UNMIH United Nations Missions in Haiti UNMO UN military observer UNOG United Nations Office in Geneva UNOSOM United Nations Operation in Somalia UNPA United Nations Protected Area UNPAT United Nations Patrol (L.P. Bloomfield) UNPROFOR United Nations Protection Force UNSAS United Nations Stand-by Arrangement System UNSF United Nations Security Force (West New Guinea) UNTAC United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia UNTSO United Nations Truce Supervision Organization (Palestine) UNUP United Nations University Press UNV United Nations Volunteers URT United Republic of Tanzania USA United States of America USACDA United States Arms Control and Disarmament Agency USAF US Air Force USG Under-Secretary-General USGPO United States Government Printing Office USIP United States Institute of Peace (Washington) USSR Union of Soviet Socialist Republics UWF United World Federalists WEU Western European Union

Introduction

And because you cannot have good laws without good arms, and where there are good arms, good laws inevitably follow; I shall not discuss laws but give my attention to arms. Machiavelli, The Prince, 1513

The concept of a UN ‘Legion’, as virtual a reality as it may be, is an integral part of the UN adventure. It is based on the audacious vision that, some day, an armed force could be directly recruited, trained, deployed and placed permanently at the disposal, not just of a state, but of an international organization such as the UN. Reading between the lines of a Charter primarily designed to perpetuate a world order – the balance of power resulting from the Allied Forces’ victory against Nazi Germany at the end of the Second World War – some have seen in the project of a world army, or military force, a logical consequence of the ideals of an organization dedicated to placing force at the service of international law, if not human rights. Generally attributed to a proposal made in 1948 by the first SecretaryGeneral of the UN, Trygve Lie, for the formation of a small, lightly armed, force to protect UN personnel,1 the idea had in fact been advocated five years earlier by Harold E. Stassen, at a time when the UN was still embryonic in form.2 Lie, originally a trade union activist, resigned from the UN in 1952, having failed to convince Member States of what he saw as an urgent necessity, the setting up of a small military force under the Secretariat. Stassen, not long after renewing his 1943 call for a UN ‘Legion’, died in March 2001, without having seen his dream at work. Debated for more than fifty years, the concept has dramatically modified its features to adjust to changes in the international environment. Proposals have periodically resurfaced throughout the Cold War, directly related to major threats to international peace and security. The most recent

2


re-emergence of the idea, after the dismantling of the Berlin Wall, the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the Gulf War, combined with the tragic inability of the international community to intervene in internal conflicts, has rendered the question more salient than ever. However, the need for a UN ‘Legion’ is still far from being accepted as self-evident. Indeed, when its discussion has not been discarded as pointless, doubts have been expressed concerning its utility, feasibility and desirability.3 Any attempt to bring up the issue is bound to meet with considerable scepticism, and it will be stigmatized as an exercise in intellectual virtuosity or futility. Half a century of failure to set it up seems to indicate that debating the idea may be, at best, an interesting hobby, if not simply a waste of time. In 1998, Peter Langille, considering options for rapid deployment and UN standing forces, noted with regret: Unfortunately, at least in the near term, there is unlikely to be further research on this evolution within government and there is little evidence of government assistance for related research. Neither is a research programme of this nature on the agenda of the UN Secretariat at DPKO.4 The question remains: is the idea a potentially valid policy option, or just a Utopian chimera?

HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE

Although it has never become a concrete and tangible reality, the UN ‘Legion’ is far from being just a chimerical object. What is at stake is not only an abstract idea, but also a recurrent and evolving debate, which has acquired a life and logic of its own, and therefore some degree of objective materiality. What strikes the observer at first sight are the often apparently irreconcilable positions taken by those who have contributed to the debate on the issue in academic, diplomatic or political circles. Even more striking is the perennial character of the debate, its periodical re-emergence, since the creation of the UN. The phenomenon, whose traces have been recorded in official documents, speeches and articles, can be studied independently from speculations over the chances of the project(s) ever to materialize. The evolution of the idea is not only cyclic but also dynamic, as the concept underwent a series of metamorphoses. First taking the form of a proposal for a modest UN Guard at the time of the UN Truce in Palestine, it later developed into the more ambitious project of a UN ‘Legion’ to fight communism in Korea. The landing of the French and British troops

Introduction

3

near Port Said during the Suez crisis gave birth to the concept of a UN Emergency Force, a ‘fire brigade’. The debate then focused on the idea of a UN Peace Force, whether for peacekeeping duties, at the time of the United Nations Operation in the Congo (ONUC), or for disarmament purposes, as the East–West tension and arms race was reaching dangerous proportions. Coinciding with the end of the Cold War, the Gulf War of 1991 resurrected the hopes for an international army, and led to the apparition of a new concept: the humanitarian force. Soon, the idea of a UN ‘Legion’ was proposed as a potential solution to the difficulties met by the UN when intervening militarily in internal conflict situations as in Angola, Cambodia, the former Yugoslavia or Somalia. Proposals for a United Nations ‘Standing Emergency Group’ and ‘Rapid Deployment Brigade’, following the Rwanda crisis of 1994, were based on the same principle, this time with the goal of preventing genocide. Each time, the concept seemed closer to fruition. The various proposals, projects and plans constitute the basic ‘raw material’ of this book. Sources range from official documents of the United Nations or Member States to published and unpublished works, speeches and working papers. In this respect, the Official Records of the United Nations General Assembly have been particularly useful in assessing the position of specific Member States or delegations at the General Assembly at any given time, especially at the time of the Suez intervention. As ideas and debates tend to find their expression in the media, their evolution can also be tracked using press reports. Articles from daily newspapers have therefore been extensively used in an attempt to trace the origins, sometimes ephemeral expression, and sinuous evolution of proposals. Systematic reference has been made to New York’s newspapers and in particular to the New York Times, one of the best sources of information about the UN after the Second World War. Regularly supplemented in its expert daily reports and analysis with a verbatim of each day’s proceedings at the Security Council, the newspaper was known in UN circles as ‘The Bible’,5 being the principal contact with the news from the outside world for most UN civil servants and delegates based in New York. In fact, when the Korean War broke out in 1950, the New York Times had a UN bureau of no fewer than ten headed by Thomas J. Hamilton, a correspondent of wide international experience. It is certainly not by chance that Arthur Hays Sulzberger, the then influential publisher of the New York Times, was a guest at the luncheon given by New York’s United Nations Committee to honour Trygve Lie’s appointment as the UN’s first Secretary-General.6 The New York Times became an actor in the debate over an international force by promoting it in its editorials, reports and ‘Letters to the Editor’. Major proposals, such as Harold Stassen’s ‘UN Legion’ (1943), Arthur

4


Koestler’s ‘European Legion of Liberty’ (1950) and Munro’s ‘UN Army’ (1958), were originally written for the New York Times Magazine.7 More recently, Urquhart’s call for a UN permanent military volunteer force was published by the New York Review of Books.8 The position and coverage given in such media to the subject of international force – whether on the front page or in foreign policy, theatre or sports news – is also a good indicator of the intensity of the debate at any given time. Still, that an idea has a past does not necessarily imply that it has a future. Do not repeated failures demonstrate the vanity of all efforts to promote the idea? Why study an idea proved to be ‘unrealistic’ or ‘Utopian’ in the past? Should not academic – and especially political – interest be focused on more practical and promising solutions? Alex Morrisson, recalling earlier failures to establish permanent military forces, suggested that ‘Arguments advancing a Standing Military Force as the solution to the world’s ills are exercises in procrastination and temporizing.’ 9 To him, Member States, especially those that have a special responsibility as members of the Security Council, should not focus on the form of the forces themselves. Rather, he asserted, states ought to devote more time to the proper employment of existing military forces already being placed at the disposal of the UN on an ad hoc basis and the solving of the underlying political causes of disputes leading, in the first place, to the establishment of such peacekeeping forces. Yet failures to implement an idea in the past are not sufficient to demonstrate absolute impracticality. History attests to the merits and value of mistakes and failure as part of a learning process, a process constitutive of the construction of communities and institutions. Arnold Toynbee, in an attempt to understand the significance of repetition and cyclic recurrence in history, would see failures and mistakes as an ‘instrument of freedom’ for creative action and positive wisdom.10

PHILOSOPHICAL PERSPECTIVE

Even assuming that repetitive failure to implement an idea may lead to a condemnation of new attempts, a mystery remains: if it was so obvious that the idea was bound to remain in the spheres of Utopia, how can we explain the interest and support it has received from respectable and well-known scholars and practitioners of international relations? Could the idea be the expression of an ‘illusion’, in the Freudian meaning of the term – that is to say derived, similar to an illusory idea, from human desires? While an illusory idea essentially contradicts reality, an illusion is not necessarily wrong, impractical, or in contradiction with reality.11 The idea of a UN ‘Legion’

Introduction

5

could then be seen as a pathological symptom: the external recurrent and visible sign of the contradictions of an institution that, while facing the challenges of reality, would have no escape other than taking refuge in imaginary solutions in the process of its self-destruction.12 Studying the idea of a UN ‘Legion’ could then help pinpoint – from the narrow angle of a superficial manifestation – the deepest origins of the contradictions of the UN. Still assuming the chimerical character of the idea, proposals for a UN ‘Legion’ could also have been designed to serve purely political aims, rather than constructive intentions. As an instrument of foreign policy, the idea could have been, for instance, a ‘joker’ card in a negotiation game. The feasibility of the proposal would then be secondary, its primary function being to ease a negotiation process, create a positive image, or discredit the other party in the negotiation. This was what Charles B. Marshall, of the Washington Centre of Foreign Policy Research, implied when he wrote about the American proposals for a world Peace Force presented at the 1962 Geneva Conference on Disarmament: As an element in the United States disarmament plan, the project for a world peace force may promote an aura of abstract good intention for United States policy. Its usefulness with respect to the credibility of United States policy is another matter.13 Should such a hypothesis be verified, then the idea of a UN ‘Legion’ should be denounced not only as a fallacy, but also as the disguise of less honourable designs and cynical strategies. If supporters’ intentions may be questioned, the same applies to those of the detractors. The idea may have been rejected for reasons having little to do with the general feasibility or desirability of the project. The main argument raised by the USSR against proposals for a ‘world army’ or ‘United Nations Force’ during the Cold War was their imperialist character as expression of the hegemonic foreign policy of the United States. India’s strong opposition to proposals for a ‘UN Police Force’, in the 1950s and later on, may be explained by a non-aligned position, the opposition to Pakistan on the issue of Kashmir, and other considerations having little to do with the intrinsic value of the project. One may wonder about the motivations underlying the recent US refusal to allow any leeway on the part of the UN Secretary-General to provide the UN with permanent military forces. Beyond subjectivity, the unresolved character of the debate may originate in a fundamental philosophical cleavage. As with any political problem, the question of a UN ‘Legion’ has been envisaged throughout time from different perspectives, reflecting deeply antagonistic philosophical conceptions of

6


the world and international relations. Depending on the conception of international relations, proposals were rejected or enthusiastically supported, sometimes regardless of their actual feasibility or desirability. Schematically speaking, beyond the question of the feasibility and desirability of the project itself, two schools are opposed in the debate: the Realist and the Idealist. For Realists, broadly speaking, international relations would be primarily dominated by force – hence the emphasis placed on the state as the main actor in international relations. International norms, from this perspective, may reflect little more than a certain status of forces at a certain time. For Idealists, law based on ideals and absolute values would be the supreme reference. Every effort should be made, from this angle, to place force at the service of law. Proposals for permanent military forces at the disposal of an international organization, be it the League of Nations or the present United Nations, have most of the time been made from the latter perspective. From an idealistic point of view, the idea of a UN ‘Legion’ could be seen as a ‘terminal point’,14 towards which the world would be progressing through the overcoming of cyclic crises. Along the lines of Kant’s conception of universal history, through wars, the result would be the gradual setting up of a league of nations, that is, a ‘united force’, established on the basis of laws jointly agreed upon.15 From the latter point of view, the idea of a UN ‘Legion’, more than just a project whose feasibility can be discussed on practical grounds, has – at least in the mind of its supporters – an ideal and moral character making its realization necessary whatever the obstacles. Because of the ideal and moral character of its goal, the complete realization of the idea may be seen as being at the same time inescapable and, by definition, always beyond reach. The idea still has some materiality; it is not pure chimera.16 It is a necessary solution, to be seriously considered, and sooner or later implemented. The argument of feasibility, raised by the Realists, will be seen by Idealists as a pretext for passivity and refusal of reform. By contrast, from the Realists’ perspective, the idea of a UN permanent military volunteer force will be viewed as a Utopia, or a dream (or, depending on the perspective, a nightmare), either unlikely ever to materialize or likely to be rejected at all costs to the benefit of more practical solutions. Realists, objecting on the basis of past experience, will list all the possible obstacles making, in their opinion, the idea impractical and its realization impossible. Yet both visions start from the same assumption: the historical importance of force in international relations. Typically, for supporters of a permanent military volunteer force, such as Ried, the most effective sanction is an international force ever ready to compel disputants to settle their disagreements by peaceful means, as ‘History gives evidence that force has and may well

Introduction

7

continue to be the chief arbiter in the game of world politics.’ 17 The difference is in the emphasis: while Idealists would stress the importance on ideal norms, to which force should be subjected, Realists would tend to see in laws the mere consequence of a balance of power at any given time. What paradoxically appear ‘Utopian’ to Idealists are the – perhaps more ‘pragmatic’, but often ineffective – peace pacts, limitation of armaments, ‘use of force only for self-defence’, and so on, proposed in the absence of an international military force to secure the compliance with law. Hence General Jean Cot’s question: ‘We should perhaps reverse the terms of the questions and ask ourselves, a contrario what will the UN become if it does not avail itself of a rapidly deployable military force?’ 18 Similarly, for Philip Noel-Baker who, in 1958, supported the idea of a directly recruited UN international force interspersed with a nuclear stock to implement disarmament: ‘These proposals are not “starry eyed” idealism. They are plain, realistic common sense. The romanticists are those who still believe that modern armaments can make a nation safe.’ 19 In other words, force is primarily seen by Realists as a determining factor to be used to one’s own advantage, preventing by definition the full implementation of ideal norms and international law. It is primarily seen by Idealists as a potential instrument that could make the implementation of international law – based on ideal norms – possible. At one extreme, state sovereignty is seen as a sacrosanct limit to the development of any kind of supranational institution; at the other, international relations are considered as an organic extension of the organization within states, thus always progressing towards greater institutionalization, and finally to world government. Typical of the former view is General Morillon’s sceptical position on the possibility of setting up an ‘international army’ permanently at the disposal of the Secretary-General: This is a good idea. But let’s be realistic. This does not mean that we will constitute an international army. There cannot be any as long as there will not be a government to assign its missions and as long as nations will remain sovereign.20 While Realists will tend to see the emergence of the nation-state as a longterm obstacle to international force, Idealists will typically see in it a model, or a ‘pilot project’ for future international organization. Secretary-General Sithu U Thant saw in the development of an international order ‘enshrined in an accepted code of world law and guaranteed by an effective world police force’ a long-standing human aspiration. To him, such a dream was based on a reasonable idea, the projection of the situation of a state on to the

8


relations between nations. At the national level, the evolution from a situation of anarchy and conflict to one of relative stability and orderliness was made possible through popular representation, a sound system of law and a reliable police force. ‘In our world’, reflected U Thant, ‘we reached a similar intolerable situation many years ago, and have twice in this century paid a terrible price for having failed to draw the necessary conclusions.’ 21 As expressed by Richard W. Van Wagenen in 1954, ‘international organizations will not be substantially strengthened until the sense of community underlying them is itself strengthened’. In other words, studying the process by which relevant types of community are built may be the best way to go about studying international organization: ‘The idea of an international police force lies at or near the core of the problem, remote as the establishment of such a force may be.’ 22 One should also be aware, however, of the ‘dangers’ of privileging one extreme position over the other. Cynics, such as Adolf Hitler, claimed to be Idealists, while Utopian Idealists typically claim to be the ultimate Realists. The perception of what is ‘possible’ or ‘impossible’ may evolve, and change radically with time. The notions of ‘reality’ and the ‘possible’ put forward by the Realists are – as much as the notion of the ‘desirable’ and the ‘necessary’ proposed by the Idealists – always subjective. They may, in some cases, reflect nothing more than a determination either to defend a particular status quo or to promote a different order. Asked whether he would define himself as an Idealist, General Jean Cot replied: ‘I am indeed not a realist, if being a realist means finding, because of one’s particular interest, excuses not to do what one ought to do.’ 23 The optimistic (?) belief in a continuous progress towards a society, or world, without conflicts originates in a certain interpretation of history and of the destiny of mankind, which may turn out to be only the projection of one’s own desires to impose a different order. Expressions such as ‘global civil society’, ‘universal citizenship’, ‘world constitutionalism’, ‘transnational democracy’, ‘global governance’, ‘international public opinion’, and so on may therefore be said to belong to a normative vocabulary, not only unrealizable in the near future, but also of limited desirability.24 Depending on the selected criteria, or the approach adopted, to define the ‘possible’ and the ‘impossible’, several fields of the possible may even be envisaged (reactionary, conservative, progressive, ‘visionary’,and so on).25 Indeed, both the Realist and the Idealist visions, in their extreme expression, can be suspected of the same philosophical sin, that is, avoiding the inherent contradictions of reality in general and international relations in particular: the former by neglecting the importance of the idealistic foundations of human collective actions; the latter by neglecting the irreducible

Introduction

9

limits posed to human freedom by the constraints of international reality. If the definition of Utopianism is therefore at the heart of the debate on international force, it is also closely linked to the relatively partial character of the above-mentioned perspectives. Assuming the validity of both the Realist and the Idealist visions, could not Utopianism be the extreme expression of these two antagonistic – and limited – perspectives? Similar to the magic and the deal with the devil through which Faustus manages to free himself from the determinism of human actions, Utopianism would enlarge the field of possibility beyond human conditions, allowing human beings ‘to dissociate possibility from the boundaries of necessity implied by the actual enactment of actions’.26 ‘Utopia’ could then be located at both ends of the philosophical spectrum. At one end, a ‘negative’ Utopia: a cynical, determinist vision of war as the intangible rule of internal relations, leading to pacification through universal domination. At the other end, a ‘positive’ Utopia: a Kantian, voluntarist, belief in peace conceived as an ideal and moral objective of a progressively built world community. The cleavage, ultimately, would be between two opposite, but somehow complementary, Weltanschaung: one envisaging the use of force and the self-interested search for power by states as an original and ineluctable state of affairs (‘law of the jungle’); the other starting from the belief in the freedom of individual human beings (or world citizens) to decide their own destiny in order to place force at the service of the common interest (‘world peace through world law’). If, from a pragmatic perspective, the political goals are evaluated in the light of the conditions necessary for action, rather than just determined by reality or inspired by external principles, the difficulty then resides in the definition of the limits of pragmatism. Pragmatism can hardly be considered a separate and distinct philosophical category; it could at best be seen as equilibrium between two extreme perspectives at a given time.27 Yet, by its balanced character, it is located at the antipodes of both types of Utopianism. Halfway between the two, it takes as a given the contraction inherent to reality and human action. An attitude more than a philosophy of action, it can be understood only from a historical perspective, at a particular moment of time.

POLICY PERSPECTIVE

Is a UN ‘Legion’ a potentially valid policy option? To remain legitimate and serve their purpose, policy decisions that concern common interests cannot limit themselves to ruthlessly cynical strategies with ‘realistic’ short-term

10


finalities. Nor can they, if they are to remain efficient and credible, take the risk of embarking on impractical or unworkable ‘idealistic’ projects whose outcome is at best uncertain, at worse counterproductive. Any ‘policy of the possible’ will have to take into account both the realistically possible and the ideally desirable at a given time. It is pragmatic in essence, as Realpolitik has to consider both the causes and the effects of human actions. Moral imperatives will be integrated in the decision-making process within the limits imposed by material constraints. As with the pragmatists’ approach, policy is seen as equilibrium between constraint and necessity at a given time. From this perspective, the implementation of the project of a UN permanent military volunteer force will eventually depend not only on its desirability (its moral character), but also on its feasibility (its practical character). As seen earlier, the evolution of the idea of a UN ‘Legion’ is a dynamic phenomenon. The constant evolution of international relations, by modifying the parameters of political action, leads to the necessity of constant reevaluation of the idea. As the perception of both external constraints and moral imperative evolves, each re-emergence of the idea will have to be evaluated and discussed in its specific historical context. The dynamic character of our object has certainly complicated the debate even further, as there was barely any agreement on the specific characters of the force being discussed. Important differences can be found from one proposal to the other, in particular concerning the force’s strength and missions. Beyond the various versions of the proposals and the different contexts in which they were made, another reason for confusion is the idea that the UN ‘Legion’ proposal is also a composite concept. It displays several essential aspects: international, standing, military, volunteer, and in its latest versions, UN, force. To determine to what extent the version of the idea studied is ‘Utopian’ at a given time, one has to evaluate methodically the arguments relating to each of these characteristics. To do so, one has to determine in which way the idea could be a solution at a given time: to what problem, why, and how. The main military challenges facing the UN have to be identified. The limits of the organization’s capacity to respond to such challenges and the origins of its weaknesses have to be analysed. The advantages of the idea of a UN ‘Legion’, as compared to other existing options, have to be discussed. Finally, what reforms of the UN would be necessary parallel with, or prior to, the implementation of the idea have to be presented. Only when the limits and implications of the idea will have been determined could the arguments in favour of the UN permanent military volunteer force be weighed against the obstacles to its realization.

Introduction

11

Ultimately, one has to distinguish between the different categories of obstacles that, depending on their nature, may affect the overall feasibility of the project in different ways. Some obstacles, as real and concrete as they may be, may be only circumstantial and temporary. Such obstacles would make the creation of a UN ‘Legion’ ‘unrealistic’ only in present circumstances. What appears ‘Utopian’ today could become the reality of tomorrow. Calling for the immediate realization of the idea in this case could be visionary Utopianism. While the idea would have to be considered a valid policy option for the future, a number of preconditions for its realization could already be identified. It may also be that, independent of the practical obstacles to its realization, the concept may suffer intrinsic contradictions, making the proposals ‘Utopian’, out of reach. In this case, legal, political, financial and military objections would be the recurrent expression of such contradictions, rather than the reflection of temporary obstacles. The project could even be a dangerous and counterproductive theoretical construction, potentially a ‘negative’ Utopia whose construction would worsen the state of international relations. The idea of a UN ‘Legion’, as attractive as it may be, could then obviously not be considered a valid policy option for the future, at least as presented today. Depending on the origin of the contradictions – which would have to be identified – the project would have to be modified, or definitively abandoned. This book is an attempt to determine in a perhaps Manichean, but I hope more comprehensive approach, the logic of the historical re-emergence of the idea. It seeks to identify the source of its duality, thereby highlighting its relevance and precious heuristic value. Rather than putting an end to the debate, it tends to demonstrate that the discussion over the desirability and feasibility of a UN ‘Legion’ is inherent to the goals and functioning of the organization. It will continue, as long as the development of international organization will not allow for a better equation between the means and the goals of the UN. At which cost, and how fast, remains to be seen. Chapters 1 to 3 focus on the historical origins and the evolution of the idea up to 1989, and the reciprocal influence of military experiments of the UN and proposals for international force during the Cold War. Chapter 4, following the thread of international disarmament efforts, looks at how the threat of nuclear war affected the discussion on a UN ‘Legion’ throughout the Cold War. Chapters 5 to 8, concentrating on the post-Cold War debate on international force, and seeking to examine the pros and cons and determine what obstacles may still stand in the way, are an attempt to understand the long-term significance of the phenomenon.

12

A UN ‘Legion’: Between Utopia and Reality NOTES

1. Annual Report of the Secretary-General on the Work of the Organization, 1 July 1947– 30 June 1948, p. xvii; Press Release M/446, 10 June 1948, p. 4; A/656, 28 September 1948; T. Lie, In the Cause of Peace (New York: Macmillan, 1954), p. 192; Report of the Special Commission for the Creation of a United Nations Guard, General Assembly, 4th Sess., Suppl. 13, A/959, 1949, GAOR; S. M. Schwebel, ‘A United Nations “Guard” and a United Nations “Legion”’, in W. Frye (ed.), A United Nations Peace Force (New York: Oceana for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1957), pp. 195–216. 2. H. E. Stassen, ‘Blueprint for a World Government’, New York Times Magazine, 23 May 1943, pp. 8, 34. 3. See, inter alia, W. Pfaff, ‘There Is No World Community’, International Herald Tribune, 22 April 1994; P. Diehl, ‘A Permanent United Nations Peacekeeping Force – An Evaluation’, Bulletin of Peace Proposals, 20, 1 (1989), p. 35; R. Oakley, ‘A United Nations Volunteer Force – The Prospects’, New York Review of Books, 15 July 1993, p. 52; Field Marshal Lord Craver, ‘A United Nations Volunteer Military Force – Four Views’, New York Review of Books, 24 June 1993, p. 58; A. Roberts, ‘Proposals for United Nations Standing Forces: History, Tasks and Obstacles’, in D. Leurdijk (ed.), A UN Rapid Deployment Brigade: Strengthening the Capacity for Quick Response (The Hague: Netherlands Institute of International Relations ‘Clingendael’, 1995), p. 43. 4. P. Langille, ‘Conflict Prevention: Options for Rapid Deployment and UN Standing Forces’, in O. Ransbotham and Tom Woodhouse (eds), Warlords, Hawks and Doves: Peacekeeping as Conflict Resolution (London: Frank Cass, 2000). 5. H. Tavares de Sá, The Play within the Play – The Inside Story of the United Nations (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1966), p. 81. 6. T. Lie, Cause of Peace, p. 72. 7. Stassen, ‘Blueprint for a World Government’; A. Koestler, ‘For a European “Legion of Liberty”’, New York Times Magazine, 8 October 1950, pp. 9 ff; Sir L. Munro, ‘The Case for a U.N. Standing Army’, New York Times Magazine, 27 July 1958, pp. 8, 27. 8. Sir B. Urquhart, ‘For a United Nations Volunteer Military Force’, New York Review of Books, XL, 11, 10 June 1993, pp. 3–4. 9. A. Morrisson, ‘A Standing United Nations Military Force: Future Prospects’, in D. A. Charters (ed.), Peacekeeping and the Challenge of Civil Conflict Resolution, Proceedings of the Sixth Annual Conflict Studies Conference, University of New Brunswick, September 1992 (New Brunswick: Centre for Conflict Studies, 1994), p. 202. 10. A. Toynbee, Est-ce que l’histoire se répète?, La civilisation à l’épreuve (Paris: Librairie Gallimard, 1951), p. 49. 11. J. Servier, Histoire de l’Utopie (Paris: Gallimard (NRF), 1967, pp. 372–3. 12. See S. Hazzard, Defeat of an Ideal – A Study of the Self-Destruction of the United Nations (London: Macmillan, 1973), pp. XVI–286. 13. C. B. Marshall, ‘Character and Mission of a United Nations Peace Force, under Conditions of General and Complete Disarmament’, American Political Science Review, 59, 2 (June 1965), p. 364. 14. Dr C. R. Siekmann, ‘Political Aspects of a Directly Recruited Permanent United Nations Force’, International Peacekeeping, 2, 4 (June–July 1995), p. 92. 15. I. Kant, Idée d’une Histoire universelle au point de vue cosmopolitique, trans. Jacqueline Lafitte (Paris: Nathan, 1994), p. 34. 16. I. Kant, La Critique de la Raison Pure (Paris: Gallimard, 1980), p. 1027.

Introduction

13

17. Capt. G. H. Ried, Some Considerations in the Establishment of an International Security Force (New York: Syracuse, 1949). (Microfilms), p. 5. 18. Interview with Gen. Jean Cot by the author, Geneva, 7 October 1996. 19. P. Noel-Baker, The Arms Race – A Programme for World Disarmament (London: Atlantic Books, Stevens & Sons, 1958), pp. 560–1. 20. ‘Les moyens de l’intervention’, Intervenir? Droits de la Personne et Raisons d’Etat, Intervention by Gen. P. Morillon, Forum international sur l’intervention, la Sorbonne, 16 et 17 December 1993, p. 351 (author’s translation). 21. ‘United Nations Peace Force’, An address to the Harvard Alumni Association, delivered in Cambridge, MA, by the Secretary-General of the United Nations U Thant, 13 June 1963, in L. P. Bloomfield (ed.), International Military Forces – The Question of Peacekeeping in an Armed and Disarming World (Boston, MA: Little, Brown, 1964), p. 259. 22. W. Buchanan, H. E. Krugman and R. W. Van Wagenen, An International Police Force and Public Opinion: Polled Opinion in the US, 1939–1953 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Publications, 1954), p. 3. 23. Interview with Gen. Jean Cot by the author, Geneva, 7 October 1996. 24. ‘Globalization, International Complexity and the Risks of Political Cosmopolitanism’, Conference by Danilo Zolo à l’Institut d’Etudes Politiques Internationales (Lausanne), Lausanne, 13 June 1996, p. 6. 25. F. Masnata, Le politique et la liberté, principes d’anthropologie politique (Paris: L’Harmattan, 1990), p. 97. 26. V. Wagner, Bound to Act: An Analysis of Models of Action as Dramatised in Selected Literary and Philosophical Texts, Thesis (Geneva: University of Geneva, July 1995), p. 50. 27. J.-P. Cometti, ‘Le Pragmatisme de Dewey à Rawls’, Philosophie Politique, 7 (1995), pp. 85–6; F. R. Tesón, ‘Some Observations on John Rawls’ The Law of People’, Proceedings on the Eighty-eighth Annual Meeting of the American Society of International Law (Washington, DC: The American Society of International Law, 6–9 April 1994), pp. 18– 22; F. R. Tesòn, ‘John Rawls and Cultural Relativism’, Chapter 2, Section IV of Humanitarian Intervention: An Inquiry into Law and Morality (New York: Transnational Publishers, 1988), pp. 31–41.

ONE

Origins

The experience of the last war demonstrates conclusively the feasibility of building upon an Organization of sanctions under a Unified Command … even the pitfalls of nationalism can be circumvented, as the existence of military organizations such as the French Foreign Legion and the Changaï Police Force amply proves. Lord David Davies, Force, 1934

As once observed by one of the first historians of the concept, a UN ‘Legion’ did not spring fully armed from the brain of the first Secretary-General, Trygve Lie, it could ‘boast a long and distinguished lineage revealing myriad variations determined by differences of epoch and environment’.1 In view of its remarkable fighting record, but also because it was a homogeneous force under a single command, the French Foreign Legion had long been seen as an example worthy of serious consideration to organize an international police force. The history of the idea of an international, permanent, directly recruited, military force is also deeply rooted in the Second World War and the period immediately preceding it. While the agony of the League of Nations provoked renewed thinking on ways to effectively implement collective security, the creation of the UN in 1945 was a powerful catalyst for a new series of proposals. Soon, the failure of the brand new institution to draw appropriate lessons by availing itself with appropriate military means on a permanent basis provided a basis for reinventing the old idea.

A STILL-BORN SYSTEM OF COLLECTIVE SECURITY

As a form of international military cooperation, the UN began with the wartime Allied Command, long before its actual creation: as a form of international organization, established on the ruins of the League of Nations, it

Origins

15

was a direct continuation of that cooperation. Not only was the experience of the League of Nations in the minds of those who prepared the UN Charter, but the structure of the Covenant and the proposed Charter had striking similarities.2 The search for a new system of collective security, initiated between the two world wars, intensified during the conflict, thus directly shaping reflection on a permanent and directly recruited international force. The compromise eventually adopted by the UN, entering into force on 24 October 1945, did not survive the beginning of the Cold War, making a UN ‘Legion’ a theoretical – although not necessarily more viable – alternative.

High Expectations The military arrangements adopted by the founders of the UN at the San Francisco Conference cannot be understood outside their context, that is, the ongoing reflection of international force at the time. Immediately preceding the creation of the UN, several plans and proposals for an international force were made, either to replace or complement the moribund League of Nations (before the Second World War), or to serve as a model for the future world organization (during and immediately after the Second World War). Exploratory Work Precedents for the use of an international force at the time of the League of Nations included the Schleswig plebiscite in 1920 and the case of Upper Silesia in 1921. The first truly international military force was established by League of Nations resolutions of 8 and 11 December 1934 for the purpose of assisting in maintaining order during the plebiscite in the Saar Basin. It consisted of a group of 3,300 men of which 1,500 were British, 1,300 Italian, 250 Dutch, and 250 Swedish. The force, under the authority of a commander designated by the British government, was composed of national contingents, and was to intervene either at the request of the Governing Commission of the Saar, or, in an emergency, on the initiative of its commander.3 Prominent British and French personalities such as Lord Davies, Léon Bourgeois and Henry de Jouvenel supported the establishment of an international force under one form or another.4 Immediately before the Second World War, the debate became very active: some, such as the French politician Paul Painlevé, advocated a force composed of military units or contingents which would remain under their national command; others, such as the Women’s Organization for World Order, represented in

16


Switzerland, Austria, Czechoslovakia and Canada, supported the concept of a directly recruited force proposing during the period 1935–38 a League of Nations project including a world order force to be composed of men and women volunteers from all nations under the command of a ‘world government’.5 In Britain in particular, such calls motivated military personnel to initiate groundwork and undertake research on the possible design of such a force. In doing so, they were able to draw lessons from the latest progress in military technology and strategy and pave the way for future analysis and criticism of the system of national contingents, as opposed to direct enlistment of military personnel by an international organization. The plan published in May 1939 by the Military Research Committee (MRC) of the London-based New Commonwealth Institute is of particular interest, in view of both its timing and its content.6 The Committee began work in December 1936; its goal: to establish a detailed scheme for the organization of an international police force. A preliminary report, concluded in May 1937, served as the basis for a further study, ‘Air Force for the Peace Front’ (which took into consideration criticism received), aimed at ‘setting forth what, subject to existing morals, seemed technically feasible, and technically capable of creating a powerful deterrent against aggressive policies’.7 The MRC, in an attempt to define the concept of ‘international police force’, recalled first that the term ‘police’ is usually applied to ‘the forcible agency of a régime claiming legal authority for its orders’. Yet it discarded from the outset as ‘academic’ and ‘utopian’ the idea of attempting to draw a detailed scheme for an international police force to be placed at the service of an overriding legal system or super state. Rather, given the conditions prevailing at the time, it proposed an ‘insurance on which States could rely more fully than on current methods of security’.8 The idea that air power could deter aggression and that an international air force should be created received support from various circles between the two world wars. Among its promoters were two Frenchmen, André Tardieu and Edouard Herriot, who made it an integral part of their official brief to the Disarmament Conference in 1932. Military developments led authors such as Allan Michie to further develop the argument during the Second World War.9 Considering air force as the ‘only kind of force able to promptly fulfil this function’, the MRC envisaged two options: a force composed of quotas contributed by the national forces of participating states; or a force constituted as an ‘independent organic whole’ that is recruited by individual volunteer enlistment. A detailed analysis of the advantages and disadvantages of the first option, the quota system, followed. Leitmotiv of all future critics of the UN military system of earmarked national contingents, the weaknesses

Origins

17

identified were: the structure of command, as illustrated by the then recent experience of Allied Command; the difficulty to prepare a plan of attack for every potential enemy; heterogeneity, national allegiance, mutual jealousy and the lack of coordination within the force; the uncertainty over commitment of troops when urgently needed to act against an aggressor; and the possibility of a state retaining its contingent for its own purposes when fearful of an attack. Starting from the premise that the force should be ‘as efficient, as homogeneous and as certain to act when required as humanly possible’, the MRC concluded that ‘the disadvantages of the plan of composing the force out of national contingents much outweighs the advantages’. Consequently, individual enlistment was considered the best option, the organization of common defence on the basis of national contingents being seen only as a useful potential ‘interim measure’.10 Based on these conclusions, the MRC recommended the creation of an international force or ‘International Strategic Reserve’ (ISR), to be recruited on an individual and voluntary basis. Safeguards were envisaged against disproportionate participation from any member country to avoid the ‘undesirable impression that the force could be dominated by one or more of the Great Powers’. An international recruitment board would be charged with the task of directly recruiting men and women aged between 18 and 30 within the territories of the contributing states. Recruits would be released from all national duties that could interfere with ISR duties and trained in special cadet-training schools where the necessary esprit de corps would be developed. They would take an oath of service, including renunciation to national allegiance and commitment to impartiality. A special passport, replacing their national passport, would be issued not only to members of the force, but also to members of their family. Upon completion of service, retiring international soldiers would be entitled to citizenship in the country of their choice without having to apply for naturalization. Officers would be recruited and not merely seconded from trained officers of the government of a contributing state. A common language would be adopted. Bases for the ISR would be provided by each contributing state and given extra-territorial status, the dispersion of ground resources being a guarantee against the risk of the force being crippled by a single strike. It would be equipped to undertake all-out war with aircraft comprising bombers and escort and fighter planes. Arrangements to provide the force with the necessary freedom of movement as well as supply of aircraft and armament were envisaged. A board of control representing associated powers would be established, decisions being taken by a majority of votes, each contributing state being given power of veto. Provision would be made for the creation of an intelligence service, liaison officers being attached to each contributing state. For

18


better coordination, the air force of the state being defended would be expected in most cases to surrender to the command of the ISR. Finally, a reserve would be constituted.11 Wartime Reflections Reflection on the need for an international force continued throughout the war, as demonstrated by the number of works on the subject published during this period. The idea of the United Nations was embodied in the Atlantic Charter, signed by Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill aboard HMS Prince of Wales on 14 August 1941. On 1 January 1942, in the ‘Declaration by United Nations’, signed by the United States and its 25 allies and reiterating the principles of the Atlantic Charter, the term ‘United Nations’ is used officially for the first time.12 Proposals multiplied, initiated by various personalities such as Marcel de Baer (Belgium), Count Richard N. Coudenhove-Kalergi (France), Edward J. Bing, Robert Morrison, MacIver Michael Young (UK), Walter Nash (New Zealand), Max Habicht (Switzerland) and John H. Rosser (Australia). The discussion was particularly intense in the USA, with proposals by Eldon Griffin, Richard Burton Johnson, Herbert F. Rudd, Wallace C. Speers, Jennie McMullin Turner, Abe Rogow and Sumner Welles.13 As recalled by Brian Urquhart: In 1942, only a few months after the United States had entered World War II, as Hitler plunged deeper into Russia and Japan was advancing victoriously throughout the Pacific, President Roosevelt, Secretary of State Curdell Hull, and his deputy, Sumner Welles, along with many politicians, journalists and academics, were already involved in a debate on post-war arrangements. Many of the proposals were far-reaching, even revolutionary.14 Particularly illustrative of the expectations raised by the prospect of a new international organization during this period are: Ely Culbertson’s plan for a ‘world federation’, first mooted in 1942; Harold E. Stassen’s ‘blueprint for a world government’ one year later; and Victor Altman’s concept of an ‘international police and world security’, in 1945. An expert on mass psychology, Ely Culbertson was better known for writing books on card games, particularly Bridge. However, born out of a personal interest in building a ‘new system for a Co-operative of Nations’, his ‘world federation plan’ was presented as the result of his lifelong research. Based on the assumption of total victory over Nazi Germany and its allies, the plan was intended as a ‘concrete and global proposal for world

Origins

19

settlement’, including an international police force. One premise of Culbertson’s reflection is that ‘the world being what it is, lasting world peace is impossible without an international police force strong enough to overpower any aggressor or combination of aggressor nations’.15 This assumed permanent and effective world disarmament. Culbertson yet warned against the danger of having the government of a world organization in possession of an overwhelming force. The greatest danger, he thought, would be to see the central world force evolve into a corps of ‘janissaries’ or a ‘praetorian guard’. According to Culbertson’s plan, an international police force would therefore be placed at the disposal of the supranational government of a world federation organized according to the regional principle. Culbertson proposed a dual system. On the one hand, national contingents, although maintained and supported by the world federation, would remain a national force of their country of origin. These contingents, thus only ‘lend-leased’ to member countries, would become automatically part of the world police in case of emergency. On the other hand, in addition to this reserve force, an international mobile corps (IMC) would remain under the direct command of the world federation at all times. The only force in the world armed with heavy weapons, it would thus constitute 12 separate armies, including 11 national contingents and one international contingent or ‘mobile corps’. The IMC, at the immediate disposal of the world federation, would play the role of shock troops, and its members would become citizens of the federation. According to the plan, the members of the world police ‘shall be highly paid volunteers, with secondary school education or the equivalent, and conscious of their mission as soldiers of peace’. Volunteers for national contingents would be recruited for six years, while those volunteering for the IMC would serve one year. Upon completion of service, preferential treatment in terms of training and selection for civil service would be given to members of the world police. Although recruitment modalities are nowhere discussed in detail, Culbertson appeared to support direct international enlistment. While the national contingents would be recruited from the citizens of each initiating state, the IMC would be made up of units of regiments of the same nationality recruited from all member states other than the initiating states. Both the 11 national contingents and the IMC would be divided by quotas, taking into account factors such as industrial power, the size of national territory, and psychological considerations. By pooling military resources of the ‘United Nations’, the system aimed at the creation of a cost-effective collective army. It was envisaged that most of the national contingents would be stationed in the country of origin of its members while the IMC would be located on a strategically selected island. Culbertson envisaged a world

20


police comprising not less than 2 million men, 50,000 warplanes, 100,000 tanks and guns and 100,000 battleships or aircraft carriers.16 Harold E. Stassen’s ‘blueprint for a world government’ is perhaps the most visionary contribution to the debate. A US politician, Stassen, at the age of 31, had been elected the youngest Governor in the history of his country, before resigning on 27 April 1943 to serve in the Pacific as a lieutenant commander in the Navy and aide to Admiral William Halsey. After his resignation, in an article entitled ‘Blueprint for a World Government’, Stassen called for the setting up of a federal organization, the ‘United Nations of the World’.17 Stassen saw in the joint actions carried out during the war the beginning of a world government, and an opportunity for the United States to assume a degree of responsibility equal to her position in world affairs, particularly in the role of peacemaker. In any case, a ‘new and higher level of government’ with limited powers delegated to it by nations but with the power to develop a sophisticated governmental machinery that could address postwar global issues was necessary. One step in that direction could be the creation of a single house or parliament in which nations would be represented and given voting power in proportion to their strength in world affairs. An executive body, a seven-member United Nations council, designated by the chairman of the parliament, would be responsible and accountable to the legislative branch. The ‘United Nations government’ would have several functions, including the following: establishing temporary governments or trusteeships; administrating international airways and airports, and the gateways to the seven seas; contributing to the increase in trade between nations; increasing the literacy and improving the health of the world population; and establishing a United Nations court and a world code of justice emphasizing human rights and the protection of minorities. Last but not least, Stassen suggested the creation of a United Nations ‘legion’, or ‘keep the peace force’, to be directly recruited on a quota basis and ‘consisting of units of air, naval and mechanised land forces made up of citizens of the United Nations’. The international force thus constituted would not supplant military forces of individual nations, at least initially, but the importance of the latter could gradually decrease in proportion to the confidence placed in the ability of the United Nations legion to enforce the code of justice, support United Nations administration of airways, seaways and trusteeships and ensure disarmament of potential aggressors.18 A pioneer, Stassen was not completely isolated in favouring individual recruitment as the best mode for the constitution of a world police force. For example, Eldon Griffin’s ‘United Nations’ World Government’ favoured an international police force made up of volunteers whose primary task was to

Origins

21

prevent disorder and military activity on the part of member nations, but who would also monitor elections, protect minorities and take action in case of any threat to world peace; Herbert F. Rudd proposed the establishment of an international police force totalling some 400,000 soldiers composed of volunteers from member nations in proportion to national representation in congress; a system envisaged the same year by a former member of the legal section of the League of Nations Secretariat, Max Habicht, had international decisions being enforced by professional soldiers recruited on a voluntary basis from all nations; and Michael Young advocated a world police force comprising a military high command, a naval command and an air high command to implement decisions of a high tribunal of justice following Hitler’s defeat.19 Victor Altman had read both the MRC’s report and Ely Culbertson’s world federation plan. Elaborating on these proposals in The International Police and World Security, published in 1945, he proposed instead the creation of an international police placed at the disposal of an organization still to be created, the ‘United States of Europe’. In this context, Altman envisaged three options for the structure of the international police: 1. A supply of national quotas whose upkeep and the provision of equipment would be the responsibility of Member States; moreover, they would remain under national command in peacetime. 2. An independent international land, sea and air force, largely centralized, with national armies reduced to a minimum, 3. A combined system of national quotas held in readiness by Member States together with a permanent police force immediately available to be used as a strike force. For Altman, there were two disadvantages to the first option. First there was the risk of antagonism between national general staff and an international command.20 Second, it was fraught with ‘grave dangers’. According to him, contingents would ‘never be able to develop that consciousness of their supranational character which must pervade the International Police if it is to be adequate to its task’.21 Moreover, it was thought that the ad hoc character of the arrangement, resulting in lack of previous collaboration, uniformed training and standardized equipment, would negatively affect both the striking power and the command of national contingents. The prospect that strong states may evade their military obligations at the time of crisis was a decisive argument for an international police to be directly recruited. The international police would be charged to uphold the security of states

22


and public life, on the one hand, and to protect persons and property, on the other, enabled by a strike force comprising infantry, tanks, artillery, engineers and supply. A quota force would be set up within the individual Member States of the United States of Europe. The command structure of the international police would comprise a supreme commander responsible for an international court; four commanders-in-chief in charge of establishing the international police into four regional units designated Region I (Northern Block, North-eastern Block), Region II (Western Block, Great Britain, Iberian Block), Region III (Switzerland, Central European Block, Balkan Block) and Region IV (Germany); commanders of quota contingents, commanders of arms – infantry (tank), artillery, engineers and supply – and a general staff overseeing a central intelligence department (CID). In addition, a central bureau of European investigation (CBI), with headquarters in Vienna, made up of local CBI organizations with 22 subdivisions in 22 European cities subordinated to CBI headquarters, each subdivision being directed by a CBI commissioner would be responsible for protecting persons and property. Option two was considered ‘not immediately desirable’ in view of prevailing international conditions and atmosphere. Quoting Lord David Davies, Altman estimated that ‘a superlative superiority expressed in a monopoly of power might jeopardise the success of the entire plan’. Altman saw in the third option a solution likely to ‘obviate the dangers in the other two’. Such a system would not only provide an element of permanence and stability, but also partly solve the problem of sovereignty as national quotas would remain under national command. Moreover, it would be easier to amalgamate the two types of force in case of mobilization. The fusion of national units into a more homogeneous force at a later stage could be prepared in advance through close collaboration between the high command and the general staff of the permanent international police. Based on the above analysis, the total strength of the international police at the service of the United States of Europe would be around 1,250,000 soldiers, including a directly recruited permanent international police, or strike force, of about 416,000 soldiers. The strike force, supplied with the most up-to-date equipment and arms, would comprise four branches: land, air, sea and chemical warfare. Recruiting would be conducted directly by the supreme command of the international police by means of agents sent annually to member countries, in cooperation with local police authorities. The idea behind the arrangement was clearly to ‘leave the Supreme Command with the largest possible measure in selecting recruits’.22 Special attention would be given to the proper selection of volunteers, ensured through stringent tests. The international police, thought Altman, would

Origins

23

attract the ‘young men of tomorrow, unburdened by sad experience, idealistic, keen for adventure and action on the battlefields of peaceful endeavour’.23 His conclusion was that, ‘being a volunteer force, the International Police will be an international elite, provided that recruits are selected on the right lines – to form an army, not of adventurers or mercenaries, but of “special constables” who will truly be Guardians of Peace’.24

Limited Results The Moscow Declaration proclaimed on 30 October 1943 the need to set up a world organization based on the principle of the equality of sovereign states. From 21 August to 7 October 1944, US, British, Chinese and Russian lawyers met in Dumbarton Oaks, near Washington, DC, and, clearly, inspired by the recommendations for an international force made in 1943 came up with a set of proposals which later constituted the terms of reference of the United Nations Charter Conference held in San Francisco from April to June 1945.25 Ruth B. Russell, referring to US Department of State publications, noted that ‘occasional official remarks have implied that there was some “original” idea that the United Nations should have a standing force of some kind available to implement its decisions, presumably of the second sort, that is, directly recruited’.26 In return, the preliminary meetings at Dumbarton Oaks of plenipotentiaries of the Four Powers seem to have had a strong stimulating effect on such reflection. The creation of the United Nations Organization, far from disarming supporters of a directly recruited international military force, provided them with additional ammunition: first, because of the limitations of the system of international military force envisaged in Article 43 of the Charter; second, because of the eventual non-implementation of Article 43, from the start depriving the UN from the already limited military means states had formally agreed upon. Weaknesses of the System The limits and the advantages of the system contained in the Dumbarton Oaks proposals – that is the resort to national contingents remaining under national control – were well described by a commentator, Percy E, Corbett in November 1944: The plan itself is not utopian … It does not satisfy the demands that the war has stimulated in many quarters for radically new departures in political organization. It does not echo the higher notes of idealism struck by some foremost political leaders in

24

A UN ‘Legion’: Between Utopia and Reality their promises of a new world. But it does prepare the way for a fresh start on the path towards more lasting peace. This may prove to be a better beginning than the League of Nations but only if its limitations are understood as well as its potentialities. We are setting out this time with a greater understanding of the dependence of order upon power. But our organization provides no compulsory or dependable machinery for settling disputes or keeping the peace between the greatest states. In other words, it does not contain the essential conditions of its own survival.27

The pragmatic approach chosen did not meet the expectations of the time. At San Francisco, from 25 April to 25 June 1945, the 51 countries at war with Germany and its Allies reviewed 547 amendments to the Dumbarton Oaks draft proposal, and finalized the Charter of the United Nations. Although, according to Russell, ‘Neither at Dumbarton Oaks nor at San Francisco was the principle of a United Nations force in terms of national contingents opposed in favor of any form of internationalized force’,28 signs of early disagreement can be found. In a resolution unanimously adopted by its General Council at the beginning of April 1945, the members of the ‘British League of Nations Union’, while wholeheartedly supporting the process initiated at Dumbarton Oaks, called for an amendment to the proposals. Among other recommendations, they expressed in particular the hope that ‘the successful employment of co-operating national contingents may be replaced at the earliest possible moment by the creation of a genuinely international force, recruited by, paid by, and under the orders of the Organization itself ’.29 Acutely conscious of how much the League of Nations had suffered from lack of an international force to back its decisions, Anthony Eden, as Foreign Secretary, had been one of the first to advocate the creation of an international force for the UN. In San Francisco, he discussed the idea with the head of the Soviet delegation, Molotov, and the head of the US delegation, Secretary of State Edward Stettinius. The cool reception that the idea received from the Soviets led him, with the support of the French, to carry ‘matters to the point where it was agreed that an international army would be created and created at the disposal of the United Nations’.30 Some participants, such as Dr A. C. Lilienthal, who had been designated by the American Veterans Committee to represent soldiers and veterans at the Conference, called for an ‘international organization with muscles’.31 However, because the Joint Chiefs of Staff opposed the principle of permanent force as unfeasible, a cautious system of free international military cooperation was preferred, and the idea of a directly recruited force was put aside.

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According to Article 43 of the Charter eventually signed by Member States at San Francisco on 26 June 1945: 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 rights of passage, necessary for the purpose of maintaining international peace and security. The special agreement(s) referred to in the Charter were to govern the ‘numbers and types of forces, their degree of readiness and general location, and the nature of facilities provided’ (Art. 43, para. 2), and were to be negotiated ‘as soon as possible’. The collective security system thus established was to be directed by a Military Staff Committee (MSC) composed of representatives of the five Permanent Members of the newly created Security Council. The role of the MSC was to advise the Security Council on all matters related to peace and security, and to take the strategic direction of any armed force placed at the disposal of the Security Council.32 Since 1945, there have been endless discussions of the type of force actually contemplated in the Charter. Even though the term ‘on its call’ suggests a degree of availability similar to that of a permanent force, the armed forces envisaged by Articles 43 and 45 did not, strictly speaking, constitute a standing force made up of individuals or groups independent from national control. If one refers to the terminology adopted by Ruth Russell, any armed forces used under the aegis of the UN for the purpose of helping to maintain or restore international peace might properly be called international forces, in contrast to the more traditional coalitions of national forces for alliance purposes. Such forces may, however, take either of two basic forms: • a non-permanent (stand-by) force, composed of national contingents placed at the disposal of the UN to implement some specific mandate or its appropriate organs, and only to that limited extent of time removed from national control; or • a permanent (standing) force, ‘made up of individuals or groups howsoever recruited, placed under the direction of an organ of the international agency and therefore independent of national controls and not subject to withdrawal of its components by national governmental action. As Russell rightly observed:

26

A UN ‘Legion’: Between Utopia and Reality Just what sort of forces might be provided and organized under these provisions was left an open question; but there is no doubt that the general concept was that national contingents making up any United Nations force should remain under national control except when called forth by a Security Council decision authorizing United Nations enforcement action.33

Strictly speaking, therefore, the Charter provided only for a stand-by force composed of national contingents placed at the disposal of the UN under specific agreements for limited periods of time. In 1949, Captain George Ried of the US military, reflecting on considerations in the establishment of an international police force, criticized the methodology followed by the MSC. Based on both political and military considerations he questioned the validity for the UN of a system of quotas or national contingents dependent upon the individual will of each nation to support it as the backbone of an international force. ‘Since this final and most vital decision will probably be made at the last moment, there is really never any guarantee that any force is available’, he argued. Estimating that the ‘methodology of preventing war by use of collected national forces has failed in the past’ and that ‘there is some evidence that a truly international force might not fail’, he recommended instead the creation of a directly recruited air police force.34 Ried was undoubtedly influenced by Lord David Davies’s ideas and by the general orientation of the strategic debate during the two world wars, and in the US after the Second World War, seeing in air capability the future of military superiority in war. With the development of the Cold War, and in conjunction with the UN’s first military experiments, ideas about international military force took a very different direction. It remains that Ried’s analysis of the military provisions of the Charter highlighted the fundamental weakness of a system which relies on the uncertainty of national contributions for the carrying out of urgent missions vital for the international society as a whole. Had the Cold War not prevented the UN from implementing Article 43, the system would in any case, sooner or later, have met its limits, making the idea of a United Nations legion a potentially attractive alternative to the stand-by national quota system. Non-implementation Plans for an international army to repel aggression had been designed in the context of the Second World War, at a time when the threat of fascism was still present. Under the terms of the United Nations Charter, the Great Powers – that is to say the war Allies – were to play a leading role, and to a

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large extent, the effective functioning of the UN in the field of international security required unity among them. Beyond the inherent limitations of the planned military arrangements, the main problem facing Trygve Lie, the UN’s first Secretary-General, quickly appeared to be the implementation of the Charter system. As its realization ultimately depended on the goodwill of Member States on a case-by-case basis, the risk to the military provisions remaining a dead letter was all too real. An additional aggravating factor, the beginning of the Cold War, made any agreement between the major powers on the subject of military forces hypothetical. On 27 March 1946, the MSC set up a sub-committee to study Article 43 of the Charter and to formulate recommendations as to the basic principles which would govern the organization of UN forces.35 Each national delegation was requested to provide, no later than 6 April 1946, a written statement of such principles. The papers on basic principles subsequently submitted by France, China, the US and the UK interpreted Article 43 so that nations would contribute to a pool of armed forces which, though not permanently assembled, would be capable of operating under a supreme commander or commanders with sufficient unification to justify the name ‘United Nations Forces’. Nothing was received from the Soviet representative, except for non-committal answers, in spite of several reminders from the chairman of the sub-committee. The Soviet delay in submitting their contribution was caused by either a different interpretation of the Charter, or a deliberate policy of non-collaboration; whichever it was it brought the work of the sub-committee to a standstill.36 A memorandum from the UK representative concluded on 31 May 1946: We consider there are military as well as political and psychological arguments in favour of the early conclusion of the Agreements, but it is evident from the attitude of the Russians in the work of the Military Staff Committee that their collaboration, even in the early stages of our talks, is unlikely until the political situation has clarified.37 On 18 September 1946, the Soviet delegation submitted a paper outlining their views on UN armed forces, the purpose of which they considered should be defined before discussing the basic principles. The Soviet definition of the armed forces made available in accordance with Articles 42 and 43 of the Charter, confining their use to the ‘sole purpose of prevention or suppression of acts of aggression with the object of maintaining and restoring international peace and security’, was considered far too restrictive by the other delegations.38 The impression that the USSR did not subscribe

28


to any close integration of armed forces or staff was reinforced by the Soviet delegation’s position that the MSC was not a permanent body – and therefore it would not need a permanent location at the UN.39 However, it is clear from the study eventually submitted by the MSC that the arrangements under Article 43 of the Charter would be on a quasi-permanent basis so as to enable troops to be made available at any time for the use of the Security Council.40 By 24 June 1947, the Security Council had, in principle, agreed on the undisputed articles in the report. Out of 41 articles, 25 had been unanimously approved. Disagreement remained on the 16 articles containing the most important elements for an international force. The first and most important disagreements concerned the relative size of the contributions of the five Permanent Members (Ch. IV, Art. 11) that is, whether they should be comparable or equal, man for man, ship for ship, aircraft for aircraft. Other differences concerned: • a time limit should be laid down for the withdrawal of forces after enforcement action (Ch. V, Art. 20) and the location of the forces pending their use under Article 42; • whether the provision of assistance and facilities, including right of passage for armed forces, in particular whether bases should be included in ‘assistance and facilities’ which Article 43 of the Charter obliged to make available (Ch. VII, Art. 26); • whether national contingents should be stationed only in metropolitan territories or territorial waters to which they have legal right of access (Ch. IX, Art. 32) • the extent to which a member, unable to meet the obligation in Article 29 to provide full logistical support for the forces contributed, might seek the assistance from another member.41 What the USSR was actually opposing was the possibility of the US securing a dominating and leading position in the establishment of a UN force through unequal contributions. From a Soviet perspective, the presence of armed forces or permanent ‘bases’ on foreign territory was seen as a US attempt to ‘make it easier for itself to use the international force for the achievement of its own diplomatic ends’, including interference in the internal affairs of the country concerned.42 This was not simply a military or strategic divergence, but was mainly explicable in view of the political suspicion that prevailed between the USSR and the Western powers.43 In 1948, the wartime alliance had begun to break

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up; moreover, the world had entered the Cold War. In August 1948, the MSC reported that, owing to the divergence of views, it was not possible to achieve further progress towards the conclusion of the special agreements required by Article 43 of the Charter.44 Article 43 agreements therefore never materialized and no national contingents were put at the disposal of the Security Council. As recalled by Eden: The organization of this force should have been one of the first tasks of the United Nations in accordance with the terms of the Charter; Articles 43–48 provided for it. Mainly owing to the Soviet obstruction, it never came into being.45 A possible criterion for classifying types of military forces, from the point of view of the military cooperation between states, is the degree of integration of international military forces in peace and wartime. Delbez distinguished three distinct types of military cooperation between States: • Integration – either military forces combined in peacetime in a single battle corps, and which – the specific nationality of each element apart – constitute an homogeneous army. • Organic association – military forces less closely integrated and keeping their individual character but reporting to a common military staff committee in peacetime and preparing themselves for their mission according to common instructions. • Occasional cooperation – military forces that are not in contact in peacetime but combine their efforts under a unified command only once war has been declared.46 Due to the failure of the MSC to reach agreement, military cooperation within the UN under the form of national contingents could be only occasional, as opposed to more organic types of association (Article 43 agreements type), or to integration. If Article 43 agreements had been signed, one could have witnessed the creation of an international force whose components could have potentially been gathered whenever necessary, that is some kind of organic association. In contrast, the cooperation between states would be only occasional and temporary, lacking both organic association and integration. In fact, by providing – or failing to provide – contingents, Member States could not only permit or prevent the establishment of UN military forces; they could also significantly influence the composition and strength of any future UN military force according to their interests, on a case-by-case basis.

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A UN ‘Legion’: Between Utopia and Reality A DREAM WITHIN THE DREAM

Haunting the debate on international force is the question of the legal basis for establishing military forces through direct enlistment under the United Nations Charter. Strictly speaking, the Charter does not preclude from the possibility of setting up a directly recruited force through close cooperation and coordination between the Security Council, the General Assembly and the Secretariat. With the doctrine of ‘implied powers’, later developed by the International Court of Justice (ICJ), even restrictive interpretations would no longer constitute a decisive argument against the legality of a UN legion.

Legal Bases As once noted by Louis B. Sohn, both military and non-military provisions of the United Nations Charter gave the Security Council ‘wide discretion in respect of steps to be taken to maintain or restore international peace and security’.47 Military arrangements In order to ensure prompt and effective action by the UN, its members confer on the Security Council primary responsibility for the maintenance of peace and security (Art. 24). The Security Council determines the existence of any threat to the peace, or act of aggression, and makes recommendations, or decides what measures shall be taken in accordance with Articles 41 and 42 for that purpose (Art. 39). The Security Council may call upon the parties concerned to comply with ‘such provisional measures as it deems necessary’ (Art. 40). The Security Council may also ‘decide what measures not involving the use of force are to be employed to give effect to its decisions’ (Art. 41). Still for that purpose, the Security Council may take such action by air, sea or land forces of members of the UN as may be necessary, including demonstrations, blockade, and the like (Art. 42). Article 24, while giving the primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace to the Security Council, does not preclude the General Assembly from exercising a secondary or residual responsibility. Attempts were made to shift the decision-making power from the Security Council to the General Assembly: by setting up an interim committee in 1947 to provide the General Assembly with a mechanism to deal with political dispute; and by the adoption by the General Assembly of the Uniting for Peace resolution in 1950, empowering the General Assembly to address breaches of peace if the Security Council failed to do so. It could therefore be argued that the Security Council could establish

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through direct enlistment of individuals a UN force either as a means necessary to ensure compliance with provisional measures under Article 40, or as a measure not involving the use of force under Article 41 (for instance, a corps of military observers). In fact, only the use of national forces depends on the prior conclusion of special agreements pursuant to Article 43, and Article 42 does not preclude the use of any other forces available to the Security Council.48 Yet, as rightly pointed out by Sieckmann, if one ‘might conclude that the United Nations may use non-national forces under Article 42 of the Charter, this does not automatically imply the power to establish an individually employed permanent force, since it is only Article 43 … that implies institutionalizing matters’. Clearly, therefore, the main and only explicit legal basis for establishing military forces under the United Nations Charter is Article 43, which calls on Member States to make armed forces necessary for the maintenance of international peace and security available to the Security Council. Non-military Provisions Article 97 of the United Nations Charter, which stipulates in very broad terms that the Secretariat ‘shall comprise a Secretary-General and such Staff as the Organization may require’ has also been interpreted as potentially allowing for the establishment of a force recruited directly by the UN. As no restriction is placed on the number, type or armament of the personnel which could be required, there would be theoretically no limitation to the direct recruitment and training of military units of the Secretariat, provided the General Assembly would authorize the related expenses under Article 17. Moreover, both the Security Council and the General Assembly ‘may establish such subsidiary organs as (they) deem necessary for the performance of (their) functions’ (Art. 22, 29). It could indeed be argued that such subsidiary organs should be limited to committees, or commissions assisting the Security Council or the General Assembly in the performance of their functions. Yet, strikingly enough, in the case of the United Nations Emergency Force (UNEF), the Secretary-General seems to have proceeded on the assumption that UNEF was a subsidiary organ of the General Assembly established in accordance with Article 22. Consequently, the officers and the command of the force were granted the privileges and immunities of Article 6 of the Convention on the Privileges and Immunities of the United Nations which deals with experts on mission for the UN. The United Nations Volunteer Programme (UNV), which recruits individual volunteers for strictly civilian humanitarian and development activities, was also established as a subsidiary of the General Assembly.

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Hence Sieckmann’s argument that a Security Council resolution entrusting the Secretary-General with the responsibility (under Article 98) of implementing its decision to establish a directly recruited military force would likely be taken under Article 29 of the Charter so that the force, once established and being part of the Secretariat, would also have the status of a subsidiary organ of the Security Council. This would have the advantage of clarifying that the units, while institutionally part of the Secretariat, would be at the disposal of, and brought into action by, the Security Council.49

Further Interpretation It has been argued that, when deciding to set up a military force through direct enlistment, the Secretary-General could take a decision which was not contemplated by those who drafted the United Nations Charter. Article 42, in particular, refers to ‘forces of Members of the United Nations’. Whether measures not enumerated explicitly in Chapter VII of the Charter should be considered illegal, is an issue which has therefore preoccupied several authors. The ‘Original Intent’ Argument The lack of clarity as to whether the UN could or could not create a military force by direct recruitment has been pinpointed by several authors. A restrictive interpretation (the ‘original intent’ argument would therefore lead to the conclusion that, since the intention was not to create a directly recruited force, any attempt to set one up would be ‘illegal’. According to the Charter, the armed forces, assistance and facilities would be contributed on call, and in accordance with a special agreement or agreements (Art. 43, para. 1). Such agreements would govern the numbers and types of forces, their degree of readiness and general location, and the nature of the facilities thus provided (Art. 43, para. 2). Negotiated ‘as soon as possible’ on the initiative of the Security Council, the agreements would be concluded between the Security Council and Member States or group of Member States and subject to ratification (Art. 43, para. 3). In order for the UN to take urgent military measures, Article 45 provides also for air force contingents to be made available to the Security Council by Member States within the limits laid down in the special agreements for combined international enforcement action. A military staff committee, consisting of a chief of staff of the permanent members of the Security Council or their representatives, is entrusted with the responsibility of planning for the application of armed forces (Art. 47). Under Article 106, the possibility of joint action by the permanent members of the Security Council, and possibly other

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Member States, was explicitly envisaged for the interim period pending the coming into force of the special agreements, thus providing some legal basis for ad hoc military coalitions outside the framework of the Security Council. Ruth B. Russell, in an attempt to understand the original intent of those who drafted the United Nations Charter, made a distinction between ‘international’ and ‘internationalized’ forces depending on their degree of integration. According to this distinction, ad hoc coalitions of military forces or national contingents borrowed by the UN from Member States would be ‘international’ forces, while a standing army, with contingents solely responsible to the UN and permanently organized under UN command would be ‘internationalized’ forces. The fact is, using Russell’s terminology, that the Charter does not explicitly envisage ‘internationalized’ forces, only international forces.50 As argued by Andrew Miller, the simple fact that Article 43 clearly specifies that Member States must hold their force in readiness for the Security Council excludes the possibility that it could have been written to allow for an ‘internationalized force’.51 Similarly, Article 45 states that ‘Members shall hold immediately available national air force contingents’, with various degrees of readiness, thus clearly under national control.52 While the possibility of truly permanent international (‘internationalized’) forces must have been envisaged at some point during the drafting of the Charter, it had been eventually discarded in view of British and US opposition to it. The Doctrine of Implied Powers A response to the original intent argument is the doctrine of implied powers. The ICJ, in its advisory opinion concerning ‘Reparations for Injuries Suffered in the Service of the United Nations’ (1949), estimated that the UN ‘must be deemed to have those powers which, though not expressly provided in the Charter, are conferred upon it by the necessary implication as being essential to the performance of its duties’.53 Using this logic, although not initially contemplated in the Charter, it might be considered essential to establish a limited directly recruited force in view of the non-implementation of Articles 43 and 45. In the case of ‘Certain Expenses of the United Nations’ (1962), the question was raised whether the General Assembly had authority to incur costs for peacekeeping forces while such forces had not been explicitly envisaged in the Charter. The ICJ concluded that when the UN undertook an action that might be considered in the pursuit of the purposes of the Organization, such as the maintenance of peace and security, such action was not ultra vires. Based on the doctrine of implied powers, the UN would have the authority to create such military force to the extent that it is not

34


prohibited by, nor inconsistent with, (a) the purposes and functions of the UN, and (b) the principles codified in the Charter. Andrew Miller has further argued in favour of the doctrine of implied powers by stressing the fact that original intent is based on legislative history, which according to the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (1969), is only a subsidiary means of treaty construction.54 Following this argument, if the United Nations Charter provides for the use of force by the Organization, it is only reasonable to think that it also provides for adequate military forces to be placed at its disposal. True, the UN is not, as expressed by the US delegate during the discussions of the Security Council in 1947, a world government. Based on the principle of the sovereign equality of all its members, it ‘could not have a permanent standing armed force of its own in the same sense that individual nations possess such forces’.55 Yet, nothing, in principle, prevented the UN from acquiring a standing military force through direct recruitment. If it can be argued that the possibility of creating a legion was never envisaged in the Charter, nor was the option of resorting to ad hoc national contingents for peacekeeping purposes. As stressed by Siekmann, in direct contradiction with the ‘original intent’ argument, although the forces may be described as ‘unchartered’, the fact ‘that United Nations peace-keeping forces do not have an official, formal basis in the Charter, does not mean however that they are unconstitutional’.56 The only precondition was, and remains, the agreement of Member States. The recurrent argument according to which the UN could not have a permanent force at all because of the very nature of the Organization has no rational basis. In 1948, the creation of a directly recruited UN force was, as it is today, a theoretical option, as it does not necessarily require a revision of the existing United Nations Charter to be created.

NOTES 1. S. M. Eastman, ‘A United Nations Guard, Historical Background’, International Journal, 4, Spring (1949), p. 45. A review of historical precedents up to the creation of the UN can be found in A. Bonnemaison, ‘L’ armée internationale et le Comité d’EtatMajor’ (thesis dact., Paris, 1952), pp. 14–84. 2. A Commentary on the Charter of the United Nations Signed at San Francisco on the 26th June 1945 Presented by the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs to Parliament by Command of His Majesty (London: HMSO, 1945), p. 3. 3. F. Seyersted, United Nations Forces in the Law of Peace and War (Leiden: A. W. Sijhoff, 1966), pp. 28–9. 4. G. Carrette, ‘La force internationale de police dans le cadre de la Société des Nations – Concepts et réalités au seuil des années vingt’, Relations Internationales, 75, Autumn

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5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12.

13. 14. 15. 16. 17.

18.

35

(1993), pp. 293–300; M. C. Pugh, ‘An International Police Force: Lord Davies and the British Debate in the 1930s’, International Relations, 9, 4 (1988), pp. 335–51; Capt. G. H. Ried, Some Considerations in the Establishment of an International Security Force (New York: Syracuse, 1949). V. Altman, The International Police and World Security (London: Alliance Press, 1945), pp. 24–5. Air Force for the Peace Front, a Plan prepared by the Military Research Committee of the New Commonwealth Institute (London: The Peace Book Co., 1939), 39 pp. Ibid., p. 3. Ibid., pp. 6–7. A. Michie, Keep the Peace Through Air Power (London: Allen & Unwin, 1944), pp. 124–8. Air Force for the Peace Front, p. 12. Ibid., pp. 13–36. ‘Declaration by United Nations, January 1, 1942’, in A Decade of American Foreign Policy, Basic Documents, 1941–49, prepared at the request of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations by the Staff of the Committee and the Department of State, Senate, 81st Congress, 1st Sess., Doc. 123 (Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office, 1950), pp. 2–3. Altman, International Police and World Security, pp. 24–30. B. Urquhart, ‘Looking for the Sheriff ’, New York Review of Books, 45, 12 (1998), p. 48. E. Culbertson, Summary of the World Federation Plan – Outline of a Practical and Detailed Plan for World Settlement (London: Faber & Faber, 1944), pp. 5–6. Ibid., pp. 6–49. H. E. Stassen, ‘Blueprint for a World Government’, New York Times Magazine, 23 May 1943. See also H. E. Stassen. ‘We Need a World Government’, Saturday Evening Post, 22 May 1943. Stassen’s ideas for a ‘United Nations of the World’ soon brought him to the attention of President Roosevelt who selected him to be part of the US delegation, led by Secretary of State Edward Stettinius, to the United Nations Charter Conference held in San Francisco from April to June 1945. At the Conference Stassen fought against the inclusion of the veto provision in the Security Council. He was also one of the signatories to the UN Charter on behalf of the United Nations. From 1948 to 1953, Stassen served as a director of both the Mutual Security Agency and the Foreign Operations Administration, and in 1954 he was appointed by President Eisenhower as his special assistant for disarmament, a cabinet position, to direct studies of US and world disarmament. (See, inter alia, D. R. Inglis, ‘The Stassen Appointment: Turning Point in Disarmament Thinking?’, U.S. Department of State Bulletin, 4 April 1955, pp. 556–7; M. Master, ‘US–USSR Arms Control Initiatives, 1953–60: Empty Offers and Fulfilled Prophecies’, paper presented at the Department of Government and International Studies at the University of South Carolina, Columbia, 11 May 1955, p. 4; H. E. Stassen, ‘Developing U.S. Foreign Policy on Disarmament’, U.S. Department of State Bulletin, 16 May 1955, pp. 801–5; Harold E. Stassen, ‘Disarmament and the President’s Geneva Proposal, U.S. Department of State Bulletin, 31 October 1955, pp. 703– 10.) Despite serving under Eisenhower, Stassen’s political ambitions extended also to the Presidency, and between 1948 and 1992 he ran unsuccessfully nine times to become the Republican Party’s presidential candidate, a record that earned him the nickname

36

19.

20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25.

26. 27. 28. 29.

30. 31.

32.

A UN ‘Legion’: Between Utopia and Reality ‘Grand Old Loser’. (See A. Chancellor, ‘The Grand Old Loser’, Guardian, 10 March 2001.) A prolific author, Stassen reiterated some of the ideas he had first mooted in ‘Blueprint for a World Government’ some 50 years earlier when, in 1994, in a book that advocated restructuring the UN, he drafted a revised United Nations Charter which included provision for a UN legion. (See H. E. Stassen, United Nations – A Working Paper for Restructuring (Minneapolis, MN: Lerner Publications, 1994); also Chapter 5 in this volume.) (NB. Two hundred and fifty boxes of Stassen’s papers are kept at the Minnesota Historical Society, but access to this collection is currently restricted.) See a comprehensive review of peace plans proposed by various authors before and during the Second World War, in E. Wynner and G. Lloyd (eds), Searchlight on Peace Plans (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1944), 532 pp. V. Altman, International Police and World Security, pp. 104–5. Ibid., pp. 77–8. Ibid., pp. 79, 86. Ibid., pp. 86–7. Ibid., p. 87. See Comments and Proposed Amendments Concerning the Dumbarton Oaks Proposals Submitted by the Delegations to the United Nations Conference on International Organization (San Francisco, CA: 7 May 1945). R. B. Russell, United Nations Experience with Military Forces: Political and Legal Aspects (Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution, 1964), p. 1. P. E. Corbett, The Dumbarton Oaks Plan, Memorandum 13 (New Haven, CT: Yale Institute of International Studies, 25 November 1944), p. 13. Russell, United Nations Experience, p. 2. ‘Recommendations of the League of Nations Union on the Dumbarton Oaks Proposals’, Resolution unanimously adopted by the General Council of the League of Nations at a Special Meeting in Livingstone Hall, London, SW1, on 5 and 6 April 1945 (London: League of Nations Union, 1945). Sir A. Eden, The Memoirs of the Rt. Hon. Sir Anthony Eden,Vol. 3, ‘Full Circle’ (London: Cassell, 1960), p. 536. See a personal account by Dr A. M. Lilienthal who had been designated by the American Veterans Committee to represent soldiers and veterans at the San Francisco International Conference in April 1945, ‘The United Nations: San Francisco in 1945 and Fifty Years Later’, Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, September 1995, pp. 75, 101. Article 47: 1. There shall be a Military Staff Committee to advise and assist the Security Council on all questions related to the Security Council’s requirements for the maintenance of international peace and security, the employment and command of forces placed at its disposal, the regulation of armaments, and possible disarmament. 2. The Military Staff Committee shall consist of the Chiefs of Staff of the Permanent Members of the Security Council or their representatives. Any Member of the United Nations not permanently represented on the Committee shall be invited to be associated with it when efficient discharge of the Committee’s responsibility requires the participation of that Member in its work.

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3. The Military Staff Committee shall be responsible under the Security Council for the Strategic direction of any armed forces placed at the disposal of the Security Council. Questions relating to the command of such forces shall be worked out subsequently.

33. 34. 35.

36.

37.

38. 39. 40.

41.

42. 43. 44, 45. 46. 47.

48.

49.

For a legal study of the work of the Military Staff Committee, see Bonnemaison, ‘L’ armée internationale’, pp. 85–147. Russell, United Nations Experience, pp. 1, 4 Ried, Some Considerations, p. 158. ‘Basic Principles Governing the Organization of United Nations Forces’, Memoranda presented to Military Staff Committee by the American, British, Chinese and French Representatives, MS/28–31, Foreign Relations of the United States: Diplomatic Papers 1946, Vol. 1, pp. 775–6, and FO U 5527/3/70. United Kingdom Representatives to the Military Staff Committee, ‘United Nations Organization, Present Situation in the Work of the Military Staff Committee’, Note by the Planning Staff, FO UN3436/7/78, No. 89 ii. Memorandum by the United Kingdom Representatives on the Military Staff Committee, FO United Nations 125/7/78. See also the detailed comments by the British delegation on the Russian proposals of 18 September 1946 dated 19 September 1946: ‘The general trend of the Soviet proposals is political in character and they are therefore more appropriate for discussion in the Security Council than in the Military Staff Committee’, CAB 121/89, No. 81.i. S/336, 30 April 1947. United Kingdom Representatives to the Military Staff Committee, FO UN3436/7/78, No. 89 ii. ‘General Principles Governing the Organization of the Armed Forces Made Available to the Security Council by Member Nations of the United Nations’, MS/26, 30 April 1947. United Nations: Annual Report of United Kingdom, Delegation of 1947, FO UN/ 10333278. Cf. also D. W. Bowett. United Nations Forces: A Legal Study of United Nations Practice (London: Stevens & Sons, 1964), p. 361. O. Grynyov, ‘Who Wants an International Peace Force?’, International Affairs (Moscow), 12 December 1958, p. 65. See Bowett. United Nations Forces, p. 18. S/956, 9 August 1948. Eden, Memoirs, p. 536. L. Delbez, ‘Des divers modes de collaboration militaire entre Etats’, Revue Générale de Droit International Public, third series, 33, 4 (1962), pp. 735–49. L. B. Sohn, ‘The Authority of the United Nations to Establish and Maintain a Permanent United Nations Force’, American Journal of International Law, 53, 2 (1958), p. 229. Regulation for the United Nations Emergency Force, A/3552; Agreement between the United Nations and Egypt of 8 February 1957, A/3525, pp. 2, 7; Sohn, ‘Authority of the United Nations’, p. 234. Dr R. C. Sieckmann, ‘The Legal Basis for an Individually Recruited Permanent UN Force’, in D. A. Leurdijk (ed.), A UN Rapid Deployment Brigade: Strengthening the Capacity for Quick Response (The Hague: Netherlands Institute of International Relations ‘Clingendael’, 1995), p. 63.

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50. Russell, United Nations Experience, p. 1. 51. A. S. Miller, ‘Universal Soldiers: UN Standing Armies and the Legal Alternatives’, Georgetown Law Journal, 81, 3 (1993), pp. 791–5. 52. Sohn, ‘Authority of the United Nations’, p. 230. 53. ICJ, Rep. 174, 1949, p. 182. 54. Sohn, ‘Authority of the United Nations’, p. 795. 55. Statement on 4 June 1947, SCOR, second year, No. 43, p. 954. 56. R. C. R. Siekmann, National Contingents in United Nations Peace-Keeping Forces (Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff, 1991), p. 9. For a general discussion of the legal basis for a UN permanent and individually recruited military force, see Sohn, ‘Authority of the United Nations’, pp. 229–31; F. Seyersted, ‘Can the United Nations Establish Military Forces and Perform Other Acts Without Specific Basis in the Charter?’, Österreichische Zeitschrift für Öffentlicher Recht, 1/2, 12 (1962), pp. 188–229; Seyersted, United Nations Forces, pp. 359, 438–9; Siekmann, ‘Legal Basis for an Individually Recruited Permanent UN Force’, in Leurdijk (ed.), A UN Rapid Deployment Brigade, pp. 61–4.

TWO

First Steps

Quod nihil sit tam infirmum aut instabile quam fama potentiae non sua vi nix. (For nothing is as weak or unstable as a reputation for power not based on one’s own force.) Tacitus, Annals

In 1945, the creation of the UN had formalized the balance of power resulting from the Allies’ military victory over the Axis forces. It was also an attempt to embody one of the main lessons that had been learned from the recent conflict: in extreme cases, no single power was strong enough to enforce peace. Above all, the organization had been designed to minimize the risk of a Third World War; thus the expectations raised by it were immense. By early spring 1948, it had become evident that no agreement on the implementation of Article 43 could be reached in the Military Staff Committee, and the Secretary-General and his advisers cast about for possible alternatives.1 The test of the UN’s first military experiments would be decisive, leading to the first attempts – and failures – to establish a directly recruited force by and for the organization. In the very first years of its existence, two major crises calling for new approaches to the question of international force would challenge the ability of the UN to carry out missions: the Arab invasion of Palestine in mid-May 1948 and the North Korean attack of 25 June 1950.

THE TEST OF THE UN’S FIRST MILITARY EXPERIMENTS

The Palestine crisis was the first armed aggression since the end of the Second World War. Two separate but related events in 1948 rapidly highlighted the need for a more adequate military instrument at the disposal of the UN: the supervision of the United Nations Truce during the spring;

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and the dramatic assassination of the United Nations Mediator, Count Folke Bernadotte, on 17 September.

Supervision of the United Nations Truce in Palestine On 31 August 1947, a UN commission of inquiry recommended the creation of an Arab state and a Jewish state, and the internationalization of Jerusalem. The subsequent adoption of the partition plan for Palestine was rejected by the Arab Summit in Cairo on 29 November. As the perspective of partition was becoming more real, growing disorder was reported in Palestine. An Arab invasion to overthrow a possible UN decision would have been a flagrant violation of the Charter, calling for international military response. At the UN Secretariat, Trygve Lie immediately set in motion studies into the possibility of creating an international police force. Simultaneously, he undertook exploratory consultations with member governments. In this context, he proposed setting up a land force composed of the minimum units the ‘Big Five’ would be committed to placing at the Security Council’s disposal.2 However, such an approach, as rightly noted at the time by Hanson Baldwin, and as quickly demonstrated by facts, was bound to meet prohibitive political obstacles due to East–West opposition. There was ‘very little chance of setting up an “international police force” in the terms so far discussed, now or in the near future, despite the urgency of the Palestine situation’.3 Any deployment of troops by one of the two superpowers in Palestine would be objected to by the other. Another possibility was an international force composed of direct enlistment from small nations with financial support from major powers. The idea, as shown by a letter received by the New York Times a few days later, met some favourable initial reactions. Considering that the idea, which was in the same vein as Culbertson’s 1945 proposal, could be progressively enlarged and constitute the key to making the UN effective in preventing intervention, the letter stated: Instead of wasting further time in a vain attempt to secure unanimous agreement for fifteen or twenty divisions in the form of national contingents from the great powers, with all the equipment for large-scale warfare, it would be preferable to start with one division, or even a regiment of a truly international contingent and professional soldiers and work up from there.4 Trygve Lie’s Proposal at Harvard University The recommendation of the Canadian prime minister, W. L. Mackenzie King, in January 1948, that the UN should ‘concentrate upon the

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organization of an international force’ seemed particularly relevant and was probably not ill-advised.5 In fact, the question of armed forces at the disposal of the organization was to be the main preoccupation of the United Nations Palestine Commission, which started writing its report on 22 January 1948. Systematically studying precedents in the setting up of international forces, the Commission reported that it was unable to implement the partition plan for Palestine without the assistance of an effective armed force.6 Speculations over the shape of the force envisaged by the Commission were reported in the New York Times, which stated that some members of the Commission were ‘known to favor a relatively small but highly mechanized and mobile force with particularly effective equipment, rather than a numerically large infantry force’. It continued, a ‘few units with overwhelming equipment in the form of such modern weapons as tanks, self-propelled artillery, armored cars, some planes, both fighters and bombers, and a naval task force’ were thought sufficient to discourage in advance any large-scale Arab military action.7 Meanwhile, enforcement of the Palestine partition decided by the General Assembly had been quickly ruled out. In a spectacular reversal of policy, the United States maintained that while the Security Council could take action to maintain international peace it lacked the power to enforce a political settlement. In any case, after the Communist coup in Czechoslovakia in February 1948, a joint military action in Palestine had become unthinkable for political reasons.8 A trusteeship was proposed instead. A Truce Commission for Palestine was appointed on 23 April 1948. On 14 May, General Assembly Resolution 186 empowered a United Nations Mediator to cooperate with the Truce Commission. The proclamation of the independence of the State of Israel by Ben Gurion on 14 May was immediately followed by the Arab invasion of Palestine. The immediate risk resulting from the situation was the direct involvement of one of the great powers. Beyond the major threat to international peace and security this situation created, at stake was the very credibility and raison d’être of the UN. Failure to take effective action would have resulted in a precedent, sooner or later, encouraging similar acts of aggression. It could also have a dangerous influence on the attitude of countries to accept the authority of the Security Council in settling disputes. The danger of seeing the UN set aside as a useless instrument was real in the long run. Memories of the Manchurian and Ethiopian cases, leading to the ultimate downfall of the League of Nations, were still fresh: the very existence of the UN was in the balance. Two appeals for a truce failed. Possible action under Chapter VII of the Charter was discounted by the Secretary-General because it ‘would have had

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the force of a command but might have required the sending of armed forces the Security Council did not possess’.9 With no possibility of implementing Article 43 in the foreseeable future, Lie had already started discussing other possible options with his advisers. ‘The outbreak of hostilities in Palestine’, he later recalled, ‘gave urgency to such thinking, and after much consideration I decided on at least floating a trial balloon for the idea of a small internationally recruited force which could be placed by the SecretaryGeneral at the disposal of the Security Council’.10 It does seem that he was quite conscious of the obstacles likely to be met by such an idea given the prevailing atmosphere but felt it was his duty, as Secretary-General, to give it a try. On the ground, Count Folke Bernadotte,11 appointed United Nations Mediator in Palestine on 21 May 1948, was faced with an inextricable situation: I realized that in order to achieve complete supervision of the observance of the truce in Palestine and in Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Transjordan and Yemen, a very large number of observers would be necessary with considerable quantities of equipment and material. Within the short time available, there were inevitable obstacles in the way of obtaining the necessary personnel and equipment.12 The obstacles he refers to were practical and logistical. They had soon also become political, as the composition of a possible observation corps was discussed. Agreement was reached on 9 June on a four-week ceasefire and truce to begin two days later. The Soviet Union insisted on sending a ‘small number’ of military observers to help carry it out, but, as expected, this was unacceptable to the United States, even though it was fewer than the 21 that Belgium, France and the United States – the countries that made up the Truce Commission – were each to contribute.13 The disagreement of the two major powers on the issue of deployment of military personnel cast blight on the hopes that the truce could be followed by peace in Palestine. The question of whether Soviet military observers were to take part in the supervising of the ceasefire was still being discussed at the Security Council when, on 10 June at Harvard University, the Secretary-General officially proposed the creation of a directly recruited United Nations Guard Force. In a speech at a meeting of the University alumni, Lie outlined the difficulties met by the UN in its attempt to establish a world army. He urged the formation ‘very soon’ of a small guard force to back Security Council decisions until the major powers could settle their differences over a UN army:

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It is possible that a beginning could be made through the establishment of a comparatively small guard force, as distinct from a striking force. Such a force could be recruited by the SecretaryGeneral and placed at the disposal of the Security Council. Such a force would have been extremely valuable to us in the past and would undoubtedly be very valuable in the future.14 Even a small force, ‘with the authority of the United Nations behind it’, he thought, ‘would be a timely demonstration to the world that the Member Governments are determined to make a beginning at least putting into effect the provisions of the Charter for the enforcement of peace’. The SecretaryGeneral, who had apparently discussed the idea with Security Council members before making it public, confirmed a few days later that he was working on the specific details of his proposal. Lie added that he had already received applications for the force, which would number between 1,000 and 5,000 volunteers.15 The proposal attracted public interest and began to receive wider support in various circles; for example, a few weeks later, on 8 July, the Women’s Action Committee for Lasting Peace urged the establishment of a small international police force or guard as a first practical step towards developing adequate strength to back up the decisions of the Security Council.16 The first contingent of 63 military observers from the Truce Commission were despatched to Palestine in mid-June 1948 after a request from the United Nations Mediator for military officers to act as UN observers.17 A few days later, the Mediator asked the Security Council for additional guards to assist in policing the truce. Initially, Lie considered sending New York policemen to assist but, after consulting the city’s mayor and other officials, he decided instead to send employees of the UN and appealed for volunteers of various nationalities from Headquarters and Secretariat staff. British subjects, Jews and Muslims were excluded. Eventually 50 volunteers were accepted – 28 UN guards (all US veterans), 16 US members of the Secretariat, 3 Frenchmen, 1 Norwegian, 1 Swede and 1 Dane – and promptly flown to Palestine.18 A further 30 officers to serve as observers subsequently requested from Belgium, France and the United States (ten each), arrived between 27 June and 5 July. Ten auxiliary technical personnel, such as aircraft pilots, radio operators, drivers and maintenance and medical staff, were also obtained from the United States armed forces. The four-week truce ended on 9 July, and large-scale fighting erupted between Arab and Israeli forces. On 13 July the Mediator asked for yet more guards to assist the military observers. Two days later, Security Council

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Resolution 54 ordered a ceasefire, threatening to apply the enforcement measures provided for in Chapter VII of the Charter if necessary. No time limit was given for the ceasefire, but its terms and conditions required a more elaborate system of supervision. Under these circumstances, the Mediator was forced to request another 100 observers from each of the governments of the Truce Commission. Yet, because of inadequate transport, by 1 August only 137 of the 300 required had arrived.19 Trygve Lie’s Proposal in the Annual Report The Secretary-General’s proposal for a United Nations Guard Force was formally presented in the Introduction to his Annual Report covering the period 1 July 1947–30 June 1948. Under the heading ‘Proposals for further strengthening of the United Nations’, he announced: ‘I have under study proposals for the creation of a small United Nations Guard Force which could be recruited by the Secretary-General and placed at the disposal of the Security Council and the General Assembly’.20 The Secretary-General made it clear that he did not envisage a large force, or a striking force. Nor was it a substitute for forces contemplated in Articles 42 and 43, but a force that might be called upon by the Security Council under Article 40 of the Charter, which provides for provisional measures to prevent the aggravation of a situation threatening the peace. It could be used to guard UN missions, conduct plebiscites under the supervision of the UN and in the administration of a truce, or act as a constabulary under the Security Council or the Trusteeship Council during the establishment of international regimes in cities like Jerusalem or Trieste. Between 1,000 and 5,000 men would be sufficient, as the primary role of the force would be symbolic.21 ‘Acutely conscious of how different things in Palestine could have been had the United Nations had an international force at its disposal’, Lie’s preliminary soundings over the summer of 1948, had suggested a force of 5,000 to 10,000 men as a beginning.22 At the beginning of September, the establishment of an international guard force of several thousand men was recommended by the Commission to Study the Organization of Peace,23 and a ten-page report prepared by a seven-man drafting committee was submitted to the US delegation at the extraordinary session of the General Assembly held in Paris at the end of that month. It proposed that a globally recruited guard force be set up immediately along the lines suggested by the Secretary-General. Members of the guard could carry out such duties as accompanying UN officials undertaking missions to places such as Indonesia or Kashmir, supervising plebiscites or the truce in Palestine, observing elections, or serving as inspectors at atomic facilities should a UN programme for control of atomic

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energy be adopted. The Commission made it clear that the proposed guard should not be confused with the international police force envisaged in Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter. Although it might have planes at its disposal for transportation, the force would not be prepared to wage war against aggression, to exert military pressure, or to quell rebellions or insurrections. Serving primarily in a protective and symbolic capacity, the guards would be trained by UN officers and bound by the usual oath of loyalty sworn by members of the Secretariat, and would be equipped with small arms only. By the end of the summer, the proposal had received widespread support and preliminary consideration from several Member States. On 9 September, in an interview with CBS radio, the US delegate to the UN expressed full support for the idea of establishing a modest international guard force to strengthen the hand of the organization.24

The Assassination of the United Nations Mediator The assassination of the United Nations Mediator in Jerusalem on 17 September 1948 by the Jewish terrorist organization the Stern gang drew immediate attention to the absence of any permanent force or guard for the protection of UN officials on mission. Putting the responsibility for the tragedy on the absence of a UN police force, the representative of the Philippines estimated that the ‘incident had served to dramatize the danger that was inherent in a situation wherein the United Nations had assumed responsibility for resolving conflicts while possessing no real authority to implement its decisions’.25 And in the words of one New York Times’ journalist: The problem of the United Nations is a simple one. The death of Bernadotte poses its futility as sharply as any issue has yet done. If a jeepload of men with tommy guns can stop one of the UN’s highest servants and do him to death without retribution, where is the UN’s power, what is it worth? 26 Had Bernadotte had a UN guard force equipped with small arms, disciplined and well organized to support him a valuable life might have been saved, and the organization strengthened, seemed to be the general consensus. Hanson W. Baldwin’s reflection, that the inescapable conclusion of Bernadotte’s tragic death was that ‘the United Nations is largely meaningless without military force of some sort to protect its mediators and implement its decisions’ is in this sense typical of how the organization was viewed at the time.27

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United Nations Guard Force Proposal at the General Assembly The assassination of Bernadotte served only to strengthen the SecretaryGeneral’s conviction of the necessity of a United Nations guard. As recalled by Lie in his memoirs: ‘The assassination of Bernadotte spurred me to place a proposal for the creation of such a guard on the Agenda of the Third Session of the General Assembly’.28 In spite of last-minute Soviet protests, Lie’s request for a small United Nations guard force was formally put before the General Assembly on 24 September 1948. On the 28 September, the Secretary-General submitted a special report to the Third Session, proposing that the formation of a United Nations guard be closely studied by the appropriate committees of the General Assembly. Under this new proposal, the guard would comprise a permanently mobilized force of 300 men stationed at Lake Success except when on field mission and a 500-strong reserve force whose members would continue to be based in their own country but who would be ready for action at short notice. Initially limited to 800 men, it could subsequently be increased to several thousand. The permanent guard would be recruited internationally from physically fit men between the ages of 22 and 30, without dependants to serve a minimum of two years; careful attention would be paid to weeding out those just looking for adventure. They would be grouped into 6 field platoons of 40 men each, and headquarters staff; each platoon would be composed of 4 sections of 10 men; and each section, under a section leader, would be divided into subsections of 5 under a subsection leader. Equipment for the guard overall would initially comprise 4 armoured cars, 36 jeeps and trailers, 36 trucks and 20 mobile radio units, and it would be armed with revolvers, rifles, light automatic weapons, machine-guns and sub-machine-guns. Individually, recruits would be required to wear special uniforms. The reserve force would be divided into subsections of five or ten or more personnel called together on a national basis when needed. Reservists would receive compensation when not on active duty as recognition of their participation in training courses. The headquarters staff, established within the Secretariat, would number about 60 including a commander-in-chief, a chief of staff, a liaison officer, and other officers. The purpose of the United Nations guard would be to ensure pacific settlement of disputes without recourse to the use of force. For instance, it could be called upon to supervise neutral and demilitarized areas in the case of an armistice, as in Palestine, and exercise supervisory functions at polling booths in the case of plebiscites or elections. It could in particular, protect UN observers who might be subject to specific attacks. Under no circumstances could it be used for enforcement purposes. The estimated cost of the

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force was US$4 million a year most of which would be for the upkeep of the standing unit.29 The discussions at the Plenary Meetings of the General Assembly concerning the report of the Ad Hoc Political Committee (AHPC) on a United Nations guard evoke the cold-shouldered reception reserved by the General Assembly to the Secretary-General’s proposal. As recalled later by Lie: There it ran into heavy opposition from the Soviet bloc, which stood rigidly on the position that the United Nations should either carry out Article 43 of the Charter as originally intended, or have no force at all; but others, too, had hesitations and doubts partly because of the cost and partly because of inertia – an internationally recruited police force was too radical an idea for many governments.30 The Secretary-General’s report referred to Article 97 of the United Nations Charter, that is to the fact that the United Nations would have a secretariat. However, as mentioned above, it could easily be argued that the Charter did not provide specifically for the creation of an armed force under the Secretary-General, and that the right to dispose of armed forces for the purpose of maintaining international peace and security was the remit of the Security Council alone. Although carefully presented by Lie as non-military in character, the guard displayed some of the characteristics of an armed force. Therefore, the Soviet bloc had an argument against the proposal, the question of the legal basis for establishing such a force as part of the Secretariat, and was ready to use it.31 For the USSR, ‘any proposal for the creation of an armed force not provided in the Charter, in any form or on any pretext whatever, was contrary to the Charter’ and was therefore to be rejected. The Soviet representative, Malik, argued even further that the prestige and authority of UN missions did not depend on the existence of a light guard, but ‘on the just and disinterested nature of the decisions of the United Nations and on the impartial and objective manner in which such decisions were carried out by the missions’, and that the presence of a United Nations Guard Force would ‘constitute an inadmissible interference in the domestic affairs of sovereign States’.32 Accusing the United States of being behind the proposal, he added: ‘We cannot fail to observe that this proposal, regardless of the actions of the Secretary-General, is only one of the links in a general system of measures designed to violate the Charter, and to make the United Nations an obedient tool.’ 33 Other arguments against Lie’s proposal included its cost. Similar views,

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stressing that the establishment of armed forces was the responsibility of the Security Council as laid down in Article 43 of the Charter were held by the representatives of Poland and Yugoslavia. To them, the United Nations Guard Force was part of the ‘efforts directed against the basic principle of the Security Council, namely that of the unanimity of the great powers’ and among proposals ‘designed to destroy international co-operation’.34 Needless to say, the Secretary-General’s claim that the sole purpose of the United Nations Guard would be to afford some protection for UN missions and that it could not, in any case, be used for coercive ends, did not convince the Soviet delegation. Even the United States delegation, while supporting the proposal to set up a special committee to study the Secretary-General’s report, thought that the original proposal was ‘somewhat too ambitious and encroached on the military field’.35 Field Service and Field Reserve Proposals The AHPC, to which the question was eventually referred, recommended that a special committee be created composed of the five permanent members of the Security Council and nine others. The special committee would study the matter and prepare a report for consideration during the Fourth Session of the General Assembly. Consequently, at its thirty-second meeting on 11 April 1949, the AHPC adopted a draft resolution proposing the creation of a special committee to consider all relevant aspects of the question, including the technical, budgetary and legal problems involved, together with such other proposals as might be made by Member States or by the Secretary-General. Taking into account the various objections made in the AHPC, and ‘in order to take advantage of every possibility of agreement to proceed’,36 the Secretary-General presented a much less ambitious proposal at the first meeting of the special committee.37 The revised version, calling for the creation of both a field service and a reserve panel, represented a substantial departure from earlier United Nations Guard proposals.38 The field service, comprising a maximum of 300 personnel, while being part of the Secretariat would not be recruited directly but seconded from national governments. Its functions would be limited to providing land or air transport, maintaining radio communications for missions, protecting UN premises and members of missions, maintaining order during meetings, hearings and investigations, and guarding HQs. Explicitly excluded would be such functions as monitoring the terms of a truce, protecting places neutralized during a truce, or supply lines incidental to a truce, and supervising polling stations during a plebiscite. Accordingly, members of the field service would not be supplied with arms of any kind, although individual

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members assigned to protect persons or property would, in isolated instances, be authorized to carry side arms. In any case, no machine-guns, rifles, or any heavier weapons would be placed at the service’s disposal. Men aged between 22 and 30, with previous field experience and technical knowledge, would be eligible to enlist. They would be recruited for a period of one to three years except for a small number of supervisory personnel who would be regular Secretariat members. The field service would be stationed at HQs for training. Recruits would wear slate-blue uniforms and swear an oath of loyalty to the UN. The total cost was estimated to be about onequarter of what had been envisaged for the United Nations Guard. The field reserve panel would be composed of men and women in the national service and recommended by their governments. Its purpose would be to provide a reserve of qualified individuals for functions such as observing and monitoring truces or supervising polling stations. The panel would consist of a stand-by list of personnel who could be called for service only in response to a decision by the General Assembly or the Security Council. The strength, armaments and other conditions were to be determined by the competent organ on a case-by-case basis. Australia, Brazil, Columbia, Greece, Haiti, Sweden, the UK and the US – that is to say the majority of the AHPC – favoured the Secretary-General’s revised proposal in principle. Several members suggested that the field service be organized by enlarging the existing guard force at Headquarters. It is interesting to note that the UK representative expressed explicitly his preference for a system of individual recruitment for the Reserve Panel based on the competence of the individual although some doubts were expressed concerning the desirability of including volunteers in the list. Pakistan and the US also expressed concern at the idea that recruitment to the field service should be exclusively through secondment from member governments. The principle of secondment was not strongly supported by members of the AHPC as it could ‘result in an unnecessary restriction on the choice of personnel and great inequalities in pay which would impair efficiency’, while ‘the supplementary expenses which direct recruitment would involve would be offset by the advantages of that method’.39 Obviously tailored to meet the earlier objections of the AHPC, the revised proposal still met some resistance during the following general debate of the special committee that followed, especially from the representatives of the USSR and Poland. Czechoslovakia criticized the proposal on legal, technical and budgetary grounds. There would be no substantial difference between the revised proposal and the original proposal for a United Nations Guard, it was argued, as the field service would have the general character of a military unit and the reserve panel would carry protective weapons, serve as observers

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of truce terms, supervise polling in plebiscites and perform other duties.40 The resolution for the establishment of a field service was adopted on 27 October 1949 by the AHPC by 38 votes to 5, with 8 abstentions. The resolution for the setting up of a panel of observers was adopted the same day by 28 votes to 7, with 18 abstentions. However, the Soviet bloc maintained its opposition to the establishment of the field service, arguing that the Security Council was, under the Charter, the sole body with authority to set up armed forces, whatever their size, and that the field service would be an obedient tool of US policy. Nevertheless, the motions to establish a field service and a panel of observers were eventually carried by large majorities (respectively 46 votes to 5 (from the Soviet bloc) and 38 votes to 6 (from the Soviet bloc and Yemen) at the General Assembly’s Plenary Session held on 22 November 1949, though what was agreed upon was only a very remote echo of Lie’s initial United Nations guard proposal. Having failed to persuade the General Assembly of the need for a United Nations guard, the Secretary-General sought an opportunity to air various proposals of wider concern, including the necessity of a small military force pending the conclusion of Article 43 agreements. On 21 March 1950, at the triennial dinner of the B’nai B’rith organization in Washington, he launched the idea of a Twenty-year Programme to Win Peace Through the United Nations.41 On 30 March, as a follow-up to this proposal, Lie circulated among delegations the following six-point list that he suggested should be placed on the agenda of a special Security Council meeting: • • • • • •

representation of China at the Security Council (item 1); atomic energy and the problem of the hydrogen bomb (item 2); reduction of conventional armaments (item 3); admission of new members to the UN (item 4); creation of an international force (item 5); plans for holding future periodic meetings of the Security Council (item 6).42

The list was later integrated into a ten-point memorandum that constituted the Twenty-year Programme for Achieving Peace Through the United Nations. Under point 4 the Secretary-General called for ‘a renewal of serious efforts to reach agreement on the armed forces to be made available under the Charter of the Security Council for the enforcement of its decision’. Pending such an agreement, a small force could be set up, which was described in more detail in an informal memorandum eventually circulated among Security Council delegations on 1 April 1950.43

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According to the memorandum, which was leaked to the press,44 a new approach should be made towards resolving differences on the size, location and composition of the forces to be pledged under Article 43 of the Charter. In view of basic political difficulties that might delay the finding of a final solution, the memorandum proposed ‘interim accords for a small force sufficient to prevent or stop localized outbreaks threatening international peace’.45 The force, entirely separate from the field service and the panel of observers, could be established pending the implementation of Article 43 of the Charter. The force would be deployed under the exclusive authority of the Security Council, and would be used in cases where local disturbances had created international ‘breaches of the peace’. It would be not expected to deal with major conflicts or struggles. The ground strength would be of two or three divisions, in addition to which the UN would have at its disposal light naval units, and a small air force. Decisions on recruitment modalities were left to the Security Council. The force was presented by Lie as an interim arrangement pending the creation of the full-scale UN army envisaged in the Charter.46 During April and May 1950, Lie presented the Twenty-year Programme for Achieving Peace Through the United Nations in Washington, London, Paris and Moscow. In Moscow, Lie confirmed to Stalin and Molotov on 15 May that the purpose of the memorandum, at that point, was to secure temporary agreement on a small force, which could consist, for example, of ‘the lowest number of army, navy and air forces proposed by anyone of the great powers’.47 At that time, however, it seemed that the idea of an international military force – either permanent or not, directly recruited or made up of national contingents – had less future than ever, although, further to a ceasefire between India and Pakistan on 25 December 1948, a UN military observer mission had been deployed. Thus, given the limits of the UN’s collective security arrangements, regional arrangements appeared a necessary alternative; consequently, the establishment of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in 1949 under Article 51 of the Charter seemed a step in the right direction. Authorities such as Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, the respected United Nations Plebiscite Administrator for Kashmir and former United States Chief of Naval Operations, declared that ‘the world organization could not – and should not – seek to create a military force to enforce United Nations decisions’.48 Nimitz, believing that the UN should not be considered an enforcement agency, estimated that the use of force in Palestine to effect the internationalization of Jerusalem could have led to ‘a blood bath’. Doubting that the organization would use it in his lifetime, Nimitz thought that ‘the use of force would wreck the United Nations’.49 It

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took no more than three months for his opinion to be contradicted by facts, and for the idea of a UN ‘Legion’ to be resurrected.

KOREA AND THE SPECTRE OF A THIRD WORLD WAR

The Korean War was a turning-point in the history of the UN. The singularity of the Korean operation not only resided in the unique challenges it posed to the impartiality and legitimacy of UN military intervention in the absence of a truly international force, but it also lay in the exceptional circumstances that had permitted its launching: the protest of the USSR over the issue of the representation of China at the Security Council which had led to a Soviet boycott of the Council, thus reducing the risk of a Soviet veto. Following the North Korean attack on South Korea and the occupation of Seoul on 25 June, the Security Council established a United Nations Unified Command on 7 July 1950. It also requested that the United States designate a commander and report to the Council on the course of action to be taken.50 It was the first time in the history of the UN that ‘anything approaching an international police force … had … been seen in operation’.51 On 25 June 1950, Lie clearly feared that the aggression of South Korea might lead to a Third World War.52 It was not just coincidence that on 16 July 1950 the front page of the New York Times displayed two articles side by side, one entitled: ‘United Nations Cautiously Weighs Idea of Volunteer Korea Legion’ and the other: ‘Churchill Warns of Third World War’. Warning that events in Korea have ‘brought the dangers of a third World War nearer’, Winston Churchill urged an end to the ‘policy of drift’ that ‘had wasted three precious years in the life of the United Nations’.53 The hopes raised, as well as the difficulties in organizing the force, were not without consequences for the development of the idea of a UN ‘Legion’.

Renewed Interest for International Force The first problem, from a political point of view, was the composition of the military forces on the ground during the Korean operation. All in all, the United States contributed 50.32 per cent of the ground forces, 85.89 per cent of the naval force and 93.38 per cent of the air force.54 The massive US participation, while contributing to the military success in repelling aggression in Korea, had the counterproductive effect of weakening the collective character of the operation. Was the UN serving the interests of the ‘free world’ or the United States, against Communism? Also, for some countries, supplying troops was a problem as is illustrated by this anecdote from John

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Hickerson, the Assistant Secretary of State in direct contact with foreign representatives about troops and in constant touch with the SecretaryGeneral. He once mentioned to Lie that one representative had called saying ‘they had almost absolutely nothing that they could send to Korea except a company of camel cavalry’. ‘Well, that’s not camel territory you know,’ replied Lie, half jokingly.55 Military efficiency, but also speedy deployment and a sufficiently rapid decision-making process were vital. As recalled later by Harding F. Bancroft, from the Office of U.N. Political and Security Affairs at the Department of State: We were acting in form at least not unilaterally, but multilaterally and our big job then was to try to get other states to support the action we were taking, to contribute to the action and make it truly an international U.N. force. In all candor, we used the U.N. as a device to support what we probably would have done – what we had to do – anyway, which differentiated to such a large extent from Vietnam ten years later.56 A legion could be considered stronger than a force numerically equal but consisting of national contingents of different nationalities under their own command. It was only natural that the term ‘legion’ would, sooner or later, appear in the debate relating to Korea. An International Brigade of Volunteers? The day the Security Council established a United Nations Unified Command, the New York Times published an editorial entitled: ‘For a United Nations Army’. The newspaper called for the creation of a ‘real’ UN army, demonstrating to the world and especially the ‘Asiatic peoples’ the international character of the action. This, it was thought, would allay the suspicions of imperialism and guarantee that the higher principles of the UN would be honoured. To this effect, the article continued, the Security Council should call upon all Member States that had so far supported the Korean action to participate militarily: Even the smallest of these nations can provide at least a token force, either of regular troops or of volunteers to form a United Nations army which would comprise many nations, races and creeds, and which would contain a substantial contingent of Asiatic troops whose mere presence would refute any charge of ‘white imperialism’.57 In a cable sent on 14 July 1950 to those 52 Member States which had expressed support for the Security Council’s action in invoking sanctions

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against Korea, the Secretary-General made an appeal for troops. At the same time, he informed the concerned Member States that the US government had, at the Security Council’s request, undertaken responsibility for a Unified United Nations Command, which was in urgent need of effective additional assistance, including combat forces, in particular ground forces. At a press conference at Lake Success the same day, Lie emphasized, however, that any forces made available to the UN should be effective, and not merely ‘token forces’. The Command, under the leadership of General Douglas MacArthur, in fact insisted on receiving contributions of minimum reinforced battalion strength, with adequate supporting artillery and reinforcements. He also made it clear that if the United States was acting as the agent of the UN in Korea, it was because at that time there was no international police force.58 According to A. M. Rosenthal in the New York Times the day after Lie’s appeal for military forces, UN officials were ‘cautiously considering the idea of forming a volunteer international legion to fight in Korea’. Was there really a discussion about a ‘volunteer Korea legion’ at the UN, or was Rosenthal seizing the opportunity to promote ideas he had himself advocated in previous articles? Could Lie have used the newspaper to air a new proposal he would eventually make public only a few months later? Not disclosing from where he obtained his information, Rosenthal only mentioned ‘high United Nations sources’ or ‘United Nations officials’. He may have been informed directly by the United States mission, where the SecretaryGeneral had sent his closest advisers, Andrew Cordier and Abraham Feller, on 14 July 1950, to informally discuss, among other issues, the formation of an ‘international brigade’.59 The main purpose of the discussion about a ‘volunteer Korea legion’, as described by Rosenthal, was political: it would serve to emphasize the fact that the UN itself was committed to Korea. The legion would not replace ground troops sent to Korea by United Nations Member States in response to the Secretary-General’s appeal, but would be used in addition to them.60 If successful, it ‘might be the nucleus of a still-unrealised United Nations police force’. At that stage the concept was more than a long-term solution for the UN, it was aimed at solving an immediate problem: the political consequences of the massive participation of the United States in the specific conflict with North Korea. Significantly, it was believed that the creation of the force would not require approval, as the legion would fall into the category of ‘all effective aid to the Republic of Korea’ already voted by the Security Council. Inversely, the time necessary for training and equipping the force made some think that it would be impossible to go ahead, as the force would be

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unlikely to reach Korea in time to affect the situation on the ground.61 Among possible objections were the potentially prohibitive cost to set up the force, even assuming the United States would provide arms; the risk of giving the world the wrong idea that the legion was the organization’s only contribution; and the danger of a blow to morale for the entire UN, should the force be defeated in the field. On the other hand, although screening volunteers would be a cumbersome job, it would give individuals, including some who had already applied to serve in Korea, a chance to serve the UN.62 A week later, reviewing with US officials at the United States mission the replies to his cable of 14 July, Lie found out that too many of the forces pledged were of a token nature. Agreeing with John Hickerson on the importance of several countries contributing forces, he suggested that a new method might be necessary to secure the most effective military force. The Unified Command, he thought, should find ways of using all volunteers from foreign countries. An international brigade, organized by the United States but at the disposal of the Security Council, could bear the UN’s name and wear UN uniforms and be enlisted for a term of two or three years. Lie, anticipating that the number of volunteers would be large, saw no other practical way of organizing the brigade than to entrust the responsibility and finances to the United States. Noting the exceptional circumstances that had allowed for a UN response to the Korean crisis, and in order to prepare for future contingencies, the American Association for the United Nations (AAUN) urged the creation of a UN force ‘in which enlistment would be direct’ under the model outlined by Lie. Such a force could complement national units to be committed under Article 43 of the Charter. As a logical corollary, the AAUN recommended that a plan of action be drawn up to switch the centre of activity from the Security Council to the General Assembly in case of paralysis because of the veto. The AAUN’s policy statement said: The United States Government should declare – and urge other governments similarly to declare – that in case of an aggression against which the Security Council was unable to act promptly because of a veto, the United States would ask for an immediate convocation of the General Assembly and would use its forces for police purposes if the Assembly so requested.63 During the summer of 1950, the general mood was favourable to the setting up of a more permanent form of international force. The support evolved, in a crescendo, from the advocacy of adequate means to support the current military campaign in Korea starting mid-July 1950, to the promotion of

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a directly recruited military instrument to be placed permanently at the disposal of the UN to fight any future aggression. On 23 July 1950, the President of France, Vincent Auriol, called for the creation of a permanent international army as an ‘element of order and security’, declaring: ‘We salute the appearance even tardily, of that international army that France has long asked from the time of Jaurès, Léon Bourgeois, Poincaré, Briand, down to more recent times, and which she urges be organized permanently’.64 In a radio interview on 1 August, the Swedish representative to the General Assembly advocated the creation of an international force recruited from many states on a voluntary basis.65 On 5 August, the South Korean Foreign Minister, Ben C. Limb, urged that the UN force being formed for the Korean War be made permanent. The force, he said, should be ‘strong enough so that hereafter no individual nation on earth, however strong, will dare to defy the will of the United Nations’.66 Thirty-one members of the US Congress, both Republicans and Democrats, joined on 25 August in a resolution urging the creation of a land-seaair police force under the UN to combat aggression. According to the resolution, the proposed force would be directed by a nine-member ‘authority’ – three from the United States, three from Britain and France, and three elected by the smaller Member States. For Senator John J. Sparkman, who cosponsored the resolution, there were ‘hundreds of thousands of volunteers throughout the world who want[ed] to join in the fight against the Communist aggressors in Korea and elsewhere’. The surrealistic legal arrangements envisaged to set up and use the force are worth describing here, as they reflect the inherent contradictions of the project in a Cold War environment. Under the proposed plan, the Security Council would be able to block decisions of the proposed police ‘authority’ only by affirmative action. This way, it was thought, the big stumbling block in setting up the police force in the first place would be to get past the Soviet Union. Once set up, the police force would ‘automatically’ be authorized to take certain actions to put down aggression. The police action could be called off following an order from the Security Council. The United States, it was believed, would then be in a position to veto any Soviet move to call off the police action.67 The Executive Director of the Citizens’ Committee for United Nations Reform, Lucinda Hazen, warned in a letter to the New York Times dated 21 September 1950 against the ‘old idea of having the various United Nations member states earmark “contingents” of their national armed forces to be on call by the United Nations in case of aggression’: The national-contingent system rests on the unrealistic assumption that fifty-odd National Governments, moved by the spirit of

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mutual cooperation, will, when requested, promptly and cheerfully furnish parts of their national armed forces for the UN to use somewhere in the world to suppress aggression. … We have already seen the failure of the voluntary-national-contingents idea in the case of Korea. … What the UN needs is a force of professional volunteers – a kind of Foreign Legion – welded together under one discipline, one command and one allegiance.68 News related to the support to be given to the military coalition in Korea seemed to hint in the same direction, mentioning increasingly frequently the idea of placing forces permanently at the disposal of the UN. Latin American countries expressed interest in a pool of their own resources and manpower for the Korean campaign, possibly through the establishment of a Latin American legion. An international brigade, along the line of Lie’s proposal, could either incorporate the Latin American legion or fight beside it, it was thought.69 Canada had taken the initiative in creating and placing at the disposal of the UN a special force, administered apart from its regular army, which could possibly be put into service elsewhere in the future.70 The Philippine Congress provided for the organization, equipping and maintenance of a Philippine expeditionary force for service in Korea. According to Brigadier General Carlos P. Romulo, the Foreign Secretary of the Philippines and a former President of the General Assembly who had once been proposed by the United States to replace Lie as Secretary-General, it was clearly the intention of the Philippine government ‘to maintain such forces as part of the permanent United Nations police force contemplated in the Charter’.71 It was also reported later in 1951 that, according to a group of Second World War veterans who had opened recruiting offices in Havana, 500 Cubans, including 35 women, had volunteered for military service under UN orders.72 A European Legion? During autumn 1950, the nature of the debate changed significantly, and proposals were becoming more ambitious; they were also getting away from the primary purpose of the UN legion as originally envisaged in the specific Korean context. What the AAUN was demanding at its Fifth Session, in mid-September 1950, was nothing less than the creation of a military force capable of countering any future armed aggression. The Korean situation, one could read in a report circulated by the Association, had underscored the need for a well-worked-out plan for ‘some police force or United Nations legion’ that could be called upon in case of threatened or actual aggression. The force would be financed outside the regular UN budget, and it was

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proposed that the cost might be defrayed in part by creating UN postage stamps.73 On 25 September, the Chairman of the United States Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Omar N. Bradley, made an urgent plea for an international police force to back up the UN’s decisions. The Korean War, he thought, had made an international force ‘more necessary than ever’.74 On 5 October, Milton S. Eisenhower – President of Pennsylvania State College and brother of the Second World War Allied Commander – expressed his hope that the UN would maintain a mobile force of ‘freedom loving men of many nationalities which it may use on a moment’s notice’ to end aggression ‘wherever it may be’.75 It was generally recognized that if the purpose of a permanent international force was to defeat any aggression wherever it could happen, then a small legion of volunteers whose motivations were in any case uncertain would never cope with the job. Unless the legion had the power and the will to hold the Communists in check, it was argued, of what use would it be? 76 On 1 November 1950, the President of Turkey, in his first major speech since assuming office, endorsed the strengthening of the UN with an international police force; yet he described the Atlantic pact (NATO) as the most effective security measure against aggression.77 But while NATO was seen as the sole reliable defence system, proposals for a UN force emphasized an international police force which would be capable of resisting any aggression. On 11 August, at the Consultative Assembly of the newly created Council of Europe in The Hague, Winston Churchill had called for the ‘immediate creation of a European Army under a unified command’. He continued: We should now send a message of confidence and courage from the house of Europe to the whole world. Not only should we reaffirm, as we have been asked to do, our allegiance to the United Nations, but should make a gesture of practical and constructive guidance by declaring ourselves in favour of the immediate creation of a European army under a unified command, and in which we should bear a worthy and honourable part.78 An interesting response to Churchill’s call for a European army in a UN context is Arthur Koestler’s proposal for a ‘Legion of Liberty’, which is an application of the legion principle to the NATO framework in the context of the Korean War. Koestler, a novelist and former foreign correspondent, had himself served as a soldier in the French Foreign Legion and the British Aliens’ Pioneer Corps. Starting from the premise that, in the fight against communism, the only political reality that had emerged was the Atlantic pact, he believed a European legion could ignite public imagination, and

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transform a military alliance into a symbol arousing ‘political libido’. In fact, of sombre memory, the principle of the legion as a fighting force against communism had been widely used in occupied Europe during the Second World War. Primary West European legions included the Volunteer Legion Norwegen, the Volunteer Legion, the Volunteer Legion Niederlande, the Freikorps Danmark and the Finnish Volunteer Battalion of the Waffen-SS. Wehrmacht legions included the French Volunteer Legion against Communism, the Legion, the Croatian Legion and the Spanish Legion.79 For Koestler, the primary function of the force, essential from an institutional point of view, was symbolic: A united European army could be the leaven which ultimately gives rise to a United Europe. It could be the means to by-pass the difficulties, real or imaginary, which at present bloc the road to political and economic integration. But on one condition only: that the problem of the European army should be approached not from a purely military, but from a psychological angle.80 The proposal aimed at the creation of a small elite corps of regiment strength, that is to say 4,000 to 5,000, within the framework of the Atlantic pact and under the direct authority of its supreme command, the Legion of Liberty. The Legion of Liberty was to consist of individual volunteers from the 11 West European nations, and to be so composed that the various nationalities would be mixed together at the lowest level – that is each platoon would comprise soldiers from several, and if possible all nationalities. In other words, instead of being ‘integrated from above’ by the coordination of units from different national armies, the Legion of Liberty would be a force ‘integrated from the base’. The examples of the French Foreign Legion, the Spanish Tertio and the International Brigade were presented as ample demonstration that the fighting morale of such mixed units is excellent and often superior to that of other types of units. The Legion of Liberty regiments would be modelled on the pattern of the American ‘Regimental Combat Teams’, to a large extent self-supporting, with their own infantry, tank and engineer battalions, field artillery and small arms. The language of command would be French. It would be stationed anywhere in Europe – for example in Western Germany or in the Franco-German border provinces. Whereas the building up of a European army out of national contingents would be a lengthy and difficult process, Koestler believed that the recruitment of Legion of Liberty regiments could start immediately provided that the governments concerned consider service in the legion as equivalent to military service at home. The creation of the Legion of Liberty force would

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be complementary to existing official projects, such as the Acheson Plan outlined in the Uniting for Peace resolution, Churchill Strasbourg proposal of a European Ministry of Defence, the Culbertson proposal of a United Nations Police Force, or the proposal of Senator Lodge for a Brigade composed of refugees from Eastern Europe.

The Work of the Collective Measures Committee Inspired by readings on the failure of the League of Nations in the Ethiopian case, and drawing lessons from an operation in which the Military Staff Committee had played no role in the strategic direction of the action, Bancroft drafted a resolution enabling the General Assembly to act, should UN action be thwarted by veto in the Security Council in the future. On 3 November 1950 the General Assembly approved the Uniting for Peace resolution.81 A collective measures committee was established that would discuss a United States proposal for a UN legion and Lie’s revised proposal for a United Nations Volunteer Reserve. American Proposal for a UN Legion The Uniting for Peace resolution reaffirmed that the initiative in negotiating agreements for armed forces provided in Article 43 of the Charter belonged to the Security Council. Yet the General Assembly did not exclude a possible failure of the Security Council to exercise its primary responsibility in the case of a threat to the peace, breach to the peace, or act of aggression. In such cases, the General Assembly could make appropriate recommendations to Member States to restore international peace and security pending the conclusion of Article 43 agreements. The resolution also aimed at ensuring that the UN had at its disposal adequate means for this purpose. To this end, the General Assembly invited Member States to maintain elements within their own national armed force so trained, organized and equipped that they could promptly be made available for service as a UN unit, or units, upon recommendation by the Security Council and the General Assembly. For the first time since the work of the Military Staff Committee, a UN organ was also charged with responsibility for a comprehensive study of collective measures. The Collective Measures Committee consisted of 14 members: Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Burma, Canada, Egypt, France, Mexico, the Philippines, Turkey, the UK, the USA, Venezuela and Yugoslavia. It was to study and report to the Security Council and the General Assembly on methods which might be used to maintain and strengthen international peace and security in accordance with the purposes and principles of the Charter.

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While the first meeting of the Collective Measures Committee, held on 5 March 1951 82 was open to the press, it was agreed that in future the Committee would hold closed sessions, except when delegates making policy speeches in the opening phases of the work would ask that those sessions be open. At the initial public meeting, Harding F. Bancroft, representing the US delegation, asked for detailed planning on three ideas: • the organization and coordination of military units to be set aside by Member States for duty at the call of the UN; • the creation of a UN legion; • the meshing of regional defence agreements into the global pattern of collective action. The United States’ suggestion that the Collective Measures Committee should study the UN legion proposal, and its simultaneous calls for strong international forces to resist aggression in other fora, was bound to raise suspicion and criticism from the socialist bloc. Meanwhile, on 24 March, the troops led by General MacArhur had succeeded in pushing back Chinese and North Korean forces north of the 38th parallel. On 31 March, the Chief of the Yugoslav mission to the UN, Dr Ales Bebler, stated before the Collective Measures Committee that his country had ‘serious doubts’ about even studying the formation of a ‘supra-national military force’. ‘The creation of such a force’, he believed, ‘would clearly raise constitutional issues concerning the United Nations Charter and would entail political implication of the first magnitude’. Several other members were of the opinion that the Collective Measures Committee should pay special attention to ways of implementing the General Assembly’s recommendation concerning the earmarking of their military forces by Member States.83 In the Collective Measures Committee, the issues were transferred to a military subgroup, where a working paper analysing the issues raised by a UN legion was drawn up. Arguments against the idea were varied. From a moral point of view, it was argued the legion might attract adventurers and former Nazi, and fascist soldiers. On a political basis, it was suggested that Member States may one day find themselves supporting a UN legion that included their own exiles or militantly dissident groups. From a military point of view, it was felt that the legion might cost more in time and money than it would be worth. Moreover, it was argued, the impact of a defeat for the legion might have disastrous effects on public opinion incommensurate with the actual military situation in the field.84 In a speech before the United Nations Association of Canada at Harvard University, Trygve Lie confirmed on 1 June 1951 that the possibility of

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creating a separate UN legion composed of volunteers was being studied. Recalling that under the Uniting for Peace resolution Member States were being asked to set aside part of their armed forces for UN action in case of future acts of aggression, he declared: I have advocated since 1948 the creation of special United Nations forces. As Secretary-General, I feel it is of the utmost importance that the Member governments agree to provide these forces and that a United Nations Legion be also established, composed of volunteers from those countries unable to set aside special United Nations units of their own. These forces should be at the disposal of the Security Council and the General Assembly.85 It was at Harvard in 1948 that Lie had announced his proposal for a United Nations Guard and although it appeared that history was strikingly repeating itself, this time the situation was different. The UN legion proposal originally promoted by Harold Stassen as early as 1943, but later on generally attributed to Trygve Lie,86 had in fact already been floated for a year before being clearly supported by the Secretary-General in 1951. That Lie had, at an early stage of the Korean War, played a relatively discreet role in its development is suggested by him in his memoirs. Yet the concept submitted to the Collective Measures Committee came after several other proposals had been made, debated and publicized, especially in US circles. In fact, retrospectively, Lie’s public announcement on 1 June came too late to be effective. There were already signs that the enthusiasm for an ‘international brigade’ for use in the Korean theatre had faded, and that opposition to what was already being seen as a radical proposal had begun to sharpen. Hardly surprising given the context, the Collective Measures Committee delayed examining the question, despite the United States’ plea for quick action in writing plans. In its first report submitted in late 1951, the Collective Measures Committee only mentioned in extremis and very briefly, among subjects deserving additional inquiry, the questions connected with the organization of military resources available to the UN. In particular, the report stated that the Collective Measures Committee felt it ‘desirable that an analysis should be made of the possible advantages and disadvantages in the Secretary-General’s proposal’.87 Three main approaches to the idea of a UN legion eventually emerged in the Committee: • a force immediately available for UN service, made up of 5,000 to 25,000 individual volunteers under special UN command;

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• a legion made of units specially earmarked for UN service by Member States and placed under a special UN command; • a legion made up of volunteers already serving in national armed forces but who would have indicated their readiness to serve under the UN flag.88 The United States remained the most fervent supporter of the proposal for a UN legion, with the US representative, Bancroft, calling again for a ‘realistic evaluation’ of the idea, which he said, is a ‘subject well worth exploration’.89 However, the predominant opinion of military experts and diplomats was that under current political and military conditions the project was not practical. Trygve Lie’s Proposal for a Volunteer Reserve In spite of growing opposition to the UN legion, the Secretary-General was invited to elaborate on his proposal, which had been made public in a report approved on 6 October 1952, more fully before the Collective Measures Committee.90 What Lie was advocating at this stage was no longer the creation of a supranational, self-contained, internationally recruited standing force. Such a force – subject not to the control of any national government but to a self-contained UN command – would be, he believed, administratively, financially and militarily impracticable for the time being. The force, a supplement to basic forces made up of self-contained contingents, would therefore not be an international army in size or composition. Its primary purpose would be to facilitate support from smaller states. Those, he thought, might prefer jointly to support an organized United Nations Volunteer Reserve rather than leave the extent and nature of their contributions to await detailed negotiation at the outbreak of any aggression. Moreover, national contributions to any UN force could be maximized by advance consultation and coordination with states whose resources or circumstances prevented their individually organized units from being of a size or nature suitable for self-contained integration into a UN force. Lie therefore proposed to the Collective Measures Committee the creation of an ‘international organizational framework’, which would not have the character of a military staff structure, but through which some states would be further enabled to contribute combatant or ancillary units otherwise unlikely to become available under procedures contemplated in para. 8 of the Uniting for Peace resolution.91 Additionally, it was thought, potential strength might be added to forces available to any United Nations Executive Military Authority by enlisting the services of individual volunteers who would wish to serve in support of UN principles to resist aggression. Lie estimated that under the proposed framework some 50,000 to 60,000

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volunteers willing to uphold the principles of the UN could become available as part of a volunteer reserve. Volunteers would be made available through the existing national military establishments. They would be trained in advance on a part-time basis, equipped and organized into special reserve units, pending their mobilization for service by the UN (similar to the units of the British Territorial Army or the United States National Guard), thus reducing problems of morale associated with long periods of inactivity. The costs for recruiting, equipping and training the reservists would be borne by cooperating states. Detailed arrangements, including those with regard to conditions of service, would be examined and completed on a state-by-state basis. In particular, it would be decided between such states and the United Nations Executive Military Authority whether the reservists should be mobilized as part of any force contributed by the state concerned, or as a part of an alternative force, or a combination of both. No separate overall command staff was envisaged, while the international character of the United Nations Volunteer Reserve was emphasized.92 The proposal, a remote image of the UN legion as originally envisaged, did not go beyond a preliminary consideration of the Collective Measures Committee, that did not take any decision on its merits, political possibility, or military feasibility. One point on which it did take a position was the appropriateness of the use of the term ‘legion’: the term was found confusing and misleading in this context. The opinion of the Collective Measures Committee was thus that a UN legion would not be a feasible proposition and that the idea should therefore be abandoned. The Korean operation had been the response to flagrant aggression between states and had required a determined and massive demonstration of military force. In such a case, only a strong military coalition under a unified command and United States leadership, backed with the forces, equipment and logistics of a major power, could take up the challenge. Yet the massive participation of the United States had affected negatively the perceived legitimacy of the force to intervene, which had not made its task easy. This problem could have been partially solved by the resort to volunteers from those countries not able to set aside units of their own. In fact, the concepts of ‘real international army’, ‘international brigade’, ‘Korea volunteer legion’ and ‘UN legion’, put forward during this period had often very little – if anything at all – to do with a supranational international police or world army endowed with extensive powers. The type of individually recruited force generally envisaged was: • relatively modest in size (a brigade);

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• a complement to forces already existing or to be created under Article 43 of the Charter; • designed to facilitate the military participation of smaller countries in collective action; • under the financial and operational responsibility of the United States; • to be placed under the command of an ad hoc unified command/executive military authority. • mainly for symbolic and political purposes. Clearly, for Lie, in Korea, the political battle was ‘even more important than the military battle’.93 Proposals, therefore, aimed essentially at providing a limited, circumstantial, pragmatic, solution to an immediate problem: the lack of international character of the forces involved in the Korean theatre resulting from the massive American participation in the operation. A number of reasons militated against the implementation of the proposal to create a UN legion. The first, and decisive factor, was the relatively shortterm nature of the emergency in Korea: as early as 30 June 1951, North Korea accepted an armistice. The force, it was argued, would not have been able to meet the specific tasks immediately assigned to it in Korea: special legislation in the United States would be required; volunteer forces could not be assembled in time; defeat for the UN legion in the field would be a blow to morale for the entire UN; the world might get the wrong idea that the legion was the UN’s only contribution to the war in Korea; and so on. None of the above seemed, at least at the beginning, insurmountable. By contrast, more fundamental problems were found to be overcome relatively easily at the time: the creation of the force would not require the approval of the Security Council, as the ‘international brigade’ or ‘legion’ would fall into the category of ‘all effective aid to the Republic of Korea’ already voted by the Security Council; the force could be used for policing duties in Korea after the fighting had ended, thereby solving the problem of what might be done afterwards with the troops; and so on. Far from putting into question the very principle of the UN legion, the objections seem to have been mainly circumstantial. The only real, systematic and radical opposition came from the Soviet bloc, but even their arguments, by envisaging the difficulties of creating and using such a force in the Korean context, only pointed to the ad hoc character of a solution conceived in the fever of the emergency. Eventually, the UN legion, however useful it might have been, could not be set up quickly enough to take action in the Korean theatre. Improvised under the strong pressure of events, the UN legion proposals had been designed to meet challenges it could not meet, as its recruitment, organization and

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deployment would have taken far too long. Could then the UN legion, if it had been created or continued after the emergency, have avoided such a state of unpreparedness in the event of similar threat to international security? What had been initiated, with the Uniting for Peace resolution, was a process of planning for the future. Yet, significantly, as mentioned above, the question of a UN legion was subsequently passed to the Collective Measures Committee, a deliberative and reporting body rather than an operative organ. Which brings us to the second reason for not creating a UN legion. In the first instance, the failure of the Committee to consider even a limited version of the initial proposal prevented the creation of a United Nations Volunteer Reserve. But secondly, and more importantly, the Committee was concerned about a UN legion specificity compared to the multiplicity of situations it was designed to meet in the future. The fact that, with the Korean crisis, a UN-authorized coalition had been set up for the first time to resist aggression was considered by the Collective Measures Committee to be a framework rather than a model. Once the crisis was over, the UN legion proposal resisted institutionalization. According to Lie’s Aide, Colonel Katzin,94 who had followed closely the activities of the Committee: As a first premise, the Committee considered that, while it was highly desirable for advance agreement to be reached on the nature of the steps to be taken to counter aggression, it was nevertheless unrealistic – no matter how desirable it may be in the abstract – in present circumstances to expect that governments could formally commit themselves in advance to any particular set of procedures or to any contribution to any United Nations action against any aggression. Any such attempt would have been largely illusory because the United Nations could not in fact plan in advance to meet all conceivable specific situations.95 A third reason for the non-implementation of the UN legion proposal was the rapid change in the nature of the perceived threat to international peace and security. An ad hoc solution to an immediate problem, the concept of a UN legion was bound to lose its raison d’être without the specific circumstances of the Korean crisis. What had made the UN legion proposal a potential option was the extreme character of the threat to international peace and security in the case of Korea: an aggression of one state against another requiring collective action to repel the aggressor. Partly because of the military success in Korea, partly because of the risks of a major power confrontation, subversion and guerrilla tactics were more likely in the foreseeable future than direct aggression from the communist camp. Collective

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enforcement by the UN against a potential aggressor was no longer the priority. As explained by Ruth Russell: The gradual disinterest in preparations for United Nations mobilisation of military enforcement measures matched the gradual recession of East–West tensions that followed the Korean Truce of 1953, the Geneva Conference of 1954, and the summit meeting of 1955. It also reflected an increased American reliance on the development of further regional security arrangements in the Far and Middle East. SEATO and CENTO were established in 1954–55, although conditions in both their areas bore little, if any, resemblance to the situation in Europe that had made NATO an effective military barrier to Soviet expansion.96 In 1955 Francis Wilcox and Carl Marcy noted that there was ‘little evidence in the current state of world tension that the great powers would be able to agree on making armed forces available to the United Nations’.97 NOTES 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.

9. 10. 11.

12.

T. Lie, In the Cause of Peace (New York: Macmillan, 1954), p. 98. Ibid., pp. 164–70. New York Times, 28 December 1947, p. 4. ‘Possible Force for Palestine’ (Letter), New York Times, 6 January 1948, p. 26. ‘Mackenzie King Retiring; Call Communism Tyranny’, New York Times, 21 January 1948, p. 1. M. Browne, ‘United Nations Palestine Body Writing its Report’, New York Times, 23 January 1948, p. 13. ‘Force in Palestine up to UN Council’, New York Times, 24 January 1948; p. 6. L. Goodrich, ‘Efforts to Establish International Force Down to 1950’, in W. R. Frye (ed.), A United Nations Peace Force (New York: Oceana for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1957), p. 185. Annual Report of the Secretary-General on the Work of the Organization, 1 July 1947–30 June 1948, A/565, p. xi. Lie, Cause of Peace, p. 98. On Bernadotte, see, inter alia, R. Hewins, Count Folke Bernadotte, His Life and Work (London: Hutchinson & Co., 1948), 264 pp. Bernadotte is the author of The Fall of the Curtain, Last Days of the Third Reich (translated from the Swedish by Count Eric Lewenhaupt (London: Cassell, 0000), and Instead of Arms (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1949). Progress Report of the United Nations Mediator on Palestine submitted to the Secretary-General for Transmission to the Members of the United Nations in Pursuance of Paragraph 2, Part II, of Resolution 186 (S-2) of the General Assembly of 14 May 1948, GA, 3rd Sess., Suppl. 1, 1948, A/648, p. 32.

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13. Under the terms of the resolution establishing the Truce Commission on 23 April 1948, the Commission was to be composed of governments having career consuls in Jerusalem: the United States, Belgium and France. Syria had declined to participate. 14. Lie, Cause of Peace, p. 98; ‘Lie Urges Forming Small Force “Soon”’, New York Times, 11 June 1948, p. 7. 15. ‘Working on Details of UN Guard Force’, New York Times, 17 June 1948, p. 20. 16. ‘World Police Unit to Back UN Urged’, New York Times, 8 July 1948, p. 4. 17. Apart from the services of five colonels of the Swedish Army, the Mediator requested the Member States of the Truce Commission – Belgium, France and the United States – each to furnish 21 officers from their armed forces to act as military observers. These 63 observers arrived in Cairo between 11 and 14 June 1948 and were immediately dispatched to Palestine and some of the Arab states, 1948, A/648, pp. 32–3. 18. Ibid.; ‘UN to Send 50 Men to Palestine to Aid in Observing Truce’, New York Times, 17 June 1948, p. 20. 19. A total of 682 military observers and auxiliary technical personnel were subsequently requested by the Mediator, of which only 572 were actually provided. After general armistice agreements were concluded in early 1949 between Israel and its four Arab neighbours, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria, the military observers were retained by the Security Council (Security Council Res. 73 of 11 August 1949) to help implement the agreements. They were formalized as the United Nations Truce Supervision Organization (UNTSO), and operated with four mixed armistice commissions under a chief of staff, The Blue Helmets – A Review of United Nations Peace-keeping (New York: United Nations, 1990), pp. 18–19. 20. A/565, pp. xvii–xviii. 21. Ibid. 22. Lie, Cause of Peace, p. 193 23. K. Teltsch, ‘UN Gets Proposal for Small Guard Force, Separate From Army, to Help Keep Peace’, New York Times, 7 September 1948, p. 15; ‘A Constabulary for the UN’, New York Times, 8 September 1948, p. 28. 24. G. Barrett, ‘UN Guard Force Supported by U.S.’, New York Times, 9 September 1948, p. 12; ‘U.S. Perfects Plan for UN Guard Unit’, New York Times, 15 September 1948, p. 3. 25. Plenary meetings of the General Assembly, summary Record of meetings 21 September –12 December 1948, 3rd Sess., Part I, GAOR, p. 31. See also the declaration by Mr Spits (Netherlands), Continuation of the discussion on the progress report of the United Nations Mediator on Palestine, GA, 3rd Sess., Part I, ‘Political and Security Questions Including Regulations of Armaments’, 1st Committee, 209th Mtg, 1948, A/648, p. 729. 26. B. D. Hulen, ‘Capital Dismayed at Count’s Death’, New York Times, 18 September 1948, p. 5. 27. ‘Defense Budget’, New York Times, 20 September 1948, p. 1. 28. Lie, Cause of Peace, p. 193 29. A/656, 28 September 1948; ‘Hr Trygve Lie’s Proposals for UN Guard’, Keesing’s Record of World Events, Keesing’s Contemporary Archives, 9–16 October 1948, pp. 9545, 9551. 30. ‘UN Guard of 300 would be Nucleus – Lie Offers Blueprint of Move to Set Up a Small Force to Protect Agencies’, New York Times, 1 October 1948, p. 5. 31. Lie, Cause of Peace, p. 193 32. A/835. 33. Plenary meetings of the General Assembly, summary record of meetings 5 April–18 May

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1949, GA, 3rd Sess., Part II, 200th Mtg, 1949, pp. 212–13. 34. ‘UN Guard Force’, Keesing’s Record of World Events, Keesing’s Contemporary Archives, 28 May –4 June 1949, p. 10017. 35. Plenary meetings of the General Assembly, summary record of meetings 5 April–18 May 1949, GA, 3rd Sess., Part II, 200th Mtg, 1949, pp. 215, 220. 36. Ibid., p. 221. 37. Ibid. 38. The composition of the Special Committee was determined by General Assembly Res. 270 (III) of 29 April 1949 (voted by 47 votes to 6 (from the Slav group), with Liberia abstaining) as follows: Australia, Brazil, China, Columbia, Czechoslovakia, France, Greece, Haiti, Pakistan, Poland, Sweden, the USSR, the UK and the United States. Ad Hoc Political Committee, Summary Records of Meetings 6 April–10 May 1949, GA, 3rd Sess., Part II, p. 47. 39. United Nations Field Service, Report of the Special Committee for the Creation of a United Nations Guard, Annex 1, GA, 4th Sess., Suppl. 13, A/959, pp. 6–7. This document was originally issued as A/AC.29/1. See also Annual Report of the SecretaryGeneral on the Work of the Organization, 1 July 1948–30 June 1949, GA, 4th Sess., Suppl. 1, A/930, p. xiv. 40. ‘Observations of the Special Committee on a United Nations Guard’, A/959, p. 2. 41. ‘Views of the minority, consisting of the Delegations of the Soviet Socialist Republics, Czechoslovakia and Poland’, ibid., p. 2. 42. Lie, Cause of Peace, p. 278. 43. New York Times, 31 March 1950, p. 20. 44. By-line of A.M. Rosenthal, New York Times, 1 April 1950, p. 3. 45. The text of the ten-point memorandum can be found in Lie, Cause of Peace, pp. 278–82. 46. ‘UN Army Project Asks for 2–3 Divisions’, New York Times, 2 April 1950, p. 18; R. S. Giles, ‘The Development of a United Nations Military Policy with Emphasis on the United States’ (thesis 1627, University of Chicago, 1952), pp. 301–2. 47. Giles, ‘Development of a United Nations Military Policy’, p. 300. 48. ‘Nimitz Says that UN Should Not Use Force’, New York Times, 24 February 1950, p. 7. 49. ‘Nimitz Holds UN is Doing a Good Job’, New York Times, 16 April 1950, p. 13. 50. Security Council Res. 1588, 7 July 1950. 51. Speech by Mr Webb (New Zealand), GA, 7th Sess., 280th Mtg, GAOR, 1952, p. 34. 52. Lie, Cause of Peace, p. 328. 53. ‘Churchill Warns of 3d World War’, New York Times, 19 July 1950, p. 5. 54. L. M. Goodrich, The United Nations (London: Stevens & Sons, 1960), p. 183. For an overall account of the conflict, see T. R. Fehrenbach, This Kind of War – Korea: A Study in Unpreparedness (New York: Pocket Books, 1964), 747 pp. 55. Interview (Third) with John D. Hickerson by Richard D. McKinzie, Oral History, Philadelphia, PA and Washington, DC, 5 June 1973 (Independence, MS: Truman Presidential Museum and Library, opened 1976). 56. Interview with Harding F. Bancroft by Richard D. McKinzie, Oral History, New York, 25 June 1974 (Independence, MS: Truman Presidential Museum and Library). 57. ‘For a UN Army’, New York Times, 7 July 1950, p. 18. 58. ‘Hr Trygve Lie Appeals to Member States to Support United Nations Action in Korea’, Keesing’s Record of World Events, 15–22 July 1950, p. 10848. 59. Lie, Cause of Peace, p. 338. 60. A. M. Rosenthal. ‘UN Cautiously Weighs Idea of Volunteer Korea Legion’, New York

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Times, 16 July 1950, p. 1. 61. T. J. Hamilton, ‘Stalin’s China Bid is Opposed at UN’, New York Times, 18 July 1950, p. 5. 62. A. M. Rosenthal. ‘UN Cautiously Weighs Idea’, New York Times, pp. 1, 4. 63. ‘US Urged to Move for a World Force’, New York Times, 19 July 1950, p. 5. 64. ‘Auriol for Forming of UN Army Hails Quick Korea Action’, New York Times, 24 July 1950, p. 1. 65. ‘Swedish Delegate Urges UN Force’, New York Times, 1 August 1950, p. 9. 66. ‘Permanent UN Force Urged’, New York Times, 6 August 1950, p. 29. 67. ‘Thirty Congressmen Urge a UN Force’, New York Times, 26 August 1950, p. 5. 68. ‘Armed Forces for the UN – System of ProfessionalVolunteers Under Single Command Proposed’, letter from Lucinda Hazen dated 21 September 1950, New York Times, 25 September 1950, p. 22. 69. ‘Volunteer Force for Korea Studied’, New York Times, 11 August 1950, p. 5. 70. ‘Backing Gains in UN for Full-time Force’, New York Times, 11 September 1950, p. 17. 71. ‘Philipino Troops Held Part of Permanent Force’, New York Times, 15 September 1950, p. 5. 72. ‘Cuban Volunteers for UN Service’, New York Times, 29 June 1951, p. 9. 73. ‘U.S. Urged to Lead Move for UN Army’, New York Times, 17 September 1950, p. 16. 74. ‘Bradley Asks UN Force’, New York Times, 26 September 1950, p. 21. 75. ‘Dr M. S. Eisenhower Heads Penn State’, New York Times, 6 October 1950, p. 29. 76. ‘Volunteer UN Army Opposed’, New York Times, letter dated 26 September 1950, 6 October 1950, p. 26. 77. ‘Turkey’s Firm Tie to West Asserted’, New York Times, 2 November 1950, p. 14. 78. Sir A. Eden, The Memoirs of the Rt. Hon. Sir Anthony Eden (London: Cassell, 1960), p. 30. 79. R. Landwehr, ‘The European Volunteer Movement in World War II’, Journal of Historical Review, 2, 1 (1981), pp. 59–84. 80. ‘For a European “Legion of Liberty”’, New York Times Magazine, 8 October 1950, pp. 9 ff. 81. Res. 377 A, 3 November 1950; Oral History Interview with Harding F. Bancroft, 25 June 1974, p. 38. 82. ‘US Issues Call for UN Legion’, New York Times, 6 March 1951, p. 15. 83. ‘Yugoslavia Opposes a UN Armed Legion’, New York Times, 31 March 1951, p. 5. 84. ‘UN Legion Plans Expected to Lag’, New York Times, 31 March 1951, p. 3. 85. See Col. A. G. Katzin, ‘Collective Security: The Work of the Collective Measures Committee’, Annual Review of United Nations Affairs (1952), p. 212. 86. See S. M. Schwebel. ‘A United Nations “Guard” and a United Nations “Legion”’ in W. R. Frye (ed.), A United Nations Peace Force (New York: Oceana for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1957), p. 209. 87. Report of the Collective Measures Committee, GA, 6th Sess., Suppl. 13, 1951, A/1891, para. 36. 88. ‘UN Experts Study Forming of Legion’, New York Times, 31 July 1952, p. 5. 89. ‘Idea of UN Legion is favored by US’, New York Times, 16 April 1952, p. 3. 90. A/2215, p. 12. 91. Ibid. 92. Ibid., pp. 12–13. 93. Lie, Cause of Peace, p. 339.

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94. Col. Alfred G. Katzin, a citizen of the Union of South Africa who had served in Allied intelligence during the Second World War, before becoming a senior officer to the United Nations Relief and Reconstruction Agency (UNRRA). Katzin was appointed Representative of the Secretary-General to the United Nations Commission by Trygve Lie in July 1950. 95. Katzin. ‘Collective Security’, p. 206. 96. R. B. Russell, The United Nations and United States Security Policy (Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution, 1968), p. 134. 97. F. O. Wilcox and C. M. Marcy, Proposals for Changes in the United Nations (Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution, 1955), p. 179.

THREE

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Because History is sliced with little recalcitrant pieces of Utopia, because time is made of a syncope of time, Utopia and History, although contradictory, are secretly working on the same anvil. Giles Lapouge, Utopie et Civilisations, 1990

On 27 March 1953, Dag Hamarskjöld was selected by the Security Council to replace Trygve Lie who had resigned on 10 November 1952, his support for the Korean War having provoked outrage from the Soviet Union. The nationalization of the Suez Canal Company by President Gamal Abdel Nasser on 26 July 1956, and the subsequent invasion of Egypt in the autumn of the same year, created a far-reaching precedent. The sending of a 6,000strong United Nations Emergency Force (UNEF) to monitor a ceasefire between the parties opened the ‘Age of Peacekeeping’.1 On the one hand, as later explained by Sir Anthony Eden, the fact was that ‘the United Nations had never been equipped by an armed force of its own which would see to it that the resolutions of the Security Council were observed’, which made the Anglo-French action ‘essential’.2 On the other hand, the creation of UNEF was the realization of the hopes of some of the founders of the United Nations. Once again, as in the case of Korea, both the possibilities and the limits of the United Nations military role were highlighted, and the challenges posed by the operation stimulated reflection on international force. For several decades, the United Nations peacekeepers would remain the physical expression of the moral authority of the UN. The development of such a technique corresponded to an evolution of the perceived threat: what was at stake was no longer the organization of collective enforcement action against aggression, but the containment of local military outbreaks that might degenerate in an East–West confrontation. Peacekeeping had a

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contradictory effect on the evolution of the idea of a UN ‘Legion’: the pioneering experiments, with the Suez crisis, provoked its revival; the development of peacekeeping in response to the Congo crisis consecrating the value of ad hoc arrangements was accompanied by its temporary burial.

THE AGE OF PEACEKEEPING

The crossing of the Egyptian border by Israeli forces on 29 October 1956 was quickly followed by an air attack by Britain and France of Egyptian targets and by the landing of their troops near Port Said and at the northern end of the canal. This meant the collapse of the General Armistice Agreement between Egypt and Israel concluded under the auspices of and supervised by the UN. In view of the potential dangers of the situation, including the risk of a further spreading of the conflict, the crisis quickly prompted Secretary-General Hammarskjöld and the Secretary for External Affairs of Canada, Lester Pearson, to seek the establishment of a UN police force. The debate evolved around two different aspects of the same concept, highlighting both the need for emergency deployment and its innovative role in maintaining peace: the fire brigade, on the one hand, the United Nations ‘peace force’ on the other hand. The success of UNEF was an incentive for research and wider reflection among diplomats, the military and scholars, on the subject of a permanent international force, including proposals for a direct enlistment by the UN.

Suez and the Fire Brigade Concept In spite of the potentially disastrous international political and economical consequences of Nasser’s seizure of the greatest international waterway in the world, the Western powers did not resort to the use of force immediately. The issue had first to be brought to the Security Council. Unlike the Korean case, where action had been made possible due to the absence of the USSR from the Security Council, neither the UN nor the USA was likely to take effective action in the Middle East. On the other hand, the two most directly concerned countries, the United Kingdom and France, did not have the necessary military means to intervene directly at this early stage. Eden later recalled the logistical nightmare: Unless the action could have been carried through exclusively by airborne troops, there was no alternative to an expedition from Malta. Unless we could fly all the forces needed, they

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A UN ‘Legion’: Between Utopia and Reality had to swim. The nearest place from which to swim was Malta, a thousand miles away. Cyprus has no sufficient harbour for landing-crafts or transports. There is no escape from these logistics. We had nothing like enough airborne troops for an operation of this kind. The French had more, but together we could not have mustered a full division with artillery support. The follow-up would have taken several weeks to organise, even with the most brilliant improvisation.3

Debate at the General Assembly Because, of the perceived ‘utter indifference shown by the United Nations to the international aspects of the crisis’,4 an all-out attack of Egypt by Israel in cooperation with France and Britain was eventually decided. The occupation of the Sinai by Israeli forces on 31 October was followed two days later by the landing of British and French troops on Suez. Res. 998 (ES-1) of 4 November 1956 subsequently requested that the Secretary-General submit to the General Assembly within 48 hours a plan for the setting up of an emergency international UN force. Rejecting the option of a Korean-type operation, the General Assembly decided on 5 November 1956 to establish a United Nations Command on an emergency basis. Guiding principles were set by the Secretary-General for the organization and functioning of the force: it was to be recruited from Member States other than the Permanent Members of the Security Council; its task would be to secure and supervise the cessation of hostilities; it would enter and operate on Egyptian territory only with the consent of the Egyptian government. The newly established UNEF began operating in Egypt on 12 November 1956, as the Force Commander and a group of military observers detached from UNTSO set up a temporary headquarters. The first ‘Blue Helmets’ in UN history, the force would allow for a gradual withdrawal of British, French and Israeli forces. What UNEF demonstrated was the need for the United Nations to have an effective military instrument if it were to play a significant role. On 1 November 1956, at a debate in the House of Commons, Anthony Eden, who had been one of the first to advocate the creation of an international army at the permanent disposal of the UN in 1945, made the suggestion that a UN force should be associated with the Anglo-French police action.5 The idea was taken up in the General Assembly by Pearson the next day. On 21 November 1956, during the 11th Sess. of the General Assembly, the Representative of Greece called for an international police force. Identifying the main weakness of the UN in the inability or unwillingness of nations to

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enforce the principles of the Charter, rather than in the Charter itself, he observed that there was a vast discrepancy between the ideals of the Charter and the reality of power politics. Seeing in the Middle East experiment ‘a small step in the right direction’, he suggested the creation of ‘a United Nations police force capable of ensuring international order’.6 A week later, on 29 November 1957, the Foreign Minister of Pakistan, Firaz Khan Noon, declared that the General Assembly’s prompt action in setting up UNEF encouraged his delegation in the hope that ‘without undue delay the International Force envisaged in Chapter VII of the Charter’ would be established. He suggested to the General Assembly that the UN Emergency Force should be made the core of a directly recruited permanent army to enforce the rule of law in international disputes: Even though this international force may not be stronger than the national armed forces, its moral force, with the backing of the whole civilized world, would be an effective deterrent to any potential aggressor. This international force, comprising of the present units made available to the United Nations by the armed forces of the Member States under General Assembly resolution 377 (V), should eventually be recruited and paid for by this Organization and located, under its own commanders, in various strategic areas of the world.7 The same day, the Representative of Nepal recalled that the UN did ‘not yet have an international army which is capable of making its decisions respected … because the permanent members have been unable to reach agreement’. UNEF, he observed, ‘is not the international army which was envisaged by the Charter’, adding: ‘It is none the less true that the creation of this international police force marks a great step towards and will make it easier, later on, to organize that army without which the Organization can never enforce decisions completely, in spite of its great moral influence.’8 While the Egyptian Representative saw in UNEF ‘a step in the right direction towards the implementation of Art. 43 of the Charter’,9 the Canadian Representative gave a slightly different orientation to the debate. What he had in mind, he said, was not an internationally recruited force. Assuming that the UNEF experiment worked, the UN might usefully consider some means of having units of armed forces of the smaller countries made available at short notice for such supervisory duties. ‘The United Nations’, he said, ‘might also think of a permanent organization available to the appropriate United Nations authority to provide the necessary central machinery which

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would organize these contributions and put these forces effectively into operation when the need arose.’ Comparing the deployment of UNEF to a ‘miracle’, he saw in such circumstances ‘the psychological moment when national governments may perhaps be more prepared, under the impact of these recent events, to commit themselves to such procedures in advance for the sake of increasing the authority of the United Nations’.10 The position of Canada in favour of more permanent arrangements was reaffirmed on 23 September 1957. The Canadian Representative considered UNEF to be a ‘pilot project’ for a ‘permanent international force’. He estimated that ‘it should be possible to evolve [towards] a system by which the United Nations … [would] … have at its disposal similar forces for similar services wherever they may be required’. Acknowledging that the creation of UNEF had ensured tranquillity for the area, he added: ‘Malignant diseases, however, are not cured by tranquilizers, and for that reason I still hold the view that only by the establishment of a permanent United Nations force – and I realize the uncertain and faltering steps that must be taken to achieve this – can many of the hopes of San Francisco be achieved.’11 On 26 September 1957, the Representative of Greece, said the UN ‘should be furnished with adequate means to act at any danger point’ and ‘could also consider broader possibilities for the use of an emergency force’ than those offered by UNEF: The idea would be to provide the United Nations with a fire brigade, if I may call it that, ready to extinguish a fire wherever it broke out … To extinguish a fire is far more important for world peace than to seek out and condemn the incendiary. The texture and sequence of events are sometimes so closely knit that it is not always possible objectively to establish responsibility; and even if it is possible, it is likely to be too late.12 Potential New Roles for a Peacekeeping Machinery The debate at the General Assembly did not focus just on the rapid deployment of a potentially more permanent police force. Peacekeeping consisted of the interposition of international military personnel between hostile states or communities. In April 1957, Lester Pearson noted in Foreign Affairs that the United Nations, ‘nine years after its founding, still had no force at its disposal to implement its decisions – even to “secure and supervise” a cease-fire and armistice’.13 Building on UNEF experience, he thought, the United Nations could ‘develop tentative principles which would govern the establishment of a “United Nations machinery”, and as required, a ‘Peace Supervision

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Force’.14 The force would act with the consent of the government of the country it entered. Although not a fighting force, it should be capable of defending itself once in the field: Even if governments are unable to give the United Nations a ‘fighting’ force ready and organized to serve it on the decisions of the Security Council, they should be willing to earmark smaller forces for the more limited duty of securing a cease-fire already agreed upon by the belligerents. We might in this way be able to construct a halfway house at the crossroads of war, and utilize an intermediate technique between merely passing resolutions and actually fighting.15 The solution favoured by Lester Pearson was not to have UNEF become a permanent force, but rather to give a more permanent character to existing mechanisms so as to accelerate deployment. The first step would be to create a permanent mechanism by which units of the armed forces of member countries could be endowed with the authority of the UN and made available at short notice for supervisory police duties. The publication of the Annual Report of the Secretary-General on the Work of the Organization for 16 June 1956 to 17 June 1957 undoubtedly helped to revitalize the debate along Pearson’s lines. It introduced formally the concept of a UN ‘Peace Force’. In the Introduction, the Secretary-General emphasized the circumstantial, improvised and temporary character of UNEF and its value for the future: ‘There is a need for careful analysis and study of the UNEF experience in all its aspects in order to give the United Nations a sound foundation, should the Organization wish to build an agreed standby plan for a United Nations peace force that could be activated on short notice in future emergencies to serve in similar ways.’16 On 30 September, the Foreign Minister of Pakistan, recalling that his delegation had expressed ‘strong support for the idea a permanent United Nations force’, declared that Pakistan was also a strong supporter of the concept of a UN peace force as presented by the Secretary-General in his report: Until such time as unanimity of the permanent members of the Security Council makes it possible for the Security Council to have at its disposal the armed forces to be made available by Member States under Chapter VII of the Charter, a United Nations peace force would be a practical, if not wholly adequate, substitute. Such a force could be created through appropriate resolution by the General Assembly in furtherance of the primary

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A UN ‘Legion’: Between Utopia and Reality objective of the United Nations to maintain peace and tranquillity. It need not be a large force. When deployed with the moral authority of the United Nations behind it, it will not be an effective deterrent to a potential aggressor. It will enhance the effectiveness of the United Nations in achieving peaceful adjustment of disputes and emergency situations.17

Still, some of the supporters of a UN peace force did not exclude its transformation sooner or later into a permanent force. Praising the ‘selfless and substantial contribution to world peace’ of those countries that had contributed troops to UNEF, the Costa Rican Representative said on 27 September 1957 that the United Nations ‘should give careful consideration to the argument that this Force, or a similar one, should become a permanent United Nations police force’. Costa Rica, he declared, would ‘support any proposals to that end’.18 The Nepalese Representative, on 2 October, shared the opinion that UNEF had ‘reinforced the need on the part of the United Nations to equip itself better to meet such contingencies in the future’. He recognized however that ‘it might not be possible for governments to provide the United Nations with a fighting force so organised as to be employed on the decision of the Security Council’. The apportioning of a small section of their armed forces by Member States for use by the United Nations for peaceful and noncombatant purposes, such as securing a ceasefire already agreed upon by the belligerents, seemed to him more feasible.19 During the discussion of the Secretary-General’s Report on UNEF, the Pakistani Representative, Chhatari, reiterated on 22 November his government’s position in favour of a permanent international police force, stressing its potentially preventive character as well as its role in maintaining peace and upholding the principles of the Charter, adding: ‘We consider the present Emergency Force to be the forerunner of a permanent force, the establishment of which should be nearer attainment because of the success achieved by the present force in the Middle East.’20

Deceived Hopes for Institutionalization As could be expected, one of the questions soon being discussed was whether UNEF should be maintained once its task was completed, and, if not, whether it could be replaced by another force of a more permanent kind and of a different nature. The debate led to a number of proposals, including the earmarking of forces for UN service using the Uniting for Peace resolution, the conversion of the improvised UNEF into a permanent force in the

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Middle East, and more audacious projects of forces to be placed permanently at the disposal of the UN. The American and British troop landings in Lebanon and Jordan in the summer of 1958, in conjunction with President Eisenhower’s personal sponsoring of a non-combat type of stand-by UN Peace Force at the 733rd Meeting of the General Assembly, contributed to quickly destroy the hopes of institutionalization.21 Force Design The question of international force and its institutionalization was raised in the House of Commons several times between 12 November and 4 December 1956, and Junior Under-Secretary of State David OrmsbyGore announced that a study of proposals for the establishment of a readily available force had been initiated by the government. In November 1956, a memorandum was issued by the head of the UN Department of the Foreign Office on the usefulness of examining the possibilities of creating a permanent force. The motivations on the part of the British government were varied, ranging from the desire to foster a realistic debate while not raising false expectations, to the hope that such a debate could help restore Britain’s international reputation.22 In the USA, congressional resolutions were introduced in support of the idea of a permanent United Nations police force of a kind similar to UNEF in 1957. Several groups, such as the Federal Union Commission, the Parliamentary Group for World Government and the United Nations Association, saw in the experience of UNEF an opportunity to promote the idea of creating a United Nations permanent force. In February 1957, International Women’s News, the American organ of the women’s movement, noting that the dispatch of United Nations forces had brought the question of a permanent UN police force to the fore, explored the possibility of having Member States relinquish their sovereignty to the minimum extent of setting up a permanent police force with agreed bases, which could be moved on the authority of the Secretary-General ‘to any point where hostilities seem to be on the point of breaking out’. Whether the police force should be recruited by national contingents as in the case of UNEF or directly recruited from individuals ‘of any and all countries who will swear loyalty to the U.N.’ was left open, the Allied Command in the Second World War being cited as an example of how the difficulties of administering a mixed force can be overcome.23 Still in 1957, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (CEIP) initiated under the direction of William Frye a study of the prospects and possibilities for the creation of a permanent UN Force, leading to the publication of a compilation of various contributions under the title A United Nations Peace Force. The study attempted to provide an answer to the

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question: ‘If the United States decided to support the creation of a permanent United Nations Force, what kind of force should be sought?’ The authors, Lt.-Col. Charles A. Cannon Jr. and Lt.-Col. A. Jordan, starting from the premise that the successful experience of UNEF made feasible a more ambitious approach, envisaged, a 7,000-man lightly armed infantry brigade made up of national contingents contributed by small nations, rather than individual volunteers. De facto excluding Security Council permanent members, the force was designed to execute surveillance, patrol, riot control, and other police-type duties. It should be ‘capable of defending itself for a limited time if attacked by small, organized and irregular hostile forces while it is engaged in maintaining and restoring order in an area’. The Brigade would consist of two regiments, or six battalions, of 24 line companies with a strength of 200 men each. It was envisaged that six special companies for logistics, maintenance and administration would be maintained at Force Headquarters.24 In Great Britain, a commission of military experts and politicians under the chairmanship of Lord Packenham was set up by the Federal Union and the Parliamentary Group for World Government to study the problems raised by the creation of a UN permanent force.25 The Commission published on 27 May 1957 a report in which three types of force were discussed:26 • a light force, of about 20,000 soldiers, which would be insufficient to take offensive military action; • a medium force, strong enough to undertake military action so long as it was not directed against a great power; and • a heavy force, enabling the United Nations to be the effective policeman of the world. Considering it unlikely that Member States would accept the creation of the medium force, and seeing world disarmament as conditional on the realization of the heavy force, the Commission concentrated on the light force. The report highlighted the disadvantages of a force made up of national contingents: the impossibility of resorting to contingents from a country involved in a particular dispute; the lack of standardization in equipment, arms and weapons; and the use of different languages. Direct recruitment by the UN was therefore recommended, with a proportion of soldiers from any one country restricted to 10 per cent of the total. Criteria for selection included the ability to learn the language adopted by the force and a real belief in the type of service the UN demands. The nationality of the members of the force would be suspended and replaced by a special status, such as a ‘World Order of Chivalry’.

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The light force would have limited equipment such as side arms, machine guns, armoured cars and reconnaissance aircraft, but should have its own ships and aircraft for transportation. Activities envisaged for the force were therefore almost symbolic, and could take place only with the consent of the states where it would be deployed. Such activities included the possibility of acting as a buffer between national armies, or preventively in areas of potential conflicts as had been done in Sinai, the supervision of elections – as for the 1937 Saar Plebiscite – and presence at the request of states obtaining independence while in the process of forming their own police and armed force. Two bases were envisaged, one in each hemisphere, in territories with coastlines either owned or leased by the UN. Training could take place in different countries where the units of the force could be stationed for limited periods at the invitation of the government.27 The report of the Commission received wide support in political and military circles. In September 1959, the Fabian Society published a pamphlet entitled A United Nations Police Force? The author, David Ennals, at that time secretary of the Labour Party’s International Department and formerly general secretary of the United Nations Association, recalled past experiments in collective action and the failure to establish armed forces under Art. 43. Analysing the recent examples of improvization of the Korean War and UNEF, he noted that ‘the fact that UNEF was established and has done its job well has encouraged well-intentioned people and organized pressure groups in Britain and elsewhere to build up their hopes that UNEF can be the precursor of a permanent United Nations force’. To him, advocates of a powerful world force that could provide nations with confidence to destroy their own national forces and make national armies unnecessary were ‘theorists who are living in a dream world’.28 Similarly, he considered quite unrealistic the idea that a world force could be put under the authority of an essentially inter-governmental body such as the UN. Even if such a force were created, the veto would ensure that the force would never be used. Agreeing with the Packenham Commission that the prospect of world government is ‘distant and Utopian’, the author considered more realistic the idea of a ‘small, lightly armed police force which might be made a permanent arm of the United Nations’29 Seeing a ‘real difference between being asked to set aside armed forces for collective resistance in Korea, where thousands of troops were needed, and being asked to set aside small contingents of a few hundred men for peaceful patrol duties’30, Ennals thought that it should be much easier to establish a force than in the past, and did not exclude the possibility of an international permanent service in the long run. Ennals first considered the advantages of direct recruitment. The principal disadvantage he saw in the national contingent model was the risk of Member

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States withdrawing their contingents from the force, disturbing the military, political and administrative balance of the force. Such a force, Ennals concluded, ‘cannot exist except as an instrument of an elected world government with power to take decisions and to carry them out’.31 Individual recruitment, by contrast, would allow rapid deployment, and avoid dispatch as well as nationality problems. Moreover, appropriate selection by application and interview would make possible the recruitment of a force of a ‘higher calibre’. The selection criteria would include outstanding physique, a good education, the ability to learn a common language, and the belief in the purposes of the force. The morale of the force would be higher if members were individually recruited, although applicants might, at the beginning, be of the ‘military adventurer type’. The French Foreign Legion was cited as an example in spite of the difficulty one might have of integrating such soldiers into a disciplined force. It would be possible to avoid the enlistment of undesirable elements by seeking governments’ approval prior to recruitment. The proportion recruited from any one country could be limited and some kind of geographical representation ensured. Ennals’ conclusion was that ‘though the quality of the force itself might perhaps be higher by individual recruitment, the ‘objections are such that the chance of securing support from governments is greatly reduced’. The compromise he suggested would be for the planning and administrative staff of the force to be directly individually recruited as members of the UN Secretariat, and for the field forces to be seconded from national forces. Acknowledging that there were for the time being few convinced supporters of the establishment of a permanent force, he ultimately favoured the idea of a permanent, individually recruited small ‘paramilitary’ force lightly armed for self-defence, which could not engage in warfare and could operate only by consent. A nucleus of 1,000 to 1,500 individually recruited personnel concerned with questions of command, military equipment, feeding, welfare and law should be permanently available at headquarters while forces could be kept on stand-by. The force, depending on its size, could operate in two or three different parts of the world at the same time. It would be expected to perform the following functions: patrolling of areas whose sovereignty is in dispute, of frontiers between countries where diplomatic relations are strained, and of truce lines before a final agreement is signed and territories to be handed over from one state to another or whose future is to be determined by plebiscites; observation of elections in trusteeships, territories about to gain independence, areas in dispute, or elections for a unitary assembly in divided countries such as Germany or Korea; and protection for technical personnel in a disarmament inspectorate at the regional or global level. For basing, Bizerta and Malta were rejected, while Cyprus

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should be carefully considered. The force would be financed by assessment on the UN scale, as the General Assembly had decided in 1957 that the cost of UNEF should be borne by Member States in accordance with the scale of assessment for the normal UN budget. The recent experience of UNEF, however, suggested that it might be difficult to raise funds for a permanent force that may not be fully employed and for which the United Nations would have to share a bigger bill among Member States. Moreover, governments would ‘be fearful that a majority with whom they disagreed would set a force into action which they could not influence’.32 Growing Opposition The American and British troop landings in Lebanon and Jordan in the summer of 1958, because it proved the need for the UN to have a force permanently available for emergency duties, led to a brief revival of support for a permanent force. The purpose of the force was to protect American lives and assist the government to preserve the territorial integrity and political independence of the country. The British government, pointing to the absence of any UN military force readily available to take military action, had landed forces in Jordan for similar purposes. Both the United States and the United Kingdom seemed prepared to withdraw their forces if the UN was in a position to take measures to replace them. On 8 July 1958, the New York Times Magazine published a two-page article entitled ‘The Case for a Standing U.N. Army’. In this article, Sir Leslie Munro, the Ambassador of New Zealand to the United States and Permanent Representative to the United Nations, then President of the General Assembly, argued that democracies had been much more successful in repelling direct aggression than in resisting subversion. In the case of direct aggression, the forces of the major powers were likely to be involved immediately, calling for the intervention of an international force only later. The ‘insurance policy to avert a cataclysm’, he believed, was a permanent UN force. First, a permanent Corps of Observers should be established and placed permanently at the disposal of the General Assembly at New York HQs. Second, consideration should be given to the establishment of a force immediately available and subject to the overall authority of the General Assembly or the Security Council. The force – similar to Article 43 arrangements whereby Member States agree to provide contingents immediately available to the UN – would be under the immediate direction of the Secretary-General and used at the request of a sovereign government whose territory was in jeopardy. However, given the continuing international tension, small powers were expected to provide the various components, great

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powers’ contribution being limited to supplies. On the basis of the contemporary examples of UNEF and the American force in Lebanon, 20,000 soldiers were thought to be the minimum for forming the nucleus of a permanent force. A symbol of the UN, the force would be expected to act as a deterrent and ensure by its presence the inviolability of frontiers. It would enter a country only with the consent of the government concerned. Learning from the experience of UNEF, whose departure could be requested by Egypt at any time, Munro suggested that the withdrawal of the force be subject to a decision by a two-thirds majority of the General Assembly. Significantly, reluctance to pay for the permanent international force was seen by him as the greatest difficulty.33 On 23 September 1958, the Representative of Afghanistan declared that his government believed that the idea of a UN force required ‘most careful study, particularly in the prevailing international atmosphere’. Warning that ‘any hasty or half-considered measures in this field would involve dangers that might affect the Organization directly’, he said that his delegation was not ‘prepared to go into details of this matter at the present stage’ but found it essential to mention that, ‘in any case’, the United Nations ‘should deal with it only at the proper time and after thorough examination of the desirability of establishing such a force’.34 According to Arthur M. Schlesinger, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles wrote to Dag Hammarskjöld in 1958 that the United States ‘has a strong interest in the early establishment of standby arrangements for a United Nations Peace Force’ and was prepared to assist ‘in every feasible manner’ in strengthening the capacity of the UN to discharge its responsibility for the maintenance of international peace. That year, both the House of Representatives and the Senate passed resolutions calling for the establishment of a UN peace force.35 Strong opposition to the idea of a UN peace force as expressed by the Secretary-General came from the Soviet bloc on 24 September 1958. The Representative of the Czechoslovakian delegation saw in the efforts ‘to secure the establishment of a so-called stand-by United Nations force for dispatch to the territory of various States, first and foremost of the Middle and Near East’ as a United States ‘Government manoeuvre’ which should be ‘vigorously condemned’.36 On 25 September 1958, the British delegation excluded as impractical the idea of organizing a permanent UN Peace Force as this would ‘raise insuperable difficulties’ of cost and organization, location, married quarters, education and families, and so on. In what he considered a more pragmatic approach, he suggested instead less ambitious steps such as the earmarking by individual states of personnel who would be available quickly and the establishment of a small planning section in the

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Secretariat.37 Realising that the setting up of a permanent force would confront the UN with a number of questions, in particular financial problems, Denmark supported the proposals made by the United Kingdom at the 798th Meeting for the earmarking of personnel by states and the setting up of a small planning section in the UN Secretariat.38 Strong opposition came also from India. One year earlier, at the General Assembly, radical positions against the idea of establishing a permanent UN force had already been expressed by the Indian Representative. Krishna Menon had opposed the view that ‘this Emergency Force [UNEF] should be regarded as a pilot project or an embryonic international force of the future’. To him, the force was ‘improvised for a specific purpose’, and not ‘according to the plan of the Charter’. Moreover, it was very difficult to identify ‘to whom it was responsible’.39 Whether India was only opposing the immediate transformation of UNEF into a more permanent organization, or the establishment of a UN force on a permanent basis per se, is unclear: ‘I hope the Secretary-General will not ask me to send more troops; we do not have any’, said Menon.40 It is easy to understand that India’s opposition to the idea was not without connection to its concern over Kashmir, and was partly directed against Pakistan, at that time a strong supporter of the creation of a directly recruited international police force. Furthermore, India’s general policy had been the renunciation of the use of force and the resort, as far as possible, to peaceful means. This position had led the Indian government, in particular, to vote against the formation of an international force for Palestine. For the same reasons, the Uniting for Peace resolution and the establishment of a CMC in 1950 had been viewed negatively by India, which had been reluctant to place troops under the Unified United Nations Command in Korea.41 In any case, India was not prepared to subscribe to the idea that there should be a police force placed at the disposal of any organ over which there is no legal control. On 7 October 1958, the Indian Representative reiterated the view that having Member States placing men and officers at the disposal of the UN was ‘an entirely impractical proposition’, declaring: It is not possible for any country to put by a certain number of soldiers and officers and say: ‘You are there to go out when there is trouble in the world’. First of all, what do they do when there is no trouble in the world? Secondly, if they were so kept and did not participate in the general military organization of the country, they would be no longer competent to perform the task for which they were sent out. Over and above that, which country is to be selected for this purpose? One country may be acceptable in one

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A UN ‘Legion’: Between Utopia and Reality situation; the same country may not be acceptable in another situation.42

His conclusion was that ‘anything that creates a force on which responsible popular opinion cannot play and, what is more, whose authority and power of sanctions is questionable, is not only impractical but fraught with danger’.43 Still, the Greek Representative to the General Assembly, declared on 3 October 1958 that his delegation ‘would earnestly like to see the question of the creation of a permanent United Nations police force studied without delay’.44 His voice remained isolated. By the end of 1958, once again, the reflection seemed to have gone full circle. In a comprehensive study, in which he had sought to ‘combine realism with idealism’45, Leland M. Goodrich concluded towards the end of 1958: ‘The success of UNEF as a temporary operation combined with the serious problems that have to be resolved in establishing a permanent force suggest that the most that can be hoped for as a first step in that direction would be the establishment of a permanent command and headquarters with the bulk of the forces contributed by Member governments when needed.’46 Should a permanent international force be created in the near future, he thought, it would be of a much more modest purpose than that for which the use of collective measures was envisaged in the Charter. It was highly unlikely that the force could be used either to deter aggression, or against the will of a state disturbing the peace. Such a force would be used only for traditional interposition or supervisory functions: the facilitation of the withdrawal of forces after the termination of hostilities; the preventive patrolling of sensitive frontiers; and the policing of areas in which a plebiscite is to be held. Lester B. Pearson reached the same conclusion: If the United Nations were effective as a security agency – which it is not – these more limited arrangements would be unnecessary and therefore undesirable. But pending that day can we not put some force behind the United Nations which – under the authority of the Assembly – might be useful at least for dealing with some small conflicts and preventing them from becoming great ones. Certainly the idea of an international police force effective against a big disturber of the peace seems today unrealizable to the point of absurdity.47 While Afghanistan remained very cautious about any kind of UN ‘stand-by force’48, Nepal reiterated that ‘a small but efficient United Nations force will

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be necessary on a permanent basis if the United Nations is to fulfil its great responsibilities of keeping the peace in the world’. This force, which could be ‘used merely for non-combatant purposes’, should, according to the Nepalese Representative, be ‘maintained by Member States to be employed at the behest of the United Nations’.49 In 1959, the question of a UN permanent force was raised again, in connection with the financing of UNEF, by the Soviet Union, which considered that ‘the establishment of UNEF in 1956 cannot serve as a precedent for proposals to set up a permanent armed force without reference to the Security Council and in violation of the Charter’. An article by O. Grynyov published in the Soviet journal International Affairs under the title ‘Who Wants an International Peace Force?’ stigmatized the US support for a permanent UN force as ‘the establishment of a gendarmerie to implement a policy of international banditry under cover of the U.N. flag’ to serve the ‘imperialist interests of the United States’.50 The strength of UNEF remained at the authorized level of 6,000 until the end of 1957, to be gradually reduced during the following years until the force began its withdrawal in May 1967.

COLD WAR REALITIES AND NEW CONSTRAINTS

The UNEF experiment was followed by the United Nations Operation in the Congo (ONUC) from 1960 to 1964, and the United Nations Security Force (UNSF) in West New Guinea from 1962 to 1963. Further to the request for assistance from the Prime Minister of Congo, Patrice Lumumba, the Security Council authorized on 13 July 1960 the setting up of a civilian and military operation in the Congo. On occasions, calls for a permanent international force would be heard in connection with the Congo crisis. Yet both the realities of the Cold War and the new constraints resulting from the unprecedented deployment of peacekeeping troops quickly led most to advocate the more realistic ad hoc approach.

Lessons from ONUC After Congo, any reform of the UN would have to take into account the new proportions taken by the deployment of UN military forces and the challenges they faced on the ground. The current system meant ‘in any emergency, a degree of un-preparedness and improvisation which would be considered crazy in a normal army’.51 What was needed was ‘a force especially trained for such work which has developed habits of supranational loyalty and which is immediately available wherever need arises’.52

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Need for Faster Deployment and Improved Training One could observe the limitations of international intervention in the absence of institutional military cooperation, beyond occasional and sporadic coalitions to enforce military sanctions. The initial setbacks of the UN operation in the Congo were quickly seen as the result of a badly coordinated military action lacking efficiency in the absence of a Military Staff Committee. The gap between the text of the UN Charter, which if implemented would have allowed for some kind of organic association, and subsequent practice was obvious.53 In the United Kingdom, the Liberal Party urged the government on 1 October 1960 to take the lead in pressing for the early establishment of a permanent international police force. The force, according to the resolution voted that day by the Assembly of the party, should be individually recruited, and armed adequately for police action. It would be available to the Security Council or the General Assembly of the United Nations. An innovation justified by the new challenge presented by the Congo situation, the force could also be made available to any Member State in which law and order were threatened by conditions beyond the control of the concerned government.54 On 24 September 1962, the Representative of Iran to the General Assembly called for immediate consideration to be given to the establishment of an international permanent military force, arguing that ‘small and medium powers’ could ‘legitimately expect the United Nations, which is now approaching the end of the second decade of its development, to have its own international force, however small in number and embryonic in concept’. According to him, the use of UN forces in the Middle East, in the Congo, and shortly in West Irian was ‘ample evidence that such a force should now permanently be possessed’ by the United Nations. A major lesson of ONUC was the need to find ways of achieving faster deployment and improve training of UN troops. Among the numerous difficulties in establishing the force were the lack of information about the country, capable logistics personnel as a result of the preference given to troops from African nations or countries not involved in the Cold War, bilingual (English/French) radio operators and communication equipment, transportation and airlift capacity, as well as sufficiently standardized equipment and supplies. Brian Urquhart, who had been instrumental with Ralph Bunche in setting up the Congo operation, highlighted the dependence on the cooperation of the United States Military Air Transport for the initial movement of troops, the vast and expensive problems related to the logistical apparatus and the lack of suitable training for the troops. Communications problems, for both linguistic and technical reasons, made planning and execution complicated.

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The difficulty of forming an integrated and experienced military staff and the lack of intelligence were seen as serious handicaps. Continuity in a force based on units from national armies serving only for a short term in the Congo was also considered a real problem by Urquhart. Moreover, the UN lacked the equipment and soldiers to form ‘highly mobile units for immediate dispatch to critical points’.55 Pragmatic Reflection on International Force On 18 October 1961, Zenon Rossides, from the Delegation of Cyprus, declared that military forces borrowed by the UN in times of emergency could not be relied upon fully for UN action. Such forces, he argued, can be withdrawn by their government, as highlighted by the experience of military forces in the Congo. He therefore proposed the establishment of a permanent military force ‘enrolled by and for’ the UN. The force, thought Rossides, could be helpful, among other duties, in carrying out disarmament if an agreement were to be signed. For Morgenthau, a police force, be it national or international, must meet the two essential requirements of reliability and effectiveness. This assumes a certain degree of loyalty to the political authority on the one hand, and a certain relation of power to those provoking the force’s intervention by breaking the law on the other. Depending on whether only a small fraction or large numbers of citizens are engaged at any one time in breaking the law, an army rather than a more modest numerically small and lightly armed police would be necessary. The visible readiness for effective action of the force should ideally make the actual employment of the force unnecessary.56 Looking back at historical precedents of international organizations similar to the League of Nations or the United Nations, Morgenthau recalled that at the time of the Holy Empire, as it existed from the peace of Westphalia of 1648 to its dissolution in 1806, the Diet, similar to the United Nations, could only request Member States to provide money and armed contingents at the disposal of the Empire. To him, the precipitous and disorderly retreat at the battle of Rossbach on 5 November 1757 – which marked the end of the imperial army – could be explained by the unreliability of the imperial army. This raised the problem of loyalty: In a society of nation-states it is possible for some outstanding individuals to transfer their loyalty from their respective nationstate to an international organization either on a particular issue or even in general. But it is too much to expect that large masses of individual members of different nations could so transfer their loyalties that they would execute reliably and without question whatever orders the international organization might give them.57

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To be a reliable instrument of an international organization, the legal preferences and political sympathies of the members of an international police force should coincide with those of the international organization they have come to support. Depending on the challenge to international order, the type of force chosen may differ. For Morgenthau, however, an international police force is always made up of military contingents provided by states, be it on an ad hoc, stand-by, or standing basis: a coalition war of those nations in favour of the status quo will be preferred against a violator of a major order, such as a great power; against a second- or third-rank nation, a police force assembled in advance without regard to the particular conflict is likely to be weakened by the defection of some contingents, depending on their sympathies; a force composed of ad hoc reliable contingents may end up being too small to be effective, etc. Whatever the solution chosen, a multinational military force composed of national contingents as envisaged by Morgenthau is always threatened with partial or total disintegration. As the interests of the participating nations may change during the conflict, the survival of the force ultimately depends on the persistence of the national interests on which it rests. For Morgenthau, what distinguishes an international police force from a national one is the lack of automatic commitment to a particular legal order and political status quo: In a world of sovereign nations the idea of an international police force, after the model of a national police force, is a contradiction in terms. An international police force, by dint of being international rather than national or supranational, cannot be more reliable and efficient than the political interests and military capabilities of the nations allow it to be.58

The Victory of the Ad Hoc Principle Cold War antagonism, brought a tacit and gradual shift from the traditional concept of collective security as set out in Chapter VII of the Charter to a more ‘realistic’ idea of peacekeeping. In fact, during the Cold War, peacekeeping presented a number of advantages, very often by default. First, UN involvement was considered heavily dependent on the existence of a sufficient coalition of Member States to deal with an issue, which would in any case reduce the number of actual instances of involvement. Second, in UN peacekeeping, the use of force was considered undesirable and unlikely to secure its objectives. The limited attempts to use force during the Congo remained an exception and raised endless controversies. The use of

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conventional military methods – fighting forces – by the UN appeared less and less practical, and use of peace forces made up of military contingents from smaller powers more desirable. Above all, a powerful inhibiting factor in addition to the inherent resistance of sovereign states and the constraint of the Cold War – cost – continued to develop. Preference for Non-fighting, Neutral Forces On 13 February 1961, the Security Council had authorized the use of force to restore order in the Congo, further to the assassination of Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba. The controversies over intervention in an internal conflict and the use of force by the UN had helped to nip any proposal for permanent forces in the bud. For Herbert Nicholas: Great harm has been done in this connection by indiscriminate use of the term ‘international police force’. It is absurd to pretend that, as the world stands at present, the member states of the United Nations will allow it to have a force able to coerce the army of a nation state, even a quite small modern state. But the function of a United Nations force at the present stage of development of the international community should not be coercive but interpository. It should try to be a buffer, not a riot squad … What is obviously needed is a force especially trained for such work which has developed habits of supranational loyalty and which is immediately available wherever need arises.59 Due to the evolution of the challenge then facing the UN, what was then sought was a non-fighting, neutral force to act as a buffer. The chief value of the force was not in its numbers or firing power, but in its symbolic role. In any case, given the purpose of the force, and the continuing East–West competition and tension, such a force should exclude the great powers. In this context, even a small volunteer unit of 1,000 US servicemen on standby for emergency technical support to UN peacekeeping operations called for by a group of United States Congressmen in 1965 was unthinkable: the proposed FIRST Brigade (‘Forces for International Relief on Stand-by’) contradicted the principle of exclusion of the major powers then required for peacekeeping. Moreover, the experience of UNEF in 1956 had demonstrated that, because of the necessity of consent, the host country had a de facto veto concerning the composition of the force. For instance, Canadian troops had to be replaced after Egypt had rejected them on the basis that they wore uniforms similar to the British. Ad hoc national contingents from small

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and medium-size powers, if possible neutrals, appeared to be the best ingredients in the elaboration of the appropriate ‘military mix’. The system, in spite of its shortcomings, offered the necessary flexibility required for the delicate task of peacekeeping. A proposal to place restriction on the Secretary-General’s discretion in the choice of troops in the Congo led the Irish Representative to defend the view that ‘in the absence of a directly recruited United Nations force … the utmost flexibility should be maintained’.60 The same reasoning led Lincoln P. Bloomfield to conclude in 1960 that a ‘final consequence of the present level of world order is to suggest a clear preference for nationally contributed contingents rather than individual recruitment for an international force’. Instead of a 7,000-strong standing force previously proposed by Frye, Bloomfield proposed a standby ‘UNCOP’ (United Nations Corps for Observation and Patrol) or ‘UNPAT’ (United Nations Patrol) with a training command located in a facility leased by the UN from a neutral nation such as Sweden, or Switzerland, or even a country such as India. National contingents would be trained for observation, patrol, and enforcement of ceasefires, with emphasis on skills required for police-type duties in contrast to the tactical training such troops normally receive. Specially earmarked and designated for UN duties, they could remain available for several years. A standing wing of civilian or military transport planes and some surface transport craft would be similarly earmarked and available on short notice to the UN forces. Assignment of companies or battalions to the training centre could be considered a high honour, competed for within national armies and other military services.61 So far not a decisive argument, cost had already become a major consideration in the discussion of a permanent UN force at the time of UNEF. It was to be even more so a few years later in connection with the UN operation in the Congo. The unprecedented financial difficulties occasioned by ONUC had been a major reason to relegate the idea of a UN ‘Legion’ to the rank of Utopian chimera. In April 1961, a major Western power, France, declared an anti-United Nations strike by refusing to contribute to the costs of the United Nations forces in the Congo. France maintained that the United Nations Charter was conceived to prevent the organization from interfering in the private affairs of any state. Alluding to the UN’s lack of direction in the Congo, President de Gaulle declared that France ‘did not wish to participate either by her men or her money in any present or possible enterprise of this organization or disorganization’.62 This categorical position not only highlighted, but also reinforced, the Soviet refusal to pay its share to what it considered were illegal activities of the UN.

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Standing forces? An Unnecessary and Impractical Measure … In his Report on the Work of the Organization for 16 June 1959– 15 June 1960, the Secretary-General clearly excluded the possibility of establishing a UN force on a standing basis: ‘It should be stressed that the Congo experience has strengthened my conviction that the creation of a standing force would represent an unnecessary and impractical measure, especially in view of the fact that every new situation and crisis which the Organization will have to face is likely to represent new problems as to the best adjustment of the composition of the force, its equipment, its training and organization.’ Hammarskjöld called on governments to maintain a state of preparedness to meet possible UN military demands, especially during the crucially important first stages of organising and deploying a UN force.63 The Secretary-General’s call for increased readiness of military forces, rather than permanent forces to be placed at the disposal of the United Nations, met with positive responses. For the Canadian Representative at the General Assembly, on 26 September 1960, the experience in the Congo had ‘demonstrated the need to have military forces readily available for service with the United Nations when required’ and had ‘emphasised the need for the nucleus of permanent headquarters military staff being established under the United Nations to be in readiness to prevent confusion and to assure cohesion when called upon in an emergency’.64 On 25 September 1961, US President John F. Kennedy made a proposal for peacekeeping machinery, and a ‘new United Nations Peace Force’ in the specific context of general and complete disarmament.65 Although formulated in a completely different context, disarmament, his proposal may have helped to give the impression that new developments were indeed possible in the field of peacekeeping. Three days later, in his address to the UN, British Foreign Secretary Lord Home wondered whether the UN was to remain merely a debating society, or whether it was going to be given the peacekeeping machinery envisaged in the Charter. ‘With all the risks – and there are many,’ he added, ‘I would opt for the latter.’ The new orientation taken by the debate on international force was confirmed by the publication, in the course of Spring 1963, of a special edition of the journal International Organization: ‘International Force – A Symposium’. The publication, a compilation of papers commissioned by Bloomfield included contributions from Herbert Nicholas, Brian E. Urquhart, Edward H. Bowman and James E. Fanning, Hans J. Morgenthau, Stanley Hoffmann, Henry V. Dicks, Thomas C. Schelling, and himself. By their multidisciplinary character, the contributions constitute a unique picture of the thinking on international force at that time. Herbert Nicholas saw no point in advocating a UN force which would

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discard the three principles of self-defence only, non-interference, and consent of the host country. To him, those principles, although not adequate, were, in the state of the world at that time, indispensable: ‘They may be stretched, modified, even conceivably bypassed; they cannot within the framework of the present United Nations be replaced by any positive alternative.’66 For Urquhart, there were ‘undoubtedly strong arguments for some institutional developments of a permanent kind’. He however acknowledged the constraints under which the UN was operating in the context of the Cold War. Political, but also financial, constraints led Urquhart to advocate a pragmatic approach and the development of interim measures building on the experience accumulated with UNTSO, UNEF and ONUC. He therefore excluded the possibility of establishing a permanent UN force in the foreseeable future: The whole idea of international institutions is in its infancy, an infancy complicated by world-wide political and ideological divisions. At the best times the development of such institutions would have profound effects on such doctrines as national sovereignty and the rights of nations. The institutional addition at this time of a permanent international police force would in all probability worsen the state of international politics, and it might, by its very existence or through precipitate and inappropriate use, complicate the very situations it was designed to solve.67 Similarly, for Stanley Hoffmann, the Cold War was the ‘all-pervading tension’: As long as the major powers are engaged in a contest that may hopefully remain peaceful but is nevertheless total in the sense of being an ideological competition as well as a power struggle, they are unlikely to set up a force which none of them could be sure to control and which could be used against the interest of one of them or even their common one.68 Doubts over the willingness of Member States to accept the political and financial implications also led Hammarskjöld’s successor, U Thant, to consider the establishment of a permanent UN force to be premature. In a speech to the Harvard Alumni Association on 13 June 1963, he confirmed the advantages of the improvised or ad hoc approach as compared to a potential standing army. Such an approach, he thought, made it possible on each

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occasion to make up the UN forces from the countries which are, politically or otherwise, more suitable for the operations at hand: In my opinion, a permanent United Nations force is not a practical proposition at the present time. I know that many serious people in many countries are enthusiastic about the idea, and I welcome their enthusiasm and the thought they are putting into the evolution of the institution which will eventually and surely emerge. Many difficulties still stand on the way. Personally, I have no doubt that the world should eventually have an international police force which will be accepted as an integral and essential part of life in the same way as national police forces are accepted. Meanwhile, we must be sure that developments are in the right direction and that we can also meet critical situations as and when they occur.69 A two-day international conference to study the problems in the establishment of United Nations military forces, organized by the Norwegian Nobel Institute and the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs in Oslo in February 1964, suggested that the subject still attracted interest. Meanwhile, the United Nations Force in Cyprus (UNFICYP) was established on 4 March 1964 as a buffer between Greek and Turkish forces. Still, for Lester Pearson in May 1964, the UN should ‘have its own permanent international force in being, under its orders, for peacekeeping duties.’ But, he immediately added, ‘this is not now feasible for political reasons’.70 In July 1964, General de Gaulle told the Secretary-General that the UN had exceeded its powers by supporting international forces within national boundaries in duties which are those of the individual state. In the USA, the nomination of a well-known advocate of international force, Paul H. Nitze, as Secretary of the Navy, raised a controversy over his past declarations in support of granting Strategic Air Command to the United Nations.71 In October 1964, US Senator Kenneth B. Keating, seeking re-election on the Republican ticket, called for a UN conference to consider a revision of the United Nations Charter. Drawing lessons from ONUC, he recommended the creation of a permanent UN peace force with representation from the smaller nations.72 Such calls would remain isolated, and sometimes sharply criticized. In August 1964, Rahmatullah Khan, research scholar, International School of International Studies, New Delhi, after reviewing the organizational and financial problems of UN peace forces since 1948, concluded: the United Nations was never designed to be a superstate with its own police force and other paraphernalia of coercive power; it was to have only that amount of force which was sufficient to

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A UN ‘Legion’: Between Utopia and Reality tackle minor scuffles among small powers. Once this premise is accepted it is not difficult to see how superfluous and illogical it is to have a standing peace force for the United Nations. The present system of organizing forces on an ad hoc basis depending upon the political, geographical and local peculiarities seems to be the only desirable and feasible device. The former is a myth, the latter reality.73

In 1965, Richard N. Gardner published Blueprint for Peace, following the organization of a White House Conference on International Co-operation held in Washington from 29 November to 1 December 1965. Called for by US President Lyndon Johnson, the conference aimed at stimulating dialogue between citizens and their government. During the conference, proposals were made by prominent Americans participating in the work of the 30 committees of the White House Conference. The Committee on Peacekeeping Operations, coordinated by Ruth E. Russell, merely recommended that the United States ‘continue to encourage the initiatives of other members in making armed forces units available under a flexible call-up system for United Nations operations, and in increasing regular exchanges of information among themselves and with the Organization in order to improve the utilisation of such units’.74 In International Military Forces – The Question of Peacekeeping in an Armed and Disarming World, Bloomfield proposed a detailed plan for what he thought was most urgently needed: a modest stand-by force, trained and equipped and in appropriate condition of readiness and availability. ‘Proposals for a United Nations standing force, for taxing powers to support the force, for direct individual recruitment into a common uniform, or for weighted voting in the assembly are not necessary or relevant to the present system, even reinforced by a modest standby force … For now, the problem in essence is to stay within the boundaries of political reality but to get the job done.’75 Significantly, Chapter V of the first edition of The United Nations and U.S. Foreign Policy, originally entitled by Bloomfield in the 1960 edition: ‘Lesser Conflicts and a U.N. Force’, became in 1969: ‘Lesser Conflict and U.N. Peacekeeping’ (Chapter VI).76 Bloomfield had even removed his earlier proposal made in 1964 in International Military Forces – The Question of Peacekeeping in an Armed and Disarming World for a stand-by ‘United Nations Corps for Observation’ and ‘United Nations Patrol’, reaching the sobering conclusion: ‘The worsened climate has thrown into doubt even modest proposals for non-standing U.N. forces’.77 On 18 February 1965, in resolution 2006 (XIX) adopted during its 1330th meeting, the General Assembly invited the Secretary-General and the

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President of the General Assembly, as a matter of urgency, to make arrangements for a comprehensive review of the whole question of peacekeeping operations in all their aspects, including ways of overcoming the present financial difficulties of the organization. For this purpose, it authorized the President of the General Assembly to establish a Special Committee on Peace-keeping Operations, under the chairmanship of the President of the Assembly and with the collaboration of the Secretary-General. The Special Committee, which was requested to submit a report to the General Assembly as soon as possible and not later than 15 June 1965, is still active to date.

NOTES 1. Expression used by Lincoln P. Bloomfield in the second (revised) edition of The United Nations and U.S. Foreign Policy – A New Look at the National Interest (London: University of London Press, 1969), p. 70. 2. The Memoirs of the Rt. Hon. Sir Anthony Eden, p. 531. 3. Ibid., p. 430. 4. Ibid., p. 506. 5. Ibid., p. 536. 6. Statement before the General Assembly by Mr Karamanlis, on 21 November 1956, General Assembly, 11th Sess., Plen. Mtgs, 588th Mtg, GAOR, p. 209. 7. Statement before the General Assembly by Mr Firaz Khan Noon on 29 November 1956, General Assembly, 11th Sess., Plen. Mtgs, 599th Mtg, GAOR, p. 417. 8. Statement before the General Assembly by Mr Entezam on 29 November 1956, General Assembly, 11th Sess., Plen. Mtgs, 602nd Mtg, GAOR, p. 437. 9. Statement before the General Assembly by Mr Fawzy on 5 December 1956, General Assembly, 11th Sess., Plen. Mtgs, 649th Mtg, GAOR, p. 1031. 10. Statement before the General Assembly by Mr Pinard on 5 December 1956, General Assembly, 11th Sess., Plen. Mtgs, 609th Mtg, GAOR, pp. 539–40. 11. Statement before the General Assembly by Mr Diefenbacher on 23 September 1957, General Assembly, 12th Sess., Plen. Mtgs, 683rd Mtg, GAOR, p. 67. 12. Statement before the General Assembly by Mr Averoff-Tossizza on 26 September 1957, General Assembly, 12th Sess., Plen. Mtgs, 689th Mtg, GAOR; p. 165–6. 13. L. B. Pearson, ‘Force for the United Nations’, Foreign Affairs, 35, 3 (1957), p. 400. 14. Ibid., p. 401. 15. Ibid., p. 400. 16. Introduction to the Annual Report of the Secretary-General on the Work of the Organization 16 June 1956– 15 June 1957, General Assembly, 12th Sess., A/3694/Add. 1, GAOR, p. 1. 17. Statement before the General Assembly by Mr Firaz Khan Noon on 30 September 1957, General Assembly, 12th Sess., Plen. Mtgs, 694th Mtg, GAOR, p. 216. 18. Statement before the General Assembly on 27 September 1957, General Assembly, 12th Sess., Plen. Mtgs, 692nd Mtg, GAOR, p. 196. 19. Statement before the General Assembly on 2 October 1957, General Assembly, 12th Sess., Plen. Mtgs, 698th Mtg, GAOR, p. 243.

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20. Statement before the General Assembly by Mr Chhatari on 22 November 1957, 12th Sess., Plen. Mtgs, 720th Mtg, GAOR, p. 502. 21. R. B. Russell, The United Nations and United States Security Policy, p. 213. See also R. B. Russell. United Nations Experience, pp. 71–9. 22. See E. L. Jonhson, ‘A Permanent UN Force: British Thinking after Suez’, Review of International Studies, 17, 1991, pp. 251–66. 23. ‘United Nations Police Force’, International Women’s News – Nouvelles Féministes Internationales, 51, February 1957, p. 634. 24. Lt.-Col. C. A. Cannon Jr and Lt.-Col. A.Jordan, ‘Military Aspects of a UN Permanent Force’, in W. R. Frye (ed.), A United Nations Peace Force (New York: Oceana for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1957), pp. 161–71. W. R. Frye, ‘A United Nations Peace Force?’, United Nations News (London), 15, April–June 1959. W. R. Frye, ‘At the United Nations – Stand-by Police Force’, Nation, 187, 27 September 1958, pp. 164–6. W. R. Frye, ‘UN Force is in the Making’, Foreign Policy Bulletin, 38, 1 December 1958, pp. 41–2. 25. The Commission was composed of Patrick Armstrong, Frank Beswick, MP, John M. Bowyer, James Callaghan, MP, W. Granville Wingate (deputy chairman), Vice-Admiral J. Hughes-Hallett, MP (vice-chairman), Kenneth Ingram, J. Keith Killby, Capt. B. H. Liddell Hart, Maj.-Gen. L. O. Lyne, John Pinder (chairman, Federal Union Executive), I. J. Pitman, MP, Miss M. M. Sibthorp, and J. D. Tilney, MP. 26. Proposals for a Permanent UN Force (London: Federal Union, 1957). A copy of the Report can be found in the documents of the British Foreign Office, FO 371/129916/UN2286/20. 27. ‘A Permanent United Nations Force – The Packenham Commission Publishes Its Report’, World Affairs (London), No. 58, July–August 1957, pp. 43–4, 58. 28. D. Ennals, A United Nations Police Force? (London: Fabian International Bureau, 1959), p. 11. 29. Ibid., p. 13. 30. Ibid., p. 21. 31. Ibid., p. 12. 32. Ibid., p. 15. 33. Sir L. Munro, ‘The Case for a U.N. Standing Army’, New York Times Magazine, 27 July 1958, pp. 8, 27. 34. Statement before the General Assembly by Mr Pazhwak on 23 September 1958, General Assembly, 13th Sess., Plen. Mtgs, 755th Mtg, GAOR, p. 112. 35. ‘America and the World: Isolationism Resurgent?’, lecture by A. Schlesinger, Second Louis Nizer Lecture on Public Policy, 1996. 36. Statement before the General Assembly on 24 September 1958, General Assembly, 13th Sess., Plen. Mtgs, 756th Mtg, GAOR, p. 125. 37. Statement before the General Assembly by Mr Lloyd on 25 September 1958, 13th Sess., Plen. Mtgs, 758th Mtg, GAOR, p. 147. 38. Statement before the General Assembly on 25 September 1959, General Assembly, 14th Sess., Plen. Mtgs, 809th Mtg, GAOR; p. 193. 39. Statement before the General Assembly by Mr Krishna Menon on 8 October 1957, General Assembly, 12th Sess., Plen. Mtgs, 703rd Mtg, GAOR, p. 324. 40. Ibid. 41. P. Parakatil, India and United Nations Peacekeeping Operations (Fribourg, thesis, 1971), Chapter X ‘India’s Stand on the United Nations Permanent Force’, p. 186. See also

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42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51.

52. 53. 54. 55. 56. 57. 58. 59. 60. 61.

62. 63.

64. 65.

66. 67. 68.

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S. Mehta, ‘The Organization of an International Force: The Indian View’, International Studies, 7, 2 (1965), p. 227. Statement before the General Assembly by Mr Krishna Menon on 7 October 1958, General Assembly, 13th Sess., Plen. Mtgs, 774th Mtg, GAOR, p. 365. Ibid. Statement before the General Assembly on 3 October 1958, General Assembly, 13th Sess., Plen. Mtgs, 769th Mtg, GAOR, p. 312. L.M. Goodrich, The United Nations, p. 185. Ibid., p. v. L.B. Pearson, Diplomacy in the Nuclear Age (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1959), p. 103. Statement before the General Assembly on 5 October 1959, General Assembly, 14th Sess., Plen. Mtgs, 820th Mtg, GAOR, p. 349. Statement before the General Assembly on 21 November 1959, General Assembly, 14th Sess., Plen. Mtgs, 842nd Mtg, GAOR, p. 598. O. Grynyov, ‘Who Wants an International Peace Force?’, International Affairs (Moscow), Vol. 12, December 1958, pp. 63–7. B. Urquhart, ‘United Nations Peace Forces and the Changing United Nations: An Institutional Perspective’, in L. P. Bloomfield (ed.), ‘International Force – A Symposium’, p. 350. H. Nicholas, ‘Reforming the United Nations’, Survival, 3, 6 (1961), p. 266. L. Delbez. ‘Des divers modes de collaboration militaire’, pp. 735–49. ‘British Liberals Wooing Laborites’, New York Times, 2 October 1960, p. 28. E. D. Bowman and J. E. Fanning, ‘The Logistics Problems of a United Nations Military Force’, in L. P. Bloomfield (ed.), ‘International Force – A Symposium’, pp. 355–77. H. J. Morgenthau, ‘The Political Conditions For an International Police Force’, in L. P. Bloomfield (ed.), ‘International Force – A Symposium’, p. 309. Ibid., p. 402. Ibid. H. Nicholas, ‘Reforming the United Nations’, p. 266. Speech to the General Assembly by Mr Aiken (Ireland) on 6 October 1960, 15th Sess., Plen. Mtgs, 890th Mtg, GAOR, p. 481. L. P. Bloomfield, The United Nations and U.S. Foreign Policy – A New Look at the National Interest, Chapter V: ‘Lesser Conflicts and a U.N. Force’ (Boston, MA and Toronto: Little, Brown, 1st edn 1960), pp. 71–2. ‘France Declares Anti-U.N. Strike’, New York Times, 12 April 1961, p. 1. Introduction to the Annual Report of the Secretary-General on the Work of the Organization, 16 June 1959–15 June 1960, General Assembly, A/4390/Add. 1, GAOR, p. 4. Statement before the General Assembly on 26 September 1960, General Assembly, 15th Sess., Plen. Mtgs, 871st Mtg, GAOR, p. 109. Address by Mr John F. Kennedy, President of the United States of America, United Nations, General Assembly, 16th Sess., Plen. Mtgs, 1013th Mtg, 25 September 1961, New York, GAOR, para. 55, pp. 56–7. H. Nicholas, UN Peace Forces and the Changing Globe: The Lessons from Suez and Congo’, in L. P. Bloomfield (ed.), ‘International Force – A Symposium’, p. 336. B. Urquhart, ‘United Nations Peace Forces’, p. 351. S. Hoffmann, ‘Erewhon or Lilliput? A Critical View of the Problem’, in L. P. Bloomfield

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(ed.), ‘International Force – A Symposium’, p. 414. 69. United Nations Peace Force, An address to the Harvard Alumni Association, delivered in Cambridge, Massachusetts, 13 June 1963, by the Secretary-General of the United Nations, U Thant, in L. P. Bloomfield (ed.), International Military Forces – The Question of Peacekeeping in an Armed and Disarming World (Boston, MA: Little, Brown, 1964), p. 265. 70. ‘Keeping the Peace’, Lecture by Lester B. Pearson in the Dag Hammarskjöld Memorial Series, Carlton University, Canada, 7 May 1964, Survival, 6, 4 (1964), p. 154. 71. ‘Senators Question Nitze Sharply on Past Views’, New York Times, 8 November 1963, p. 16. Paul H. Nitze is the author of: ‘Where and Under What Circumstances Might a U.N. Police Force Be Useful in the Future’, published as an annex to W. R. Frye (ed.), A United Nations Peace Force. 72. D. Robinson, ‘Keating Proposes a U.N. Police Force’, New York Times, 15 October 1964, p. 31. 73. R. Khan, ‘Problems of a United Nations Peace Force’, Foreign Affairs Reports, Vol. 13, August 1964, p. 126. 74. Richard N. Gardner (ed.), Blueprint for Peace, Being the Proposals of Prominent Americans to the White House Conference on International Cooperation, Washington, DC, 29 November–1 December 1965) (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1966), pp. 45, 72. 75. L. P. Bloomfield, ‘A Proposal’, in L. P. Bloomfield (ed.), International Military Forces – The Question of Peacekeeping in an Armed and Disarming World (Boston, MA: Little, Brown, 1964, p. 98. 76. L. P. Bloomfield, The United Nations and U.S. Foreign Policy – A New Look at the National Interest (London: University of London Press, 2nd rev. edn 1969), p. 79. 77. Ibid., p. 77.

FOUR

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Admittedly, a generalized sense of short-run caution edging on pessimism limits my own hospitality at the present for more elaborate, expensive, or revolutionary schemes for an international police force. But it is a sense of greater optimism for the longer run that inspires the search for politically acceptable solutions which have a chance of fulfilment. L. P. Bloomfield, A World Controlled by the United Nations, 1964

In view of the combined inhibiting factors of state sovereignty and the Cold War, only overwhelmingly compelling circumstances threatening international security and UN survival could make the idea of a UN ‘Legion’ an option worth exploration. The radical modification in the nature of war brought about by the development of atomic and hydrogen bombs had been at the origin of a gradual change in thinking on international security in the UN. Nuclear threat, coupled with the dangerous bi-polarization of the international system, made efforts to implement disarmament increasingly necessary. With the prospect of a Third World War, the idea of an international force linked to disarmament efforts had already appeared at the time of the Korea crisis. If the UN, however, was to prevent any aggression, whatever its origin, a UN ‘Legion’ alone would never be enough. Given the nature of the threat, true international security could be achieved only through general disarmament. The debate then took a new dimension, envisaging the progressive building of a UN force either as a logical corollary of gradual disarmament, or as a ‘world army’ able to enforce the will of the international community in the hypothetical context of general and complete disarmament. Hence one of the most striking paradoxes of recent history: an idea whose realization was made impossible precisely by the East–West confrontation was suddenly proposed as a potential solution to one of the most threatening consequences of the Cold War itself: nuclear competition. The idea of a UN ‘Legion’ had found a new forum.

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A UN ‘Legion’: Between Utopia and Reality THE ERA OF GENERAL AND COMPLETE DISARMAMENT

In the United Nations Charter, the international army had originally been conceived as a necessary complement to disarmament measures. According to Article 47, the Military Staff Committee was ‘to advise and assist the Security Council on all questions relating to the Security Council’s military requirements for the maintenance of international peace and security’, ‘the employment and command of armed forces placed at its disposal, the regulation of armaments, and possible disarmament’. Consequently, under Article 46, plans for the application of armed force were to be made by the Security Council with the assistance of the Military Staff Committee. Article 26 provided that the Security Council shall be responsible for formulating – with the assistance of the Military Staff Committee referred to in Article 47 – plans to be submitted to the members of the United Nations for the establishment of a system for the regulation of armaments. In fact, the early deadlock of the Military Staff Committee over the question of an international military force had seriously compromised any prospect for a system of arms regulation within the UN security framework. Force could be seen as an instrument, a precondition, or the ultimate consequence of disarmament. Based on the assumption that gradual disarmament could be made in conjunction with the setting up of an international force, proposals for a ‘New United Nations Peace Force’ were made.

A Chicken and Egg Debate As noted by Joseph Nogee, ‘[r]elying on the assistance of the same group to create both an international army and a system of arms regulation may seem unusual, but it was a natural consequence of what the major powers considered to be a necessary interconnection’.1 On 14 December 1946, the General Assembly had unanimously adopted a resolution regarding ‘the problem of security as closely related with that of disarmament’ and therefore recommending ‘the Security Council to accelerate as much as possible the placing at its disposal of the armed forces mentioned in Article 43 of the Charter’. Need for Control Linked to the Nuclear Threat On 2 December 1948, President Truman had written, in a letter to Senator Elbert Thomas of Utah, that he would ‘talk disarmament and talk it in dead earnest’ when there was a ‘sufficient police force for United Nations to maintain the peace of the world’. On this basis, the President of the United States Federation of Justice, Ewing Cockrell, had suggested to Secretary of

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State Marshall and other Department officials on 4 October 1948 that the United States Government press for a United Nations police force in the atomic energy control discussions proposed in Paris by the Soviet Delegation. Leonard R. Cowies, of the State Department’s Division on Public Liaison replied: ‘I think you will agree that current developments in the United Nations and between the Soviet bloc and this country are such as to make further negotiations on a United Nations police force for the moment untimely’. This did not prevent Erwing Cockrell and the United States Federation of Justice from forwarding a plan on 10 October 1948 to the governments of all Member States for a world police force strong enough to keep universal peace and enforce universal disarmament.2 ‘In a disarmed world – should it be attained –’, had said General Dwight D. Eisenhower on 23 March 1950, ‘there must be an effective United Nations, with a police power universally recognized and strong enough to earn universal respect.’3 The paradox, as explained by Frederick C. McKee, Chairman of the Committee on National Affairs of the American Association for the United Nations, was only apparent: ‘[E]ven if all the nations of the world consented to inspection and control of all weapons, it would still be essential that the United Nations had its own forces and weapons located at strategic points throughout the world to guard against inspection evasion and clandestinely armed conspiracies which might seize control of an unarmed world.’4 If the creation of an international military force was, from the very beginning, linked to a sufficient national disarmament, it was also logical that any substantial progress made in the field of disarmament be accompanied by greater hopes that such a force could be established. At the beginning of 1951, a group of 23 American senators and representatives urged Truman that a plea be made at the United Nations General Assembly for peace through disarmament. Among the measures proposed was the establishment of a UN police force ‘superior in size and armament to any force available to the member nations for maintenance of civil order’.5 For Katzin, in 1952: ‘it must be recognised that in the final analysis, and for so long as universal disarmament is not a major part of any over-all United Nations collective security plan, the United Nations will always have to rely primarily upon the total resources of its member states to resist an act of aggression’.6 While, in 1957, total nuclear disarmament was still declared by the General Assembly the ultimate objective to be pursued, the abandonment of several disarmament proposals led experts to explore new paths. Given the paralysis of the Military Staff Committee, progress could be achieved through the General Assembly which, under Article 11 of the Charter, ‘may consider the general principles of co-operation in the maintenance of international peace and security’. Such responsibility includes the ‘principles governing the

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regulation of armament’, regarding which the General Assembly may make recommendations to Member States, the Security Council, or both. On 18 September 1958, Khrushchev proposed a plan for general disarmament to the UN. In 1959, the goal of ‘general and complete disarmament’ was proclaimed by the General Assembly to be the ultimate aim of disarmament efforts. Indeed, the problem of control could not be isolated from the one of disarmament as the opportunities for – and the risks resulting from – cheating had increased with the existence of nuclear capabilities. Even in the event of general disarmament, one party could still hope to easily secure a decisive military advantage by hiding a few nuclear bombs or missiles. In that year, the General Assembly placed on its agenda an item entitled ‘General and Complete Disarmament under General and Effective International Control’, while agreements on partial disarmament were pursued concurrently. However, general disarmament was also seen by some as a precondition to any permanent international force. India in particular, as expressed by the Indian Representative at the General Assembly in 1958, was ‘irrevocably opposed to the conception of the creation of an international police force unless the world disarms’. According to the argument developed by the Indian delegation, preconditions for the establishment of ‘police forces’ as in ‘municipal communities’ also included, apart from world disarmament, the establishment of world law, the existence of ‘some sovereign authority that must be obeyed’, and the possibility of exercising sanctions, all conditions ‘which may take years to come about’.7 This opinion was not shared at all by Philip Noel-Baker, author of an ambitious proposal for world disarmament published the same year. To him, with the success of UNEF, and the pledges of several governments to cooperate in the establishment of a United Nations Force, the idea of permanent international force had become ‘real politics.’8 Convinced that the organization of an international air police presented no particular technical difficulties, Noel-Baker saw in it a solid guarantee against aggression. The air police could also perform other functions for the maintenance of peace and in supporting a standing UN force. It could be set up through individual recruitment of long-term volunteers by the UN, with quotas for different nations, to ensure a fair balance. At least at the beginning, the commanding officer and staff should be chosen from among nationals of the middle and smaller states, the same principle being applicable to all ranks. This way, thought Noel-Baker, it ‘might be easier to secure acceptance of the plan, and the force, when created, might inspire greater confidence’.9 Both as aviators and as international citizens, the recruits would have to pass the most exacting tests. The force should have exclusive loyalty to the UN, and should be

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paid, equipped and armed with funds from the UN budget. It should not be furnished with heavy arms, at least at the beginning. It should have permanent bases – training facilities, leave stations, etc. – of its own, in a number of different countries. According to Noel-Baker, the success of UNEF had made it ‘certain that a permanent United Nations international force should form part, and an important part, of the security system which disarmament requires’.10 Recalling that UNEF never exceeded 6,100 in strength, he proposed a relatively modest force of 10,000 or 20,000, to be rapidly expanded as disarmament progresses and needs demand. The main functions of the force would be interposition and supervision, wherever it might be required, similar to UNEF in the Sinai. Other functions might be guard duties, the supervision of demilitarized zones, and the protection of stockpiles of fissile material maintained by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Ideally, for Noel-Baker, the director-general of the IAEA – which according to its statute is given responsibility for the safety of ‘strategic’ distribution of stockpiles in different regions of the world – could use the international force. To this effect, and in order to avert the danger of an illicit nuclear stock and ensure the elimination of the ‘means of delivery’ – missiles and bombers – Noel-Baker was ready to go as far as accepting a UN force equipped with a nuclear stock. What was needed, he concluded, was a new ‘grand design and over-all plan’.11 Such proposals, he wrote, were not ‘starry eyed’ idealism, but ‘plain, realistic, common sense’.12 Disarmament Proposals and the Cuban Crisis On 17 September 1959, a proposal was made before the General Assembly by the United Kingdom for a disarmament process in three stages. According to the proposal, an ‘international control organ’ would reach ‘its final form and attain full capability for keeping peace’ at the end of the process envisaged.13 The British plan was saluted as the sign of ‘revival of the plan envisaged by the authors of the United Nations Charter’,14 a permanent UN force being seen as the logical corollary of the implementation of international law to ensuring good order, and of the establishment of international authorities to prevent or suppress conflicts. Nikita Khrushchev’s address to the 799th Meeting of the General Assembly, on 18 September 1959, contributed to nourish the debate. ‘States’, he said, ‘should be allowed to retain only strictly limited police (militia) contingents – of a strength agreed upon for each country – equipped with light fire-arms and intended solely for the maintenance of internal order and the protection of citizens’ safety.’15 A few days later, the Danish Representative to the General Assembly, referring once again to the considerable success of

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UNEF, and clearly linking the question of international force to the problem of total disarmament, estimated that recent developments warranted consideration to ‘at least some steps towards the establishment of a permanent United Nations force’.16 The experience of Korea, by contrast, had pinpointed the danger of enlisting UN forces from the armies of large nations likely to be major antagonists in world disputes. In a world police force, individual recruitment would ensure primary allegiance to the United Nations. Article 48 of the draft revision of the United Nations Charter proposed in Freedom in a Federal World by Everett Lee Millard, the executive director of the Conference Upon Research and Education (CURE) in World Government and member of the Chicago Area Council, United World Federalists, stipulated: 1. The Security Council shall enlist such individual volunteers in its peace forces and shall provide and maintain such vehicles, vessels, aircraft and other equipment as the General Assembly may direct; 2. The peace forces of the United Nations shall include in any branch not more than ten percent of personnel who are citizens of any one nation. According to Millard, 82 per cent of conferees of CURE recommended that the Charter be amended to permit the enlistment of individual volunteers. A four-fifths majority of those replying to an inquiry by the Special United Nations Sub-committee of the United States Veterans’ Committee – leaders representing war veterans in Belgium, Canada, France, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands and the United States – approved the enlistment of volunteers into a permanent UN police force.17 The reflection on a UN force for, and consequence of, disarmament, reached a peak in 1961. What could have appeared as a distant Utopian prospect was being discussed seriously. The installation by the USSR of surface-to-air missiles in Cuba, following Kennedy’s unsuccessful attempt to invade Cuba and overthrow Fidel Castro in April, placed the United States at close range of Soviet weapons. The philosopher Bertrand Russell, concerned with the ‘continued existence of civilised society’, published Has Man a Future?, a book in which he proposed the creation of a world government and an international force, including the possibility of direct international enlistment. While one could best secure world peace, he thought, through voluntary agreement among nations to pool their armed forces and submit to an agreed International Authority, the ‘World Authority should have power to recruit in every country and to

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manufacture such weapons as might be deemed essential’.18 For Russell, each large unit should be of mixed nationality in order to prevent the development of national loyalties, while the higher commands could be given to officers from small countries. There would still be a risk that a world government be created without securing world peace if national contingents retained their national unity and, in a crisis, were loyal to their government of origin rather than the world authority.’19

Exploring the Gradual Option Under American leadership, the question of disarmament was soon to become a leitmotiv of the various proposals for a permanent force made by researchers and scholars. Several studies, inspiring American foreign policy, paved the way to the ambitious proposals made by the United States at the Geneva Conference of 1962 for a peace force at the service of disarmament. Study by Grenville Clark and Louis B. Sohn A proposal first published in 1958 by two American Lawyers, Grenville Clark and Louis B. Sohn,20 contained a detailed plan for a world police force sufficiently powerful and prompt to suppress any threat to world’s peace. The basic principle – stipulated in Article 1, para. 1 of the plan – was an independent UN military force, or ‘United Nations Peace Force’, as a means of enforcement of universal and complete national disarmament, the prevention and removal of threats to the peace, the suppression of acts of aggression or other breaches of the peace. The plan emphasized the importance of a reliable world police force on the model of those used for the maintenance of order in large cities. It rested on two complementary, but somewhat contradictory, assumptions: • that a permanent and indisputably international force is necessary to take the place of national armaments; and; • that it would not be feasible to maintain an adequate world police force unless disarmament is universal and complete.21 The force envisaged should therefore be built up parallel with, and proportionate to, the process of national disarmament which, according to the plan, should take place within a ten-year period. Clark and Sohn’s concept was put forward together with a proposal for a revised United Nations Charter recognizing the primary responsibility to the General Assembly for the maintenance of peace and making provision for the measures to ensure compliance, including the use of the UN Peace

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Force.22 The proposal, drawing direct lessons from the experience of Korea and Suez, pointed to the inadequacy of Article 43, which made the UN rely entirely on voluntary agreements between nations to supply military forces. In the case of Korea, as in the case of Suez, they noted, the UN ‘neither had any military forces of its own nor any forces which it was entitled to call for as a matter of right’.23 To remedy this situation, the UN Peace Force would, according to Article 1.2 of the plan, be composed not of national contingents but of individual volunteers recruited directly from all nations under a system of quota by nationality. The proposed force would consist of two components: a fulltime Standing Force with a strength of between 200,000 and 600,000; and a Peace Force Reserve, with a strength of between 600,000 and 1,200,000. The Standing Force, distributed throughout the world, with its own bases, would include highly trained, mobile units ready to move at short notice. The Reserve would be composed of partially trained individual reservists subject to call for service with the Standing Force in case of need. With the conviction that the most important factor in obtaining respect for a world police is the quality of its personnel, which depends on physical, mental and moral qualifications, the plan stressed the importance of selection, a well as adequate pay and good living conditions while in service. Duration of service for the volunteers would be between four and eight years for the Standing Force, and between six and ten years for reservists. To ensure continuity, the reenlistment of especially well-qualified personnel was envisaged under certain limits. The age limit for initial enlistment was 25, and women were expected to constitute a ‘small percentage’ of both components. In the event of an extreme emergency, the General Assembly would have the authority to enlarge the Peace Force beyond the total limit of 1,800,000. To do so, the General Assembly could call on Member States to provide forces by voluntary enlistment, compulsory draft being resorted to only as a measure of last resort. Safeguards were envisaged to ensure against domination of the force by any nation or group. To control the force, an Executive Council and a Military Staff Committee of five persons appointed from the smaller nations was envisaged. Decision for enforcement action would rest with the General Assembly, except for emergency action, which could be decided by the Executive Council. Such actions would be limited to measures to prevent or suppress violent aggression or serious defiance of the UN authority. Kennedy’s Call for a New United Nations Peace Force The American response to the Soviet disarmament proposals came in Kennedy’s audacious address to the General Assembly of 25 September

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1961. What the President of the United States proposed was not only a programme for general and complete disarmament, but also an international capacity to keep peace, that is to say a ‘new United Nations Peace Force’. The programme, based on the contrast between the creation of a ‘machinery to keep peace’ and the destruction of a ‘machinery of war’, was attractive. It intended to bridge the gap between those who insisted on a gradual approach and those who talked only of the final and total achievement. ‘And’, Kennedy added, ‘it starts that process now, today, as this talk begins.’24 Kennedy’s proposal was in fact initially only the earmarking by all Member States of specially trained and quickly available peacekeeping units in their armed forces to be on call to the UN with advance provision for financial and logistic support. On 15 November, the Representative of the United States to the General Assembly, considering that an international police force was needed only when there is a serious threat, suggested that consideration must also be given of other measures to improving the machinery for settling disputes, that is, before they constituted such a threat. On 10 October 1961, the Representative of Nepal to the General Assembly, recalling his previous statements in favour of a ‘permanent mechanism’, wholeheartedly saluted President Kennedy’s proposal. To him, forces such as UNEF and ONUC, created on a purely ad hoc basis, while not entirely based on a new concept of supervisory action, implied an ‘enlarged concept’.25 Once general and complete disarmament had been accomplished, added the Representative of Guinea, ‘no State should be in a position to disturb international peace and security, which would from then on be safeguarded by a United Nations force having at its disposal armed forces, establishments and resources determined by common accord’.26 On 21 November 1961, the Pakistani Representative – whose country had been the champion of the idea of a UN permanent force after the Suez crisis – referred favourably to the US proposal for disarmament and special earmarked units, stating that the ‘building up of a United Nations Force would also have to be envisaged’.27 The Greek Representative for his part also supported the view that the parallel strengthening of the international bodies responsible for the maintenance of peace was necessary during the various phases of disarmament, including the establishment of a UN peace force.28 Several official proposals for a United Nations Force were made in 1961–62 in connection with disarmament talks. The East–West Conference in Warsaw, meeting between 3 and 6 February 1961, adopted the principle of an international police force to replace national armed forces. On 17 March 1961, the Final Statement of the British Commonwealth Prime Minister Conference in London called for a ‘substantial and adequately armed military force’ to be established.

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A UN ‘Legion’: Between Utopia and Reality A WORLD EFFECTIVELY CONTROLLED BY THE UNITED NATIONS?

Following Kennedy’s proposals for general and complete disarmament under effective international control and a UN peace force,29 the United States proposed in early 1962 the establishment of a UN force in the drafts of the disarmament treaty submitted to the United Nations Conference on Disarmament in Geneva. Beyond their intrinsic weaknesses and contradictions, given the state of world tension, the American proposals had very limited chances to be even considered. If anything, they highlighted the worrying distance between ideal and reality, and the increasing tension between the UN’s objectives and its means.30 The latent opposition of the USSR to an international peace force made the implementation of such plans chimerical from the start.

Research and Proposals An ambitious study was prepared by Lincoln P. Bloomfield and published on 10 March 1962 by the Institute of Defence Analysis (IDA), Washington, for the United States Department of State. It paved the way to the American proposal eventually presented to the Conference of the 18-Nation Committee on Disarmament (ENDC) on 18 April 1962, a turning-point by its comprehensive and ambitious character. Lincoln P. Bloomfield and the Vulcan Project Bloomfield was then associate professor of political science and director of the Arms Control Project (ACP) at the Center for International Studies, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He had made himself known with a number of articles and publications on the role of the UN in international politics. A World Effectively Controlled by the United Nations31 was prepared by Bloomfield as part of a project with the code name Vulcan, consisting of a study of Arms Control and a Stable Environment by the Special Studies Group of the IDA for the Department of State. Prepared under the leadership of Dr J. I. Coffey in the context of the American reaction to Khrushchev’s four-year plan of general and complete disarmament, the study was in line with Secretary of State Herter’s counter-proposal expressed in a speech to the National Press Club on 18 February 1960. According to Herter, the first goal of the United States was the creation of a ‘stable military environment’, which supposed certain ‘arms control measures’.32 A second stage would be general disarmament, with two objectives: 1) a world court with effective enforcement means, that is, international armed force, and 2) complete disarmament.

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Bloomfield’s study is essentially an attempt to sketch out the possible contours of such a form of stable environment – a world controlled by the UN – from the perspective of the interests of the United States. The essential feature of the proposal is the transfer of the most vital element of sovereign power from the states to a supranational government: Political scientists have generally come to despair of quantum jumps to world order as utopian and unmindful of political realities. But fresh minds from the military, scientific and industrial life, as they focus on the increasingly irrational arms race, have sometimes found the logic of world government – and it is world government we are discussing here – inescapable.33 Under the terms of a new international constitution, nations would be disarmed to police levels so as to be capable of ensuring domestic security only. Such national forces were derived from the present size of local, civil and state police, to which should be added national law enforcement personnel such as federal marshals, customs agents, border patrols, and so on. Six main types of constitutions, depending on degree of relative power between national and international forces and depending on the level and modalities of disarmament, were envisaged: • minimal level of supranational power, the central authority exercising control with possession of nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction, the constituent nations retaining conventional armaments up to the present high levels or even higher; • central authority possessing both nuclear and conventional capability, the constituent nations also possessing conventional forces; • central authority possessing a combination of modest conventional and nuclear capacity with disarmament of constituent nations down to internal security levels; • total elimination of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction, but retention of significant military power both at the centre and in the parts, yet with different magnitude order; and • a totally disarmed world with no significant military power at any level, only lightly armed police type forces at international and internal level. As far as representation is concerned, the system of one-nation-one-vote as in the current General Assembly was considered by Bloomfield inappropriate to an organization commanding decisive military and political power.

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Seeing as ‘excessively utopian’ (sic) that representation proportionate to population would be acceptable to major powers, an intermediate formula combining population and capacity to provide power to the system was proposed. The formula was aimed at assuring the United States that vital decisions would not be made by any but the most substantial majorities, including the United States. Limited world government should, from Bloomfield’s point of view, have sufficient powers ‘to monitor and enforce disarmament, settle dispute, and keep the peace’, including enforceable taxing powers to finance its political organs, a disarmament policy agency, and an international military force. The proposed international force would consist of 500,000 men, recruited individually, and wearing a distinctive UN uniform. It would be composed of appropriately balanced ground, sea, air and space elements, including a nuclear component. Also, the conventional forces contemplated, made up of trained and mobile units, should be able to counter a single surprise thrust of moderate dimensions. Ten air transport divisions, specially trained and armed with the latest field weapons, transport and communications, were considered sufficient to cope with a secretly prepared attack against one nation. While Noel-Baker had envisaged it only as a possibility, Bloomfield saw in nuclear force, ‘along with delivery systems adequate to deal with the realistic possibility of violation’, an indispensable means at the disposal of a potential central authority, so as to offset the inherent possibility of evasion. Stockpiles of chemical agents at the disposal of the central authority were not excluded either, in case of potential gas attack. The nuclear capability placed under the controls of the force was to consist of 50 to 100 mixed landmobile and undersea-based missiles, averaging one megaton per weapon. The land force would be stationed and deployed in territorial enclaves equitably allocated among continents and areas so as to minimize the risk of seizure by any one nation. Comparing the estimates by Clark and Sohn (US$9.6 billion per year for a United Nations Peace Force of 400,000 with a reserve of 900,000) and by Cannon and Jordan (US$25 million per year not including capital costs for bases, and so on, for a 7,000-man lightly armed brigade),34 Bloomfield calculated an annual cost of up to US$9 billion for a balanced force of half a million men. Such an estimate included the buying, building, maintaining and modernizing of a broad arsenal of equipment for world-wide missions, to which could be added US$2 to 2.5 million for operating costs, the maintenance of disarmament agreements and inspection machinery. Ruling out the objection of the difficulty to reform the United Nations Charter, the author argued that such a ‘quantum jump’ could be done either through amendment of the Charter, or by writing a new one.

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Bloomfield had to acknowledge a fundamental paradox and dilemma: the subordination of states to a world government appeared conditional to the end of communism and the East–West tension; at the same time, he realized, if the communist dynamic was greatly abated, the incentive for world government among Western countries might well be lost. In fact, the realization of the system proposed by Bloomfield rested on a number of assumptions, including the transformation of communism. Such a revolution, he thought, could only happen in two ways: through the unlikely acceptance by the communist doctrine of the notion of a higher authority, meaning abandonment of its imperialistic ambitions and messianic character, or through a serious crisis, war or brink-of-war, sufficient to shaking the deeply rooted attitudes of communism. Therefore, being ‘unattainable when needed, and unneeded when attainable’, such a world effectively controlled by the UN could only come about by a brink of war, or a war combined with the development of evolutionary trends. In 1964, Bloomfield explained his ‘pessimistic optimism’ by a ‘sense of greater optimism for the longer run that inspires the search for politically acceptable solutions which have a chance of fulfilment’. This prospect, he believed, was denied to Utopias, ‘whether they commit the Marxist’s sin of abolishing history or the western visionary’s sin of abolishing man’.35 American proposal at the ENCD The Outline of Basic Provisions of a Treaty on General and Complete Disarmament in a Peaceful World (thereafter ‘The Outline’)36 was submitted by the United States at the Conference of the 18-nation Committee on Disarmament (ENCD), which held its first conference in 1962.37 The American proposal made provision for an international military force and effective procedures for the peaceful settlement of disputes.38 According to the Outline, disarmament would be implemented progressively and in a balanced manner. This way, no state or group of states could at any stage obtain military advantage. To ensure this, the national disarmament process would be accompanied by a gradual strengthening of the UN. Disarmament would be accomplished in three stages, the first and second stages to be carried out over a total period of six years each, the third stage as promptly as possible within an agreed period. Stage I would be initiated by the United States, the Soviet Union, and other agreed states. Stage II would involve the participation of the most significant states. All states possessing armaments and armed forces would be involved by Stage III. Disarmament measures per se were related to national armed forces, the outer space, military bases and military expenditures. Verification procedures, under the authority of an ‘International

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Disarmament Organization’, and measures aimed at reducing the risk of war were envisaged. Among measures to strengthen arrangements for keeping the peace, a United Nations Peace Force would be created. During Stage I, the parties would agree on a series of measures: • examination of the experience of the United Nations leading to a further strengthening of United Nations forces for keeping the peace; • examination of the feasibility of conducting promptly the agreements envisaged in Article 43 of the United Nations Charter; • conclusion of an agreement for the establishment of a United Nations Peace Force in Stage II, including definitions of its purpose, mission, composition and strength, disposition, command and control, training, logistical support, financing, equipment and armaments. During the same period, parties to the Treaty would also agree on the establishment of a standing United Nations Peace Observation Corps. The Corps, elements of which would be based in selected areas throughout the world, would be dispatched promptly to investigate any situation that might constitute a threat to peace. With Stage II, the UN Peace Force would be established and progressively strengthened, while arrangements for the expansion of the United Nations Peace Observation Corps would be agreed upon. Towards the end of Stage III, the United Nations Peace Force would have be strengthened to the point where no state could challenge it.39 From the terms of the Outline, it was difficult to deduce with precision what would eventually be the shape of the UN Peace Force. In principle, the force could be established either through the concluding of Article 43 agreements, or through the direct recruitment and financing by the UN of its own military force possessing its own logistics, transportation and bases. Yet the Outline was logically interpreted by contemporary commentators as promoting the concept of an internationally recruited force rather than a force made up of national contingents. The force, it could be argued, would logically fundamentally differ, in composition and control, from the forces envisaged in Article 43 of the United Nations Charter. It would constitute an effectively centralized international force, free of the inhibiting effects of the veto resulting from direct control by the Security Council.40 Moreover, the various studies conducted at the time had rendered the concept attractive, and an individually recruited peace force had strong supporters within American circles at that time. As far as recruitment and composition were concerned, lessons could be learned from the study of the American project for a multilateral nuclear force for NATO of 1959, in which mixed

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manning, in particular, had been considered essential to ensure that no single unit could be rendered ineffective by mutiny, or be sabotaged, or be withdrawn by one of the participant countries. Other studies, such as one produced by the US Navy, and led by Livingstone P. Merchant, consultant to the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (ACDA), pointed to a much more ambitious and novel type of peace force than one constructed out of diverse contributions of national military units. While the difficulties of recruiting, training, and supporting a directly recruited and mixed-manned peace force were considered formidable, the setting up of an effective combat force of such composition was considered feasible. A UN Peace Force organized on this basis would be more reliable and more responsive to the political authority governing it, it was thought.41 At the White House Conference on International Co-operation held in Washington, from 29 November to 1 December 1965, the Committee on Arms Control and Disarmament led by Ruth Russell prepared a report presenting peacekeeping as an alternative to armaments, and calling for preventive action requiring a broad spectrum of military, political and other capabilities. In this context, the report suggested, a UN Peace Force should be created under the control of the Security Council and responsive to the General Assembly. The force, similar to the one proposed in the Outline, could be composed initially of two elements: stand-by units voluntarily earmarked by Member States for deployment in specific operations; and a small elite force of about one to two thousand men available for immediate deployment as a ‘fire prevention brigade’. The United States was expected to play a decisive role in the establishment and evolution of such a force, by assisting in the development of the military staff, providing logistic support and, on request, training programmes, and by encouraging and assisting other nations to pledge the necessary forces. Parallel to this, a UN Peace Observation Corps would be created. Ways and means of providing the UN Peace Force and the Peace Observation Corps should be found, such as volunteer commitment by the nuclear powers of a small fraction of their military expenditures to a UN fund.42

Paralysis and Forward Thinking The Outline was presented by the US government as ‘far-reaching’. The proposal, its promoters apparently believed, could be put into effect quickly. It would meet the objections made to earlier plans, while satisfying the security needs of all participating nations. What the United States proposed, affirmed the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, was ‘a realistic, not a Utopian, plan’.43 The most ambitious objective of the plan was not so much

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the destruction of arms, but the elimination of war and the building of a secure and lasting peace. Arms reduction was therefore envisaged as part of a more general peace-building process, including measures to enable the UN to become an effective agency for keeping the peace in a disarmed world. Weak Proposals and Soviet Opposition The disarmament euphoria, if there was any, did not last. In fact, the various disarmament proposals shared a number of weaknesses. Very ambitious in their objectives, the plans made by the United States were based on general principles, mainly that disarmament and the development of a peacekeeping machinery designed to enforce it were two sides of the same coin. The original assumption that gradual disarmament could be made in conjunction with the setting-up of an international force would quickly be proved wrong. Moreover, the proposals provided little information on the actual design of the institutions envisaged, and actual modalities for recruitment, composition and control of the proposed Peace Force were never really discussed. The definition of the rules of international conduct relating to disarmament, essential to determine the situations in which the UN Peace Force should be used, was left to interpretation. The Soviet plan for general and complete disarmament was based on the assumption that the main threat to international security was the accumulation of armaments. From this perspective, the elimination of all armed forces should suffice to establish a just and peaceful international power. The USSR’s Draft Treaty of 15 March 1962 on General and Complete Disarmament, while containing peacekeeping measures, therefore did not go beyond a reaffirmation of the United Nations Charter. The Soviet suspicion of any type of supranational army was consistent with its general tendency to limit UN authority and safeguard its own freedom of action. Indeed, the USSR had also consistently held the position that the direct recruitment and use of military personnel by the UN was illegal, except for advance commitments through Article 43 agreements. Alexander Dallin, in The Soviet Union and the United Nations (1962), identified several considerations influencing the Soviet defensive attitude. First, the UN might have been tempted to establish an armed presence during the Hungarian crisis of 1956, had such a force been in readiness at the time. Second, so long as its bloc was in the minority, a permanent force would be more likely to be used against than in support of the USSR. Third, placing military forces under the control of the Secretary-General would have meant bypassing the veto of the great powers. Finally, bound as it was by the rule of great power unanimity, the Security Council could never act against a great power and therefore only relatively small contingents would

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have been required for an international police force while the United States favoured more powerful forces, with mobile air and naval units to be supplied largely by the West.44 All those reasons, and more, had led the Soviet journal International Affairs (Moscow) to attack proposals for international forces, describing for instance Clark and Sohn’s Peace Force as the ‘instrument which, officially an organ of the United Nations, would in practice be at the beck and call of a certain great power’. The force, it was argued, would serve to fight the national-liberation movements in the colonies and dependencies, to crush any reaction by the ‘democratic’ forces within the capitalist countries, for action against the peoples of the small countries, and to exert military pressure on the disarmed socialist countries.45 In November 1961, the Soviet Representative to the General Assembly expressed the view that there should not be control over the armed forces and weapons retained by states at any given stage, as proposed by the United States. This, he argued, would give a unilateral advantage to states with aggressive tendencies, ‘precisely what the United States wanted’, concluding: ‘it rather looked as if the Western Powers were simply trying to exploit the question of control for propaganda purposes’.46 More serious was perhaps the accusation made by the USSR that the United States was seeking, through the establishment of a control over armaments, the establishment of a legalized espionage system.47 In spite of the immediate American denial of any intention of espionage,48 it is not difficult to see how the proposed models did provide valid arguments to those who shared such fears. Bloomfield, for instance, assumed that the United States ‘would continue to rely primarily on its own intelligence sources as a powerful supplement to the international monitoring of disarmament’.49 It was only logical, given the context of East–West suspicion, that the proposals for a United Nations Peace Force in the 1962 Outline be viewed as a plan to subvert the Charter and the powers of the Security Council. After the Cuban crisis of October 1962, proposals for international force were strongly rejected by the USSR as ‘imperialist’: ‘By hook and crook,’ one could read in Izvestia in 1964, ‘the United States leading politicians and some of their allies in blocs, in the first place Britain, try to legalize, in the form of the “United Nations force”, their police, punitive operations against the countries and people which are fighting for their freedom and independence. No doubt, their proposal must be rejected as harmful to the principles and purposes of the United Nations Charter.’50 Intrinsic Contradictions and Increasing Tensions Indeed, the United Nations’ resorting to ad hoc mechanisms for the setting up of UN operations was a direct consequence of the resort to the pragmatic

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development of an unwritten chapter, ‘Chapter VI and a Half ’, of the Charter, at the time of Dag Hammarskjöld. The consequence of the absence of any agreement on military forces to be placed at the disposal of the organization, as envisaged in Article 43, it resulted in the abandonment of the principle of earmarked military forces available ‘on call’. Even more unlikely was the success of any attempt to establish a UN permanent force.51 While the setting up of a truly international peace force to control and implement disarmament appeared impossible, the creation of a permanent peacekeeping force seemed as irrelevant. In fact, until the end of the Cold War, there did not exist any consensus among Member States on military involvement of the UN, except for limited peacekeeping-type operations. In addition, the Secretariat could staff additional operations from existing ones, such as UNTSO or UNFICYP. Those countries who participated most regularly to UN peacekeeping operations between 1946 and 1984 were Canada (12 operations), Sweden (10), Norway (9), Italy (9), Denmark (8), Finland (8), United States (8), Australia (7), Netherlands (6), Ireland (5), New Zealand (5) and India (5). While a small number of states52 were regularly willing to provide troops, some of the countries, especially the Scandinavian ones, undertook to provide them with special training and had even designated specific stand-by units for peacekeeping missions.53 Meanwhile, ad hoc peacekeeping forces had started to demonstrate their limits. Even for interposition purposes, availability of forces had started to prove problematic: in the case of the second United Nations Emergency Force (UNEF II), only a transfer of troops from UNFICYP could ensure immediate deployment. The ‘peacekeeping only’ doctrine and the requirement of consent was becoming increasingly contradictory with some of the basic principles and values of the UN. That the UN had proved ineffective in several cases at preserving peace and protecting human rights led some to believe that it was sorely in need of reform. The attitude of the major powers, taking war and peace issues away from the organization’s agenda, while holding to their veto rights, was severely criticized as prompting the emergence of contentious minority factions. The ideal of disarmament itself had regressed to the concept of arms control.54 The ONUC operation, while contributing to discourage supporters of more permanent international military arrangements, had set a far-reaching precedent: UN intervention in the context of a failed state. Herbert Nicholas, prophetically drawing lessons from the operation, concluded: ‘Future Congos cannot be ignored simply because they were not dreamed of in the philosophy of San Francisco.’55 The Nigerian civil war (1967–70), the conflict leading to the creation of Bangladesh (1971), the violence in Northern Ireland, the Lebanese civil war in 1976, and the Kampuchean tragedy (1979–80) were

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raised as ample demonstration of the need for international enforcement. Traditional peacekeeping troops appeared ill-prepared or inadequate for quite a number of tasks the UN might sooner or later be called to undertake: preventing border clashes from breaking into full-scale war; discouraging third parties from supplying military equipment to parties to the conflict; humanitarian intervention, including providing sanctuary for noncombatants seeking shelter during civil wars, and attempting to quell internal conflicts that may degenerate into massacres or genocide; enforcing of international norms and human rights; and monitoring and enforcement of arms reduction. A noticeable attempt to promote a new military instrument to be placed at the disposal of the United Nations was made in the 1980s, by two members of the New York-based Institute for World Order, Robert C. Johansen and Saul H. Mendlovitz. Based on their analysis of the challenges and the weaknesses of the UN military forces, Johansen and Mendlovitz called for a standing transnational constabulary or police force transcending narrowly defined national interests.56 Published in 1980, nearly a decade before the end of the Cold War, their proposal has a prophetic resonance. With the aim of developing a strategy for moving towards a ‘preferred system of world order’ the authors estimated: ‘Certainly the inadequacies of enforcement through national self-help ad hoc international forces will become increasingly clear and damaging to the interests of many states, including the superpowers in the future.’ Considering that ‘the 1990’ we seek must shape our actions of the 1980’,57 the two authors drew two main lessons from past peacekeeping experience: first that a UN force may need to remain in place without host consent; second that individuals directly recruited into a permanent force would be potentially more reliable than an ad hoc group dependent on contributed battalions from Member States. The force of 5,000 persons they proposed was designed to ‘provide sufficient personnel to carry out most small missions and provide the immediate forces needed to respond to sudden crises’.58 The members of the force would be directly recruited by the UN from individual volunteers. As in previous similar plans referred to by the authors, geographic and linguistic representation was considered essential, and no more than 5 per cent of any battalion should originate from a single country. The proposal aimed at a police or constabulary force, rather than an army or military force stricto sensu. Only in the case of establishing a humanitarian corridor could a territory be held by the force, and even then it would be of limited size and for a short duration. Training would be similar to the one provided to national guards for crowd control and dealing with riots and disorders. In particular, members would be trained ‘to isolate violent individuals or groups, to restore order,

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to patrol borders, and to protect innocent victims of illegal behaviour’. Weapons would be limited to small arms, and ‘relatively human pacifying agents’ such as rubber bullets, with the effect of tranquillizing or temporary incapacitating only.59 In addition, a private non-violent enforcement agency, having the advantage of being able to establish itself without waiting for governments to support it, was proposed as a possible ‘predecessor and later supplement’ to a public transnational police force. The force could be located in three or more base camps, so that at least one part of it could be moved quickly to a trouble spot anywhere in the world. Such geographic separation would aim at limiting negative potential interference with the local population, and also enabling the force to prepare better for action in different climatic, cultural, linguistic, and social contexts. Considering that providing ‘appropriate salaries and fringe benefits, modern equipment, careful training, efficient transportation, and necessary logistical support’60 would be expensive, Johansen and Mendlovitz envisaged various financing modalities: conventional UN budgetary procedures and allotments; or Member State cost-sharing on a scale proportional to each national government’s portion of total global military expenditures. In the latter case, each country’s quota would be calculated over the preceding fiveyear period to avoid wide fluctuations. Among other measures, in addition to the above-mentioned financing procedures, an endowment fund could be established to which private individuals and organizations could participate to pay for unanticipated costs of the operations.61 The standing police force would be put at the disposal of either the Security Council or the General Assembly. Alternatively, a ‘semi-autonomous, carefully selected, body of respected persons, able to commit the force to action and to preside over its command in the field’ could be created. Day-to-day command and control would be vested in the Secretary-General and a Staff Committee and officers designated in consultation with the Military Staff Committee or similar body representing members of the UN. Yet there was no sign that the political environment would allow for a permanent force to be placed under the responsibility of the world organization in a near future. Pragmatically, Johan J. Holst, the Director of the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs, noting that while the Security Council was far from establishing permanent forces for the imposition of its will, the infrastructure for peacekeeping remained very inadequate, suggested the building up of regional pre-positioned storage, logistic depots and ‘facilitating capacities’ to respond quickly and effectively to calls for peacekeeping’. Such pre-positioned storage was to contain vehicles, prefab buildings, spare parts, medical supplies, emergency rations, appropriate clothing and so on. Maintenance was to be undertaken by host countries for

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the UN and be subject to UN inspection. In the context of the process of arms reduction in Europe by the great powers, items such as armoured personnel carriers could be made available for UN storage as an alternative to their destruction. Certain transport aircraft could also be provided in order to facilitate rapid deployment of UN peacekeeping forces following a decision about their establishment by the Security Council.62 In 1986, Brian Urquhart cautiously suggested that it could be ‘worth considering whether the time has come to establish a modest central UN peacekeeping establishment to assist governments in training and other matters’.63 However, in 1987, mentioning proposals for a special UN Preparedness Review Group to be created for increased readiness of UN troops, Ernst Haas noted: ‘None of these ideas seems timely, given the growing indifference to local wars on the part of many United Nations Members and the continuous effectiveness of peace-keeping, ad hoc though it is, under conditions when a consensus for action does exist.’ After carefully analysing the question of whether ad hoc procedures sufficed for successful peacekeeping at that time, he concluded: ‘It appears as if the ad hoc arrangements now prevailing can do the job.’64 Meanwhile, the UN, being sometimes stigmatized as the ‘Talking Shop of the World’,65 was in 1989 already showing signs of over-stretch.66 NOTES 1. J. Nogee, The Diplomacy of Disarmament, International Conciliation No. 526 (New York: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1960), pp. 239–40. 2. ‘Talk of Arming the UN Untimely, US Feels’, New York Times, 10 October 1948, p. 5. ‘UN Members Urged to Form Police Force’, New York Times, 11 October 1948, p. 3. 3. ‘Text of General Eisenhower’s Address on Implementing of Peace in World’, Address in McMillin Academic Theatre on 23 March 1950 by President Dwight D. Eisenhower, President of Columbia University and Allied Wartime Supreme Commander, New York Times, 24 March 1950, p. 5. 4. ‘Stronger UN Plan Backed Hearing’, New York Times, 25 May 1950, p. 7. 5. ‘Twenty Congressmen Give Truman Peace Plan’, New York Times, 1 March 1951, p. 13. 6. A. G. Katzin, ‘Collective Security’, p. 208 7. Statement before the General Assembly on 7 October 1958. GA, 13th Sess., Plen. Mtgs, 774th Mtg, GAOR, p. 365. 8. P. Noel-Baker, The Arms Race – A Programme for World Disarmament (London: Atlantic Books, Stevens & Sons Ltd., 1958), p. 438. 9. Ibid., p. 439. 10. Ibid., p. 548. 11. Ibid., pp. 560–1. 12. Ibid., p. 438. 13. Statement by Mr Lloyd (United Kingdom), GA, 16th Sess., Plen. Mtgs, 798th Mtg, 17 September 1959, New York. GAOR, para. 59, p. 25.

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14. J. Nogee, The Diplomacy of Disarmament, p. 292. 15. Address to the General Assembly on 18 September 1959, GA, 14th Sess., Plen. Mtgs, 799th Mtg, GAOR, p. 36. 16. Statement before the General Assembly on 25 September 1959, GA, 14th Sess., Plen. Mtgs, 809th Mtg, GAOR, p. 193. Statement before the General Assembly by Mr Novotny, President of the Czechoslovak Republic on 26 September 1960, GA, 15th Sess., Plen. Mtgs, 871st Mtg, GAOR, p. 103. Speech to the General Assembly by Mr Sapena Pastor (Paraguay) on 27 September 1960, GA, 15th Sess., Plen. Mtgs, 874th Mtg, GAOR, p. 166. 17. E. L. Millard, Freedom in a Federal World, 3rd edn (rev.), including Draft Revision of the United Nations Charter, first pub. 1959 (New York: Dobbs Ferry/Oceana Publications Inc., 1964), p. 218. 18. B. Russell, Has Man a Future? (London: Allen & Unwin, 1961, pp. 72–4. See another attempt to ‘think the unthinkable’: Young, W. Strategy for Survival (Baltimore, MD: Penguin Books, 1959), p. 95. 19. Russell, Has Man a Future?, p. 73. 20. Grenville Clark, from Dublin, New Hampshire, United States, a lawyer who sponsored the Plattsburg Training Programme during the First World War and the Selective Service Act during the Second World War, was Vice-President of the United World Federalists, and the author of A Plan for Peace (1960). Louis B. Sohn, Cambridge, MA, was Bemis Professor of International Law, Harvard Law School, Vice-Chairman, Federation of American Scientists, and author of Cases of World Law (1950) and Cases on United Nations Law (1956). 21. G. Clark and L. B. Sohn, The United Nations Peace Force – World Peace Through World Law, 2nd edn (Cambridge, MA: HUP, 1960), p. 321. 22. Ibid., pp. 111–28. 23. Ibid., p. 321. 24. Address by Mr John F. Kennedy, President of the United States of America, United Nations, GA, 16th Sess., Plen. Mtgs, 1013th Mtg, 25 September 1961, New York. GAOR, para. 55, pp. 56–7. 25. Statement by Mr Shaha (Nepal), GA, 16th Sess., Plen. Mtgs, 1031st Mtg, 10 October 1961, New York, GAOR, para. 99, p. 347. 26. Statement by Mr Telli Dialo (Guinea), GA, 16th Sess., 1st Ctee, 1203rd Mtg, 27 November 1961, New York, GAOR, para. 34, p. 213. 27. Statement by Sir Muhammad Zafrulla Khan (Pakistan), GA, 16th Sess., 1st Ctee, 1205th Mtg, 28 November 1961, New York, GAOR, para. 28, p. 222. 28. Statement by the Representative of Greece, United Nations, GA, 16th Sess., 1st Ctee, 1205th Mtg, 28 November 1961, New York, GAOR, para. 17, p. 221. 29. Address by Mr John F. Kennedy, para. 55, pp. 56-7. 30. R. B. Russell, The United Nations and United States, pp. 136–48. R. B. Russell, United Nations Experience, p. 1. F. Seyersted, United Nations Forces, p. 404. 31. A World Effectively Controlled by the United Nations – A Preliminary Survey of One Form of Stable Military Environment, paper prepared by L. P. Bloomfield for the International Defense Agency, in support of a study to the Department of State under contract No. SCC 28270, Study Memorandum No. 7, unclassified, dated 24 February 1961, Special Studies Group (Washington, DC: IDA, 10 March 1962), 38 p. 32. Ibid., p. 1. 33. Ibid., p. 18.

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34. Lt.-Col. C. A. Cannon Jr. and Lt.-Col. A. Jordan, ‘Military Aspects’, pp. 167–71. 35. L. P. Bloomfield (ed.), International Military Forces, p. 36. 36. Blueprint for the Peace Race, Outline of the Basic Provisions of a Treaty on General and Complete Disarmament in a Peaceful World, United States Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, Pub. No. 4, General Series No. 3 (Washington, DC: United States Government Printing Office, released May 1962), 35 p. 37. The Eight Nations Disarmament Committee (1962–69), comprising eight additional non-aligned members, constituted a reorganization of the negotiating functions of the Ten-Nation Committee on Disarmament which had been established in 1959 and in which East and West were represented in equal numbers. Its name changed to Conference on the Committee on Disarmament (CCD) in 1969 as the membership was expanded to 26 nations. The membership was later expanded to 31 in 1975. The CCD (1969–78) became the Committee on Disarmament in 1979, and the Conference on Disarmament in 1984. The United Nations and Disarmament – A Short History (New York: United Nations, 1988), p. 3. 38. R. E. Osgood, ‘Military Power in a Disarming World’, in The United States in a Disarmed World: A Study of the U.S. Outline for General and Complete Disarmament (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins UniversityPress, 1966), pp. 33–53. 39. Blueprint for the Peace Race, pp. 20–1. 40. R. W. Tucker, ‘Legal Restraints on Coercion’, in The United States in a Disarmed World, pp. 115–16. 41. L. T. Merchant. ‘Control and Accountability of a United Nations Peace Force’, in The United States in a Disarmed World, p. 217. 42. R. N. Gardner (ed.), Blueprint for Peace, Being the Proposals of Prominent Americans to the White House Conference on International Cooperation, Washington, DC, 29 November–1 December 1965 (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1966), pp. 45, 72. 43. Towards a World without War. A Summary of United States Disarmament Efforts, Past and Present, United States Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, General Series No. 6 (Washington, DC: United States Government Printing Office, October 1962), p. 15. 44. A. Dallin, The Soviet Union and the United Nations – An Inquiry into Soviet Motives and Objectives (New York: Frederick Prager, 1962), pp. 135–6. 45. S. Vladimirov, ‘Disarmament and the Plans for Establishing an International Peace Force, International Affairs (Moscow), 6, 4 (1960), p. 47. 46. Statement by Mr Zorin (Union of Soviet Republics). GA, 16th Sess., 1st Ctee, 1195th Mtg, 15 November 1961, New York. GAOR; para. 8–9, p. 170. 47. Ibid., para. 15, p. 171. 48. Statement by Mr Popper (United States of America), GA, 16th Sess., 1st Ctee, 1207th Mtg, 29 November 1961, New York, GAOR, para. 8, p. 228. 49. L. P. Bloomfield, A World Effectively Controlled by the United Nations, p. 34. 50. ‘Soviet Peace-keeping’, Survival, September–October 1964; p. 241 (reprinted from Izvestia, 8 June 1964). 51. E. Haas, ‘The Collective Management of International Conflict, 1945–1984’, The United Nations and the Maintenance of International Peace and Security (Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1987), p. 38. 52. Ibid. p. 40. The total number of countries that participated in peacekeeping operations is 54. See also H. Wiseman. ‘The United Nations and International Peacekeeping: A Comparative Analysis’, The United Nations and the Maintenance of International Peace and Security, p. 303.

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53. For a legal and comparative study of the use by the UN of national contingents, see R. C. R. Siekmann, National Contingents, 229 p. K. Resnick, ‘Scandinavia’s role in the United Nations: The First Fifty Years’, Scandinavian Review, 83, 2 (1995), p. 34–40. 54. J. D. Sethi, ‘Steps Toward Reform’, World Press Review, 32, December 1985, pp. 39–40. Shultz, G. P., ‘The Charter’s Goals and Today’s Realities’, Department of State Bulletin, Vol. 85 (1985), pp. 8–14. J. Wilkenfeld and M. Brecher, ‘International Crises, 1945–1975: The UN Dimension’, International Studies Quarterly, 29, 1 (March 1984), pp. 45–68. 55. H. Nicholas, ‘United Nations Peace Forces’, p. 336. 56. R. C. Johansen and S. H. Mendlovitz, ‘The Role of Enforcement of Law in the New International Order: A Proposal for a Transnational Police Force’, Alternatives, 6, 2 (1980), p. 309. 57. Ibid., p. 308. 58. Ibid., pp. 319–20. 59. Ibid., pp. 319–21. 60. Ibid., pp. 335–7. 61. Ibid., pp. 320–1. 62. J. J. Holst, ‘Enhancing Peace-keeping Operations’, Survival, 32, 3 (1990), p. 273. 63. B. Urquhart, ‘United Nations Peacekeeping Operations and How Their Role might be Enhanced’, paper prepared for the Palme Commission’s Meeting in New Delhi, India, 17–19 January 1986, in The United Nations and the Maintenance of International Peace and Security, pp. 258, 260. 64. E. Haas, The Collective Management, p. 44. 65. T. Fishlock, ‘The Talking Shop of the World’, The Times, 23 October 1985. 66. J. Bone, ‘Stretched to the Limit’, The Times, 18 September 1989.

FIVE

Re-Emergence

‘I think I could, if I only knew how to begin’. For, you see, so many things had happened lately, that Alice had begun to think that very few things indeed were really impossible. Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, 1865

Eclipsed from the international debate for 25 years by the relative success of peacekeeping and the collective relief of the détente, the idea of a UN ‘Legion’ re-emerged in the euphoria that accompanied the crumbling of the Soviet Union. The division of the world into two antagonistic camps, and the belief in the myth of the necessary enemy as a basis of Leninism and Stalinism, had long been seen as the main and durable reasons for the failure to establish international permanent military forces. With the new unanimity in the Security Council, the world organization could at last play its central role as an instrument of international peace. In an address to the UN General Assembly in New York, Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze called for the UN to create the measures that world peace requires, adding that the positive political changes in the world have allowed a partnership in promoting universal human values. At the General Assembly, the Soviet delegation suggested that the Security Council take steps to reactivate the work of the Military Staff Committee.1 As a consequence, a re-evaluation of ad hoc arrangements and the possibility of establishing an international authority with effective means of action could be envisaged. With the end of the ‘all-pervading tension’, the debate on international force re-emerged in conjunction with the Gulf War, in 1991, and the Rwanda Crisis, in 1994.

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A UN ‘Legion’: Between Utopia and Reality THE GULF WAR AND THE LIMITS OF THE ‘NEW WORLD ORDER’

The invasion of Kuwait by Iraq, on 2 August 1990, led to the setting up of one of the most formidable military coalitions in world history, Operation ‘Desert Storm’, from 17 January to 28 February 1991. Singularly, that the US-led coalition was only authorized by the Security Council also highlighted the fact that the Military Staff Committee had never played a significant role, and that permanent UN forces were never formed. American public opinion criticism of military action in the Persian Gulf, and opinion polls showing that a majority of citizens in the United States opposed the use of force, led some to say that the United States should have acted only as part of an international force under the direct leadership of the Security Council.2 In any case, the ‘reinvention of collective security’ 3 called for new means to be placed at the disposal of the UN. While there was initially no guarantee that collective security would work in the case of Kuwait, if states could now count on UN to monitor destabilizing arms flows and military deployments and intervene when necessary with peacekeeping forces, confidence in the mechanism could grow. The humanitarian operation in northern Iraq, where relief aid was provided under military protection and the access to war victims guaranteed by a military exclusion zone, was seen by many as an important precedent for humanitarian intervention.4 More and more, use of military force by the UN would be linked to the defence of human rights, and a collective obligation to intervene and provide relief in emergency situations where human rights were threatened.5

The Quest for a New Military Instrument At the beginning of 1990, few were putting in question the principle of ad hoc forces and the peacekeeping doctrine as applied to UN operations. Nigel D. White, asked whether the peacekeeping function could be improved, suggested that its effectiveness could indeed be enhanced if the procedures for the establishment of peacekeeping forces were institutionalized instead of being of an ad hoc nature. Such a development, he thought, would be akin to the agreements and machinery for UN armed forces envisaged in Article 43, except, of course, ‘it would mean agreement on standing peacekeeping forces’.6 In the wave of the enthusiasm generated by the success of the Gulf War, a major development in the quest for adequate military solutions was the publication of the report of the Secretary-General, An Agenda for Peace, in June 1992. Boutros BoutrosGhali’s proposals led several scholars, specialists and practitioners of

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international relations to call for an army to be placed permanently at the disposal of the UN. A Force Made of Units from Member States? One immediate consequence of the Gulf War, similar to what happened in the wave of the Korean War, 40 years earlier, was to resuscitate plans for strong international force against aggression. At the beginning of 1992, Richard N. Gardner, Professor of International Law at Columbia University, rejecting the idea of a standing army, called instead for the reactivation of Article 43. Born in New York in 1927, Gardner had been Deputy Assistant Secretary of States for International Organization Affairs (1961–65), Member of the United States delegations to the United Nations General Assembly (1961–67), Foreign Policy Adviser to Senator Albert Gore (1988), and Member of the Foreign Policy Advisory Team of President Clinton during the 1991 presidential campaign. Gardner suggested that Member States should contribute units to a 100,000-strong rapid deployment force made up of 20 to 30 separate national brigades of about 2,000 to 3,000 each earmarked for UN service. The force could be used to deal with threats to the peace and acts of aggression, both inter-state wars and internal conflicts. It could, among other tasks, be dispatched to Member State border areas to deter acts of aggression, forcefully terminate repression against civilian populations when such acts constitute a threat to international peace and security, provide humanitarian assistance when disasters occur, as well as undertake anti-drug trafficking and anti-terrorism missions. Although not a standing army per se, the forces would receive common training and standardized equipment, and would participate in joint exercises under UN command.7 In fact, in early 1992, France had proposed to make troops available for immediate deployment for peacekeeping duties, as part of a UN rapid response force that could also serve for humanitarian purposes, at the first summit of the Heads of States of the Security Council. According to the proposal, 1,000 men could be sent on 48 hours’ notice and 1,000 more with one week’s notice.8 In May 1992, Victor-Yves Ghébali, of the Geneva Graduate Institute of International Studies, referring to the French Proposal, declared: ‘If we do not constitute such a standing army, in every case the United Nations will do too little and too late.’ He also proposed the constitution of a standing force, through either earmarked units within national armies available on request, or integrated units under the direction of a UN Military Staff Committee.9 The recently elected Secretary-General, Boutros Boutros-Ghali, drawing lessons from the recent change in the international environment resulting

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from the collapse of the communist system in the Soviet Union, endeavoured to restore the credibility of the UN as a guarantor of international peace. In his Report, An Agenda for Peace,10 pursuant to the Statement adopted by the Summit Meeting of the Security Council on 31 January 1992, the SecretaryGeneral proposed to bring into being the special agreements provided for in Article 43, and the creation of peace enforcement units. Under the title ‘Use of Military Force’, the Secretary-General called for the reactivation of Article 43 of the Charter whereby Member States undertake to make armed forces, assistance and facilities available to the Security Council ‘not only on an ad hoc basis but on a permanent basis’.11 Such forces would be used for the purposes stated in Article 42 under the Security Council’s authority to take military action to maintain, or restore, international peace and security. ‘While such action should only be taken when all peaceful means have failed,’ argued Boutros-Ghali, ‘the option of taking it is essential to the credibility of the United Nations as a guarantor of international security’.12 Ready availability of armed forces was seen as a means of deterring breaches of the peace, in the perspective of inter-state conflicts. Recognizing that forces under Article 43 ‘may perhaps never be sufficiently large or well enough equipped to deal with a threat from a major army equipped with sophisticated weapons’, he considered that they could nevertheless be useful ‘in meeting any threat posed by a military force of less order’.13 The logical corollary of such evolution, the reactivation of the dormant Military Staff Committee, was recommended, for the planning and conduct of operations under Chapter VII of the Charter. While acknowledging that such forces were not likely to be available in the near future, the report estimated that for the first time since the Charter was adopted, the long-standing obstacles to the conclusion of such special agreements should no longer prevail. Moreover, noting the frequent failure by parties to a conflict to break a ceasefire agreement, the Secretary-General envisaged a more radical development. In what has been viewed as the ‘most significant departure’ 14 in An Agenda for Peace, he proposed, for the specific tasks of maintaining or restoring a ceasefire, the utilization of ‘peace-enforcement units’. The purpose of the units, also referred to as ‘ceasefire enforcement units’, would be to enable the UN to deploy troops quickly to take coercive action against either party, or both, in case of violation of ceasefire. Used in clearly defined circumstances and with terms of reference specified in advance, the units would be available on call. They would consist of troops that have volunteered for such service, more heavily armed than peacekeeping forces, and extensively trained within their national forces prior to deployment. They would be authorized by the Security Council and, as in the case of peacekeeping forces, under the command of the Secretary-General.15

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A ‘provisional measure under Article 40 of the Charter’,16 the units would in fact correspond to those measures taken before recommendations or decisions be made under Article 39 17 and in accordance with Article 41 and 42 to maintain or restore international peace and security. Only the particular tasks assigned to them – that is, the maintenance or restoration of a ceasefire – and the fact that they could be used in some cases without tactical (in theatre) consent, would distinguish them from other types of troops utilized for traditional peacekeeping operations.18 Although confined to very restricted tasks, such units, to be deployed, would still rely on the will of the Member States on a case-by-case basis. An Agenda for Peace raised hopes that a permanent UN force could be established.19 Boutros-Ghali’s recommendations, debated at length, have received wide support. Incidentally, although not immediately related to the Agenda for Peace, the prospect of the handing over of Hong Kong to China in 1997, by raising the issue of the dismantling and future of the Ghurkha battalions, contributed to fostering the debate. After the independence of Nepal, it had been agreed that 12 of the 20 Ghurkha battalions, from the notorious British regiments originally put at the disposal of the British Crown by the Maharaja of Nepal, would remain in India, while the eight remaining would be at the service of the United Kingdom in Malaysia, Hong Kong and other locations. In 1992, there were still 7,500 Ghurkhas in the British Army: 1,000 in Brunei; 1,500 based in the United Kingdom with some deployed in Cyprus, Kuwait and Belize and 5,000 in Hong Kong. Sixty-five thousand were serving in the Indian Army.20 An idea, which seems to have been first expressed by Prime Minister John Major in 1991, had been circulated: to place Ghurkha soldiers at the disposal of the UN.21 Given the numbers involved, this pointed more to a brigade-size force for potential peace enforcement than a large force for response to aggression. In February 1992, considering the French offer to the UN of 1,000 soldiers ‘helpful’ but a ‘piecemeal approach’, Flora Lewis, writing in the New York Times, suggested that instead the UN should have a permanent force in readiness, loyal to its flag and to no state. Flora Lewis had followed the UN since its early days, as a reporter for the Associated Press in 1945–46 in Washington and London and for various magazines from London, Paris, Warsaw, Berlin, The Hague, Mexico City, Tel Aviv and Prague. Chief of the New York Times Bureau in Paris in 1972, she continued writing for the newspaper as foreign affairs columnist (1980) and senior columnist since 1990. She is a Member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Institute for East–West Security Studies, and the Board of the International Institute for Strategic Studies. Noting that ‘the Ghurkhas have a reputation for being well disciplined, doggedly loyal to their superior officers, respectful of families’,

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Lewis estimated that the ‘Ghurkhas are just what is needed for the base of a UN force’.22 The Ghurkha option, a tempting one given the circumstances, would haunt with some variations the discussion on a UN force for several years. Given the Ghurkhas’ proven record in peacekeeping operations in the Gulf, Cyprus, Rwanda and Bosnia, it would be argued, the British Army’s Brigade of Ghurkhas could assume primary command responsibility for UN peacekeeping operations. According to one defence analyst, this would help ameliorate command and flexibility problems at the origin of delays in deployment and operational difficulties on the ground. In 1994 and 1995, along the same lines, Lionel Rosenblatt suggested that the Ghurkha units being demobilized by the British should be utilized as a model for a UN rapid deployment force for preventive purpose.23 The idea was developed by Professor Brian Farrell and Professor Christopher Lingle, of the National University of Singapore, who proposed that a 5,000–15,000-strong UN, permanent, ‘on-call’ army be created consisting of forces from Nepal’s Ghurkhas.24 At the end of August 1992, US Senator David Boren, noting that ‘Americans are not enthusiastic about having the United States stand alone as a policeman for the world’, saw in the absence of confrontation between great powers a unique opportunity to realize the dream of having peace forces at the disposal of the UN to prevent aggression. He concluded: ‘It is time to create such a force and the United States should take the lead in proposing it.’ The force he envisaged, Article 43-type, made up of national military contributions, would be uniformly trained and ready to act. However, neither the United States nor Member States that lacked veto power were expected to surrender their rights to final approval of the commitment of their troops to life-threatening situations, or to withdraw units of their own for their urgent national security interests.25 Boren’s article was followed, three days later, on 1 September 1992, by another article in the New York Times: ‘A Foreign Legion for the World’. Alan Henrikson, Professor at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, called for his part for the creation of a ‘three-tier United Nations force’. The force would comprise a Standing Reserve, of up to 500,000 troops, consisting of a pool of military forces earmarked for UN service; a more modest standby, but centrally organized and under direct UN command when activated, a Rapid Response Force; and a Permanent Peacekeeping force, recruited directly from volunteers from the military forces of UN Member States, commanded by officers appointed by the Military Staff Committee, and stationed in UN bases. For Henrikson, the ‘Permanent Peacekeeping Force’ would be, rather than a Chapter VII instrument for large scale enforcement purposes, a ‘conflict control force’.26

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In March 1993 Bernard Kouchner, one of the co-founders of the French NGO Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) called for the creation of an ‘international army of human rights’ composed of national contingents at a global or regional level. By organizing regular rotation between nations, he hoped, a permanent army could be set up that would not be dependent on the United States alone. Each state would be expected to contribute from its defence budget to the financing of the force. To prevent major violations of human rights by states, the force could have dissuasive and coercive powers.27 At the same time, an article by Timothy Stanley in American Legion argued that a UN force should have no national identity to be a symbol of international law and order. He also called on the UN to form its own permanent peacekeeping force, instead of relying on the US military.28 Andrew S. Miller, of the Georgetown University Law Centre, noted: ‘The United Nations may soon have its own military force. For the first time since the founding of the world body, United Nations officials, governments, and the press are seriously debating the idea of a permanent United Nations army.’ 29 In July 1993, General Michel Loridon, then Deputy Force Commander of the UN Transitional Authority in Cambodia, suggested that a UN ‘permanent professional force’ be established. Writing in the journal of the French military academy of Saint-Cyr, Le Casoar, he called for a force that would be composed of specially trained battalions that could be put at the disposal of the UN by Member States. In Cambodia, a unit of the French Foreign Legion stationed in Phnom Penh had acted as a ‘fire brigade’ throughout the country when needed. According to the General, the UN should acquire, to carry out its missions, a planning structure, composed of loyal and competent officers who could not be suspected of partiality; and rapid intervention units specially trained and equipped under the control of the international organization, which could act as a fire brigade to extinguish fires quickly before they got out of control. Observing that a military action is efficient when the responsibility for operations is entrusted to a single authority that has the necessary power, the will and the means to decide, he sharply criticized those countries contributing troops to the UN out of financial interest.30 A Force Directly Recruited by the United Nations? If the UN could afford to have at its disposal its own elite forces such as the Ghurkhas, then why not a force recruited directly by the organization? The beginning of the humanitarian operation by the United States in Somalia and Senator David Boren’s calls for the United States to take the lead in creating a UN force quickly prompted the New York Times to publish, on 1

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September 1992, an editorial entitled ‘A Foreign Legion for the World’.31 What was being proposed was a rapid deployment force consisting of volunteers from some 40 countries and available on 48-hour call to intervene preventively in case of regional crises, natural disaster or ethnic cleansing. ‘Americans rightly wonder if they have the resources to stand alone as a global cop, yet they have a moral and a security interest in responding to starvation and brutality elsewhere,’ the article argued. In an article entitled ‘Unconventional Force’ in the New Republic of 25 January 1993, Edward Luttwak reflected on the role of ‘uniformed referee’ then played by the UN forces in Bosnia and Somalia. ‘Much better to have the UN acquire its own army, or at least an elite force of reasonable size that could serve as a Foreign Legion of the world,’ he thought: Instead of the present system – under which so-called United Nations forces are actually good, bad or indifferent national contingents supplied by member nations, usually under strict nocasualty rules to guarantee their uselessness in most cases – a UN Legion would recruit individual volunteers, whose nationality would be irrelevant, for no politician would have to answer for their fate.32 With a UN ‘Legion’, he argued further, the UN could have real military strength at its command, that is, forces that can be exposed to combat. Luttwak’s suggestion was soon to be supported by Brian Urquhart. Born in 1919, at Bridport, Dorset, United Kingdom, he had been working with the various Secretary-Generals of the UN since its creation. He had been the UN Representative in Katanga, Congo, in 1960. Later on, he held the posts of Director, Under Secretary-General for Special Political Affairs, Assistant Secretary-General (1972–74), before being appointed Under Secretary-General for Political Affairs. Considered by some as one of the ‘fathers’ of modern peacekeeping, along with figures such as Hammarsjköld and Pearson, and known for his pragmatic approach, he had not always been a strong supporter of the idea of a UN directly recruited force. Yet, having served with the UN since its creation, he had been directly involved in the development of peacekeeping, and had witnessed Lie and Hammarskjöld’s efforts to make available military forces to the UN in difficult circumstances. During the Cold War, political, but also financial, constraints had led Urquhart to discard the possibility of establishing a permanent UN force at least in a foreseeable future.33 In 1992, pointing to the advantages of ad hoc arrangements, he was of the opinion that ‘rather than having a suite in a wardrobe for every possible occasion we should have the materials and then

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cut the clothes as a good tailor would cut it, according to the situation we want to deal with’.34 Clearly, the approach adopted by the Secretary-General in An Agenda for Peace, and the difficulties encountered by the UN Transitional Authority (UNTAC) in Cambodia in 1992–93, had convinced him that the idea of a directly recruited UN Force, which had remained grounded so far, may have had a chance to fly this time. In fact, Boutros-Ghali’s concept of ‘peace enforcement units’, although specifically designed to intervene in cases when a ceasefire would be broken, displayed similarities with a directly recruited force, as the proposed units would be made of troops that would ‘have volunteered for such service’. The parallel between Boutros-Ghali’s 1992 peace enforcement proposal and Lie’s 1948 Guard proposal is striking: in both, the new military force is clearly distinguished from Article 43 special arrangements and can be considered a provisional measure under Article 40.35 In June 1993, Urquhart, in a spectacular contribution to the New York Review of Books, called for the creation of a UN volunteer military force. Acknowledging the major successes achieved in Namibia, El Salvador and the Golan Heights, he highlighted the limits of UN ability to intervene militarily in Cambodia, Angola, Mozambique, Somalia, and especially Bosnia. To him, such cases had ‘shown that international organizations are not able to deal effectively, and when necessary forcefully, with violent and single-minded factions in a civil war’.36 The weaknesses identified by Urquhart range from the difficulty of obtaining troops quickly for an urgent mission to increased difficulties met by UN monitors or lightly armed peacekeepers, sometimes harassed or killed with impunity. Among obstacles to such intervention – financial, political, military – Urquhart pointed to the reluctance of governments ‘to commit their own troops to a forceful ground role in a situation which does not threaten their own security and which may well prove to be both violent and open-ended’.37 In order to give the necessary authority and strength to the Security Council to deal with such situations more effectively in the future, Urquhart saw in the capacity to deploy ‘credible and effective peace enforcement units, at short notice and at an early stage in a crisis, and with the strength and moral support of the world community’ an important step in this direction. The idea of ‘tougher early reaction’, that is to say intervention with humanitarian assistance or over ceasefire violations before the conflicts get out of hand and make interference less viable, is indeed central to Urquhart’s argumentation: ‘Clearly, 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.’ 38 Hence the importance of rapid deployment, but

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also determination, and the possibility of using forceful measures and retaliate if necessary. Therefore, what was needed, Urquhart argued, was a ‘highly trained international volunteer force, willing if necessary, to fight hard to break the cycle of violence at an early stage in low-level but dangerous conflicts, especially ones involving irregular militias and groups’. The force envisaged would not take the place of preventive diplomacy, traditional peacekeeping forces or large-scale enforcement action under Chapter VII of the Charter. Its function would be to ‘fill an important gap in the armoury of the Security Council’, as described by Urquhart: An international volunteer force would be under the exclusive authority of the Security Council and under the day-to-day direction of the Secretary-General. To function effectively, it would need the full support of members of the United Nations. Such support should include, if necessary, air, naval, and other kinds of military action. The volunteer force would be trained in the technique of peace-keeping as well as in the more bloody business of fighting.39 The deployment would require political consensus in the Security Council and broadly within the region and tasks commensurate with the small numbers involved. Among the obstacles discussed are: the lack of adequate UN military command with communications and logistic staff; the cost, evaluated on the basis of 1992 Pentagon data to $400 million annually for a more ambitious UN ‘Legion’, a 5,000 strong force stationed at a base scheduled for closing being estimated only at US$200 million a year. Admitting that solving the problems of selection, organization, training, command, and support structure, would take time, strong leadership, expertise and money, Urquhart suggested as an interim measure that volunteers be recruited from national armies along the lines of Boutros-Ghali’s proposal for ‘peace enforcement units’ presented in the Agenda for Peace. Yet Urquhart concluded: Forty-five years later, in the milder post-cold war political climate, it may be time to revive Trygve Lie’s idea. The Security Council is today able to reach unanimous decisions on most of the important questions that come before it. The Council’s problem now is to make these decisions stick.40 Stassen, unlike Urquhart, had supported the idea of a UN ‘Legion’ since

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the very beginning of the United Nations. A tireless politician, 50 years after his Blueprint for World Government, a call for international forces made in 1943 in the context of the creation of the UN, he published in 1994 a new proposal for restructuring the organization, including a UN ‘Legion’. Unlike his wartime plans, the revised United Nations Charter, the Working Paper for Restructuring (thereafter: the ‘Working Paper’) 41 did not aim at the establishment of a world government, but rather at ‘an improved centre of cooperation between sovereign governments’. It made provision, in its Chapter VIII, for a an elite multilingual United Nations ‘Legion’. Such a ‘Legion’, argued Stassen, ‘should be well equipped and well trained to respond promptly to Security Council decisions regarding potential trouble spots’.42 The UN ‘Legion’, consisting of up to 250,000 individuals, exclusively volunteers, would be established by the UN to serve as both police and peace force. The volunteers would serve for a minimum of five years. (Article 52 to 54) Not more than 10 per cent of the number of the UN ‘Legion’ in being could be at any one time citizens of any one Member State, citizens from permanent Members of the Security Council being excluded from recruitment and commanding positions (Articles 55 and 57). All Member States, except the Members of the Security Council, would therefore agree to permit individual volunteers to serve in the UN ‘Legion’ if selected, and to safeguard and respect their rights within their states during and after such service (Article 59). The highly trained, well-equipped and multilingual UN ‘Legion’ would be expected to fulfil four main functions: • as a buffer in tense situations which are a threat to peace; • as a stabilizing or security force in conjunction with the functioning of any UN commission or organization; • to decrease violent terrorism upon the peoples of the world; and • to interdict the violent movement of addicting drugs and chemical substances hazardous to mankind. Commanders would be appointed by the Secretary-General himself, while the ‘Legion’ would serve exclusively under the direction of the Security Council (Article 57 and 60). The UN ‘Legion’ was envisaged as a complement to arrangements under which all Members of the United Nations would undertake to make available to the Security Council armed forces, assistance and facilities, including right of passage, necessary for the purpose of maintaining international peace and security (Article 123, 1). In view of the historical evolution of the Military Staff Committee under the present Charter, Stassen made no

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provision for a similar body for the strategic direction of the armed forces, placed at the disposal of the Security Council. Beyond provision of substantial military might on a permanent basis, a major reform of the institution was envisioned by Stassen. The Security Council would be enlarged to accept, among its permanent Members, Germany and Japan, ‘and perhaps one or two others’, along with China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States. While Russia and the United States would have a special status as ‘special permanent Members’, additional Members could still be elected by the General Assembly. The single-member veto power in the Security Council, which Stassen had tenaciously but unsuccessfully fought at San Francisco, would also be revised. The General Assembly itself would be more democratic with a more realistic and sensible scale of voting rights, every Member State having one voice but with proportionate voting power. Last, but not least, a duty of 0.5 per cent charge on all international trade of goods, materials, oil and minerals, to be paid by exporting and importing Member States on a monthly basis would provide the UN with regular financial support. Stassen’s Working Paper is, in its form, of the same vein as proposals for a revised UN Charter such as that of Grenville Clark and Louis B. Sohn in the 1960s.43 Even the terms ‘police force’ and ‘peace force’ suggested by Stassen belong more to the vocabulary of the 1960s than to the UN terminology of the 1990s. Ambitious in its purpose, the Working Paper remains very general on the specific subject of a UN ‘Legion’, yet contains one of its most innovative proposals. Essential aspects such as the command, functions, recruitment and organization of the force are left to speculation. The size of the force (up to 250,000), on the other hand, can only raise questions. Stassen does not elaborate on the reasons for the non-implementation of the military provisions of the United Nations Charter under Article 43, nor does he argue for a greater feasibility of proposals for a permanent international force, 50 years after the creation of the UN. The originality of his approach lies in his deliberate favouring of a more coercive UN and his attempt to place the UN ‘Legion’ proposal in the more global context of other reforms vital to the organization, including regular financing, the enlargement of the Security Council, and the democratization of the decision-making process. In this respect, an interesting comparison can be made with Maurice Bertrand’s Working Paper of 1997. While Stassen draws lessons from UN military setbacks by providing additional military means under a new UN Charter, Bertrand draws radically opposite conclusions, seeing in such failures additional arguments against any UN military involvement or coercive action, thus expunging as much as possible the Charter from its military provisions.44

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Unkept Promises of a ‘New World Order’ That Operation Desert Storm had been launched under UN auspices, and coincided with widespread optimism that a ‘new world order’, somehow contributed to hide the mainly Western and American character of the action at the time. UN involvement in the Gulf crisis would remain an exception. It revealed how unprepared the UN was to deal with another consequence of the Cold War, that is, the multiplication of internal conflicts.45 The illusion of a ‘New World Order’ was quickly replaced by the reality of a new type of world disorder. The United States, from Multilateralism to Self-Restraint As action of the UN with respect to ‘threats to the peace, breaches to the peace and acts of aggression’ under Chapter VII of the Charter can only be decided by the Security Council, such action was most of the time unthinkable when the Security Council was divided along the lines of East–West antagonism. The veto had been used 279 times by permanent Members of the Security Council since the creation of the organization.46 Whether or not it had actually prevented the UN from managing conflicts in the past has been debated, but it remains that it has considerably hampered the organization in accomplishing the tasks entrusted to it by the Charter. Sign of a new era, the veto has seldom been used since 31 May 1990. With less prospect of a great power veto, enforcement without consent of all concerned parties was considered necessary as a means to promote peaceful settlement and to protect recalcitrant regional disputants if preventive diplomacy failed the UN. The idea of a ‘world police’ re-emerged in connection with the hopes of a ‘New World Order’. The success of the US-led coalition against Iraq in 1991 helped to confirm the hopes of a revitalized UN: The Gulf War brought about through the wishes of the United States and the other Western Powers, became the first ‘cosmopolitan war’ in the sense that it was decided upon and legitimated at the highest world level in the name of international legal order and the interests of the human community as a whole.47 If one can argue that the United States, as in the Korean War, had used the world organization to reach their objectives, the fact that Western powers had used the United Nations as their instrument of war could be considered a declaration of allegiance to the idea, which lies behind the Charter, that the maintenance of peace and world order requires the organization of a supranational authority with substantial military force under its control. An international force, operating as an international police force, could also

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be entrusted with the carrying out of ‘humanitarian’ operations, peaceenforcing, and democracy-enforcing. The German intellectual Jürgen Habermas, and German Social Democrats, saw in the UN authorized coalition a potential first step towards an effective civil world order, if a UN police force could be established.48 Yet one of the assumptions lying behind the idea of a ‘world policeman’ was the increased participation of the United States in the ‘New World Order’. In reality, one of the first consequences of the Gulf War had been to reopen the debate between interventionists and isolationists in the United States. The difficulties of US intervention in Somalia, and the subsequent adoption of the Presidential Directive 25 (PDD-25), would highlight even more the limits of a security system relying on a single major power. The Gulf War illustrated a reality: in such situations, the United States was the only power with the capacity to take diplomatic and military initiatives; it would use it only if its interests or more global interests faced a major threat. To some extent, although not as much as during the Korean crisis, the massive US participation to the war effort contributed to undermine the legitimacy of the enforcement action as it was perceived as being linked to US foreign policy and interest. The UN became perceived as ‘a global army led by a superpower’ and ‘an extension of Western foreign policy’.49 In any case, the troops and equipment deployed by the United States in the Gulf War reflected the structure of forces resulting from the defence effort made under President Ronald Reagan, with an increase of military expenses of 45 per cent between 1981 and 1986. It was unlikely, as confirmed by subsequent cuts in the military budget, that the American military capacity would remain at this level.50 Even assuming that the military capability that the United States could provide for an operation would be maintained at the same level in the future, the coincidence between American and UN objectives in the future is hypothetical.51 While the New World Order and capacity to ensure collective security was heavily dependent on the American willingness to intervene in a specific conflict at a specific time, the decrease in East–West tensions also meant diminished interest in intervention in Third World countries other than for the protection of nationals. The UN-authorized – but US-led – intervention in Somalia quickly demonstrated the limits of the American readiness to play the role of world policeman. It strengthened the argument against American military participation in UN intervention for the sake of preserving international stability, democracy or human rights.52 Bill Clinton, in his foreign policy speech of April 1992, criticizing US inaction in Bosnia under the previous administration, had supported the idea of a rapid reaction force. Yet his ‘assertive multilateralism’ seemed quickly to fall short of actions, and his six-point plan for dealing with Bosnia was

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already perceived in February 1993 as a retreat from earlier promises.53 While in Somalia, the US administration had expressed its support for the process of rehabilitation of the political institutions and economy of the country, the killing of four American soldiers on 8 August 1993 in Somalia, combined with the possibility of a US deployment in Bosnia, contributed to increased anxiety in Congress, at a time when the Presidential Policy Decision (the future ‘PDD-25’) on peacekeeping was being prepared. The battle incident in Mogadishu, in which 18 Rangers were killed and 75 wounded on 3 October 1993, putting a halt to US involvement in Somalia, confirmed the concerns of those who feared a return to American isolationism. Clearly, United States involvement in United Nations operations would become severely restricted, earmarking of American troops for United Nations service excluded, and plans of rapid reaction force put aside.54 In May 1994, the Clinton administration’s directive on peacekeeping, the Presidential Decision Directive ‘PDD-25’,55 typical of the ‘Freudian’ 56 character of the ‘UN–US relationship’, played a decisive role in dissipating hopes for a greater US participation in UN intervention. While acknowledging that peacekeeping could be a useful tool to help prevent and resolve such conflicts before they pose threats to US national security and serve American interests by promoting democracy, regional security and economic growth, PDD-25 stated that the primary mission of US armed forces remained to be prepared to fight and win two simultaneous regional conflicts. It called for a selective and more effective US and UN involvement in peacekeeping, and a strategy of flexible and selective engagement. PDD-25 set forth increasingly rigorous standards for US support or participation in peace operations, with the most stringent applying to missions that may involve combat: • UN involvement advances American interests, and there is an international community of interest for dealing with the problem on a multilateral basis; • there is a threat or breach of international peace and security, often of a regional character, defined as one or a combination of the following: international aggression or; urgent humanitarian disaster coupled with violence sudden interruption of established democracy or gross violation of human rights coupled with violence, or threat of violence; and • there are clear objectives and an understanding of where the mission fits on the spectrum between traditional peacekeeping and peace enforcement. Other factors would have to be taken into consideration, and would potentially severely restrict chances of American participation in collective enforcement, including:

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• the unique and general risks to American personnel would have been weighed and considered acceptable; • personnel, funds and other resources would have to be available, while domestic and congressional support would have to exist or could be marshalled; and • command and control arrangements would have to be acceptable. PDD-25 also ordered that the United States work to reduce its peacekeeping assessment percentage from 31.7 per cent to 25 per cent by 1 January 1996, proposing in parallel a number of specific steps to reduce the cost of UN operations.57 Clearly, the principle and intent of PDD-25 was to accommodate, and avoid any future confrontations with, Congress over American support of, or participation in, a UN mission.58 A way for the US administration to justify any decision by the terms of the directive, its application remained heavily dependent on how restrictive the definition of American vital or strategic interests would be. In the United States, George Kennan, former US ambassador to the Soviet Union, criticized the dispatch of American armed forces to a major police action where no defensive American interests were involved as ‘something that the Founding Fathers of this country never envisaged or would have ever approved’.59 ‘Whenever American lives are at stake, so is the conception of vital interest,’ wrote Henry Kissinger.60 A draft version of the Defense Planning Guide of February 1995 did, however, include for the first time humanitarian operations in the hierarchy of national interests that warrant the deployment of US forces. The tasks envisaged included securing defended airfields and airports, delivering humanitarian supplies and separating warring factions. The Guide specified that while combat troops are unlikely to participate in small-scale peacekeeping operations, they would be likely to be called upon for peaceenforcement operations.61 The Report of the Commission on America’s National Interest (1996) did not, however, consider ‘preventing genocide’ as a vital national interest for the United States.62 The message of PDD-25 was that US forces could only be regarded as a ‘tool of last resort’ for most situations in which humanitarian assistance might be called for urgently. The world, in other words, would ‘have to look elsewhere for its cavalry’.63 Increased Criticism of United Nations Force Proposals The ‘power vacuum’ resulting from the end of the Cold War had an ambivalent effect on the capacity of the UN to play the collective security role given to it by the Charter. During the Cold War, while the enduring East– West tension prevented the ‘Talking Shop of the World’ 64 from fully playing

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its role in the field of international security, the balance of power helped to limit nationalist and inter-ethnic violence. On the one hand, the settlement of old conflicts, not so long ago still poisoned by ideological rivalries, seemed at last possible. The setting up of UNTAC following the 1990 Paris Peace Agreement was the largest and most ambitious UN peacekeeping undertaking since the Congo operation in the 1960s. In this respect, the organization by the UN, with the support of hundred of volunteers, of 1993 democratic elections in Cambodia, in spite of the UN contingents’ failure to disarm and canton the factions, restored confidence in the capacity of the organization to launch new complex operations, incorporating civilian components to organize elections, human rights, repatriation and civil police, as well as an important military component. The slow response in the former Yugoslavia could be explained by the reluctance to intervene in what was identified as an internal conflict and the lack of options between peacekeeping operations and full police action. While the case of Kuwait had demonstrated the potential for the UN to act when vital great power interests were immediately at stake, that of Yugoslavia had highlighted the need for reforms if the UN was to act in less clear-cut cases. However, in spite of their apparent attractiveness, and the widely accepted need for reforms of the ‘peacekeeping machinery’, proposals for a standing force were quickly rejected in view of their lack of political viability. An Agenda for Peace was never formally accepted by either the Security Council or the General Assembly. ‘No one in any responsible position has proposed a standing United Nations army,’ the US acting spokesman Joseph Syder told reporters, explaining that ‘this is a press interpretation’ of a ‘considerably more subtle concept contained in Boutros-Ghali’s report’.65 The efficacy of such a force in a conflict involving one or more of the permanent members of the Security Council was moreover questioned. Inter alia, an article in The Hindu of Madras argued that the UN should consider instead opening the Security Council to major regional organizations, which could check and balance the major powers on the question of regional conflicts.66 The Secretary-General himself, adopting a more cautious attitude, was soon of the opinion that the answer was ‘not to create a UN standing force, which would be impractical and inappropriate’. Rather, the UN was to extend and make more systematic stand-by arrangements by which governments commit themselves to hold ready, at an agreed period of notice, specially trained units for peacekeeping service.67 This position was maintained one year later: ‘If the United Nations had the elements of a rapid deployment force at its disposal, on a stand-by basis, it would possess an enhanced capacity to deploy while not loading itself down with another layer of bureaucracy.’ No reference to the implementation of Article 43 of the Charter could be

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found in his article ‘An Agenda for Peace: One Year Later’ in the summer of 1993.68 If the setting up of a directly recruited force could indeed have given the United States a unique opportunity to assume its responsibility as a global power and take the lead in discussing peacekeeping, it was also a reminiscence of proposals for a supranational authority and world government.69 The idea would meet with increased resistance from anti-UN lobbies in the United States and elsewhere. The United States, noted an American foreign policy analyst, does not need a UN with the broad mission of imposing its vision of peace and prosperity on the world.70 In a study published at the beginning of 1994 by a group of experts from National Security Program, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, the option of a standing force was criticized, not only for its lack of political viability, but also for its alleged lack of effectiveness stemming from its potentially limited size. Due to political, economic, and military considerations, any proposal for a standing force, it was argued, would categorize it as no larger than 10,000. Such a force, it was said, would lack the required manpower for most enforcement scenarios. While the intervention in Somalia had required 31,000 troops, other interventions, as in Bosnia, might have required up to 500,000 troops. The argument that a standing force could not be designed to meet all possible types of situations and could therefore not be prepared for an unknown enemy was also raised. Believed to be impractical and unrealistic, proposals for a UN standing force were rejected to the benefit of the more feasible option of a UN stand-by force, with special attention being given to the force size and capabilities, composition, support command and training.71 While some considered that the establishment of protected areas within Iraq had not ‘been handled in a manner conducive to effective precedents designed to enable the international community to respond more effectively to comparable human rights violations in the future’, the notion of ‘duty to intervene’ remained ‘highly problematic’. The Secretary-General himself expressed private doubts about UN ability to be effective in the conflicts in Europe, since operations in Somalia had already shown that the organization had no doctrine, let alone the military infrastructure, to undertake a peace enforcement operation.72

THE AWAKENING OF WORLD CONSCIENCE

With the Rwandan genocide, following the tragic events of 6 April 1994 in which both the presidents of Rwanda and Burundi were killed,73 the UN proved to be totally dependent not only on the political will of Member

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States such as the USA, but also on what Winston Churchill called ‘the ebb and flow of national politics’. Following the American setbacks in Somalia and Haiti, PDD-25, released publicly in May 1994, played an important role in preventing the USA, and dissuading other countries, from getting involved early on in Rwanda. The resulting graphic inability of the UN to prevent the crisis or intervene in time led the Secretary-General to develop even further his idea of a stand-by rapid deployment capacity, calling, in early 1995, for the setting up of a ‘Rapid Reaction Force’.74 This would be composed of units of the size of a battalion from different countries, would be provided with compatible equipment and would participate in common joint exercises and manoeuvres, under the same standard operation procedures. The adjective ‘independent’ used to describe the force seemed to indicate that such an arrangement would be distinct from standard stand-by arrangements for peacekeeping, and that the force could be used for enforcement purposes independently from any existing UN operation in case of emergency. However, it is clear from his subsequent declarations that the Secretary-General, while not excluding the possibility of having forces put permanently at the disposal of the Security Council at some stage, was willing to take into account the reactions of the Member States in general and of the USA in particular.

Non-Governmental Proposals Cornelio Sommaruga, President of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), suggested that an international force be set up to stop and prevent massacres.75 The fall of Srebrenica, which, among other towns that the Security Council had identified as safe areas in Bosnia (Zepa, Gorazde, Bihac, Tuzla and Sarajevo), was overrun by Serbian forces, became a damaging symbol of the organization’s failure at peacekeeping and at protecting civilians from massacre. Referring to Stassen’s proposal, a religious group, the Bahá’í International Community, supported in an official statement the creation of an international, fully armed, force made up of competent personnel from all regions of the world loyal to the UN and independent from national consideration, under the command and control of the Secretary-General and the authority of the Security Council.76 Recommendations by Commissions and Groups of Experts From 23 June to 22 August 1994, the French-led Opération Turquoise had exemplified what role an elite force, such as the French Foreign Legion, could play in securing a safe area for humanitarian purposes. Although not under UN command, the French-led coalition was conducted with the authorization of the Security Council. While the effectiveness of the

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operation in saving the lives of those at risk within the humanitarian zone has been discussed, the decision to authorize the operation was not a unanimous one, and considerable concerns were voiced by those five members of the Council that abstained. Moreover, the sudden availability of thousands of troops for Opération Turquoise, after the Department of Peacekeeping operations had been attempting for over a month to find troops to expand the second UN Mission in Rwanda (UNAMIR II), raised questions about the varying levels of political will to commit military personnel in a situation such as the one in Rwanda.77 In July 1994, at the time when the humanitarian operation had just started after the massacres in Rwanda, Lukas Haynes and Timothy W. Stanley considered that it was time to ‘seriously consider a volunteer United Nations fire brigade to help contain the blaze of localised conflicts’, that is, a quick response force to stop low-intensity conflicts before they rage out of control. Lukas Haynes was then studying multilateral issues at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington. Timothy W. Stanley had held defence posts in the Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon administrations, before becoming President of the IESI, Washington DC. Like Urquhart, they envisaged a standing volunteer regimental-size combat force. The force would be detached from Member States and national chains of command, equipped with on-hand ‘interoperable equipment’, led by a unified command reporting an enhanced military staff at UN headquarters, and deployed by airlift immediately upon Security Council authorization without the delay of assembling national contributions. Several commissions and groups of experts came to the conclusion that what was most urgently needed was an immediately available, adequately equipped and specially trained rapid response UN elite force.78 John Heidenrich, a former military capabilities analyst of the United States Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), developed arguments in favour of a UN ‘Legion’ in April 1995. The force would not be a UN army under Chapter VII military enforcement, identified with large Persian Gulf actions requiring the setting-up of ad hoc coalitions. Missions envisaged would be designed for short-term deployment in situations that did not require high-tech weapons, with the goals of establishing an early presence, protecting safe-havens boundaries, and demonstrating Security Council resolve. According to Heindenrich, the integrated brigade ‘would become welldisciplined, elite Ranger-like units training together for “robust peacekeeping” thus minimizing field confusion over training and doctrine’.79 Equipment would be donated matériel from world surpluses maintained by the force in pre-stocked regional depots. UN operational orders would be checkmated by national authorities, and language proficiency requirements

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would be expected to contribute to eliminate field misunderstandings. Soldiers would be paid by the UN as regular civil servants while on threeto-five-year leave of absence from their own national service. In its 1995 report, the Commission on Global Governance (thereafter ‘the Commission’) commented: ‘It is high time that this idea – a United Nations Volunteer Force – was made reality’.80 The Commission had been established in September 1992, following the ‘Stockholm Initiative on Global Security and Governance’ of April 1991, with the support of the Secretary-General of the UN. Co-chaired by Ingvar Carlsson and Shridath Ramphal, it counted members from some 30 countries, including Brian Urquhart, Olara Otunu and Sadako Ogata. The basic aim was to contribute to the improvement of global governance. The tasks of the Commission included the analysis of the main forces of global change, the assessment of the adequacy of global arrangements, and the suggestion of measures to reform or strengthen global, regional and national institutions. Several expert papers were prepared specially for the Commission and served as an important basis for the discussions in the working groups, among them ‘The Unused Charter Capacity for Global Governance’, by George Abi-Saab; ‘Security Council Reform’, by Sverker Aström; ‘Enforcing Rules in the International Community: Governing the Ungovernable’, by Lincoln Bloomfield and ‘The Changing Nature of Security’, by Emma Rothschild. In favour of an international organization that, like an effective policeman, would have the capacity to enforce peace, the Commission envisioned a larger role for the UN in preserving peace and security. Along the lines of Urquhart’s proposal, it therefore underlined the need for an international volunteer force under the exclusive authority of the Security Council and the day-to-day direction of the Secretary-General. The force, distinct from traditional peacekeeping forces and large-scale enforcement action under Chapter VII of the Charter, would fill a gap and provide an ‘immediate spearhead and reconnaissance element for a later, much larger, operation, should that prove necessary’.81 Similar to Heidenrich’s ‘Legion’ and Boutros-Ghali’s peace-enforcement units, the proposed force would not take the place of forces to be established under Article 43. The strength of the UN volunteer force would be limited to 10,000 personnel. The Commission acknowledged that the force could be perceived as giving the Security Council or the Secretary-General too much power, raising the spectre of supranationality, and volunteers might be viewed as mercenaries. Among factors that could help allay objections to the concept of a directly recruited force, outstanding leadership, high standards of recruitment and training, and dedication of the force to the principles and objectives of the UN are enumerated by the authors. As far as cost is

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concerned, the report considers that the establishment of the force would involve expenditure beyond what the present UN system of government assessments can provide, calling for a system of automatic resources avoiding the uncertainties of national contributions and the perennial problem of arrears. The Independent Working Group on the Future of the United Nations (thereafter ‘the Working Group’) also supported the idea of a Rapid Reaction Force, which should ‘best consist of volunteers, recruited by the United Nations and stationed and trained in United Nations camps or centres’.82 The Working Group had been convened in late 1993 by the Ford Foundation at the request of the Secretary-General. Its Secretariat was located in Yale University’s United Nations Studies Programme. Four meetings were held at the Pocantico Conference Centre in Pocantico Hills, New York. Intensive consultations, informal conferences and meetings were held and draft versions of a report were eventually approved in May 1995. Drawing lessons from the experience of Rwanda, in particular that ‘[s]lowness to act may lead to enormous cost and casualties’, the report concluded that the UN ‘needs to have a reliable and immediately available, well-trained and adequately equipped rapid response force to deploy quickly in such circumstances’. It consequently recommended, in its Section 2 entitled ‘Strengthening the United Nations for its Second Half-Century’, the establishment of a Rapid Reaction Force capable of immediate deployment upon the decision of the Security Council. While acknowledging that it would be an ‘ambitious innovation’ and that ‘there is likely to be opposition’ for political, financial and military reasons, the Working Group suggested that the Rapid Reaction Force could ideally fill a damaging gap in the UN’s performance both in time and in function. Although it proposed, ‘pending the realisation of a standing United Nations force’, to resort to earmarked national contingents, the Working Group expressed a clear preference for a UN standing force. The Rapid Reaction Force, with initial target strength of 10,000, would have the following functions: • establish a UN presence; provide security for UN personnel; • hold an airport for use in bringing in supplies and additional UN personnel or for evacuations; • establish one or more safe areas for the civilian population; • limit escalation and assist in ending violence; and • provide limited humanitarian assistance in emergency circumstances; and assess and report on the situation to the Secretary-General and the Security Council.

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Tasks such as the response to an act of major aggression under Chapter VII of the UN Charter, for which the Security Council would be expected to authorize a Member State or a regional organization to implement its decision, were clearly excluded from the force’s terms of reference. What was envisaged was a ‘mixture of military, police, and civilian elements’, which, the report said, would ‘need careful study in the context of the duties to be performed’. In order to meet the requirements of quick availability, common training and compatible equipment, the report states, ‘the force could best consist of volunteers recruited by the United Nations’. The Force, stationed in ‘camps’ or ‘centres’, would be expected to have a permanent command and control staff operating under the day-to-day direction of the Secretary-General when deployed. It would operate ‘in conformity with the provisions of Article 40 of the United Nations Charter, that is without prejudice of the right or position of any of the parties’.83 The recommendations of the Commission on Global Governance and of the Working Group on the Future of the United Nations enjoyed support and served as a catalyst for further thinking. In June 1995, a youth symposium, Youth’95, sponsored by more than fifty peace organizations worldwide in connection with the 50th anniversary of the United Nations, aimed at increasing the voice of young people in the growing global governance debate. Among other recommendations, the Commission on Promoting Security of Youth’95 warmly supported the idea of a United Nations Volunteer rapid deployment force. The force, it was thought, could be trained at a UN military college for the specific tasks necessary to ensure de-escalation of violence, including negotiation and self-defence skills. A UN command and control structure would also be set up to provide for the greater degree of impartiality and legitimacy lacking to current missions authorized by the UN.84 Further Research on Force Strength and Design Two major post-Rwanda studies have placed the idea of a UN ‘Legion’ at the centre of their proposals: Vital Force, by Carl Conetta and Charles Knight of the Project on Defense Alternatives (PDA), Commonwealth Institute, Cambridge, MA, and The Case for a Volunteer United Nations Military Force, by Carl Kaysen and Georges W. Rathjens, both members of the Defense and Arms Control Studies Program of the Center for International Studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).85 The studies by Carl Conetta and Charles Knight are, from a military point of view, by far the most elaborate and far-reaching among recent proposals. A first model of force was published by the two authors in October 1995 under the title Vital Force: A proposal for the Overhaul of the United Nations

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Peace Operations System and for the Creation of a United Nations Legion. This study was followed by Design for a 15,000 United Nations Legion, dated 23 October 1995 presenting a somewhat less ambitious version of the Vital Force proposal. Initially conceived by its authors in 1992, Vital Force was part of an attempt to ‘define the requirements for successful United Nations peace operations and to articulate the necessary components of institutional renovation and reform’.86 Like others before them, Conetta and Knight reached the conclusion that if the goal was a truly rapid, multilateral capability for peace operations, there was no substitute for a UN standing force. What they therefore recommended is the development by the UN of a ‘peace operations legion that can meet rapid deployment requirements and that can add a highly-skilled, well-equipped, cohesive, and reliable complement of troops to three or four multinational peace operations simultaneously’. Based on the authors’ analysis of requirements – especially in the cases of Somalia, Cambodia, the Balkans and Rwanda, for the period 1988–95 – a UN capability to deploy and continuously maintain 15,000 troops would be sufficient to play such a leading or ‘backbone’ role, thereby filling the gaps in recent peace operations deployments.87 Making provision for troop and unit rotation, the proposed UN standing force would comprise a total of approximately 43,750 personnel in all, of which 32,650 would be deployable, allowing the UN to field up to 16,350 troops continuously. The UN ‘Legion’ would be divided into two commands, the Support and Forces Commands, respectively comprising about 15,775 and 22,625 officers and troops, to which should be added base, general staff and support elements of approximately 5,350 personnel. It would be composed of UN personnel, all volunteers, recruited through a UN programme operating in cooperation with Member State recruitment systems. Field officers would either be recruited through the same system or rise through the ranks of the ‘Legion’. Bases would be leased in perpetuity by Member States of the UN. They would be located in three or four strategically selected sites. Each site would host tactical and support field units along with central logistics depots, medical facilities, and some training facilities, as well as one or two of the field brigade headquarters. The Support Command would comprise units that can provide field support in several areas of need: transportation, field supply, maintenance, and repair, medical services, and general services. Divided into three levels – field logistics base; intermediate support unit and tactical level units – it is designed to provide logistics support not only for the units of the UN Forces Command but also for some civilian units and Member State military contingents. Taking into account replacement cost for major equipment (over 12–15

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years) and for facilities (over 30 years), the cost of maintaining the proposed ‘Legion’ was estimated by Conetta and Knight to be less than US$2.6 billion per year. Assuming full utilization of the force and 15,000 troops in the field continuously, additional incremental costs not exceeding US$900 million per year would have to be envisaged. Total annual cost of the Peace Operations ‘Legion’ was therefore estimated to equal less than US$3.5 billion per year. According to the authors of the study, such a UN field force, representing less than 0.5 per cent of global defence expenditure, would have given the world community a capacity to increase peace operations deployments by nearly 25 per cent in the peak year of 1994. Conetta and Knight’s Design for a 15,000-person United Nations Legion 88 is a different version of the Vital Force concept. It is based on the specific requirements of a UN force, which may differ from those of a pure warfighting force. Among tasks envisaged are the protection of sites, areas and convoys, as well as UN-mandated activities against raids, including some small-scale counter-attacks or rescue missions. Such activities may take place in situations where local consent is unstable or uneven, and may therefore prompt an aggressive response. In case a belligerent decided to launch a concerted offensive, reinforcement or withdrawal of the force could become necessary. In the context of humanitarian relief or national reconstruction, units should not only be suited to the tasks envisaged, but should also have greater independence, initiative, and flexibility. Such considerations lead the authors to favour a UN force that would not be uniform in design. The proposed UN ‘Legion’ should comprise a higher proportion of specialized units, such as engineers, highly mobile reconnaissance units, while its subunits should have greater mobility and firepower than average forces involved in peacekeeping. Rapid deployment being essential to the successful performance of the tasks, a middle-weight force such as the US Army’s High-Technology Motorized Infantry Division or the US Second Armoured Cavalry regiment is preferred by the authors. Given the nature of the tasks involved, it also envisaged that brigade headquarters should be larger than usual. The UN ‘Legion’ would be structured so as to make it easily divisible into two identical halves. This way, one could be deployed to the field while the other serves as a strategic reserve and rotation base. Various typical deployment packages depending on the nature of the mission assigned to the UN ‘Legion’ are described by the authors. A ceasefire-monitoring mission could involve two motorized infantry companies, two cavalry troops, a scout helicopter company and one company each of signal and field intelligence personnel. For missions such as the protection of safe areas and the disarmament of factions, a light mechanized infantry battalion, two light armoured cavalry troops, two artillery batteries and

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one air defence company could be added, thus constituting a 5,000-person reinforced brigade. According to Conetta and Knight’s calculations, the development period would require a total expenditure of approximately US$2.6 billion over 30 months, assuming that during this period incremental expenses would be reduced to the minimum as there would be little or no field activities other than training and that the initial capital expense could be brought down to US$1.3 billion. The stable, long-term average annual budget is estimated to be US$745 million. Incremental costs associated with field operations for one year of full utilization, including costs of strategic airlift assuming two deployments with 50 to 60 per cent of the force deployed by air, would be US$590 million. Combat elements could be deployed within twelve days. While Conetta and Knight paid much attention on the structure, composition and organization and deployment of the force, Carl Kaysen and Georges W. Rathjens focused more on possible comparative advantages and political feasibility. On the basis of cases studies of past UN military involvement in the Congo, Yugoslavia, Somalia and Cambodia, they argued in favour of what they believed was the ‘most realistic, effective, and politically feasible’ response to the hesitation of governments to commit their forces to UN operations: a 15,000 strong UN ‘Legion’. Initially presented in a report entitled Peace Operations by the United Nations: the Case for a Volunteer United Nations Military Force, at the Committee on International Security Studies of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, their research was later summarized in an article in the Washington Quarterly during the winter of 1997.89 Admitting that a standing UN force is no panacea, Kaysen and Rathjens also reached the conclusion that it could have made an important difference, had it been available for situations such as the Congo in the 1960s, and more recently in Yugoslavia, Somalia, Cambodia and Rwanda. In the Congo, the force might have helped obviate problems such as the withdrawal by several African countries of their military contingents. In Yugoslavia, it would have contributed to strengthen Lord Carrington and Cyrus Vance’s position and could have served to take enforcement actions against Serb forces flouting UN injunctions proscribing attacks against ‘safe areas’ and interference with humanitarian assistance in Croatia or Bosnia. In Somalia, the initial humanitarian relief mission could have been accomplished in less than a year without intervention of the US Marines Corps, even though a much larger force would have been required to reach wider objectives in the long run. In Cambodia, the force could have been deployed immediately after the Paris Agreement, thus facilitating an early start of the disarmament process and helping deter disorder. In all those situations, rapid deployment, better

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equipment and training, but also less sensitivity on the part of governments to the issues related to risk of casualties and national command, would, according to the authors of the study, have given a clear advantage to a UN military volunteer force over other types of existing forces. Taking into account both the political context and the operational constraints, Kaysen and Rathjens envisaged a maximum force of 15,000 of which 11,000 would be deployable, 5,500 being deployable for long periods at a time. The annual cost of the force was estimated to be between US$1.25 and US$1.5 billion, the cost for equipment and facilities accounting for about 25 per cent of the total cost, not including the preparation and maintenance of a base. An estimated US$1.5 billion could also be necessary for initial equipment of the force, although one could expect substantial economies to be made by acquiring equipment from countries downsizing their military forces. Logistical capacities would be provided by Member States, essentially the USA. The functions of the force would be those expected to be carried out in intermediate situations when the force requirement is larger than in classic peacekeeping situations and in large-scale enforcement. Its tasks could therefore include: • preventive deployment to forestall violence between communities or states; • monitoring or supervising of tense situation, stalemate, ceasefire, or settlement; • establishing, monitoring, or supervising cantonment areas, demilitarized zones, or buffer zones between warring parties, which may involve interposition by the force; • support, supervision, or implementation of a process of disarming and demobilizing the warring factions; • protection and support of humanitarian assistance efforts; • non-combatant evacuation under threat; • establishing protected areas or zones; • protection and support of national reconstruction and reconciliation efforts, including the conduct of elections; • helping to restore and maintain civil order; and • enforcing sanctions. The tactical and support units of the force would comprise: • two brigade HQs (340 staff and support personnel each);

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two motorized infantry battalions; two light mechanized infantry battalions; one cavalry squadron; one light armoured cavalry squadron (37 light tanks); two armoured Scout helicopter companies (18 aircraft each); four field artillery batteries (eight guns each); two air defence companies (12 mounted air defence systems each); two combat engineer companies; two signal companies; two field intelligence companies; two military police companies; two civil affairs companies; and two field Logistics bases.90

Proposals by Member States The year 1995 was marked by proposals for a UN permanent military volunteer force made formally, for the first time in the history of the organization, by two Member States: the Netherlands and Canada. Dutch Proposal: Rapid Deployment Brigade The Netherlands supported the idea of a ‘Rapid Deployment Brigade’ of between 2,000 and 5,000 soldiers. The Dutch proposal was first presented by the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands Hans van Mierlo to the 49th General Assembly of the United Nations.91 Coming from a country that financially contributes more than 170 other Member States, the idea of a permanent UN Brigade became an established theme of discussion. Further to Van Mierlo’s speech before the General Assembly, an administrative working group of the Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Defence developed the idea of a UN ‘fire brigade’ in an initial ‘discussion paper’ sent to a number of prominent peacekeeping states, scientists and officials. On the basis of this paper the Netherlands Permanent Mission to the UN in New York organized two brainstorming sessions. In the first session, held with the European Union (EU) Member States, the ideas of Minister Van Mierlo were welcomed as one possible option to enhance the UN’s reaction capability. At the same time it appeared that many states had practical questions about the implementation of the RDB proposal, especially from a financial and logistical point of view. The second session, with the

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participation of Secretary-General Kofi Annan and a number of non-EU countries including Australia, Canada, China, India, Japan, Pakistan and the Russian Federation, followed the same lines. The participants underlined the importance of the Netherlands’ idea. At the same time, many had practical questions. Some nations stated that they preferred to fully implement and test the existing UN Standby Arrangement System (UNSAS) first. After having adopted the ‘initial discussion paper’, the Netherlands mission in New York organized a second round of ‘brainstorming sessions’. Many Caribbean states (Jamaica and others) appeared to be outspoken defenders of the Netherlands’ idea. The Russian Federation also stated its positive appreciation. On the other hand, India and the USA were quite sceptical. The USA seemed mainly concerned about the financial aspects of the UN Brigade, while India said that the implementation of the Agenda for Development was far more important than the development of a rapid reaction capability. A number of non-aligned states seemed hesitant as the UN Brigade would give the Security Council the authority to exercise power. On 23 March 1995, the Netherlands Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Defence organized a colloquium at Clingendael on the UN Rapid Deployment Brigade. Fifty scientists, representatives of international organizations (the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the CRC, NATO) and officials of several states attended this colloquium. The proposal reviews the different aspects of the establishment of the Rapid Deployment Brigade, including its tasks, deployment, organization, recruitment, basing, command and control, legal, financial and logistical aspects. In April 1995, the Netherlands presented the final draft of what had then became a ‘non-paper’ on the establishment of a Rapid Deployment Brigade (thereafter ‘the Brigade’) to the Secretary-General of the UN.92 The size of the proposed Brigade was 5,000 men, although it was admitted that the exact size of the unit remained undecided. The Brigade was specifically intended to be deployed in the interim period between a Security Council decision and the actual deployment of stand-by units and/or an international peacekeeping force. The primary objective was to prevent and to contain crisis and humanitarian emergencies. The main tasks envisaged for the force were: preventive deployment when crises are imminent; peacekeeping during the interval between a Security Council decision and the arrival of an international peacekeeping force; and deployment in a humanitarian emergency situation. Other tasks, such as the provision of military protection to humanitarian convoys, or the pacification of refugee camps, could be envisaged. It is to be noted that the force could provide humanitarian emergency relief as well in the very first stages of deployment, before emergency relief has arrived on the spot. To be as cost-

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efficient as possible, the Brigade could also be deployed for additional tasks for which it was not primarily intended if, for instance, it had not been deployed for an extended period of time. The deployment of the Brigade would always have to take place at very short notice and should be of very limited duration. The authority to deploy the Brigade would rest exclusively with the Security Council, as well as the determination of the mandate and the specific tasks of the RDB, which are to be laid down in a Security Council resolution. A Brigade Commander would be appointed by the SecretaryGeneral for a period of three or four years. The Brigade Commander would be invested with the authority of a Force Commander when the Brigade was deployed independently, except in cases when the Brigade acted as an advance party for a regular UN peacekeeping force. The Brigade Commander would report to the Security Council, through the SecretaryGeneral or his Special Representative. The main criteria retained for the recruitment of the troops was a sufficiently representative geographical distribution so as to reflect the supranational character of the UN system. The recruitment would be made individually considering only individual qualifications, with selection procedures similar to those applying to the recruitment of personnel for the UN Secretariat. The potential mercenary character of the force, it was believed, would also be avoided by a strict selection of the troops, and the involvement of Member States as intermediary in the recruitment procedures. The option of a single location for the entire Brigade was clearly considered preferable from a military and operational point of view. In spite of its possible negative impact on the environment, it would ensure cost effective overheads and support, and facilitate joint exercises and manoeuvres. A contrario, the dispersal of the force in several task-forces over several locations or continents, while possibly enhancing the rapid-reaction capability of parts of the Brigade, was considered might have a negative impact on cohesion and training. A peaceful location would be carefully selected, possibly in the Mediterranean area, so as to reduce to a minimum the duration of the period necessary for pre-departure preparation, deployment and organization in the area of operations. The proposal was based on the assumption that the failure of the international community to take timely action in the event of an emerging crisis may lead it to pay a higher price at a later stage. The example of Rwanda was explicitly mentioned in this regard. The initial procurement of equipment was estimated to be US$500–550 million. Even in the event of close functional links with individual Member States or a regional security organization, or specific arrangements for the maintenance of equipment, basing

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and housing, manoeuvres, etc., the minimum annual cost was estimated at US$200–250 million. The proposal estimated that a light infantry brigade required limited logistics capacity while a fully motorized brigade needed three to five times larger logistics capacity, a mechanized unit 10 times, and a helicopter mobile unit 100. Supplies were planned to be available for 90 days’ logistical selfsufficiency. Centralized data collection, handled by the Department of Peacekeeping Operations at United Nations HQs, reconnaissance missions, human intelligence and contacts on the spot when deployed were recommended as a key to the success of operations. The setting up of a multidisciplinary early warning system was also considered as essential to shorten the warning time for deployment of the Brigade. After examining the UN traditional financing modalities (regular budget, outside the regular UN budget, voluntary financial contributions, contributions in kind), the study concluded that, unless the member states were willing to abandon the requirement of zero real growth, the establishment and maintenance of the Brigade would have to be financed outside the regular UN budget. Mandatory contributions were considered the only really viable option for the financing of the Brigade. Financing exclusively through voluntary financial contributions was therefore excluded so as to avoid having the Brigade become too dependent on the generosity of individual Member States. However, Member States would retain the possibility of making voluntary financial contributions, for instance through multiannual pledges. Voluntary contributions in kind could be envisaged for equipment, housing and training. Although strongly restricted, the possibility of intervention without the consent of the host country was envisaged in extraordinary circumstances, including preventive deployment in cases of impending internal conflicts, particularly in ‘situations with potentially serious and wide-ranging humanitarian consequences, such as massive movement of refugees or severe famine’. Such man-made humanitarian disasters, most likely to occur in failing states, might lead the Security Council to consider deploying the Brigade without the formal consent of the de facto local rulers. Furthermore, the Brigade was envisaged in the Dutch proposal in connection with other systems already established by the UN. Neither a substitute for units made available by member states in the framework of the UNSAS, nor a replacement for regular troops contributions for peacekeeping purposes, the Brigade was nevertheless believed to offer a solution to specific problems arising in the broader framework of peacekeeping operations. In particular, it was expected to bridge the gap between a Security Council decision to mount a peacekeeping operation and the actual arrival

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of stand-by units or an international peacekeeping force, act as an advance party for a regular peacekeeping force, or perform reconnaissance tasks in preparation of large-scale, comprehensive missions. There was no discussion of what would happen if the force had to be called for several missions at the same time in case of simultaneous emergencies. Canada: Standing Emergency Group The official announcement of Canada’s intent to conduct a study on ways to improve the United Nations Rapid Reaction capability was made in an address of the Canadian Minister of Foreign Affairs to the 49th Session of the General Assembly on 23 September 1994. One of the proposals, made in the aftermath of the Rwandan crisis by the Canadian Paul LaRoseEdwards, was the setting up of ‘Permanent Rapid Reaction Force Headquarters’ as a complement to existing stand-by arrangements. Each such headquarters, commanded by a Major-General, would comprise 50–80 military and civilian staff recruited for two years by the United Nations. Based in appropriate locations around the world, they would have the capacity to deploy on short notice and in less than two weeks to the field. The peacekeeping missions themselves would be composed of some 10,000 personnel drawn from national forces under stand-by force agreements.93 The proposal was taken up by some Member States, and British Defence Minister Malcom Rifkind asked for the creation of a general staff, comprising civilian and military, who could provide the necessary core for strategic planning for peacekeeping operations as part of a general effort to tighten up the ways in responding to ‘trouble spots’.94 At the United Nations Special Committee on Peace-keeping Operations, Jean-Bernard Mérimée stated on behalf of the European Union that they supported the creation of a rapid reaction unit and would produce command and information modules for such a force.95 At a colloquium organized on 23 March 1995 by the Dutch Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Defence at Clingendael, Canada announced a comprehensive study on the United Nations’ rapid reaction capability. The study, eventually entitled ‘Towards a Rapid Reaction Capability for the United Nations’,96 was a joint effort of the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (DFAIT) and the Department of National Defence (DND) of Canada. A Senior Steering Group was appointed to guide the course of the study while a Core Group was formed to oversee the preparation of background materials and the production of initial papers. The Steering Group, was composed of individuals from the DFAIT the DND including Michael Kergin (co-chair), Dr Kemeth Calder (co-chair), Col. M. W. Appleton, Dr Daniel Livermore, David Malone, Randy McCauley,

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Michael Pearson, Lt.-Col. J. P. Cullingan, and Lt.-Col. L. W. Bentley. The Core Group, co-chaired by Dr Daniel Livermore (DFAIT) and Col. M. W. Appleton, comprised: Jane Boulden, Brent Cowan, Maxime Faille, Professor Michel Fortmann, Major T. T. Itani, Professor W. Andy Knight, Peter Langille, and Professor Allen Sens. An International Consultative Group was also created, chaired by Sir Brian Urquhart of the Ford Foundation, and Dr John C. Polanyi, Nobel Laureate, of the University of Toronto, and consisting of experts drawn from governments, intergovernmental organizations, academic institutions and non-governmental organizations. The central objective of the study was ‘to consider practical and realisable ideas and proposals which would give the United Nations a capability to react more rapidly to crisis and enhance its effectiveness and credibility overall’. Canada supported the ‘Vanguard Concept’, which includes the creation of a ‘United Nations Operational-level Headquarters’ as an integral part of the UN Secretariat. According to the Canadian proposal, such headquarters would be capable of rapid deployment and direction of about 5,000 personnel under the authority of the Security Council and at the strategic direction of the Secretary-General. It could be put at the disposal of the UN by a Member State or a multinational headquarters on a stand-by basis. Canada’s preference, however, was for a permanent multinational headquarters reflecting the requirements of the most complex operations of the 1990s, including civilian staff in the areas of civilian police, humanitarian assistance, human rights and legal affairs. Such staff, although seconded or on loan by Member States, could be deployed without further national authorization.97 One of the essential requirements for efficient UN response to crisis situations being reliability, the reports gave consideration to moving beyond common basing of national units to the concept of a directly recruited ‘United Nations Standing Emergency Group, under the exclusive command and control of the Security Council and the Secretary-General’. Referring to the Dutch proposal for a Rapid Deployment Brigade, on which ‘no broad or even significant international support, much less consensus, exists’, the report stated: ‘If short to medium-term options prove inadequate, and as the political landscape evolves, it may be worthwhile to explore how such a force might be established and the many issues that surround consideration of such an unprecedented step.’ ‘United Nations volunteers’, the report stated, ‘offer the best prospect for a completely reliable, well trained rapid reaction capability.’98 The advantages of common basing over dispersed national locations for enhancing cohesiveness and accelerating deployment were emphasized. As part of the ‘Vanguard’ concept, regional headquarters were envisaged. However, the foundation of the Standing Emergency Group would be a UN Rapid Reaction Base, that is, a

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multinational base also housing an operational headquarters. The base would provide a single facility at which the elements of the rapid-reaction capability could gradually be consolidated. The base headquarters would ensure that there would be at least two deployable headquarters capable of assuming operational control in a peacekeeping mission. In a first stage, the proposed Standing Emergency Group could be composed of military and civilian units from participating Member States. At a later stage, it could be composed by drawing on qualified personnel from national units. Such specially selected personnel would constitute the nucleus for the training and development of new recruits. The Standing Emergency Group was described by its authors as an expensive option. However, the report only referred to estimates of annual cost by the Netherlands (about US$380 million for a Brigade of 5,000 persons) and the International Working Group on the Future of the United Nations (US$500 million for a force of 10,000 persons with a one-time startup cost of US$500 million). No suggestion was made on how the force could be financed, apart from the remote possibility of accommodating such expenses in the framework of a coherent peace and security programme within the United Nations. As far as logistics are concerned, Canada recognized the need to rely on the strategic air and sea lift from major Member States, such as the USA and the Russian Federation. Stand-by arrangements or memoranda of understanding could be signed to ensure prompt availability, while contingency planning teams and operational units could be provided by such Member States to the UN base.99 Seen as an interesting option, the ideas presented by Van Mierlo were in their present form only regarded viable in the long run. It seemed the time was not regarded ripe for the establishment of a RDB consisting of volunteers whose deployment would not be subject to national approval. Still, the Dutch ‘discussion paper’ and ‘non-paper’ proved to be an excellent basis for a profound discussion on the problems that may be encountered if one tries to enhance the UN’s rapid reaction capability. On 26 September 1996, the group ‘Friends of Rapid Reaction’ including representatives of 26 countries, met to discuss setting up of rapid reaction military headquarters in New York similar to the Canadian Vanguard concept, a measure that has been seen as a step towards the creation of a UN permanent military volunteer force as proposed by the Netherlands. This headquarters, which could have potentially save weeks, or even months in the deployment of a UN operation, would be composed of 26 officers and 20 stand-by experts as well as civilian personnel. The HQ would be sent in the field as soon as possible in case of crisis, and would prepare the training and deployment of inspection missions. It would be able to command some 5,000 troops on the ground for

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a maximum period of six months. The HQ military and civilian personnel would operate directly under the direction of the Security Council and the General Assembly.100

NOTES 1. ‘The Rebirth of the UN’, by Eduard Shevardnadze in Vital Speeches of the Day, Vol. 57, 15 October 1990, pp. 8–12. M. A. Belogonov, ‘Soviet Peace-keeping Proposals’, Survival, 32, 3 (May–June 1990), pp. 206–11. Speech by M. Gorbachev at the 43rd Session of the United Nations General Assembly, 7 December 1988. Lincoln P. Bloomfield. ‘United Nations: Working Together at Last?’, International Herald Tribune, 24–25 October 1987. T. G. Weiss, ‘Moscow’s UN Policy’, Foreign Policy, No. 79 (Summer 1990), pp. 94–112. 2. P. Savoy, ‘Peacekeepers for the Gulf ’, The Nation, Vol. 251, 26 November 1990, p. 642. 3. A. Bennet and J. Lepgold, ‘Reinventing Collective Security after the Cold War and Gulf Conflict’, Political Science Quarterly, 108, 2, 1993, p. 215. 4. L. Freedman and D. Boren, ‘“Safe Havens” for Kurds in Post-war Iraq’, in N. Rodley (ed.), To Lose the Bands of Wickedness, International Intervention in the Defense of Human Rights, Davies Memorial Institute (London: Brassey’s, 1992), p. 43. 5. Secretary-General’s Report on the Work of the Organization, DPI/1168-40924September 1991-3M, United Nations, New York, 1991, p. 14. 6. N. D. White, The United Nations and the Maintenance of International Peace and Security (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1990), p. 227. 7. R. N. Gardner, ‘Collective Security and the New World Order’, Leaders, January– March 1992, pp. 24, 25–6. R. N. Gardner, ‘Collective Security and the “New World Order”: What Role for the United Nations? Two Views on the Issue of Collective Security’, American International Peacekeeping, June 1992, pp. 9–12. ‘Arming the United Nations Security Council – the Collective Security Participation Resolution’, Statement by Professor Richard Gardner, SJ. Res. 325, Hearing before the Committee on Foreign Relations of the US Senate, 102nd Congress, 2nd Sess., 24 September 1992. Lewis W. H. ‘Peacekeeping: The Deepening Debate’, Strategic Review, 21, 3 (Summer 1993), pp. 26–32. 8. Security Council, 47th Sess., 3046th Mtg, S/PV. 3046, SCOR. 9. ‘Prospects for Reform of the United Nations System’, International Symposium sponsored by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, International Society for International Organization, Rome, 15–17 May 1992, Padova, 1993, p. 222 10. ‘An Agenda for Peace – Preventive Diplomacy, Peacemaking and Peace-keeping’, Report of the Secretary-General pursuant to the Statement adopted by the Summit Meeting of the Security Council on 31 January 1992, S/24111 – A/47/227, 17 June 1992. 11. Ibid., para. 43. 12. Ibid. 13. Ibid. 14. T. G. Weiss, ‘Military–Civilian Humanitarianism: The “Age of Innocence is Over”’, International Peacekeeping, 2, 2 (Summer 1995), p. 159. 15. ‘An Agenda for Peace’, para. 44.

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16. Article 40: ‘In order to prevent an aggravation of the situation, the Security Council may, before making the recommendations or deciding upon the measures provided for in Article 39, call upon the parties concerned to comply with such provisional measures as it deems necessary or desirable. Such provisional measures shall be without prejudice to the rights, claims or position of the parties concerned. The Security Council shall duly take account of failure to comply with such provisional measures.’ 17. Article 39: ‘The Security Council shall determine the existence of any threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression and shall make recommendations, or decide what measures shall be taken in accordance with Articles 41 and 42, to maintain or restore international peace and security.’ 18. B. Boutros-Ghali, ‘Empowering the United Nations’, Foreign Affairs, 71, 4 (Winter 1992–93), p. 95. 19. P.-E. Dentan, ‘Une armée permanente pour imposer la paix’, Journal de Genève et Gazette de Lausanne, 23 June 1992, p. 5. See also, inter alia: P. Lewis, ‘United Nation’s Leader Asks to Form a Standing Peace Force’, International Herald Tribune, 20–21 June 1992, p. 1. Pick, H. ‘Blue Helmet Reinforced with Steel, Wanted: A Global Police Force’, Guardian Weekly, 5 July 1992, p. 8. 20. ISI, Ref. 941003.145, 27 September 1994, International Peacekeeping News, 3, November 1994; p. 16. 21. Keesing’s Record of World Events (1946–1948), p. 8778. 22. F. Lewis, ‘Gurkhas Can Solve the UN’s Problems’, New York Times, 8 February 1992, p. 21. 23. Ref. No. 941205.233, 3 December 1994, International Peacekeeping News, No. 4 December 1994, p. 20. L. Rosenblatt, ‘Avoiding More Rwandas: A Challenge for Today’, Refugee and Relief Alert, Spring 1995, pp. 1–2. (Reprinted from Christian Science Monitor, 87, 32, 11 January 1995). 24. B. Farrell and C. Lingle, ‘The United Nations Needs a Standing Force, and Ghurkhas Could Do the Job’, International Herald Tribune, 6 September 1994. 25. D. Boren, ‘The World Needs an Army on Call’, New York Times, 26 August 1992, p. A21. The article was reprinted in International Herald Tribune, 27 August 1992, p. 4. 26. ‘Defining a New World Order’, discussion paper prepared by A. K. Henrikson for the roundtable on ‘Defining a New World Order’ (Medford: Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University, 1991), pp. 42–6. A. K. Henrikson, ‘How Can the Vision of a New World Order Be Realized?’, Fletcher Forum of World Affairs (Winter 1992), pp. 63–76. 27. B. Kouchner, ‘Sauver les Corps’, Les Cahiers de l’Express, 20, March 1993, p. 7. ‘Créer une armée humanitaire’, entretien de Bernard Kouchner avec Jacques Julliard, Le Nouvel Observateur, 6–12 January 1994, p. 37. 28. T. Stanley. ‘A Better Way to Keep the Peace’, American Legion Magazine, 134, 3 (1993), p. 32–3. 29. A. S. Miller, ‘Universal Soldiers: UN Standing Armies and the Legal Alternatives’, Georgetown Law Journal, 81, 3, March 1993, p. 773. 30. ‘Le Général Loridon dénonce “les Restos du Coeur” de l’ONU’, Le Monde, 15 July 1993, p. 4. 31. ‘A Foreign Legion for the World’, New York Times, 1 September 1992, p. A16 L. 32. E. Luttwak. ‘Unconventional Force’, New Republic, 25 January 1993, p. 23. 33. B. E. Urquhart, ‘United Nations Peace Forces and the Changing United Nations: An Institutional Perspective’, in L. P. Bloomfield (ed.), ‘International Force – A

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Symposium’, p. 351. 34. Prospects for Reform of the United Nations System, International Symposium sponsored by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, International Society for International Organization, Rome, 15–17 May 1992, Padova, 1993, p. 226. 35. J. Baumel, ‘C’est à Sarajevo que se joue l’avenir de l’ONU’, Le Monde, 13 January 1994, p. 2. ‘The United Nations’ Capacity for Peace Enforcement’, Intervention by B. Urquhart at the conference ‘An International Agenda for the 21st Century: the Role of Canada’, Winnipeg, 12–14 May 1994; p. 3. Annual Report of the Secretary-General on the Work of the Organization, 1 July 1947–30 June 1948, A/565, pp. xvii–xviii. 36. B. Urquhart, ‘For a United Nations Volunteer Military Force’, New York Review of Books, XL, 11 (10 June 1993), p. 3. 37. Ibid. 38. Ibid., pp. 3–4. 39. Ibid. 40. Ibid. 41. H. E. Stassen, United Nations – A Working Paper for Restructuring (Minneapolis, MN: Lerner Publications Company, 1994, pp. 11–12. 42. Ibid., pp. 55–6. 43. G. Clark and L. B. Sohn, The United Nations Peace Force, p. 387. 44. M. Bertrand, ‘Working Paper on the Establishment of a “Charter Objective” Project for a New World Organization’, in M. Bertrand and D. Warner (eds), A New Charter for a Worldwide Organization? (The Hague: Kluwer Law International, 1997), pp. 45–78. 45. R. N. Haas, ‘Military Force: a User’s Guide’, Foreign Policy, 96 (Fall 1994), p. 21. A. Parsons, ‘The United Nations in the Post-Cold War Era’, International Relations, 11, 3 (December 1992), pp. 194–5. E. Haas, ‘The Collective Management of International Conflict’, pp. 35–6. 46. ‘An Agenda for Peace’, para. 14–15. 47. D. Zolo, ‘Globalization, International Complexity and the Risks of Political Cosmopolitanism’, Conference à l’Institut d’Etudes Politiques Internationales (Lausanne), Lausanne, 13 June 1996, p. 6. 48. G. Kummel, ‘United Nations Overstretch: A German Perspective’, International Peacekeeping, 1, 2 (Summer 1994), p. 163. 49. E. Darling, ‘The Gulf War and the United Nations’, in M. R. Bustelo and P. Alston (eds), Whose New World Order – What Role for the United Nations?, Centre for International and Public Law (Australia), United Nations Association of Australia (Federation Press, 1991), p. 39. 50. F. Heisbourg, ‘Quelles leçons stratégiques de la Guerre du Golfe?’, Politique Etrangère, 2 (Summer 1991), p. 412. 51. W. Pfaff, ‘Redefining World Order’, Foreign Affairs, 70, 81 (1990–91), p. 43. 52. K. R. Holmes. ‘New World Disorder: A Critique of the United Nations’, Journal of International Affairs, 46, 2 (Winter 1993), p. 338. 53. E. Sciolino, ‘The UN’s Glow is Gone’, New York Times (Late New York Edition), 9 October 1993, p. 1. L. Freedman, ‘The Gulf War and the New World Order’, Survival, 33, 3 (May–June 1991), p. 203. For an analysis of the policy of the United States during the beginning of the Clinton Administration see, inter alia, M. R. Berdal. ‘Fateful Encounter: The United States and United Nations Peacekeeping’, Survival, 36, 1 (Spring 1994), pp. 30–50. 54. M. G. MacKinnon, The US Political Process and PDD 25: The Formulation of American

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55.

56. 57. 58. 59. 60. 61. 62. 63. 64. 65. 66. 67. 68.

69. 70. 71.

72. 73.

74. 75.

A UN ‘Legion’: Between Utopia and Reality Policy Towards United Nations Peace Operations, Mémoire (Geneva: Graduate Institute of International Studies, 1996), pp. 33–44. Policy on Reforming Multilateral Peace Operations, Text Executive Summary 790, EUR 409, 5 May 1994. Policy on Reforming Multilateral Peace Operations (PDD-25), released on the WWW by the Bureau of International Organizational Affairs. United States, Department of State, February 22, 1996. V.-Y. Ghébali, ‘A quoi servent les casques bleus?’, Journal de Genève et Gazette de Lausanne, 28 March 1994, p. 2. Policy on Reforming Peace Operations, Excerpts, 5 May Report, 1620, Office of Public Affairs, United States Mission, Geneva, EUR 108, 9 May 1994. M. G. MacKinnon, The US Political Process, p. 109. G. F. Kennan, ‘Into Somalia: A Dreadful Error of American Policy’, International Herald Tribune, 1 October 1993. H. Kissinger, ‘Humanitarian Intervention Has Its Hazards’, International Herald Tribune, 14 December 1992. FY97-01 (DPG), Defense Daily, 23 February 1995. ‘America’s National Interests’, A Report from the Commission on America’s National Interests, July 1996, pp. 5, 20–1. M. J. Mazarr, ‘The Military Dilemmas of Humanitarian Intervention’, Security Dialogue, 24, 2 (June 1993), pp. 151–62. T. Fishlock, ‘The Talking Shop of the World’, The Times, 23 October 1985. Daily Bulletin, United States Mission, Geneva, 203, 30 October 1992, p. 1. P. S. Suryanarayana, ‘Time to Break the Yalta Order’, World Press Review, Vol. 39 (October 1992), pp. 13–14 (reprinted from The Hindu, Madras). B. Boutros-Ghali, ‘Empowering the United Nations’, p. 93. B. Boutros-Ghali, ‘UN Peace-keeping in a New Era: A New Chance for Peace’, The World Today, April 1993, p. 69. B. Boutros-Ghali, ‘An Agenda for Peace: One Year Later’, Orbis, 37, 3 (Summer 1993), pp. 323–32. ‘For a New Blue Army’, International Herald Tribune, 21 September 1992, p. 4. J. R. Gerlach, ‘A UN Army for the New World?’, Orbis, 37, 2 (1993), p. 236. Capt. E. J. Dennehy, Lt.-Col. W. J. Doll, Capt. G. P. Harper, Lt.-Col. S. M., Speakes, and Lt.-Col. F. A. Treyz, A Blue Helmet Combat Force, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government, National Security Program, Policy Analysis Paper 9301 (1993). See also USN Capt. G. P. Harper, ‘Creating a UN Peace Enforcement Force: A Case for US Leadership’, Fletcher Forum of World Affairs, 18, 1 (1994), pp. 49–63. P. Alston, ‘Human Rights in the New World Order: Discouraging Conclusions from the Gulf Crisis’, in M. R. Bustelo and P. Alston (eds), Whose New World Order, p. 84. W. E. Schmidt, ‘Troops Rampage in Rwanda – Dead Said to Include Premier, New York Times (late New York edition), 8 April 1994, pp. A1–A2. J. Preston and D. Williams, ‘Tepid Response from US Contributed to Crisis, UN Says’, Washington Post, 24 July 1994. E. Sciolino, ‘The Peacekeeping Front: Clinton is Pulling Back’, International Herald Tribune, 7–8 May, 1994; p. 3. P. Pringle, ‘America Hampers Dispatch of Extra United Nations Troops for Rwanda’, Independent, 18 May, 1994. R. Dowden, ‘Don’t Blame the United Nations for an American Mess’, ibid. D. Rieff, ‘The Illusions of Peacekeeping’, World Policy Journal, 11, 3 (1994), pp. 1–18. B. Boutros-Ghali, ‘Mes nouvelles propositions pour la paix’, Le Trimestre du Monde (1st Trimester 1995), p. 14. ‘Le CICR ne veut plus être seulement un pompier’, entretien avec Cornelio

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Sommaruga, Echo Magazine, 5 January 1995, p. 8. 76. Turning Point for All Nations, A Statement of the Bahá’í International Community on the Occasion of the 50th Anniversary of the United Nations (New York: Bahá’í International Community United Nations Office, October 1995), p. 11. 77. Report of the Independent Inquiry into the Actions of the United Nations during the 1994 Genocide in Rwanda, New York, 15 December 1999, para. 17. 78. L. Haynes and T. W. Stanley, ‘The UN Needs a “Fire Brigade” to Douse Regional Conflicts’, Christian Science Monitor, 5 July 1994. 79. J. Heidenrich, Why US Conservatives Should Support a United Nations Legion, Monograph 3, Project on Defense Alternatives (Cambridge, MA: Commonwealth Institute, April 1995), 36 pp. 80. Our Global Neighbourhood, Report of the Commission on Global Governance (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), p. 112. 81. Ibid., p. 111. 82. The United Nations in Its Second Half-Century, Report of the Independent Working Group on the Future of the United Nations (New Haven, CT: Yale University, 1995), p. 22. 83. Ibid., pp. 22, 23. 84. Youth’95, Alliance for Progressive Global Change, Summary of Conclusions and Recommendations, San Francisco, 17–20 June 1995, Washington (New York: Youth’95), p. 47. 85. C. Conetta and C. Knight, Vital Force, A Proposal for the Overhaul of the United Nations Peace Operations System and for the Creation of a United Nations Legion, Project on Defense Alternatives (PDA) Research Monograph 4 (Cambridge, MA: Commonwealth Institute, October 1995), p. 141. 86. Conetta and Knight, Vital Force, p. v. 87. Ibid., p. xii. 88. C. Conetta and C. Knight, Design for a 15,000-person United Nations Legion, Project on Defense Alternatives (PDA) (Cambridge, MA: Commonwealth Institute, 23 October 1995), p. 11. 89. C. Kaysen and G. W. Rathjens, ‘Send In the Troops: A UN Foreign Legion’, Washington Quarterly, 20, 1 (1997), pp. 207–28. 90. Ibid., pp. 218–22. 91. Address by Mr Hans Van Mierlo, Minister for Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands to the Panel Discussion on a United Nations Rapid Deployment Brigade, The Hague, 22 March 1995, p. 3. 92. ‘A United Nations Rapid Deployment Brigade’, preliminary study, non-paper, revised version, The Netherlands, April 1995, 38 p. The ‘non-paper’ was distributed on 10 May 1995 as an official document of the UN in seven languages. Letter dated 7 April 1995 from the Permanent Representative of the Netherlands to the United Nations Addressed to the Secretary-General, General Assembly, 49th Sess., Agenda item 79, A/49/886, Security Council, 50th year, S/1995/276. It was published in A UN Rapid Deployment Brigade: Strengthening the Capacity for Quick Response, ed. Dick A. Leurdijk, The Hague: Netherlands Institute of International Relations ‘Clingendael’ (1995), pp. 73–92. 93. The Rwandan Crisis of April 1994 – The Lessons Learned, report by P. Larose-Edwards, Regional Security and Peacekeeping Division (IDC), International Security, Arms Control, and CSCE Affairs Bureau (Ottawa, Canada: Department of Foreign Affairs

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and International Trade, 30 November 1994), p. 18. 94. ‘United Nations PK General Staff Proposed’, International Peacekeeping News, No. 7, March 1995, p. 33. 95. ‘United Nations Special Committee on PKOs’, International Peacekeeping News, No. 8, April 1995, pp. 52–3. 96. ‘Towards a Rapid Reaction Capability for the United Nations’, report of the Government of Canada, September 1995, p. 78. 97. Ibid., pp. 50–1. 98. Ibid., p. 61. 99. Ibid., p. 62. 100. Ibid., pp. 50–1. ‘Geen Steeun Voor Snelle Reactiemacht’, NRC Handelsblad (Netherlands), 26 September 1996.

SIX

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Some ordinary villages are peaceful and well policed. The global village is of another kind. It has feuds and vendettas which often break into violence. All the inhabitants are armed. The part-time police force is amateurish and weak. It is run by a committee of villagers who rarely agree on what it should do. Powerful neighbours sometimes suppress violence by force. J. Glover, Humanity – A Moral History of the Twentieth Century (2001)

Predictably enough, the end of the Cold War, while generating hopes for a ‘New World Order’, did not fundamentally alter the pattern of international relations based on power politics. By projecting the USA as a single major power, it has actually made the idea of a force directly under the responsibility of the UN more hypothetical than ever perhaps. The USA, historically one of the initiators and main supporters of the idea of a UN ‘Legion’, at the time of the Korean War, has become one of the main obstacles to the concretization of any plan for international force. Beyond the issue of their immediate feasibility, recent proposals for a force directly recruited by the UN raise a number of fundamental questions. Are they a mere re-edition under a different form in a temporarily more favourable context of unrealistic proposals made in the euphoria of the end of the Second World War or generated by the frustration of the Cold War, bound to remain as grounded as their predecessors? Or is the unprecedented revival of the idea of a UN ‘Legion’ revelatory of more profound changes in international relations and in the functioning of the United Nations? A MUTATION OF THE INTERNATIONAL ORDER

If it was true, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, that the system of UN interventions was ‘caught in a credibility crisis’,1 and was ‘close to a collapse that could discredit it for good’,2 solutions had to be found. Warning signals

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of United Nations military overstretch were detected as early as the end of the 1980s.3 Yet, as Urquhart commented: ‘If it is overstretched, then the answer is not to complain but rather to give it the capabilities it needs.’ 4 Post Cold War proposals for a UN ‘Legion’ aimed, by definition, at providing such necessary capabilities. In order to understand the rationale behind recent proposals, one needs to analyse the limits of the current system and the advantages of the proposed solution.

New Challenges and Objectives The limits of UN capacity to intervene militarily was a recurring theme of the 1990s. General Briquemont, the Belgian military commander in Bosnia, often complained about the UN inability to intervene, and expressed anger at the lack of means to protect civilians and stop attacks on UN aid convoys, saying: ‘There is a fantastic gap between the resolutions of the Security Council, the will to execute those resolutions, and the means available in the field.’ 5 The origin of the gap between the tasks and the resources at the disposal of the UN could be quantitative, or qualitative, or both. It could result from an increase in the general number, and/or a change in the nature of the situations to be addressed. Depending on the answer, the solution proposed would differ. In the first case, an enhanced deployment capacity might be sufficient to cope with additional tasks. In the second case, a different military instrument might be required, or else the tension between goals and military means will increase, at the cost of the credibility of the organization. For Secretary-General Boutros-Ghali in 1993, after suggesting in vain a reactivation of Article 43 and the creation of peace-enforcement units, the answer was to ‘extend and make more arrangements by which governments commit themselves to hold ready, at an agreed period of notice especially trained units for peace-keeping service’.6 For Brian Urquhart: ‘There is one overwhelming good reason for creating a United Nations Volunteer Force: the conditions of the post-Cold War world and the new challenges faced by the United Nations urgently demand it.’ 7 Internal Conflicts In fact, the end of the Cold War had resulted not in a general increase of the number of conflicts, but in a relatively higher number of ‘intermediate’ conflicts. According to a study conducted by Peter Wallensteen and Margareta Sollenberg, of the Department of Peace and Conflict Research at Uppsala University,8 while the number of ‘intermediate’ conflicts 9 had been increasing, from 12 in 1992 to 18 in 1994, ‘wars’ 10 had been decreasing by more than half, with 20 of them recorded in 1992 as against only seven in 1994. This

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situation was mainly due to a relative multiplication of a specific type of situation, that is, intra-state as compared to inter-state wars. What BoutrosGhali and some commentators described as a change in the nature of conflict,11 is in fact a world where confrontations inside states borders have become more prevalent than inter-state war. This evolution was accompanied by an increased involvement of the UN in domestic situations, a trend quickly reflected in the composition of UN operations during the same period: of the five peacekeeping operations that existed in early 1988, four related to inter-state wars and only one (20 per cent of the total) to an intra-state conflict. Of the 21 operations established between 1988 and January 1995, only eight have related to inter-state wars, whereas 13 (62 per cent) have related to intra-state conflicts, even though some of them, especially those in the former Yugoslavia, also have some interstate dimensions. Of the 11 operations established between January 1992 and January 1995, eight – 82 per cent – related to intra-state conflicts.12 That the post-Cold War period was more propitious for the development of internal conflict than the previous one has been contested. It is clear, however, that the end of the Cold War provoked a relative increase in the number of internal conflicts: out of the 94 armed conflicts that occurred over a period of six years between 1989 and 1994 in 64 different locations around the world, only four concerned a classical inter-state conflict; most of the remaining 90 have been internal conflicts, either over government (civil wars) or territory (state formation conflicts), with the highest numbers of armed conflicts in Asia and Africa. The available studies of conflict for the Cold War period were based on different definitions of the concepts of ‘war’, ‘conflict’ or ‘dispute’, and refer to different periods of time, which renders the evaluation difficult. According to Mark Zacker, there were 93 wars in which armed individuals entered another state with the approval of their state of origin between 1946 and 1977, in which the UN intervened in 19 cases. Haas found, between July 1945 and September 1984, 319 ‘disputes’ – that is, ‘a specific grievance between two or more states about a distinct subject involving an allegation that a provision of the Charter or a major resolution of an authoritative UN organ has been violated’, among which 96 were not referred to any international organization. According to other studies, between 1945 and 1976, 85 per cent of conflicts were on the territory of only one state and were internally oriented. The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) still reported 30 major armed conflicts in 25 locations around the world in 1995, all internal, foreign forces being involved in three of them (Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) in the Caucasus, peacekeepers in Liberia, ECOMOG peacekeepers in

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Liberia, and Croatian troops reinforcing the Bosnian Army in the former Yugoslavia).13 In internal conflicts, the traditional actor of international relations, the state, is weakened, challenged, or has even collapsed: ‘We used to be involved in a classic war or international war. Suddenly we have something new, which is the failed state. No more government. Yugoslavia, Somalia, Rwanda: no more government’.14 The predominant actors are militia, irregular armed groups, or even individual snipers. The confrontation is multidimensional with several layers: ethnic, tribal, confessional, national, ideological, and so on, and particularly resistant to resolution. Moreover, internal conflicts are at the root of major humanitarian emergencies: civilian casualties, as the traditional distinction between combatant and civilian, which in the past helped to make civilian victims exceptional, is blurred; massive violations of human rights, such as ethnic cleansing in the former Yugoslavia, or genocide in Rwanda; and large-scale humanitarian emergencies as they provoke flows of refugees and internally displaced persons.15 Humanitarian Intervention In response to the widely shared concern that it is ‘not enough to show pictures of humanitarians saving the lives of children in a genocidal war’,16 the UN has, in effect, increasingly been called to intervene, if not to stop the war, at least to prevent/stop massacres and massive human rights violations, and/or assist in the provision of humanitarian relief assistance. If the basis for the UN armed forces is to be found in Article 1, para. 1 of the Charter, the use of force is a prerogative (Art. 24) of the Security Council which, according to Chapter VII, determines (Art. 39) the existence of any ‘threat to the peace’ or ‘breach of the peace’, and decides what measures will be taken to maintain international peace and security. Member States were originally to undertake (Art. 43) to make available, on call or in accordance with special agreements, armed forces, assistance and facilities, including right of passage. The special agreements were never concluded, partly due to Cold War antagonism, nor a fortiori was a permanent UN military force ever established. Moreover, what was understood by ‘threats’ was essentially inter-state aggression from the perspective of a classical collective security system. Strictly speaking however, as noted by Urquhart, ‘none of the situations the United Nations is now dealing with are really threats to international peace and security’.17 Similarly for Ingvar Carlsson, the Swedish Prime Minister and a supporter of the idea of a UN permanent military volunteer force, there was clearly ‘little threat to international security in the situations addressed by United Nations authorised operations in Northern Iraq and

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Haiti for instance’.18 Such an evolution had both legal and practical closely interconnected implications. That the legal problem has been temporarily solved by a ‘legal fiction’,19 or ‘bits and pieces’,20 is now well known, but is worth being recalled. In order to justify the use of force for humanitarian purposes in an internal conflict, it has first been necessary to place the emphasis on the marginal consequences of the situation that are more likely to affect, if not international peace and security stricto sensu, then at least regional stability. Such consequences include in particular the flows of refugees, who sometimes seek safety in non-involved nations, thereby putting heavy economic, social and political stress on the host country. A second and more subtle shift has been to consider the situations themselves as a threat to international peace and security, or ‘common threat’. Accordingly the terms ‘regional’ or ‘in the region’ have been used to qualify the threat. In this respect, Security Council Resolution 688 of 5 April 1991 constituted a precedent by considering that the repression of the Iraqi civilian population in Iraq ‘threatened international peace and security in the region’. Security Council Resolution 794 on Somalia is also now a classical example of how a UN operation aiming at peace and security can be based on humanitarian concerns. Resolution 787 of 16 November 1992 quoted the Special Rapporteur’s report on the human rights situation in the former Yugoslavia according to which ‘massive and systematic violations of human rights and grave violations of international humanitarian law continue[d] in the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina’.21 Dowty and Loescher developed inter alia the argument that ‘the imposition of refugees on other states falls under Chapter VII of the UN Charter and therefore legitimates enforcement action not subject to the limits of purely humanitarian intervention’. For them, there is ‘increasing recognition that massive refugee flows do in fact constitute a threat to international peace and security, and that they therefore justify use of the enforcement powers of the United Nations’.22 This way, the notion embraced not only the responsibility for enforcing norms between states, but also a collective response to massive intra-state violations of international norms: ‘If there is a principled solidarity, if there is a real danger, if “ethnic cleansing” or genocide is committed in one part of the world,’ said the Secretary-General, ‘I believe that it is the duty of the international community to consider this a common threat.’ 23 Hence the axiom: ‘On the one hand, humanitarian emergencies may constitute threats to international peace and security or aggravate existing threats. On the other hand, disturbances of the peace may give rise to humanitarian crises.’ 24 Such a conception of ‘threat to international peace’ is widely accepted, and it has been argued that the Security Council have a special responsibility, in that

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it is the Security Council which is entitled to authorize such measures when international peace is threatened by large-scale violations of human rights or of international law.25 In this context, humanitarian military intervention has been defined as the intervention in a country with military forces without the consent of the government of that country for the purpose of protecting or providing humanitarian relief assistance to the country’s citizens. Humanitarian military intervention operations can be divided into two categories, depending on their immediate objective: • the armed protection of humanitarian relief assistance and personnel, including the opening of access routes blocked by the parties to the conflict zone, and the establishment of humanitarian corridors, because after Bosnia, Somalia and Rwanda, the old idea of humanitarian relief assistance without protection or humanitarian military intervention has become ‘scandalous if not absurd’; • the armed protection of directly threatened or besieged populations, which may take the form of strategic bombing of assailants, the creation of safe/protected areas or ‘safe havens’, enforced truces, and/or the establishment of ‘no-fly zones’;26 • in some cases, humanitarian military intervention may take the form of preventive deployment. The question that arises, as a consequence of the above-mentioned interpretation of the notion of threat to international peace and security, is the definition of the limits of the resulting right to intervene. Article 2, para. 7, of the UN Charter stipulates that the principle of non-intervention in ‘matters which are essentially internal within the domestic jurisdiction of any State … shall not prejudice the application of enforcement measures under Chapter VII’. This provision has often been interpreted as a powerful restriction to intervention in the internal affairs of states. As early as the 1950s, however, a different interpretation had been proposed: Article 2, para. 7, far from making intervention exceptional, would forbid it only in extreme cases, that is to say for matters that are essentially internal and within the jurisdiction of states that have no international consequences.27 The criteria for humanitarian intervention are, however, nowhere defined in the Charter. Under the most widely accepted criteria, humanitarian military intervention should: • be based on the existence or impending likelihood of gross and persistent violations of human rights;

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• be a measure of last resort, after all regional and international efforts have failed; and • be strictly limited in time and scope; not challenge the territorial integrity of the receiving State and not interfere with the authority structure of the receiving State, if such a structure exists.28 Therefore, the recent political interpretation of the notion of threat opens the way to a controversial droit d’ingérence, the limits of which are still being discussed. For Secretary-General Javier Pérez de Cuellar in 1991, there is a collective obligation to intervene and provide relief in emergency situations where human rights are threatened.29

Limits of the United Nations’ Intervention Capability The main problem of intervention in internal conflicts for humanitarian purposes resides in its implementation. The question of whether the current military means at the disposal of the UN meet the requirements for such intervention can be envisaged at two complementary levels: the availability and responsiveness of military forces by the UN, and the general adequacy of the military forces thus mobilized to carry out the missions entrusted to them by the organization. In fact, the limited experience of the last 10 years has shown how handicapped the UN has been in dealing with intervention in internal conflicts, not only because of the lack of rapid deployment capacity but also because of the very nature of the forces at its disposal, either national contingents borrowed from Member States or coalitions set up on a case-by-case basis when the need arose. Stand-by Arrangements While in June 1992 the Secretary-General could still report that Member States were keen to participate in peacekeeping operations and that military observers and infantry were readily available, one year later the situation was different.30 One of the main problems since then has been the availability of troops and equipment, which has ‘palpably’ declined as measured against the organization’s requirements.31 On the other hand, only a few Member States are in a position to contribute troops equipped for a potential combat mission under Chapter VII of the Charter, and some of those have reservations about placing their troops under United Nations command and control in such a mission. This was illustrated by the difficulties met by the Secretary-General in obtaining additional troops for the implementation of a possible peace agreement for Bosnia and Herzegovina.31 The system based on ad hoc forces, which corresponded to a conception of the UN that

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prevailed after the Second World War, no longer met the requirements. This situation led French President Jacques Chirac to argue that new mechanisms should be found and the UN ‘must give reality to the French idea of military units designated ahead of time’ and available to the United Nations at very short notice.32 In the absence of the special arrangements provided for in Article 43 of the Charter, the UN has – since its creation – relied exclusively on ad hoc forces for the deployment of military troops in the field, either authorized coalitions of states, or national contingents. Consequently, the launching of a military intervention by the UN supposes that not one, but two, measures be taken: first, that the Security Council vote an appropriate resolution authorizing humanitarian military intervention; second, that Member States accept that they should contribute, or send directly, the necessary troops, logistics and equipment. An enhanced deployment capacity could, in principle, be acquired by the development of the already existing UN Stand-by Arrangement System (UNSAS) 33 under which Member States undertake to earmark and keep ready, with an agreed period of notice for their deployment, ad hoc national military contingents for UN duties. The idea is to provide the UN with a database containing military units of Member States that can in principle be made available to the UN at short notice, thus facilitating planning. It aims at limiting the uncertainty over where the required resources will come from and whether they will be adequate when the Security Council decides to establish a peacekeeping operation. Its purpose is to have a precise understanding of the forces and other capabilities a Member State will have made available at an agreed state of readiness, should it agree to contribute to a peacekeeping operation. The system is therefore designed to reduce delays in the deployment of UN troops. To ensure its effectiveness, the system of stand-by arrangements requires detailed information about the numbers, volume and size of the units or other capabilities involved, especially with regard to transport and possible procurement requirements. Further to the Security Council’s Presidential statement of 29 October 1992 and General Assembly Resolution 47/71, the Secretary-General took action to improve and speed up the process of obtaining personnel or units from Member States for new or expanding peacekeeping operations. The system of stand-by arrangements is one of the options considered in the Agenda for Peace to improve the capacity of the UN to deploy troops quickly.34 Traditionally based on an exchange of letters between the Secretary-General and contributing countries, the system was enhanced by the introduction of a more formalized and specific procedure, UNSAS, in 1993. A structural guideline for stand-by arrangements was developed, covering all aspects of

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peacekeeping operations. The Department of Peace-keeping Operations established a management unit within its Planning Division to maintain and develop a database of stand-by arrangements, and explore possibilities of participation with all Member States. In his ‘Supplement to An Agenda for Peace’, the Secretary-General proposed in January 1995 a ‘strategic reserve for deployment’. As of 31 October 1995, the members of the Secretariat’s stand-by arrangements team had visited 57 countries and established contact with the governments of 80 others. Forty-seven Member States had confirmed commitments to provide stand-by resources totalling 55,000 personnel, mainly of infantry, some with equipment and logistic support. As of 20 December 2001, 73 Member States participated in the UN Standby Arrangements (UNSAS) and 22 had indicated interest in joining the system.35 The question remains, however, whether the system is sufficient to meet the UN post-Cold War military requirements for rapid deployment, as the Secretary-General seemed at some point optimistically ready to believe. In spite of its late and limited success, the system displays several weaknesses. In his March and June 1994 reports, the Secretary-General highlighted the difficulties met in attempting to enhance the system of stand-by arrangements. Problems encountered ranged from insufficient commitments, to the provision of troops without equipment, including training requirements. Deficiencies were particularly important in the areas of communications, multi-role logistics, health services, supply, engineers and transport, which are required to mount and execute future operations.36 Stand-by arrangements are based on the principle that such contributions are voluntary and that a stand-by arrangement does not constitute an automatic obligation on the part of the participating Member States to contribute. Not only does the decision process take a few weeks, but the outcome remains uncertain. As far as the response time was concerned, very few governments could meet the initially given preferred response time of seven days for individuals, 14 days for elements involved in the reception phase, and 30 days for other units. Declared response times were in some cases up to 90 days, with many governments needing more than 90 days to prepare for deployment. The main limitation of UNSAS remains the inherent uncertainty over actual deployment of earmarked troops, subject – among other restricting factors – to national approval. As stressed by the Secretary-General himself, the value of this kind of arrangement ultimately depended on how far the Security Council could be sure that the force would actually be available in an emergency. If the Dutch UNSAS units, for example, were to be ready for departure within 15 to 30 days from the time of the official request, they could be

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deployed for a maximum of six months and the peacekeeping operation must therefore be acceptable to the Netherlands and the final decision to deploy the troops would remain with the government, with the formal or informal consent of Parliament. It should also be noted that the proposed units would remain an integral part of the NATO structure. Preferences concerning the use of the Dutch stand-by troops have been stressed, such as the deployment of the units within NATO or the regional framework. The Note Verbale dated 19 December 1985, from the Permanent Representative of the Netherlands to the UN to the SG, established a distinction between stand-by units to be made available to the UN according to their degree of availability: 48 hours; a week; within three to six months. Under the title ‘within 48 hours’ are proposed: a) a marine corps unit drawn from elements of the headquarters and support company, a liaison unit and a reinforced infantry company, comprising in all some 300 men; b) one frigate; c) three type Allouette-III light reconnaissance helicopters with crews, maintenance personnel and logistic support; d) one type F-27 friendship transport aircraft with crew, maintenance personnel and logistic support; a 30-man unit of military police. Under the title ‘within a week’: a) a second marine corps unit of 300 men; b) a number of frigates; c) one support vessel. The note made it clear that the offer was ‘made with the understanding that prior consultation with the Netherlands will take place on each specific occasion on which the SG requests that Netherlands units be put at his disposal’.37 Recent attempts to set up stand-by arrangements for military personnel have demonstrated that equipment can cause even greater bottlenecks than can personnel. Availability of troops is only one side of the problem. In a number of cases, the Organization received offers of military units without the equipment necessary for them to function. The UN does not have the capacity to provide it, and its efforts to obtain the necessary equipment from other Member States have been only partially successful. The equipment obtained was often unfamiliar to the troops who would use and maintain it, meaning that training would be required. This would eventually cause additional delays instead of reducing the time necessary for deployment. The problem could be solved either by the UN establishing its own reserve stocks of basic items such as vehicles, radios, generators, prefabricated buildings, and so on, which are always required for new operations, or by Member States agreeing to hold ready, at various locations around the world, standby reserves of equipment that, while remaining their property, could be made immediately available to the UN on short notice. Further to General Assembly Res. 45/258O of 3 May 1991, stating that the Secretary-General should identify all possibilities for acquiring the necessary equipment through voluntary contributions, a trust fund was established with a target

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of US$15 million. At the time of the Secretary-General’s report of 14 March 1994, only a mere US$40,000 had been received. The fundamental weakness of the system was to be first dramatically highlighted by the failure of the Secretary-General to gather the necessary troops for an intervention in Rwanda when the Security Council extended the mandate of the UN Assistance Mission in Rwanda (UNAMIR), and not one of the 19 governments that at that time had undertaken to have troops on stand-by agreed to contribute. The subsequent failure of the SecretaryGeneral to obtain troops to protect Rwandan refugees in Zaire and Rwanda was later described by Urquhart as a classic example of UNSAS limitations. In January 1995, because of the unwillingness of some 60 Member States approached to provide the 5,000 troops requested by Boutros-Ghali, the UN and Zaire signed an agreement under which 1,000 Zairian security forces would be deployed in Goma and 500 in Bukavu. The cost of the operation until the end of June 1995, which was to include the provision of security advisers to liaise with the Zairian ‘peacekeepers’ and the establishment of a crisis centre in Kinshasa, was estimated to be US$13 million. Aid agencies soon expressed concern about the discipline of the troops and whether they would be able to ensure that order be maintained in the camps after their deployment was completed in April 1995.38 In his ‘Supplement to An Agenda for Peace’, the Secretary-General recognized: ‘A considerable effort has been made to expand and refine standby arrangements, but these provide no guarantee that troops will be provided for a specific operation. His conclusion was that, although the UNSAS has proved most useful, the United Nations is far from having a rapid reaction capability.’ 39 Because of the very nature of UNSAS, when the Security Council decides on an operation, the UN Secretariat still has to turn to individual Member States on each occasion to piece together a force of the required size and composition. Such a limitation, in terms of both delays and lack of reliability, does not really confirm the hopes of those who believe that all the UN needs in order to respond effectively to a humanitarian crisis is ‘a trained and equipped stand-by force that can be dispatched quickly, and the steady political will of the Security Council behind the operation’.40 Proposals put forward for the development of the existing UNSAS, such as the ‘Multinational United Nations Stand-by Forces High Readiness Brigade’ (SHIBIRG) 41 proposed by Denmark, or even a stand-by ‘Blue Helmet Combat Force’,42 suffer from the same endogenous weakness as UN ad hoc national contingents and UN-authorized coalitions. They can indeed help to accelerate deployment once the political decision to contribute them has been taken. As pointed out in September 1995 by the government of Canada in its report Towards a Rapid Reaction Capability of the United

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Nations: ‘As long as sovereign states retain the right to decide on the deployment of their national units, there will never be complete assurance that a United Nations force can meet an urgent situation on time or with sufficient capacity.’ 43 National Contingents versus Authorized Coalitions Even assuming that sufficient military forces have been secured from Member States, the question would remain of their adequacy for humanitarian military intervention. ‘If forces are available,’ asks Richard Connaughton, ‘are they suitable and who in the United Nations is able to make such professional judgement?’ 44 Given the enforcement and controversial nature of humanitarian military intervention, the international military forces deployed will require maximum credibility and legitimacy. To accomplish its missions, the military force must have several capabilities: an intervention capacity, to dissuade any action that could aggravate or destabilize the zone of crisis and, if necessary, to restore peace; an interposition capacity, to act as a buffer between belligerents that are to be separated, or to prevent them from negative actions; in some cases, when no civilians are in a position to operate, a humanitarian capacity, including emergency medical facilities, equipment and personnel, engineering skills, and the necessary competence to re-establish public services in the zone of crisis if required.45 This means in any case that the military force may have to enforce actively the Security Council’s decisions. In particular, as sadly demonstrated in the UN so-called ‘Protected Areas’ in Zepa, Gorazde, Srebrenica or the Krajjina, safe areas, because they are imposed on the party, must be backed up by considerable military force.46 Any humanitarian intervention, to have any chance of success, must therefore meet several criteria: unity of command, clarity of mission and proper weapons for implementation, as well as the necessary motivation to accomplish the mission. The qualities required for humanitarian intervention are unlikely to be found in UN peacekeeping ad hoc national contingents, the weaknesses of which have been studied and described for decades, including lack of standardization of equipment and inadequate training. Depending on the contributing country, the units are disparately and often inadequately equipped, and have different levels of training, making interoperability and efficiency in combat duties highly hypothetical. Traditionally, UN peacekeeping forces are composed of contingents from many, predominantly small, countries. The military efficiency of the force is also hampered by the differences in military traditions and skills, languages and cultural backgrounds: ‘Even if the United Nations provides sophisticated equipment … a multinational

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force composed of battalions from small countries from different parts of the world can never reach the same level of military professionalism as a single nation or unified European force.’ 47 Similarly, the problem of the lack of adequate training of troops prior to deployment is closely related to the use of ad hoc forces and the fact that, as a principle, UN troops are selected with a geographical display to ensure a broad commitment of Member States and the international community. Another difficulty encountered has been the phenomenon of double allegiance, or dual reporting, command and control problems, in spite of various proposals for improved common command structure. As stressed by Lt.-Gen. Sanderson, about the UNTAC military forces: ‘This is a serious matter – a United Nations force cannot afford to be a collection of national contingents each pursuing their own agenda – it has to be seen to be pursuing the objectives of the agreements which grant it authority to be there’.48 The reluctance of Member States to risk casualties in UN operations has also led to a damaging lack of credibility of UN troops and situations in which the UN has sometimes been ridiculed on the ground while creating increased public criticism of the organization internationally. In fact, the primary raison d’être of a military force is to be exposed to danger, and this presupposes an individual capacity to take risks and accept sacrifice on the part of the soldiers. Examples of guerrilla fighters in Vietnam, Afghanistan or former Yugoslavia demonstrate that motivation and readiness to sacrifice can produce results not related to the real balance of military power. Readiness to accept a certain level of casualties is indeed crucial to allow the operation to succeed.49 Furthermore, while preventing deployment, the reluctance of certain Member States to suffer casualties also affects the efficiency of the troops and command mechanisms. Disparities between national contingents in terms of determination, depending on their government’s acceptance of the risks involved in UN missions for the life of soldiers, introduces additional heterogeneity in the force, making its coordination even more difficult in the case of enforcement operations. While the main problem for a nation-state resides in using non-integrated ‘non-national’ (foreign) elements to fight its wars, the main risk for an international organization is to rely exclusively on ‘national’ – that is, not truly integrated and international – contingents to carry out its operations. It is only in the absence of permanent military forces of its own that the UN has to rely on less integrated forces – national military contingents and coalition of Member States – to carry out its mission. Significantly, the development of a European military capability has been seen by some as an evolution from the resort to ‘mercenary’ forces.50 In fact, if one takes as criteria the moral standards and

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social behaviour of the soldiers, UN forces under present arrangements can often be criticized on the same grounds as were traditionally mercenary forces. The lack of discipline, immoral personal behaviour and corruption of UN contingents participating in UN missions has been a recurrent theme in relation to UN peacekeeping operations, and one of the main reasons for UN forces to be discredited in the media. The defects generally ascribed to ad hoc national contingents voluntarily contributed by Member States to the UN today are precisely those historically attributed to mercenary forces: foreign allegiance, corruption, and unwillingness to take the necessary risks when it comes to fighting. General Michel Loridon sharply criticized the motivations of states contributing troops to UN operations for financial reasons, and the trafficking of fuel, equipment and food of some ‘blue helmet’ units. The ‘mercenarization’ of UN forces as the number of troops and the complexity of the operations increases has been also denounced. The UN pays about US$1,000 a month in wages for each blue helmet. Depending on the country of origin, a blue helmet may in some cases earn in one month what he could take a year to earn while not under the UN flag.51 At present, for the UN, the only existing alternative to ad hoc contingents is direct military intervention by Member States in the form of ad hoc coalitions it authorizes. The irony, ultimately, is that the latter, which could potentially have the necessary unity of command and military capability to accomplish their tasks, tends – when it is available – to be counterproductive to humanitarian operations. ‘We cannot enter into alliance with neighbouring princes until we are acquainted with their designs,’ warned Sun Tzu.52 An essential requirement of humanitarian intervention is in effect political neutrality – defined here as being independent from political goals and considerations and avoidance of any kind of action that could be seen as a unilateral action or unjustified interference in the internal affairs of the state. As rightly claimed by the ICRC, as soon as humanitarian intervention ‘is used as an extension of foreign policy, it is divested of the neutrality which should be its essential attribute’.53 Consequently, humanitarian military intervention by Member States that may have a real or perceived interest in taking military action can only undermine its perceived legitimacy. UN ambivalence over enforcement by coalitions of Member States in view of the experience of the last few years reflects this situation. While acknowledging that this arrangement ‘provides the Organization with an enforcement capacity it would not otherwise have’, and that it ‘is greatly preferable to the unilateral use of force by Member States without reference to the United Nations’, the UN report ‘Comprehensive Review of the Whole Question of Peace-keeping Operations in All Their Aspects’ (1994) warns

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against the possible negative impact on the organization’s stature and credibility. Among potential dangers, the risk of seeing states claiming international legitimacy and approval for forceful actions not originally envisaged by the Security Council is also highlighted. Hence UN insistence on close monitoring by the Security Council of enforcement operations by groups of Member States if international acceptance of those actions and their consequences is to be assured, especially in humanitarian operations.54 The legality of such sous-traitance (sub-contracting) has even been questioned in view of the fact that such operations do not comply with the requirements of Articles 46 and 47, and hence they are not subject to strategic control by the UN.55 Large-scale military action under United States command in the case of the Gulf War or Operation Restore Hope, considered by some as an abdication by the UN of its primary raison d’être, came under heavy criticism for being closely linked to US interests, an important reason for Bernard Kouchner to support the idea of creating a permanent humanitarian intervention force.56 The experience in the former Yugoslavia, with NATO and the Western European Union (WEU) carrying out certain tasks authorized by the Security Council that UNPROFOR did not have either the mandate or the means to accomplish, has also shown both the advantages and the limits of this practice. Canada, in particular, drew attention to the tendency to resort to multinational coalitions, especially when the use of force was required, and stressed its belief that these operations should not only be authorized by the UN, but led and conducted by the UN.57 Sadako Ogata mentioned the added problem she faced, as High Commissioner for Refugees, of the ‘non-availability of military means appropriate or proportional to the security needs to be addressed’, saying: at times I could not help but wonder whether bombs dropped from 15,000 feet, or missiles launched from thousands of miles away, could resolve house-to-house conflicts between communities that have lived together, separate but intertwined, for hundreds of years.58 From this perspective, contrary to what has sometimes been argued, it is far from clear that in all cases ‘instead of relying on the United Nations, the best solution would be for the United States and other major powers to maintain world peace by working through ad hoc coalitions as they did during the recent Gulf War’.59 As illustrated by the controversial character of the French-led Opération Turquoise in Rwanda, the sub-contracting of humanitarian military intervention to an ad hoc UN-authorized coalition may

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seriously undermine the legitimacy and thereby the efficiency of humanitarian operations. The more international the force, the less it will be suspected of having hidden agendas. Hence the ICRC’s bitter conclusion that the right to intervene militarily on humanitarian grounds, by blurring the line between political and humanitarian action, has offered, in the absence of a truly international military force, ‘no innovative nor practical remedies’.60 Hence, also, Paul Y. Hammond’s question: Where can we look to develop better mechanisms to make and keep peace? Not to the United Nations. It can acquire peacekeepers from the armed forces of its member states. In this way, it might even be able to set up a standing force. But the military units assigned would be the wrong kind: national armed contingents on special assignment.61

A UN ‘LEGION’: AN IDEAL SOLUTION TO A REAL PROBLEM?

Another option would then be to develop a new military instrument that would not remain powerless in the face of humanitarian emergencies. The potential advantages of a UN ‘Legion’ are worth examining, in terms of its more reliable and universal character. If the international community is to continue down this path, argues Carlsson, ‘then it is a matter too important to decide purely on an ad hoc basis, or under pressure from powerful states with particular interests, or as a reaction to sustained media coverage and public outcry’.62 For Clapham and Henry: ‘The idea of a well-equipped and properly trained multinational deployment force is not new. But the need for such a force has now been demonstrated beyond reasonable doubt.’ 63

Reliability With regard to availability of troops, the main and most obvious limitation is that the UN, as an organization, has no permanent forces. ‘An organization that scarcely possesses a blue beret, yet is in such demand to provide forces, is remarkable even by the standards of the paradox-ridden field of international relations,’ once noted Adam Roberts.64 The resulting uncertainty over the actual availability of stand-by troops and equipment for a specific operation is clearly a very strong argument in favour of the creation of a more reliable and more universal military capability, not only on a more permanent basis, but also based on direct recruitment, such as a UN ‘Legion’, or ‘Foreign Legion of the World’.

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The‘CNN’ and Casualty Factor Among factors that have played a role in making forces more difficult to obtain for the UN in recent years, one should mention the close interaction between national interest, public opinion and the risk of casualties, and the relative unreliability of stand-by arrangements. The media has also played a growing role in bringing attention to humanitarian emergencies (the socalled ‘CNN factor’), thus fostering strong internal pressure in favour of intervention even when there was no particular national self-interest. Yet it is a double-edged sword, with the possible negative effects of increasing the public’s insensitivity to violence, and increasing the pressure on governments in case troops get in trouble, resulting in increased selectivity and affecting the deployment of troops for humanitarian purposes or the success of operations carried out by the organization. Moreover, if the media, by the power of images instantly transmitted, can play a role in influencing public opinion, they are not always sufficient to provoke the early and effective reaction required by urgent humanitarian crises where a large number of lives are at stake. As seen in the case of Rwanda, it may take time before decisions are taken by governments in response to public opinion.65 Another factor has played an important role in keeping Member States and the UN away from enforcement, and therefore in the recent difficulties met by the Secretary-General in obtaining troops: the increasing number of casualties in UN military operations.66 As of October 1994, out of the 1,170 casualties reported among peacekeepers since 1948, more than 60 per cent (725) had occurred in peacekeeping operations currently taking place.67 Although collective security ideally requires that governments perceive the violation of accepted international norms as a direct threat to their national interest even when they are not themselves immediately affected, collective response by states is in practice unlikely unless a direct, or vital, interest is at stake.68 Enforcement operations are, by nature, less likely to trigger the necessary military contributions of Member States, as they are perceived as being more likely to involve casualties. In fact, the reluctance on the part of states to risk their soldiers’ lives in enforcement operations, and as a consequence the tendency to opt for shortterm, half-way, unsatisfactory solutions, is often the result of a basic miscalculation over the risks involved. As stressed by Dutch Minister of Defence Dr Joris Voorhoeve, ‘strong medicine is often more humane than soft measures’, and peacekeeping and humanitarian assistance are not necessarily any less dangerous than enforcement action, the latter involving heavier weapons but being normally of shorter duration.69 ‘I think we will all agree that the use of military force must be something that is in response to a core of national interest,’ said Chairman of the United

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States Chief of Staff General John M. Shalikashvili.70 ‘Whenever American lives are at stake, so is a conception of vital interests – or else the sacrifice mocks the anguish of bereaved families,’ wrote Henry Kissinger.71 The chance of seeing the wider international peace and security regularly maintained is therefore even lower for humanitarian emergencies than for inter-state wars in which states often have an interest in settling the conflict. That geopolitical interests have become mainly regional since the Cold War has done little to make mobilization for collective response to remote humanitarian emergencies more likely. Even when states suffer directly from the side-effects of the conflict, they will be more inclined to take measures aimed at preventing massive border crossings – as in the former Yugoslavia, for instance – than to get directly involved in an already confused and dangerous situation. Worse, these kinds of short-term strategies have led to the perversion of humanitarian relief assistance, used by states as a shameful substitute for humanitarian military intervention.72 A now classical example of the consequences of the ‘zero killed’ doctrine for UN military operations is Somalia: the Turkish General Cevic Bir, who commanded the troops, made it clear that the failure to disarm the factions was due not only to the lack of troops and equipment, but also to the willingness of some of the contributing countries to accept the level of violence and the losses in terms of human lives in conflict where they have no direct interest.73 In the former Yugoslavia, US General Shalikashvili was quoted as saying that the use of air strikes to open the Tuzla airport, for example, could not succeed unless infantry forces were available to secure the area. This would have implied potential casualties or losses that Member States military involved on the ground would not have been ready to suffer in a conflict where no direct vital interest was at stake.74 The deaths of 18 American soldiers on 3 October 1993 led to the American withdrawal from Somalia, where the United States had no direct national interest.75 Similarly, the loss of ten Belgian soldiers led to the departure of the Belgian contingent from Rwanda in April 1994 at a time when UN military presence was most needed. As strikingly summarized by the Representative to the United Nations of one of the countries most involved in UN military operations, the Netherlands: We are quite willing to do something, but it mustn’t cost too much money or the lives of our troops. And since the United Nations is entirely dependent on our generosity, all this has a direct and paralysing effect on the working of the Organization. One of our soldiers counts for more than the fate of ten thousand Bosnians.76

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The blame put by UN officials and others on Member States for not sufficiently responding to humanitarian emergencies reflects the obvious and intangible fact that the UN is heavily dependent on states for carrying out its missions. It is also unfair and misleading, as the argument refuses to address – and in fact helps to hide – one of the origins of the problem: indeed, this increased contradiction was recently introduced to the heart of the UN intervention system by the enlarged definition of threat, based no longer only on the traditional conception of international peace and security, but also on the defence of universal values and human rights. It is somehow like blaming the leopard for having spots.77 The Member States’ unwillingness to commit troops in Rwanda in 1994 led Secretary-General Kofi Annan to publicly denounce the ‘apathy’ of the international community, and estimated that the ‘world does not have the courage to get involved’, considering that governments ‘hide themselves’ behind their public opinion.78 The fear of casualties on the part of Member States, when it does not lead, as in Somalia, to a disproportionate and reprehensible use of force in its extreme expression of the ‘zero killed’ doctrine, can nevertheless be considered a healthy phenomenon. It reflects government responsibility and the fact that governments are accountable for the lives of their citizens. National armed forces are, after all, set up, trained and maintained primarily for the defence and protection of the interests and citizens of the country they serve. Hence the perhaps shocking, but nevertheless logical, contrast between troop mobilization in the context of the Gulf War – with the ad hoc UNauthorized coalition set up against Iraq after its violation of the Kuwaiti border – and the sluggish response to the Somali, Bosnian and Rwandan emergencies. Arthur M. Schlesinger, recalling military historian Edward Luttwak’s explanation of the difficulty democratic governments have these days in sending their armies into war is that, in earlier times, people had larger families and were more fatalistic about their children dying through disease and war. He suggests that: Maybe we should revive the idea, endorsed forty years ago by John Foster Dulles, of a UN peace force, perhaps in the form recently proposed by that distinguished international civil servant Sir Brian Urquhart – that is, a United Nations volunteer army and a foreign legion recruited from idealists, adventurers, and mercenaries that could serve the Security Council as its active deployment force.79 A New ‘Guardian Soldier’ As individuals would be directly recruited by the UN, the force would not be subject to the ebbs and flows of national politics that would make it

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vulnerable to public opinion. In this sense, it would truly be a rapid reaction force, rather than just a rapid deployment force. It would arguably be more credible, as it would have the character of an elite force determined to accomplish its mission, the costs being accepted in advance by those who individually volunteered for the job. Related advantages of direct recruitment are the esprit de corps and direct loyalty to the UN that have long been emphasized. Parsons in particular defended the argument that ‘it would be a different story’ if the Security Council and the Secretary-General had at their disposal ‘a small but well armed and motivated all-volunteer force on the lines of the French Legion or the Ghurkhas of Nepal, where moral and military prowess derive from esprit de corps rather than national patriotism’.80 Because of the tenuous links that may exist between a UN operation and a country’s national interest, and the fact that in this case the long tradition of sending young people to fight for the country’s interests does not apply, Gerlach saw it as a ‘minimum ethical requirement’ for a UN army to be allvolunteer.81 If one thinks that the readiness to accept casualties may affect the availability, deployment, and eventually credibility of a given force, the question then takes another dimension. Indeed, is the task of developing ‘new values for our armies’ sufficient to solve the problem? 82 And if not, is not a different type of military force, drawing on the energy and resources of selected motivated individuals, indispensable for the efficient defence of universal values which may require, in some cases, the shedding of life? As remarked by General le Borgne, ‘humanitarian action, originally so far away from the military approach, eventually brings us back to this: it raises the question the very source of force. Does not the last word always belong to the one who accepts direct contact and, ultimately, sacrifice, rather than just ‘shoot and forget’, relying on the sole aerial technique?’ 83 One of the main factors of success in a military operation is indeed the motivation of the troops. A major obstacle to participation in UN military intervention potentially involving combat is, especially in Western-type democratic regimes, the strong pressure of public opinion at home, which renders governments reluctant to see their troops take the risk of suffering casualties when international or national security is not an obvious justification. Soldiers involved in missions with a humanitarian character are in this regard particularly vulnerable to public opinion at home. What could be the motivations for risking one’s life these days is a question philosophers have asked. Fernando Tesón held the view that humanitarian intervention is based on an ethical theory of international law, as the human rights imperative underlies the concepts of state and government: ‘The controversy between supporters of a flat prohibition against the use of force and

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supporters of a right of humanitarian intervention is not a dispute between “positivists” and “teologists”. Rather, it is an authentic moral dispute, a dispute of values’.84 Although somehow also transcendent in that they can bring about the ultimate sacrifice, the motivations at the root of contemporary humanitarian military intervention are different from those that have led soldiers to risk their life in the context of the nation-state. They do not find their source in the nationalist, or even religious, convictions that were hitherto inspired – or at least canalized – by institutions such as the state or the Church. They are based on human values, a personal belief in the universality of the human being, however foreign and remote.85 Luc Ferry stressed the infinite and absolute character of the duty of humanitarian assistance, which extends to all human beings and not only relatives or those who share the same origin or religion, and may require the sacrifice of one’s own life for pure principles. The resulting ‘humanitarian Utopia’, seen as a secularization of transcendent values, is a conception in which human beings are raised almost to the rank of divinity, hence the proved record of numerous volunteer and non-governmental organizations, drawing on the resources and energy of individuals.86 Gustav Danikër’s conception of the ‘Guardian Soldier’ whose motivations stem from the defence of basic values, as opposed to the ‘Warrior’ inspired by political enthusiasm or militant nationalism, reflects this evolution in the military field.87 Assuming, however, that a soldier sent by his/her state can personally share humanitarian ideals and undertake to serve them once in the field, the decision to put him/herself at the disposal of the UN operation does not belong to him/her but to his/her government. The spirit of sacrifice – described by Hammarskjöld as ‘a sacrifice of all personal interests but likewise the courage to stand up unflinchingly for your convictions’ 88 – is precisely one of the most essential component of volunteerism. While volunteerism can exist without altruism, and to a certain degree without commitment, it cannot be a reality without a certain spirit of sacrifice.89 All other things being equal, volunteers are therefore more likely to take risks or at least to accept a certain level of risk than are other recruits, thereby contributing to the success of the mission. While it has been argued that comfort and wealth enjoyed in industrialized countries are less conducive to courage and physical resistance than the difficult living conditions in developing countries, the experience of the Suez expedition in 1956 was presented as an illustration of the fact that the assumption becomes false when dealing with volunteers who can make a difference even when confronted with troops more heavily armed.90 In any case, and because of the tendency of governments to temporize and opt for the perceived least costly solution, the motivation for taking the necessary physical risks for the defence of human rights is more likely in the short run to reside in particular

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individuals than in a government. For Sverre Lodgaard, former Director of UNIDIR: To defend universal norms, governmental decision-making does not suffice. Universal norms can be best at the universal, global level, by the United Nations and by employees establishing their loyalties directly to the Organization. In this respect, voluntary recruitment to a standing United Nations force would be a major step ahead.91 To set up the UN ‘Legion’, the United Nations would no longer be in the odd position of being, as it has always been so far, ‘a shopper in a military market place whose goods it cannot readily refuse and whose quality is largely beyond its control’.92 The selection and training, and international loyalty of the force, its rapid deployment capacity, and its combat value would make it a reliable military instrument. The UN could not only select the recruits, but train the military force directly, thereby making it suitable for humanitarian military intervention. More women could be recruited, thus affecting the quality of the force. According to a study, the total number of women who served in the 17 peacekeeping missions active in 1993 represented only 1.7 per cent of military contingents, in spite of their increased presence – especially as officers in combat units – in the national military of several countries. The relative absence of women in UN military operations is in fact directly linked to the resort to ad hoc forces and the lack of control over the selection and allocation of peacekeeping troops.93 The problem of the low representation of women in UN peace operations, if it is too often forgotten, is not to be neglected. It has been demonstrated that, apart from the concern for equity, it has an impact on the general quality, image and efficiency of the force in humanitarian operations. In this respect as well as others, the UN ‘Legion’ could, ultimately, serve as a model for other kinds of UN military forces. A negative consequence of the system of ad hoc national contingents is indeed the lack of uniform training. One serious concern, recurrently expressed by humanitarian relief assistance organizations, especially the ICRC, has in effect been the lack of adherence of UN military forces to the basic principles of humanitarian law, not to mention clear violations of human rights perpetrated by members of UN military forces themselves while on mission. Apart from the moral aspect of the question, and the difficulty for the UN to legally sanction the military personnel involved in such actions, the sometimes ‘problematic’ behaviour of UN military forces has adversely affected both the legitimacy and credibility of humanitarian military intervention. As observed by Lt.-Gen. J. M. Sanderson:

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United Nations Commanders and their staffs have no say in the source of their contingents and have to work with what they get. There is always a need to raise the level of human rights awareness among those contingents which lack a well established human rights culture. It would be beneficial if much of this could be done before, rather than after the contingents arrive in the mission area.94

Universality One of the factors affecting the perceived legitimacy of military intervention is the composition and training of the military force. Because of its direct recruitment, a UN ‘Legion’ could arguably be considered truly international, in fact or in spirit, be it heterogeneous on the Foreign Legion model, or homogeneous if composed of Ghurkha soldiers.95 As with the wholly civilian UN Volunteers programme (UNV),96 it could more easily be perceived as politically impartial, thus increasing the perceived legitimacy of the intervention. Among factors that may prevent the permanent allocation of units to the UN is the fact that important Member States do have constitutional or political constraints, as well as requirements for legislative consultation, regarding participation in enforcement operations. ‘Even if it were possible,’ wrote Australian Minister Evans, ‘it is unlikely that many governments would accept the obligations implicit in nominating units.’ 97 The idea of a UN ‘Legion’ could appeal in particular to countries having their ability to deploy military forces abroad limited by either constitutional or political constraints. Enhanced Legitimacy Although participating financially, Japan and Germany have come under severe and often unfair criticism for not participating militarily in the Desert Storm Operation in the Gulf.98 While the absence of military participation from these two countries was the origin of tensions with other allies during the Gulf War, their candidature for permanent seats in the Security Council has fostered internal polemic debates over their military participation in UN peace operations. Inclusion of these two economic powers has, however, been considered vital for future UN enforcement, especially in view of the fact that future beneficiaries from intervention may be unable to pay for UN enforcement, as Kuwait and Saudi Arabia did. Yet the interpretation of its constitution by Japan (Article 9) and Germany (Basic Law or Grundgesetz) has led these countries to confine their military forces, equipped with only symbolic armament for self-defence, to non-

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combat duties. It should be remembered in this regard that the UN ‘Legion’ envisaged by Lie as early as 1951 was to be ‘composed of volunteers drawn especially from those countries unable to set aside special units of their own’,99 and at the time, even proposals for direct recruitment of Japanese citizens by the UN had been made.100 Article 9 of the Constitution of Japan states clearly that the Japanese people ‘forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat to use force as a mean of settling international disputes’. Article 9.2 stipulates that ‘ground, naval or air forces or other war potential will never be maintained’. A Bill introduced in 1990 and designed to allow Japanese forces in support of the UN-authorized multinational force of Operation Desert Storm in the Gulf War met with strong opposition and eventually failed to win legislative approval. On 15 June 1991, a bill empowering the Japanese government to send members of Japan’s Self Defence Forces (SDF) overseas to assist in peacekeeping operations was approved by the Diet, opening the way for military forces to serve overseas for the first time since 1945. The controversial character of the Bill, the determined resistance of the opposition at home, as well as the strong reservations expressed by neighbouring countries and many East and Southeast Asian States attest to the difficulties for Japan to play a military role in UN peace operations that may involve enforcement actions. Four months after the Japanese Diet had, for the first time since the end of the Pacific war, and after a request from the Secretary-General, the Japanese Cabinet approved on September 1992 the dispatch of some 1,800 SDF personnel to Cambodia to assist with UN peacekeeping operations over the coming year and sent a few observers to help monitor the general elections in Angola. In Cambodia and Mozambique, Japanese troops carried only pistols and rifles. In Rwanda, they were allowed to take only one machine gun after the Socialists protested against plans to give them two. There was a debate between Japanese Defence Minister Seishiro Goto and Chief Cabinet Secretary Koken Nosaka over whether Japanese troops sent for UNDOF would carry pistols or be allowed to have rifles and machine guns. In August 1994, a Japanese government factfinding mission to central Africa did not exclude the possibility of dispatching Japanese peacekeepers to Rwanda, at a moment when Japan had already deployed 300 SDF and sent 3 C-130 SDF transport planes to move aid supplies from Nairobi to Goma in Zaire. However, the legal and constitutional prerequisite was that peace and stability be restored in Rwanda prior to such deployment of Japanese peacekeepers. Japanese Prime Minister Tomiichi Muramaya stated that Japan will not be able to play a military part in UN peacekeeping operations if it becomes a permanent member of the UN Security Council. Katsunari Suzuki, the head of Japanese peacekeeping operations, stated that Japanese troops were allowed to use weapons only for

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self-defence, and that they would leave Goma if security deteriorated, after an incident occurred in September 1994. As a consequence Japanese Foreign Minister Kunihiko Saito stated that Japan should therefore clarify what ‘non-military’ contributions it could offer if it became a permanent member of the Security Council. An example of such non-military aspects of Japanese participation is that Japan and the US have negotiated the Acquisition and Across-Servicing Agreement (ACSA) in peacekeeping operations to facilitate fuel and transportation exchange between the SDF and US forces. Under the treaty, the SDF is to receive information and transport aircraft from the US for use in peacekeeping missions while providing fuel, clothes, lodging, check-ups on planes, medical help and communications. Restrictions on the deployment and use of Japanese troops abroad therefore also affect the workability of stand-by arrangements. According to Professor Kozai of Osaka Gakuin University, the UN, in order to persuade countries to comply with the request for a stand-by Rapid Reaction Force by earmarking and training personnel for future operations, should first make clear that their troops will not be called to use force except in self-defence.101 The efforts of the Christian Union-led government of Germany to increase German involvement in UN military operations has met with strong domestic opposition. Yet, following the Constitutional Court ruling of July 1994 permitting the use of German armed forces in international operations, the German government decided to provide up to eight Tornado fighter aircraft specially equipped to seek and destroy anti-aircraft defences, six Tornados for reconnaissance, Breguet Atlantic spotter planes, transport planes and a medical unit for the RRF. The decision was endorsed by the Bundestag on 30 June 1995 by a vote of 386–258–11, that is, 45 more votes than the 341 at its disposal in Parliament.102 Experience has also proved that neutrality is not necessarily an obstacle to the participation of troops from a neutral country in UN peacekeeping operations. On the contrary, neutral states such as Austria, Finland, Sweden or Ireland have traditionally been important contributors to UN operations. In some cases, neutrality may not even be an obstacle to the participation to a collective operation against one or several violators of international law, as demonstrated by Austria putting its territory at the disposal of the US-led coalition against Iraq during the Gulf War. However, neutrality is clearly an obstacle to the provision of troops for enforcement purposes or for any mission which require rules of engagement going beyond self-defence. The Law on the Army of Switzerland, for instance, stipulates that the Federal Council may authorize certain persons to use their weapons for their own protection but not entire contingents of soldiers. This is clearly one of the reasons why the Swiss Confederation declined in February 1996 to

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participate militarily in the Implementation Force in Bosnia and Herzegovina (IFOR), except for only 75 unarmed volunteers with the task to support logistically the efforts of the OSCE, after NATO had made it clear that one of the conditions for the intervention in Bosnia would be that troops be armed and may be allowed to use their weapons.103 Participation of volunteers to a UN ‘Legion’ would potentially be more acceptable to neutral states than a contribution of military units. Brownlie has convincingly argued in favour of a responsibility for preventing volunteers to join the aggressor while permitting volunteers to join the victim state or its allies or take part in enforcement action by the UN, even though the state of origin takes no part in the collective self-defence or peaceenforcement action.104 It also results from the provisions of the Fifth Convention of the Hague of 1907 concerning the Rights and Duties of Neutral Powers and Persons in Case of Land War, in its Articles 4, 5, and 6, that the neutral state should not facilitate the formation of volunteer corps. It is, however, an obligation of means, not of results. Article 6 of the Convention in particular stipulates that the responsibility of the neutral state is not engaged when isolated individuals cross the border to place themselves at the service of a belligerent.105 In this regard, the legislative basis for participation of a neutral state such as Austria or Sweden in United Nations peacekeeping operations is extremely interesting, as it demonstrates that the recruitment of individual volunteers – whether servicemen, reservists, or others persons – can be a way to by-pass the constitutional limitations concerning the deployment and use of military forces abroad resulting from either sanctions imposed after the Second World War or permanent neutrality. When Austria began to take part in UN operations in the Congo and Cyprus, neither the Constitution nor the defence legislation contained any provision for such deployments. In order to by-pass the constitution, the Republic concluded special contracts with the members of the contingents that were considered not as units of the Federal Army but as volunteer contingents of the Republic. The Austrian Constitutional Law of 30 June 1965 on the Sending of Austrian Units for Assistance Abroad at the Request of International Organization and the Federal Law of 14 July 1965 on the Sending of Members of the Federal Army for Assistance Abroad (FAA) authorized the government to respond to requests for assistance made by an international organization by sending abroad a unit constituted by voluntary enlistment. The enlisted volunteers could be either members of the Federal Army, members of the security forces of the Republic or persons ‘who have committed themselves contractually to serve in a given operation’. Members of the Austrian contingent part of the FAA were to conclude special contracts defining their rights and

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obligations, while public servants would receive a leave of absence for the duration of their service. A proclamation inviting voluntary enlistment could be issued after the Federal government, acting in agreement with the Main Committee of the National Council, had responded positively to a request for assistance. The law, while excluding the setting up of a permanent force, also made impossible the appointment of an active battalion to function as a UN battalion, which makes it clearly different from traditional arrangements. In this sense, it provided for a real UN volunteer force, although not established on a permanent basis. As it was recognized that the procedure would involve very long periods for the actual setting up of the unit, servicemen and reservists were invited to state their readiness to volunteer for such a unit in advance, so as to constitute the basis for the actual setting up of the unit if necessary. However, delays were thought to be considerably reduced by the fact that two-thirds of the volunteers were active servicemen.106 The system envisaged by Sweden is close to the Austrian concept of volunteer enlistment. The Swedish Stand-by Force for Service with the United Nations was established by a Government Bill approved by the Swedish Parliament on 8 May 1964. The provisions of the Government Bill were incorporated in a ‘Royal Decree on a Swedish Stand-by Force with the United Nations’ of 13 January 1967. The Force was to be constituted of 1,600 men, ‘all volunteers’. It was conceived as a ‘special entity set up and organized exclusively for use in connection with United Nations peacekeeping activities’ although the Swedish Army was expected to ‘render assistance in many forms for recruitment, training and organization of the Force’. A number of aspects of such service under the Swedish stand-by force attests to the its volunteer character: it was provided, in particular, that an employer had no right to discharge a member of the force that is called for service, that government employees serving with the force would be given a leave of absence during the duration of service.107 Indeed, to make sense, the setting up of the UN ‘Legion’ would, in turn, call for a number of improvements in the UN system of intervention. For the force to be efficiently used, the UN would have to develop complementary capabilities it is currently lacking. The Department of Peacekeeping Operation was divided into an Office of Operations, responsible for day-to-day executive direction of peacekeeping operations, and an Office of Planning and Support responsible for all technical matters, including staffing, finance, logistics and procurement. A Mission Planning Service has been established to design integrated plans for complex, multi-dimensional operations in coordination with other departments. The 24-hour Situation Centre has been established, as well as the nucleus of a Policy and Analysis

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Unit, a small Training Unit and a Lessons Learnt Unit. An earlier attempt, in 1993, to establish a Department of Peace Operations (DPO), with a mandate to cover peacekeeping, peacemaking, electoral or humanitarian operations, failed.108 An adequate command structure, other than the present Situation Room in the Department of Peace-keeping Operations in New York, would be necessary. According to Article 47 of the UN Charter, the Military Staff Committee ‘advise and assist the Security Council on all questions relating to the Security Council requirements for the maintenance of international peace and security, the employment and command of forces placed at its disposal’. The Military Staff Committee, which has remained since 1948 ‘a meaningless ritual kept in notional existence for the sake of form’,109 should be reactivated. As observed by Richard Connaughton: It is incongruous to maintain fully staffed headquarters in a central region where it has been agreed that minimal prospects of general conflict exist, while the one organization legally empowered to deploy forces is embarrassed by a poverty of military support staff.110 Adequate intelligence gathering structures and early warning mechanisms would, in particular, be essential for rapid reaction and preventative deployment. The former UN commander in Rwanda, Canadian General Roméo Dallaire, who had been warned months in advance of the threat of an organized genocide by moderate military officers connected to the former Hutu government, acknowledged that the UN nad neither the intelligencegathering structures nor the mandate to corroborate such allegations. According to Dallaire, ‘the UNAMIR force took several casualties simply because the Force was literally blind and deaf in the field’. To remedy this situation, he proposed ensuring access to real-time information (through satellite imagery and UAVs) and an effective intelligence centre in New York, supported by some of the major information agencies of the world, with trained officers to be deployed to the field.111 To be projected, the force would need sufficient equipment, storage capacity and bases to be made available other than the only existing prepositioned facility in Brindisi, Italy. Direct recruitment could also significantly affect the nature of command and control, as nations tend to insist on retaining ultimate authority when they commit their own forces. This would presumably not be the case with a volunteer force, except for the dependency resulting from air or logistical support the force might receive from specific Member States.

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Long-Term Relevance What makes the idea perhaps more than ever up to date, relevant, and even necessary is the evolution of the UN military objectives, now encompassing not only the traditional defence of security interests of states – that is, against international aggression – in a classical system of collective security in order to deal with aggressions between states, but also the defence of the security of individuals and human rights in internal situations where states may have no direct or vital interest in intervening. To get out of the contradiction, the UN has very few options. Going back, and sticking to a more traditional interpretation of international peace and security, would perhaps have the advantage of clarifying what the UN can be expected to do and what it will not do. However, it would mean the return to a cynicism totally at odds with the evolution of the international community. If it is true that the most significant feature of the international responses in recent years has been the growing willingness of the international community to address emergencies within the borders of war-torn states, and if the trend towards humanitarian military intervention reflects the deeply held values of democratic populations, then it would undoubtedly be, from a moral as well as a legal point of view, an unthinkable regression. To achieve the necessary ‘limited intervention’ and avoid the criticism of double standards, inefficiency and lack of neutrality, the UN has two options: a ‘realistic’ one, as suggested by the Secretary-General himself, and by commentators such as Roberts, would be to become even more selective in humanitarian military intervention. Indeed, the importance of self-interest is relative, and some have therefore recommended policies based on ‘humanitarian realism’, taking into account the interests of states that, in some cases, may coincide with higher norms. This would, however, mean taking the risk of increased criticism for ‘double standards’ and partiality. As warned earlier by former Secretary-General Pérez de Cuellar, as with all fundamental principles, the principle of protection of human rights cannot be invoked in some cases and ignored in other cases. While governments may take such a risk, the UN cannot.

NOTES 1. J. Preston, ‘The UN Faces Crisis of Credibility’, Guardian Weekly, 7 February 1993, p. 17 (reprinted from the Washington Post). 2. W. Pfaff, ‘Should the United Nations Be Taken Seriously?’, International Herald Tribune, 8 December 1992, p. 4. 3. J. Bone, ‘Stretched to the Limit’, The Times, 18 September 1989. 4. B. Urquhart, ‘The United Nations Capacity for Peace Enforcement’, Intervention by Brian Urquhart at the Conference ‘An International Agenda for the 21st Century: The

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Role of Canada, Winnipeg, 12–14 May 1994, p. 2. 5. ‘Outspoken General Pulled Out of Sarajevo – Senior Belgian Officer Had Complained about Inability to Intervene’, International Herald Tribune, 5 January 1994, pp. 1, 6. 6. B. Boutros-Ghali. ‘Empowering the United Nations’, p. 93. 7. B. Urquhart, ‘For a U.N. Volunteer Force’, p. 4 (emphasis added). 8. P. Wallensteen and M. Sollenberg, ‘After the Cold War: Emerging Patterns of Armed Conflicts 1989–1994’, Journal of Peace Research, 32, 3 (1995), pp. 345–60. 9. Defined by Wallensteen and Sollenberg as: where there are more than 1,000 battlerelated deaths recorded during the course of the conflict, and where between 25 and 1,000 deaths occurred in that particular year. 10. Defined by Wallensteen and Sollenberg as: where there are more than 1,000 battlerelated deaths during one particular year. 11. B. Boutros-Ghali, ‘On the way Toward a Workable International System’, International Herald Tribune, 2 November 1994. S. Duke, ‘The United Nations and Intra-State Conflict’, International Peacekeeping (London), 1, 4 (1994), p. 378. O. Pellicer, ‘Succès et faiblesses de l’action récente des Nations Unies en matière de sécurité internationale’, Revue Internationale de Sciences Sociales, 144 (June 1995), p. 343. 12. ‘Supplement to an Agenda for Peace: Position Paper of the Secretary-General on the Occasion of the Fiftieth Anniversary of the United Nations’, GA, 50th Sess., Report of the Secretary-General on the Work of the Organization, A/50/60, S/1995/1, 3 January 1995, para. 11. 13. P. Daillier, ‘L’action de l’ONU: Elargissement et diversification de l’intervention des Nations Unies’, in Le Chapitre VII de la Charte des Nations Unies, Colloque de Rennes (Paris: A. Pedone, 1995), p. 124. M. W. Zacker, International Conflict and Collective Security, 1946–1971 (New York: Praeger, 1978); pp. 21–93. E. Haas, ‘Regime Decay: Conflict Management and International Organizations, 1945–1981’, International Organization, 37 (Spring 1983), pp. 8–9, 198. P. Wallensteen and Margareta Sollenberg, ‘After the Cold War’, pp. 345–60. ‘SIPRI Annual Report’, International Peacekeeping News, 2, 23 (1996), p. 23. H. Wiseman, ‘The United Nations and International Peacekeeping’, pp. 264–5. 14. ‘Boutros-Ghali Speaks Out’, Time, 1 August 1994, p. 19. B. Boutros-Ghali, ‘On the way Toward a Workable International System’, International Herald Tribune, 2 November 1994. 15. V. Petrovsky,‘The Increasing Relevance of International Humanitarian Law in the Work of the United Nations’, address by Mr V. Petrovsky, United Nations Under-SecretaryGeneral, Director-General of the United Nations Office at Geneva, at the International Symposium ‘The UN and Humanitarian Law’, Geneva, 19 October 1995, p. 7. See ‘Strengthening of the United Nations System Capacity for Conflict Prevention’, report prepared by H. L. Hernandez and S. Kuyama, Joint Inspection Unit, United Nations, Geneva, 1995, p. vii. D. Levinson, ‘Ethnic Conflict’, Peace Review, 6, 1 (1994), pp. 3–8. 16. ‘Criticism over Humanitarian Effort’, Reuter News Report Ref. 950524.094, 23 May 1995, International Peacekeeping News, 9 (May 1995). 17. ‘New Dimensions of International Peace-keeping Operations’, Report of the Tokyo Symposium 19–20 January 1995, keynote address by Brian Urquhart, International Peace Academy and United Nations University, 1995, p. 12. 18. I. Carlsson, ‘Roles for the United Nations in International Security After the Cold War’, Security Dialogue, 26, 1 (1995), p. 13. 19. J.-M. Sorel, ‘L’élargissement de la menace contre la paix’, Le Chapitre VII de la Charte

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des Nations Unies (Paris: Pédone, 1995), p. 40. 20. M. Bettati, Le droit d’ingérence, mutation de l’ordre international (Paris: Editions Odile Jacob, 1996), p. 382. 21. See D. Weissbrodt and Peggy L. Hicks, ‘Implementation of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law in Situations of Armed Conflict’, International Review of the Red Cross, 293 (March–April 1993), pp. 120–38. 22. A. Dowty and G. Loescher, ‘Refugee Flows as Grounds for International Action’, International Security, 21, 1 (1996), pp. 45, 58. 23. Transcript of press conference by Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali held at headquarters on 5 January 1995, Press Release Secretary-General/SM/5518, 5 January 1995, p. 10. 24. B. Boutros-Ghali. ‘An Agenda for Peace: One Year Later’, p. 326. Y. Sandoz, ‘The Establishment of Safety Zones for Persons Displaced within their Country of Origin’, report by Yves Sandoz, Director, Principles, Law and Relations with the Movement, International Committee of the Red Cross, Geneva, Multi-choice Conference on International Legal Issues arising under the United Nations Decade of International Law, Doha, Qatar, 22–25 March 1994, p. 19. 25. See I. Brownlie, ‘Humanitarian Intervention’, in J. N. Moore (ed.), Law and Civil War in the Modern World (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1974), p. 217. M. J. Mazarr, ‘The Dilemmas of Humanitarian Intervention’, Security Dialogue, 24, 2 (1993), p. 152. For an overview of what the UN has done in practice in the field of providing humanitarian relief or protecting human rights, see inter alia: P. Fitfoot, ‘Functions and Powers, and Inventions: United Nations Action in Respect of Human Rights and Humanitarian Intervention’, in N. Rodley (ed.), To Lose the Bands of Wickedness. International Intervention in Defence of Human Rights, David Davies, Memorial Institute (London: Brassey’s, 1992), pp. 133–61. M. Heuze. ‘No Aid without Protection: An International Responsibility’, Crosslines Global Report, 2, 4–5 (1994), p. 28. 26. For a comparative analysis of the various methods, see B. Posen, ‘Military Responses to Refugee Disasters’, International Security, 21, 1, pp. 72–111. 27. J. de Galindez, ‘Le nouveau principe de l’intervention collective et la doctrine du Père Vitoria’, Revue Générale de Droit International Public, 3rd Serie, t. 22–55 (1951), p. 121. 28. S. Vieira de Mello, ‘Humanitarian Aspects of Peacekeeping’, in Daniel Warner (ed.), New Dimensions of Peacekeeping (Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff, 1995), p. 139. See also: S. Vieira de Mello, ‘Humanitarian and Military Interface in Peace-keeping, Cambodia and Bosnia-Herzegovina: A Comparative Overview’, Symposium on Humanitarian Action and Peace-keeping Operations, Geneva 22–24 June 1994, report ed. by Umesh Palwankar, International Committee of the Red Cross, Geneva, 1994, p. 19. 29. J. Pérez de Cuellar, Report of the Secretary-General on the Work of the Organization, 1991. DPI/1168-40924-September 1991-3M (New York: UN, 1991), p. 14. 30. ‘Supplement to an Agenda for Peace’, para. 43. 31. S/26337/Add. 1 of 23 August 1993. ‘Implementation of the Peace Agreement for Bosnia and Herzegovina’, non-paper, United Nations, New York, 30 September 1993, p. 6. 32. ‘Chirac Comments on Role for the United Nations’, International Peacekeeping News, 11 (August 1995), p. 31. 33. T. Kurzidem, ‘Stand-by Arrangements – A Way Out of the Crisis in United Nations Peacekeeping?’, International Peacekeeping, 2, 1 (1994/5), pp. 8–9. A/47/965-S/25944;

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34.

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36.

37.

38.

39.

A UN ‘Legion’: Between Utopia and Reality para. 29. A/48/403-S/26450; para. 14–17. S/1994/777, para. 2. S/24728. ‘Une proposition adoptée à l’unanimité recommande aux Etats Membres la création d’unités d’intervention rapide’, Le Monde, 31 October 1992, p. 4. B. Boutros-Ghali, ‘An Agenda for Peace: One Year Later’, p. 327. B. Boutros-Ghali, ‘UN Peace-keeping in a New Era: a New Chance for Peace’, The World Today, April 1993, p. 69. ‘Security Council Sets out Factors to be Considered in Establishing United Nations Peace-keeping Operations’, Presidential Statement After Examining Secretary-General’s Report on Improving Organization’s Peace-keeping Capacity, SC, 3372nd Mtg (night), S/5837, 3 May 1994, p. 3. ‘Improving the Capacity of the United Nations for Peace-keeping’, Report of the Secretary-General, A/48/403 – S/26450, p. 5. Basic Documents, pp. 265– 81. UN Secretary-General’s Annual Report on the Work of the Organization, A/49/1, September 1994. ‘Stand-by Arrangements for Peacekeeping’, Report of the SecretaryGeneral, S/1994/777, 30 June 1994, para. 6. Report of the Secretary-General on Standby Arrangements for Peace-keeping Operations, 10 November 1995, S/1995/943. UN Press Release PKO/36, 5 January 1995/UN Press Release Secretary-General/ SM/5518 5 January 1995. ‘Western Troops for Stand-by Force’, International Peacekeeping News, 9 (May 1995), p. 40. Statement Issued by the Department of Peacekeeping Operations, PKO/47. Progress Report of the Secretary-General on Standby Arrangements for Peace-keeping, 24 December 1996, S/1996/1067; para. 3–4. ‘Member States Participating in the United Nations Standby Arrangements System’, UN, DPKO, Rev. 20 December 2001. ‘Improving the Capacity of the United Nations for Peace-keeping’, para. 14. ‘Stand-by Arrangements for Peacekeeping’, Report of the Secretary-General, S/1994/777, 30 June 1994, para. 7. ‘Lack of Interest in Stand-by Force’, International Peacekeeping News, 10 (Summer 1995), p. 7. ‘Security Council Invites Member States to Provide Information on Elements They Might Make Available for Peace-keeping Stand-by Arrangements’, SC, 3609th Mtg (Night), 19 December 1995, S/6146. ‘Supplement to an Agenda for Peace’, para. 43. A/41/56, 19 December 1985, in Basic Documents, pp. 280–1. Secretary-General/ 2010/Rev. 1*, PKO/22/Rev. 1*, 22 June 1994. R. Siekmann, ‘The Dutch Participation in United Nations Peacekeeping Operations’, International Peacekeeping, 2, 1 (1994/5), p. 8. ‘Improving the Capacity of the United Nations for Peace-keeping’, para. 14. B. BoutrosGhali. ‘Empowering the United Nations’, p. 93. A report on the feasibility and costeffectiveness of a reserve stock was submitted to the General Assembly on 30 October 1990. A/45/Add. 1. Report on Progress Made on Stand-by Arrangement, S/1995/943. B. Urquhart, ‘New Dimensions of United Nations Peace-keeping Operations’, keynote address, Report of the Tokyo Symposium, 19–20 January 1995, International Peace Academy & United Nations University, 1995; pp. 14–15. IPS, Ref. No. 941205.100, 29 November 1995, International Peacekeeping News, 4 (December 1994), p. 4. ‘Faute de Mieux, L’ONU recourt à l’armée de Mobutu pour protéger les Rwandais’, Journal de Genève & Gazette de Lausanne, 27 (2 February 1995), p. 1. C. Morand, ‘Rackets, pillages et viols: une armée qui s’illustre par ses exactions’, Journal de Genève & Gazette de Lausanne, 27, 2 February 1995, p. 3. ‘Zaire Completes Deployment’, International Peacekeeping News, 8 (April 1995), p. 13. ‘Supplement to an Agenda for Peace’, para. 43. See also: S/1994/777, 30 June 1994. Report on Progress Made on Stand-by Arrangements, S/1995/943. S. Kinzer, ‘A Tear for Rwandans, and a Helpless Shrug. Europeans Deplore the Slaughter But are

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Unwilling to Risk Troops’, International Herald Tribune, 26 May 1994, p. 1. 40. ‘Can It Keep the Peace?’, The Economist, 21 October 1995, p. 18. 41. ‘United Nations Stand-by Arrangements for Peace-keeping: A Multinational United Nations Stand-Force High Readiness Brigade’, non-paper, Chief of Defence, Denmark, 25 January 1995. ‘Western Troops for Stand-by Force’, International Peacekeeping News, 9 (May 1995), p. 40. ‘Problems with United Nations Standing Army’, International Peacekeeping News, 11 (August 1995), p. 31. 42. Capt. E. J. Dennehy, Lt.-Col. W. J. Doll, Capt. G. P. Harper, Lt.-Col. S. M. Speakes and Lt.-Col. F. A. Treyz, A Blue Helmet Combat Force, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government, National Security Program, Policy Analysis Paper 9301, 1993. See also USN Capt. Gregory P. Harper, ‘Creating a U.N. Peace Enforcement Force: A Case for U.S. Leadership’, FFWA, Winter/Spring 1994; pp. 49–63. 43. Towards a Rapid Reaction Capability, p. 63. 44. Col. R. Connaughton, ‘Military Intervention and United Nations Peacekeeping’, in N. Rodley (ed.), To Lose the Bands of Wickedness, p. 194. 45. Vice-Amiral d’Escadre Labouerie, ‘La Crise Vue par le militaire sur le terrain’, Sécurité collective et crises internationales, Actes des Journées d’Etudes de Toulon (Paris: La Documentation Française, May 1994), p. 117. 46. Y. Sandoz, ‘The Establishment of the Safety Zones’, p. 25. 47. Lt.-Gen. G. Hägglund, ‘Peace-keeping in a Modern War Zone’, Survival, 32, 3 (1990), p. 236. Lt.-Gen. L. E. Wahlgren, ‘Operational Tasks of Peace-keeping Troops’, Symposium on Humanitarian Action and Peace-keeping Operation, pp. 14–15. C. Brady and S. Daws, ‘United Nations Operations: The Political–Military Interface’, International Peacekeeping, 1, 1 (1994), p. 70. F. Bonnard, ‘A United Nations Command for a New Force’, International Herald Tribune, 4 March 1993, p. 4. 48. Lt.-Gen. J. M. Sanderson, ‘UNTAC: Debriefing and Lessons – The Military Component View’, International Peacekeeping, 2, 2–3 (1995), p. 33. Concerning UNIFIL and the Multinational Force in Lebanon (MNF): M. Heiberg and J. J. Holst, ‘Peacekeeping in Lebanon. Comparing UNIFIL and the MNF’, Survival, 28, 5 (1986), p. 417. Similar behaviour was observed in the former Yugoslavia, as recalled by Lt.-Gen. S. Nambiar, first Force Commander of UNPROFOR: Lt.-Gen. S. Nambiar, ‘United Nations Operations in Former Yugoslavia: Some Reflections’, UNIDIR Newsletter, 24 (December 1993), p. 18. 49. M. Defourneaux, ‘Force des Armes, Force des Hommes’, Défense Nationale (April 1995), p. 68. M. Voelckel, ‘La coordination des forces de l’ONU dans le cadre du Chapitre VII’, Le Chapitre VII de la Charte des Nations Unies, pp. 187–9. M. Berdal, ‘The United Nations System of Command and Control of Peacekeeping Operations’, International Spectator, 31, 1 (1996), p. 15. 50. S. Carlos, ‘Demain des Mercenaires’, La Vanguardia, excerpts reproduced in Courrier International, 278, 29 February–6 March 1996, p. 11. 51. J. P. Laugier, ‘Les Volontaires internationaux’, Revue Générale de Droit International Public, 3rd Serie, t. 37/70, 1966, pp. 77–8. See, inter alia, a very critical press description: D. Van Atta, ‘Les dérapages de l’ONU, enlisement et compromissions’, Reader’s Digest Selection, November 1995, pp. 13–14; M. O’Kane, E. Luce and I. Black, ‘United Nations Promise To Stamp Out Corruption Among Troops in Bosnia’, Guardian Weekly, 27 August 1993, p. 1. ‘Are United Nations Troops Exploiting Bosnians? United Nations Takes a Look’, International Herald Tribune, 27 August 1993, p. 2. ‘Le Général Loridon dénonce “les restos du coeur” de l’ONU’, Le Monde, 15 juillet 1993, p. 4.

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in Progress, 14, 3 (1995), p. 3. B. d’ Erveau and L.-M. Jeanney, ‘The United Nations: Ineffectual and Inert’, Crosslines Global Report, 2, 4–5 (1994), p. 34. B. M. Blechman, ‘The Intervention Dilemma’, Washington Quarterly, 18, 3 (1995), p. 70. J.-M. Coicaud, ‘L’ONU peut-elle assurer la paix?’, Le Trimestre du Monde, 4th Trimestre (1995), p. 52. B. Boutros-Ghali. ‘An Agenda for Peace: One Year Later’, p. 327. D. A. Leurdijk (ed.), ‘ A United Nations Rapid Deployment Brigade’, p. 6. B. V. Röling, ‘The Concept of Security and the Function of National Armed Power’, in A. Cassese (ed.), The Current Legal Regulation of the Use of Force (Dordrecht, London, Lancaster: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1986), pp. 283–322. J. Goodby, ‘Collective Security in Europe after the Cold War’, Journal of International Affairs, 46, 2 (1993), p. 319. Dr J. Voorhoeve, ‘Participation in Peace Operations’, NATO on Track for the 21st Century, Conference Report, NATO, 40th General Assembly, 24–29 October 1994 (The Hague: Netherlands Atlantic Commission; 1995), p. 47. M. Kinkade, ‘Shalikashvili Steps Down’, The Stars and Stripes, 52, 187 (1993), p. 1. H. Kissinger, ‘Humanitarian Intervention has its Hazards’, International Herald Tribune, 14 December 1992. Defence Daily, 23 February 1995. S. Duke, ‘The United Nations and Intra-State Conflict’, p. 379. G. Holleufer, ‘For the Best or Against the Worst?’, Red Cross, Red Crescent, 3 (1995), p. 21. ‘Somalie – Un constat sévère de l’ancien Commandant des troupes de l’ONU’, Le Monde, 20 January 1994, p. 5. M. Kinkade, ‘Shalikashvili Steps Down’. J. T. Howe, ‘The United States and United Nations in Somalia’, Washington Quarterly, 18, 3, Summer 1995, p. 50. N. Biegman, ‘We Can’t Do Without It’, Global Rights, Autumn 1995, p. 7. F. T. Liu, ‘Using Force: When and Where – The Job of the Blue Helmets’, Work in Progress, 14, 3 (1995), p. 4. An expression used by Haas to describe the unfair criticism of the United Nations Organization by Member States for failing to manage conflicts during the Cold War. E. Haas, ‘The Collective Management’, p. 3. Le Monde, 25 May 1994, p. 1. A. Schlesinger, ‘America and the World: Isolationism Resurgent?’, Second Louis Nizer Lecture on Public Policy, 1996, p. 32. A. Parsons, ‘A United Nations Volunteer Force – The Prospects’, New York Review of Books, 15 July 1993, p. 56. J. Gerlach, ‘A U.N. Army for the New World Order?’, Orbis, 37, 2, Spring 1993, p. 227. See, inter alia: G. Vivalta, Les casques bleus – Une nouvelle fonction pour les armées nationales? (Paris: Les Sept Epées, 1977), p. 118 (Cahiers de la Fondation pour les Etudes de Défense Nationale, 6). A. Dumoulin, ‘De nouvelles valeurs pour nos armées’, Le Vif/L’Express, 24 juillet 1992. Gen. C. Le Borgne, ‘Que mettra-t’on, soldat, sur ta tombe?’, Interventions armées et causes humanitaires (Paris: L’Harmattan, 1993), p. 34 (Cultures and Conflict series, 11) (author’s translation). G. Nicholas, ‘Victimes ou Martyrs’, Interventions armées et causes humanitaires, p. 145. See R. I. Rotberg and T. G. Weiss, From Massacres to Genocide, the Media, Public Policy, and Humanitarian Crises (Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution, 1996). F. R. Tesón, Humanitarian Intervention: An Inquiry into Law and Morality (New York:

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Transnational Publishers, 1988), p. 148. 85. See, inter alia: L. Minear, ‘Human Values are at Stake in Rwanda’, Christian Science Monitor, 28 October 1994, p. 19. T. G. Weiss, ‘United Nations Security Forces in Support of Human Values’, Proceedings on the Eighty-eighth Annual Meeting of the American Society of International Law, American Society of International Law, Washington, DC, 6–9 April 1994, pp. 329–36. 86. L. Ferry, L’homme-dieu ou le sens de la vie (Paris: Bernard Grasset, 1996), p. 123. 87. G. Danikër, The Guardian Soldier: On the Nature and Use of Future Armed Forces (New York and Geneva: UNIDIR, 1995), p. 77 (Research Paper, 36). 88. W. Foote (ed.), The Servant of Peace, a selection of speeches and statements of Dag Hammarskjöld, Secretary-General of the United Nations (London: The Bodley Head, 1962), p. 23. 89. P. J. Ilsley, Enhancing the Volunteer Experience. New Insights on Strengthening Volunteer Participation, Learning and Commitment (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1990), p. 12. 90. M. Defourneaux, ‘Force des Armes, Force des Hommes’, p. 65. 91. S. Lodgaard, contribution to the workshop on ‘Using Force to Keep the Peace’, Institute of International Studies, University of California at Berkeley, 20–21 March 1995. 92. L. Fabian, ‘Soldiers without Enemies: Preparing the United Nations for Peacekeeping’ (Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution, 1971), p. 251. 93. J. C. Beilstein, ‘The Role of Women in United Nations Peace-keeping’, Women 2000, 1, 1995, p. 2. 94. Gen. J. M. Sanderson, ‘International Humanitarian Law and the Role of Military Establishments’, speech to Australian Red Cross Regional Conference by Lt.-Gen. J. M. Sanderson, ADSC, Canberra, 12–14 December 1994, p. 5. ‘In Cambodia, there was a very wide divergence in the human rights culture of the troops involved, requiring much effort to unify the approach across the Force. In some cases, the governments concerned offered no help, rendering the task even more difficult.’ Ibid., p. 17. See also: Lt.-Gen. L. E. Wahlgren, ‘Operational Tasks of Peace-keeping Troops’, pp. 14–15. 95. For a discussion of the comparative advantages of the heterogeneous and homogeneous models, see H. V. Dicks, ‘National Loyalty, Identity, and the International Soldiers’, in L. P. Bloomfield (ed.), ‘International Force – A Symposium’, International Organization, 17, 2 (1963), pp. 437–9. 96. See Volunteers against Conflict, ed. by UNV in collaboration with the Humanitarianism and War Project of the Thomas J. Watson Jr. Institute for International Studies, Brown University (Tokyo: United Nations University Press, 1996), p. 236. 97. G. Evans, Cooperating for Peace, The Global Agenda of the 1990s and Beyond (St Leonards, Australia: Allen & Unwin, 1993), p. 165. 98. A. Bennet and J. Lepgold, ‘Reinventing Collective Security after the Cold War and Gulf Conflict’, Political Science Quarterly, 108, 2, 1993, p. 230. ‘Les Législations Allemandes et Japonaises’, Le Maintien de la Paix, Centre Québequois de Relations Internationales, Bulletin 6 (November 1993), International Peacekeeping News, 11 (August 1995), p. 37. ‘Japan to Send Troops to UNDOF’, International Peacekeeping News, 11 (August 1995), p. 24. KNS, 2 September 1994, Ref. No. 940905.087, International Peacekeeping News, 2 (October 1994). KNS, Ref. No. 940909.053, September 1994, International Peacekeeping News, 2 (October 1994), p. 14. ‘SDF and US to Cooperate in PKOs’, International Peacekeeping News, 11 (August 1995), p. 25. Kyodo News Service, Ref. No. 941031.161, 28 October 1994, International Peacekeeping

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News, 3 (November 1994), p. 7. 99. A. G. Katzin, ‘Collective Security: The Work of the Collective Measures Committee’, p. 212. 100. ‘Disposition of Japanese Troops’, New York Times, 2 March 1951, p. 24. 101. ‘The Use of Force in Peace-keeping Operations’, New Dimensions of United Nations Peace-keeping Operation, Report of the Tokyo Symposium, 19–20 January 1995, International Peace Academy and United Nations University, 1995, p. 26. See T. Shinyo, ‘The Conditions of Permanent Membership in the UN Security Council’, Japan Echo Summer, 21, 2 (1994), pp. 57–66. Keessing’s Record of World Events, June 1992, p. 38963. Keessing’s Record of World Events, September 1992, p. 39097. KNS, Ref. No. 940831.028, 30 August 1994, International Peacekeeping News, 2 (October 1994), p. 4. KNS, 20 September 1994, Ref. No. 940926.157, International Peacekeeping News, 2 (October 1994), p. 7. See ‘Basic Guidelines for Japan’s Participation in Peace-keeping Forces’ (the so-called five principles) in Defence of Japan. White Paper originally published by the Defence Agency, Japan, in July 1995, and translated into English by Japan Times Ltd. with the permission of the Defence Agency for wider distribution, Japan, 1995, p. 99 and ss.) ‘The Search for a World Policeman’ (Editorial) Japan Times, 25 July 1994. 102. International Peacekeeping News, 11 (August 1995), p. 37. 103. J.-F. Gribinski, ‘L’Union Européenne face aux défis de la neutralité’, Défense Nationale, January 1996, p. 99. J.-M. Crevoisier and R. Krimm, ‘Bérets bleus: la Suisse tergiverse et renonce’, Journal de Genève & Gazette de Lausanne, 1 February 1996, p. 1. 104. I. Brownlie. ‘Volunteers, War and Neutrality’, International and Comparative Law Quarterly, 5, 4 (1956), p. 575. 105. J. P. Laugier, ‘Les Volontaires internationaux’, Revue Générale de Droit International Public, 3rd Serie, t. 37/70 (1966), pp. 80, 85. 106. Basic Documents, p. 266. 107. Memorandum Concerning the Swedish Stand-by Force for Service with the United Nations, Basic Documents, pp. 278–9. 108. M. Berdal, ‘The United Nations System of Command and Control of Peacekeeping Operations’, International Spectator, 31, 1 (1996), pp. 13–24. 109. E. Grove, ‘United Nations Armed Forces and the Military Staff Committee, A Look Back’, International Security, 17, 4 (1993), p. 181. 110. R. Connaughton, ‘Military Intervention and United Nations Peacekeeping’, p. 194. 111. Maj.-Gen. R. A. Dallaire and Capt. B. Poulin, ‘United Nations Reforms in Light of the Rapid Reaction Capability Study’, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) documentary ‘Rwanda, Autopsy of a Genocide’, see Reuter, Ref. 94113a.065, 29 November 1994. International Peacekeeping News, 4 (December 1994), p. 3. International Peacekeeping (The Hague), 2, 6 (1995), p. 135. See also ‘The International Response to Conflict and Genocide: Lessons from the Rwanda Experience’, Joint Evaluation of Emergency Assistance to Rwanda, Study 2, Early Warning and Conflict Management, David Milwood (ed.), Copenhagen, March 1996. On Dallaire, see S. Steel, ‘Eye of the Storm’, Maclean’s, 107, 23 (6 June 1994), pp. 58–9.

SEVEN

Why Not?

The anti-United Nations campaign has reached the point of lunacy in those parts of our land where militiamen anxiously scan the sky to defend their homes and guns against black UN helicopters they believe are about to descend upon them, destroy American freedom, and impose world government. Arthur M. Schlesinger, Second Louis Nizer Lecture on Public Policy, 1996

If it can, in effect, be considered a potential solution to a real problem, why is the idea so controversial? Why is it not being implemented? Enthusiastically supported by some as a solution, the most recent versions of the idea of a UN ‘Legion’ have been rejected by others as Utopian. When it has not been seen as ‘refreshingly candid’,1 the proposal has been seen as ‘self-defeating’, a ‘contradiction in terms’,2 fraught with ‘dangerous complications’,3 the implementation of which would eventually be ‘counterproductive’.4 Roberts, for his part, came to the conclusion that a standing military force directly under the Security Council ‘may not be the best way to approach the difficult problem of maintaining respect for the United Nations, or even enhancing rapid reaction capability’.5 Others have seen proposals for a UN ‘Legion’ a ‘fiction’ whose long-term feasibility remains unclear.6 Morrisson clearly rejected the idea as ‘attractive but untenable’.7 For Australian Minister Gareth Evans, ‘it would be great if the idea could fly, but I fear it will be as grounded as its 1948 predecessor’.8 Although ‘eminently desirable as a concept’, it would not ‘not appear feasible in the present context’.9 BoutrosGhali, while not rejecting the concept of a UN ‘Legion’ as such, saw in the Member States’ unwillingness to support the idea at the present time a compelling obstacle. Asked why he did not follow Urquhart’s suggestion to create a United Nations permanent military volunteer force, he once replied: ‘I am not against the idea of a Foreign Legion, but the problem is that you must obtain the agreement of the Member States, and for the time being the

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Member States are ready to agree to earmark forces in their national armies, rather than to have a special army for the United Nations.’10

FEAR OF A SUPRANATIONALITY

Objections to the UN ‘Legion’ have naturally been targeted at its two most revolutionary characters as compared to traditional ad hoc UN military forces: its standing character, as a permanent force, and its volunteer character, as a directly recruited force.

Implications of a Permanent Force That the implication is that military force will be put directly at the disposal of an organization on a permanent basis makes Siekmann consider the Dutch Rapid Deployment Brigade proposal ‘unrealistic’ and ‘utopian under present circumstances’.11 Command and Control Political arguments against a UN ‘Legion’ are indeed compelling, as their validity eventually conditions the acceptability by Member States themselves of the proposals. One of the main reasons for the UN ‘Legion’ being seen as a potential alternative to military arrangements under Article 43 of the Charter has been the recurrent illusion that individual recruitment could be more acceptable to states than the provision of national forces on a permanent basis. In fact, one of the most important reasons put forward recently by the USA for opposing the idea of a permanent UN military force has been the constant refusal, as illustrated by US Senate majority leader Robert Dole’s declarations and PDD 25, for placing USA’s own military forces directly under UN command. While acknowledging that, as commander-in-chief, the president has the authority to place US forces under the operational control of a foreign commander when doing so serves the American security interest, PDD 25 underscored the fact that the president will never relinquish command of US forces: The greater the anticipated U.S. military role, the less likely it will be that the United States will agree to have a U.N. commander exercise overall operational control over U.S. forces. Any large scale participation of United States forces in a major peace enforcement operation that is likely to involve combat should therefore ordinarily be conducted under United States command

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A UN ‘Legion’: Between Utopia and Reality and operational control or through competent regional organizations such as NATO or ad-hoc coalitions.12

As explained by Evans, ‘Although current political circumstances are more favourable, there is still substantial resistance by Member States to abrogating their right to national decision making on whether or not to commit military forces to any particular operations.’13 Similarly, when British Defence Minister Malcom Rifkind warned against the creation of a UN standing army, it was on the basis that ‘[f]ew governments are likely to give the United Nations carte blanche over the deployment of their forces’.14 If, as argued by the Secretary-General himself, the special agreements provided for in Article 43 of the Charter is ‘not a question of States being asked or expected to yield control over their own affairs’,15 then a UN ‘Legion’ would be even less so. Not only would the Security Council retain the sole authority to deploy the UN ‘Legion’ and determine its mandate, but, because of direct individual recruitment, Member States would not be required to put their own troops under UN command. According to a poll conducted by the University of Maryland’s International Policy Attitudes Program in 1995, two out of three American voters support peacekeeping in principle and want to see the UN’s ability to intervene in foreign conflicts strengthened, rather than reduced. Forty per cent of the respondents trusted the UN to do what is ‘right’ most of the time, while only half as many trusted the US government to do what is ‘right’ most of the time. Sixty-eight per cent preferred the UN rather than the USA to act in dealing with foreign conflicts. Seventy-six per cent said the UN should become the ‘policeman of the world’.16 Hence also, perhaps, the support the idea of a UN ‘Legion’ has, paradoxically, found in American circles. Fervent supporters of the idea, such as John G. Heidenrich, have already undertaken to carefully explain to US policy-makers that ‘a U.N. legion can be fielded without establishing a full-fledged army, without earmarking U.S. units to the U.N., indeed without even placing U.S. service people under foreign control’.17 It cannot be totally excluded therefore that, in view of more spectacular recent policy reversals, even the USA could in the long run rediscover the virtues of the concept. Since the Second World War, the USA, has historically been the most fervent supporter of the idea of a UN Guard, a UN ‘Legion’ and a UN Peace Force. Furthermore, if sovereignty means the power to draft, it can then be argued that the UN would have sovereignty only when it was capable of conscripting a world army.18 From this perspective, establishing a permanent force, or recruiting individual volunteers, would not necessarily imply an additional level of sovereignty or supranationality. Direct recruitment would

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only be a different way of acquiring military forces, as the Security Council would in any case remain responsible for the setting up, organization and use of the force. Rather than just the fear of its becoming a supranational through the acquisition of a directly recruited force, what makes states reluctant to accept the UN ‘Legion’ is the idea of placing any permanent instrument at the disposal of an oligarchic organization with a potential supranational charater. One may therefore doubt whether the proposal would work, as it is an attempt ‘to get States to agree by the backdoor to what they have never agreed to by the front-door’.19 Clearly, as long as proposals for a standing force – including arrangements envisaged under Article 43 of the UN Charter – are rejected, so will proposals for a UN ‘Legion’. The American UN Legion proposal at the time of the Korean War and the Dutch Rapid Deployment Brigade and Canadian Standing Emergency Group proposals after the Rwandan crisis attest, however, to the fact that, once the advantages and limits of the project are defined, some states may be willing to consider it as a potential solution and to support it in specific historical circumstances. Related to the fear of supranationality, another important concern has been the question of command and control. Because it would increase the power of the Secretary-General, the idea of a UN legion has been presented as raising the spectre of world government which should therefore be rejected, at least for the time being.20 For Gene M. Lyons, ‘[i]t would create a force under direct United Nations control without the intervening level of a national structure which is why Member States may well oppose it’.21 In fact, the Secretary-General’s declarations presenting himself as the ‘Commander in Chief ’ of the UN forces do not in any case reflect the reality of his role – essentially political – as a ‘Chief ’ of UN military forces. The role of the Secretary-General as ‘supreme commander’ of UN forces was developed in practice under the pressure of circumstances, but was not explicitly provided for in the Charter. Ironically enough, it is because Article 43 agreements never materialized that, in 1950, the government of the USA was requested to appoint a commander, and that UNEF was later placed by the General Assembly under overall direction of the Secretary-General. It can even be said that the establishment of a Military Staff Committee composed of representatives of the permanent members of the Security Council would impose a clear limitation on the authority of the SecretaryGeneral as far as command of the forces is concerned.22 The Military Staff Committee is to be composed, under Article 47 of the Charter, of the Chiefs of Staffs of the Permanent Members of the Security Council, who can if necessary invite other Member States to be associated with the Military Staff Committee’s responsibilities.

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A UN ‘Legion’, to serve its purpose, would require a unitary chain of command from the political authority down to the single field commander. It would also require maximum autonomy and should therefore be under the direction of the highest UN political authority, similarly to the Foreign Legion in France or the Special Air Service in the United Kingdom, with possible delegation in some cases. This could be done through a revitalized Military Staff Committee or any other operational committee in permanent session established by the Security Council. Alternatives to the Military Staff Committee have been proposed, such as the establishment of three interrelated and interacting Security Council subsidiary organs and an International Military Support Staff, so as to enable the Security Council to retain political control of the operation it mandates without adversely affecting the operational autonomy of UN military forces.23 Authors such as Frederick Bonnard have looked into ways of improving UN command mechanisms, for instance in the case of a monitoring and enforcement force in the former Yugoslavia.24 Recent technologies, such as the vehicle tracking system used by Task Force 6-502 along the Macedonia–Serbia border during the UN-sponsored Operation Able Sentry, could give commanders better means of battlefield command and control. With the Terrastar-C Portable Model 9806 satellite communications system for use in remote locations, vehicle movements of Operation Able Sentry could be monitored at Skopje and at the brigade’s Emergency Operations Centre in Berlin, more than 1,200 miles away.25 Finally the intermediary command structure could be seconded by specially selected Member States, in the same way as officers in the French Foreign Legion are from regular army careers. This, while once again potentially limiting the autonomy of the force, could contribute to disarm Member States’ opposition. The arguments against giving the UN the means to command an operation with coercive force may also be the expression of an internal resistance within the system itself to perceived militarization of an organization still dominated by the philosophy of ‘peacekeeping’. Boutros-Ghali’s recurrent theme that decision to provide the UN with adequate military means lies with Member States may stem from the unwillingness of the SecretaryGeneral himself to take the necessary radical measures, the mark of a nonmilitary culture, and a sign of the incapacity of a bureaucratic organization to reform itself.26 Financial and Logistical Autonomy The idea of a UN ‘Legion’ is aimed at relieving as much as possible the UN from its dependence on Member States for the setting up of urgent military

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operations. The comparative advantage of the force is therefore directly proportionate to its degree of autonomy from Member States’ politics. The well-known reluctance of Member States, especially the USA, to give the UN – and particularly the Security Council and the Secretary-General – any real autonomy has been a strong reason to doubt the viability of the UN ‘Legion’ project.27 Assuming the UN had a directly recruited force permanently at its disposal, there would remain two potential types of dependence: financial and logistical. From a financial point of view, the problem of the independence of the force is twofold: its cost, and the continuity of its funding. Cost was undoubtedly an important reason for Boutros Boutros-Ghali to put aside his earlier proposals for permanent military forces at the disposal of the Security Council. A standing UN force, he eventually thought, would be ‘too expensive, wasteful and inappropriate for the organization while it is in the process of a vital restructuring exercise aimed at minimising inefficiency and duplication’.28 Hence the Secretary-General’s conclusion in the Supplement to an Agenda for Peace: ‘I believe it is desirable in the long term that the United Nations develop such a capacity, but it would be folly to attempt to do so at the present time when the organization is resource-starved and hard pressed to handle the less demanding peacekeeping responsibilities entrusted to it.’ 29 Cost is also obviously a major concern for Member States, especially in view of the unprecedented financial crisis the UN is undergoing as a result of the increase of the cost of peace operations, donor fatigue, and delays in the payment of financial contributions by Member States. Peacekeeping operations have been an increasingly heavy financial burden for the UN in recent years: ‘the United Nations faces imminent crisis and along with it the risk of collapse of the entire structure of peace that we have been building for half a century’.30 During the first half of 1992 only, there was a fourfold increase in peacekeeping costs – from some US$700 million to about US$2.8 billion.31 In July 1994, peacekeeping operations required not less than US$200 million, notwithstanding reimbursements to troop contributing countries of about US$100 million a month.32 In 1994, the UN’s annual budget for peacekeeping was US$3.6 billion, and was to remain about the same in 1995.33 ‘The chief problem from my point of view is one of education,’ said Boutros Ghali. ‘The same member states that were prepared to spend US$100 billion every day to sustain the Cold War are not willing to spend US$100 billion or US$200 billion to sustain the U.N. system.’34 Whether or not the financial problem could be overcome by ‘educating’ Member States, as suggested by the Secretary-General, remains to be demonstrated. This ‘donor fatigue’ has taken an extreme form in increasingly

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prolonged delays by Member States in meeting their financial obligations regarding peacekeeping operations. Only nine Member States had fully paid their obligations to UNTAC four months after the operation was set up.35 As of 30 June 1994, unpaid assessments for peacekeeping operations mandated by the Security Council exceeded US$2,100 million.36 As a result, the UN was not able to pay Member States on time for contributing with contingents of troops. The risk is high of those states that cannot afford to wait one year or more before being paid of withdrawing their troops. This would result in increased uncertainty over the ability of the UN to carry out a military operation as planned. It would also affect the multinational dimension of the organization, especially representation from the developing world. It should be noted that delays in payment of contributions bring additional difficulties to an already extremely complicated and slow process, including collecting the funds and getting approval of the Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions. The whole process takes three to four months, from the Council pronouncing a decision to the soldiers landing.37 The consequences of such a situation on the rapid deployment capacity of the UN are extremely serious. Against this background, the UN ‘Legion’ has paradoxically been described, even by its supporters, as an expensive option. Experts generally agree on a start-up cost of not less than US$500 million, to which should be added from US$200 to 550 million annually for a strength of between 5,000 and 10,000 soldiers. The Netherlands government’s estimate for a Rapid Deployment Brigade of 5,000 was US$300 million, plus US$500/550 million for initial procurement of equipment. In the event of savings realized by close functional links with individual Member States or a regional security organization the minimum cost would be around US$200/250 million. The International Working Group on the Future of the United Nations estimated for its part that a force of 10,000 would cost around US$500 million annually plus one-time start-up cost of US$500 million. The cost of the UN ‘Legion’ should be compared with current national military expenditures, and also to the humanitarian relief assistance expenses the force could save. Member States have spent an average of US$1.4 on peacekeeping for every US$1,000 on their own armed forces in 1993 only.38 For Luttwak, ‘a UN Legion would still be a great bargain as compared with U.S. military forces of maximum cost and minimum availability for combat’.39 The price to pay for a UN ‘Legion’ would moreover appear quite reasonable if compared to what was spent in the Rwandan emergency as a result of the lack of humanitarian military intervention, or for the protection of UN military forces in Mogadishu in the absence of demobilization of the

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factions. One can therefore consider, as does the government of Canada, that the financial obstacle may be only circumstantial, and that although ‘these are expenses beyond the current capacity of the United Nations, there might be a time when they can be accommodated in the framework of a coherent peace and security programme within the United Nations’.40 The fact, however, that the present financial difficulties are due in large part to the arrears of some Member States highlights another Achilles’ heel of the idea. As noted by the Commission on Global Governance: ‘Just as the United Nations cannot discharge its responsibilities if it is held responsible – as in Rwanda – to the hesitations of the member-countries to provide forces even for fully authorized peacekeeping operations, so a United Nations Volunteer Force needed for rapid deployment would be hamstrung if it were subject to the uncertainties of national contributions, including the perennial problems of arrears.’ 41 The authors of the Dutch Rapid Deployment Brigade proposal, after examining the UN traditional financing modalities – within or outside the regular budget, voluntary financial contributions or in kind – conclude that, unless Member States were willing to abandon the requirement of zero real growth, the establishment and maintenance of the Rapid Deployment Brigade would have to be financed outside the regular UN budget, so as to avoid it becoming the hostage of the generosity of individual Member States. Voluntary contributions in kind could be envisaged though for equipment, housing and training.42 How to make a UN permanent force financially independent is an old debate, at the origin of numerous proposals. In the 1950s, the ‘Neptuno’ project proposed by 107 British MPs, the Parliamentary Group for World Government, suggested that the UN be entrusted with direct authority over oceans, and the right to directly exploit natural resources from the seas.43 Thomas C. Schelling suggested in the 1960s that like ‘the salt tax of earlier times, a few critical monopolies, perhaps related to foreign trade, might give a good deal of non-violent leverage to the force’.44 Others proposed licensing the right to exploit the potential riches of Antarctica.45 Bernard Kouchner and others proposed that 10 per cent of the defence budget of states could contribute to finance the force. Alternative options proposed include a global arms tax, as world military expenditures currently totalled nearly US$1 trillion a year. Mark Sommer, Research Associate in the PCSP, University of California, Berkeley, suggested a general tax on international airlines transportation. The Secretary-General himself, estimating that Member States ‘must become willing to establish resources of funding that are not dependent on their political and budgetary constraints’, envisaged ‘the creation of some procedures by which the organization could regularly collect a relatively small amount from one of the daily transactions of the

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global economy’.46 Such measures could include: a fee on speculative international financial transactions; a levy on either fossil fuel use or the resulting pollution; the dedication of a small portion of the anticipated decline in world military expenditures or the utilization of some resources released by the elimination of unnecessary government subsidies; or a stamp tax on international travel and travel documents or an assessment on global currency transactions. Imaginative solutions could indeed contribute to provide the UN ‘Legion’ with a certain degree of financial autonomy, provided they can be implemented. However, the obstacles to the realization of such a project should not be underestimated. Difficulties may range from the reluctance of states to permit the UN to take over valuable resources they might otherwise appropriate for themselves to the fear of a superstate. John G. Stoessinger, in 1964, saw the crisis of the UN as a confrontation between those who construe it as a ‘dynamic instrument’ capable of ‘executive action’ and those who believed it should function mainly as a ‘static conference machine’. While not totally excluding the possibility in the long run for the UN of achieving some financial independence from states, he concluded that a UN ‘that had become financially independent might tend to inspire greater mistrust on the part of some states, for it would appear to be less responsive to the pressure of its members and more likely to become a significant force in world affairs’.47 Granting financial independence to a UN force could potentially relieve main contributors from part of their annual dues to the organization. It would however also deprive them of an important means of pressure on the organization. In any case, financial autonomy does not suffice to make the force independent. As stressed by Brig.-Gen. Finn Saermark-Thomsen, of the Danish Reaction Brigade, only ‘if the transport capacity exists to lift all personnel and equipment in one lift, there is reason to believe that the Brigade really could be a rapidly deployable and flexible organization’.48 A UN ‘Legion’ would have to be projected to the theatre of operations. One of the weak points of the idea, as pointed out by Swedish Ambassador Torsten Örn, ‘is, of course that, in many cases the force would have to depend on one or two major countries for transport’.49 In the case of the plans of intervention to Burundi in July 1996, the US State Department announced that although there ‘was no prospect whatsoever of American troops participating’ in any force, the USA ‘would be willing to contribute United States airlift capacity, logistical support and planning’.50 Although this case suggests that transportation may not necessarily be a major problem, there is no guarantee that such willingness would always exist for similar future interventions. A light brigade can be deployed with a single flight of roughly half

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of the US airlift fleet, that is with 200 to 300 C-141 aircraft or the equivalent, assuming availability at the time and that deployment with parachute was not required. European capacities are relatively limited.51 Here again the idea of a UN ‘Legion’, originally designed by its promoters to relieve the UN from its dependence on powerful Member States, in particular for intervention, brings us back to square one: its very existence depends on the attitude adopted by major powers, especially the USA, having the necessary financial and military resources. Transportation constraints, while rendering the force controllable, and therefore perhaps more acceptable to major powers, could potentially severely restrict the autonomy of any force placed permanently at the disposal of the UN.

Objections to Direct Recruitment Direct recruitment by the United Nations has yet been the object of objections, either because of the resort to volunteers, or in view of the suspicion that these volunteers could be mercenaries. Volunteer Character There are several examples of directly individually recruited civilian/semicivilian forces in the UN system, such as the 50 UN unarmed Guards recruited for Palestine in 1948 as members of the Secretariat; the UN Field Service established in 1949 by the General Assembly Res. 297 (IV), with UN uniforms, side-arms only, and civilian functions; and the UN Military Observers (UNMOs), who are not member of the secretariat but seconded from Member States and wear their own national uniforms. The deployment of the UN Guard Contingent in Iraq (UNGCI) resulted from an agreement reached between the UN and the government in May 1991 after a ceasefire had been signed with the coalition forces involved in the Gulf War. It was seen as a small step in the direction of the creation of a UN military volunteer force, as a call for volunteers was made to all UN suitable offices, and guards were especially recruited for this assignment.52 Paul C. Szasz, Legal Adviser, International Conference on the Former Yugoslavia, has argued that ‘military forces are merely a specialized type of personnel’, and that the recruitment of individual volunteers could be done under those provisions in the Charter (Chapter XV) that provide for the recruitment of staff. To him, the UN Guard Contingent in Iraq was ‘in effect a military force, although … not heavily armed, and this suggests that it is a viable alternative’.53 By September 1991, a contingent of 500 Guards, made up of internationally recruited UN security staff on special assignment and qualified personnel seconded from Member States, had been deployed.

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A sometimes heard practical objection to direct recruitment is that it would be doubtful that the force could attract a sufficient number of true volunteers with the required competence. Gerlach, for instance, asked whether one ‘can speak of true volunteers being drawn from a memberstate’s conscript military? If not, the pool of candidates is going to be small indeed.’ 54 This objection is not to be underestimated as its validity ultimately conditions the UN’s power to select the recruits, thus affecting the quality and image of the force. It does, however, reflect a basic misunderstanding over the meaning of the sometimes confusing word volunteer. The term is generally employed to describe someone who temporarily offers his/her services on a non-profit basis, in opposition to regular personnel receiving substantial remuneration for accomplishing required tasks in the context of career. When applied to military forces, however, it designates permanently established armies composed of individuals who have volunteered to the profession of arms, in opposition to military forces mainly constituted of citizens undergoing compulsory national service under the system of conscription. In both cases, volunteers can be experienced professionals, the difference being only the financial character of the gratification received on the one hand, and the continuity of the link to the organization on the other. A civilian volunteer recruited by the present UNV programme 55 corresponds to the former sense of the term, while a volunteer serving in a UN ‘Legion’ would correspond to the latter. This means that a UN military volunteer would be a professional soldier receiving a salary according to his/her rank, as with any other UN or national military personnel. If national armies are able to attract able candidates in sufficient numbers to meet their force requirements, there is a fortiori no reason to believe that a UN ‘Legion’ would not do so as well. One is therefore tempted to agree with Urquhart that thousands of men and women would apply, many of them with extensive military experience, and that there can be ‘little doubt that there would be more than enough volunteers from around the world for an elite peace force of this kind’.56 This opinion is shared by Luttwak, who recalls that, although all regular armies include a number of time-servers motivated by job security and a pension and a smaller percentage of genuine ‘would-be fighters’, there are ‘natural-born warriors’ who stay away from armed forces because of the limited chances of action offered. Because a UN ‘Legion’ ‘would offer far more frequent opportunities for combat than any national can, it would attract plenty of volunteers’.57 This could be particularly true in view of the current relative obsolescence, of patriotic and nationalist values as compared to more universal values, especially in the youth, in many industrialized countries. Moreover, the special training, organization and missions of the UN ‘Legion’, giving it the characters of an

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elite force, would make it particularly attractive to potential candidates. There is no reason to think that the resort to volunteers would affect – one way or another – the professional character of the force. It could only contribute to improve it, as the force would be more dedicated and specially trained for its missions. General Pierre le Peillet suggested that, among criteria for selection of the recruits, and as a safeguard to ensure North– South balance, geographical quotas should be imposed.58 It is somehow doubtful that, as argued by Lodgaard, governments ‘will hesitate allowing individuals to tie their loyalties directly to the World Organization, for fear that this would undermine the loyalty to the State System’.59 Lord Owen, referring to the fear of supranationality, compared the reluctance to endow the UN with a permanent military volunteer force to the ‘suspicion of all regular armies and the regard for everyone being called up for a short period – to defend their country’.60 The current trend towards professional military forces and the abolition of military service attests to the evolution of modern societies in this regard. The system of conscription and military service has already been abolished in the United Kindom (1960), Luxembourg (1967), the USA (1973), Belgium (1995) and France (2001).61 It is in the process of being abolished in the Netherlands (not applied since 1 February 1996). A debate on the reform of the Bundeswehr has started in Germany, and Spain has envisaged a professional army.62 Switzerland has not excluded the possibility of having an Israeli-type semi-professional army.63 Signs of a re-evaluation of the necessity of conscription are also visible in Austria.64 Among notable exceptions one should mention Portugal, Italy, Russia and Turkey (which has, contrary to the general trend, increased the duration of military service from 15 to 18 months). A serious problem when it comes to matters where lives of soldiers are potentially at stake is accountability. In the 1950s, one of the arguments put forward by the Indian Representative to the General Assembly to oppose the idea of a permanent and directly recruited UN force was that ‘anything that creates a force on which responsible popular opinion cannot play and, what is more, whose authority and power of sanctions is questionable, is not only impractical but fraught with danger’.65 ‘I am opposed to such a directly recruited United Nations Brigade,’ declared more recently along the same lines Lord Owen, because ‘it would widen the gap in the Security Council between rhetoric and reality and increase the divorce between power and responsibility.’ 66 Therefore, he suggested that, instead of individual recruitment, nominations of Member States to the Security Council be made conditional to the commitment of a fair proportion of their own armed forces to a UN Rapid Deployment Brigade.

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However, in the case of the UN, the issue of accountability is not specific to the permanent military volunteer force: it is inherent to the functioning of the Security Council, which theoretically allows the sending of someone else’s forces. Furthermore, the setting up of a UN ‘Legion’ should logically not widen, but narrow the ‘responsibility gap’, as what would be at stake would be the UN’s own forces, and not contingents borrowed from Member States. As seen earlier, the Security Council, when sending the force, would in any case have to be ready to back it up with national forces in the event things would go wrong. One may in any case wonder about the actual accountability of governments of Member States that have not yet adopted democratic institutions. States have not waited for democratic systems to be established to set up armies. The fact that the level of casualties acceptable in a UN operation depends on the origin of the contingents would tend to confirm that the level of accountability does differ from one state to another. The Gulf War experience, when democratic states such as France resorted to professional volunteers rather than conscripts, in view of the possible impact of their deployment abroad in a peace enforcement operation on public opinion at home, shows that it is a practice accepted at the national level. In contrast, General Cot’s opinion that the setting up of a UN permanent rapid reaction force could provide the international community with a unique opportunity to see the emergence of a real ‘global public opinion’, therefore avoiding the problem of responsibility, is audacious but worth consideration.67 Christopher Hill, who traces signs of international public opinion as far back as ancient Greece, sees in the Hague Conference (‘a World-Duma’), and the first World War the first manifestations of a ‘world opinion’. Post-Cold War expressions such as ‘the European home’, the ‘new world order’, the ‘end of history’ and ‘global governance’, appear to him as premature ‘straws in the wind’ and ‘distant characterizations of the supposed new unities’.68 Acknowledging that it may be too much to expect a universally shared morality, Hill nevertheless also suggests that ‘elements of opinion and judgement in the world of states should therefore be played up, in order to maximize the extent to which governments are forced to turn outwards and become drawn into the language of mutual obligations.69 Secretary-General Kofi Anan called for the development of such a world opinion, estimating that the decision to intervene should not be left to governments, but should also be influenced by ‘simple citizens’.70 Mercenary Character The term ‘international volunteer’, when applied to the military, invariably evokes the word ‘mercenary’. Mercenary activities, illustrated by the failed putsch in the Comoros Islands led by Bob Denard on 25 September 1995,71

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have developed as a growing business in recent years in conjunction with widespread cuts in military budgets and personnel and the multiplication of conflicts around the world. White South African, former Cuban, Russian and East German soldiers, who had deserted or did not want to return to Soviet bloc countries, fought in Angola in the service of the Luanda regime. Mercenaries were used by various factions in Liberia and Sierra Leone, and heads of states have resorted to them to constitute their presidential guard, as in the Seychelles Islands, Zaire and Gabon. In the 1990s, they have also been actively involved in the Balkans and the Congo. Agricultural companies have employed mercenaries for the protection of sensitive sites, such as the British company Lonhro, which recruited retired Ghurkhas or Special Air Service (SAS) to protect the railway in the Nacala corridor in Mozambique. The South African company Executive Outcomes (EO) based in Johannesburg, was until recently by far the largest promoter of mercenaries, with 2,500 on the roster. Seen by some as the ‘relic of the eighteenth-century toleration of mercenaries’ 72 – these ‘greedy and ruthless men prepared to make a quick fortune by killing’ – international volunteers have traditionally been viewed with suspicion. Their subversive character has been denounced throughout history.73 Grotius considered no way of living more dishonest than enlisting for money, and the use of mercenaries as unjust.74 Machiavelli advised princes of his time not to recruit mercenaries, considering them very dangerous.75 The recruitment, use, financing and training of mercenaries were condemned by the General Assembly on 8 December 1988 as violating human rights and impeding the right of people to self-determination. With the aim of contributing to the ‘eradication of these nefarious activities and thereby the observance of the purposes and principles enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations’, the international convention of 4 December 1989 stipulated that ‘the recruitment, use, financing and training of mercenaries should be considered as offences of grave concern to all states and that any person committing any of these offences should either be prosecuted or extradited’.76 One important objection to the idea of a UN ‘Legion’ has been the belief that its implementation would be in contradiction with one of the fundamental legal achievements of the UN, or even the very purposes and principles of the Charter. Hence Roberts’ implicit, but very real, criticism addressed to Urquhart’s proposal for a permanent military volunteer force: ‘Troops who don’t owe any loyalty to particular countries and who might be recruited largely on the basis of financial incentives are being lauded as a solution to a real problem of the United Nations’.77 Could an international volunteer directly recruited by the UN be considered as a mercenary according to existing international law? The word

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‘mercenary’ is not a technical expression, and several definitions of it, sometimes contradictory, can be found. Questionable motivations have often been seen as an important aspect of what constitutes a mercenary, including the search of risk and adventure and the expectation of substantial financial gain, even though specialists tend to agree on the unsatisfactory nature of such definitions. The Encyclopaedia of the United Nations and International Relations, for instance, defines the word mercenary as: ‘An international term for military troops formed from volunteers, who enlist for money to fight, most often in colonial interventions for subversive purposes.’ While some authors consider mercenaries as a category of international volunteers – in which case ‘international volunteer’ would be generic, ‘mercenary’ would be specific – others have argued, like Laugier, that mercenaries are intrinsically different from international volunteers who fight for an ideal and not primarily for money. Taking the latter argument to the extreme, any person whose primary motivation to fight is not primarily financial could be considered an international volunteer, rather than a mercenary. According to Laugier, the fight for an ideal would give the international volunteer a human value lacking in a profit-driven mercenary, as s/he would serve a cause rather than a country or an organization.78 Following such a definition, those volunteers who fought on the side of Croat Catholics and Muslim Bosnians in the former Yugoslavia, or Christians in Beirut, motivated by the desire to fight in defence of values, would not be mercenaries. Even the hero of Frederick Forsyth’s well-known novel The Dogs of War, heading for Burundi to train the Hutu partisans trying to oppose the Tutsi-dominated dictatorship, declares: ‘It’s not really the money. It was never for the money.’79 With this criterion in mind, engagement in the name of an ideal should logically distinguish a member of a UN ‘Legion’, not only from mercenaries – who would fight only for money – but also from any other military personnel whose motivations for enlisting themselves as soldiers were driven by reasons other than ideals, such as regular soldiers serving their country or the UN in the context of a traditional peacekeeping operation. According to another definition proposed by Professor Eric David, volunteerism can be understood as the personal engagement of an individual in a foreign armed force. An ‘international volunteer’ would be any individual whose voluntary and personal engagement in an armed force has a foreign character. The criterion would be met when the volunteer is foreign (i) to the force he/she joins, (ii) to the country in which he/she engages himself or herself, and/or (iii) to the territory on which he/she operates.80 Military personnel sent on UN missions by their government as part of a national contingent, although they may have volunteered individually for such a mission, could not be considered under the above definition as ‘international

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volunteers’. On the other hand, international volunteers recruited in a UN ‘Legion’ would be the members of a regular – though not national – army. The problem here is the distinction between permanent, integrated foreign elements in regular armed forces – such as the British Ghurkhas or the French Foreign Legion – and mercenaries. The difficulty has been overcome in practice by placing the emphasis on special recruitment for a particular conflict, with the idea of condemning the use of mercenaries as an instrument of foreign intervention and aggression in international relations. From this perspective, ad hoc recruitment, desire for private gain, foreign character, and lack of integration in a regular military force, having the potential for raising all the problems of outside intervention and for aggravating a conflict, could constitute essential criteria.81 The International Convention Against the Recruitment, Use, Financing and Training of Mercenaries of 4 December 1989, which, according to the President of the Session of the General Assembly that adopted it, symbolized ‘the political will of the international community’,82 constitutes an attempt to combine elements of various definitions. Article 1 of the Convention stipulates that, for the purposes of the Convention, a mercenary is any person who: • is specially recruited locally or abroad in order to fight in an armed conflict; • is motivated to take part in the hostilities essentially by the desire for private gain and, in fact, is promised, by or on behalf of a party to the conflict, material compensation substantially in excess of that promised or paid to combatants of similar rank and functions in the armed forces of that party; • is neither a national of a party to the conflict nor a resident of territory controlled by a party to the conflict; • is not a member of the armed forces of a party to the conflict; and • has not been sent by a state that is not a party to the conflict on official duty as a member of its armed forces.83 Article 2 of the Convention extends further the definition of the mercenary to ‘any person who, in any other situation … is especially recruited locally or abroad for the purpose of participating in a concerted act of violence … aimed at overthrowing a Government or otherwise (i) undermining the constitutional order of a State; or (ii) undermining the territorial integrity of a State’. What the Convention clearly prohibits is the use by states of foreign volunteers for intervention and aggression purposes, and does not therefore envisage the recruitment by an international organization of international volunteers for other purposes. Such a definition would certainly not apply

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to the members of a UN ‘Legion’ who, by definition and by virtue of the UN Charter, could, in the first instance, not be recruited for such acts. One can conclude without any hesitation that a UN military volunteer member of a UN Legion could in no way be considered a mercenary under the most recent and widely accepted legal definition, however imperfect this definition may be. It is in any case difficult to understand the concept of ‘mercenary’ independently from the historical context in which it emerged, that is, the birth and the development of the state as a central political power able to use military force and levy its own army. Given their worldwide bad reputation and disastrous record, the advantages of mercenaries are not so obvious. Only the lack of alternative military force – that is, sufficient permanent forces of their own – might have led some countries or entities to use mercenaries as an expedient for fighting their wars, hence the traditionally foreign character of mercenaries. Machiavelli’s argumentation against mercenaries in The Art of War and The Prince is typical. He starts from the assumption that to fight a war, one should first find soldiers, and selection is necessary. By selection Machiavelli actually meant, in accordance with the institutions of his time, the sovereign designation of military recruits by a powerful authority (draft). Selection, however, is virtually impossible in places where the authority has no power to levy its own army. In such situations, Machiavelli argued, one has no choice than to resort to mercenaries, that is, foreign volunteers the Prince had no power to draft or select. While Machiavelli recognized the potential advantages of international recruitment, the lack of power to levy a truly international force in the absence of a world government made him discard this possibility.84 What the experience of the Renaissance tells us is that a UN ‘Legion’ would be equivalent, at the international level, to what a national army is at the level of a state. In the world of international relations, a permanent multinational force operating under UN command (after the model proposed by Article 43) would be akin to a state’s Foreign Legion. The stunning conclusion is that national contingents borrowed from Member States by the UN are the mercenary forces of a world organization at the early stage of its development. However, what was criticized in the Foreign Legion – as well as in mercenary forces – was not so much their international recruitment per se, but rather their relative lack of high identity between the outfit and the frame of authority.85 In a UN ‘Legion’, such identity between the outfit and the frame of authority could only be higher than in ad hoc contingents borrowed from Member States. There is little doubt that, given intensive and unified training, the members of a UN volunteer force could acquire higher standards in terms of morality and behaviour in conformity with their

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mission. Whether a UN ‘Legion’ would fit only for combat duties and ‘in marginal areas with high incidence of combat rather than routine duties’ is also debatable. The source of the exemplary combat record of the Foreign Legion relied on its generally superior cadres and upon the practice of selecting out its best troops, those men with a genuinely military vocation, for regiments or bataillons de marche. As demonstrated by the Foreign Legion, liabilities can be turned into assets, the high degree of unit loyalty being an important element of success.86 Estimating that no real victory may be won with someone else’s military forces, Machiavelli recommended the constitution by states of a directly recruited integrated force. Lord Owen’s objection that ‘many of the arguments for direct recruitment by the United Nations are rooted in why mercenaries were favoured by some countries for fighting their wars’,87 loses, in this context, most of its significance. The setting up a UN ‘Legion’ would, by its very existence, relegate all other kinds of UN forces to the rank of ‘mercenary’ or ‘auxiliary’ forces. This leads Flora Lewis to argue paradoxically that ‘mercenaries – troops serving no State – are exactly what the United Nations needs, for the same reason that the Vatican hired Swiss Guards in medieval times so that its protectors would be beholden to no other master’.88

CONTRADICTIONS INHERENT TO THE UN ORGANIZATION

The re-emergence of the idea of UN ‘Legion’, after the Cold War, is the expression of the increasing need for reliable forces for UN enforcement tasks and humanitarian intervention. In any case, it is by all means clear that a UN ‘Legion’, by its size and purpose, would not replace existing means, but would be only a complementary tool in the panoply of instruments at the disposal of the UN, in addition to ad hoc national contingents and UN authorized ad hoc coalitions. One reason put forward in 1952 for not creating a UN ‘Legion’ was its specificity compared to the multiplicity of situations it was designed to meet in the future. The fact that, with the Korean crisis, a UN authorized coalition had been set up for the first time to resist aggression was considered by the Collective Measures Committee to be a framework rather than a model. Once the crisis was over, the UN ‘Legion’ proposal resisted institutionalization. The Committee, focusing on ways to counter aggression, considered any particular set of procedures or any contribution to any UN action against any aggression in advance illusory and unrealistic because the United Nations could not in fact plan in advance to meet all conceivable specific situations.89 The rapid changes in the nature of the

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perceived threat to international peace and security makes the UN ‘Legion’ concept bound to lose its raison d’être with the disappearance of the specific circumstances that saw it emerge. In contrast, ad hoc forces, while not necessarily set up on time to meet the emergency, are more easily tailored to the task in hand. After carefully reviewing the early works of the Military Staff Committee, Eric Grove, research fellow at the Mountbatten Centre for International Studies, University of Southampton, noted the ‘almost uncanny resemblance to the forces planned in 1947–48 and those deployed in the United Nations authorized enforcement action in the Gulf in 1991–92’. His conclusion is that realistic planning on the basis of the military arrangements in Chapter VII is possible.90 To be realistic, any force planning based on the concept of the UN ‘Legion’ would have to focus on specific and limited tasks and missions. From this perspective, the UN ‘Legion’ could, in effect, be a potential solution to some of the UN’s military problems.

Use of Military Force A theoretical solution, it also reflects the intrinsic contradictions of such missions. If the present weaknesses of UN military forces are also the expression of the UN’s own inherent weaknesses as an international organization, the risk is that the creation of a UN ‘Legion’ will highlight even more the very limits of the UN, rather than improve its capability. Contradictions are related to both the type of missions envisaged for the force, and the structure of the organization. Objections have also pointed to the contradictory requirements of peacekeeping and enforcement tasks on the one hand and humanitarian intervention and humanitarian assistance on the other. Armed Intervention versus Non-violent Means of Action In spite of the difficulties inherent to the sub-contracting of enforcement to major powers, recent UN military setbacks have led some to believe that the UN was unlikely to undertake other military operations with enforcement powers in the future, an opinion that the deployment after the withdrawal of UNPROFOR of American, British and French troops as part of IFOR in Bosnia and Herzegovina to take over from UNPROFOR seemed to confirm.91 A 34-member UN Special Committee, warning against rushing into the creation of a UN standing army because it raises a variety of important and complex political, legal and financial issues, estimated that such a force would give an ‘undesirable military image’ to an institution dedicated to world peace.’ 92 During the preliminary discussions of the Dutch Rapid Deployment Brigade proposal, India, in particular, put forward the argument

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that priority should be given to the implementation of An Agenda for Development, rather than the building of costly military capabilities. The argument that the creation of a UN ‘Legion’ would contribute to militarize the UN even more is, however, not very convincing. As the Director of UNIDIR, Sverre Lodgaard said: ‘This is a hollow argument. The United Nations does not necessarily become more militarised by substituting a modest force dedicated to itself for the use of national contingents. A standing volunteer force can, moreover, be used in a more timely and professional fashion. The overreaching objective is to reduce armaments and violence in the world: the United Nations is a means of achieving it.’ 93 Such arguments tend to address a real problem by pinpointing the limit of military remedies, which is that military force can in any case only be a measure of last resort, a complementary tool, which should always contribute to prepare the way for long-term solutions. It tends, however, in its extreme expression denying any role for the military at all, to overlook a very important aspect of contemporary crises: their character of absolute emergency, and the fact that the absence of immediate and appropriate action may in some cases result in irreversible human disasters. The most appalling example of such humanitarian emergencies is perhaps genocide, as it means the loss of large numbers of human lives. Hence the idea that there could be an international responsibility for taking measures in time to prevent or stop such gross and massive violations of human rights. Because of the violent nature of the situations and because gaining consent from the perpetrators is unlikely, the use of military force and assets may sometimes be the only way. Hence the name ‘Vital Force’ given to the Project for Defense Alternatives’ proposal for a UN ‘Legion’. Situations of conflict can, and should whenever possible, be influenced by the economic weapon or other alternative to military force. As expressed by Ian Eliasson, if ‘we separate the humanitarian action and resort to playing only the military or political role, we risk selling the soul of the United Nations’.94 Maurice Bertrand considered that ‘the present system separates the economic and military aspects of crises, which is absurd’, an opinion that leads him to call for a new UN Charter.95 More generally, the lack of long-term effects on conflicts of the whole range of UN intervention methods – including, but not only, with military means – has been denounced, as well as the tendency of the UN’s efforts to concentrate on short-term goals such as stopping the fighting rather than address the roots of the conflicts.96 Barry Posen, after comparing the effects of archetypal military remedies to refugee problems – strategic bombing, safe zones, safe havens, enforced peace, and full-scale war against assailants – concluded: ‘All except full-scale war are temporary expedients. They reduce hardship and save lives, but they do not solve the

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original political problems that produced the violence that produced the refugees’.97 Another kind of objection, which has led the President of the ICRC 98 to question the very concept of ‘humanitarian army’ as advocated by Bernard Kouchner,99 warns against the illusion of combining in one military force the two functions of armed protection of humanitarian personnel and assistance. More practical objections have questioned the very ability of a UN permanent military volunteer force to carry out humanitarian military intervention missions. Although belonging, by its purpose, to the same generic ‘family’ of humanitarian operations, humanitarian military intervention is distinct by its means and immediate purposes from the mere provision of humanitarian relief assistance, as defined by the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and their additional Protocols adopted in 1977. Indeed, the logic of these two otherwise complementary activities may in some cases be opposite. They therefore have contradictory requirements. The latter, to remain legitimate, must be perceived as impartial in the distribution of aid and treat everyone the same way; the former, to be efficient, is bound to take sides and distinguish between the aggressors and the victims when using force. This is why humanitarian military intervention is doomed to failure when seeking neutrality, the term being understood here in its legalistic sense.100 The confusion between the two in the field has resulted in a prejudicial deterioration of security conditions for humanitarian personnel.101 Hence the opinion expressed by François Jean, of MSF: ‘Humanitarian organisations can be no other than opposed to interventions that combine the military logic and humanitarian rationale under the same emblem.’ 102 The difficulty, as demonstrated in the ICRC’s practice, has been imperfectly overcome in two ways. A first solution has been a still hazardous, but less dangerous, attempt of the civilians providing relief aid to take a physical distance from the military force enforcing UN decisions.103 By exposing humanitarian personnel to unacceptable physical threats, this strategy has resulted in the suspension of the provision of humanitarian relief assistance, as for the UNHCR in the former Yugoslavia in 1994, or more recently for the ICRC in Burundi after the killing of three ICRC personnel in Burundi on 4 June 1996.104 One alternative has been the resort for the armed protection of humanitarian personnel, to a special force, or private guards, sometimes locally recruited, and in any case distinct from the UN peace operation. This has resulted in an increased militarization of the local population, clans, or gangs, and the indirect financing of antagonistic factions in Somalia.105 One can therefore wonder if an intervention force composed of soldiers from different countries that could be deployed in two hours in case of an attack against a convoy but could also be employed in the case of a ceasefire

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violation, whatever the party at the origin of the violation, would really be appropriate.106 Indeed, the comparative advantage of a force asked to perform simultaneously the two tasks of peace enforcement and the armed protection of humanitarian personnel would be very limited. It would even be, in most cases, counterproductive, as the military force would be labelled as ‘UN’, therefore almost automatically imperilling the impartiality, and thereby security, of humanitarian relief assistance personnel. It may be that for such situations more imaginative solutions have to be found. Among the ideas being proposed is the very interesting special corps of ‘Red Helmets with White Cross’, which could be created by Switzerland for the sole and exclusive protection of ICRC personnel.107 The corps, which would be likely to be perceived as neutral, would be composed of Swiss volunteers specially trained with periodic exercises on the model of the Swiss army, and would be immediately available in case of humanitarian emergencies. The philosophy inspiring the improvised but efficient 500 UN Guards Contingent in Iraq (UNGCI) could also serve as a model. The deployment of the UN Guards Contingent in Iraq resulted from an agreement reached between the UN and the government in May 1991 after a ceasefire had been signed with the coalition forces involved in the Gulf War. By September 1991, a contingent of 500 Guards, made up of internationally recruited UN security staff on special assignment and qualified personnel seconded from Member States, had been deployed. Assigned to protect UN personnel and resources, they observed, monitored and reported throughout their areas of deployment, and came to constitute a crucial stabilizing influence. For Sadruddhin Aga Khan, the aim was precisely ‘a degree of security without the Security Council, of peace without peacekeeping, of international action without intervention’.108 In extreme cases, when force is required to secure delivery of humanitarian supplies, the military force may have to both protect and deliver the aid.109 Peacekeeping versus Peace enforcement Still, for many, such as Gilbert Holleufer, Adviser on Communication Research and Development at the ICRC, a fundamental ethical question remains: ‘Can one seriously hope to take up arms against arms without also taking sides and without the very quest of peace becoming a source of violence?’ ‘As experience suggests,’ notes Holleufer, ‘the paradoxical notion of a “peace army” is placing more and more of a strain on the elasticity of international military logic with each passing day. Something has to give in.’ 110 Because a UN ‘Legion’ could be used other than for self-defence and peacekeeping, it was said, it would undermine the legitimacy the UN has accumulated in practice. Ruggie estimated that the idea that the UN should

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have its own military capabilities to compel compliance with its edicts is impractical and counterproductive, and ‘even the move towards small-scale combat forces undermines the legitimacy of the United Nations in international conflict resolution’.111 General Sir Michael Rose was once quoted as saying that: ‘War cannot be fought with white painted vehicles.’112 Clearly, to be useful, a UN ‘Legion’ would require a further evolution of the UN doctrine, away from a dogmatic and strict application of the peacekeeping technique of self-defence and consent only. As rightly pointed out by Prince Saddrudhin Aga Khan, a UN military volunteer force ‘will remain stillborn unless and until the Security Council revises its “own rule of engagement” by exercising more even-handedness in Charter based international peace enforcement action to deal with future conflicts.’113 Paradoxically enough, peacekeeping (the so-called ‘Chapter VI 1/2’), which has seldom been contested, is never mentioned in the Charter, while enforcement is specifically envisaged under Chapter VII: ‘One of the achievements of the United Nations was to empower the Organization to take enforcement actions against those responsible for threats to the peace, breaches of the peace or acts of aggression,’ claimed not without reason the Secretary-General.114 The fact is that enforcement and peacekeeping, although both belonging to the generic family of peace operations, are two methods of fundamentally different nature and opposite logic.115 It is somehow like choosing between a hammer and a screwdriver: to do peace enforcement, one needs the necessary strength; to go into peacekeeping, one needs the necessary consent. Peacekeeping depends, for survival, on impartiality, while peace enforcement presupposes, for its continuation, the designation of an enemy. Depending on the degree of consent on the one hand, and of the level of force available on the other hand, the solution adopted should differ. Because they have different requirements, the two methods necessitate, for their implementation, to resort to different types of military forces: peacekeeping can be efficiently carried out with only lightly armed ad hoc national contingents with minimum use of force for self-defence only; peace enforcement will be more likely to succeed if carried out or backed by a powerful UN authorized ad hoc coalition possessing the necessary armament, and logistics. It has been seen in practice, however, that when peacekeeping has appeared to fail, the temptation has been great to pass directly from peacekeeping to enforcement or an intermediate category of enforcement: ‘peace enforcement’. This was the case in Cambodia, when General Lorridon advocated the depart from strict peacekeeping and promoted the use of military force against the Khmer Rouge, against Lt.-Gen. Sanderson’s eventually predominant opinion. In this case, trying to cross the line between peacekeeping

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and peace enforcement with an unchanged military instrument would have meant taking the risk of losing impartiality – a condition for the success of peacekeeping – while not having the necessary military force indispensable to the success of enforcement. This could have only resulted in increasingly losing control over the situation. As eventually recognized by the SecretaryGeneral, ‘peacekeeping and peace enforcement are therefore not adjacent points on a continuum permitting easy transition from one to the other’.116 Another dangerous temptation has been to combine the two methods simultaneously on the same theatre of operations. This was the case in Bosnia, when NATO air strikes were used parallel to the presence of the UNPROFOR peacekeeping military force on the ground. It has, not surprisingly, resulted in an increased vulnerability of the lightly armed peacekeepers scattered all over a territory who quickly became the hostages of one party to the conflict. This situation in turn produced the system of dual key, which severely limited the scope for the effective application for NATO air power. Under the ‘dual-key’ arrangement agreed upon by the UN and NATO reached in October 1994, decisions on targeting and execution were to be taken by both UN and NATO military commanders.117 The provision by NATO of air power in support of UNPROFOR brought unprecedented issues of command and control, each organization being tempted to respond to its own priorities, sometimes even mutually exclusive.118 The system of ‘dual key’ arrangement, in which both organizations must give prior approval of specific actions, has only partly solved the problem and had to be reviewed. In spite of previous UN statements according to which it would reject any proposal for streamlining the dual-key procedure, the Secretary-General eventually delegated authority in respect of air strikes to General Bernard Janvier, the Commander of the UN Forces in Bosnia and Herzegovina on 26 July 1995, who was himself authorized to delegate it further to the UNPROFOR Commander if circumstances required such delegation. At some point, in the former Yugoslavia, the international command was divided between Sarajevo, Zagreb, Naples, Brussels and New York, and further complicated by a division of responsibilities between civilian and military authorities.119 Beck stigmatized the ‘schizophrenic system formalized in the UN Charter’, in which an institution seeks to play both an impartial and a partisan role.120 In fact, one may argue that what actually jeopardized the legitimacy of the UN, and led to an ‘institutional schizophrenia’ was not peace enforcement and the use of force per se, but their misuse in an unfavourable context with inadequate instruments.121 The fact that the two methods – peacekeeping and peace enforcement – have contradictory requirements should therefore not, in principle, preclude the UN from using

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one and/or the other. Even the traditional concept of peacekeeping may allow, as demonstrated by the experience of the Rapid Reaction Force in the context of UNPROFOR, ‘reasonable room for the use of force – albeit under very exceptional circumstances and conditions’.122 This implies, however, that a military force eventually entrusted with a peace enforcement mission will not be able to operate in all contexts, and that the decision to use it will have to be carefully weighed in view of its possible negative consequences. It also means that, to be able to carry out its peace enforcement missions, the UN ‘Legion’ would need to be given the necessary military capability in terms of strength, armaments and logistics. As such capability may sometimes only be provided by a major power, any UN ‘Legion’ would still be heavily dependent on Member States, especially the USA, for its setting up and deployment. It has been seen that the so-called ‘droit d’ingérence’ remains highly controversial. For some, the victorious powers of the Second World War ‘never envisaged the possibility of the UN intervening in domestic conflicts to “enforce” peace, by resorting to force’, and attempts to reinterpret the Charter on the grounds that human rights are inviolable and, should therefore be protected against violation by Member States are ‘fraught with dangers’.123 Fundamentally, a much more formal and clearer distinction between enforcement for humanitarian purposes, and enforcement for the maintenance of international security stricto sensu, would be necessary if a UN ‘Legion’ were to be set up.124 What the proposal reveals by default is that currently the Security Council acts as if a chapter of the Charter were missing. Hence Haynes and Stanley’s apparently paradoxical opinion that a UN permanent military volunteer force should be given enforcement powers, but not under Chapter VII, which, according to them, requires a large-scale Gulf War type ad hoc UN authorized coalition. Hence also Ingvar Carlsson’s logical suggestion that, if the Security Council is to disregard the prohibition against interference in domestic affairs, there should be an amendment to the UN Charter specifying the circumstances and parameters for such intervention. According to him, the key question to be considered before deciding on intervention would then be: ‘Given the sustained importance of the principle of sovereignty and non-interference in the internal affairs, has the situation deteriorated to the point where the security of people has been violated so severely that it requires an international response on humanitarian grounds?’ If the Security Council made such a finding, he concluded, ‘then an amended Charter would open the way for a range of actions including, in the last resort, force’.125 Whether the resort to the UN ‘Legion’ should be decided case by case, or whether the UN should attempt to codify the situations in which the peace enforcers could be used similarly to a definition of aggression, has been debated. Hoffmann in particular preferred

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pragmatism in this respect, as states may accept intervention only in specific circumstances.126 From Early Deployment to Preventive Intervention Another role envisaged for the UN ‘Legion’ is preventive deployment for the protection of threatened populations. For Urquhart, what is ‘most lacking at present is the capacity for immediate action after a Security Council decision and before the situation becomes unmanageable’.127 A Report of the Joint Inspection Unit, highlighting the advantages of the Rapid Deployment Brigade proposed by the Netherlands, estimated that its tasks would be ‘predominantly in the field of preventive deployment when crises are imminent’.128 The concept, easy to understand, is difficult to put in practice. As explained by Under-Secretary-General M. Goulding: ‘Everyone is in favour of preventive action just as they are in favour of motherhood.’129 John F. Hillen III stigmatized what he viewed as ‘a contradiction in terms, based on the illusion that unambiguous signals exist when a civil war or ethnic conflict is near’. While thinking that the main value of a UN permanent military volunteer force would lie mainly in the capacity to deploy it preventively, Hillen sees in symbolic preventive deployments of troops a ‘bluff ’ putting the life of soldiers unnecessarily in danger without thinking through their military objectives, as ‘any violent actions directed against the force (or the peace it seeks to keep) will have to be met with a UN response that transcends the organic capacity of this very small and lightly armed force.’130 A UN permanent military force, for obvious practical and political reasons limited in size and assets, ‘could never have the complex operational infrastructure and capabilities to make a difference in missions which entail even modest enforcement operations’, argues Stedman.131 As stressed by Richard N. Haas, ‘It is easy to see how such a small force would be overwhelmed.’132 The argument, if it stresses the difficulties related to preventive action, also highlights the necessity for rapid reaction in cases where such preventive deployment proved necessary, at the request of a party or vulnerable group for instance. The fact that the force could not always intervene on time to prevent a humanitarian tragedy is not, in itself, a sufficient argument against the idea of a UN ‘Legion’: ‘Fire departments and police forces do not always prevent fire, yet they are now widely recognized as providing an essential service’.133 To be more than a ‘bluff ’, and efficiently act as a ‘tripwire’, the force would need, as in Macedonia, to be backed up by significant military force committed in advance by Member States should reinforcement become necessary. Member States would be unlikely to be willing to commit their forces in advance to support an operation that may escalate into open violence. The above constraints do not point, a priori, to an easy preventive use of the UN permanent military volunteer force for humanitarian

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emergencies. While obviously pointing to a restricted use of the UN permanent military volunteer force, they do not necessarily negate its raison d’être. Internal conflicts where humanitarian emergencies may be at stake do not necessarily involve powerful regular armies with sophisticated armaments. In Rwanda, most of the killings were carried out with machetes and rudimentary weapons. The experience of Rwanda demonstrates, both by default and by what has been achieved, what could be successfully accomplished on short notice with a limited but highly professional, motivated, and truly international military force, for humanitarian purposes. For the SecretaryGeneral of Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), Alain Destexhe, ‘A small contingent of soldiers, perhaps 2,000 or so, could have stopped the killings by protecting people in the churches and hospitals and securing a few areas in the country.’134 This opinion was echoed by former Commander of the UN Assistance Mission in Rwanda (UNAMIR) General Roméo Dallaire’s declarations that if the United Nations had got 2,500 to 5,000 effective troops in the first month, hundred of thousands of people would have survived: ‘If such a force had been made available to me while I was the UNAMIR Force Commander sometime in mid-April 1994, we would have saved the lives of hundred of thousands of people.’135 Although controversial, late and limited in time, the French-led Opération Turquoise yielded significant results yielded from all accounts, with only 2,500 troops and some 5,000 tons of equipment, in addition to the protection given to internally displaced persons in the southwestern safe area, including the provision of 10,000 tons of humanitarian supplies, and the burial of thousands of bodies.136 The psychological effect of preventive deployment is therefore not to be underestimated. In many cases, it is the absence of the international community that constitutes in itself an encouragement to the perpetrating of massive violations of human rights such as genocide. A contrario, the mere presence of an international military force may in some cases act as a powerful deterrent to aggressions against vulnerable groups. For Major-General Roméo Dallaire, ‘the international community’s inaction was in fact an action which contributed to the Hutu extremists’ belief that they could carry out their genocide’.137 If, as claimed by General Philippe Morillon, ‘only passivity can be a shame in this type of action’, early humanitarian intervention can only contribute to enhancing the legitimacy and restoring the credibility of the United Nations.138

Structure of the Organization A potential solution to a real problem, the idea of a UN military volunteer force would, if implemented, eventually demonstrate its limits. Unique permanent military instrument of a central organization with universal

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missions, the problems of overstretch and selectivity in intervention would ineluctably re-emerge. The increasing complexity of the geo-political context would make the use of an armed force placed at the disposal of the Security Council extremely arduous.139 Because it is applied to the UN, the idea would ‘just take us full circle, back to the question of national interests’.140 The Missing Fourth Pillar: Regional Options To the three traditional pillars of peacekeeping – the Security Council, the troop-contributing governments, and the Secretary-General – one should potentially add a fourth one – regional and sub-regional organizations. In fact, one has reasons to doubt that the ‘existence, known effectiveness, and immediate availability’ of a UN ‘Legion’ or permanent military volunteer force would in themselves be ‘a deterrent to low level violence’ and that, as its experience and reputation grew, the need to use the force ‘would certainly decrease’.141 Being a more universal and reliable instrument, a UN ‘Legion’ would ideally fill the current ‘qualitative’ gap between the UN humanitarian objectives and military means. For practical and political reasons the UN is, however, unlikely to be able to develop a permanent military capability sufficient to deal with all conflicts, or respond to all humanitarian emergencies. Because the demand for UN forces is ‘elastic if not infinite’,142 the force would leave unattended the quantitative gap, thus creating expectations it would never be able to fulfil and making even more conspicuous its overstretch. The force would in any case at some point have to be replaced, as its prolonged presence in one country would negate its utility. The High Commissioner for Refugees, Sadako Ogata, responding to a question concerning Kouchner’s proposal for an international permanent humanitarian force to prevent massacres, felt such a force could not really solve problems in the long run: ‘There are too many places in the world where it could intervene! Once deployed, who would take over if needed elsewhere?’143 The creation of the UN ‘Legion’ would eventually provide additional ammunition to those who already accuse the UN of double standards and selective intervention. As humanitarian military intervention, like Don Juan’s virtually endless quest for more attractive objects, has a multiplicity of possible objectives, the nagging question posed by the President of the ICRC would ineluctably reappear, even more up to date: ‘Can an intervention on humanitarian grounds abandon all claim to impartiality and pick and choose its targets on the basis of the balance of power inherent in any conflict?’144 As had been rightly argued by Stanley Hoffmann, a ‘world force that would protect effectively all those who feel threatened against all their potential enemies is a contradiction in terms’.145 Therefore, a major

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weakness of the various UN permanent army projects is that although ‘regional organizations would be important players in such world order, the United Nations is today the centrepiece of these proposals’.146 The increasing delegation by the UN under Chapter VIII of the Charter of enforcement and peacekeeping tasks to regional organizations is the logical consequence of the contradiction of having a single organization with universal objectives. Hence a legitimate question: should the UN create its own rapid reaction force or rather rely on organizations with complex military structures, such as NATO or the WEU, to accomplish its missions? Indeed, the Security Council has increasingly sought to identify whenever possible a ‘core contributor’ to UN military operations, be it a nation or an alliance, as NATO in Bosnia, thus facilitating recruitment, deployment, and command and control of the operation.147 ‘Has it been side-tracked by other organs? Have difficulties and failures broken its ability to make contributions of value?’ asked Hammarskjöld about the UN as early as 1962.148 Article 24 of the Charter confers on the Security Council primary responsibility for the maintenance of peace. However, according to Article 52: Nothing in the present Charter precludes the existence of regional arrangements or agencies for dealing with such matters relating to the maintenance of international peace and security as are appropriate for regional action, provided that such arrangements or agencies and their activities are consistent with the purposes and principles of the United Nations. Moreover, enforcement action by regional organizations is clearly envisaged in the Charter, provided such action has been authorized by the Security Council. According to Article 53: The Security Council shall, where appropriate, utilize such regional arrangements or agencies for enforcement action under its authority. But no enforcement action shall be taken under regional arrangements or by regional agencies without the authorization of the Security Council with the exception of measures against any enemy state … until such time as the Organization may, on request of the Governments concerned, be charged with the responsibility for preventing further aggression by such a state. Cooperation between the United Nations and regional organizations is indeed not limited to such enforcement actions. In his Annual Report on the

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Work of the Organization to the General Assembly of August 1995, the Secretary-General could list five different forms of cooperation currently taking place, including consultation, diplomatic support, operational support, co-deployment, and joint operations.149 A trend towards resolution of conflicts at the regional level is perceptible. When regional actors who have a direct interest in a conflict participate in the operations designed for its settlement, chances of success are higher, as demonstrated with the Cambodian conflict. There are a number of advantages commonly put forward in support of an increasing role for regional arrangements. Countries in the region are more likely to have an interest in settling the conflict and to have a greater sense of ‘ownership’ and legitimacy in the decisions. Geographical proximity to a conflict zone facilitates early warning and deployment of troops and equipment. Regional organizations offer a forum for dialogue and cooperation, while homogeneity of membership and common culture can play an important role in reaching consensus, understanding local culture, and involving local NGOs. Regional organizations may be in a better position to deal with emerging new actors in the conflict such as faction leaders, clan elders, and so on. Criticism of UN troops – viewed as to ‘foreign’ to local cultures – has been heard on various occasions. In April 1995 the Head of the Croatian Office responsible for relations with the UN, Milovoj Thomas, was reported to have said that Croatia wanted UN peacekeepers in the country to be drawn from ‘European’ countries supposedly having a better understanding of the conflict and so that European states commit themselves further to resolving the crisis in Croatia. Approximately half the force at that time came from Argentina, Jordan, Kenya and Nepal, the remainder being from Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Poland, Czech Republic, and Russia.150 The Cambodian Minister For Culture and Fine Arts, Nouth Narang, claimed for his part that UNTAC’s ignorance of local cultures had resulted in a myriad of negative consequences for Cambodia.151 The cost of deploying soldiers from other continents has also been raised as an argument in favour of regional arrangements.152 Regional options have therefore been explored with a view of finding alternatives to United Nations military forces, and innovative proposals for regional forces have been made.153 Ali Mazrui, the Director of the Institute of Global Cultural Studies, Bighamton University, New York, proposed the formation of an African Security Council composed of five pivotal regional states: Egypt, Ethiopia, Nigeria, South Africa and Zaire, and the creation of an emergency force at the disposal of the Council.154 A proposal for a 1,000-strong ‘Pan-African Legion’ was made in 1997 by Mark Malan, Senior Researcher, African Security and Analysis Programme, Institute for Security Studies. Based on

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an analysis of the types of responses to conflict that might be necessary, Malan suggested the creation of such a directly recruited regional force the first layer of response during the emergency phase of crises (‘conflict termination’). The regional force, a small, but professional, standing African ‘Legion’, would be characterized by clear political direction from the OAU, and clear command and control via the force commander and normal military command structures. Cohesion, essential to the proper functioning of the force, would be achieved through well-trained, well-paid and highly motivated personnel, strict recruitment and promotional criteria, and a common language. A common doctrine, standardized equipment, and specialized training for stabilization operations would be provided. Strict rules and binding code of conduct, as well as transparency through the deployment of Organization of African Unity (OAU, which since 9 July 2002 has been replaced by the African Union) observers would ensure a positive image of the force. The proposed African ‘Legion’ would include the following components: • • • • • • • • • • •

permanent force commander and headquarters staff; a rapid deployment operational unit; a military advisory and training team; a civil advisory and training team; a recruiting and selection section; a linguistics section; an aviation wing; a logistics wing; a force training depot; a civilian police training wing; and an advanced training wing.

The African ‘Legion’ would be expected to carry out activities such as international law enforcement (including coercive disarmament), protection for emergency humanitarian aid, and imposing new military standards of proficiency and cohesion on the assisted force. The annual cost for salaries alone was estimated at US$24 million, based on an average individual salary of US$2,000 per month, or twice the UN scale of assessment. Weapons, equipment and maintenance could be supplied by donor countries to bridge the gap between legitimate but ineffective international responses, and the recent trend towards illegitimate but seemingly effective responses by security entrepreneurs (mercenaries).155

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Development of an African military capability with regional dimensions has been viewed with scepticism. Western military experts meeting at Harare, Zimbabwe, in January 1994, excluded the possibility of setting up a permanent African force as ‘utopian’, especially in view of its cost, and promoted instead the creation of regional centres with the necessary logistical means and troops that could be deployed on request.156 The OAU, taking into account in particular the strong opposition of Kenyan President Daniel Arap Moi to the establishment of such a force on the grounds that it would be in contravention with the OAU Charter, made it clear that there was ‘no plan to create an African army as such, or an army of intervention of peaceenforcement’.157 Steps towards the setting up of an African military reaction capability have nevertheless gradually been taken, and Central African countries have agreed to establish a regional intervention force. At a meeting of Foreign Ministers and senior army officials in Congo on 23 and 24 March 1995 under the auspices of the UN Committee on Security in the region, the participants called for the establishment of specialist peacekeeping units in each country’s army like those already existing in Chad, Guinea and Zaire. At the 1995 OAU Summit in Addis Ababa, it was agreed that OAU Member States would place their troops on stand-by for peacekeeping operations in Africa and that the OAU would levy at least US$1 million – approximately 5 per cent of the general budget – to fund African troops engaged in peacekeeping missions. The Secretary-General of the OAU, Salim Ahmed Salim, stated that the troops would be available for peacekeeping duties under UN auspices and that the OAU would be prepared to use them on its own only in exceptional circumstances. In January 1995 a conference co-hosted by Britain and Zimbabwe, sponsored by the United Nations and OAU and attended by military officials from Britain, Canada, France, the USA and 17 African countries called for the establishment of UN logistical bases in Africa to maintain basic equipment for deployment.158 The Arab League has made plans, after a proposal made by Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, to establish a joint Arab peacekeeping force with a ‘Pact of Honour for Security and Cooperation’ under which the states would join forces to repel an attack on a Member State. Fifteen of the League’s 22 members, including Iraq and Kuwait, took part in the session of experts that adopted the Pact.159 Sub-regional peacekeeping initiatives have also emerged, as illustrated by the setting up of the Association of the Southern African States (ASAS) to succeed the Frontline States as the main regional peacekeeping body in 1994. Still, regional options have, at least for the time being, important limitations, including the lack of military capabilities and political consensus. The

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main problems faced by Africa in setting up an African peacekeeping capacity have been logistics and money, as well as the lack of specialized army personnel. One of the factors hampering the efforts of the OAU is the debt it is facing, approximately US$58 million due to the inability or unwillingness of some Member States to pay their dues.160 Referring to the decision by the OAU to create a mechanism for the prevention, management and resolution of conflicts in 1993, Zimbabwean Defence Minister Moven Mahachi stressed that the OAU was incapable of supporting a continental peacekeeping structure on its own, and thus UN support was essential. Efforts by the OAU to develop mechanisms for conflict prevention, management and resolution have received the support of developed countries outside Africa, including the USA and the EU, who want to see the OAU play a greater role in areas where they are not prepared to deploy peacekeepers. At the opening of the 49th General Assembly, British Foreign Minister Douglas Hurd stated that Africa, which contributes 40 per cent of all UN peacekeeping forces, needed assistance in all areas, from preventive diplomacy to humanitarian and peacekeeping deployment, and that in view of this a set of preventive mechanisms should be established in cooperation with the OAU. On the occasion of the 1995 OAU Summit, German Foreign Ministry Official Uwe Schamm said that a determined effort by the OAU to create a peacekeeping capacity could receive the support of international donors.161 The Burundi crisis has highlighted the fact that African peacekeeping forces have little cooperation practice and are poorly trained, and most African countries have very little funds to mount effective operations.162 The difficulties of the experience of ECOMOG in Liberia, among other examples, suggest, moreover, that there could be cases where military forces of regional organizations or defence alliances were not the best solution for humanitarian military intervention.163 Moreover, Western countries may, while supporting an increasing involvement of Africans in the solving of their own crises, be reluctant at the same time to encourage the building of important African military capability that could become a danger not only to the internal stability of the concerned states but also to security in the region. S. Neil MacFarlane and Thomas G. Weiss, who think the hopes placed on regional bodies prove to be unduly optimistic if not altogether misplaced, have even argued, on the basis of cases studies of actions taken by ASEAN, the OAS, the European Community, the OAU, that these organizations are especially handicapped when intervening in active civil conflicts. Not only are the institutional capacities of regional organizations seen as relatively feeble, but their comparative superiority in the actual region of conflict is questioned in view of the inherent risk of partisanship, their potential involvement in local rivalries, and their lack of resources.164

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Apart from NATO, which can be considered an exception, UN soldiers are still the best solution. As highlighted by the then US Representative to the UN, Madeleine K. Albright, NATO is a defensive alliance and ‘cannot and should not police the world’.165 Still, to remain a solution, a UN permanent military volunteer force would ultimately need to be duplicated and complemented by regional forces in different parts of the world, a development that presupposes a sufficient development of regional organizations. In the meantime, the force could contribute to improve substantially the rapid reaction capability of the UN before regional organizations are sufficiently developed to acquire their own. Assuming this happens, and provided there is a sufficient division of labour and a gradually increased delegation of responsibilities, a UN permanent military volunteer force could still have a limited but useful role to play. While the UN could then still act as ‘legitimizer’ of humanitarian military intervention by regional organizations, it could have a residual function for directly carrying out humanitarian military intervention in cases where regional organizations did not have an interest or whose involvement would not be appropriate. A UN ‘Legion’ could also serve as a prototype for similar military forces to be set up according to the same principle on a continental or regional level. Some have advocated such regional application of the UN ‘Legion’ principle, this time in conjunction with the ineluctable trend towards increased delegation of the use of force by the UN to regional organizations. Former French Minister Jean-François Deniau, for instance, who had been in favour of a UN force, indicated his preference for a regional ‘European volunteer corps’ to be used for humanitarian action.166 Such a solution would not be without similarities to the European ‘Legion of Liberty’ promoted by Arthur Koestler’s at the time of the Korean War, the system of regional recruitment for a UN Peace Force imagined by Merchant at the time of the American proposals for general and complete disarmament in the 1960s, or the proposal by Mario C. Zanatti for a European Force on the model of the Foreign Legion.167 Legitimacy, Decision-Making and the Veto Another issue is legitimacy. A UN permanent military volunteer force would suffer, if implemented, from a congenital weakness inherent to the application of the concept to the UN: insufficient representation and equality in the decision-making process of the Security Council. In order to ensure prompt and effective action by the UN, the Member States give the Security Council primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security. They agree that in carrying out its duties under this responsibility, the Security Council acts on their behalf (Article 24). For the Security

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Council’s decisions to be perceived and accepted as legitimate given this necessary delegation of power implies two preconditions: a relative equality in the decision-making process on the one hand; a sufficient representation of the Security Council on the other. A fundamental problem is related to humanitarian intervention per se. It is the question of the determination of the violation of human rights that may justify military action, as the very principle of humanitarian intervention carried out by a world organization presupposes, to be accepted, that a set of criteria be agreed upon by Member States. What may appear a clear and massive violation of human rights to some Member States may be considered a legitimate right resulting from the state’s sovereignty by others. Hence, for instance, the Chinese warning against the overly ambitious and excessive use of peacekeepers and emphasizing that the UN should not become entangled in the internal affairs of a sovereign state or use force. What number of human lives or what degree of violation of human rights is the threshold for intervention? Hans Van Mierlo’s statement at the 53rd Session of the Commission on Human Rights is an interesting example of such potential divergence. Van Mierlo, calling for ‘guardians of human rights’ to ‘prevent human rights violations instead of mourn their victims’, reaffirmed the universality of human rights and the EU’s ‘commitment to all human rights and fundamental freedom’.168 He referred in particular to Wei Jingsheng, a human rights defender, in prison in China. The Chinese Delegate responded in bitter words that the ‘first and foremost principle of the Charter is sovereign equality’ and that the Dutch Minister was therefore in ‘no position to admonish’ China, adding: ‘I would like to suggest that he had better concentrate on reviewing the ignoble human rights record in the history of his own country and on tackling the human rights problems within the European Union.’169 As argued by Philippe Moreau Defarges, the function of any form of ingérence – be it in the name of the Holy Alliance, colonization, or the UN – is the expression of an order, as it tends to prevent or reduce the heterogeneity of reality, bringing it back to a common norm: Humanitarian intervention is double-faceted: on one side, it marks the emergence of a jointly liable humanity, in which human beings are ready to help one another in case of disaster; on the other side, it appears to be the carrier of an imposed order.170 Humanitarian intervention may be seen as the expression of an intrinsic contradiction of the international society: the desire for a just order on the one hand, and a claim for more independence on the other. Latent opposition

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to the UN permanent military volunteer force, a solution to the humanitarian idea, also reflects this contradiction. Because of the growing interdependence, it will be ever more necessary, but also always inherently controversial, resurrecting the Orwellian fear of a universal Big Brother. In some ways the idea, when it tends to threaten state sovereignty, produces its own ‘antibodies’. A related difficulty, which accounts for the part of the long-standing opposition to a permanent military volunteer force, is the right of veto. Granted to the five permanent members under Article 27(3), the veto introduces a dangerous arbitrary element into the decisions taken by the Security Council. Humanitarian military intervention may be voted, postponed, or rejected on the basis of criteria and for reasons in total contradiction to the principles of universality and equality embodied in the Charter. Had the UN a ‘Legion’ at its disposal, the veto would in any case have prevented it from getting involved in Tibet, China being a Permanent Member of the Security Council, in East Timor, at the time when at least two Permanent Members regarded Indonesia as an important ally, not to mention Tchetchnya in view of Russia’s ‘chasse gardée’ in the Caucasus.171 ‘It would be rare’, noted Stedman, ‘if in potential crises all members of the Security Council agreed that war was imminent and that military action was appropriate’.172 Still, as controversial as it may be, the veto reflects the reality of the current world order, and is the logical corollary to the Security Council’s right to decide over the use of force. The unanimity of the great powers is necessary to undertake an act of coercion in the name of the world community against a nation that violates peace, as it is essential both for the military police action to be fully effective, and to prevent the potential transformation of the UN into an instrument of military force in a conflict between the great powers.173 Beyond the problems of inequality and unanimity within the Security Council is the question of representation. The fact that neither Asia nor Africa has a permanent seat in the Security Council while states from these areas have become the majority in the General Assembly attests to the need for a more equitable geographic representation. Hence the opposition in the South to a permanent force accused of neo-colonialism and suspected of being at the service of the North. A number of non-aligned states, in particular, have expressed their hesitation to support the Dutch Rapid Deployment Brigade proposal as it would give the Security Council new means with which to exercise power. The potential opposition to the idea has been seen as an important obstacle to the realization of the idea, as ‘it is going to take an awful lot of persuasion to make developing countries give up their reservations about vesting power in the Security Council to call up its own force without having to put together the usual balanced multinational

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group’.174 Here, the contradiction comes from the idea of putting an instrument meant to be truly international and thereby politically neutral at the disposal of an organ of the UN whose legitimacy to use it is, from the start, contestable. Some would support the idea of a rapidly deployable UN standing force if the Security Council transformed itself into an elected council of regional representatives, with decisions by majority.175 What the UN permanent military volunteer force may then reveal are the limits of the capacity of the organization to reform itself. There may also be another hard contradiction, as highlighted by Danilo Zolo: No one can be under the illusion that the greatest world powers are likely to wish to sit at the same table as the poorest and weakest countries in order to take part in a democratic decision-making process involving equality of votes over decisions regarding vital military and economic questions and the strategic balance of the planet. Under such circumstances it is necessary to recognise that the United Nations, World Bank and International Monetary Fund are examples of institutions which are simply nonreformable in the sense favoured by the democratic supporters of cosmopolitanism whose desire is to see them simultaneously both strengthened and democratized.176 The debate over the reform of the UN is not new.177 Article 108 allows for amendments by two-thirds of the General Assembly members, but requires ratification by all the Security Council Permanent Members in order for those amendments to come into force. Indeed, and in spite of the limited chance of any attempt to reform the Charter under its Article 108 to succeed, one cannot totally exclude the possibility that a reform be eventually carried out under the pressure of the concerned states.178 Such a reform, if it takes place, is, however, likely to further sanction the elitism of the system, for instance with the accession of Japan and Germany, and possibly South Africa and Argentina, to permanent seats in the Security Council. The contradiction would not end there: assuming that the Security Council were enlarged and the decision-making process reviewed, selectivity would in any case result from the political character of the decisions taken by the body responsible for authorizing the deployment of the force. The arbitrary character and relative legitimacy of the Security Council’s decisions regarding humanitarian military intervention would remain, as it is more fundamentally inherent to the organization of the international community and the UN, and to the fact that decisions related to the use of force will always be decided by states. Worse, perhaps, the decision-making

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process would sooner or later prove unworkable with the increased number of direct actors. Jeffrey Gerlach pointed out that if permanent membership of the Security Council were enlarged the difficulty would be even greater, as well as the risk of divergence in views and policies. For this reason, he thought, ‘the formation of ad-hoc coalitions in response to particular international problems seems to be much more promising security policy than a permanent world-wide security structure’.179 In addition, lack of control over UN troops has been an argument raised by those who oppose ‘pro-globalist’ trends, the International Criminal Court (ICC) and a world police force. ‘If we forfeit sovereignty with the advent of global governance,’ asks Maty Jo Anderson on the anti-United Nations American website WorldNetDaily.com, ‘who polices the “peacekeepers”’?180

NOTES 1. S. Cambone, ‘The Political Setting’, in D. A. Leurdijk (ed.), A UN Rapid Deployment Brigade: Strengthening the Capacity for Quick Response, p. 30. 2. S. J. Stedman, ‘A Volunteer United Nations Army? The Case Against’, International Herald Tribune, 28 July 1993, p. 7. 3. J. F. Hillen III, ‘Policing the New World Order: the Operational Utility of a Permanent U.N. Army’, Strategic Review, 22, 2 (1994), p. 62. J. R. Gerlach, ‘A United Nations Army for the New World?’, Orbis, 37, 2 (1993), p. 226. 4. J. G. Ruggie, ‘No, the World Does Not Need a United Nations Army’, International Herald Tribune, 26–27 September 1992, p. 4. 5. A. Roberts, ‘Proposals for UN Standing Forces: History, Tasks and Obstacles’, in D. A. Leurdijk (ed.), A UN Rapid Deployment Brigade, p. 43. 6. W. Clarke and Jeffrey Herbst, ‘Somalia and the Future of Humanitarian Intervention’, Foreign Affairs, 75, 2 (1996), p. 84. 7. A. Morrison, ‘The Fiction of a UN Standing Army’, Fletcher Forum of World Affairs, 18, 1 (1994), p. 24. 8. G. Evans, ‘A United Nations Volunteer Military Force – Four Views’, New York Review of Books, 24 June 1993, p. 58. 9. Lt.-Gen. S. Nambiar, ‘United Nations Operations in Former Yugoslavia: Some Reflections’, UNIDIR Newsletter, 24 (December 1993), p. 18. 10. Press Release, Secretary-General/SM/5518, 5 January 1995, p. 5. 11. R. Siekmann, ‘Political Aspects of a Directly Recruited Permanent United Nations Force’, International Peacekeeping, 2, 4 (1995), p. 92. ‘Problems With United Nations Standing Army’, International Peacekeeping News, 11, August 1995, p. 31. 12. Policy on Reforming Multilateral Peace Operations, Text Executive Summary, 790, Office of Public Affairs, United States Mission, Geneva, EUR 409, 5 May 1994, p. 2. 13. G. Evans, Cooperating for Peace, The Global Agenda of the 1990s and Beyond (St Leonards, Australia: Allen & Unwin, 1993), p. 163. 14. International Peacekeeping News, 7, March 1995, p. 33. 15. ‘Setting a New Agenda for the United Nations’, interview of Boutros Boutros-Ghali by

240

16. 17.

18.

19. 20. 21. 22.

23. 24. 25. 26. 27.

28. 29. 30.

31. 32. 33.

A UN ‘Legion’: Between Utopia and Reality Carolyn Reynolds, Sudarsan Raghavan, W. Judson Dorman and Melissa Sawin, Journal of International Affairs, 46, 2 (1993), p. 293. ‘Polls Show Support for United Nations and Peacekeeping’, International Peacekeeping News, 11 August 1995, p. 32. J. G. Heidenrich, Why US Conservatives Should Support a United Nations Legion, Research Monograph 3, Project on Defense Alternatives (Cambridge, MA: Commonwealth Institute, April 1995), p. 4. See also D. Boren. ‘The World Needs an Army on Call’, New York Times, 26 August 1992, p. A21. The article was reprinted in the International Herald Tribune, 27 August 1992, p. 4. ‘A Foreign Legion for the World’, New York Times, 1 September 1992, p. A16. L. R. Wright, ‘Bold Old Vision’, The New Republic, 25 January 1993, p. 19. Remarks by P. Kahn, ‘The End of Sovereignty? Roundtable’, Proceedings of the Eightyeighth Annual Meeting of the American Society of International Law (Washington, DC, American Society of International Law, 1994; p. 74. ‘Multiple Tiers of Sovereignty: the Future of International Governance’, ibid., pp. 53–5. A. Roberts, The United Nations’s Role in a World with States and Non-States, Conference, GIIS, Geneva, 9 December 1993. E. Rostow, ‘Should Article 43 of the United Nations Charter Be Raised from the Dead?’, McNair Paper, 19, July 1993; p. 14. G. M. Lyons. ‘A New Collective Security: the United Nations and International Peace’, Washington Quarterly, 17, 2 (1994), p. 188. N. El Araby, ‘The Office of the Secretary-General and the Maintenance of International Peace and Security’, The United Nations and the Maintenance of International Peace and Security (Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff, 1987), pp. 183–4. J. Whitman and I. Bartholomew, ‘Collective Control of UN Peace Support Operations’, Security Dialogue, 25, 1 (1994), pp. 77–92. F. Bonnard, ‘A United Nations Command for a New Force’, International Herald Tribune, 4 April 1993, p. 4. G. Markley, ‘Task Force Breaks in Tracking System’, The Stars and Stripes, 10 November 1993. Interview with General Jean Cot by the author, Geneva, 7 October 1996. See, inter alia, J. Kirkpatrick, ‘Commander Boutros Ghali? No the Title Does Not Become Him’, International Herald Tribune, 15 March 1993, p. 6. G. Abi-Saab, ‘La Deuxième Génération des Opérations de Maintien de la Paix’, Le Trimestre du Monde, 20, 1992, p. 95. Lt.-Gen. J. M. Sanderson. ‘The Dilemma of Force, Don’t Dabble into War’, WIP, 14, 3 (1995), p. 9. B. Boutros-Ghali, ‘United Nations Peacekeeping in a New Era: a New Chance for Peace’, The World Today, April 1993, p. 69. A/50/60, S/1995/1, 3 January 1995. A/50/60, S/1995/1, 3 January 1995. B. Boutros-Ghali, ‘The United Nations and New International Conflicts’, conference, Geneva Institute of International Studies, Geneva, 3 July 1995, Secretary-General/ SM/95/47; p. 7. B. Boutros-Ghali, ‘Empowering the United Nations’, Foreign Affairs, 71, 4 (Winter 1992–93), p. 95. Letter dated 7 July from the Secretary-General addressed to the President of the Security Council, S/1994/845, p. 1. A/59/1. Confronting New Challenges, Annual Report on the Work of the Organization (New York: United Nations, 1995), pp. 2, 58.

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34. ‘Ties that Bind the Hands of the United Nations’, interview with Boutros BoutrosGhali by Ian Maher, United Nations Special, March 1994; p. 10. 35. B. Boutros-Ghali, ‘Empowering the United Nations’, p. 94. 36. S/1994/845, p. 1. 37. ‘Ties that Bind the Hands of the United Nations’, p. 10. Boutros Boutros-Ghali, ‘Empowering the United Nations’, pp. 94–5. ‘UNhappy Birthday’, The Economist, 24 June 1995, p. 20. 38. B. Urquhart, ‘The United Nations Capacity for Peace Enforcement’, p. 3. 39. E. Luttwak, ‘Unconventional Force’, The New Republic, 25 January 1993, p. 23. 40. Towards a Rapid Reaction Capability, p. 62. 41. Our Global Neighbourhood, p. 111. 42. A United Nations Rapid Deployment Brigade, p. 17. 43. P. Armstrong, ‘107 Députés anglais veulent que l’O.N.U gouverne les mers’, Science & Vie, August 1955, pp. 12–17. 44. T. C. Schelling, ‘Strategic Problems of an International Armed Force’, International Organisation, 17, 2 (1963), p. 468. 45. ‘Politics and the Financing of the United Nations’, Brookings Research Report 21, 1964, p. 7. 46. B. Boutros-Ghali, ‘Global Leadership after the Cold War, Foreign Affairs, 75, 2 (1996), p. 97. 47. J. G. Stoessinger, Financing the United Nations System (Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution, 1964), p. 31. 48. Brig.-Gen. F. Saermark-Thomsen, ‘Military Aspects to a United Nations Rapid Deployment Brigade’, A United Nations Rapid Deployment Brigade, p. 56. Gen. P. Peron, ‘La Projection de forces’, Défense Nationale, August–September 1993, pp. 55–61. 49. T. Örn, ‘Peacekeeping – The New Challenges’, International Relations, 12, 5 (1995), p. 7. 50. ‘United Nations Requests Action in Burundi’, International Peacekeeping News, 2, 3 (1996), p. 6. 51. M. O’Hanlon, Saving Lives With Force – Military Criteria for Humanitarian Intervention (Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution, 1997), pp. 21–3. 52. United Nations Guard Contingent in Iraq, UNGCI Unit, DHA/OED, Geneva, 1991. 53. Remarks by Paul C. Szasz, Proceedings on the Eighty-eighth Annual Meeting of the American Society of International Law (Washington, DC: American Society of International Law, 6–9 April 1994), p. 343. 54. J. Gerlach, ‘A U.N. Army for the New World Order?’, Orbis, 37, 2, Spring 1993. 55. The Feasibility of Creating an International Corps of Volunteers for Development, Secretary-General Report, ECOSOC, 49th Session, Agenda Item 9, E/4790, 14 April 1970. 56. B. Urquhart, ‘The United Nations’ Capacity for Peace Enforcement’, intervention at the conference ‘An International Agenda for the 21st Century: the Role of Canada’, Winnipeg, 12–14 May 1994, p. 4. 57. E. Luttwak, ‘Unconventional Force’, p. 23. 58. General P. Le Peillet, ‘Une force permanente au service de la paix’, contribution du Général Pierre le Peillet, 3ème Rassemblement International des Casques Bleus, Paris, September 1999. 59. S. Lodgaard, ‘In Defence of International Peace and Security: New Missions for the United Nations’, UNIDIR Newsletter, 24, December 1993, p. 10.

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60. Lord Owen, ‘The Limits of United Nations Enforcement’, Fourth Cornelis Van Vollenhoven Memorial Lecture by Lord Owen, Leiden University, The Netherlands, 6 June 1995, pp. 3–4. 61. F. Heisbourg, Les volontaires de l’an 2000 – Pour une nouvelle politique de défense (Paris: Baland, 1995), p. 209. M.Van Berchem, ‘La percée de l’armée de volontaires’, La Tribune de Genève, 23 February 1996, p. 3. ‘Mr Chirac annonce la suppression du service militaire dans six ans’, Le Monde, 24 February 1996, pp. 1, 8. 62. ‘Comment font les autres …, Courrier International, 278, 29 February–6 March 1996, p. 11. ‘Europe: La conscription domine encore’, La Tribune de Genève, 3 February 1996, p. 3. 63. ‘La Suisse n’exclut pas une semi-professionalisation de ses soldats’, La Tribune de Genève, 23 February 1996, p. 3. ‘Il n’y a pas si longtemps, l’armée Suisse était citée en exemple’, Journal de Genève et Gazette de Lausanne, 24–25 February 1996, p. 3. 64. ‘L’Autriche a-t-elle besoin d’une armée?’, article by Interior Minister Caspar Einem reprinted in Courrier International, 278, 29 February–6 March 1996, p. 10. 65. Statement before the General Assembly by Mr Krishna Menon on 7 October 1958, General Assembly, 13th Session, Plenary Meetings, 774th Meeting, GAOR, p. 365. 66. Lord Owen, ‘The Limits of Peace Enforcement’, p. 3. 67. Interview with Gen. Jean Cot by the author, Geneva, 7 October 1996. 68. C. Hill, ‘World Opinion and the Empire of Circumstance’, edited text of the third John Vincent Memorial Lecture delivered at the University of Keele on 5 May 1995, International Affairs, 72, 1, January 1996, pp. 113–15. 69. Ibid., p. 129. 70. K. Annan, ‘D’autres génocides, d’autres Rwanda sont à craindre’, propos de Kofi Annan recueillis par André Naef, Tribune de Genève, 30 March 1998, p. 7 71. M. Klen, ‘Comores et Mercenaires’, Défense Nationale, 52nd year, January 1996, p. 133. 72. I. Brownlie, ‘Volunteers, War and Neutrality’, International and Comparative Law Quarterly, 5, 4, October 1956, p. 575. 73. H. C. Burmester, ‘The Recruitment and Use of Mercenaries in Armed Conflict’, American Journal of International Law, 72, 1, January 1978, p. 40. 74. H. Grotius, Le droit de la guerre et de la paix, trans. Jean Barbeyrac (Caen: Centre de Philosophie Politique et Juridique, 1984), p. 701. 75. Machiavel, Oeuvres complètes (Paris: Gallimard, 1952), p. 740. 76. GA Res. 43/147. International Convention Against the Recruitment, Use, Financing and Training of Mercenaries, United Nations, DPI/1049-13333-December 1990-7M, p. 1 77. A. Roberts, ‘The United Nations’ Role in a World of States and Non-States’, conference, Geneva Institute of International Studies, Geneva, 9 December 1993. 78. J. P. Laugier, ‘Les Volontaires internationaux’, pp. 77–8. 79. J. Larteguy, Les Mercenaires (Paris: Presses de la Cité, 1960), p. 11. F. Forsyth, The Dogs of War (New York: Viking, 1974), p. 408. 80. E. David, Mercenaires et volontaires internationaux en droit des gens (Bruxelles: Editions de l’Université Libre de Bruxelles, 1978), p. 2. 81. H. C. Burmester, ‘The Recruitment and Use of Mercenaries’, p. 37. 82. ‘International Convention Against the Recruitment’, DPI/1049-13333-December 1990-7M, p. 1. 83. Ibid. 84. Machiavel, Oeuvres complètes (Paris: Gallimard, 1952), p. 739.

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85. C. B. Marshall, ‘Character and Mission of a United Nations Peace Force, under Conditions of General and Complete Disarmament’, American Political Science Review, 59, 2 (1965), p. 358. 86. D. Porch, The French Foreign Legion, a Complete History of the Legendary Fighting Force, (New York: Harper Perennial, 1992), pp. 618–19. 87. Lord Owen, ‘The Limits of United Nations Enforcement’, pp. 3–4. 88. F. Lewis, ‘Gurkhas Can Solve the UN’s Problems’, New York Times, 8 February 1992, p. 21. 89. Col. A. G. Katzin, ‘Collective Security: The Work of the Collective Measures Committee’, p. 206. 90. E. Grove, ‘UN Armed Forces and the Military Staff Committee’, p. 182. 91. Views expressed by F. T. Liu and Hisako Shimura in ‘Limits of United Nations Peacekeeping Revealed’, International Peacekeeping News, 6, February 1995, p. 22. 92. ‘United Nations: Standing Army Could Test United Nations Image’, SUNS (South North Development Monitor), 3580, 31 July 1995, p. 10. 93. S. Lodgaard, ‘In Defence of International Peace and Security: New Missions for the United Nations’, UNIDIR Newsletter, 24, December 1993, p. 5. 94. ‘Conflict and Development: Causes, Effects and Remedies’, keynote address by Ambassador Ian Eliasson, former USG for Humanitarian Affairs, Chairman Minsk Group (CSCE), The Hague, 22 March 1994, p. 5. A. Donini, ‘Beyond Neutrality: On the Compatibility of Military Intervention and Humanitarian Assistance’, Fletcher Forum of World Affairs, 19, 2 (1995), pp. 31–45. 95. M. Bertrand, ‘The United Nations Needs a New Charter’, Global Rights, special edition ‘United Nations at Fifty’, Autumn 1995, p. 29. See also, by the same author, La fin de l’ordre militaire (Paris: Presses de Sciences Po, 1996). 96. P. F. Diehl, J. Reifschneider and P. R. Hensel, ‘United Nations Intervention and Recurring Conflict’, International Organization, 50, 4 (1996), pp. 697–8. 97. B. Posen, ‘Military Responses to Refugee Disasters’, International Security, 21, 1, p. 108. 98. ‘Le CICR ne veut plus être seulement un pompier’, entretien avec Cornelio Sommaruga, Echo Magazine, 5 January 1995, p. 8. 99. B. Kouchner, ‘Sauver les corps’, Les Cahiers de l’Express, 20, March 1993, p. 7. 100. ‘MSF Condemns World Reluctance to Halt Genocide’, International Peacekeeping News, 6, February 1995, p. 23. 101. Investigation of the Relationship Between Humanitarian Assistance and Peacekeeping Operations, report prepared by Francesco Mezzlama, JIU, Geneva, 1995, UN Doc. JIU/REP/95/6. 102. F. Jean, ‘Doctors Without Boundaries, NGO and Peace-keepers’, WIP, 14, 3 (1995), p. 7. W. Dowell, ‘Can Soldiers be Aid Workers?’, Crosslines Global Report, special edition: ‘Weapons of War, Tools of Peace’, 18–19, December 1995, pp. 19–20. 103. S. Ogata, ‘The Interface Between Peacekeeping and Humanitarian Action’, New Dimensions of Peacekeeping, p. 126. 104. ‘Le CICR se Retire du Burundi’, Le Nouveau Quotidien, 12 June 1996, p. 6. 105. T. Schields, ‘United Nations, Red Cross Hire Gunmen to Escort Food Convoys’, Guardian Weekly, 17 May 1992, p. 21. A Consultation on ‘The Privatization of Security in Africa’, Summary Report, International Alert and Global Coalition for Africa (Washington, DC: Overseas Development Council, 12 March 1999), pp. 5–6. 106. Press Conference by General Cot, Zagreb, 7 January 1994, Daily Press Summary,

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107. 108. 109.

110. 111. 112. 113. 114.

115.

116. 117.

118.

119. 120.

121.

122. 123. 124. 125. 126.

A UN ‘Legion’: Between Utopia and Reality UNHCR, Zagreb, 7 January 1994, p. 2. J. Popovic, ‘Cot Trazi Snage za Hitnu Intervencju’, Vecernji List (Zagreb), 7 January 1994, p. 8. G. H. Poulin, ‘Casques rouges à croix blanche pour protéger la Croix Rouge’, Revue Militaire Suisse, 6–7, June–July 1994, pp. 3–4. United Nations Guard Contingent in Iraq, UNGCI Unit, DHA/OED, Geneva, 1991. T. Findlay, ‘Reflections on the Use of Force’, text derived from the proceedings of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute/Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade Workshop on ‘The Use of Force in Peace Operations’, Stockholm, 10–11 April 1995, p. 6. G. Holleufer, ‘For the Best or Against the Worst?’, Red Cross, Red Crescent, 3, 1995, p. 20. J. G. Ruggie, ‘No, The World Doesn’t Need a United Nations Army’, International Herald Tribune, 26–27 September 1992, p. 4. E. Levy, ‘Les Serbes ont gagné la guerre de Bosnie contre l’ONU’, Le Nouveau Quotidien, 19 April 1994, p. 7. S. Aga Khan, ‘A United Nations Military Force, the Prospect’, New York Review of Books, 15 July 1993, p. 54. Supplement to an Agenda for Peace, para. 77. See also the views expressed by F. T. Liu and Hisako Shimura in, ‘Limits of United Nations Peacekeeping Revealed’, International Peacekeeping News, 6, February 1995, p. 22. See C. Dobbie, ‘A Concept for Post-Cold War Peacekeeping’, Survival, 36, 3 (1994), pp. 121–48. Wider Peacekeeping, Army Field Manual (London: HMSO, 1995), pp. 2.1– 2.14. Supplement to an Agenda for Peace, para. 36. Speech by NATO Secretary-General Willy Claes at the 41st Annual Session of the North Atlantic Assembly, Turin, Italy, 9 October 1995. NATO Press Release 94/103, 28 October 1994. Comprehensive Review of the Whole Question of Peacekeeping Operations in All Their Aspects, Command and Control of the United Nations Peacekeeping Operations, SecretaryGeneral’s Report, General Assembly, 49th Session, Agenda item 75, A/49/681, 21 November 1994, p. 8. International Peacekeeping News, 11, August 1995, p. 46.F. de Rose, ‘A Future Perspective for the Alliance’, NATO Review, 43, 4 (1995), pp. 9–14. R. J. Beck, ‘A Study of War and An Agenda for Peace, Reflections on the Contemporary Relevance of Quincy Wright’s Plan for a “New International Order”’, Review of International Studies, 22, 2 (1996), pp. 144, 146–7. V.-Y. Ghébali, ‘UNPROFOR in the Former Yugoslavia: the Misuse of Peacekeeping and Associated Conflict Management Techniques’, New Dimensions of Peacekeeping, pp. 13–40. D. A. Leurdijk, ‘The Rapid Reaction Force’, International Peacekeeping (The Hague), 2, 6 (1995), p. 132. A. K. Banerji, ‘From Peacekeeping to Blood-letting: The Travails of the United Nations’, India Quarterly, 51, 2–3 (1995), p. 27. L. Haynes and T. W. Stanley, ‘The UN Needs a “Fire Brigade” to Douse Regional Conflicts’, Christian Science Monitor, 5 July 1994. I. Carlsson, ‘Roles for the United Nations in International Security after the Cold War’, Security Dialogue, 26, 1 (1995), p. 10. ‘A United Nations Volunteer Military Force – Four Views’, New York Review of Books,

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24 June 1993, p. 59. 127. B. Urquhart, ‘Between Keeping the Peace and Force – To Fill the Fatal Gap’, WIP, 14, 3 (1995), p. 3. 128. Strengthening of the United Nations System Capacity for Conflict Prevention, report prepared by H. L. Hernandez and S. Kuyama, JIU/REP/95/6, p. 10. 129. ‘War-Mongering is bad PR’, interview with Marrack Goulding by A. Hekkens, Global Rights, Autumn 1995, pp. 21–2. 130. J. F. Hillen III, ‘Policing the New World Order: The Operational Utility of a Permanent UN Army’, Strategic Review, 22, 2 (1994), p. 61. See also J. F. Hillen III, ‘Peacekeeping is Hell, American Unlearnt Lessons of Vietnam’, Policy Review, 66, Fall 1993. 131. S. J. Stedman, ‘A Volunteer Army? The Case Against’, International Herald Tribune, 29 July 1993, p. 7. 132. R. N. Haas, ‘Military Force, a User’s Guide’, Foreign Policy, 96, Fall 1994, p. 35. 133. Remark by J. C. Polanyi in Report on the International Conference on a United Nations’ Reaction Capability, Montebello, 7–8 April, 1995, p. 2. 134. ‘Doctors Cannot Stop Genocide’, Crosslines Global Report, 2, 4–5 (1994), p. 15. 135. Major-Gen. R.-A. Dallaire and Capt. B. Poulin, ‘United Nations Reforms in Light of the Rapid Reaction Capability Study’, International Peacekeeping (The Hague), 2, 6, October–November 1995, p. 135. Preventing Genocide – How the Early Use of Force Might Have Succeeded in Rwanda, Report to the Carnegie Commission on Preventing Deadly Conflict by Scott R. Feil, Foreword by Lieutenant-General Roméo A. Dallaire (New York: Carnegie Corporation of New York, 1995), p. 62. ‘United Nations Peacekeeping Viewed’, International Peacekeeping News, 12, September/October 1995, p. 27. Interpress Service International News, 22 September 1994, ref. 940926.183, International Peacekeeping News, 2, October 1994, p. 6. 136. Lettre Datée du 5 juillet 1994, Adressée au Secrétaire général par le Représentant Permanent de la France auprès de l’Organisation des Nations Unies, Annexe ‘Opération Turquoise’, S/1994/795, 5 July 1994, ‘L’intervention française au Rwanda’, Raids, 101, October 1994; pp. 6–32. 137. Major-Gen. R. Dallaire, ‘Military Aspects’, A United Nations Rapid Deployment Brigade, p. 47. 138. ‘Les Casques bleus et la Conscience Occidentale’, address given at the Lausanne Catholic Studies Centre, Lausanne, 17 January 1996 (author’s free translation). ‘United Nations is Discredited’, editorial, Guardian Weekly, 17 January 1993, p. 13. 139. A. Essaied, ‘Nouveau Rôle pour les Casques bleus?’, United Nations Special, March 1994, p. 9. 140. S. Cambone, ‘The Political Setting’, A United Nations Rapid Deployment Brigade, p. 29. 141. B. Urquhart, ‘For a United Nations Volunteer Military Force’, New York Review of Books, 40, 11 (1993), p. 4. 142. A. Roberts, ‘The United Nations and International Security’, Survival, 35, 2 (1993), p. 7. 143. S. Ogata, ‘Un retrait francais créerait un nouveau chaos’, propos recueillis par R. Girard, Le Figaro, 25 Juillet 1994. 144. C. Sommaruga, ‘Humanitarian Action and Peacekeeping Operations’, International Review of the Red Cross, 294, May–June 1993, p. 245. 145. S. Hoffmann, ‘Erewhon or Lilliput? A Critical View of the Problem’, in L. P. Bloomfield (ed.), ‘International Force – A Symposium’, p. 413. 146. J. Gerlach, ‘A U.N. Army for the New World Order?’, Orbis, 37, 2 (1993), p. 229.

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147. ‘L’Europe et l’établissement d’un nouvel ordre mondial de paix et de sécurité’, rapport présenté au nom de la Commission politique par M. Marshall, rapporteur, Assemblée de l’Union de l’Europe Occidentale, 40th Ordinary Session (Third Part), WEU Doc. 1456, 15 May 1995, p. 20. 148. ‘Do We Need the United Nations?’, address by Dag Hammarskjöld before the Students’ Association, Copenhagen, Denmark, 2 May 1959, in Servant of Peace, p. 200. 149. Report of the Secretary-General on the Work of the Organization, A/50/1, 22 August 1995, para. 932. 150. International Peacekeeping News, 8, April 1995; p. 36. 151. ‘Cambodian Minister Criticizes UNTAC Operation’. International Peacekeeping News, 5, January 1995, p. 15. 152. ‘Security Cooperation in Africa’, International Peacekeeping News, 12, September/ October 1995, p. 4. 153. R. Jones and T. Duffey, ‘Searching for Alternatives: the United Nations and Regional Organizations’, International Peacekeeping, 3, 1 (1994–5), p. 5. P. F. Diehl, ‘Institutional Alternatives to Traditional United Nations Peacekeeping: an Assessment of Regional and Multinational Options’, Armed Forces & Society, 19, 2 (1993), pp. 209–30. 154. ‘Options to Create Peace in Africa’, International Peacekeeping News, 11, August 1995, p. 5. 155. M. Malan, ‘Treading Firmly on the Layered Response Ladder: From Peace Enforcement to Conflict Termination Operations in Africa?’, African Security Review, 6, 5 (1997). 156. C. Morand, ‘L Occident appelle de ses voeux une force africaine pour assurer la paix du continent’, Journal de Genève et Gazette de Lausanne, 1 February 1995, p. 4. 157. ‘Kenya Opposed to Africa PK Force’, International Peacekeeping News, 10, Summer 1995, p. 7. See also remarks by Ibrahim Gambari (Nigeria), Chairman of the Special Committee on Peacekeeping Operations, in ‘Special Committee on PKOs’, International Peacekeeping News, 8, April 1995. 158. ‘Central African Force Develops’, International Peacekeeping News, 7, March 1995, p. 3. See also M. Thomas, ‘OAU Approves Peacekeeping Units’, Africa Recovery, 9, 2 (1995), pp. 1, 4. ‘OAU Agrees on Stand-by Force’, International Peacekeeping News, 10, Summer 1995, p. 6. 159. ‘Arab League Plans to Form PK Force’, International Peacekeeping News, 11, August 1995, p. 28. 160. ‘OAU Ministers Discuss Peacekeeping’, International Peacekeeping News, 10, Summer 1995, p. 5. Agence France Press International News Ref. 950201.076, 27 January 1995, International Peacekeeping News, 6, February 1995, p. 3. 161. ‘OAU Conflict Resolution Summit’, International Peacekeeping News, 3 November 1994, p. 16. International Peacekeeping News, 10, Summer 1995, p. 6. 162. ‘Special Rapporteur on Burundi Calls for International Pressure to bring to an end “unbearable” situation of violence’, HR/96/38, 18 July 1996. ‘Statement of the Central Organ of the OAU on the Grave Situation in Burundi’. Press Release, Information Division, OAU, 25 July 1996, p. 2. ‘Intervention Unlikely in Burundi’, International Peacekeeping News, 2, 3 (1996), p. 5. 163. ‘ECOMOG Accused of Looting’, AFP International News Ref. 960528.023, 24 May 1996, International Peacekeeping News, 2, 2 (1996), p. 9 164. S. N. Macfarlane and T. Weiss, ‘Regional Organizations and Regional Security’, Security Studies, 2, 1 (1992), pp. 11, 33.

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165. Madeleine Albright, ‘The United Nations, NATO, and Crisis Management’, address at the SHAPE-EX 1996 Conference, Brussels, Belgium, April 25, 1996, US Department of State Dispatch, 7, 18, 29 April 1996, p. 220. 166. J.-F. Deniau, ‘Morale et Politique internationale’, address given at the International Museum of the Red Cross and Red Crescent, Geneva, 27 February 1996. See also ‘Kouchner: Continuons Ensemble’, interview with Bernard Kouchner by François Bazin, 2–8 June 1994, p. 58. 167. A. Koestler, ‘For a European “Legion of Liberty”’, pp. 9ff. 168. H. Van Mierlo, ‘Guardian of Human Rights’, statement by H.E. Mr Hans Van Mierlo, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands on behalf of the European Union, 53rd Session of the Commission on Human Rights, Geneva, 12 March 1997. 169. Statement by Mr Li Baodong, Alternate Representative of the Chinese Delegation in Exercising the Right of Reply to the Speech of Mr Van Mierlo, the Foreign Minister of the Netherlands, 53rd Session of the Commission on Human Rights, Geneva, 10 March–18 April 1997, Geneva 12 March 1997. 170. P. M. Defarges, ‘Quel est l’avenir des interventions humanitaires?’, Defence Nationale, August–September 1993, p. 91. 171. S. J. Cheleda, ‘The United Nations Selective Intervention’, Security Dialogue, 26, 2 (1995), p. 232. 172. S. J. Stedman, ‘A Volunteer Army? The Case Against’, International Herald Tribune, 29 July 1993, p. 7. 173. ‘Do We Need the United Nations?’, in Servant of Peace, p. 204. 174. G. Evans, ‘A United Nations Volunteer Military Force – Four Views’, New York Review of Books, 24 June 1993, p. 58. 175. O. Darko, ‘Reforming the United Nations’, West Africa, 15–21 January 1996, p. 55. 176. D. Zolo, Cosmopolis, Prospects of World Government, Cambridge: Polity, 1996, pp. 5–6. 177. See, inter alia, J. A. Salter, ‘The United Nations: Reform, Replace, or Supplement?’, David Davies Memorial Lecture, March 1957 (London: Davies Memorial Institute of International Studies, 1957), p. 19. 178. See M. W. Reisman, ‘Amending the United Nations Charter: The Art of the Feasible’, Proceedings on the Eighty-eight Annual Meeting of the American Society of International Law (Washington, DC: American Association of International Law, 6–9 April 1994), pp. 110–14. 179. J. Gerlach, ‘A U.N. Army for the New World Order?’, Orbis, 37, 2 (1993), p. 227. 180. M.-J. Anderson, ‘Who Polices the World Police?’, WorldNet Daily Exclusive Commentary, WorldNetDaily.com, 2000.

EIGHT

Epilogue It is a cardinal rule of policy making, in any case, to keep as many options open for as long as possible. International Task Force on the Enforcement of UN Security Council Resolutions, 1997

The debate over the idea of creating a UN ‘Legion’ as an alternative or supplement to existing arrangements is not new. As it depends on the advent of a favourable context for its attainment, the idea of a UN ‘Legion’ has historically grown, re-emerged and evolved, in direct connection with the development of international military force experiments. If it has not lost any of its vitality, it has not materialized, and the question of its practicality remains. Meanwhile, the events of 11 September 2001, bringing to light the underground and destructive activities and goals of an international terrorist network, Al Qaeda, and their dramatic consequences for world peace and stability as a whole, gives particular relevance to idea 413 of Robert Muller’s 2000 Ideas for a Better World: ‘International criminals are better organized than police cooperation. The whole concept of a proper world police should be considered on the eve of the 21st century and 3rd millennium.’ Apart from the question of their immediate feasibility, recent proposals for a UN ‘Legion’ raise a number of fundamental problems. Are they merely another version of earlier unrealistic proposals made in the euphoria of the end of the Second World War or generated by the frustration of the Cold War? Or is the revival of the idea of a UN ‘Legion’ revelatory of more profound changes in international relations and in the functioning of the United Nations? BEYOND THE MIRROR EFFECT

The idea of a UN ‘Legion’ acts as a catalyst, a prism through which ideal and reality are put in perspective. It highlights, by contrast, the inadequacy of the current means as compared to the objectives, and thus pinpoints the origin of the weaknesses of the present UN military intervention capability. Rather than providing an immediate or long-term solution to UN problems,

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it reflects, by default, the limits of the organization’s capacity to adapt to the new challenges, and in doing so reminds us of the binding constraints under which the organization has to operate at a given time.

Heuristic Value of a Powerful Antinomy As already noted long ago by Hans J. Morgenthau, the ‘deficiencies of an international police force are the deficiencies of the world order revealed in the perspective of a particular task’.1 An idealistic idea, the necessity of its realization will easily be demonstrated by Idealists. Realists, for their part, will have no difficulty highlighting the weaknesses of the proposal on feasibility grounds. At the present stage of world history, the idea is therefore an ‘antinomy’, in the Kantian acceptation of the term, as its validity cannot, in absolute terms, be completely discarded, nor established. This accounts for both the cyclic re-emergence of the idea throughout the United Nations’ history and explains that, even though it has not materialized and is unlikely to do so in the near future, it has not lost its relevance. Role and Evolution of Inhibiting Factors Although not originally explicitly contemplated by the founders of the UN, the idea that it could set up a permanent military volunteer force was not formally banned by the Charter. The doctrine of implied powers developed since then made it a theoretical option, as a revision of the UN Charter would in principle not be required, thus leaving the door open for all sorts of proposals. A tremendous gap existed between the UN’s potential objectives and means, because of the intrinsic limits of the arrangements under Article 43, and of their eventual non-implementation. Failure to implement Article 43 of the Charter had two apparently contradictory consequences: a de facto additional power of control over the UN’s military capacity granted to Member States that it would certainly not be eager to relinquish, and a search for alternatives, including a directly recruited force. Throughout, like Alice in Wonderland, the supporters of the idea were the victims of an illusion: that the causes preventing the implementation of Article 43 may not affect the realization of a directly recruited force. In reality, even if dressed in more modest attire, the idea would sooner or later be rejected, in the same way as Article 43 had become a dead letter. What the UN demonstrated by its very existence is that states have in some instances been willing to grant an international organization powers that are traditionally the attributes of state sovereignty. The UN, or any similar organization, can in some ways be compared to an insurance policy. If the power to decide the use of military force is generally considered to be one of the principal attributes of sovereignty, sovereignty is a relative

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concept. The level of sovereignty – or, in this case, of military force – a state is willing to transfer to an international organization is directly proportionate to the service expected from it. It is certainly not by chance that both the creation of the League of Nations and, later, the adoption of the UN Charter were the consequences of a world war, and in both cases the concessions made by states to international organization were aimed at avoiding the return of such a large-scale conflict. The exceptional character of the circumstances is, in itself, a strong indication: the problem of state sovereignty versus supranationality has to be envisaged in terms of opportunity cost rather than in terms of rigid principles. From this perspective, a permanent international military force may not necessarily be a contradiction in terms, or a purely Utopian concept: provided sufficiently exceptional circumstances, by demonstrating to the extreme the limits of the existing arrangements, made it necessary, the idea might become again a logical policy option. Given the powerful character of the factors inhibiting the setting up of a such an international force, only a major crisis of international security, making the idea of UN ‘Legion’ appear a vital necessity overriding all narrow considerations, would make the idea appear a real option. While not totally to be excluded, this is unlikely, and the erosion of factors preventing the implementation of the UN ‘Legion’ proposal might play a more important role in making the idea attractive again in the long run. Fundamentally, two predominant and interrelated ‘heavy’ factors helped to prevent the creation of a UN permanent military volunteer force after the Second World War: a relatively permanent factor, the fear of supranationality and of any limitations to national sovereignty, on the part of Member States; a relatively temporary factor, the Cold War, that is the antagonism between two major powers, the opposition of two ideological systems, and the division of the world in two camps. The fear of supranationality on the part of Member States is inherent in a system in which states are the only units granted the prerogative of sovereignty and military power. It is not by chance that, at the end of 1951, the UN ‘Legion’ proposal met increased opposition as it was more ambitious: what was being more and more called for was a supranational international police, not just an international brigade of volunteers to help in the Korean War. In addition, due to the ideological division of the world, such a proposal could only generate competition and suspicion, freezing efforts of international cooperation and making the realization of the project impossible. The fact that the UN ‘Legion’ proposal was essentially an American idea, and was directly supported by the USA, could only aggravate the suspicion that it could serve the interests of the USA and the ‘free world’ in their fight against communism. Since its implementation could have been decided only with the agreement of the great powers, the

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emergence of the UN ‘Legion’ proposal in the Collective Measures Committee at the height of the Korean War owed much to circumstances – that is, the temporary Soviet boycott of the Security Council. True, the increasing cooperation between states and the globalization of issues had gradually made it inevitable for states to accept limits to their sovereignty. Yet the idea of a UN permanent military volunteer force would remain Utopian, at least until the end of the Cold War, that is, the defeat or gradual obsolescence of one or both of the concerned ideologies or systems. Predictably enough, the end of the Cold War, while generating hopes for a ‘New World Order’, did not fundamentally alter the pattern of international relations based on power politics. Projecting the USA as a single major power has actually made the idea of a force directly under the responsibility of the UN more hypothetical than ever. The USA, historically one of the initiators and main supporters of the idea of a UN ‘Legion’, has become one of the main obstacles to the concretization of any plan for international force. Due to the multiplication of operations, and the unwillingness of the USA to pay its dues, cost has become an even more important consideration. Still, the latest emergence of the idea after the Gulf War, and even more so after Rwanda, was not just a consequence of the hopes generated by the end of the Cold War, perceived as the ‘all-pervasive tension’. A major traditional inhibiting factor, the principle of state sovereignty, still a major pillar of the international system, has been significantly eroded by growing interdependence, the development of the droit d’ingérence, and the emergence of an international public opinion. As a result, one of the major effects of the end of the Cold War was to modify significantly the terms of the UN’s military equation and its objectives, therefore highlighting the increasing inadequacy of its military instrument. Crises as a Catalyst for Political Will What is considered ‘possible’ is always someone’s projection of reality in a given context. What is seen as ‘impossible’ (a Utopian chimera) at a given time may suddenly appear ‘possible’ (a policy option) under different circumstances. What makes an idea more or less Utopian, more or less chimerical, is then the competitive pressure of necessity: an idea is Utopian only in proportion to the forces of inertia preventing its realization. If so, the Utopian character of an idea is only relative to the context in which it has emerged. From the previous proposition, another one can reasonably be deduced: the Utopian character of a project is inversely proportionate to the gravity of the problems it is meant to solve at a given time. On the other hand, whatever the forces, constraints or inhibiting factors that may prevent its realization, the

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chances of seeing an idea be implemented is ultimately directly proportionate to – and conditional on – a sufficient level of latent or active political support. Here, the subjective character of ‘possible’ as envisaged by the idealists comes into the picture. Thus, during the Cold War, only an overriding threat and the subsequent emergency could have justified the deliberate – even though temporary – setting aside of the powerful inhibiting fears and calculations inherent in international politics. In both the Palestinian and Korean cases, what made the idea of a UN permanent military volunteer force become a policy option was the extreme and unusual character of the problems facing the UN, which called for extreme and audacious solutions. The similarity between the two situations was strikingly symbolically emphasized, in mid-July 1950, by the handing over to General MacArthur of the flag that had been flown by the UN Mediator in Palestine.2 In 1948, what was at stake, beyond the UN’s ability to deploy observers, and later the failure to prevent the assassination of Bernadotte, was nothing less than the capacity of the UN to preserve peace after the Second World War, hence its very credibility. Beyond the Palestine episode was the potential end to the hopes placed in the UN for the maintenance of peace and security after the Second World War. In 1950, the problem was the lack of collective character – and therefore of perceived legitimacy of a military coalition authorized by the UN but in which the USA was predominant. Behind the scene of the Korean operation was the spectre of communist domination over the ‘free world’, and the dangers of a Third World War. The exceptional character of the circumstances that had permitted the Korean operation raised, at the time, legitimate doubts over the possibility of reproducing the experiment in case of a future international crisis involving aggression. Such a situation, unlikely to repeat itself, highlighted the need to prepare for future contingencies. Related to the veto, this problem was partly addressed by the Uniting for Peace (Acheson) resolution affirming a subsidiary role of the General Assembly for taking collective measures in the case of Security Council paralysis. That the Uniting for Peace resolution was adopted, while no action was eventually formally taken on the UN ‘Legion’ proposal, subsequently led historians retrospectively to attach importance to the former and relatively neglect the latter. Yet the sequence of events leading to the adoption of the resolution indicates its close link with the UN ‘Legion’ project. An improvised solution at the time of its proposal, the call to shift the centre of decision from the Security Council to the General Assembly was originally made simultaneously with, and complementary to, the proposal for individual enlistment. It is therefore only logical that Lie explicitly referred to the terms of the resolution when announcing publicly his UN ‘Legion’ proposal at

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Harvard. It was the Collective Measures Committee, established by the Uniting for Peace resolution, which had been entrusted with the task of studying the proposal for a UN ‘Legion’ among other methods to maintain and strengthen international peace. One may wonder how these interrelated events would have been seen a posteriori, had a UN ‘Legion’ actually been created. Undoubtedly, the Uniting for Peace resolution would, retrospectively, have been a milestone towards the materialization of the idea. After the Korean War, it seemed as if things had gone back to ‘normal’, inexorably regulated by the same powerful forces of inertia that had prevented the UN Guard concept from taking off in the past. It was as if the unexpected and ephemeral Korean fever had, once the excitation and the fight over, been cooled down, once again, by contact with the realities of international relations. Following the failure of the Collective Measures Committee to establish a UN ‘Legion’, revival and metamorphoses of the idea occurred in connection with two major phenomena: the development of peacekeeping techniques, and the search for general and complete disarmament as a means of maintaining international peace and security. The fear of a major international threat to security temporarily compensated to a certain extent for the ever-present inhibiting factor of Cold War antagonism at the time of Suez and the Congo. However, an ad hoc alternative had in the meantime been found with peacekeeping. An additional force of inertia had, moreover, developed simultaneously: cost. Again in the case of proposals for a UN Peace Force in connection with the disarmament talks, only the exceptional nature of the threat – global nuclear Armageddon – could lead the USA to envisage putting aside its concern for sovereignty, national power and cost and envisage the creation of a truly international force. The most ambitious proposals were made at the time, including an international force with nuclear weapons under UN authority. A growing problem, placed by the Secretary-General on the Agenda of the General Assembly in 1972,3 and which peacekeeping was unable to address, was terrorism. Although a problem of global dimensions and consequences, terrorism could be fought relatively efficiently at the national level and through international cooperation agreements at the time, so that calls for a force to combat terrorism remained isolated until 11 September 2001.

Full Circle While diversifying its objectives, the UN has continued to rely on the same instrument, that is, ad hoc military forces, which, if available at all, either do not have the capability or are likely to pervert the nature of the operation. As always, the UN is confronted today with only two options: either an

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autonomous multinational force set up, controlled, and financed by a group of Member States, in which case the UN has no control or financial responsibility; or a peacekeeping operation directly financed and managed by the UN with military contingents borrowed from Member States. Apparently, back in the field of potential policy options after the Rwanda crisis in 1995, it seems again only a few years later that, as compared to more ‘realistic’ solutions, it is just a Utopian chimera. Increased Contradictions Confronted in 1997 with the internal strife in the Republic of Congo the Secretary-General could only acknowledge the UN’s main handicap, its lack of permanent military forces.4 Recently appointed at the head of the UN Department of Peace-keeping Operations, Bernard Miyet commented on the same occasion that the fragility of the UN in this type of situation stems from its lack of a permanent force, making the organization also dependent on Member States for equipment, communications, and so on. Asked whether more ‘dramatic’ ideas, such as a standing army and other ‘radical’ proposals, had been effectively dropped from his agenda, the newly elected Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, replied: No, I think we did consider the issue of a standing army. You know, it has been around for a long time, but in the past few years we have been working very closely and constructively with Member States to develop the capability to deploy troops much more rapidly than we are able today … I think there are issues connected with a standing United Nations army. Here the last question I was dealing with was the financial difficulties. It poses immediate budgetary issues. It poses legal issues; where do you station them? Under which jurisdiction do they come? So there are lots of issues connected with the establishment of a standing United Nations army that, given the situation we are in, I did not think appropriate to pursue.5 In a 1998 interview, the Secretary-General expressed his fear that other genocides and Rwandas might occur, and his wish that a 5,000-strong rapidly deployable international force be set up to intervene in such situations.6 Addressing the University of California on 20 April 1998, Kofi Annan declared: Credibility and legitimacy of efforts to prevent conflict, promote peaceful resolution of conflicts, and when necessary, end them

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by force are basic conditions for a lasting international order … had the organization been given the necessary means and mandate, it would have been able to prevent the catastrophes in Rwanda and Bosnia where thousands of people were slaughtered by their enemies. Any assessment of United Nations peacekeeping must begin with this recognition, if its credibility and legitimacy is to be restored.7 Paradox of paradoxes perhaps, but the logical consequence of the lack of a readily available military instrument, the UN has not excluded the possibility of using the services of mercenary-type private companies. Private military companies, such as Watchguard International, a company set up by former SAS personnel, have developed since the beginning of the 1960s. Some provide fully functional military capability, far beyond security support services or logistical support. According to International Alert, Defense Systems Ltd (DSL) has been the single largest supplier of private security personnel to the UN in the former Yugoslavia. The SecretaryGeneral received offers from several private companies, including DSL, a company created in 1981 by for officers of elite units operating in 30 countries. According to David Shearer, researcher at the IISS, London, such companies, similar to the South African Executive Outcomes (EO), are likely to be successful given the states’ reluctance to suffer casualties. Asked at the beginning of 1997 whether it could provide security to the refugee camps in Zaire, DSL said it was in a position to make available some 4,000 persons in a few days. According to the Director of DSL, David Ransbotham, private security companies will be increasingly called upon to escort convoys or guard refugee camps due to the inability of states to provide the necessary troops. Yet serious doubts have been expressed about private security companies.8 In fact, in terms of identity with the frame of authority, financial motivation, and foreign character, ad hoc military contingents and coalitions forces share, at present, more characteristics of the ‘mercenary’ or ‘auxiliary’ forces of the Middle Ages or Renaissance than would ever a UN ‘Legion’. The defects attributed by Machiavelli to the mercenary and auxiliary forces of his time are related to the limited power of selection and control associated with such military forces. What Machiavelli actually warned against was essentially the foreign allegiance and unreliable character of military forces in the context of the then general development of more reliable permanent armies by centralized political entities. Such defects are precisely those generally attributed to military contingents provided by Member States or military coalitions authorized on an ad hoc basis by the UN.

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The UN Condemned to Amateurism and Improvisation? Even Urquhart’s early enthusiasm for the idea of a UN military volunteer force was somewhat tempered by the evolution of the international context. In September 1999, he noted that ‘there is no great urge to discuss these matters, let alone to put forward plans for something better’. ‘The prevailing mood’, he wrote, ‘suggests that we should keep our fingers crossed, hope that the future will bring no shattering emergency or surprises, and encourage as far as possible step-by-step improvements in international arrangements.’ 9 Thus, it seemed, the UN was condemned to ‘amateur and improvised reactions – almost always too little and too late’, sapping the world’s confidence in the organization.10 In response to a question on any possible UN rapid intervention force, Annan conceded in a press conference in March 2000 that ‘it is not a project the Member States are excited about, for all sorts of reasons’. ‘As far as a standing army is concerned,’ he added, ‘we don’t have much support for that.’ On the issue of when to intervene, the UN, he said, is allowed to use force in the common interest, but he noted some questions that must be addressed, including: ‘What is a common interest? Who defines it? Under what authority, under what circumstances?’11 At the end of 1999, however, two major reports had highlighted the inability of UN military forces to prevent massacres and genocide: the UN’s self-critical report on Srebrenica (16 November 1999), and the Report of the Independent Inquiry into the Actions of the United Nations during the 1994 Genocide in Rwanda (15 December 1999). On 7 March 2000, the SecretaryGeneral appointed a panel of ten, chaired by the veteran Algerian diplomat Lakhtar Brahimi, to undertake a thorough review of the UN peace and security activities, and to present a clear set of specific, concrete and practical recommendations to assist the UN in conducting such activities in the future. In particular, the panel was expected to make practical proposals to avoid UN troops not having the firepower or the authority to intervene when witnessing such atrocities as in Rwanda or Srebrenica in 1995, or when dragged into situations such as Somalia in 1993.12 The panel’s report, presented as ‘far reaching, yet sensible and practical’, was transmitted by the Secretary-General to the presidents of the General Assembly and the Security Council on 21 August 2000. It was an attempt to reflect the realities of peacekeeping in the post-Cold War era, in particular the fact that most of the missions authorized by the Security Council since 1992 had entailed a wide variety of tasks beyond the mere interposition of lightly armed peacekeepers, meeting in many instances with resistance. Yet it did not address the issue of whether the UN should be involved in specific situations, nor did it go beyond a mere reaffirmation of the need for robust rules of engagement, clear mandates, and recommendations to improve

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existing UNSAS. In fact, it dealt exclusively with the issue of how the UN can improve its performance once a decision has been made to undertake specific operations or activities. In the area of peacekeeping, the SecretaryGeneral, excluding any possibility of a standing capability as a result of the panel’s recommendation, clearly placed the responsibility on Member States, in particular the USA: The performance of the United Nations in this area will not improve unless Member States, and in particular those possessing the greatest capacity and means to do so, are ready to participate with soldiers, police officers and civilian experts, to support cooperation between countries of the South and of the North, including with equipment and training, and to pay their fair share of the costs in full and in time.13 On the use of force, the report recommended that once deployed, ‘United Nations peacekeepers must be able to carry out their mandate professionally and successfully and be capable of defending themselves, other mission components and the mission’s mandate, with robust rules of engagement, against those who renege on their commitments to a peace accord or otherwise seek to undermine it by violence.’14 On the issue of clear, credible and achievable mandates, the panel recommended that, before the Security Council agrees to implement a ceasefire or peace agreement with a UN-led peacekeeping operation, the Council assure itself that the agreement meets threshold conditions, such as consistency with international human rights standards and the practicability of specified tasks and timelines. It was suggested that the Security Council should leave in draft form resolutions authorizing missions with sizeable troop levels until such time as the Secretary-General has firm commitments of troops and other critical mission support elements, including peace-building elements, from Member States. Security Council resolutions should meet the requirements of peacekeeping operations when they deploy into potentially dangerous situations, especially the need for a clear chain of command and unity of effort. Countries that have committed military units to an operation should have access to Secretariat briefings to the Council on matters affecting the safety and security of their personnel, especially those meetings with implications for a mission’s use of force. The panel defined ‘rapid and effective deployment capacity’ as the ‘ability, from an operational perspective, to fully deploy traditional peacekeeping operations within 30 days after the adoption of a Security Council resolution, and within 90 days in the case of complex peacekeeping operations’. It

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recommended the formation of several coherent brigade-size forces, with necessary enabling forces and ready for deployment within the above time frame in the context of UNSAS.15 Regarding military personnel of the UN it was also recommended that: • the Secretary-General should be given the authority to formally canvas Member States participating in UNSAS regarding their willingness to contribute troops to a potential operation, once it appeared likely that a ceasefire accord or agreement envisaging an implementing role for the UN might be reached; • the Secretariat should, as a standard practice, send a team to confirm the preparedness of each potential troop contributor to meet the provisions of the memoranda of understanding on the requisite training and equipment requirements, prior to deployment; those that do not meet the requirements must not deploy; • a revolving ‘on-call list’ of about one hundred military officers be created in UNSAS to be available on seven days’ notice to augment nuclei of DPKO planners with teams trained to create a mission headquarters for a new peacekeeping operation. From a peacekeeper’s perspective, Henry Breed, who served as assistant to Kofi Annan when he was Under-Secretary-General for Peace-keeping Operations and Committee Secretary of the Special Committee on Peacekeeping Operations (the ‘C34’) had reasons to wonder whether anything at all had been achieved by the Panel: Looking across the horizon, and through the documents that those various deliberations have produced, the first reality that strikes is that our best available option is already our third choice. No United Nations force – rapid reaction or other – has resulted or been recommended. Approval by national parliaments or legislatures of mission participation, with all its impediments and imperfections acknowledged, is and will seemingly remain the norm.16

REALITY, IDEAL AND BETWEEN

To determine to which extent the idea of a UN legion is Utopian, we have sought to distinguish between the circumstantial obstacles to its realization – making it simply unrealistic under present circumstances – and inherent

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contradictions of the concept that would make it, even if physically implemented, fundamentally Utopian.

Utopia Lost? The analysis of the objections to the idea, whether principled or practical, does not lead to the definite conclusion that the idea cannot be implemented at all, or that the conditions necessary for its realization will never be there. It negates neither the possibility of its implementation, not its utility. It helps de-dramatize both the obstacles to, and the advantages of, the idea. Temporary Obstacles versus Inherent Limitations It has been seen that the setting up a directly recruited military force would not require a revision of the Charter, provided there is sufficient coordination and cooperation between the Secretariat, the General Assembly and the Security Council. By its standing character and its individual recruitment, the force envisaged would theoretically provide the UN with an ideal instrument, contributing to solving the problems of foreign allegiance and unreliability of present UN military forces. Individual recruitment would make a UN force more credible, as it would be more likely to be deployed in case of emergency and, once in the theatre of operations, would be more willing to take the risks necessary to accomplish its mission. The force would also potentially increase the legitimacy of UN intervention, as the force, being truly international, would be more likely to be perceived as politically neutral by the parties to the conflict. Moreover, the force, being permanently established, would benefit from adequate training, receive standardized equipment, and could theoretically be projected immediately after a Security Council resolution so as to arrive early enough to make a difference. It could even in principle allow the recruitment of citizens from countries with constitutional restrictions for participation in military operations abroad, such as Japan or Germany, or from neutral countries such as Switzerland. Whether this would really be an advantage in the future, given the recent orientation of Germany, Japan and Switzerland towards more military involvement abroad, is unclear. A UN ‘Legion’ would, in theory, be an ideal instrument not only desirable – as a practical solution to a military problem of an international organization – but also indispensable, in view of the absolute character of the moral principles and values to be defended. Objections based on the alleged ‘mercenary’ character of the proposed force, for instance, do not resist critical analysis. They are particularly interesting, however, as they help place the question of UN military forces in its historical context. If properly constituted, a UN ‘Legion’ could not be

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considered a mercenary force, either from a legal or from a moral point of view. Selection of international volunteers could be based, among other criteria, on idealistic motivations – characteristics that, by definition, are opposite to those generally attributed to mercenaries. Although their commitment could have been in some cases given freely, soldiers of UN national military contingents, as opposed to a UN ‘Legion’, can be considered as draftees who had not much choice when the draft call came. By contrast, a UN military volunteer force would not be a mercenary force under these criteria, as one could assume that members would, at least formally, fight more for ideals – the ones expressed in the UN Charter – than for a country, an organization, or even money. It is precisely the fact that they would not, while serving under the UN flag, be at the service of any particular state, ideology or interest, but would be serving an ideal, makes Professor Eric David favour direct recruitment by the UN.17 The requirement for idealistic motivations has led some, as Houshang Amery, to argue in favour of an allvolunteer UN organization: ‘The United Nations should aim to recruit its personnel from a totally different segment of the population than does the private sector. It should target those people who would like to serve the international community and humanity.’18 The analysis also suggests, however, that the evaluation of the advantages of a UN permanent military force cannot be dissociated from the overall degree of evolution of international organization at a given time. Without going as far as advocating world government as the ultimate constitutional form for international cooperation, current international military cooperation and international organization display several similarities with the historical period corresponding to the emergence of the state centralized powers and permanent national armies. The situation described by Machiavelli can easily be compared to the one facing the UN since its creation. Unable to levy its own army, it has been compelled to accept volunteer contributions of military personnel from Member States on an ad hoc basis. From this perspective, mercenary forces are to states what ad hoc military contingents are to an international organization such as the UN. As observed by Robert W. Tucker, as with the situation with law internal to a state, the weakness of international law should not be attributed only to the absence of effective enforcement procedures. Such weakness is also imputable to the weakness of social forces, an important factor in law effectiveness. As ‘peace through law’ can be attained only by giving law a role and importance in international society that it has rarely possessed in domestic society, the recurrent demand of ‘peace through law’ either appears impossible to satisfy or seems to hold out novel dangers if, by some miracle, it were suddenly to be satisfied.19 Because the idea is applied to an organization dependent on a certain

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balance of power at a given time, there would still remain a considerable distance between the ideal solution and the reality of the UN permanent military volunteer force. In particular, the force would still have to rely on the major powers’ goodwill and – in some cases – logistical support; the contradictory requirements of both peace enforcement and humanitarian military intervention would still severely restrict its use; and in some cases other solutions would have to be found. In other words, it is in only some cases and to a certain degree that a UN ‘Legion’ could, as an additional tool in the panoply of the UN, improve its perceived legitimacy and credibility to intervene. The success or failure of UN intervention would remain heavily dependent on Member States, especially the permanent members of the Security Council. In this sense, the UN ‘Legion’ is potentially a valid policy option among others, provided the historical context allows not only for its creation, but also for a parallel development of regional forces and a wider reform of the UN organization itself. As once noted by Inis Claude, the UN Charter is an incomplete document as ‘it postpones to the future – a future that shows no sign of arriving – the agreed allocation by states of military contingents to function as coercive instruments of the United Nations’.20 Yet, clearly, ‘the first essential of a police force is that its power should be so considerable, and that of its opponents so negligible, that any contest will be virtually won before it has begun’.21 From this point of view, even the system of forces ‘on call’ envisaged by the United Nations Charter in its Article 43, assuming that it could be implemented, would not provide a sufficient basis for collective security, both in terms of readiness and in terms of capacity for sanctioning any aggressor, simply because its functioning is dependent on the goodwill of one or several of the major powers. As often observed, collective security is a ‘circular proposition, demanding the prior satisfaction of requirements which can be satisfied only after collective security has become successfully operative, and purporting to solve problems by means which assume that the problems have already been solved’.22 That a UN ‘Legion’ could serve as an international police force, or a major instrument of collective security, is a fortiori to be excluded from the start. As attractive as the idea of direct recruitment may be, considering a UN ‘Legion’ as an alternative to Article 43 arrangements or as a means to enforce an international disarmament the UN has failed to implement is therefore, by definition, illusory. If the UN, as an instrument of collective security, has been effectively side-tracked by other institutions such as NATO, deducing from the UN’s failures to enforce peace the end of the UN as a security organization23 may be somewhat premature. Whether or not the last re-emergence of the idea will turn out to be politically acceptable, militarily workable and financially

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sound remains to be demonstrated in practice. As in the 1960s, to try to forecast the chances of the UN ‘Legion’ in the years to come is yet not only ‘an exercise in futility’,24 but also a speculation of relatively limited interest. A New Role: Enforcement of International Tribunal Edicts? Still, widely shared hopes for a larger UN role are echoed in relation with the protection of human rights and its logical consequence, the creation of an international criminal court. In his encyclical declaration Pacem in Terris, published on 11 April 1963, Pope John XXIII, approving the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, had considered it as a first step towards the creation of a legal/political organization of the world community. He therefore called for the establishment of a public authority with universal competence and means, based on consensus, the UN being a possible embryo of such authority.25 In spite of numerous signs that a UN ‘Legion’ may still be a Utopian chimera, there is ample evidence that the idea lacks neither vitality nor latent support.26 In the USA, and in relation to the difficulties met by the UN in deploying civilian police in Kosovo, a Bill (HR 4453), entitled the ‘United Nations Rapid Deployment Police and Security Force Act of 2000’, called for the representative of the USA to the UN to push for the creation of a 6,000man directly recruited rapid reaction force. Introduced into the House of Representatives by Republican James P. McGovern, from Massachusetts, the Bill was referred to the House Committee on International Relations on 15 May 2000. In its Section 4, the Bill urged the UN to establish a welltrained UN rapid deployment police and security force under the sole authority of the Security Council and under the direction of the SecretaryGeneral, to recruit personnel to serve in this force, and provide for equitable and reliable funding of the force. Composed of volunteers from Member States trained as a single unit, appropriately equipped, expressly for international peace operations including civilian policing, the force would be deployable to a region undergoing conflict within 15 days of the enactment of a UN Security Council resolution authorizing a deployment. The proposed force would have a mission statement defining its rules of engagement in cases when: the Security Council determines that an imminent threat to the peace requires a preventive deployment of forces and deems it an appropriate response; the Security Council determines ongoing gross violations of human rights or breaches of the peace require rapid intervention by the international community and deems it an appropriate response; peace has been restored to a region but the rule of law has not yet been re-established; and when nation civilian police or UN Member State personnel are not available and the Security Council deems it an appropriate response. In

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addition, the force could utilize its personnel to help train the military and civilian police of Member States to better participate in international peace operations. The Bill might have gone completely unnoticed, had it not been fiercely fought by anti-UN American lobbies.27 Another sign of vitality of the idea of rapid reaction for the defence of human rights is the Campaign to End Genocide, an initiative of the World Federalist Association, with six goals: • the creation of effective early-warning structures within the UN to detect and analyse the warning signs of violent conflict and genocide – to be better able to take action before the genocide starts; • the reform of UN decision-making structures so that action to prevent or stop genocide cannot be blocked by the Security Council veto; • the establishment of a powerful and effective UN rapid response capacity for all peace operations; • the establishment of an International Criminal Court with full financial and political support of UN Member States; • full and timely payment of UN assessments and reliable funding for UN peacekeeping; • enhancement of the political will to support the governments’ efforts to take effective action to prevent and stop genocide.28 The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC), adopted on 17 July 1998, established a permanent international criminal court to try individuals responsible for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. Bernard Kouchner, the co-founder of Médecins Sans Frontières, Serge Klarsfeld, President of the French Association ‘Fils et Filles des Déport Juifs de France’, as well as J. D. Tad Daley, Associate Director, Global Security Program and Nuclear Weapon Elimination Initiative, The State of the World Forum, have called for a permanent force able to enforce decisions taken by ad hoc international tribunals, such as those established for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, or a future permanent international tribunal. In 1999, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Geneva Conventions, Serge Klarsfeld appealed for a ‘Humanitarian Chivalry’ and the setting up of a directly recruited planetary ‘Legion’ under the Security Council to protect civilian populations against massacres in case of conflict between states or internal strife. The importance and noble character of their mission would help UN ‘Legionnaires’ develop the Esprit de Corps, powerful ideals, and spirit of sacrifice necessary to the carrying out of their tasks.29 Similarly,

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Bernard Kouchner, criticizing the lack of coercive means to arrest those responsible for genocide and crimes against humanity, called for the creation of a permanent ‘Human Rights Army’ that could play a preventive role similar to the FORPRENU blue helmet soldiers deployed in Macedonia.30 A permanent, highly trained, directly recruited volunteer force – or international police force – would be there to protect the common human interest in preventing crimes against humanity and promoting a rule of law. Jonathan Glover, a professor of ethics and the author of Humanity: A Moral History of the Twentieth Century (2001), saw a clear link between the need for international force and the creation of an international tribunal: The case of Yugoslavia, like that of Rwanda, suggests that the rule of law will only be imposed by a powerful international police force. It needs the authority to intervene when the law is broken, even the support of the great powers. This requires something along the lines of a strong and properly funded permanent UN Force, together with clear criteria for intervention and an international court to authorize it.31 One can find on the worldwide web a revised Charter of the United Nations based on the 1958 research by Greenville Clark and Louis B. Sohn, World Peace Through World Law. According to the proposal by Christopher G. Senie, the Security Council would be eliminated (Articles 23–32), and a Secretariat would be given the full authority to execute and enforce the laws adopted by the General Assembly and the judgments and decrees rendered by the International Court of Justice. However, a ‘Writ of Enforcement’ from the International Court of Justice would be required before the Secretariat could use force against any nation. (Articles 39, 42 and 97). The revised Article 43 of the UN reads: Article 43 – 1. 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, SECRETARIAT, on its call and in accordance with a ANY APPLICABLE special agreement or agreements, armed forces, assistance, and facilities, including rights of passage, necessary for the purpose of maintaining international peace and security. ENFORCEMENT OF INTERNATIONAL COURT OF JUSTICE JUDGMENTS AND ACTS OF THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY. An International Security Committee would be advisory to the SecretaryGeneral, Commander-in-Chief of the UN peacekeeping forces (Article 47).

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The Universal Declaration of Human Rights would be incorporated into the Charter, and suits to enforce these rights could be brought in national courts and the International Court of Justice by the Secretariat, states and nongovernmental parties (Article 55). The International Court of Justice would have compulsory jurisdiction over all international disputes arising under and within the scope of the Charter brought to it by parties having standing in those disputes.32

Pessimistic Optimism A practical expression of a Utopian idea, the idea of a UN legion is, after all, neither more nor less beyond reach than the founding idealistic Utopia itself: it is only its ultimate expression. The first Utopian idea is based on the UN concept itself, the idea that one can assign a virtually unlimited number of tasks requiring perfect impartiality to a single organization whose legitimacy to decide intervention can be contested. The second Utopian idea, recently developed but contained as a germ in the UN Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, is the humanitarian idea that one should bring assistance to all those who are threatened, and that there could be a single and universally accepted conception of human rights. The Fourth Dimension of the United Nations Even if it were true that the Utopian hopes aroused by the founding of the UN have long since been dissipated by the realities of international life,33 the organization is, to use Eugene V. Rostow’s metaphor, ‘a hardy plant’.34 A ‘tremendous machine for hope’, it is an instrument of faith.35 To continue its existence, it needs to constantly renew the original Utopia, a Utopia itself reinforced by the failures and progress of UN actions. The concretization in one form or another of the dream of a UN ‘Legion’ is therefore eventually conditional to the viability of the original Utopia, and vice versa. It remains that the institutions of the UN are world institutions, and therefore the most legitimate to decide intervention as long as no better organization replaces it.36 In the fight for the defence of universal ideas, the UN is ‘an instrument which may be wrecked, but if that happens, would have to be, and certainly would be, recreated again and again’.37 Because the idea of a UN ‘Legion’ is not only an ideal solution, but an indispensable one for the survival of the UN organization as a defender of international peace and security, it has to be understood and envisaged – like the concept of human rights itself – in the Utopian dimension, that is to say, according to the

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definition chosen by Charles Widmer, as ‘what is still nowhere, but should be’.38 Hammarskjöld would overcome the difficulty by envisaging the UN as a guarantor of collective security from a teleological perspective: ‘true collective security, in the sense of an international police power engaged to defend the peace of the world, is to be found at the end, not at the beginning, of the effort to create and use world institutions that are effective in the service of the common interest’.39 The idea of a UN ‘Legion’ can thus have ‘a useful function, as it marks a theoretically ‘terminal point’ for developments in this respect’.40 In this sense, as rightly remarked once by a Member State’s Representative at the General Assembly, Hammarskjöld’s idealism was both practical and idealistic: He was no Utopian dreamer. He saw clearly the gap between the ideals of the United Nations and the realities of world politics. When he said … that he favoured the dynamic concept of the United Nations, he stated that the Organization must take the lead in developing a world community.41 It is precisely the idealistic character of an organization so heavily dependent on power patterns and power politics that makes the work of the SecretaryGeneral, as once noted by Lie, the ‘most impossible job in the world’. What can be said of the Secretary-General can also be said of the organization’s mission in general. The problem then becomes: ‘how to make the most impossible job in the world possible’.42 For Hammarskjöld too, ideals constituted the foundations of the UN. He recognized them in the sacrifice of Bernadotte, before being himself killed when his flight from Leopoldville to Ndola, Congo, crashed on 17 September 1961: ‘This ideal of public service and this faith in the ultimate triumph of good will are a living reality. They are the foundation upon which the United Nations is built.’ 43 This does not mean that the idea cannot, or will never, be realized. It means that it will naturally find its materialization when the time is ripe, according to Schopenhauer’s axiom that ‘all truth goes through three stages: first it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, third it is accepted as self-evident’. In this context, the remark by the International Task Force on the enforcement of UN Security Council resolutions, in its 1997 report, are worth remembering: Over time, the repeated and successful use of international instruments will begin to change perceptions about what is feasible and desirable. As machinery improves, so should the

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credibility of the multilateral alternative. At the very least, it is time to stockpile some sound and forward-looking ideas for the day when the Member States decide they are prepared politically to move forward on this long delayed and neglected agenda. It is a cardinal rule of policymaking, in any case, to keep as many options open for as long as possible.44 The overcoming of contradictions – of which the intervention policy of the USA after Vietnam and more recently after Somalia and Rwanda are only episodes – is a lengthy process. As rightly observed by Lodgaard: Today, the idea has come closer to fruition. Yet in this period of ‘forced expansion’ of United Nations operations, governments probably need some more time to absorb and process new experiences before taking qualitatively new steps to make the military arm of the Organization more effective. However commendable, the proposal may have to wait for some time.45 Because it is essentially dynamic, it may eventually materialize in forms its promoters may not have initially envisaged, such as a ‘Swiss Guard’ for the armed protection of humanitarian personnel, or in other international settings, such as regional organizations. It is this contrast between the uncertainties of the project and the vital necessity of its implementation leads Bernard Kouchner to say: ‘One day, we will have an international army of human rights, I am sure of it. We will change the world through the right to interfere, and we will avoid massacres, but I don’t know how yet.’46 Whether or not the world organization is to survive the legitimacy, credibility and financial crisis it is currently undergoing, ‘and along with it the risk of the collapse of the entire structure of peace that we have been building for half a century’,47 the concept of the UN ‘Legion’, because of the relevance of its principle, will sooner or later find concrete applications. It appears retroactively that, given the evolving characters of threats to international peace and security, the idea should be realized quickly. Given the formidable power of inertia of the factors preventing the idea from materializing, however, it may be that only the threat of a catastrophe of major importance – or the catastrophe itself – could make its realization possible in a relatively short time. After all, both the League of Nations and the United Nations were, in their time, born from unprecedented universal cataclysms, respectively the First and the Second World Wars. Hence perhaps the origin of a paradox: an idea that seems to be unattainable when needed, and not

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needed when attainable. This leads us to another paradox: it would be preferable that the idea never materialized at all, if the cost to be paid for its realization is a major disaster. Yet there is a positive factor, whose influence may have been underestimated so far, which is still in infancy, but may play a major role in the future of international relations: the development of an international public opinion. Such a phenomenon, whose emergence has been made possible by the recent technological revolutions and new means of communication, may at some point act as a powerful levy, and help reform the UN from outside the state system. Ultimately, it is only the pressure of organized political support for an idea that may compensate for the combined inhibiting factor preventing its realization. Towards a New Paradigm of International Relations? My ambition, when selecting the idea of a UN ‘Legion’ as the object of my research, was not to promote the idea itself. Whatever my own initial sympathies for the subject, I would put them aside in an attempt to understand the logic of an objective phenomenon, or, more precisely, of a living paradox: the perennial character of an ever contradictory debate doubled with the periodic re-emergence of support to an ever contested proposal. Neither was my purpose just to present the various proposals for international force after the Second World War. Those, after all, can be seen as nothing more than variations on a theme: military force at the service of universal norms, in this case in the context of the United Nations. Neither did I wish to limit the field of my research to a discussion of the various arguments against, or in support of, such plans, or concentrate on the issue of feasibility. First, the pros and cons have varied, along with the specific features of each plan, making it a vain exercise to assess them outside the specific context in which they have, each time, been formulated. Second, the overall review of the debate leads us to the conclusion that the fundamental problem we are facing here is not just legal, or military, or financial, or even political. What are of interest, when studying a phenomenon, are not so much its multiple forms but, rather, its essence or principle. What lies at the heart of the debate on a UN ‘Legion’ – and what ultimately makes the subject so interesting – is a philosophical question: the fundamental question of the modalities of political action in history. What makes an idea ‘possible’ – a policy option, not just a Utopian dream? The evolution of the idea in the history of the UN is particularly instructive in this respect. Through its periodic re-emergence, it demonstrates the relative character of ‘the possible’ and ‘Utopia’ in history. It has come closer to fruition in several instances,

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before being abandoned again. As the idea may only materialize with a sufficient level of public support, the higher the level of support, the more it enters the field of the ‘possible’. Thus the idea of a ‘UN Legion’ could be perceived as a policy option in 1943, 1948, 1950, 1958, 1962, in 1993, or in 1995. The question then becomes: under which particular conditions does an idea become a policy option, and at some point, a concrete reality? Here comes into the picture the subjective character of ‘the possible’ and ‘the Utopian’ in history. What makes an idea appear Utopian in a specific context is the existence of factors – such as state sovereignty, Cold War antagonism, cost, etc. – perceived as having an absolute inhibiting effect on the development of the idea. What may make the idea become a policy option can only be the presence of exceptional circumstances, threat or danger making the idea appear a necesary vital solution in spite of the well-known obstacles to its realization. In the history of the UN, there have been such special circumstances, crises of international security of exceptional dimensions, overriding the narrow consideration of national interest and sovereignty: the Second World War, the threat of a Third World War in connection with the Palestine and Korea crises, the nuclear arms race and the danger of nuclear Armageddon after the Cuban missiles crisis, the Gulf War, the recent multiplication of internal conflicts. When attempting to intervene in such crises, the UN has been faced with two main problems: credibility and legitimacy. Such problems are not specific to the UN, but common to any type of military intervention. Yet, as demonstrated by the tragic experience of the League of Nations, finding a solution to those problems is, for an international organization such as the United Nations, whose purpose is to guarantee international peace and security, not just a theoretical question but a matter of survival. Because the only types of military forces ever placed at the disposal of the UN – either ad hoc contingents or coalitions – were either non-existent or imperfect, a UN ‘Legion’ could appear as a solution. First, because of its potential readiness, cohesion, and combativeness, therefore increased reliability. Second, because of its universal character, it would be perceived as having the required legitimacy. It was thus tempting to see in the imperfections of the instrument – a collection of military forces borrowed from Member States and put together on an ad hoc basis – the cause of the problem itself – lack of credibility and limited legitimacy to intervene. Behind the attractiveness of the proposal lies its weakness. Such imperfections, highlighted by the absence or poor performance of ‘UN’ military forces on

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the ground, reflected nothing more than the limitations inherent to an organization, that is itself the direct expression of a certain degree of evolution of the international system at a given time. The apparent incompatibility of the Realist’s and Idealist’s perspective may reflect nothing more than two ways of approaching the same problem from a different philosophical angle. As one cannot reasonably hope to reconcile them, one has to place oneself between, above or beyond these two points of view. Faced with the advantages and limitations of both perspectives, we may therefore agree with Charles W. Kegley that there is a need to build a ‘new paradigm’, a paradigm that, while ‘questioning the validity of the realist formulation’, would combine ‘the most valid properties of both intellectual traditions’. Could not the study of the idea of a permanent military volunteer force, by discovering ‘areas where realism and idealism converge’, contribute to ‘revise and reconstruct classical realism, and build a refashioned paradigm inspired by Wilsonian Idealism?’ 48 The realization of the idea of a UN permanent military volunteer force is therefore not to be completely excluded. It could happen, either through the gradual disappearance of the factors preventing it, or by the emerging of an overriding threat or challenge, or a combination of both, and in conjunction with a sufficiently organized international political support. Meanwhile, the concept is likely to undergo new metamorphoses, at the mercy of the fluctuations of threats to international peace and security. Such metamorphoses, far from demonstrating the inadequacy of the idea, would only highlight its numerous potential applications, and therefore its long-term relevance. Only seeing in the UN ‘Legion’ a radical solution that would at last allow the UN to carry out its missions is forgetting the Utopian character of the UN project itself on which the idea is based. Assuming that it ever materializes, the idea as presented today will not completely solve the fundamental contradictions of the UN and humanitarian military intervention. It will only reproduce them and make them even more conspicuous, calling, in turn, for new Utopias, a series of mirrors endlessly reflecting each other. Moreover, calling for the immediate implementation of the idea is taking the risk of seriously underestimating the constraints under which the UN has to operate at a given time and upon which the idea is heavily dependent for its realization. Bluntly rejecting the UN ‘Legion’ idea as a Utopia rightly points out the limits of the concept. However, it does not solve the real problem its supporters courageously tries to tackle: the living paradox of an organization reduced to beg its support from states on a case-by-case basis to carry out missions that, by their universal character, are of vital importance for the whole of mankind.

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In spite of its shortcomings, no other organization than the UN has the necessary legitimacy to decide over international military intervention, whether with a UN ‘Legion’, or with ad hoc means put at its disposal by Member States, or by delegating its authority to regional organizations. The project aims precisely at restoring the authority of the organization considered the most legitimate to decide over its use. Yet its acceptability is ultimately conditional on the capacity of the United Nations to reform itself and become more legitimate than it is at present. Such a development, as stressed by Jonathan Glover, would imply a world order freely accepted by countries rather than imposed on them, and broadly democratic governments agreeing to the world order on behalf of their country. Still, in an imperfect reality, a world order ‘reduced by the arbitrary power of some of those agreeing to it’, thought Glover, ‘can still have some moral authority as mankind’s attempt at world peace’.49 Strikingly enough, the idea of a UN ‘Legion’ appears to be basically a Western invention, and its discussion being limited to Western circles. In some ways, could not the extreme polarization of the debate itself also be symptomatic of a latent ‘Western’ conception of the world that would tend to negate inherent contradictions of reality, privileging one principle over the other, force over ideal norms or vice versa? After all, one of the first consequences of Christianity – the dominant ‘ideologies’ of the West for centuries – has been the setting aside of Manichaeism, a philosophy based on a dualist conception of the world. Major modern ideologies produced by the West, such as fascism, Nazism or communism, may be seen as nothing more than the recurrent expression of a refusal to accept inherent contradictions of reality, putting their hopes in the victory of either one state, one race, or one social class over others. One of the major lessons of the history of the idea of a UN ‘Legion’ is that the implementation of ideal norms and international law in human communities is a lengthy process with two apparently contradictory dimensions: cyclic, through recurrence of major crises; and linear, through gradual progression. Another lesson is that both the two major Western perspectives of international relations, realism and idealism, tend to Utopianism when they are so extreme as to underestimate the importance of either one or the other essential parameters of world politics: force and the balance of power on the one hand, ideal norms and law on the other. At a time when major Western ideologies are believed to have become obsolete, it may be wise to put in question our ways of apprehending the world, and start approaching history and world politics in a more balanced and comprehensive way.

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A UN ‘Legion’: Between Utopia and Reality NOTES

1. H. J. Morgenthau, ‘The Political Conditions for an International Police Force’, International Organization, 17, 2 (1963), p. 402. 2. S/1588. 3. K. Waldheim, The Challenge of Peace (London: Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 1980), p. 45. G. Bouthoul and R. Carrere, Le défi de la guerre (1740–1974) – Deux siècles de guerres et de révolutions (Paris : PUF, 1976), pp. 113–20. 4. ‘Kofi Annan sur un baril de poudre’, interview with Secretary-General Kofi Annan by Christian Castéran, Jeune Afrique Economie, 249, 6–19 October 1997, p. 31. 5. Transcript of Press Conference by Secretary-General Kofi Annan at UN Headquarters on 16 July, Press Release, Secretary-General/SM/6285, 16 July 1997, pp. 6–7. 6. K. Annan, ‘D’autres génocides, d’autres Rwanda sont à craindre’, Tribune de Genève, 23 March 1998, p. 7. 7. Daily Highlights, Tuesday 21 April 1998, p. 1. 8. ‘A Consultation on Private Military Companies’, Report, International Alert, 8 December 1998, pp. 5–6. ‘Des mercenaires feraient-ils mieux que les Casques bleus?’, La Liberté, 28–29 June 1997. ‘The Privatization of Security in Africa’ (a consultation on), Summary Report, International Alert and Global Coalition for Africa, Overseas Development Council, Washington, DC, 12 March 1999, p. 15. 9. B. Urquhart, ‘Looking for the Sheriff ’, New York Review of Books, 45, 12 (1998), p. 53. F. Lewis. ‘So We Just Send In an International Force, Time After Time’, New York Times, 13 September 1999, p. 8. 10. B. Urquhart, ‘Between Sovereignty and Globalization – Where Does the United Nations Fit in?’, Development Dialogue, 1–2 (2000), p. 9. 11. Highlights of the Press Conference by Kofi Annan, Secretary-General of the United Nations’, UN Headquarters, New York, Tuesday, 7 March 2000. 12. The panel, which was assisted by Dr William Durch of the Stimson Center, Washington, DC, included Mr Brian Atwood, of the USA, former head of the United States Agency for International Development; Ambassador Colin Granderson of Trinidad and Tobago, Executive Director of the Organization of American States (OAS)/UN International Civilian Mission in Haiti, 1993–2000, and head of OAS election observation missions in Haiti (1995 and 1997) and Suriname (2000); Dame Ann Ercus, of New Zealand, who was Special Representative of the Secretary-General in Cyprus 1998–99; Mr Richard Monk, of the United Kingdom, who had taken part as Commissioner in the UN International Police Task Force (IPTF) in Bosnia and Herzegovina, 1998–99; General Klaus Naumann, former chief of the German Defence Staff and former chairman of the military committee of NATO, with oversight responsibility for NATO’s Implementation Force (IFOR)/Stabilization Force (SFOR) operations in Bosnia and Herzegovina and NATO’s Kosovo air campaign.; Ms Hisako Shimura, professor and President of Tsuda College in Japan, a long-standing member of the Peacekeeping Operation Department; Ambassador Vladimir Shustov, of the Russian Federation, ambassador at large, with 30 years’ association with the UN; former Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN in New York and representative of Russia to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE); General Philip Sibanda of Zimbabwe, Former Force Commander of the UN Angola Verification Mission III (UNAVEM III) and the UN Observer Mission in Angola (MONUA), 1995–98; and Cornelio Sommaruga, of Switzerland, former president of the International Committee of the Red Cross. 13. Report of the Secretary-General on the Implementation of the Report of the Panel on

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14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26.

27.

28. 29.

30. 31. 32. 33.

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United Nations Peace Operations, 55th Session, Agenda Item 86, ‘Comprehensive Review of the Whole Question of Peacekeeping Operations in All Their Aspects’, A/55/502, p. 7 (c). A/55/305-S/2000/809, para 55. Ibid., para 117(a). H. Breed, ‘A Peacekeeper’s Perspective on the Recommendations of the Panel on United Nations Peace Operations’, unpublished article, 3 August 2001. E. David, ‘Une Légion de Volontaires de la Paix des Nations Unies’, Le Soir (Belgium), 26 April 1994; p. 2. H. Amery, ‘The Ultimate United Nations Reform’. International Relations, 13, 5 (1997), pp. 37–43. R. W. Tucker, ‘Legal Restraints on Coercion’, The United States in a Disarmed World, p. 111. I. L. Claude Jr., Swords into Plowshares. The Problems and Progress of International Organization (New York: Random House, 1965), p. 242. Ibid., p. 237. Ibid., p. 259. R. Paris, ‘Blue Helmet Blues: The End of the United Nations as a Security Organization?’, Washington Quarterly, 20, 1 (1997), pp. 191–206. S. Hoffmann, ‘Erewhon or Lilliput’, p. 404. M. Tricaud, ‘L’Encyclique “Pacem in Terris” et la Création d’une Autorité internationale’, Revue Générale de Droit International Public, 37, 1 (1966), p. 118. F. Bonnard, ‘It’s Time for a Standing United Nations Rapid Reaction Force’, International Herald Tribune, 22 January 1997. L. Unterseher, ‘Interventionism Reconsidered: Reconciling Military Action with Poitical Stability’, Project on Defense Alternatives, September 1999, p. 15. http://www.comw.org/pda/990interv.html. H. Langillle, H. P. ‘Conflict Prevention: Options for Rapid Deployment and UN Standing Forces’, in O. Ramsbotham and T. Woodhouse (eds), Warlords, Hawks and Doves: Peacekeeping as Conflict Resolution (London, Frank Cass, 2000), reprinted in International Peacekeeping (2000), http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/peacekeepg/reform/ canada2.htm. H. R. 4453, ‘To encourage the establishment of a United Nations Rapid Deployment Police and Security Force, 106th Congress, 2d Session, May 15, 2000. J. E. Dougherty, ‘U.N. Rapid Reaction Force – House Bill Pushes for United Nations Standing Army’, 2000, WorldNetDaily.com. ‘The United Nations Rapid Deployment Police and Security Act of 2000’, NewsMax.com, 6 September 2000. http://www.endgenocide.org/index.htm. S. Klarsfeld, ‘Pour une Chevalerie humanitaire’, Allocution de Me Serge Klarsfeld, Historien, Président de l’Association ‘Fils et Filles des Déportés Juifs de France’, lancement public de l’appel solennel, 50ème anniversaire des Conventions de Genève, Bâtiment des Forces Motrices, Genève, 12 août 1999, p. 1. S. Klarsfeld, ‘Pour un Tribunal Pénal International Permanent’, Le Monde, 27 February 1996. P. Tavernier, Les Casques bleus (Paris: PUF, 1996), p. 122. B. Kouchner, ‘Vers une cour pénale internationale permanente – Les raisons’, Problèmes politiques et sociaux, 826 (‘La Justice pénale internationale’), 27 August 1999, p. 53. J. Glover, Humanity: A Moral History of the Twentieth Century), p. 140. C. G. Senie, ‘Suggested Revisions to the Charter of The United Nations’, latest revision dated 23 December 1997, http://www.senie.com/users/cgs/CHARTER3.html R. Righter, Utopia Lost – The United Nations and World Order (New York: Twentieth Century Fund Book, 1995).

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34. E. V. Rostow, ‘Should Article 43 of the United Nations Charter be Raised from the Dead?’, McNair Paper, 19 (1993), p. 5. 35. D. Hammarskjöld, ‘An Instrument of Faith’, in Servant of Peace, p. 57. 36. D. Hammarskjöld, ‘Universality and its Consequences’, from the Introduction to the Annual Report 1955–1956, in Servant of Peace, pp. 119–20. 37. D. Hammarskjöld, ‘On Defeatism’, in Servant of Peace, p. 31. 38. C. Widmer, Droits de l’Homme et sciences de l’Homme – Pour une éthique anthropologique (Geneva: Droz, 1992), p. 217. 39. D. Hammarskjöld, ‘Woodrow Wilson and the United Nations’, address at New York University Hall of Fame ceremony of the unveiling of the bust and tablet for Woodrow Wilson, 20 May 1956, in Servant of Peace, p. 111. 40. R. C. Siekmann, ‘Political Aspects of a Directly Recruited Permanent United Nations Force’, p. 92. 41. Statement by Mr Fawzi (United Arab Republic), United Nations, General Assembly, Plen. Mtgs, 16th Session, 1010th Mtg, 20 September 1961, New York, GAOR; para. 88, p. 15. 42. See B. Rivlin and L. Gordenker, The Challenging Role of the United Nations SecretaryGeneral: Making ‘The Most Impossible Job in the World’ Possible. (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1993), p. 320. 43. D. Hammarskjöld, An Instrument of Faith’, Servant of Peace, p. 57. ‘Tribute to a Mediator’, ibid., p. 32. 44. Words to Deeds: Strengthening the UN’s Enforcement Capabilities, Final Report Executive Summary, International Task Force on the Enforcement of U.N. Security Council Resolutions, United Nations Association of the USA, 1997; p. 15. 45. S. Lodgaard, ‘In Defence of International Peace and Security: New Missions for the United Nations’, UNIDIR Newsletter, 24 (1993), p. 5. 46. ‘Conflict Prevention is Being Developed within the European Union’, interview with Bernard Kouchner by Isabelle Brusselmans, Echo News, June 1995. 47. B. Boutros-Ghali, ‘The United Nations and New International Conflicts’, address at the Geneva Institute of International Studies, Geneva, 3 July 1995, Secretary-General/ SM/95/47; p. 7. 48. C. W. Kegley, ‘The Neoidealist Movement in International Studies – Realist Myths and the New International Realities’, ISA Presidential Address by Charles W. Kegley, Acapulco, Mexico, 27 March 1993, International Studies Quarterly, 37, 2 (1993), pp. 142–3. 49. J. Glover, Humanity – A Moral History of the Twentieth Century, p. 228.

Appendix

TABLE 1 CULBERTSON’S NATIONAL CONTINGENTS AND MOBILE CORPS (1942)

Initiating State United States Britain Russia France China Germany Poland Turkey India Malaysia Japan Mobile Corps Total

Quota per cent

National Troops

Planes

Tanks

Capital Ships (*)

20 15 15 6 6 3 3 3 3 2 2 22 100

400,000 300,000 300,000 120,000 60,000 60,000 60,000 60,000 40,000 40,000 40,000 440,000 2,000,000

10,000 7,500 7,500 3,000 3,000 1,500 1,500 1,500 1,500 1,000 1,000 11,000 50,000

20,000 15,000 15,000 6,000 6,000 3,000 3,000 3,000 3,000 2,000 2,000 22,000 100,000

20 15 15 6 6 3 3 3 3 2 2 22 100

(*) ‘Capital ships’: battleships and aircraft carriers’ or ‘other vessels used as capital ship’. Source: E. Culbertson, Summary of the World Federation Plan, an Outline of a Practical and Detailed Plan for World Settlement (London: Faber & Faber, 1942).

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A UN ‘Legion’: Between Utopia and Reality TABLE 2 MODALITIES OF ACTION FOR A TRANS-NATIONAL POLICE FORCE

Purpose

Host Consent Decision Required

1. Unarmed on-site observation 2. Unarmed satellite surveillance 3. Type A armed patrol or observation 4. Type A armed patrol or observation

Yes No Yes No

5. Type B humanitarian intervention

Yes

6. Type B humanitarian intervention

No

7. Type C enforcement (*)

No

8. Type D enforcement (+)

No

Request of SG alone 2/3 GA vote 2/3 GA vote 2/3 GA vote including at least 3/5 of the PM of the SC 2/3 GA vote including at least 3/5 of the PM of the SC 4/5 GA vote including at least 4/5 of the PM of the SC 4/5 GA vote including at least 4/5 of the PM of the SC 4/5 GA vote including at least 4/5 of the PM of the SC

(*) such as: intervention in a conflict between antagonistic ethnic groups within a country. (+) internationally enforced arms reduction. Source: R. C. Johansen and S. H. Mendlovitz, ‘The Role of Enforcement of Law in the Establishment of a New International Order: A Proposal for a Trans-national Police Force’, Alternatives, 6, 2 (1980), pp. 321–3.

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TABLE 3 UNITED NATIONS FATALITIES BY YEAR, AS OF 30 JUNE 2002 (*)

Year 1948 1949 1950 1951 1952 1953 1954 1955 1956 1957 1958 1959 1960 1961 1962 1963 1964 1965 1966 1967 1968 1969 1970 1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 Sub Total Total

Total 8 3 5 0 0 1 0 0 2 16 17 10 43 156 46 35 22 18 20 22 7 6 8 9 6 14 41 17 14 17 28 30 20 30 26 11 14 16 27 17 11 33 826

Year 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002* Sub Total

Total 24 16 60 252 167 123 51 58 31 26 50 64 31 943

1769

Source: United Nations, Department of Peacekeeping Operations Situation Centre, 30 June 2002.

278


TABLE 4 MEMBER STATES PARTICIPATING IN THE UNITED NATIONS STANDBY ARRANGEMENTS SYSTEM, UNITED NATIONS, AS OF 20 DECEMBER 2001

Argentina Belarus Bulgaria China France Guatemala Jordan Lithuania Namibia Nigeria Portugal Senegal Sweden Tunisia Uruguay

Armenia Belgium Burkina Faso Czech Republic Gambia Hungary Kazakhstan Malaysia Nepal Norway Rep of Korea Singapore Syria Turkey Uzbekistan

Australia Benin Canada Denmark Germany India Kenya Mali Netherlands Pakistan Rep of Moldova Slovak Rep Ukraine Zambia

Austria Bolivia Chad Estonia Ghana Ireland Kyrgyz Rep Mongolia New Zealand Paraguay Romania Spain Tanzania United Kingdom Zimbabwe

Bangladesh Brazil Chile Finland Greece Italy Latvia Myanmar Niger Poland Russian Fed Sri Lanka Thailand U.S.A.

Source: United Nations, Department of Peacekeeping Operations, Rev. 20 December 2001.

TABLE 5 A PEACE OPERATIONS LEGION: HYPOTHETICAL DEPLOYMENT, 1992–94

Jan.–June July–Dec. Jan.–June UNPROFOR UNTAC Somalia Operations ONUMOZ UNMIH UNAMIR TOTAL

July–Dec.

Jan.–June July–Dec.

5,000 5,000

3,000 3,000

3,000 3,000

3,000/7,000* 3,000/*

9,000 –

9,000 –

– – – – 10,000

1,500 – – – 7,500

3,000 2,500 – 1,500 13,000

6,000 1,000 1,500 1,500 17,000

6,000 1,000 500 1,500 18,000

6,000 1,000 500 1,500 18,000

* During this six-month period the UNPROFOR force grows as UN troops complete their mission in Cambodia. Source: C. Conetta and C. Knight, Design for a 15,000-person UN Legion, p. 78.

Appendix

279

TABLE 6 A 15,000-PERSON UN LEGION: COMBAT AND SUPPORT PERSONNEL

Combat and Support Units and Personnel Personnel per Unit Quantity Type of Unit Combat Support 2 Brigade/Field headquarters 2 Motorized infantry battalion 2 Light mechanized infantry btn 1 Cavalry squadron 1 Light armoured Cavalry sqdn 2 Armed scout helicopter cpy 4 Light artillery battery 2 Air defence battery 2 Combat engineer company 2 Signal company 2 Field intelligence company 2 Military police company 2 Civil affairs company 2 Field Logistics base Total Field Personnel

300 690 675 375 550 100 120 120 200 120 150 130 150 –

40 100 135 80 135 60 25 25 40 15 20 15 75 1,000

Personnel per Unit Combat Support 600 1,380 1,350 375 550 200 480 240 400 240 300 260 300 – 6,675

80 200 270 80 135 120 100 50 80 30 40 30 150 2,000 3,365

Source: C. Conetta and C. Knight, Design for a 15,000-person UN Legion, p. 8.

TABLE 7 A 15,000-PERSON UN LEGION: COST ESTIMATION

Provisional Budget

US$

Initial Capital Expenditures (including base renovation) 1,568 million Stable or ‘long-term average’ annual budget 745 million Incremental Expense for Field Operations (assumes full utilization) 590 million Source: C. Conetta and C. Knight, Design for a 15,000-person UN Legion, pp. 9–13.

280

A UN ‘Legion’: Between Utopia and Reality TABLE 8 PERSONNEL FOR A UN MILITARY VOLUNTEER FORCE

FIELD UNITS

STRENGTH

Unit-assigned command-and-combat personnel Support personnel organic to tactical units Field Logistics base Replacements Total Deployable

6,700 1,400 2,000 500 10,600

NON-DEPLOYABLE PERSONNEL Central Staff Base support and central logistics Trainers Trainees Total Non-deployable Total

800 1,400 400 1,800 4,400 15,000

Source: C. Kaysen and G. W. Rathjens, ‘Send in the Troops: A UN Foreign Legion’, Washington Quarterly, 20, 1 (1997), p. 222.

TABLE 9 A UN RAPID DEPLOYMENT BRIGADE: ANNUAL COST ESTIMATION

Budget Items

US$

Personnel (salaries) Personnel (allowances, food, clothing) Basing and upkeep of quarters Maintenance Procurement (annualized) Total

150 million 40 million 20 million 40 million 50 million 300 million

Source: A UN Rapid Deployment Brigade – A Preliminary Study, Non-paper, The Netherlands, revised version April 1995, A/49/886. S/1995/276, pp. 17–22.

TABLE 10 EVOLUTION OF THE UN PEACEKEEPING BUDGET AND MILITARY FORCES DEPLOYED, 1988–97

Date January 1988 January 1992 December 1994 July 96–June 97

Budget/year

Military personnel

US$230.4 million US$1,689.6 million US$3,610.0 million US$1,300.0 million

9,570 11,495 73,393 26,000

Source: International Peace-keeping News, 2, 2 (1996), p. 23.

Appendix

281

TABLE 11 HIERARCHY OF RESPONSES

PEACE SPECTRUM 4

3

2

1

Conflict resolution through rule of law. Includes equality before the law; a viable civil society, free from the threat of arbitrary violence; basic freedoms of the person and society; and primary conflict resolution through adjudication. Required viable economy; effective subsistence rights. Legitimate monopoly of violence. State effectively sovereign; eliminates large-scale armed opposition.

Civil war/anti-government insurgency. Precipitates humanitarian emergency.

Political crises. Sparked by the politics of exclusion, denial of human and civil rights, maladministration, etc.

STABILIZING PROCESSES

CIVIL

Democratization and development. Involves the broad gamut of activities currently encompassed by the concepts of peacekeeping and postconflict peacebuilding. (Fourth layer)

CIVMIL

Consolidation. Enforcing the security dimensions of the peace agreement. Includes compulsory assistance in restructuring armed forces and civil service. (Third layer)

MIL

Conflict termination. Multinational military intervention in support of one side. Aim is to force the other side(s) to the negotiating table. (Second layer)

CIV

Intrusive diplomacy. Intervention linked to human and civil rights guarantees. (First layer)

Source: M. Malan, ‘Treading Firmly on the Layered Response Ladder: From Peace Enforcement to Conflict Termination Operations in Africa?’, African Security Review, 6, 5 (1997).

EVENTS

World War II – Early ‘United Nations’

Creation of the United Nations

Palestine – Partition UN Truce Assassination of the UN Mediator

Korean War

Suez – UNEF Emergency Force

US and British intervention in Lebanon and Jordan

Disarmament talks, Cuban Crisis

YEARS

1942–43

1944–48

1948–49

1950–52

1956–58

1958–59

1948–65

Control Disarmament/ Peacekeeping

Repel aggression

Rapid Deployment Interposition Peacekeeping

Enforcement War waging

Observation, Enforcement Protection of UN personnel

Collective security

Collective security Enforcement Trusteeship

CHALLENGE

World Police Force (w/p/) United Nations Police Force (p/) Peace Force for Disarmament (w/p/d/n) World Police Force (w/p/d) International Force (w/p/q/d)

International Police Force (p/d) United Nations Army (p/q) Permanent Police Force (p)

United Nations Police Force (p/) ‘More permanent arrangements’ (s/) ‘Fire Brigade’ (p/) International Force (p/d) Stand-by ‘Peace Supervision Force’ (s/) UN Peace Force (s/) Standing UN Peace Force (p/?) Institutionalized UN Emergency Force (p/) Institutionalized UN Emergency Force (p/) Institutionalized UN Emergency Force (p/) Institutionalized UN Emergency Force (p/) UN Peace Force (p/sn) Light Force

United Nations Army (/d) International Brigade of Volunteers (/d) Land-sea-air police force (p/d) Permanent volunteer force (p/d) European Army (p/r) (European Legion) (p/d/r) United Nations Legion (p/d) United Nations Legion (p/d) United Nations Volunteer Reserve (s/d)

International Security Force (p/d) UN Guard (p/d) UN Guard and Reserve Force (p/d) Field Service and Reserve Panel (s/d) International Police Force (p/d)

International Air Police Force (p/d) International Force (p/d or q)

International Strategic Reserve (p/d) International Mobile Corps (w/f/p/q/d) International Police Force (p/d) United Nations Legion (f/p/d) European Police and Striking Force (p/q/d/r)

IDEAS DEBATED/PROPOSALS

Ewing Cockrell, US Federation of Justice, 10/10/48 (R) Letter 23 American Senators to Truman, 28/02/1951 (C/R/O) Philip Noel-Baker, A Proposal for World Disarmament, 1958 (P) Everett Lee Millard, Freedom in a Federal World, 1959 (P) Bertrand Russell, Has Man a Future?, 1961 (C)

David Ennals, Fabian Society (UK), 1959 (P) Leslie Munroe, New York Times Magazine, 8 July 1958 (C/D/P) Greece, General Assembly, 3 October 1958 (S)

Rep. of Greece, General Assembly, 21/11/56 (C) Rep. of Canada, General Assembly, 23/09/57 (C) Rep. of Greece, General Assembly, 26/09/57 (C/S) Rep. of Pakistan, Nepal, General Assembly, 29/1/57 (C/S) Lester B. Pearson, Foreign Affairs, April 1957 (C/S) UN SG Dag Hammarskjold, Annual Report, July 1957 (C/A) Rep. Pakistan, Costa Rica, General Assembly, Autumn 1957 (C/S) Federal Union Commission (UK) (C/P) Parliamentary Group for World Government (UK) (C/S/P) United Nations Association (UK) (C/S/P) Women’s Movement (US) (C/S/P) Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (US), 1957 (C/SP) Packenham Commission (UK), 27 May 1957 (P/D)

Editorial, New York Times, 7/071950 (C) A. Cordier, A. Feller, United States Mission, 14/07/50 (D) 31 Members of the United States Congress, 25/08/50 (R/O) Lucinda Hazen, Citizen Ctee for the UN, 21/09/51 (R) Winston Churchill, 11/08/50 (C) Arthur Koestler, 08/1050 (P) H. Bancroft, US, Collective Measures Ctee, 05/03/51(D/S/O) UN SG Lie, Harvard University, 01/06/51 (A) UN SG Lie, Collective Measures Committee, 06/10/52 (P/D/O)

UN SG Lie, Harvard University, 10/06/48 (C) Commission to Study the Organization of Peace (US), 09/48 (C) UN SG Lie, General Assembly, 28/09/48 (A) UN SG Lie, Ad Hoc Political Committee, April 1949 (P/O) UN SG Lie, ‘20 Year Programme to Win Peace’, 30/03/50 (C/O)

British League of Nations, H. Stassen, Anthony.Eden, 1945 (C) Capt. George H. Ried. ‘Some Considerations …’, 1949 (P/R)

Military Research Committee (UK), NCI, May 1939 (P) Ely Culbertson (World Federation Plan – 1942 (C/SP)) E. Griffin, H. Rudd, M. Habitch, M. Young (1943) (P) Harold Stassen (Blue Print for World Government – 1943 (C/S/P)) Victor Altman (International Police and World Security – 1945 (P))

PROMOTERS

TABLE 12 NON EXHAUSTIVE LIST OF PROPOSALS REVIEWED (1942–2002)

282

Gulf War/Operation ‘Restore Hope’

Operations in Angola/Cambodia/ exYugoslavia/ Somalia

Massacres in Rwanda and Srebrenica

United Nations Police and Security Force

1991–94

1992–94

1995–

1997–02

Prevention of Genocide, Humanitarian Intervention, Localized conflicts

Humanitarian intervention, Safe areas

Intern. Security Large scale Enforcement, Humanitarian intervention

Peacekeeping/ Enforcement in internal conflicts

African Legion (p/d) World Legion, Humanitarian Chivalry (p/d) Human Rights Army (p/) UN Police and Security Force (p/d) UN Force, ‘Leviathan’ (p/)

United Nations ‘Fire Brigade’ (p/d) United Nations Legion (p/d) Multinational High Readiness Brigade (s/c) Rapid Reaction Force (s/q) International Force to Stop Massacres (p/) International Force (p/) UN Permanent Volunteer Force (p/d) 15,000 strong United Nations Legion (p/d) 15,000 strong United Nations Legion (p/d) 5,000 Rapid Deployment Brigade (p/d) UN Standing Emergency Group (p/)

International Army of Human Rights (p/r) Permanent Military Volunteer Force (p/d) 5–10,000 Stand-by Ghurkha Force (s/) ‘Permanent professional force’ (p/) UN Peace Enforcement Force (s/c) Blue Helmet Combat Force

3/3 United Nations Force (p/s/q/d) 100,000 Art. 43 Force (p/q) Units readily available (s/q) Ghurkha Force (p/) Standing Army (p/s/q) ‘Force for Peace’ (p/) ‘UN Legion for the World’ (p/d) UN Legion Art. 43, Peace Enforcement Units (p/s/q/d) Art. 43 On Call Force (s/q) 250,000 strong United Nations Legion (p/d)

Stand-by ‘UNCOP’ and ‘UNPAT’ (s) International Police Force (p/d) International Force (p) International Force (p) Permanent Force (p/q/sn) Trans-national Police Force (p/d)

M. Malan, African Security Review, 1997 Me Serge Klarsfeld, 50th Anniversary of Geneva Conv., 12/08/99 Bernard Kouchner, on International Justice, 27/08/99 Rep. James P.McGovern, D-Mass, US Congress, 15 May 2000 J. Glover, A Moral History of the Twentieth Century, 2001(C)

Lukas Haynes and Timothy W. Stanley, 5 July 1994 (C) J. Heidenrich, Project on Defense Alternatives, April 1995 (S/P) Government of Denmark, January 1995 (P/O) Boutros-Ghali, New Proposals for Peace, 1995 (C) Cornelio Sommaruga, published interview, 05/01/95 (C) Bahá’í International Community, October 1995 (S) Commission on Global Governance, 1995 (R/P) Carl Conetta and Charles Knight, PDA, October 1995 (P) Carl Kaysen and Georges W. Rathjens, DACSP, MIT (P) Hans Van Mierlo, Netherlands, Netherlands, 22/03/1995 (C/P) Canada, For a Rapid Rection Capability, 23/09/1994 (P/O)

Bernard Kouchner, founder of MSF, 20/03/93 (C/D) Brian Urquhart, New York Review of Books, 10/06/93 (C) Brian Farrell and Christopher Lingle, IHT, 6/09/94 (C/P) General Loridon, Le Casoar, July 1993 (C) Capt. G. P. Harper, ‘A Case for US Leadership’, 1994 NSP, John F. Kennedy School of Government, January 1995 (S/P)

Alan Henrikson, Fletcher School of L&D, 1991 (C/S/P) Professor Richard N. Gardner, Columbia University, 1992 (C/S) French Government Proposal, 1992 (A) Flora Lewis, February 1992 (C) Professor V. Y. Ghébali, GISS, May 1992 (C/D) M. G. Renner, ‘A Force for Peace’, World Watch, July 1992 Editorial, New York Times, 01/09/92 (C) Edward Luttwak, The New Republic, 25/01/93 (C/S) UN SG B. Boutros-Ghali, An Agenda for Peace, June 1992 (C/A) Senator David Boren (US), 26 August 1992 (C) Harold Stassen, A working Paper for Re-structuring, 1994 (C/S/P)

Lincoln P. Bloomfield, 1960 (P) Liberal Party (UK), 1 October 1960 (S/D) Iran, General Assembly, 24 September 1962 (S) Cyprus, General Assembly, 18 October 1961(C) Senator Kenneth B. Keating (US),October 1964 (S/R) Robert C. Johansen and Saul H. Mendlovitz

G. Clark and L. B. Sohn, World Peace through World Law, 1960 (P) J. F. Kennedy, Disarmament Proposals, Speech, 25/09/61 (A/O) East–West Conference, Warsaw, 3–6/02/61 (S) Bloomfield, Vulcan Project, 10/03/62 (P/D) US Outline, ENCD, 18/04/62 (P/O) White House Conf. on Int. Co-operation, 29/11–01/12/65 (S/D)

wg = world government/authority; n = nuclear armament; q = quota system; d = direct recruitment; c = contingents; sn = small nations; p = permanent; s = stand-by; r = regional; f = federal; A = announcement C = call for; D = discussion; R = recommendation; S = Support; P = project design; O = Official Proposal

Congo – ONUC

1960–64

United Nations Peace Force (p/s/d) New United Nations Peace Force (p/) International Police Force (p/q) 500,000 police force (p/d) UN Peace Force for Disarmament (p/) UN Peace Force

283

284


FIGURE 1 DIVERGING PERSPECTIVES ON FORCE IN INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS Perspectives on the Role of Force

Determinism

REALISM

IDEALISM

FACTOR

INSTRUMENT

National Governments/Armies Emphasis is on immediate constraints, reality

Freedom

World Government/International Force Emphasis is on potentially, ideal norms

FIGURE 2 A UN ‘LEGION’: BETWEEN CYNICAL REALISM AND UTOPIAN IDEALISM NEGATIVE UTOPIA

Cleavage

POSITIVE UTOPIA

INTEREST and POWER Cynical Utopianism

LAW and JUSTICE

Realism

Pragmatism

Idealism Idealistic-Utopianism

PACIFICATION WORLD DOMINATION ‘LEVIATHAN’

WORLD PEACE State Sovereignty Supranationality National Armies International Force

Now and Always?

WORLD GOVERNMENT UN ‘LEGION’ Gradual Progression?

INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

Appendix

285

FIGURE 3 PROPOSAL, 1950–53: EVOLUTION, PUBLIC SUPPORT AND THE TIME FACTOR AT THE TIME OF THE KOREAN WAR PHASE I: EMERGENCY RESPONSE LEVEL OF PUBLIC SUPPORT TO THE IDEA

PHASE II: PLANNING FOR FUTURE EMERGENCIES

Calls for a strong Call for a International Police Force European Legion of Liberty Uniting for Peace establishes Collective Measures Committee (GA Assembly Res.) First Meeting of the CMC UN Legion (US Support)

Discussion of Volunteer Korea Legion (NewYork Times)

Discussion in the CMC UN Legion (Yugoslav opposition)

Discussion of an International Brigade (at the US Mission)

Trygve Lie’s Public Support for UN Legion (Harvard)

Call for a ‘Real’ UN Army (NewYork Times)

Report of the CMC including a UN Volunteer Reserve (Trygve Lie’s Proposal) Korean Truce 7 July 50

14 July 50

15 July 50

Fall 1950

3 Nov. 50

5 March 51

31 March 51

1 June 51

6 Oct. 52

1953 TIME

FIGURE 4 CONTROL AND POWER AS CRITERIA FOR MILITARY INTEGRATION – A COMPARISON BETWEEN NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL TYPES OF FORCES Kind

Type

corresponding to

Type

Selection

Control

PERMANENT

Volunteer Force ‘UN Legion’

Professional Army

Yes

Yes

On call

National Contingents

‘Foreign’ Legion

Limited

Yes

Semipermanent forces

(Global Reserve)

Reserve

Yes

Yes

(Global Conscription)

Conscription

No

Yes

Stand-by

National Contingents

Mercenary Forces

No

Limited

AD HOC

Coalitions of States

Auxiliary Forces

No

No

Internationalized Forces

Foreign Forces

Minimum Selection

UNITED NATIONS

NATION STATE

Minimum Selection and Control

POWER TO SELECT & CONTROL

Maximum Control

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PUBLISHED INTERVIEWS

Annan, K., ‘Des casques bleus? Oui, mais mobiles et disciplinés’, Interview with Kofi Annan by Maria-Pia Mascaro, Journal de Genève et Gazette de Lausanne, 2 June 1994, p. 5. Annan, K., ‘Kofi Annan sur un baril de poudre’, Interview with SecretaryGeneral Kofi Annan by Christian Castéran, Jeune Afrique Economie, 249, 6–19 October 1997, pp. 22–31. Annan, K., ‘D’autres génocides, d’autres Rwanda sont à craindre’, Propos de Kofi Annan recueillis par André Naef, Tribune de Genève, 30 March 1998, p. 7. Bancroft, H. V., Interview with Harding F. Bancroft by Richard D. McKinzie, Oral History, New York, 25 June 1974 (Independence, MS: Truman Presidential Museum and Library). Bertrand, M., ‘United Nations Needs a New Charter’, Interview with Maurice Bertrand by Joëlle Kunz, Global Rights, Autumn 1995, pp. 28–9. Boutros-Ghali, B., ‘Can the UN Handle its New Credibility?’, Interview with Boutros Boutros-Ghali, USA Today, 21 September 1992. Boutros-Ghali, B., ‘Le maintien de la paix: pause ou sursaut?’, Interview with Boutros Boutros-Ghali, Trimestre du Monde, 4th trimestre 1995, pp. 13–17. Boutros-Ghali, B., ‘Les véritables problèmes sont ceux qui nous attendent’, Interview with Boutros Boutros-Ghali, Journal de Genève, 4 January 1993, p. 3. Boutros-Ghali, B., ‘Mes nouvelles propositions pour la paix’, Interview with Boutros Boutros-Ghali, Trimestre du Monde, 1st trimestre 1995, pp. 9–15. Boutros-Ghali, B., ‘Setting a New Agenda for the United Nations’, Interview with Boutros Boutros-Ghali by Carolyn Reynolds, Sudarsan Raghavan, W. Judson Dorman and Melissa Sawin, Journal of International Affairs, 46, 2 (1993), pp. 289–98. Boutros-Ghali, B., ‘The UN Has Been a Success’, Interview with Boutros Boutros-Ghali, Time, 23 October 1995, pp. 68–9.

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Keesing’s Record of World Events ‘Hr Trygve Lie’s Proposals for UN Guard’, Keesing’s Record of World Events, Keesing’s Contemporary Archives, 9–16 October 1948, pp. 9545, 9551. ‘UN Guard Force’, Keesing’s Record of World Events, Keesing’s Contemporary Archives, 28 May–4 June 1949, p. 10017. ‘Hr Trygve Lie Appeals to Member States to Support United Nations Action in Korea’, Keesing’s Record of World Events, 15–22 July 1950, p. 10848.

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AUDIOVISUAL ARCHIVES

Southern Center for International Studies, The United Nations Video Recording: Issues of Peace and Conflict (Atlanta, GA: The Center, c.1989). Subjects: (Search using s = United Nations. World politics – 1945 – Contents: Pt. 1. US/UN Relations: Changing Over Time; Pt. 2. US/UN Relations: Structural and Political Problems; Pt. 3. UN Peacekeeping Role: Expectations and Accomplishments; Pt. 4. USSR/UN: Cooperation and Competition; Pt. 5. The UN and Global Problems: Questions of National Sovereignty, the North/South Dialogue. Truman Presidential Museum and Library (Independence, MS).

Index

accountability 213–14 Acquisition and Across-Servicing Agreement (ACSA) 189 ad hoc forces 171–2, 219, 220, 255, 270; disadvantages of 21, 118–19, 176–8, 260; principle of 90–7 Ad Hoc Political Committee (AHPC) 47, 48, 49–50 advantages of UN ’Legion’: reliability 180–7; universality 187–93 Afghanistan, views on a permanent UN force 84, 86 Africa, plans for a military reaction capability 231–3 African Security Council 231 ‘Age of Peacekeeping’ 72 An Agenda for Peace 126, 128–9, 141, 172 air force contingents 16–17, 32, 33, 104 Al Qaeda 248 Altman, Victor 21–3 American Association for the UN 55, 57 Angola 3, 133 Annan, Kofi 183, 214, 254–5, 256 Arab League, plans for joint Arab peacekeeping force 233 Association for the Southern African States 233 Atlantic Charter, 1941 18 Auriol, Vincent 56 Australia, participation in peacekeeping operations 118 Austria, neutrality of 189, 190–1 autonomy of UN ‘Legion’ 206; financial 209–10; logistical 210–11 availability of troops 171–2, 180

Baha’i International Community 143 Baldwin, H. W. 40, 45 Balkans, mercenaries in 215 Bancroft, Harding 53, 60, 61, 63 bases for troops 81, 82–3, 148, 157–8, 192; for International Strategic Reserve 17; for Rapid Deployment Brigade 154; for standing police force 120 Bebler, Ales 61 Belgium, withdrawal from Rwanda 182 Bernadotte, Folke, Count 42; assassination of 45 Bertrand, Maurice 136, 221 Bloomfield, Lincoln 92, 96, 117; Vulcan Project 110–13 Boren, David 130, 131 Bosnia 132, 142, 166, 190, 255; Clinton and 138–9; difficulties in obtaining extra troops for implementing peace agreement 171; dual-key arrangements 225; safe areas 143; UNPROFOR 225 Boutros-Ghali, Boutros 166, 167; An Agenda for Peace 126, 127–8, 141, 172; call for Rapid Reaction Force 143; on education of Member States, 206, 207, 209–10; failure to obtain troops for Rwanda 175; and peace enforcement units 133; Supplement to An Agenda for Peace 173, 175 Bradley, Omar 58 Brahimi, Lakhtar 256 Breed, Henry 258 Briquemont, General 166 Brownlie, I. 190 Bunche, Ralph 88 Burundi 210, 222, 234

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Cambodia 3, 118, 131, 150, 224; Japanese troops in 188; UNTAC 133, 141, 231 Campaign to End Genocide 263 Canada 57, 93, 179; and UNEF 75–6; participation in peacekeeping operations 118; Standing Emergency Group 156–8, 176 Cannon, C. A. 80 Carlsson, Ingvar 145, 168, 180, 226 Carnegie Endowment for International Peace 79 casualty factor 181–3, 214 ceasefire violations 133 China 50, 52, 237; and human rights 236; warning against use of peacekeepers 236 Chirac, Jacques 172 Churchill, Winston 52, 58 Clark, Grenville 107, 117 Clinton, Bill 138–9 ‘CNN factor’ 181–3 coalitions of Member States 177, 178–80, 219, 224 Cockrell, Ewing 102, 103 Cold War 26, 28–9, 56, 94, 250; end of 165–6, 251 (and increase in internal conflicts 166–8) Collective Measures Committee 60–7, 85, 219–20, 253 collective security 15, 25, 126, 138, 181, 193, 261, 266 command and control 17, 144, 147, 177; of international police 22; of permanent force 192, 205–6 Commission on Global Governance 145–6, 209 Commission to Study the Organization of Peace 44–5 Committee on Peacekeeping Operations 96 communism 113, 252 Conetta, Carl 147–50 Conference Upon Research and Education in World Government (CURE) 106 Congo (see also ONUC) 87, 91, 92, 150, 254, 283; mercenaries in 215 conscription, abolition of 213 consent of host country 82, 91, 94, 135 Convention of The Hague, 1907 190 Corbett, P. E. 23–4

Cordier, Andrew 54 Corps of Observers 83–4 Costa Rica, and UNEF debate 78 costs 83, 92, 94, 145–6; of Rapid Deployment Brigade 154–5, 208, 280; of Standing Emergency Group 158; of standing police force 120; of UN ‘Legion’ 148–9, 150, 151, 208–9, 279 Cot, Gen. Jean 7, 8, 214 Council of Europe 58 Cowies, Leonard 103 Croatia 231 Cuba: crisis in 106–7, 282; volunteers from 57 Culbertson, Ely 18–20, 275 Cyprus 95 Czechoslovakia, opposition to idea of UN peace force 84 Daley, J .D. T. 263 Dallaire, Gen. Roméo 192, 228 Dallin, A. 116 Daniker, Gustav 185 Davies, David, Baron 22, 26 Defarges, Philippe Moreau 236 Defense Planning Guide (USA) 140 Defense Systems Ltd 255 Delbez, L. 29 Denard, Bob 214 Deniau, J.-F. 235 Denmark, participation in peacekeeping operations 118 Design for a 15,000 United Nations Legion 149–50 Destexhe, Alain 228 direct recruitment 80, 82, 119, 131–6, 204–5, 249, 259, 260; Ennals and, 81–2; to international police force 19, 20–1, 22, 106; to International Strategic Reserve 17; legal basis 30–2; Lie and 42–3, 55–6; and loyalty 106; objections to 211–19; reliability of 180, 183–4; UN Charter and 30, 31, 32; to UN Guard Force 44, 46, 48, 49; to UN ‘Legion’ 148; to UN Peace Force 108, 114–15; to UN Volunteer Force 145; UNEF suggested as core of 75; Urquhart and 132–4, 183, 212; USA and 114–15, 142

Index disarmament 3, 7, 19, 101; creation of international military force linked to 102–3, 104, 107, 109, 116; Cuban crisis and 106–7; UK proposal for 103; and UN Peace Force 93, 253; USSR proposal for 116–17 doctrine of implied powers 33–4, 249 domestic situations: increase in 166–8; UN involvement in 133, 167, 226, 228 droit d’ingèrence 236, 251 dual key arrangements 225 Dulles, John Foster 84 Dumbarton Oaks, meeting at 1944 23, 24 East Timor 237 East–West Conference, 1961 109 ECOMOG (ECOWAS Monitoring Group) 234 Eden, Anthony 24, 29, 72, 73, 74 Eisenhower, Dwight D. 103 Eisenhower, Milton 58 El Salvador 133 Eliasson, I. 221 ENDC (18-Nation Committee on Disarmament) Outline of Basic Provisions … 113–15 Ennals, David, A United Nations Police Force? 81–3 equipment 46, 144, 174–5 espionage 117 esprit de corps 17, 184, 263 European Legion, call for 57–60, 235 Evans, Gareth 202, 204 Executive Outcomes 215 Farrell, Brian 130 fatalities suffered by UN forces 182, 277 feasibility 10–11, 64 Feller, Abraham 54 Ferry, Luc 185 field service 48–9, 50 Finland: neutrality of 189; participation in peacekeeping operations 118 FIRST (Forces for International Relief on Stand-by) Brigade 91 force (see also military force) 6–7, 102, 257 former Yugoslavia (see also Bosnia; Croatia) 3, 141, 150, 169, 179, 264

331

France 214; call for creation of permanent army 56; and rapid response force 127; and Suez 73, 74; and ONUC 92 French Foreign Legion 14, 82, 131, 217 Friends of Rapid Reaction 158 Frye, William 79, 92 functions: proposed for UN forces 44–5, 46, 81, 82, 105, 119, 149, 151–2 (Rapid Deployment Brigade 153–4; Rapid Reaction Force 146–7; UN Guard Force 48–9) Gardner, R. N. 96, 127 Gaulle, Charles de 92, 95 General Assembly 30, 55, 102; authority of 33–4; debate on Suez 74–5; and disarmament 103–4; International Convention Against the Recruitment, Use, Financing and Training of Mercenaries 217–18; proposals for reform 265; representation in 111–12; Special Committee on Peacekeeping Operations 97; UNEF as subsidiary 31; Uniting for Peace resolution 60, 62, 63 genocide 3, 143, 169, 221, 228, 254–5, 263 Gerlach, J. 212, 239 Germany 238; participation in peacekeeping operations 187, 189, 259 Ghebali, V.-Y. 127 Ghurkha battalions 129–30, 215, 217 Glover, Jonathan 264, 271 Goodrich, L. M. 86 Goulding, M. 227 Greece: and disarmament 109; and permanent UN police force 86 Griffin, Eldon 20–1 Grotius 215 Grove, E. 220 Grynyov, O. 87 ‘Guardian Soldiers’ 185 Gulf War 3, 126–7, 137, 138, 269, 283 Haas, Ernst 121 Haas, R. 167, 227 Habermas, Jurgen 138 Habicht, Max 21 Hamilton, T. J. 3 Hammarskjold, Dag 72, 73, 93, 185, 230, 266–7; plan for UN Peace Force 77–8

332


Haynes, Lukas 144 Hazen, Lucinda 56 Heidenrich, John 144, 204 Henrikson, Alan 130 Herriot, Edouard 16 Hickerson, John 52–3, 55 Hill, C. 214 Hillen, J. F. 227 Hoffmann, Stanley 94, 229 Holleufer, Gilbert 223 Holst, J. J. 120 Holy Roman Empire, Diet 89 Home, 14th Earl of (Alec Douglas-Home) 93 Hong Kong 129 Hull, Curdell 18 human rights 193, 236, 262; UN forces linked to defence of 126, 131, 169; violations of committed by members of UN forces 186–7 ‘Human Rights Army’ 264 human values 185 humanitarian military intervention 133, 168–71, 184–5, 221–2, 227–8, 235; criteria for 170–1; definition 170; in Iraq 126; legitimacy of 236–7; limits of intervention capability 171–80; media and 181; motivations behind 185; Rapid Deployment Brigade and 153; risk of casualties 182–3; USA and 140 humanitarian relief assistance 153, 182, 222; armed protection of 170, 222–3 Hurd, Douglas 234 Idealists 6–9, 249, 266, 270 ideologies 271 impartiality 222, 224, 225, 229 Independent Inquiry into the Actions of the United Nations during the 1994 Genocide in Rwanda 256 Independent Working Group on the Future of the United Nations 146–7, 208 India 51, 118; and international police force 5, 104; opposition to idea of UN peace force 85–6; participation in peacekeeping operations 118; reaction to idea of Rapid Deployment Brigade 153, 220–1

institutionalization of UNEF 79–87, 94 intelligence-gathering 22, 192 International Affairs (Moscow) 117 International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) 105 International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) 178, 180, 186, 222, 223 International Convention Against the Recruitment, Use, Financing and Training of Mercenaries, 1989 217–18 International Court of Justice 30, 33, 264, 265 International Criminal Court, Rome Statute, 1998 263 international mobile corps (IMC) 19 international organization, evolution of 260–1 International Organization 93–4 international police force 8, 89–90, 250, 261, 276; Altman and 21–3; Culbertson and 19; Johansen/Mendlovitz and 119–20; Military Research Committee and 16; and ‘New World Order’ 137–8; proposals for 74–5, 107–8, 117 international relations: changes in 165–80; Idealist/Realist schools 6–9, 271–2, 284 International Strategic Reserve 17–18 international tribunals, enforcement of decisions 263–4 International Women’s News 79 Iran, international permanent force 88 Iraq 126, 223 Ireland: neutrality of 189; participation in peacekeeping operations 118 Israel 41; attack on Egypt 1956 74 Italy, participation in peacekeeping operations 118 Janvier, Gen. Bernard 225 Japan 238, 259; participation in peacekeeping operations 187–8 Johansen, Robert 119–20 John XXIII, Pope, Pacem in Terris 262 Jordan, A. 80 Jordan 83, 282 Kashmir 85 Kaysen, Carl 147, 150–2

Index Keating, K. B. 95 Kennan, George 140 Kennedy, John F., proposal for UN Peace Force 93, 108–10 Khan, Rahmatullah 95–6 Khan, Saddrudhin Aga 223, 224 Khruschev, Nikita 104, 105 King, W. L. Mackenzie 40 Kissinger, Henry 140, 182 Klarsfeld, Serge 263 Knight, Charles 147–50 Koestler, Arthur 4, 58–60 Korean War 2, 3, 52, 108, 252, 269; proposal for European force 57–60, 282; proposal for Volunteer Reserve 64–7, 282; US proposal for UN Legion 60–3, 219, 282 Kouchner, Bernard 131, 179, 209, 263–4, 267 Kuwait 126, 141 LaRose-Edwards, Paul 156 Laugier, J. P. 216 law 6, 7 Le Peillet, Pierre 213 League of Nations 14, 15, 16, 24, 268 Lebanon 83, 118, 282 legitimacy: of United Nations 269, 271; of UN ‘Legion’ 64, 138, 187–92, 235–9, 259, 270 Lewis, F. 129, 219 Liberia 168, 234 Lie, Trygve 1, 3, 14, 27, 40, 50, 61–2, 252; and Korean War 52, 53–4, 55; proposal for UN Guard Force 42–3, 44, 46–8, 62; proposal for Volunteer Reserve 63–7; resignation 72; Twenty-year programme 50–1 Lilienthal, A. C. 24 Limb, B. C. 56 Lingle, C. 130 Lodgaard, Sverre 186, 221, 267 logistics 148, 151; Rapid Deployment Brigade 155; Standing Emergency Group 158 Loridon, Gen. Michel 131, 178, 224 loyalty 87, 89–90, 104, 106, 177, 184, 219 Lumumba, Patrice 87, 91 Luttwak, Edward 132, 183, 208, 212

333

MacArthur, Gen. Douglas 54, 61 Macedonia 264 Machiavelli, Niccolo, on mercenaries 215, 218, 219, 255 McKee, F. C. 103 Mahachi, Moren 234 Malan, Mark 231–2 mandates 257 Marshall, C. B. 5 Mazrui, Ali 231 media 181 Member States 249; contributions to United Nations 207–8, 209; and costs of United Nations 207–8, 208–9; earmarking of peacekeeping units 109; making armed forces available 127, 128, 135, 171, 172, 173; motivations of 178; ‘original intent’ argument 32–3; reluctance to give autonomy 204, 207; reluctance to risk casualties 177, 181–3; responsibilities of 257, 261 Mendlovitz, S. H. 119–20 Menon, Krishna 84 mercenary activities 177–8, 214–15, 218, 255; characterisation of UN forces 215, 217, 218–19, 259–60; definition of 216–17 Merchant, L. P. 115 Mérimée, J.-B. 156 military cooperation 29, 260 military force: armed intervention versus non-violence 220–3; early deployment versus preventive intervention 227–8; peacekeeping versus peace enforcement 223–7 Military Research Committee (MRC) 16–17 military service, abolition of 213 Military Staff Committee 25, 102, 135–6, 205–6; calls to reactivate 125, 128, 192; and Gulf War 126; sub-committee to study Article 43 28, 29; USSR’s view on 28, 125 Millard, E. L. 106 Miller, A. S. 33, 34, 131 Miyet, Bernard 254 Morgenthau, H. J. 89 Morillon, Gen. Philippe 7, 228 Morrisson, A. 4, 202 Moscow Declaration, 1943 23

334


motivation of troops 184–5, 260 Mozambique 133; Japanese troops in 188 Muller, Robert 248 Munro, Leslie 83, 84 Muramaya, T. 188 Namibia 133 national contingents 56–7, 92, 127, 176–8, 219, 221, 260; Culbertson’s proposal 19; disadvantages of 16–17, 21, 23–4, 26, 81–2, 90; in international police force 19, 22; lack of uniform training 186; peacekeeping 224; personal defects of soldiers 178 national interest 181, 184 NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) 51, 58, 174, 179, 225, 235 Nepal: and UN Peace Force 109; and UNEF debate 78, 86–7 Neptuno Project 209 Netherlands 182; participation in peacekeeping operations 118; proposal for Rapid Deployment Brigade 152–6, 157, 158, 209; standby troops 174 neutral forces 91, 178, 189–90, 223, 259 ‘New United Nations Peace Force’ 102 ‘New World Order’ 137–42 New York Times 3–4, 53, 54, 83, 129, 131–2 New Zealand, participation in peacekeeping operations 118 Nicholas, Herbert 91, 93–4, 118 Nigeria 118 Nimitz, Admiral Chester 51–2 Nitze, P. H. 95 Noel-Baker, Philip 7, 104–5 Nogee, Joseph 102 non-interference 94 Noon, Firaz Khan 75 North Atlantic Treaty Organization see NATO Northern Ireland 118 Norway, participation in peacekeeping operations 118 nuclear capability of international forces 112, 253 nuclear threat 3, 50, 101, 102–3, 269

OAU (Organization of African Unity) 232, 233, 234 observation corps 50; in Palestine 42, 43–4 Ogata, Sadako 179, 229 ONUC (United Nations Operation in the Congo) 3, 87, 118; costs of 92; lessons of 88–9 Operation Able Sentry 206 Operation Desert Storm 126, 137, 187–8 Opération Turquoise 143–4, 179, 228 original intent argument 32–3, 34 Organization of African Unity see OAU Ormsby-Gore, David 79 Owen, David, Baron 213, 219 Packenham Commission 80–1 Pact of Honour for Security and Cooperation 233 Painlevé, Paul 15 Pakistan 51, 85, 118; and disarmament 109; support for concept of UN peace force 77–8 Palestine crisis 2, 39–40, 211, 252, 269; assassination of mediator 45; field service and field reserve proposals 48–52; Lie’s proposal 40–5, 282; supervision of Truce 40; UN Guard Force proposal 46–8 ‘Pan-African Legion’ 231–3 Parsons, A. 184 peace enforcement 220–3, 261; versus peacekeeping 223–7 peacekeeping 3, 34, 72–3, 118, 126, 127, 167–8, 256; ad hoc forces 90–7, 118–19, 253; costs of 207–8; in Korean War 64, 65–6; or peace enforcement 223–7; Pearson and 76–8; proposals for permanent force 79–87, 153; Special Committee on Peacekeeping Operations 97; Suez Canal crisis 72, 73–4 Pearson, Lester 73, 74, 76–7, 86, 95 Pérez de Cuellar, Javier 171, 193 permanent force 25, 78–9, 129; Annan and 254, 256; arguments against 24, 34, 93, 96, 235; Canada in favour 76; factors preventing creation of 250–1; France in favour 127; implications 203–11; lack of support for 256; Vital Force and 148

Index Permanent Peacekeeping Force 130, 131 Permanent Rapid Reaction Force Headquarters, proposal for 156 Philippines 57 police force see international police force Posen, B. 221–2 preventive deployment 227–8 private military companies 255 protected areas 176 public opinion 181, 183, 184, 214 quota system 16–17, 20, 21, 26, 104, 108 Ramphal, Shridath 145 Ramsbotham, David 255 rapid deployment 133–4, 146, 149 Rapid Deployment Brigade 3, 152–6, 157, 158, 203, 205, 209, 227 Rapid Reaction Force 127, 143, 146–7, 184 rapid reaction military headquarters, proposal for 158–9 Rapid Response Force 130 Rathjens, G. W. 147, 150–2 Realists 6–9, 249, 270 recruitment (see also direct recruitment; volunteers): to international air police 104; to Rapid Deployment Brigade 154 ‘Red Helmets with White Cross’ 223 refugees 169, 221–2 regional organizations 51, 229–35 reliability 89, 90, 180–7, 270 response time, stand-by arrangements 173–4 Ried, George 26 Rifkind, Malcolm 156, 204 Roberts, A. 202 Romulo, Gen. Carlos 57 Roosevelt, Franklin D. 18 Rosenblatt, Lionel 130 Rosenthal, A. M. 54 Rossides, Zenon 89 Rudd, H. F. 21 Ruggie, J. G. 223–4 Russell, Bertrand 106–7 Russell, Ruth 96, 115 Russell, R. B. 23, 24, 25–6, 33, 67 Russian Federation (see also USSR), reaction to idea of Rapid Deployment Brigade 153

335

Rwanda 142–3, 154, 228; Belgian withdrawal from 182; genocide 3, 228, 255, 256; Japanese troops in 188–9; Opération Turquoise 143–4, 179, 228; UNAMIR 144, 175, 192, 228; unwillingness to commit troops to 183 Saar Basin 15 sacrifice 185 Saermark-Thomsen, Finn 210 Saito, K. 189 San Francisco Conference, 1945 15, 23–4 satellite communications 206 Schamm, Uwe 234 Schelling, T. C. 209 Schlesinger, A. M. 183 Schleswig plebiscite 15 Secretariat 31, 32, 47, 258 Secretary-General (see also names of individuals) 31, 32, 257, 258, 262; as Commander-in-Chief 205 Security Council 4, 116, 226; accountability 214; authority of 41, 47, 50, 51, 145, 154, 230, 237; and international police force 56, 120; and international volunteer force 134; Military Staff Committee and 25, 28, 32–3, 102; Permanent Members 25, 28, 32–3; proposed enlargement 136, 238–9; proposed powers in Rapid Deployment Brigade 153, 154; resolutions 257; responsibility for maintenance of peace and security 30–1, 44, 48, 60, 235–6; Unified UN Command 52, 54, 55; use of force 168, 169–70, 257; USSR boycott 52, 251; veto 60, 136, 137, 237 Senie, C. G. 264 Shalikashvili, John 182 Shearer, D. 255 Shevardnadze, Eduard 125 Sieckmann, R. C. 31, 32, 34 Sohn, Louis B. 30, 107, 117 Sollenberg, M. 166–7 Somalia 3, 133, 139, 142, 150, 169; risk of casualties 182; US withdrawal 182 Sommaruga, Cornelio 143 Sommer, M. 209 South Africa 238 sovereignty 7, 204–5, 226, 249–50, 251

336


Sparkman, J. J. 56 Special Committee on Peacekeeping Operations 156 Srebrenica 143; report on 256 Standing Emergency Group 3, 156–8, 176, 205 Standing Reserve 130 Stanley, Timothy 131, 144 Stassen, Harold 1, 3, 20–1, 62, 134–6, 143 Stedman, S. J. 227, 237 Stoessinger, J. G. 210 Suez Canal crisis 72, 73, 108; Fire Brigade concept 73–8; UN Emergency Force 3, 72, 73, 282 Sulzberger, A. H. 3 supranationality 204–6, 213, 250 Suzuki, K. 188–9 Sweden: neutrality of 189; participation in peacekeeping operations 118; Standby Force for service with United Nations 191 Switzerland 223, 259; neutrality of 189–90 Syder, Joseph 141 Szasz, Paul C. 211 Tardieu, A. 16 terrorism 248, 253 Tesón, Fernando 184–5 Thomas, Milovoj 231 Tibet 237 Toynbee, A. 4 training 88, 92, 144, 186–7; standing police force 119–20; Volunteer Reserve 64 Truce Commission for Palestine 41, 42, 43 Truman, Harry 102, 103 Tucker, R. W. 260 Turkey 58 Twenty-year Programme for Achieving Peace through the United Nations 50–1 U Thant, Sithu 7–8, 94–5 United Kingdom: debate on institutionalization of UNEF 79, 80–3, 84–5, 88; and disarmament 105; proposed amendments to Dumbarton Oaks proposals 24; and special agreements 27; and Suez 73, 74

United Nations 20, 266, 271; Allied Command 14; Article 43 agreements 25–6, 28, 31,32,39, 108, 114, 168, 204; creation of 14–15, 18, 23, 39; debate on reform of 238–9; improvements in system of intervention 191–2 United Nations Assistance Mission in Rwanda (UNAMIR) 144, 175, 192 United Nations Charter 1, 27, 75, 261; Articles: 1 168; 2 170; 11 103; 22 31; 24 30, 168, 230; 26 102; 29 32; 39 168; 40 30, 31, 44, 129, 133, 147; 41 30, 31, 129; 42 30, 31, 32, 128, 129, 170; 43 29, 31, 32, 33, 48, 108, 128, 133, 166, 168, 249, 261; 45 32, 33; 46 102; 47 102, 192; 52 230; 53 230; 97 31, 47; 106 32; calls for reactivation of 127, 128; creation of 15, 24; and direct recruitment 30, 31, 32; military arrangements 30–1; non-military provisions 31–2; suggested amendments 226, 264–5; use of force 34 United Nations Conference on Disarmament, Geneva 1962 110 United Nations Corps of Observation and Patrol (UNCOP) 92 United Nations Emergency Force (UNEF) 3, 31, 91, 105, 118, 205; debate in General Assembly 1956–57 74–8; proposals for design 80–3; proposals for institutionalisation 79–87; and Suez Canal 72, 73 United Nations Field Service 211 United Nations Force in Cyprus (UNFICYP) 95 United Nations Guards Contingent in Iraq (UNGCI) 223 United Nations Guard Force 42–3, 44, 253; field service and field reserve proposals 48–52; proposal for at General Assembly 46–8 United Nations ‘Legion’: as policy option 269, 270; proposals for 147–52, 250–1 United Nations Military Observers 211 United Nations Operation in the Congo (ONUC) 87, 88–9, 92 United Nations Operational-level Headquarters, proposal for 157 United Nations Palestine Commission 41

Index A United Nations Peace Force (CEIP) 79–80 United Nations Peace Observation Corps 114, 115 United Nations Police Force 3, 114–15; Kennedy and 108–10 United Nations Preparedness Review Group 121 United Nations Protection Force (UNPROFOR) 179, 220, 225, 226 United Nations Security Force (UNSF) 87 United Nations Standby Arrangement System (UNSAS) 153, 155, 172–4, 175, 258 United Nations Standing Emergency Group 157–8 United Nations Transitional Authority for Cambodia (UNTAC) 141, 231 United Nations Unified Command 53; USA and 54, 55 United Nations Volunteer Reserve 63–4 United Nations Volunteers programme (UNV) 31 United States of America 117, 165, 179; armed forces in Palestine 43; Arms Control and Disarmament Agency 115; Congress resolution for creation of UN police force 56; and disarmament 5, 103, 107–9 (proposal at ENDC 113–15; Vulcan project 110–13); government opposition to idea of permanent UN force 203–4; and Gulf War 126; and Korean War 52, 54, 64; logistical support 210–11; national interest 140, 182; and ‘New World Order’ 137–42; and permanent UN police force 79, 83–4, 142 ; as policeman of the world 132; proposal for UN Legion 60–3, 205; proposal for World Peace Force 5; Presidential Decision Directive 25 (PDD) 138, 139–40, 143, 203; reaction to idea of Rapid Deployment Brigade 153; relations with UN 138–40; role in world government 20; and UN ‘Legion’ proposal 165, 204, 250–1; and UN peace force 113–15, 130; UN Rapid Deployment, Police and Security Force Act 2000 262–3; and

337

UN Unified Command 54, 55; White House Conference on International Co-operation 96, 115 ‘United States of Europe’ 21–2 Uniting for Peace resolution 85, 252–3 Universal Declaration of Human Rights 265 universal norms, defence of 186 universality 187–93 Urquhart, Brian 18, 94, 121, 166, 168, 227, 256; and direct recruitment 132–4, 183, 212; and ONUC 88–9 USSR 5; Draft Treaty on General and Complete Disarmament 1962 116; observers in Palestine 42; opposition to UN peace force 116–17; views on UN armed forces 27–8, 47, 50, 65, 87 Utopianism 6, 9, 11, 250, 251, 258–62, 265–72; of African legion 233 Van Mierlo, Hans 152, 158, 236 Vanguard Concept 157–8 vehicle tracking systems 206 Vital Force 147–9, 221 volunteer character of UN ‘Legion’ 212–14 volunteer international brigade, in Korea 53–7 volunteer military force 133, 134; Stassen and 135–6 volunteerism 185, 190–1, 216–17 volunteers (see also direct recruitment) 132, 190, 212–13, 216–17, 260; in international police force 20, 21; Lie’s proposal 63–5, 188; in Palestine 43 spirit of sacrifice 185–6 Voorhoeve, Joris 181 Vulcan project 110–13 Wallensteen, Peter 166–7 Watchguard International 255 Welles, Sumner 18 West New Guinea 87 Western European Union (WEU) White, N. D. 126 White House Conference on International Co-operation, 1965 96, 115 women, recruitment of 186 Women’s Action Committee for Lasting Peace 43

338


Women’s Organization for World Order 151–6 Working Paper for Restructuring 135–6 World Federalist Association 263 world government 16, 81, 142, 260; Bloomfield and 111–13; Russell and 106–7; Stassen and 20–1 World War II 14, 269; reflection on need

for an international force 18–23 Young, Michael 21 Youth ’95 147 Zaire, peacekeeping troops in Rwanda 175 Zolo, Danilo 238

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