The United Nations Security Council and War:The Evolution of Thought and Practice since 1945 (13 page)

• Claimed advantages of bipolar/unipolar structure of international relations. In some writings on international relations it is claimed that multipolar international systems are more war-prone than other types; and also that the international system since 1945 can be properly described as bipolar up to the end of the Cold War and unipolar thereafter. While both parts of this claim are open to contestation, it merits consideration as one possible level of explanation.
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• A widespread reaction to the excesses of two world wars. In this view, the same factors that led to the creation of the UN also, independently of the organization,
contributed to a determination not to repeat mistakes of the past. This determination led, for example, to the development of regional international organizations – including the European Union, whose explicit purpose was to make another war in Europe unthinkable.
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• Change through non-violent methods. A great deal of political change in the post-1945 period, and especially from the 1980s onwards, has been achieved through non-violent methods, as distinct from war and civil war. Such methods are not confined to purely constitutional change. In particular, there has been a noteworthy increase in the phenomenon of civil (i.e. non-violent) resistance against authoritarian regimes and empires. Cases include the resistance to the Marcos regime in the Philippines in 1986, the eastern European movements leading to change in 1989, the action against the coup in the Soviet Union in August 1991, and the revolutions in Serbia, Georgia, and Ukraine in the years after 2000.
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Granted the variety of possible explanations of the reduction of interstate war, it would be unwise to rush to make ambitious claims for the effectiveness of international institutions in general, the UN in particular, or the Security Council in even more particular. Even though the UN deserves some credit, much of it may be due to other parts of the system as distinct from the Council.

The UN Charter and the organization it created are based on a multi-pronged approach to the elimination of war between states, with the emphasis on equal rights and self-determination of peoples, and on the importance of tackling economic, social, cultural, and humanitarian problems. Against this background, the particular tasks assigned to the Security Council can be likened to those of accident and emergency services, which are one part of the public health systems of states, but are far from being the only, or even the most important, determinants of public health.

Yet it is possible that the Council deserves some credit for the reduction in the incidence and human costs of international war – a task that it was designed to address, on which it has been taking action of various kinds for over six decades, and in respect of which significant results can be shown. The decline of colonial wars may also owe something to the role of the UN in assisting the process of decolonization and providing a framework of rules and institutions in which post-colonial states can operate effectively.

While a reduction of interstate war may be a cause for cautious celebration, the problems of civil wars, and the growth of terrorism since the late 1960s, have persisted. In many cases these phenomena can be viewed as consequences of European decolonization – leaving in its wake, all too often, a transition that was perceived as only half-complete, and new states that lacked legitimate institutions and borders. Then after 1989 the collapse of the two communist federations of Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union left similar problems. Throughout the entire period since 1945, civil wars have been a principal preoccupation of the Council.

In many cases the problem of civil wars was compounded by the involvement of outside powers, often on both sides, creating the new and little-recognized category of ‘internationalized civil war’. For example, successive wars in Afghanistan and Bosnia had this character, as did the war in Vietnam in the 1960s and early 1970s.

Civil wars, whether or not internationalized, present particularly difficult problems for international bodies. In such wars, violence and terrorism can easily become endemic in society. Not only is there seldom a clear case of ‘aggression’, but also it is not obvious what is the status quo ante to be restored. Civil wars often have a ‘winner takes all’ character, making mediation and conciliation particularly difficult. There are inherent hazards in treating governments and insurgents as equal parties in a negotiation, yet refusal to do so may lead to the collapse of diplomatic efforts. As if these problems were not enough, outside powers typically see particular civil wars in very different ways, and therefore have great difficulty in agreeing on a strong course of action. All these problems, and more, have been experienced by the UN Security Council throughout its existence.

The performance of the Council is the subject of sharply differing interpretations. Some have seen it as a failure – and there is no denying that it has fallen short of the goals set for it in the Charter. Others have seen it as a partial success – for example because of the diminution in interstate war, and the value attached to great power collaboration, however limited and flawed it may be. It should be possible to make a more fine-grained and evidence-based judgement than this classic ‘glass half-empty’ versus ‘glass half-full’ debate would suggest.

Our summary of the weaknesses and strengths of the Council’s record is necessarily imperfect. The Council’s record is not always easily separable from
that of other UN agencies, particularly the General Assembly. Moreover, aspects of the record of both these bodies can be deeply ambiguous, and therefore hard to categorize as either strength or weakness. For example, there is ample evidence from wars in the UN era – especially those between Israel and its Arab neighbours, and between India and Pakistan – that concern about impending UN Security Council and General Assembly ceasefire resolutions has led armed forces and governments to rush to achieve their objectives quickly, before the pressure for a ceasefire (especially if supported by the US) becomes irresistible.
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The Council has faced substantial criticism concerning both its legitimacy and effectiveness in addressing the problem of war, and in authorizing the use of force. It has been criticized when it has acted, and also when it has failed to act. Major controversies about the Council’s role have revolved round the following ten issues:

• Inaction. This has been a persistent theme throughout the Council’s history. Its relevance in addressing international crises is called into question by the fact that there have been numerous occasions on which it has been unable to reach decisions about particular wars and threats of war, whether because of lack of interest of major powers, resistance of those involved in a conflict, or a threat or use of the veto. The inaction of the Council or of forces operating under it has been notable not only in crises connected to the Cold War, but also in relation to such events as the Iran–Iraq War (1980–8) and the mass killings in Rwanda (1994).

• Intelligence. In many conflicts and crises it has been painfully evident that the UN has lacked its own reliable intelligence, with the results that it was at risk of being misled by a member state, and lacked an independent capacity to respond quickly to fast-moving events. While it may not be feasible for the UN to develop an independent capacity to collect secret intelligence, it does need to develop an effective system for sharing and evaluating intelligence in certain particular issue areas.
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• Weak assessment of situations. Operating as it does with imperfect information, the Council has occasionally either characterized conflicts in questionable ways (e.g. by maintaining neutrality towards belligerents when circumstances had cast doubt on such a stance), or shown unnecessary haste in rushing to judgment (e. g. with its resolution in March 2004 blaming the Madrid bombing on ETA).
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• Difficulty in agreeing on military action. The Council is generally better at agreeing on ends than on means. It has often had great difficulty in deciding on follow-up action, including the use of force, even when the policies it advocated had been openly challenged. In particular cases such disagreement on the Council may be positive. However, two serious consequences can flow from failures to agree on specific military action. First, to the extent that it becomes a pattern it risks creating a perception of the Council as a body whose bark is worse than its bite, or which stands by while terrible crimes are committed. Secondly, in cases where there has been an initial authorization to use force but then there is disagreement on how this should be followed up, the net effect may be that uncontrollable leeway is left in the hands of the authorizee. This was part of the problem over Iraq in 2003, when a key question raised was the extent to which pre-existing authorizations to states or coalitions continued when the Council was unable to agree on new ones.

• Lowest common denominator. There has been a tendency to pursue ‘lowest common denominator’ policies – that is, those on which agreement is easy to reach. Such policies often relate to short-term and immediate problems, but do not tackle the underlying issues at stake in a conflict. Thus in many crises the Council has justifiably called for immediate ceasefires, arms embargoes, and for urgent humanitarian action, but it has been less effective in agreeing policies and actions that would bring about a resolution of the issues that gave rise to the resort to arms.

• Uneasy relations with the US. The relationship of the Council with its most powerful member, the US, has proved perennially difficult. On the one hand, at least since the time of the Korean War (1950–3) there has been a tendency to view the Council as essentially under US dominance, and therefore a mere instrument of power politics rather than a cure. This view, which is so corrosive of the UN’s legitimacy, has had a revival in the post-Cold War era because of the significance of the US role in the Council and in its interventions around the world. On the other hand, within the US political system there have been repeated criticisms of the UN, including expressions of frustration that the UN framework entangles the US in a complex and unsatisfactory decision-making system, and places disproportionate burdens on the US. Since 1945 the US has tended to see itself, rightly or wrongly, as a major provider of security outside a UN framework, for example through its network of alliances: against this background, the additional obligations arising from Council membership are sometimes presented as unnecessary additions to an already heavy burden.

• Violations of the Council’s resolutions by its members. In some cases Council members, including members of the P5, have violated the terms of a resolution for which they had voted previously on the Council, possibly because they had come to see its provisions as ineffective or damaging. One case in point is the arms embargo in the former Yugoslavia in 1991–5: there was connivance by the US and others in the acquisition of weapons from outside by several of the governments involved, including those of Bosnia and Croatia. Other examples, arguably more damaging in their effects, were the various breaches of the sanctions against Iraq in 1991–2003: these included trading with Iraq, and also toleration of large-scale smuggling activities between Iraq and neighbouring states. Some of these developments helped to precipitate the Iraq crisis of 2003.

• Poor management of force. The Council, and the UN more generally, has sometimes proved ineffective at actually managing the use of force. Because the Council has not been involved in managing force directly, this is primarily a question of the poor quality of certain mandates. For example, during UNPROFOR’s involvement in the former Yugoslavia there was strong criticism that the UN had set over-elaborate procedures, and over-precise rules, for the use of military force for protection of the ‘safe areas’, so that, for example, force could only be used on a ‘dual-key’ arrangement, and even then only against ‘smoking guns’ responsible for violations, and not more generally against the forces that had instigated such violations.

• Corruption and weak control of operations. Actions initiated by the Council have in some instances been marred by corruption scandals – including in connection with the oil-for-food programme which operated from 1995 to 2003 as part of the Council’s sanctions regime against Iraq.
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There have also been instances of corruption in connection with contracts for supplying certain UN peacekeeping operations;
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and of unethical sexual conduct by UN peacekeeping personnel.
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These cases have raised the question of whether the Council’s
members have involved themselves sufficiently in the framing and implementation of its policies.

• Role of dustbin/punchbag. The UN in general, and the Security Council in particular, has continued to have the role as a convenient dustbin into which states can throw issues on which they do not have the will or capacity to act; or as a punchbag to hit when other possible targets of their wrath are more difficult to criticize. This role reinforces the other weaknesses listed here.

Some of these weaknesses help to explain why the Council’s handling of a number of crises discussed in this book – including Arab–Israel problems since 1947, Iraq’s invasion of Iran in 1980, the killings in Rwanda in 1994, and those in Darfur since 2003 – has been deplorable. The fact that the Council’s record suffers from some or all of these defects is widely accepted. In many countries and traditions of thought there are strong criticisms of the UN’s performance in the security field: the idea that there is a monopoly of such criticism in the US is wide of the mark.