The United Nations Security Council and War:The Evolution of Thought and Practice since 1945 (79 page)

This drafting of the resolutions had only limited military input. The UN HQ in New York had at the time a small military staff whose primary purpose was to advise the Secretary-General what forces would be required from the nations to put resolutions into effect and to monitor the current operations. They depended on reports from the field, and input from national governments for most of their information. The bulk of military advice about safe areas, if it was given or received at all, came from the military staff in the capitals. Their interest, however, was not so much whether or not they thought the idea was workable, but rather the potential risk to their forces and the anticipated demands for more manpower.

In short order, other areas, Žepa, Goražde, Sarajevo, Tuzla, and Biha
were declared ‘safe’.
⁷
UNPROFOR was never provided with the necessary forces for this new task. The military planners assessed that some 34,000 extra troops would be necessary to defend the areas. In the end, some 7,000 were found but they were slow to arrive – the last contingent did not reach Biha
until late in 1994. Nevertheless, UNPROFOR had been given the task and was responsible, particularly in the eyes of the Bosnians, for the supply of food and medicine into the areas as well as for their security. When these responsibilities were not adequately met, the Bosnians and their international supporters used the fact to beat the UN for its failure and to demand more robust international action. In the eyes of the Bosnian Serbs, UNPROFOR was responsible for keeping the safe areas demilitarized, and when the Bosnian Muslims mounted operations from them, which they did
increasingly, the inhabitants and the UN were ‘punished’ by the denial of convoys and the safe area was attacked. This epitomized the hostage and shield situation. It described generally UNPROFOR’s relationships with the warring parties. In the case of Srebrenica, the UN forces in the safe area became a shield behind which the Bosnian Muslims could operate to develop their strategy, and a hostage to the Serbs as they endeavoured to develop theirs.

The Security Council, having willed the end of the conflict, was unable to raise the means to reach it or think of another way to achieve the end within the means available, or rather the Secretary-General and UN HQ was unable to do this on their behalf. Structurally, the UN was unable to fulfil the function of a strategic HQ. It was not able to form the force, states did not provide contingents, it was unable to direct the force, the operation had no aim. The political process was stagnant. There was no strategic direction, there was no strategic military goal to achieve, there were no theatre-level military objectives. All acts had only tactical results: UNPROFOR opened up routes, secured and ran Sarajevo Airport, and guarded convoys of aid. As events unfolded, the ability to achieve even the humanitarian tasks was eroded. Although there was no form of strategic or theatre direction, nobody appeared to have noticed how dangerous the position was for the UN. The very standing of the UN, its strategic essence, was at risk. This risk became a reality in 1995.

By mid-1995, UNPROFOR was operating in an international political vacuum and the fighting continued. After the Serbs had taken some 300 UN hostages, the protection of the force became the Security Council’s primary concern, and the use of force in any circumstances except self-defence was denied. The authority to order air attacks was removed from the military commanders and held by the Secretary-General. In July, the safe area of Srebrenica was overrun by the Bosnian Serbs, and the male captives were murdered in their thousands. The safe area of Žepa fell shortly after, although without the same murderous consequences as in Srebrenica. Faced with the prospect of the Goražde safe area, which was defended by a British unit, being attacked the London Conference was called in late July. As a result of this conference, the Security Council was effectively prevented from taking any further strategic decisions in the matter. It was decided, essentially by the United Kingdom and France with the approval of the United States, that any attack on Goražde would be met by continuous and disproportionate air attacks until it stopped. Furthermore the decision to initiate such a response was to lie with the
military commanders in the theatre. Soon after the conference, this threat was extended to cover attacks on any of the remaining safe areas.

In early August, after the Croatian Army had swept the Serb defenders aside, the UN Protected Areas in Croatia were cleansed of their inhabitants in the largest case of ethnic cleansing in the whole war. The protection of these areas in Croatia, or more correctly of the Croatian Serbs who lived in them, had been the original purpose of UNPROFOR. As the fighting spread into Bosnia, UNPROFOR’s command was divided with the HQ in Sarajevo being responsible for Bosnia and the one in Zagreb being responsible for the Protected Areas in Croatia. In the same month, and as a direct result of the Croatian attack, the US announced the Lake Initiative and became, through the representation of Richard Holbrooke, actively and positively engaged in the political process.

At the end of August, after mortar rounds were fired into Sarajevo, UNPROFOR, supported by NATO, put the decision of the London Conference into effect and engaged the Bosnian Serbs. The Secretary-General learnt of these attacks after the decision was made. The attacks, particularly the air raids, went on for some three weeks. By the end of the first week of September, political and military actions were being linked, and led to a ceasefire throughout Bosnia and the subsequent signing of the Dayton Accords in November 1995.

UNPROFOR was able to take such action, among other things, because of the decision made earlier in 1995 to create a Rapid Reaction Force (RRF). Originally formed during May 1995 from forces already deployed in Bosnia, when air strikes were used against the Bosnian Serbs, it was subsequently decided to retain such a force. Two armoured infantry battle groups and an artillery group were placed under HQ RRF, and elements of a British airmobile brigade were deployed on the coast near Split. The declared purpose of the RRF was to defend UNPROFOR. When the RRF artillery was deployed in range of Sarajevo, the UN had a force that could match that of the Bosnian Serbs; a force that was immediately to hand and was not constrained by the characteristics of airpower. It was this force, together with NATO’s 5th Allied Tactical Air Force, that carried out the attacks that started in late August. Commander UNPROFOR chose the targets, with the exception of those to do with air defence, and using the two forces in concert broke the siege of Sarajevo within a few days and then continued to apply pressure on the Bosnian Serbs.

In the six weeks from mid-July to the end of August, forces acting on the basis of Security Council resolutions had failed to protect the people in the safe areas of Srebrenica and Žepa in Bosnia, and the Protected Areas of the Krajina in Croatia. All political control over the use of force had been removed from the Secretary-General and his subordinates. From August onwards, UN forces had become actively engaged against one side, the Bosnian Serbs, in an inter-factional war in direct support of the US-led political process to bring the matter to resolution.

By way of a conclusion, I want to return to the specific questions raised at the beginning of this chapter. The performance of the Security Council was poor. The existence and actions of the Security Council negatively affected events, as it gave member states, in particular its five Permanent Members, either a reason not to take action, or a process through which they could will the end without taking responsibility for achieving it. As a result, the role of the Security Council became increasingly less significant as the conflict continued, until it was marginalized in July/August 1995, and sidelined in the Dayton negotiations. The consequence of this failing was the destruction of the credibility of the UN. The Bosnians, Serbs and Croats, all expected that UN forces, once deployed, would take control of events and create order if not justice. They expected power to be exercised. Instead, over the years as the Security Council and the UN demonstrated their lack of resolve and powerlessness, and the main actors and then the on-looking world, led in large measure by the US, became contemptuous.

In summary, if you choose to intervene in someone else’s war, whether in the Balkans or Darfur, and you want something to happen, you had better be prepared to fight one or all parties. But to do this you need to decide several key matters: what you want to happen, what part the use of force has in achieving it, and how the result is to be exploited to advantage and by whom. In short, you need a strategy. If the Security Council and its executive HQ is to change so as to wield force for good, then structural and organizational changes are necessary. These changes must enable the formation of a strategy for the use of force, and the execution of this strategy to achieve a successful conclusion in the face of opposition.

GILLES DORRONSORO

T
HE
conflict in Afghanistan has persisted in various forms since 1979, making it one of the longest conflicts since 1945. Twice, foreign powers intervened militarily (the USSR from 1979 to 1989; and the US from 2001 to the present), while neighbouring countries – notably Pakistan, Uzbekistan, and Russia – have continuously supported different armed Afghan military movements. The Afghan conflict is a good case study by which to analyse the role of the UN Security Council, with the conflict spanning a pivotal period of evolution in the international system. At the beginning of the conflict in 1979, the Security Council was paralysed by the standoff between the Soviet Union and the Western bloc. Following the breakdown of the Soviet Union, it was widely believed that the Security Council would start to function as envisaged in the Charter. The debate surrounding UN Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali’s report
An Agenda for Peace
¹
reflects a concentrated attempt to create a stronger security system led by the Council. However, the attacks of September 11 challenged the central role of the Security Council,
confronting the UN with a hegemonic superpower willing to bypass the Council, threatening to marginalize it.

The key question explored by this chapter by reference to the Afghan conflict is whether the Security Council is an institution capable of managing an international security regime. An international security regime is a group of implicit or explicit norms, rules, and procedures, around which the expectations of the various actors converge in decisions regarding international security.
²
Has the Council contributed, if only marginally, to the definition of behavioural norms for the various actors in the case of Afghanistan? Has the post-Cold War era been favourable to developments in the collective security framework? Has the Security Council been able to establish a system of collective security that serves more than the specific national interests of its Permanent Members?

The chapter will proceed in three sections. The first section will examine who has determined the Council’s policy with regard to Afghanistan, and the specific interests that have shaped the Council’s approach. As the chapter shows, the level of Security Council involvement in Afghanistan has been determined by the national interests of its Permanent Members, with phases of lack of interest alternating with strong mobilization around issues where little is at stake. The Security Council’s approach has generally been limited and short-term, and has failed to manifest an overarching strategy. This has meant that the Council’s approach has at times been in conflict with that of other UN agencies involved in Afghanistan, such as ad hoc groups or the Secretariat. These dynamics may change over time, but the Council has never appeared to be in a position to provide the impetus for a global policy representative of the interests of the ‘international community’.