Essay - UN Unable to Address Modern Conflicts

[McArthur]

Simply put, the United Nations is incapable of undertaking military action under it’s own banner as long as the contributing states can only provide poorly trained, equipped soldiers who have little understanding or direction in the conflict they are ordered to contain (A. J. Venter, War Dogs, Chapter 6: The United Nations Debacle in West Africa). Whereas past conflicts involved clear distinctions between combatants and noncombatants, the United Nations was now facing situations where there was no distinction at all, and warzones were rife with criminals, paramilitaries, terrorists and mercenaries. For an organisation consisting of states that have a history of only dealing with state vs. state issues, it is difficult to now be dealing with a number of non-state actors. Furthermore, UN forces have a history of being hamstrung by vague mission mandates and diplomatic pressures. During the 1994 UNAMIR mission in Rwanda, an understrength contingent of UN peacekeepers was unable to intervene during the genocide because of its limited jurisdiction and mandate to act. It took the UN Security Council six weeks to adopt a resolution which provided aid to the UNAMIR force, but by that stage it was too late, and a failure of the United Nations to act quickly resulted in the mass murder of up to 800,000 Rwandan people. The UN is better suited to act as a forum for international diplomacy and cooperation between states rather than as an international interventionist military force.

It is difficult to clearly state why many states are pessimistic when it comes to dealing with the United Nations. Realists would argue that because the international system exists in a state of anarchy, then NGOs such as the UN are not to be trusted or relied upon. This would explain a lack of active involvement or trust in the United Nations, which in turn explains why the United Nations is incapable of addressing modern conflicts. Liberals would argue that the UN is in fact a competent organisation, but only with the contribution of all states, and that the only reason the UN is prone to failure is because states have not invested enough trust or resources into the United Nations for it to work properly. This is a “chicken or the egg” causality dilemma. Attempts by states to bolster or champion the United Nations as a “solution” have been troubled since the fall of the Cold War. As the United States proclaimed itself the victor, it asserted the idea that this was the UN’s opportunity to take on it’s role as the “guardian of international peace and security” with it’s plans for “An Agenda for Peace” without the traditional Soviet influence hampering efforts. To quote Chesterman, “the rhetoric was euphoric, utopian, and short”. The following two decades saw a notable increase in the number of UN peacekeeping expenses – the result was a massive financial and human expense, with very few positive results to show for it.

The prevalence of realism and the growing mistrust in the United Nations was not helped by the obvious drawbacks in having an international collection of states needing to reach a consensus on interests before action could be taken. With the founding of the UN, there was an immediate rush by all states to push for their nationals to be awarded senior positions within the bureaucracy. It would be naïve to assume that there was ever a point in which the personnel under the UN were not subject to political factors – the Soviet Union continually accused the first Secretary General of pro-Western bias. This proved a problem in situations where the United Nations required consensus from a large proportion of its members for action to take place. It means the interests of other states can hamstring legitimate and well-intentioned actions – effectively bringing the UN down to the lowest common denominator. It has been noted that as the UN has grown so large now that achieving consensus with a number of small developing countries is particularly difficult.

Since the end of the Cold War the United Nations has struggled to maintain it’s position as an eminent actor in the international system, mostly because of the relationship between realist states and the public attention which has been drawn towards the operational failures of the UN when it comes to addressing modern conflicts.

[Dayuhan]

It seems a very broad topic for such a short essay. I'd suggest focusing on a single example and trying to identify the factors that prevented the UN from acting effectively. Even that would be a lot to accommodate, but it would be easier to develop a coherent argument with a tighter focus.

[davidbfpo]

On balance it is better to have the UN than not. It's efforts at peacekeeping have not all been bad, although from the essay you'd guess it was bad, bad.

How about including references to the successes: Namibia, Mozambique, Cambodia, Cyprus and on Israel's borders?

The UN is generally only successful in conflicts when there is a local and international agreement. The UN's mistake IMO was to try peace enforcement when only international agreement was in place, the DRC is a great example.

You will have noted the changing composition of UN military forces too, many of the "regulars" are no longer there: Canada, Scandinavia, and even India appears to be asking itself why. The USA rarely has been a participant.

[Firn]

In addition to the points raised by Dayuhan about the scope of the essay and by davidbfpo in general I wanted to throw in some personal views:

1) I'm in general quite sceptic about the use of a too sharp schema of "new" and "old" wars. In fact I do believe that those conflicts described as "new" types have even older roots and have ever been part of the history of humankind. Only in some parts of the world they have been overshadowed in relative recent times by the those described here as "old" wars.

2) The UN has for obvious political and to a lesser degree legal reasons an easier time to efficiently act when there is a relative strong consensus about the problem and the mandatem, when there are distinct persons and institutions with which an effective interaction is possible. This hardly goes only for the UN or other international organisations but is in general even true in the private sector.

3) In short having the UN is, as written before, on balance then not having it. It even can be far better under some circumstances, especially when it has a narrow mission. As the US and it's Western allies have experienced even a vast amount of ressources and direct control over efficient national means can result in little progress when the local institutions are largely ineffective and the situations chaotic.

P.S: I do not understand the distinction between "Liberals" and "Realists". Thanks.

[McArthur]

Okay, after further discussing this with the tutor, the decision has been made to focus on one particular point. This gives me the space I need to give a proper argument and a counterpoint (Ie, UN successes)

Firn, I'm not a fan of the New vs Old war distinction either. "New" Wars have been happening since Alexander The Great, so I'm still of the opinion that it's a bit of a misnomer, but I still maintain that the UN is only suited for a particular kind of conflict. I wouldn't say we'd be better off without it, but it's not the one-fix-shop people think it is and I think it's telling that the UN has made huge expenses for little gain in most conflicts.

The Liberal vs Realist thing is the opposing International Relations theories of Liberalism and Realism. Obviously they're not the only schools of though, and they each have general subsets, but the academics (At least, here in our department) tend to focus a lot of those two opposing schools of thought.

Like the New vs Old War theory, I think it's ridiculous to break down international politics to a number of distinctly different "Theories" in an effort to explain or simplify things. When tutors or students try and get me to take a side with a particular theory I usually respond with "Yes", because I genuinely don't believe any one theory covers it all.

- Mac

[J Wolfsberger]

I think the failure of the UN is rooted in something more fundamental than than nations failing to achieve consensus on military aims and resources.

The UN was founded, and continues to operate, on the basis of the noble fantasy that there exists a "community of nations."

Such has never existed and likely won't for the foreseeable future.

[McArthur]

I think the failure of the UN is rooted in something more fundamental than than nations failing to achieve consensus on military aims and resources.

The UN was founded, and continues to operate, on the basis of the noble fantasy that there exists a "community of nations."

Such has never existed and likely won't for the foreseeable future.

This is a key part in the essay, but I've just realised that I'm not doing a very good job of explaining it, let alone in laymans terms.

That shall be fixed.

Cheers,

Mac

Realism: International Relations

Common assumptions

Realism is a tradition of international theory centered upon four propositions.

1. Anarchy:
- There is no actor above states capable of regulating their interactions; states must arrive at relations with other states on their own, rather than it being dictated to them by some higher controlling entity.
- The international system exists in a state of constant antagonism.

2. Egoism:
- Individuals and groups tend to pursue self-interest.
- Groups strive to attain as many resources as possible.

3. Groupism:
Politics takes place within and between groups.

4. Power politics:
- Relations between groups are determined by their levels of power derived primarily from their material (military and economic) capabilities.
- The overriding national interest of each state is its survival, and there is a general distrust of long-term cooperation or alliance.
- International politics are always power politics

[Entropy]

The essential problem is sovereignty. Democratic nations don't want to give up sovereignty to an unelected and unaccountable foreign institution. For non-democratic nations the loss of sovereignty would threaten their hold on power. The UN thus becomes a political tool to wield in the service of the national interest.