Saptarsi Mukhopadhyay

Peacekeeping

The Expansion of Peace Operations

The nature of peace operations undertaken by the United Nations has changed

dramatically since the end of the Cold War. Not only has the number of operations

expanded exponentially, but their collective scope has also increased. Of the sixty-three

peacekeeping organizations since 1948, sixteen are current operations; $7.1 billion is the

current yearly budget for peacekeeping when only $54 billion had been allocated for

financial support for all peace operations since 1948. (UN DPI, 2009) It appears that this

intervention is certainly needed, when it is thought that “one of the challenges facing the

international community in the post-Cold War era is the increasingly pervasive problem

of civil conflict.” (Paris, 1997) The UN justifies its interventions from parts of Chapter

VI (“to facilitate the pacific settlement of disputes”) (Mayall, 1996, p.7) and Chapter VII

(which “countenances collective action to deter manifest threats to international peace

and security”) (Mayall, 1996, p.4) of the UN Charter—sometimes called the Chapter six-

and-a-half solution. This approach was not always in place. In the past, peace operations

were rather limited: they could only be present during cease fires with the consent of the

state involved and have troops as neutral observers (Cockayne, 2005, p.332). In present

times, peace operations are “complex, multidisciplinary state-building operations.”

(Cockayne, 2005, p.331) There are a number of reasons for the vast increase in quantity

and scope of peace operations, most notably structural and normative shifts.

The structural explanation for the increase of peace operations attributes it to the

end of the Cold War and the new equilibrium of power that ensued. In particular, it
concerns the relatively recent change in the structure of power in the UN Security

Council after the breakup of the Soviet Union as well as the new problems that emerged

specifically due to the breakup of the USSR. Prior to 1990, the Security Council of the

United Nations was ideologically split into two factions: the United States and its allies in

opposition to the Soviet Union and its allies. The Security Council is the only body that

can legitimately authorize force in any case of threat to international peace, as justified in

Chapter VII of the UN Charter that allows the UN to take “action by air, sea, or land

forces as may be necessary to maintain or restore international peace and security.” (UN,

1945) Due to this, along with the fact that the five permanent members of the Security

Council (The United States, France, the UK, China, and the Soviet Union—now Russia)

had to vote unanimously in any significant decision, no decision to intervene was ever

approved; a single veto from any of the permanent members would have paralyzed any

proposed peace operations. (Mayall, 1996, p.6) After 1990, this was no longer true.

Essentially, the UN had more causes to intervene in as well as the opportunity to do so

due to the end of the Cold War.

The US and its allies among the permanent members no longer automatically

vetoed proposals that Russia supported and vice versa. Furthermore, the remaining ten

elected members of the Security Council no longer had to automatically follow either the

US or USSR due to Cold War politics and funding. An instructive example can be seen in

the case of Cambodia. A Soviet supported Vietnam had invaded Cambodia in 1978 to

replace the Khmer Rouge (which was committing genocide) in direct violation of the

realist principles of noninterference and sovereignty. No action was taken until the past

decade due to the Soviet Union’s stake in the matter. The UN tried to establish a neutral
political environment through elections, but was ultimately unsuccessful. The region

preferred to maintain sovereignty, and a final compromise was reached in which a council

representing all political factions, including the Khmer Rouge regime, took Cambodia’s

UN seat. (Mayall, 1996, p.8)(Yale University 2009) In short, the Cold War had forced a

mindset preoccupied with noninterference and sovereignty that could only (and was)

addressed after the fall of the Soviet Union. Unfortunately, the end of the Cold War itself

and the ensuing shift in power dynamics created many problems to be addressed—as

Ayoob has written, “insecurities and insecurities are largely a function of the historical

juncture where most Third World states find themselves [after the end of the Cold War].”

(Ayoob, 1995, p.59)

Ironically, the very freedom that was afforded by the end of the Cold War was the

cause of some of the conflicts that caused the UN to have to intervene. Internal conflict

seems to be the rule among all conflicts since 1990. The conflict in the former state of

Yugoslavia is one case. After the breakup of the Soviet Union, ethnic nationalism erupted

into a very brutal conflict between Orthodox Serbs, Catholics, and Muslims. According to

Kaldor, people abandoned the previously uniting ideology politics for intrinsically

exclusive identity politics based on religious and ethnic lines, using them as a pretext for

fighting towards the goal of “sowing ‘fear and hatred.’” (Kaldor, 2007, p.9) Alternatively,

Huntington claimed that this was the natural tendency for three different civilizations—

the aforementioned Orthodox, Western (Catholic), and Islamic (Muslim) civilizations—to

regress to their natural state of clashes and conflicts that the Soviet Union had kept in

check after the end of the Cold War. (Huntington, 1996) Thus, 1990 brought not only the
opportunity for the UN to intervene in peace operations in much of the world, but it also

brought many of the very conflicts that necessitated interventions.

A factor that should be addressed is that along with the cause and ability to

intervene in more conflicts around the world after 1990, the UN was simply able to be

better and faster informed about the conflicts around the world due to globalization and

improvement in telecommunications technology. People in this new era have far more of

the transnational interactions that are a hallmark of globalization, ranging from economic

to demographic (through immigration). Along with better news media coverage,

globalization causes the world to be simply more aware of conflict. Whereas during the

Cold War years the UN may only have a vague idea of what conflicts were occurring far

after many of the original events, today’s world of continuous media coverage ensures

that the world will quickly become aware of atrocities being committed. As Cockayne

notes, “intensive media coverage of humanitarian disasters mobilizes public opinion and

creates pressures on governments to ‘do something.’” (Cockayne, 2005, p. 340)

Ultimately, the end of the Cold War provides the causes of many of the conflicts that the

UN intervenes in, the opportunities for it to do so, and the information more quickly and

readily than it was available in the past upon which the UN acts. These three sub-factors

together explain why the end of the Cold War is a good structural explanation for the

proliferation of UN peace operations since 1990.

However, the structural explanation does not fully address the recently increased

number and scope of UN peace operations. Notably, the aforementioned implications and

effects of the end of the Cold War do not completely explain why the UN decides to

intervene when many conflicts are within sovereign states. A justification for this lies in
the normative explanation for the increase in UN interventions: extensions in

international standards for intervening as well as expansions in the standards for what

peace operations should do

Originally, the guiding philosophy for peace operations was that they should be

quite limited. UN personnel were to be present only during cease fires agreed upon by all

parties involved contingent on their being lightly armed and authorized only to use force

in self-defense; they would be present only as neutral observers upon invitation.

(Cockayne, 2005, p.332) After 1990, the standards for becoming involved greatly

changed. First, there was a shift in the referent. The state’s security is no longer the only

thing of concern; the security of the people within the state, of minorities in particular, is

now a matter of great concern. In fact, the state itself can be a source of insecurity under

this new perspective, something that is impossible by the older definitions (Rothschild,

1995) In addition, the definition of threats to international peace has broadened. No

longer are conflicts, though technically domestically originating, thought of as being only

in the state’s domain. Now, the byproducts of these various conflicts, such as rebels,

terrorists, and transnational criminals are considered threats to international peace by

virtue of harming or having the potential to harm neighboring (and at times quite distant)

states. In other words, “the actions of people in one country actually [cause] events in

other countries.” (Rothschild, 1995, p68) Finally, the agent of security has expanded in

scope as well. While previously only including the state in question, the UN now

considers itself on behalf of the international community to be legitimate agents of

security, possibly because the state is perceived to be a “failed state” that cannot provide

security in the case of internal conflict. (Cockayne, 2005, p.335) These new standards are
present in the conception of “new security.” It simultaneously extends the coverage of

traditional security downwards to the individual level in its standards for the referent,

laterally in considering more things threats to international peace, and upward by

considering the UN an agent of security instead of just the state.

The normative shift also applies to the standards for how far peace operations

should be carried out, both for means as well as objectives. As Ralph Bunch had written,

“then, peacekeeping buttressed essentially self-enforcing cease-fires; now, it aims to build

the foundations of a self-renewing peace.” (Cockayne, 2005, p.331) Far from the lightly

armed neutral observers permitted originally only during cease fires, contemporary

operations try to “resolve internal conflicts.” (Cockayne, 2005, p.334) The UN now tries

to not only halt military hostilities, but also focuses on things as varied as “humanitarian

assistance, civil administration, police monitoring and training, human rights monitoring,

economic reconstruction, and other essentially civilian functions.” (Cockayne, 2005,

p.335) Old practices still apply. For instance, the primary objectives of the missions still

tend to be military ones. However, there is an undeniable shift in the standards for how

and to what extent peace operations are carried out.

Unfortunately, there are some inherent contradictions and tensions to the new

brand of peace operations. There is a delicate balance between intervention and

sovereignty, because by definition the UN’s actions would count as other countries’

acting within the boundaries of another nation. The issue is further complicated by the

UN Charter not being particularly clear on the issue. Article 2 asserts the principles of

sovereignty and noninterference, but the preamble affirms the faith in human rights the

organization is pledged to uphold, elaborated on in the Declaration of Human Rights.

(UN, 1945) A way to get around this difficulty is getting the state’s consent to intervene,

but this is not always a solution. Second, it is inherently difficult to maintain impartiality

and nonuse of force yet still be effective. Long term, use of force would breed resentment

and undermine efforts, but short term gains are difficult when UN forces seem to be

powerless to actually do much. Finally, there is a dilemma in that good social

relationships need to be cultivated with the local people for success, but a sense of

dependency is to be avoided so that troops may be withdrawn in a reasonable (and

acceptable to the intervening countries’ populations) time frame. Overall, the inherent

contradictions facing the new type of peace operations, potentially hampering their

effectiveness.

UN intervention in East Timor is a good example of both of the major parts of the

normative shift, as well as some of the inherent problems to the new standards of peace

operations. In 1999, Indonesia had invaded East Timor and was killing thousands of its

citizens in response to the results of a UN supported election earlier in which the East

Timorese rejected autonomy under Indonesia for independence. The UN interceded,

eventually having about 11,500 troops stationed in the area, showing its willingness to

militarily intervene in what would previously be left under domestic authority for

humanitarian reasons. It proceeded to “govern the population and the territory” from the

capital of Dili, showing the expanded role in how far peace operations are carried out.

(Chopra, 2000, p.29) The local citizens were considered to be under the full legal control

of the UN, meaning that the international staff had sovereign rule of the territory—

something that would have been unthinkable during the Cold War. Unfortunately, the UN
did not govern the territory well, failing to adapt its bureaucracy to the country’s needs so

that it would be well prepared to be independent after withdrawal. (Chopra, 2000, p.36)

The fact that peace operations grew dramatically after the end of the Cold War in

both number and scope is undeniable. The reasons for the chances are difficult to identify

precisely, however. Structural explanations involving the new dynamics of power after

the end of the Cold War do explain the existence of many of these conflicts needing

intervention, opportunities for intervening, and ability to be informed of these conflicts.

Still, not all aspects of the situation are explained in this manner. Normative shifts

conversely provide convincing explanations for the UN’s expanded standards for

intervening and manner of doing so. Together, these two explain a decent amount of the

greatly expanded extent and scope of UN peace operations since the end of the Cold War.
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