Peacekeeping nearly dead

 

Gordon L. Weil

Peace came close to a fatal failure this week.

The global effort against war suffered a possibly mortal blow when Israel, a member of the United Nations, supposedly the world’s peacekeeper, attacked U.N. outposts and tried to drive them away.  

Just as Russia had unimaginably launched a European ground war against Ukraine, Israel flagrantly attacked the multinational U.N. mission monitoring its boundary with Lebanon.

In the fleeting glow of their World War II victory over Nazism, Fascism and imperialism, the winners set out to create international organizations with real power to step in to prevent conflict and provide a forum for negotiated solutions.

The U.N. was the most ambitious, and it eventually came to include almost all sovereign countries.  Its Security Council, dominated by the war’s leading powers, could mandate joint peacekeeping measures.

But Security Council decisions could be vetoed by any one of the five countries – China, France, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom and the United States.  China was soon taken over by the Communists and the Soviet Union, later replaced by Russia, wasted no time in reneging on its commitments and became the American rival.  A flood of vetoes came.

The U.N. could perform some useful functions even as peacekeeping efforts faltered.  It has tried to dodge the Security Council deadlock and use the General Assembly, including all members, to pass non-binding resolutions.  Groups of willing members could back peacekeeping measures proposed in General Assembly resolutions. 

Some peacekeeping operations have worked, because the U.N.’s thin blue line was respected.  Others have struggled, including one in southern Lebanon, begun under a Security Council order.  It has now come under the most serious attack ever by a U.N. member.  Contributors to the U.N. force insist they won’t budge, but Israel may not be held accountable.

Regional groups also developed.  In Europe, a new international organization was formed, designed to interconnect nations so that Germany and France could never again launch a world war.   It grew into the European Union.  It was openly based on supranationalism, authorizing EU agencies to overrule national sovereignty.

The effort was successful in creating a single trade area with a single market.  It was poised to make Europe a major world power alongside the U.S.   Then the demands of national sovereignty overwhelmed the promise of supranationalism.

Unlike a truly federal nation like the U.S., the EU required the unanimous vote of its then 28 members on many major issues.  Hungary, a small country, has tried to block decisions.  The U.K., preferring its sovereignty, Brexited from the EU.  No common foreign or defense policy could be agreed upon.   European unity was half done, leaving it far short of its original promise.

The U.N. and the EU, both common efforts to build working relations among nations and reduce the chances for renewed warfare, did not accomplish their purposes.  Instead, the world relies on military alliances whose strength might deter others from aggression and war.

NATO is the prime example.  Equipped with a unified military command and responsive above all to the U.S., its most powerful member, it served as a deterrent.  But it grew weaker as it became more successful.  Only after Russian aggression proved that NATO had let its guard down, did it renew itself.

In the Pacific region, China’s increasingly hostile moves have led to new military cooperation.  AUKUS joins Australia, the U.K. and the U.S. in a cooperative agreement. The Quad includes Australia, India, Japan and the U.S. in developing defenses against China. The U.S. also has defense agreements with Australia, Japan, the Philippines, South Korea, and Thailand.  

As peacemaking gave way to deterrence, Donald Trump’s administration was striking because it accepted neither.  He quit three U.N. agencies and the Paris agreement on the environment, threatened NATO and killed the deal slowing Iran’s nuclear weapons development.  His “America First” policy alienated potential allies.

This isolationism was accompanied by his fawning over authoritarian leaders.   Did he appease such leaders in hopes that he could trade concessions to them for a period of peace?  Did he see agreeing with them as “the art of the deal,” recalling his days developing real estate?  Or did he merely enjoy being in a club with leaders who answer to nobody?

Whatever the reason, he clearly believes his superior personal ability to deal with Russia’s Putin, China’s Xi, North Korea’s Kim, Hungary’s Orban and even Israel’s Netanyahu is all that is required for a successful policy.  He now claims that he could solve major conflicts with such autocrats in a single day, though inevitably that would mean accepting their demands.

Trump’s policy is neither deterrence nor peacemaking.  It is disengagement, even in the face of aggressive actions by adversaries.  Pursuing this high-wire personal policy with any success would depend on the fading skills of an aging man.