Developing a Rapid Reaction Capability for the UN: Recent Proposals

Introduction

The founders of the United Nations sought to temper idealism with realism when they penned the various articles of the UN Charter. While expressing the utopian determination to rid the world of the scourge of war, the Charter wisely delineated concrete measures for dealing with deviant states that persist in posing threats to international peace and security. While, on the one hand, denouncing force as an instrument of state policy and encouraging people to "practice tolerance and live together in peace", the Charter also, on the other hand, recognized that in some instances the international community might have to unite its strength to prevent and remove threats to the peace and to suppress "acts of aggression or other breaches of the peace". ₁

To the above end, the UN founding fathers developed two distinct approaches for accomplishing the UN's primary mandate. The first, preventive measures, can be considered a proactive and sometimes longer-term approach to peace. The second, collective security, was devised as a more short term, reactive approach to peace. Chapter Vl represents the former and Chapter Vll the latter. This paper is primarily concerned with a specific element of the latter approach to peace, i.e. the understanding that the UN system should be in a position to react swiftly whenever actual or potential threats to the peace are evident.

Constitutional Provision for UN Rapid Reaction

Although there is no direct mention in the UN Charter of a rapid reaction force or capability, such powers are implied in Articles 41 through 45 of that document. Article 41 states that "the Security Council may decide what measures not involving the use of armed force are to be employed to give effect to its decisions", and that "it may call upon the Members of the United Nations to apply such measures." The measures referred to include "complete or partial interruption of economic relations and of rail, sea, air, postal, telegraphic, radio, and other means of communication, and the severance of diplomatic relations." Article 42 goes a bit further by adding that should the above measures prove ineffective, more severe actions would likely be taken by the Council, such as demonstrations, blockades, and other forms of force by air, sea, or land forces as may be necessary, to maintain or restore international peace and security.

So far, one gets the picture that the UN system was expected, under certain circumstances, to utilize force through the collective action of its member states. But where is "rapid reaction" implied? Article 43 provides the answer. This article calls on all UN member states to contribute to the maintenance of international peace and security by undertaking to make available to the Security Council, "on its call and in accordance with a special agreement or agreements, armed forces, assistance, and facilities, including rights of passage...." Such agreement (or agreements) was expected "to govern the numbers and types of forces, their degree of readiness and general location, and the nature of the facilities and assistance to be provided." Clearly, within this article is at least an implication of the need for armed forces to be placed at the disposal of the UN and for those forces to be in a state of readiness should they be called into active duty by the UN Security Council. ₂ This point is made even clearer in article 45 which states:

In order to enable the United Nations to take urgent military measures, Members shall hold immediately available national air-force contingents for combined international enforcement action. The strength and degree of readiness of these contingents and plans for their combined action shall be determined within the limits laid down in the special agreement or agreements referred to in Article 43, by the Security Council with the assistance of the Military Staff Committee. ₃

The Cold War Reality and the Peacekeeping Innovation

In 1945, the general consensus was that the victorious World War ll powers would stay united in their fight to preserve a stable international security environment and would collectively punish defectors. However, this assumption proved false as the leading powers, the Soviet Union and the United States, drifted apart in a cold war environment. East-West tension and rivalry quickly dominated international affairs. Global politico-military relations were decisively influenced by both the cold war environment and the bi-polar structure that emerged. Balance of power concepts, preoccupation with spheres of influence and containment combined with the advent of nuclear weapons to marginalize the UN's conflict management apparatus. Under such conditions UN collective security was inoperable. ₄

With the failure of UN collective security during the Cold War, management of international conflicts was left primarily to a network of regional alliances (particularly NATO and WARSAW pact), ₅ 5 a doctrine of nuclear deterrence (both using denial and punishment) ₆ or what some have called the precarious "illogic" of the superpowers' nuclear strategy, ₇ and an informal, fledgling East-West security regime which inter alia attempted to control the vertical and horizontal proliferation of nuclear armaments while simultaneously institutionalizing a balance of terror. ₈ In large measure, the UN was bypassed during this period as a preferred organization for dealing with most global security problems. However, despite the impediments posed by the East-West tensions, the excessive use of the veto, the ineffectiveness of the collective security instrument and the moribund MSC, the UN "did not collapse in disillusionment". Many of these obstacles were side-stepped through creative institutional adaptations, such as UN peacekeeping.

Clearly, peacekeeping was developed as an expedient of a divided Security Council which "lacked the consensus for collective action but could agree to use a less powerful instrument that would not impinge on the superpower zero-sum game." ₉ Peacekeeping as conceived primarily by Canadian Lester Pearson, then his country's secretary of state for External Affairs, was to involve a kind of "international police force that would step in until a political settlement could be reached." ₁₀ The activity of UN peacekeeping was therefore distinguished, conceptually, from the diplomatic enterprises of peacemaking and the coercive activity of peace- enforcement and, since there was no mention in the UN Charter of this mechanism for maintaining global peace, the expression "a chapter six and a half operation" was coined by UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjold to describe it.

It was on November 4, 1956 that Pearson's idea was transformed into a resolution before the UN General Assembly that called for the creation of an emergency force to secure and supervise the cessation of hostilities in the Suez Canal. That resolution passed with a vote of 57 to O with 19 abstentions. What could have quickly escalated into a full-scale international incident involving at least Britain, France, Egypt and some of its neighbours, and might have even invoked the use of nuclear weapons, was moderated by what turned out to be the nucleus of the first UN emergency force. This force, headed by a Canadian Major General Burns, had a multi-national composition and was issued with the mandate to separate combatants, lower tensions and ultimately facilitate rather than impose a settlement among the conflicting parties. The UN peacekeeping mechanism not only survived the difficulties posed by the Cold War environment it also proved to be one of the organization's most indispensable innovations.

But several characteristics of UN peacekeeping as it developed during the Cold War era limited the scope of this security mechanism. The primary characteristics can be summarized as follows:

• It required the confidence and full support of the Security Council;
• It could only be deployed with the consent of all local parties to the conflict;
• It required, in particular, the consent of the host country or countries in which forces would be stationed;
• It required broad and representative participation of UN member states in order to achieve international balance and geographical representation in the troop contribution, thus giving it at least the appearance of neutrality and legitimacy;
• Permanent members of the Security Council, as a rule, would not be expected to contribute peacekeeping forces but might aid with strategic movement and logistical support (which would seldom be stationed in the area of operation);
• Peacekeepers would be lightly armed, impartial and could use force only in self-defence. ₁₁

Peacekeepers were thus expected to act "in the role of an umpire or referee." The success of the referee relied on the consent of the players to understand and follow the rules of the game but not on the "pugilistic skills of the referee himself." ₁₂

Recent incidents in Somalia, Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia all confirm the existence of a gaping hole between the declaratory statements in the UN Charter concerning the primary mandate of the organization to maintain international peace and security and the UN's ability to carry out that mandate. Not only is there considerable delay between UN Security Council's decisions to mount peace-keeping operations and the actual deployment of UN forces in the theatre of conflict but, whatever early response mechanism the organization has cannot effectively respond quickly enough to nip emerging crises in the bud. Clearly, the experience of the past few years, particularly since the end of the Cold War, suggests that the traditional concept of UN Peacekeeping is in need of a major rethinking and that the need for a rapid response capability for the UN is urgent.

Why the Need for a UN Rapid Reaction Capability

Since the end of the Cold War, the UN has been faced with new demands that stem from a broadening conceptualization of security and from a plethora of intrastate conflicts (something for which the UN system was not really designed to handle). ₁₃ Quite apart from the fact that the new demands have placed a strain on UN peacekeeping [see Tables #2 & 3], their introduction requires a rethinking of certain multilateral institutional arrangements that were created in 1945 (e.g., collective security) and of the adapted elements of those institutional arrangements that emerged later (e.g., peacekeeping). Many of those arrangements are no longer adequate for dealing with existing and emerging security and humanitarian demands. As John Mackinlay and Jarat Chopra have argued, the UN needs a more effective military institutional arrangement for the second generation of UN activity. ₁₄

The recent cases of Rwanda, the former Yugoslavia and Somalia all indicate that traditional UN peacekeeping, a Cold War expedient that overcame some of the disabling effects of superpower rivalry, may not be able to adapt any further to perform adequately the new security and humanitarian tasks that are required today and into the next century. Particularly in light of the multifunctional nature of new peacekeeping operations, the UN needs to develop a multiple range of tools to address extant and emerging problems. Peacekeeping, even with all its second generation modifications, is still too limited an instrument for addressing many of the urgent demands confronting the world body.

Since the end of the Cold War, UN peace support operations increased exponentially in size, scope and number. ₁₅ This in itself placed an enormous burden on the organization. With the increased burden came raised expectations concerning the UN's ability to handle actual and potential conflicts speedily and effectively. However, in several of the recent operations, the UN's response has often been described as torpid for many of the reasons discussed above. As the recent Canadian study which advocates the development of a rapid reaction capability for the UN notes, " what is most noticeable in today's peace operations is the inability of the UN to meet reasonable targets of rapid response." ₁₆ To some, this situation is untenable particularly since the end of the Cold War brought with it increased co-operation among members of the UN Security Council.

In January 1992, the Security Council met for the first time at a heads of state and government level to address this issue among others. They appeared willing to tackle the problem head-on when they called on the Secretary General to prepare a report on the ways in which the UN could develop more organized and effective multinational operations. ₁₇ The issue of enhancing the UN's rapid reaction capability was not addressed directly, at that stage, but several key points related to this issue can be found in the Secretary-General's report, An Agenda for Peace and in the 1995 follow-up report, Supplement to An Agenda for Peace. ₁₈

In the latter report the Secretary-General noted that prior to 1988 only one in five of the UN's peacekeeping operations dealt with intrastate conflict. Since that time, however, 62% of UN peace support operations were deployed in direct response to intrastate conflicts. From 1982 until the present, 82% of the 11 operations established by the UN have been in response to intrastate conflicts. Not since the Congo operations have UN peacekeeping missions been so challenged in the way that they are today. ₁₉ Intrastate conflicts are usually fought by irregular armies, militia forces and sometimes armed civilians with little military discipline and usually operating in the absence of any discernible chain of command. Such conflicts usually produce added pressure for a UN humanitarian presence. The Security Council has responded by increasingly endorsing humanitarian mandates either concurrently with UN military operations or outside such operations. It is in this specific area that the demand for rapidity is strongest. The so-called CNN effect brings home to people who may live in areas distant to the theatre of conflict the need for quick solutions to mass suffering, human rights abuse and genocidal acts. This media- generated pressure also provides a moral justification for the UN to intervene speedily and eftectively in those areas where such abhorrent acts are being carried out. The realities of this humanitarian and human rights imperative have led to increased calls for the UN to develop a rapid response mechanism that would adequately meet the challenge. ₂₀ Failure to deal swiftly with an emerging humanitarian problem may result in the quick spill over of this problem into a larger crisis which may, in turn, demand much more than a humanitarian response. ₂₁

Both intrastate conflicts and humanitarian crises bring home the value of acting early and the cost of acting late. As intervention is delayed, the cost in terms of the loss of lives, physical injuries, psychological damage, destruction of state infrastructure, starvation, refugee flows, displaced persons, environmental degradation, spill over effects, etc., can dramatically escalate. It is this realization that has made the argument for the development of a rapid reaction capability for the UN system so compelling. ₂₂ One of the critical lessons learned from the Rwandan experience is that "modest but timely measures can make the difference between a situation which is stable or contained and a humanitarian disaster which has spiralled beyond control." ₂₃

Rwandan Tragedy: Catalyst for Debate Over a UN Rapid Reaction Force and Capability

In 1993, fearing the possibility of clashes between Tutsi and Hutu, the UN Security Council authorized the establishment of a small military observer group (UNOMUR) to operate along the Uganda- Rwanda border. ₂₄ Even with the early warning indications that the situation was about to explode, the UN did little about this potential problem. Indeed, the process of creating a UN peacekeeping force (UNAMIR) to diffuse this conflict proved extremely slow, particularly given the urgency of the situation. It took six months from the time the Council approved UNAMIR until the UN's mission was launched in Rwanda. ₂₅ During that process, the Security Council tried to minimise the cost of the operation and, in the end, only a fraction of the US$200 million estimated cost of the operation was received by the UN. Similarly, only a small fraction of the troops needed to undertake the mission in Rwanda ever arrived in the theatre of operations. Major- General Dallaire, for instance, operated initially with only 450 people under his command out of a total UN force of 5,000.

When the Security Council decided to expand the UNAMIR mandate, it was already too late. In addition, not one of the 19 governments that had undertaken previously to have troops on standby agreed to contribute forces for this operation. In part, this can be blamed on the UN member-states' negative experience in Somalia. In the end, the Council contracted out to France and authorized the French force to use "all necessary means to achieve the humanitarian objectives" set out in the earlier Council resolution. Operation Turquoise was launched in the summer of 1994 and brought back some semblance of order in Rwanda, at least in Western part of the country. The French force, in fact, acted like a rapid reaction unit and accomplished what the limited UN military operation could not.

Why was this tragedy such a catalyst for the debate that ensued regarding the need for some kind of UN standing army or quick response force? For one thing, it became clear that the Rwandan Interahamwe militas were not all that sophisticated a fighting force. When they began their massacre of the Hutus on April 7, 1994, it was felt in some quarters that they could have easily been neutralized by a UN rapid reaction force. The basic problem for the UN was the absence of a capability to act rapidly in response to the events as they unfolded. ₂₆ The UN standby arrangements proved to be the achilles heel of the organization in this case, as was the case with Somalia in December 1992. The UN failed to secure national contingents to make up an effective UN force in a reasonable time frame. As a result, the organization was forced to contract out to a member state to supplement the UNAMIR operation. Observers began to ask: why was the UN unable to respond in a speedy and effective manner to emerging and existing conflicts and crises? The extent of the UN's failure in Rwanda was summed up this way, immediately after the massacre, in an article in the Economist:

...never has the shame been sharper than in the past few weeks in Rwanda when some 2,000 UN men, who happened to be on the spot but with a limited brief and incoherent leadership, stood aside as gangs hacked, shot and clubbed tens of thousands of Rwandans to death. If it can do nothing in Rwanda, what is the world's policeman able to do? ₂₇

The disaster caused by internal conflict, genocidal acts and a vast outflow of refugees in the Rwandan case did more than any of the other post-Cold War crises to generate support for proposals dealing with the establishment of a standing UN force and rapid response capability. As Major-General Romeo Dallaire recently put it, the international community's inaction in the Rwandan case was, in fact, an action which contributed to the Hutu extremists' belief that they could carry out their genocide with little or no repercussion. The Canadian General was of the impression at the time that hundreds of thousands of lives could have been saved in Rwanda had UNAMIR been given a stronger mandate and increased personnel. Similarly, in a press conference in September 1994, the former UN force commander in Rwanda stated that if he had a rapid reaction brigade of highly trained troops at his disposal in the early days of the Rwandas crisis, the massacre could have been avoided. Furthermore, the intervention by such a force early on in the conflict could have eliminated the "enormous humanitarian bills" which the UN became responsible for as displaced persons and refugees tried to escape the suffering and death in Rwanda. As Dallaire succinctly summed it up: "when peacekeepers arrive late it costs money and lives." ₂₈

Factors Responsible for the UN's Inability to Respond Quickly to Crises

One can point to at least seven factors that have cause the UN system major difficulty in its attempt to respond speedily and effectively to potential or full-blown crises and conflicts. These factors are:

• the ad hoc nature of the UN bureaucracy and military operation coupled with the tendency of UN member states to engage in withholding assessed contributions to the organization.
• the gap between the UN decision-making and implementation processes;
• the failure of UN member states to work out stand-by arrangements with the organization;
• the multinational nature of peace operations and the accompanying lack of joint or standardized training as well as of equipment interoprability;
• the problems encountered at the political-military interface
• the moribund UN Military Staff Committee, and;
• the complex financial procedures and practices coupled with the tendency of UN member states to engage n withholding assessed contributions to the organization.

First, the UN has never developed a standard procedure for establishing and running its military or peace support operations. The UN has no armed forces of its own, no readily deployable civilian corps, no significant stockpile of equipment and, until quite recently, only a bare skeletal Headquarters staff to manage its peace operatiupled with the tendency of UN member states to engage in withholding assessed contributions to the organization.

First, the UN has never developed a standard procedure for establishing and running its military or peace support operations. The UN has no armed forces of its own, no readily deployable civilian corps, no significant stockpile of equipment and, until quite recently, only a bare skeletal Headquarters staff to manage its peace operations and activities. Each time a new peacekeeping operation is authorized by the Security Council, the UN Secretariat begins from scratch to create a plan, gather additional staff for mission-specific planning, look for financial and material contributions from UN member states, and develop new operating procedures. This continual 'reinventing of the wheel', a consequence of the ad hoc nature of the UN bureaucratic apparatus, is not conducive to the development of a rapid reaction capability.

Second, there is a definite disjuncture between the UN's decision-making and implementation processes. The actions of soliciting troop contributions from member states, drawing up a budget for a military operation, and mission-specific planning all begin in most cases only after the decision-making process that authorizes the establishment of a UN peacekeeping or security operation is complete. As a result, the time between authorizing a mission and the actual deployment of troops on the ground can take as much as six to eight months. Thus, the length of time between UN decision-making and implementation can result in emerging crises becoming full-blown conflicts. As amply demonstrated in the case of Bosnia, this time delay can also be detrimental to peace-keeping forces that are already placed in the theatre of conflict. By the time a particular peace-keeping mandate is modified in New York, peace-keepers may find themselves taken hostage or even killed as the situation on the ground escalates beyond the ability of the existing forces to control. And, as we have seen in the case of Rwanda, this time delay can be extremely costly in terms of loss of life. The lack of overlap between the decision-making and implementation processes at the UN has therefore not been conducive to the development of a rapid reaction capability within the organization.

Third, the failure of UN member states to establish stand-by arrangements with the UN has meant that the organization's ability to respond to crises is highly dependent upon the kind of response the Secretary- General's troop solicitation efforts receive, on a case-by-case basis. To correct this, a task force of seven military officers was assembled in 1993 to develop a system of standby arrangements for the UN system. As of November 1995, this team had visited 57 countries and managed to convince 47 UN member countries to provide standby resources to the UN totalling 55,000 personnel. ₂₉ [see Table #4] However, with the proliferation of UN peace operations since the end of the Cold War, this effort is inadequate to the task at hand. This predicament makes it difficult for the UN to plan ahead of time for contingencies. It also means that the time it takes for troops to be placed in a needed arena of conflict is considerably slowed. This again is not conducive to the development of a rapid reaction capability for the UN system.

Fourth, even if all UN member states decided to contribute forces to UN military and peacekeeping operations, there would still be certain problems associated with the multinational composition of these operations. There is an undeniable variation in the training standards for troops from different countries. As a result it can take a considerably long time for some UN operations to gel once the multinational troops are assembled. Added to the absence of standardized training is the problem of a lack of equipment interoperability between several of the countries that contribute troops to UN missions. The above two problems are linked to the multinational nature of UN peace support operations, but they are even more critical, as evidenced in the UNPROFOR and UNAMIR operations, as elements that limit the UN's ability to react quickly and effectively to crises and conflicts.

Fifth, when one carefully examines specific UN peace support operations, one gets the impression that the right hand really does not know what the left hand is doing. This is nowhere more evident than at the political-military interface. When a resolution is adopted by the UN Security Council establishing a peace support operation, there is very little attempt to translate the political mandate into operational and tactical objectives and strategy. Security Council resolutions in these cases provide little more than a general outline for the mission Commander in the field of operations. Often, the mandate can be vague; the result of political compromises between different member states on the Council to get the resolution passed. This problem is compounded by the fact that there is generally little consultation between the Security Council and knowledgeable military officials in the formulation of the mandate. As the experience in Somalia and the former Yugoslavia has confirmed, vague mandates from UN Headquarters that are not translated into concrete objectives and strategies for those who have to operate in the field can prove damaging to UN peace support missions as well as life-threatening to the men and women who are placed in the theatre of operations.

Sixth, adding the above problem is the stillborn nature of the Military Staff Committee (MSC). According to Articles 46 and 47 of the UN Charter, if any collective international military action is to be undertaken by the UN, a centralized and unified command of the MSC should ultimately take charge of the operation. The MSC was established to help the Security Council draw up plans for concerted military action, including the employment and command of forces placed at the Council's disposal. The strategic direction of such forces, the regulation of armaments, and possible disarmament all fell within the purview of this body, whose membership was supposed to be comprised of the Chiefs of Staff of the Council's Permanent members or their representatives. The fact that the MSC has been more or less moribund since its establishment is essentially due to the impasse on the Council during the Cold War era. ₃₀ However, even in the post Cold War era, there is still much resistance to reactivating the MSC. In its virtual absence, no ad hoc mechanism has been put in place to fulfill the designed functions of this body. Furthermore, the US' reluctance to place its soldiers under UN command continues to cause the kind of disastrous dual command which was exhibited during the Somalian operations. These developments have had a negative effect on the UN's ability to develop mission strategy and command peace support operations. More importantly, they have tended to slow the speed of UN troop deployment and reduce the effectiveness of those troops in the field.

Seventh, perhaps the most important obstacle to speeding up the deployment of UN peace support operations is linked to the desperate financial situation within the UN system in general and in the UN peacekeeping budget in particular. ₃₁ Once a peace support operation is approved by the UN Security Council, a proposed budget for the mission is drawn up by the Secretariat and is then passed on to the Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions (ACABQ), the fifth Committee, and finalIy the General Assembly for approval. This budgetary process is often a lengthy, confusing and disappointing one. While the Secretary General does have the authority to seek ACABQ authority to commit up to $50 million to start up a mission, this amount is far from sufficient for most of the recent peacekeeping operations and, in any case, this is only paper authorization - not the actual cash. ₃₂

Apart from the delays resulting from the consensus decision-making procedure used in the Fifth Committee, there are ample opportunities for those who may not favour a particular mission to stymie the proposal to create it by blocking its funding at any one of the several stages in the budgetary process. In addition, the tendency to micro-manage budgets at the General Assembly level can be another major reason for delays in the deployment of UN peace missions. Without the funding necessary for starting up new peace support operations, rapid reaction by the UN system is an highly unlikely occurance. As long as the UN remains so heavily dependent upon its member states for the funding of its peace support operations, it will most likely never be in a position to guarantee the speedy deployment of its personnel and troops in emerging and actual conflict situations. ₃₃

Does the UN Need a Rapid Reaction Force or a Rapid Reaction Capability?

As mentioned in the introduction, the idea of a permanent military force for the United Nations is not new. Articles 43 to 48 of the UN charter envisioned forces being at the disposal of the SC exclusively in the context of enforcement operations. These provisions were,. however, never implemented. ₃₄ In 1946-47, when the UN MSC was set up, it was asked to examine the issue of contributions of armed forces to the Security Council. It subsequently published a report which reflected significant disagreements among the Permanent Five of the Council over the prospective size and composition of national contributions. ₃₅ That report was the first real indication that the idea of an independent military capacity for the UN was not on. However the idea was never fully abandoned. Since that time, there have been several proposals for the creation of some form of UN force, under different names and guises; particularly standby forces.

The Concept of Standby Forces

The first suggestion of a need for a UN standby force was offered by the first UN Secretary General Trygve Lie in the late 1 940s. He proposed the establishment of a small guard force of about 5,000; not to b used as a substitute for the forces contemplated in articles 42 and 43 of the charter (viz. not a striking force). His limited proposal, which was designed to protect UN missions in the conduct of plebiscites under UN supervision and in the administration of truce terms, ₃₆ was not approved by the Security Council, although the General Assembly did endorse the idea of a shadow force which consisted of names of potential recruits for international observer missions.

Recognizing that getting approval for ambitious proposals such as Lie's would be difficult under Cold War conditions, Lester B. Pearson, in 1956, conceived of the notion of peacekeeping. In his conception, these peacekeeping forces would be composed of national contingents made available to the UN on an ad ho basis. Diag hammarskjold shared this vision of "standby forces, akin to military reserves, that could be activated at short notice." ₃₇ However, it would soon be evident that peacekeeping operations had several' shortcomings. Getting a peacekeeping operation up and running was generally a slow and cumbersome process. Lack of interoperability, different training methods and sometimes a lack of training were some o the problems that plagued early peacekeeping units. These problems were made worse by major communication problems and unclear command and control structures. There was also a major void in peacekeeping which neither policy nor resources was able to fill, i.e., the lack of standby arrangements between the organization and its member states.

John Foster Dulles sent a letter to Dag Hammarskjold on 8 November 1958 hoping to fill this void. In that letter he promised that the US would support the establishment of standby arrangements with h. purpose of implementing what he termed as a UN Peace Force. His concept would have allowed states to make available to the UN personnel and/or materiel for the development of a UN force with the various national units being placed under UN service on short notice. He also conceived of a group within the Secretariat who would be capable of forward or advance (strategic) planning for the Peace Force. The U would also have to consult regularly with troop contributing countries for this plan to be acceptable. ₃₈

The next set of conceptualizations of a permanent (standby) force for the UN can be found in the documentation of the UN Special Committee on Peacekeeping Operations. Since 1964, various proposals for such a force have come from this body. Some have advocated that states ear-mark troops for peacekeeping and other UN military duties, and that these ear-marked forces be available on short notice. The assumption was that ear-marked forces would receive some specialized training and would be in a form of readiness in the event that they were called upon for active duty. However, individual states would still maintain sovereign control over their respective troops. Not very many states took up the suggestion of the Special Committee on Peacekeeping Operations. In fact, only Canada and the Nordic countries made any effort in the past to identify and train troops specially for UN missions. ₃₉

Another variant of the standby force idea has been offered by the current Secretary General. In An Agenda for Peace, Boutros Boutros-Ghali wrote about the need for faster and more forceful action on the part of the UN in dealing with conflicts and disorder during the immediate post-Cold War period. He sought to revive article 43 agreements as a means of responding to outright, imminent or actual aggression. However, he would later concede that a permanent and independent force was unlikely to be available to the UN for sometime to come. The Secretary General, nevertheless, spelled out his vision of a force that could at least fill the gap. He coined the term peace enforcement units to characterize this force. Such units would have clearly delineated goals and would be used under clearly defined circumstances, with terms of reference specified in advance. Again his concept was akin to earlier notions of standby arrangements. The enforcement units would come from units ear-marked by UN member states which would always remain on call. According to the Secretary General, these units should consist of volunteer troops and would be more heavily armed than traditional UN peacekeepers. They would also have to undergo extensive and specialized training within their national forces. The Secretary General also took the opportunity to highlight the importance of standby arrangements in which member states would specify the kind and number of skilled personnel they were prepared to offer the UN.

On the 30 June 1994, UN Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali stated in a report that a system of standby arrangements could provide the UN with the "capacity to deploy needed resources rapidly to new or ongoing peacekeeping operations." ₄₀ He later added that such arrangements would depend on the commitments that UN member states would be willing to give to the organization in this area. Up to that point, only 21 states had confirmed their willingness to provide standby resources totalling some 30,000 personnel. ₄₁ Additional commitments were expected from 27 other states; ten of which were in the process of finalizing their officials offers at the time. The combined commitment from the 48 countries was expected to come to roughly 70,000 personnel which could be placed at the UN's disposal. However, that figure does not come close to the requisite number needed to mount and execute future UN peacekeeping operations.

For that reason, the Secretary General asked member states in 1994 to actively participate in the standby arrangement system to "help make it an effective tool of the Organization in its continuing effort to improve its capacity for keeping the peace." ₄₂ He went even further to suggest that a permanent, armed, UN force, separate from peacekeepers, should be created to respond to imminent or actual aggression and that it could serve as a deterrent to would-be aggressors. Such a permanent force would be used for preventive deployment within the borders of a country fearing an attack, or on both sides of a border if the Security Council believed that its presence would deter hostilities. This proposal received generally negative reaction from Third World states, particularly those in Africa and Asia. ₄₃

One should note that none of the above proposals were for a standing force, although Boutros-Ghali's recommendation was interpreted by some as a call for "a standing army of peace-enforcers." ₄₄ The President of the Security Council was among the first to issue a negative statement in reaction to the implication that the Secretary General's proposal could be interpreted as a call for a standing UN army. He made his point clear by stating:

The Council believes that the first priority in improving the capacity for rapid deployment should be the further enhancement of the existing stand-by arrangements, covering the full spectrum of resources... ₄₅

Of the permanent five members of the UN Security Council, only France responded favourably and with enthusiasm to the Secretary General's proposal. However, its representatives failed to garner sufficient support from the other Permanent members to push this idea any further. ₄₆ Obviously, even though UN member states, like the USA, seem committed to improving and strengthening UN peacekeeping, ₄₇ there is still little support for the idea of developing a permanent, independent standing force for the UN system among those member states who are best placed to implement it.

It is perhaps for this reason that in his Supplement to an Agenda for Peace, the Secretary General backed away somewhat from this idea. He conceded that "neither the Security Council nor the Secretary- General at present has the capacity to deploy, direct, command and control" enforcement operations, "except perhaps on a very limited scale." The Secretary General believes that "in the long term" the UN should develop such a capacity, but that "it would be folly to attempt to do so at the present time when the Organization is resource-starved and hard pressed to handle the less demanding peacemaking and peace- keeping responsibilities entrusted to it." ₄₈

Concurring with Boutros-Ghali, John Gerard Ruggie reminds us that the UN does not have an institutionalized military enforcement capability. While his claim that "it is exceedingly difficult to imagine how it could come to acquire one" is perhaps a bit over-stated, Ruggie is correct, though, in his observation that many of the proposals for a U.N. standby force or for an international volunteer force "are likely to generate more debate than funding, facilities or troops." ₄₉ Indeed, some key UN officials and high profile UN observers clearly do not favour the prospects of enhancing the UN's military capability. ₅₀ This has, nevertheless, not inhibited others from proposing the creation and development of an independent standing force for the organization.

Recent Proposals for a Permanent UN Standing Force

In 1988, Sir Brian Urquhart, asked whether or not he thought the idea of a UN standing force stood any chance of being implemented in the near future, replied:

It's probably premature to have a standing peacekeeping force and the institutional development it would need. In the first place, someone has to pay for it, but that's the least of the problem. In the second place, you would have to denationalize the troops, so they would be genuinely UN, not Norwegian or Fijian or something else. There would have to be a much greater degree of international sovereignty to control such a force effectively. Such developments are still way off in the future. ₅₁

However, by 1993 Sir Brian was indicating that perhaps the time had now come to at least consider proposals for the implementation of a standing volunteer military force for the UN. Such a force, in his opinion, should be comprised of professionals who are recruited individually. The measure of creating such a force would be one way of filling a conceptual void in UN security arrangements, i.e. the need for force between peacekeeping and enforcement - which some have called 'the need for chapter 6 and 3/4 operations'. Why does Sir Brian believe that such a force is necessary at this time? Clearly the harassment of UN peacekeepers in Cambodia and Angola, the delays in getting states to contribute forces in Mozambique and Somalia, the kidnapping of UN peacekeepers in the former Yugoslavia, the unclear lines of command in Somalia and the final tragedy in Rwanda are all factors to be taken into consideration as reasons for developing an independent military capability for the UN. Sir Brian felt that the UN's credibility as a global security mechanism has been dangerously diminished due to the absence of such a force and capability. ₅₂

Sir Brian has proposed that a UN volunteer force should be at least 5,000 strong and coast the organization an estimated US$ 380 million per year. This would in essence be an elite crack force to be deployed by the UN at the outset of a crisis, before the situation deteriorates. A idea similar to the Urquhart proposal was put forward in the 1995 Netherlands Non-Paper, entitled A UN Rapid Deployment Brigade: A Preliminary Study.

The Dutch proposal is more fully developed than Urquhart's. It explores "the possibility of creating a permanent, rapidly deployable brigade at the service of the Security Council." The possible tasks of this UN brigade, according to the Dutch Non-Paper, would be predominantly in the field of preventive deployment - "when crises are imminent." However, it is possible that such a force may be used during intervals between Security Council decisions to establish UN peacekeeping forces and the actual deployment of those forces in the theatre of conflict. As well, a UN rapid reaction brigade might also be deployed and utilized during humanitarian emergencies. According to the Dutch proposal, the personnel for this light infantry international "fire brigade" would be recruited on an individual basis, just as Urquhart suggests. Its estimated annual costs would be in the vicinity of US$250 to $300 million; to be financed outside of the regular UN budget and apportioned among UN member states according to the ad hoc scale of assessment used for UN peacekeeping operations.

The Dutch proposal is billed as an attempt to fill the void in the UN peacekeeping system created by the inability of the organization to develop consistent standby arrangements with its member states. The Dutch government does not seem terribly impressed with Boutros-Ghali's attempt to improve the UN standby arrangement system. The Non-paper in fact states, emphatically, that:

when considering the improvement of the UN's rapid-reaction capacity, the focus should not exclusively be on the further development of the Standby Arrangements System. A permanent, totally equipped, self-contained and self-supporting stand-by unit, employed directly by the UN itself and instantly deployable upon a decision by the Security Council, is another option which needs to be considered when discussing the improvement of the UN's rapid-reaction capacity. It would guarantee immediate availability of troops when they are urgently needed. ₅₃

The Dutch study has been criticized for being too unrealistic. Despite this apparent weakness, this study has identified the gray zone that exists between "peacekeeping" and chapter Vll "enforcement" operations. It is in this gray zone that future debate concerning a rapid reaction force for the UN will be located. The absence of such a force has to date resulted in the misapplication of the "perfectly good" tool of peacekeeping to "inappropriate circumstances." The result is that UN peacekeepers have been placed in harm's way over the past few years, leading to unnecessary deaths (such as the case with the UN Pakistani Blue Berets in Somalia) and being easy targets for hostage-taking (e.g. peacekeepers in Bosnia were taken hostage by the Serbs). ₅₄ However, before the UN can put in place a credible rapid reaction force to eliminate part of the gray zone between peacekeeping and chapter Vll enforcement operations, it must first develop the capability for "rapid reaction." Developing a capability in this case can include the creation of a rapid reaction "force", but it goes beyond that; as a recent Canadian proposal is careful to point out.

Towards A Un Rapid Reaction Capability: The 1995 Canadian Study

At the 1994 UN General Assembly session, Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Andre Ouellet announced Canada's intention to launch a study aimed at devising practical proposals for enhancing the UN's ability to respond rapidly in the field of peace support operations. This study and its resulting proposals formed part of the Canadian government's response to the UN Secretary-General's call for individuals states to make suggestions, during the organization's fiftieth anniversary year, on ways to improve the UN's peace and security instruments and operations. The motivation for the Canadian study stems in part from this country's multilateralist impulse, its long-term commitment to the reform of the UN system, in general, and more specifically to improving the UN's ability to respond effectively to the wide range of humanitarian crises and post Cold War multidimensional conflict situations threatening the stability of regions, if not the entire globe.

While, as was shown earlier, several proposals over the years have called for improvements in UN standby arrangements, or for the development of an independent UN military brigade or standing army, very few have actually examined the broader issue of how the world body can enhance its rapid reaction capability and what that would mean in real terms.l Officials from the Canadian Departments of Foreign Affairs and National Defence, once given the tasks to explore the possibilities of developing a relevant security mechanism for the UN, were determined from the outset to ensure that the Canadian study would not be limited to a discussion on developing a rapid reaction force. Instead, they decided that a Core Study group be formed to address a number of critical questions concerning a broad range of issues related to the institutional capacity of the UN to respond much more rapidly, than it has been able to do so far, to any crisis situation that could spill over into threats to regions or to the entire globe. Initial issues raised by the Core Group included: 1) the political issue of precisely to what kind of crises the UN ought to be responding, and 2) the more technical issue of the scale and rapidity of the response. The response to these issues would obviously be conditioned by the reality of the limits placed on the UN's role in the field of international peace and security as well as by the political, legal and bureaucratic obstacles and constraints at national, regional and international levels that could inhibit the development of certain options. These potential constraints could clearly establish outer parameters of any proposal aimed at developing the structures, procedures and forces required to ensure rapid, efficient and effective responses to threats facing the globe.

It is the recognition of these constraining factors that the Canadian government's report, Towards A Rapid Reaction Capability for the United Nations, which was handed over the UN Secretary General in 1995, has been hailed as "more realistic" than the Dutch Non-Paper. The Canadian study's embrace of the term "capability" was deliberately designed to broaden the scope of investigation as to precisely what structure and processes within the UN system should be reformed to allow the organization rapid and effective response to incipient and actual crises and conflicts. Such a capability would need to be multidisciplinary and multidimensional; encompassing the operations of non-governmental organizations (NGOs), humanitarian bodies, human rights groups, civilian police components, regional arrangements and other related elements involved in the UN's peace support operations around the globe.

General Framework of the Canadian Study

The Canadian study and its recommendations are divided up into short term, medium term and long term proposals, although the short and medium term ones are not clearly delineated. Like many other Canadian proposals for UN reform, this study is decidedly "technical" in orientation in that it does not consider the nuances of political ramifications and political will. This particular penchant was deplored by some members of the Core Working Group, but in the end the voices supporting a predominantly "technical" report prevailed.

The central concern of the Core Working Group was to find ways of improving the UN's capacity to respond to crisis, while at the same time respecting the right of the UN Security Council to decide the circumstances under which the capacity would be utilized and deployed. To this end, the Group identified four basic principles considered essential to the creation of a UN rapid reaction capability under the existing organizational and decision-making framework; the principles of reliability (or predictability), quality (or doing the job well, rather than mounting a large and unwieldly multinational force), timeliness and effectiveness (rather than strictly speed), and cost-effectiveness (the value of acting early). The study also addressed the issue at four analytic levels:

The political level , which for the purposes of the study is comprised of the international community of UN member states acting through the Security Council and the General Assembly. This is the level at which goals and policy objectives are formulated.

The strategic level , which includes the Secretary General's office and UN Secretariat support. At this level the means to achieve political goals and policies are allocated and political goals are translated into strategic objectives.

The operational level , which provides a link between the strategic and tactical levels. Here the broad strategic objectives set by the Secretariat are "customized" to fit the situation on the ground or in the theatre of operations.

The tactical level , which embraces the application of all of the financial, material and personnel resources identified by the U N in any operation on the ground. At this level "unity of effort" becomes crucial to the success of the operation.

Based on the examination of organizations and countries that have some kind of rapid reaction capability (e.g. NATO, France and the US), the Core Working Group identified at least five generic characteristics of "rapid reaction capability." The first is the ability to acquire, analyze and take timely decisions based on early warning data from a wide variety of sources. The second is the ability of the organization to prepare generic plans, including provisions for transportation and logistical support, in advance of a crisis. The third is the ability to undertake concurrent activities, such as allowing implementation actions to be initiated even at early stages of the decision-making process. The fourth is the capability to deploy the minimum necessary operational-level command and control facilities to a theatre of operations within a seven day period. Finally, the fifth is the capacity to deploy a group of sufficient size (approximately 5,000 military and civilian personnel) that would be able to address the immediate stages of an emergency within an additional three to five week period.

The generic components of a rapid reaction capability is then compared with the currently available capabilities of the UN system, and the latter are found wanting. While acknowledging that the UN has made some strides in recent years in updating its approach to peace support operations, the report indicates a number of areas in which there are still major deficiencies. This revelation leads the authors to propose a series of recommendations aimed at correcting the problems and offering Canada's perspective on how a UN rapid reaction capability might actually be achieved in the short, medium and long run.

Specific Recommendations of the Canadian Study

It is not possible in the space provided to address each and every one of the deficiencies in UN peace support operations identified by the Canadian Core Working Group. However, by highlighting the some of the 26 major recommendations which came out of the Canadian government's Report one can get a sense of what still ails the UN system in this particular area and of the nature of the obstacles that will have to be overcome if the organization is to acquire a truly rapid reaction capability. To this end, the Canadian Report recommends minor and major changes to aspects of UN peace operations in the following four broad categories: a) certain institutional practices; b) financial and budgetary arrangements; c) certain structural arrangements that undergird UN peace operations, and; d) the conceptualization of the nature of these operations.

a. Reform of Institutional Practices

One of the major proposal of the Canadian government is for the institutionalization of a formal consultative process that would allow all "troop-contributing" countries to have a greater say in the process leading up to the deployment of UN peace missions. This recommendation is not new. Indeed, Canadian delegations at the UN have, over the years, argued for the adoption of such a consultative process. In this vein, another one of the Canadian recommendations calls for the formalization of an already established practice of convening informal groups of 'friends' to address specific geographical conflicts and to provide military and political advice to the Security Council and the Secretary General prior to, and during, the deployment of UN peace missions. The Canadian Core Group pointed out that both of the above proposals could be attained with minimal resource implication to the UN system and that neither requires amending the UN Charter.

b. Overhauling Financial and Budgetary Arrangements

A number of the Canadian recommendations address the problem of financing UN peace operations. For example, one calls for the creation of a unified budget for such operations in order to place their financing on a more reliable and predictable footing. Another recommendation proposes the establishment of a Peace Operations Sub-committee of the Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions (ACABQ) that would comprise of financial experts from various member governments' Ministries of Defence. The purpose of this recommendation would be to bring much needed coherence, and to add a dimension of fiscal responsibility, to the UN peace operations' budgetary process. Linked to the above two recommendations are proposals that would: 1) authorize the Secretary General to expend funds at various phases of a UN peace operation; 2) allocate an adequate amount of funds to the UN so that it can carry out peace operations in crisis situations; 3) substantially increase the level of the current revolving Peacekeeping Reserve Fund to facilitate the "start-up" of new UN peace operations; 4) allow the Secretary General greater flexibility in allocating and re-allocating funds during the life of a UN peace operation, and; 5) encourage continued discussion and thinking concerning possible alternative funding sources for UN peace operations.

The financial and budgetary recommendations come at a time when the UN is undergoing a major financial crisis that has been brought on largely by those member states who have failed to pay their assessed contributions (to both the UN's regular and peacekeeping budgets) on time and in full. The Canadian recommendations in this area, however, offer at best only a partial solution to the organization's insolvency problem .

c. Development and Modification of Structures

Developing a rapid reaction capability for the UN will depend heavily on the building appropriate structures or modifying existing ones. To improve the UN's early warning capability, the Canadian report W. Andy Knight

recommends the development of structural arrangements that would, inter alia: facilitate information sharing between the UN, its member states, and regional organizations, and initiate contingency planning and thinking through the creation of an "early warning alert" feature. Specific reforms are also suggested for strengthening the Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO) and for establishing an effective political and military central staff to guide all UN peace operations. Examples include: the development of a roster of senior military UN Force Commanders; the creation of a "lessons learned" forum; the refinement of the UN Standby Arrangements System; the introduction and utilization of "peacekeeping service agreements" that could serve to speed-up the deployment of missions and add more effective and efficient administrative and logistical support for deployed mission; and, the advanced identification of expert personnel who could be seconded to the UN Secretariat, at a moments notice, for short-term assignment.

The cornerstone of the Canadian proposals for structural reform in the area of UN peace support operations is a call for the creation of a permanent operational-level headquarters that would be a standing, fully deployable, integrated, multinational group consisting of between thirty to fifty personnel. The main purpose of this operational-level headquarters' (vanguard) group would be for the UN to engage in much needed generic contingency planning and rapid deployment as well as to act as a liaison with regional organizations and agencies. Over the long-term, the Canadian report suggests that consideration ought to be given to the establishment of additional, regionally-based operational-level headquarters once the performance and usefulness of the central operational-level headquarters have been assessed.

d. Re-conceptualizing the Nature of UN Peace Operations

Central to the notion of a UN rapid reaction capability is the realization that the nature of UN peace operations has undergone considerable change, particularly since the end of the Cold War. Thus, in order to carry out more expeditiously the required functions of UN peace missions, the Canadian study emphasises the need for 'multidimensionality' in the UN's conceptual approach to these operations. To this end, one of the recommendations of the Report calls on all UN member states to work more closely with the UN to ensure the availability of qualified civilian personnel in areas such as civil policing, human rights monitoring, humanitarian relief efforts, legal advising and electoral observation. Complementing that recommendation is another which proposes the development of generic and mission-specific training standards that can be used in the above cases.

Conclusion

Actually delivering a UN rapid reaction capability that is more than symbolic obviously requires majors changes to the way the UN currently operates. The UN Secretary-General and his immediate staff would have to improve the current institutional ability for early warning and analysis. The UN Secretariat would have to develop a credible capability to direct military operations. The UN's most powerful member-states would have to agree to relinquish some of their sovereignty (perhaps even to subordinate their effective military assets and personnel to a UN multinational command) and forgo the tendency to act unilaterally. All member-states would have to re-commit themselves to meeting their charter obligation of financing the UN's efforts. This further requires that States immediately stop the unconstitutional practice of financial withholding from the UN regular and peacekeeping budgets. The requisite political will would have to be found to allow for either a reinterpretation of certain Charter articles and clauses or for amendments to be made to the UN Charter.

The ad hoc nature of the UN decision-making apparatus and procedures would have to be revamped so that speedy responses to legitimate crisis situations can be facilitated. Political support would have to be mobilized among key member states so that an adequate supply of troops and logistical/technical support will always be at the UN's disposal. The time it takes to get troops into the arena of conflict would have to be considerably shortened. The civil-political/military interface with respect to UN peace support operations would have to be refined so that clear political and strategic goals emanating from UN headquarters can be translated into coherent military operations, strategies and tactics on the ground. Finally, a subsidiarity model for peace support operations, which would enhance regional arrangements' responses to certain crises and would thus make Chapter Vlll of the UN Charter operational, may have to be considered. 2

To improve the UN's rapid reaction capability, as the Canadian study suggests, one therefore has to consider the overall interrelationship between the political, strategic, operational and tactical factors that come into play when the UN is asked to deal with a specific crisis. Weaknesses at each level must be clearly identified before systematic improvements can be suggested. In sum, this insight forms the gist of the recent Canadian proposal for the development of a UN rapid reaction capability. What makes the Canadian Government Report more acceptable than most of the other proposals that simply call for the creation of a permanent UN stand-by force is the fact that each of the recommendations is tempered by realism and that the overall thrust of the Canadian study was to broaden the framework of enquiry beyond an examination of the need for a "rapid reaction force" to analyze the need for a "rapid reaction capability".

Perhaps now is the propitious time for the UN to take action on the various proposals calling for more rapid responses to global and regional conflicts. After the Rwanda fiasco the urgency of having this capability within the international community became more acute. Such action will have to combine a commitment to re-defining the organization's military role and to meshing its strategic doctrine and capabilities with those of national governments. This is a prerequisite for moving toward a UN rapid reaction capability and force. After all, the world body can operate only with the help of its members. However, there is little indication that national governments are about to give up those aspects of their sovereignty that will be necessary for such synchronization of strategic doctrine and capabilities to occur. Also, as was shown earlier, even the UN Secretary General has now become uncomfortable with the notion of an independent and enhanced military role for the UN system.

The issue of political will, smartly dodged by the Canadian officials who oversaw the development of the Canadian Rapid Reaction study and proposal, is one that ought not to have been avoided. It is the lack of political will, particularly among the major UN member-states that could very well turn out to be the major stumbling block in any attempt at improving the UN's ability to respond rapidly to conflicts.

TABLES

Source: United Nations Department of Public Information, 1992.

Source:  Department of Public Information, United Nations, New York (1992); Peacekeeping & International Relations , vol.23, no.6 (November/December 1994), pp. 2-3.

Note 1: See the Preamble and Article 1 of the UN Charter. Back.

Note 2: It is probably not a coincidence, as Adam Roberts recently pointed out, that para. 43 of Boutros Boutros-Ghali's An Agenda for Peace  and para. 43 of his follow-up repon Supplement to An Agenda for Peace  also deal with the issue of developing an independent military capability for the UN system, so that it can respond rapidly to emergent and incipient conflicts. Back.

Note 3: My emphasis added. Back.

Note 4: The one exception in which it was utilized was in 1950 when the UN was able to assemble a force to repel North Korean aggression. But even in this case, the collective security mechanism materialized only because the Soviet Union was absent from the Security Council deliberations which sanctioned a US led action. Back.

Note 5: See Alf Ross, The United Nations: Peace and Progress  (N.J.: The Bedminister Press, Inc., 1966), p.88. Back.

Note 6: Philip Green, Deadly Logic  (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1966); P. Williams, "Deterrence", in John Baylis et.al (eds.), Contemporary Strategy: Theories and Policies  (New York: Holmes & Meier Publishers, Inc., 1975), pp.6738. Back.

Note 7: See Robert Jervis, The Illogic of American Nuclear Strategy  (London: Cornell University Press, 1984); Lawrence Freedman, The Evolution of Nuclear Strategy  (London: Macmillan Press Ltd., 1982). Back.

Note 8: See Rod Byers, "Deterrence under anack: Crisis and Dilemma", in R. Byers (ed.), Deterrence in the 1980s: Crisis and Dilemma  (London: Croom Helm, 1985) Back.

Note 9: Jon Mackinlay and Jarat Chopra, "Second Generation Multinational Operations," The Washington Quarterly  (Summer 1992), pp.114. Back.

Note 10: Max Harrelson, Fires All Around the Horizon: The UN's Uphill Battle to preserve the Peace  (New York: Praeger, 1989), p.89. Back.

Note 11: See UN Security Council Resolution 340 (1973). UN Doc. S/11052/ Rev.l (October 27, 1973). Back.

Note 12: John Mackinlay, The Peacekeepers: An Assessment of Peacekeeping Operations at the Arab-lsraeli Interface  (London: Unwin Hyman, 1989), p.14. Back.

Note 13: Thomas Weiss, David Forsythe & Roer Coate, The United Nations and Changing World Politics  (Boulder: Westview Press, 1994), pp.60-82. Back.

Note 14: See John Mackinlay and Jarat Chopra, "Second Generation Multinational Operations," The Washington Quarterly  (Summer 1992), pp.113-131. Back.

Note 15: Sir Brian Urquhart, "The UN and International Security after the Cold War," in Adam Roberts & Benedict Kingsbury (eds.), United Nations, Divided World: The UN's Roles in International Relations , 2nd ed. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993), pp. 81-103. Back.

Note 16: The Government of Canada, Towards a Rapid Reaction Capability for the United Nations  (Ottawa: The Government of Canada, September 199;), p.2. Back.

Note 17: UN Doc S/23500 (lanuary 31, 1992), pp.34. Back.

Note 18: See Report of the Secretary-General on the Work of the Organization, Supplement to an Agenda for Peace: Position Paper of the Secretary on the Occasion of the Fiftieth Anniversary of the United Nations , 3 January 1995, UN Doc. A/50/60 and Boutros Boutros- Ghali, An Agenda for Peace: Preventive Diplomacy, Peacemaking and Peacekeeping , Report of the Secretary-General pursuant to the Statement adopted by the Summit Meeting of the Security Council on 31 January 1992 (New York: United Nations, 1992). Back.

Note 19: James S. Sunerlin, The United Nations and the Maintenance of International Security: A Challenge to be Met  (London: Praeger, 1995), chapter 3. Back.

Note 20: Erskine Childers and Brian Urquhart, "Strengthening International Response to Humanitarian Emergencies," in Towards A More Effective United Nations Development Dialogue  1991:1-2) Uppsala, Sweden, Dag Hammraskjold Foundation, 1992, Back.

Note 21: The Report of the Commission on Global Governance, Our Global Neighbourhood (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), pp.86-87. Back.

Note 22: See Jane Boulden and W. Andy Knight, "Rapid Reaction: Filling the Gap," paper presented as contribution of the Core Working Group to the development the Canadian proposal Towards a Rapid Reaction Capability for the United Nations  (June 1995), p.l. Back.

Note 23: The Government of Canada, Towards a Rapid Reaction Capability for the United Nations , p.5. Back.

Note 24: See UN Security Council Resolution 846 (22 June 1993). Back.

Note 25: UNAMIR was eslablished by UNSC Resolution 872 (5 October 1993). Back.

Note 26: See Howard Adelman and Astri Suhrke (with contributions by Bruce Jones), Early Warning and Conflict Management: Genocide in Rwanda , unpublished study (Norway: CHR. Michelsen Institute, Development Studies and Human Rights, 1995), p.38. Back.

Note 27: "Shamed are the Peacekeepers," The Economist  (30 April 1994), p.15. Back.

Note 28: Anna-Maria Calante, "UN Needs Quick Forces in Emergency - Dallaire," Halifax Chronicle-Herald  (9 February 1995). Back.

Note 29: United Naion, Securit Council, Report of the Secretary-General on Standby Arrangements for Peacekeeping , UN Document 5/199:)1913 (10 Noember 1995), pp.2-3. Back.

Note 30: See Sydney Bdiiey, The Procedure of the UN Security Council , (Oxford: Oxord University Press, 1975), p.247. Back.

Note 31: See "Paying for the Peacekeepers," The Economist  (2 January 1995), p.17. Back.

Note 32: Paul LaRose-Edward, United Nations Internal Impediments to Peace-keeping Rapid Reaction , The Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, Canada (April 2, 1995), pp.18-19. Back.

Note 33: This sentiment has been expressed with a slight difference in the Yale-Ford Report of the Independent Working Group on the Future of the United Nations, The United Nations in its Second Half-Century  (New York: The Ford Foundation, 1995). The authors of this Report state: "...the time has come to recognize that the UN will need additional sources of funding that are not dependent on the political and budgetary constraints under which most governments operate." p.46. For details on possible alternative sources of funding UN operations see the Special Issue "The United Nations at Fifty: Policy and Financing Alternatives," of Futures: The Journal of Forecasting, Planning and Policy , vol.27, no.2 (March 199a). Back.

Note 34: For further elaboration see Paul F. Diehl, "A Permanent UN Peacekeeping Force: An Evaluation," Bulletin of Peace Proposals , Vol.20, No.1 (1989), pp.28-29. Back.

Note 35: Report of the Military Staff Committee, "General Principles Governing the Organization of the Armed Forces Made Available to the Security Council by Member Nations of the United Nations," UN Document S/336 (1947). Back.

Note 36: The Secretary General apparently saw this guard force as acting under article 40 of the charter which provides for provisior measures to prevent the aggravation of a situation threatening the peace. See Trygve Lie, Introduction to his Annual Report for 19474ar UN Doc. A/565 (1948), pp.xvii-xviii and Lukas Haynes and Timothy Stanley, "To Create a United Nations Fire Brigade," Comparative Strategy .,volume 14, no.1, p.9. Back.

Note 37: Paul F Diehl, "A Permanent Peacekeeping Force: An Evaluation," p.28. Back.

Note 38: See Brian Urquhart, "UN Peacekeeping Was and Will Remain Invaluable," International Herald-Tribune , February 17, 199, p 6. Back.

Note 39: Note that by 1982, some states like Nepal had called for the establishment of a permanent peace-keeping force, as well as a standby force for the UN, "Peacekeeping Operations," UN Chronicle  January 1983), p.48. Back.

Note 40: See UN Document, S/1994/777 (30 June 1994). Back.

Note 41: Those states were: Argentina, Bulgaria, Canada, Chad, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Guatemala, Hungary, Jordan, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Senega, Spain, Sri Lanka, Syria, Turkey, Ukraine, the United Kingdom and Uruguay. Back.

Note 42: "Peacekeeping Guidelines set out by the Security Council," UN Chronicle  (September 1994), p .54. Back.

Note 43: See, for example, the reaction among Asians in Meiana Zyla, "United Nations: Doves of War," Far Eastern Economic Review  July 9, 1994, p.20. Back.

Note 44: See "Peacekeeping: Round up a Posse," The Economist  June 27, 1992, p.48. Back.

Note 45: "Statement by the President of the Security Council," UN Doc. S/PRST/1995/9 (22 February 1995), p.2. Back.

Note 46: Marie-Claude Smouts, United Nations Reform: A Strategy of Avoidance , unpublished paper (1995), pp.11-12. Back.

Note 47: See Madeleine K. Albright, "International Law in US Foreign Policy," The Brown Journal of World Affairs  vol.11, no.2 (Summer 1995), pp.4344. Back.

Note 48: UN Document A 50/60 S/199/1 (3 January 1995), p.18. Back.

Note 49: John Gerard Ruggie, "Wandering in the Void: Charting the U.N.'s New Strategic Role," Foreign Affairs , Vol.72, No.5 (November/December 1993), p. 28. Back.

Note 50: Note that Giandomenico Picco, for one, argues that at least the institution of the UN Secretary General should refrain from trying to resemble a state, and that it should maintain a strict separation between diplomatic and military-security actions. In his opinion, the former should remain with the Secretary General's good offices whilst the laner should be the perview of the UN member states through the Security Council. Giandomenico Picco, "The U.N. and the Use of Force: Leave the Secretary General Out of it," Foreign Affairs , Vol.73, No.S (September/Onober 1994), pp.14-18. On the more general issue of constraining the UN as a political/military actor see Ernest W. Lefever, "Reining in the U.N.: Mistaking the Instrument for the Actor," Foreign Affairs , Vol. 72, No.3 ((Summer 1993), pp.17-20. Back.

Note 51: A Risky Business...", UN Chronicle  (December '1988), p.13. Back.

Note 52: Brian Urquhart, "For a UN Volunteer Force," New York Review of Books  June 10, 1993, p.3. Back.

Note 53: The Government of the Netherlands, Non-Paper, A UN Rapid Deployment Brigade: A Preliminary Study , April 1995, p.4. Back.

Note 54: Ruggie, op cit. pp.28-29 Back.