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Maintaining International Peace and Security: The Military Dimension

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 May 2009

G.C. Berkhof
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Extract

Of the more than 140 major cases of armed violence recorded since World War II, which have claimed more victims than that war itself, only relatively few have been ended through the mediation of the United Nations. Moreover, there is no single case in which the United Nations were absolutely instrumental in the prevention of an armed conflict, though in some cases aggression may have been averted in the face of international pressure. This is a disappointing state of affairs for an organisation whose task, according to the Preamble of its Charter, is to ‘save succeeding generations from the scourge of war’. But even if we disregard the lofty wording of the Preamble, the Charter itself in Article 1 places the maintenance of international peace and security first among the aims of the organisation.

Type
Asser Institute Lectures on International Law: Political and Legal Aspects of UN Peace-Keeping Operations
Information
Netherlands International Law Review , Volume 35 , Issue 3 , December 1988 , pp. 297 - 310
Copyright
Copyright © T.M.C. Asser Press 1988

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References

1. This may probably be true of the voluntary withdrawal of Soviet troops from northern Iran in 1946. Pressure exerted by the United States and the United Kingdom outside the UN framework would, however, have produced the same results.

2. According to Art. 42, the Security Council can ‘take such action by air, sea or land forces as may be necessary to maintain or restore international peace and security’. Such forces would be assigned to the UN by member nations. Art. 43(1) states: ‘All Members of the United Nations, in order to contribute to the maintenance of international peace and security, undertake 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, necessary for the purpose of maintaining international peace and security. (2) Such agreement or agreements shall 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. (3) The agreement or agreements shall be negotiated as soon as possible on the initiative of the Security Council …’. Special emphasis is placed on air forces in Art. 45: ‘In order to enable the United Nations to take urgent military measures, Members shall hold immediately available national air force contingents for combined enforcement action’.

See von Geusau, F.A.M. Alting, The Security of Western Europe: A Handbook (1985) Appendix One, p. 314Google Scholar.

3. Siekmann, R.C.R., Juridische Aspecten van de Deelname met Nationale Contingenten aan VN-Vredesmachten (Nederland en UNIFIL) [Legal Aspects of Participation with National Contingents in UN Peace-keeping Forces (The Netherlands and UNIFIL)] (1988) Ch. 1, p. 2, n. 5Google Scholar.

4. The structure and tasks of such a force could be similar (but not identical) to NATO's AMF (Allied Command Europe's Mobile Force): relatively small but well-equipped land and air units of various member countries immediately available for despatch to any threatened area, particularly on the flanks of Europe. According to the NATO Information Service's The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation: Facts and Figures (1984) p. 140: ‘Though capable of giving a good account of itself if attacked, this multinational force is primarily intended to demonstrate the solidarity of the Alliance in times of crisis or tension, and to deter any enemy who might be tempted to launch an aggression with limited objectives in the hope of facing the Alliance with a fait accompli. Confronted with this force, he must realise with special clarity that in attacking it he would be attacking the NATO Alliance rather than the forces of one country.’

5. During the Japanese occupation a Korean government in exile was formed in China (Shanghai, later Chungking). In the Cairo Declaration issued on 1 December 1943, the United States, Great Britain and China pledged independence for-Korea ‘in due course’. Both in Yalta and Potsdam the future of Korea was briefly discussed, but no formal agreement was reached. The Potsdam Declaration, however, stated that ‘the terms of the Cairo Declaration shall be carried out’. Yet a four-power trusteeship convened only after considerable delay in late December 1945. A joint Soviet-American commission was set up to discuss the problems of the unification of the country. The talks went on until August 1947, but no agreement was reached. The Americans had meanwhile brought the issue to the attention of the General Assembly in 1946. See The New Encyclopaedia Britannica, 15th edn., Vol. 22, p. 520.

6. From 10 January 1950 to 1 August 1950 the Soviet Union boycotted the meetings of the Security Council in protest against the presence of nationalist China and the absence of the People's Republic of China in the UN.

7. Encyclopaedia Britannica, op.cit. n. 5, p. 526.

8. Geusau, Alting von, op.cit. n. 2, p. 116Google Scholar.

9. A.H. Dessouki, ‘Security in a Fractured State: The Conflict over Lebanon’, and Olmert, Y., ‘The Lebanese Crisis: The Dangers to Security in the Mediterranean’, in Adelphi Papers, No. 230, Part II, a publication of the International Institute for Strategic Studies (1988) pp. 15–20Google Scholar and 21–32, respectively.

10. International Institute for Strategic Studies, Strategic Survey, 1982–1983 (1983) p. 71Google Scholar.

11. Ibid., Strategic Survey, 1983–1984 (1984) p. 66.

12. Ibid., Strategic Survey, 1984–1985 (1985) p. 115.

13. As until recently the range of heavy artillery and multiple rocket launchers did not exceed 40 kilometers, an area 45 to 50 kilometers wide would have been sufficient. It could, of course, be overflown by aircraft but an air defence system could have been set up by each of the parties. The introduction of missiles with a range of 100 to more than 1,000 kilometers, together with the spread of chemical weapons, will greatly complicate future peace-keeping operations.

14. van den Bergh, G. van Benthem, The Taming of the Great Powers, Nuclear Weapons and Global Integration (1988)Google Scholar.

15. Cited in Klare, M.T., ‘The Interventionist Impulse: US Military Doctrine for Low-Intensity Warfare’, in Klare, M.T. and Kornbluh, P., eds., Low-Intensity Warfare: Counter-insurgency, Proinsurgency and Antiterrorism in the Eighties (1988) pp. 54, 55Google Scholar.

16. Ibid., p. 53.

17. Ibid., p. 63.

18. Ibid., p. 70.

19. Terrorism is the systematic use of murder, injury and destruction, or threat of the same, to create a climate of terror, to publicize a cause and to intimidate a wider target into conceding to the terrorists' aims. Terror can be domestic or international. It can be pursued by a State both nationally and internationally and by sub-state groups who: are pursuing extreme nationalistic aims (IRA, ETA); want to bring about ideological change (Red Brigade, RAF, Direct Action); promote some generally accepted ideas with violent means (RARA and some animal rights groups); want to avenge or reverse earlier crimes (Armenian exiles); are committed to terrorism on religious grounds (Hizbollah). Wilkinson, P., ‘Fighting the Hydra: International Terrorism and the Rule of Law’, in O'Sullivan, N., ed., Terrorism, Ideology & Revolution; The Origins of Modern Political Violence (1986) pp. 208. 209Google Scholar.

20. Ibid., p. 213.