The future of peacekeeping
In East Timor force, U.S. sees something to build on
By Michael Moran
MSNBC © 1999
UNITED NATIONS, Sept. 21 — The
collapse of Indonesian misrule in East Timor caused hundreds of deaths, a refugee crisis
and raised questions about the future of the world’s fourth most populous nation. But
there is a bright side. State-sponsored violence, for once, was met not with words, but
with action. The U.N. Security Council quickly approved intervention. Indonesia’s
neighbors pledged troops immediately. Perhaps most importantly, the United States acted in
proportion to its national interests. It did not send an aircraft carrier. No reservists
have been called up. Could this be a model for sustainable interventions in the new
century?
OF THE 7,500 international troops now setting up shop in East Timor, only 200
will be American. Of course, the United States will help supply them by sea and provide
them with satellite communications and reconnaissance data. But for the first time since
the disastrous European-led peacekeeping mission in Bosnia, a major U.N. intervention is
being mounted without major U.S. participation. Instead, an Australian general will lead a
force primarily drawn from Indonesia’s immediate neighbors. It is, in many ways, the
shape of things to come.
LESS SOMETIMES BETTER
When the Australian Broadcasting Corp. announced the creation of the force last
week, the tiny size of the American contingent was noted with deep sarcasm. That may have
been inevitable. The Pentagon has been flattering Australia’s sense of importance to
U.S. national security for almost a decade now, ever since the Philippines forced American
bases out of the region.
Australia sent troops to Korea, Vietnam and the Persian Gulf. If asked, they
would have gone to Kosovo, too. So one might forgive an Australian for saying “There’s
never an American around when you need one.”
Yet Australia is misreading the situation badly if it is feeling abandoned. In
fact, the U.S. decision not to make a crusade out of East Timor may be the most important
contribution this administration ever makes to global stability. Clinton put it perfectly
Tuesday in an address to the U.N. General Assembly when he said the United States “cannot
respond to every humanitarian catastrophe in the world. We cannot do everything
everywhere.”
ALL POINTS BULLETIN
Since the Cold War ended, these annual presidential speeches at the United
Nations mostly have been directed at the American Congress, which refuses to pay what the
United States owes the world body. To be sure, Clinton’s remarks Tuesday may be
another effort to assuage those in Congress critical of U.S. involvement in Bosnia, Kosovo
or Haiti.
This year, however, the president’s message should resonate abroad.
Even before the speech, allies were being put on notice through NATO and
bilateral channels. Colombia is about to be inundated with U.S. aid, for better or worse,
to fight its insurgents. The United States has extended political support to West African
peacekeepers in Sierra Leone and South Africa’s efforts in Central Africa.
The message from Washington is clear: U.S.-led crusades of the Kosovo, Somalia
and the Gulf variety are not going to be the rule in the next century. Regional powers
— France, Britain, Australia, South Africa, India and Nigeria, to name a few —
had better plan to take regional security issues into their own hands.
American allies have grown accustomed to this line, particularly those in
Europe. “Burden-sharing” was the Cold War term for Washington’s complaints
about the lower share of GDP that Europe dedicated to defense. Europe has mostly ignored
these pleas, and the results were plainly visible in the continent’s miserable
performance in Bosnia and Kosovo.
Heading to meet his NATO colleagues in Toronto this week, Defense Secretary
William Cohen said: “In the lessons of Kosovo, we have our presentation made. It will
point to the very deficiencies that we need to address.” It was a diplomatic way of
saying, “Next time, bomb Belgrade yourselves.”
THE PHYSICS OF THE ISSUE
From the U.S. perspective, the need to press this case in Europe and elsewhere
partly stems from the physics of power.
The United States has enjoyed a period of unprecedented dominance in economic
and military affairs since 1990, when its chief rival, the Soviet Union, suddenly
collapsed. While a change in this dynamic may seem inconceivable to contemporary
Americans, history suggests — no, actually, it insists — that this situation
will not continue.
In an essay in the most recent issue of Foreign Affairs, Richard Haass argued
that by 2005, the predominant American position will show signs of slipping. This won’t
necessarily be the result of the rise of a rival. Instead, Haass wrote, it most likely
will reflect the development of rival spheres — the European Union, ASEAN in Asia,
perhaps even a future China-Russia axis — to counter-balance an increasingly resented
America.
The U.S. military is already a convert to this theory. The Pentagon’s claim
of being stretched to the breaking point is a bit overdone (the United States spends more
on defense than its next five rivals combined). Yet the trouble the Army had deploying a
single Apache helicopter squadron to Kosovo last spring is instructive. In part, this
reflects a poor allocation of resources, favoring new weapons over such mundane
necessities as heavy-lift aircraft or cargo ships. But the fact is that difficulties
keeping experienced soldiers — in this case, pilots — also played a big role.
Absent some enormous new source of funding, the military realizes the United States will
have to subcontract.
THE POISONED WELL
If the scientific approach falls on deaf ears abroad, the shattered American
political consensus on foreign affairs should be enough to light a fire under the most
parasitical ally. A poisonous atmosphere exists between Clinton and the Republicans who
control Congress. Among other things, this has destroyed the cozy American notion that
“politics ends at the water’s edge.” That old saw never really reflected
reality. But right through 1996 and the Senate leadership of Bob Dole, a president (even
this one) could count on a closing of ranks when American interests abroad were at stake.
That may no longer be true. Last spring, the current Congress voted against
funding for the American operation in the Balkans, even as U.S. pilots prepared to launch
their first forays. Even troops in the field, it now seems, cannot count on the support of
Congress.
This may or may not improve with the next president. A Republican administration
led by George W. Bush might find itself as vigorously opposed abroad as did Clinton.
Isolationists and nativists now fill the aisles of both American parties. Support for
activism of any kind overseas, even in America’s own backyard, is hard to come by, no
matter what party controls the White House.
DRAW YOUR OWN CONCLUSION
The implications for those outside our 50 states is fairly clear: the era that
began with the Gulf War in 1990-91 is coming to an end. The “moral” tone that
accompanied U.S. foreign policy pronouncements earlier in the decade has already given way
to realpolitik.
“The way the international community responds will depend upon the capacity
of countries to act, and on their perception of their national interests,” said
Clinton Tuesday, sounding far from Wilsonian.
A new era is dawning in which the United States will define its interests abroad
more narrowly and parochially.
If that holds true, the world could do far worse than to pattern its future
efforts on the East Timor force. The United States played a crucial role, mostly behind
the scenes, by letting Indonesia know that its international financial lifeline could be
cut if it didn’t agree to allow peacekeepers. Clearly, some conflicts can’t be
solved regionally. The Gulf intervention was necessary in part because of the inability of
the old Gulf Cooperation Council to deter Iraq. And it doesn’t take a political
analyst to see the flaws in a Kosovo peacekeeping force of Greeks, Turks, Croats,
Hungarians and Romanians. But the die appears to be cast. It’s been a decade since
George Bush pronounced the arrival of a New World Order. In the intervening years,
Americans have seen the promised land and decided they didn’t much want to get there.
That will be up to the locals. After all, it’s just too damned cozy back home.
Michael Moran
is MSNBC’s International Editor
