Do Regional Organizations Have a Future in Peace Operations?

Excerpts from a presentation
By Peter Leentjes

United Nations’ and Regional Organizations’ Roles in Peacekeeping

The involvement of regional organizations was always envisaged by the Charter under Chapter VIII. All regionally sponsored activity was to take place under the “purposes and principles of the UN.” As a result of operations conducted in the ’90s, the Secretary-General and the Security Council have recognized the importance of cooperation with the regional organizations and the need to develop links which would facilitate joint planning and discussion. Article 53 always envisaged that the Security Council could utilize regional arrangements for enforcement action under its authority. This article of the charter states that “no action shall be taken under regional arrangements without the authorization of the Council.” The UN has recently completed a study on cooperation between the organization and regional organizations; 16 regional organizations have responded to the Secretary-General’s call for partnership and have expressed an interest in cooperation with the UN in the peace and security areas. As early as January 1995 some of the proposed forms of cooperation included: Consultation; Diplomatic Support; Operational Support; Co-deployment; Joint Operations; and Regional Arrangements, which prepare regions to become potential troop contributors for UN operations (training and standby arrangements).

There are two major driving forces behind the movement towards more regional involvement in peace operations:

First—the end of the Cold War released constraints on the use of force which has resulted in an exponential increase in operations over the last nine years. The first 30 years of peacekeeping saw 13 missions deployed; the last 10 years have brought 27 more. There is simply a greater need today for peace operations than ever before.

Second—the Security Council is blocked by the issue of funding support to peacekeeping operations. Delegating the role to regional organizations ensures that the Council can avoid the costs under the UN assessed contribution model. Let us look at this model using NATO as an example.

Perceived Issues Surrounding NATO
—the UN Perspective

Within the world body the movement towards regional responsibilities for peace support operations generates perceptions that may or may not be valid. How do some of these relate to NATO?

NATO is perceived to be searching for a post-Cold War role, one that will allow the armed forces of NATO’s constituent nations to maintain their levels of capability, justify expenditures on new equipment programs, and sustain their budgets in the face of demands for a peace dividend. Thus the concern is these nations may be seen to be willing to intervene too quickly and for the wrong reasons.

Due to this desire to sustain force levels, there may also be a tendency to enforce compliance at the outset under the Chapter VII provisions of the Charter, rather than trying peace settlement processes first. The forces are available; therefore, they should be used.

Because NATO has agreed to take on the role of peacekeeper within its area of interest, support for operations outside this area of interest—both militarily and financially—will suffer, the argument being, “We are looking after our house, others must look after theirs.” This concern is often expressed in Africa, where many feel that minimal efforts will be made by the Europeans to support future peace operations on the continent.

Finally there is the perception that NATO is simply too expensive an instrument for peace support operations. The resources that have been applied to Bosnia or Kosovo for example, exceed anything that any other group of Member States are willing to provide. A quick comparison of three regional organizations conducting missions: ECOMOG in Liberia spent about $4 million per week; UNPROFOR was about $15 million per week; while the IFOR operation was estimated at $100 million per week.

Capabilities and Limitations

Using regional organizations as a surrogate for UN operations brings to the field certain capabilities and also certain limitations. In some cases these improve the operation, while in others they bring only problems. Capabilities and limitations fall under three areas: political, military and financial.

• Political advantages. The involvement of regional organizations has certain advantages: they have a better knowledge of the area, the personalities and the root causes of the conflict. This understanding makes regional organizations invaluable during the preventive diplomacy and peace-building stages of a conflict. Political agreement in the region is also a fundamental aspect of developing the legitimacy for intervention and generating support on the world stage.

• Political limitations. Some member states have vested national interests in the country or with the parties to the conflict, which undermine the unity of purpose required for cohesive action. Others may be unwilling to support a particular operation and divide the alliance. National and party leaders may have personal relationships that compromise their impartiality. Some regional bodies are so dominated by one nation that action in the name of the regional organization is seen as a cover for the national objectives of the dominating power.

• Military advantages. The military advantages are those that every NATO member would understand. They include rationalization, standardisation, inter-operability and common procedures or doctrine. These qualities make command and control effective, communications easy, and rapid deployment possible. Add in such features as a common language, cultural understanding and local knowledge and you would wonder why peace support operations are conducted any other way

• Military limitations. First and most important the military must have a fundamental political basis upon which to intervene-this could be a regional security role, such as NATO or a defence cooperation agreement—otherwise, the force will lack the legitimacy to operate under the regional umbrella. Other key factors are having military capacity, resources to deploy, and sustainability. Without external contributions of equipment and funding, ECOMOG, for example, would not have been able to sustain operations. (It could be noted here that even during the most difficult times in the previous Nigerian regime—the leaders of the ECOMOG operation—the support continued to flow in because it could be given to the regional organization.)

• Financial limitations. At least in the UN, the ability to finance operations is always the prime limitation in establishing a peace operation. Finance will also play a key role in determining whether a regional organization will be willing to undertake an operation, because, under the current structure, a regional organization offering to support a peace operation pays all the bills. Thus operations such as Liberia have continued to be underfunded, with the inevitable result-failure to achieve the objectives. This often leads to a confrontation on the ground and the peacekeepers become combatants.

• NATO’s limitation. NATO is primarily a military alliance without all the structures that permit it to manage a complex, multidimensional peace support operation well.

The United Nations has a full range of capacities at its disposal including diplomatic, political, humanitarian, reconstruction and development. Since the solution to a peace operation tends to be political, economic and social in nature, the key players are available. What the UN lacks is a military component, and because of the political and financial limitations it will never have available standing forces.

On the other hand, NATO lacks some of these key structures. The North Atlantic Coordinating Council (NACC) is a very specifically oriented, political body designed to give political direction to the alliance forces. It does not have the worldwide political input, the development and reconstruction agencies, or the humanitarian support the UN does. In spite of its tremendous military capacity, the absence of these components represents a serious limitation.

NATO must therefore depend upon outside organizations such as the Western European Union (WEU), the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), the European Union (EU), the United Nations and others to create these capacities. However, there is no mechanism to fund the operation of these external components. The funding models for peace operations developed to meet the limited needs of peacekeeping in the ’50s simply are unable to support the complex operations of the ’90s.

Evolution in the Roles

How will the use of regional organizations in peacekeeping evolve?

Suggested principles and mechanisms to enhance cooperation:

• Shared responsibilities, based on the comparative strengths of each organization, can lead to complementary action, providing the basis upon which regional UN cooperation can be built.

• Support of the UN establishes the legitimacy of a regional organization's involvement.

• Use the regional understanding of the root causes of a conflict to help manage the peace operation and launch peace-building activities in support of a UN operation.

• Use the regional knowledge of the parties to the conflict and of the infrastructure to plan operations.

• Cooperation between the UN and a regional organization may provide mechanisms for compromise that can break a stalemate, particularly as some parties prefer a UN intervention to a regional one or vice-versa. (In Iraq, for example, the threat of force on the one hand opened diplomatic possibilities on the other.)

• Regional organizations have greater flexibility and can deploy forces and other assets more quickly than the UN. This eliminates one of the greatest constraints of a UN-led operation.

• Regional organizations which can afford it are more willing to provide resources to support their own operations than they are to support UN operations.

Sharing Financial Costs. If the organizations can work together in the future and combine their strengths, the financial cost sharing will be the key issue that will need to be resolved.

Indirectly, we already share costs for one peace operation, in Bosnia-Herzegovina where a UN-funded civilian police operation parallels the military operation of NATO forces. However, cost-sharing must become even more integrated. We must find mechanisms that will permit the UN to use the military services of NATO and other regional organizations and pay for them under the UN-assessed contributions system. Were this ever to occur, the precedent would be set for all regional organizations to expect the same level of financial support, and this could exacerbate the already frequent complaint that NATO is too expensive.

Conclusion

The most important requirement for future peace support operations is a new funding model that encompasses the entire peace process.

The United Nations has taken the ’50s model for peacekeeping and applied it to the complex operations of the ’90s and found that it is no longer an effective tool. The ’50s model was based on a peacekeeping in which the forces of two member states were separated, and monitored through the process following the signing of a peace agreement. This model assumed that the two states were still relatively intact: the governments; their agencies and departments; regular military structures; and the apparatus for law and order still functioned. Military force was all that was really required and was funded under the peacekeeping umbrella.

Today the situation has changed dramatically. With the prevalence worldwide of failed states, peacekeepers find themselves in difficult and extreme positions—operating without a working peace agreement, and in the absence of government and law. The presence of peacekeepers can only provide an incomplete level of stability while the enormous body of international players attempts to restore the state to health. This was the process described in the Agenda for Peace, where preventive diplomacy, preventive deployment, peacekeeping, peace-building and peace enforcement became joint partners on the ground.

In adapting to the ’90s, the peacekeeping funding model has not changed. We have cheated by placing civilian police operations under the peacekeeping umbrella, thus providing them funding support. However, it is the whole peace process that must be supported.

This is most evident in the first step—preventive diplomacy. Today we often see special representatives from three or more organizations—“friends of,” individual national envoys or contact groups—all trying to make peace. The greatest progress toward developing the peace process in the ’90s will be to provide a consistent funding model.