September 22, 1999
This century's last General Assembly debate at the United Nations opens as a U.N.-sanctioned peacekeeping force lands in East Timor. The timing is appropriate, because the U.N.'s role in conflicts around the world is perhaps the most important -- and most complex -- issue facing the institution today. Secretary General Kofi Annan made U.N. intervention the subject of a provocative opening speech on Monday. It should focus attention on a growing consensus that the world cannot simply watch mass slaughter when effective action is possible to prevent or stop future Kosovos and East Timors.
The problem Mr. Annan outlined is that the globe is bubbling with internal conflicts that make civilians the victims of their own governments, armed forces or guerrilla groups. Although intervention by outside forces cannot halt the killings in every afflicted country, it can in many cases. Since the world's failure to prevent genocide in Rwanda in 1994, the feeling has grown that a state's sovereignty should not allow it to brutalize its own people when effective intervention is possible.
This page has long been cautious about the use of American troops abroad and will continue to be so, especially when there is no clear security interest involved. But in today's world, civil war and genocidal conflicts can be broadly destabilizing, and it is often in the American interest to be one participant among many in a well-designed U.N. peacekeeping force rather than face constant pressure to lead an intervention or go in alone. In 1994, the United States blocked action in Rwanda. Today, it is usually Russia or China that does the blocking. Both countries are wary of endorsing uninvited intervention in internal conflicts lest they become targets for their own actions in Chechnya and Tibet. The United States and Western Europe rightly used NATO to intervene in Kosovo when it became clear that Russia or China would veto a U.N. action.
Mr. Annan criticized the NATO bombing, but recognized that such regional approaches -- which lack the worldwide credibility of U.N.-endorsed actions -- are bound to continue as long as the Security Council cannot unite. He stopped short of recommending reform of the Council's veto powers or its composition, which still reflects the balance of world power after World War II. Such issues deserve discussion.
Less controversially, Mr. Annan extolled preventive measures to reduce the need for interventions. He cited the international tribunals for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia as one useful step to deter future war crimes. There are numerous cases where diplomacy has succeeded, for example in averting a war between Iran and Afghanistan last year. A peacekeeping force on the border between Macedonia and Kosovo before the war there successfully kept Kosovo's tensions from spreading, and other peacekeeping missions keep old conflicts from escalating into new wars. U.N. peacekeeping, however, has been crippled by Washington's failure to pay its U.N. dues. Prevention, sadly, lacks the urgency to win financing and attention.
When the 20th century began, civilians accounted for 15 percent of war casualties. Today the figure is 90 percent, mainly because most wars today are not international conflicts waged by armies on a battlefield, but internal conflicts fought in streets and villages. This has made intervention both more difficult, as claims of sovereignty have trumped humanitarian considerations, and more urgent. At last, the world's conscience is catching up with the changing nature of war. The challenge for the U.N., as Mr. Annan points out, is to find ways to honor what that conscience urges.
