Global Policy Forum

By Eliot Cohen

The viciousness of the Israeli-Palestinian war that erupted a year and a half ago following the collapse of a decade of assiduous mediation by the United States and others has given birth to a number of bad ideas for restoring peace. Most of these involve invocations of the Tenet and Mitchell plans, whose texts few have read, but which are premised upon some degree of Israeli-Palestinian trust. Such confidence does not, and cannot exist in the near-term.

As an alternative, there is more and more talk of sending American troops, possibly as part of an international operation, to separate the two sides and keep the peace. Such notions have been bruited about before (most notably on the Golan Heights), but never in this context. It is an appallingly bad idea.

Peacekeeping works best under one of two situations: When both sides want the peacekeepers to ratify a cease-fire line or boundary that both can live with almost indefinitely (as, for example, in Cyprus), or once one side has been decisively beaten (as in today's Yugoslavia). Peacekeeping is not like normal military activity. Soldiers preparing to fight try to be stealthy, collect intelligence clandestinely, and devise ways to surprise an enemy with sudden and effective violence. Peacekeepers must be visible, have communications that are largely transparent to both sides, and avoid surprise while using minimum violence.

It is, despite what some say, a job for soldiers, but a job for specially trained soldiers and one which often interferes with their preparation for combat. It is a draining effort, as well: the rule of thumb has it that for every peacekeeper, another two soldiers are tied up, either preparing to deploy or recovering from deployment. When one takes into account the various forms of support needed for peacekeepers in the field a more realistic ratio is five to one.

To be sure, what we now call peacekeeping is a necessary military function at some times -- it is important today in Afghanistan and Yugoslavia, as it was half a century ago in Germany and Japan. But no one should doubt the level of effort it would require -- an increase in military end strength of 100,000 or more troops would not be an unrealistic estimate of what it would take. More importantly, though, Israel and the Palestinian territories are profoundly unripe for such a venture.

Between Israel and the Palestinian Authority there is no trust, no agreed demarcations of a cease-fire line, let alone a boundary. The threat to security comes not, on the Palestinian side, from a regular armed force with which one can have conventional liaison relationships, but from several shadowy organizations, several of which operate independently of the Palestinian Authority.

One conundrum of the current war is Yasser Arafat's degree of control of terror in areas controlled by the Palestinian Authority. If he has control, it is obvious that he has approved and supported the repeated attacks on Israeli civilians over the past year and a half (a view which captured documents and other intelligence seems to confirm). If he does not have control, the peacekeepers would have to establish it themselves.

To do that, if they were serious, would involve doing just what the Israelis are doing now on the West Bank, but with fewer resources, less local knowledge, and infinitely less will-power. The more likely alternative is not to be serious -- that is, not to intercept or preempt terrorists.

Thus arises the ultimate problem with any of the solutions floated by the European Union, in particular: what to do if one side simply does not play along. What happens if terrorist attacks on Israel were to continue, which they almost certainly would? Would the external powers expect the Israelis to absorb them? Would they permit retaliation, and, if so, of what kind? Until those who propose such plans can come up with a realistic proposal for what would happen in the face of an aggressive campaign of terror waged despite the presence of an international peacekeeping force, they cannot be taken seriously.

Nor should the technical problems be brushed off. Israel is a small place, about the size of New Jersey, but the intercommunal boundary with Palestine is hundreds of kilometers long. The inability of even the Israeli Defense Forces -- a manpower-rich force that draws on universal male and female conscription, plus a sophisticated reserve system -- to prevent Palestinian infiltration is sobering. Tens of thousands of troops would be required to make it all work, and even then only by imposing an obtrusive presence that would attract, in the end, its own resentments and hostility from the local population. One should note, of course, that the extreme hostility expressed by most Palestinians towards the United States, and the political interest of groups like Hamas and Islamic Jihad give them every reason to target American peacekeepers for violence.

We have been here once before. The place was called Beirut, the year was 1983, and it took 241 dead Marines to teach us the lesson that peacekeeping in the midst of a shooting war waged by terrorist groups using suicide bombers is folly. We would be better advised to recognize war for what it is, and to understand that, however terrible it may be, there are times when the logic of war has a hold which even the best of intentions cannot break. Indeed, hard as it may be to accept, there are times when well-intentioned measures can only make matters worse.

Mr. Cohen is a professor of strategic studies at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. His book, "Supreme Command: Soldiers, Statesmen, and Leadership in Wartime" (Free Press) will be published in June.

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