Military Intervention after the Cold War : The Evolution of Theory and Practice [1 ed.] 9780896804517, 9780896802452

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Military Intervention after the Cold War

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This series of publications on Africa, Latin America, Southeast Asia, and Global and Comparative Studies is designed to present significant research, translation, and opinion to area specialists and to a wide community of persons interested in world affairs. The editor seeks manuscripts of quality on any subject and can usually make a decision regarding publication within three months of receipt of the original work. Production methods generally permit a work to appear within one year of acceptance. The editor works closely with authors to produce a high-quality book. The series appears in a paperback format and is distributed worldwide. For more information, contact the executive editor at Ohio University Press,  Circle Drive, The Ridges, Athens, Ohio . Executive editor: Gillian Berchowitz AREA CONSULTANTS Africa: Diane M. Ciekawy Latin America: Thomas Walker Southeast Asia: William H. Frederick Global and Comparative Studies: Ann R. Tickamyer The Ohio University Research in International Studies series is published for the Center for International Studies by Ohio University Press. The views expressed in individual volumes are those of the authors and should not be considered to represent the policies or beliefs of the Center for International Studies, Ohio University Press, or Ohio University.

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Military Intervention after the Cold War THE EVOLUTION OF THEORY AND PRACTICE

ANDREA KATHRYN TALENTINO

Ohio University Research in International Studies Global and Comparative Studies Series No. 

Ohio University Press Athens

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©  by the Center for International Studies Ohio University www.ohio.edu/oupress Printed in the United States of America All rights reserved        



The books in the Ohio University Research in International Studies Series are printed on acid-free paper ƒ ™

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Talentino, Andrea Kathryn. Military intervention after the Cold War : the evolution of theory and practice / Andrea Kathryn Talentino. p. cm. — (Ohio University research in international studies, Global and comparative studies series ; no. ) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN --- (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Intervention (International law)—Case studies. I. Title. II. Research in international studies. Global and comparative studies series ; no. . JZ.T  .'—dc 

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For my parents

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Contents

List of Illustrations ix Acknowledgments xi List of Abbreviations xiii Introduction   

Intervention Reconsidered   

Theoretical Foundations   

Lessons in Failure: Intervention in Somalia   

One Step Forward? Intervention in Haiti   

The Ongoing Struggle: Intervention in Bosnia   

ECOWAS, the UN, and Sierra Leone   

Pushing the Envelope in Kosovo  vii

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 

Conclusions  Notes  Bibliography  Index 

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Illustrations



.. Continuum of intervention  

.. Somalia  .. Haiti  .. Bosnia and Herzegovina  .. Sierra Leone  .. Kosovo region  

.. Summary of theories of international relations  .. Cold War conflicts  .. Post–Cold War conflicts  .. Goals of multilateral intervention  .. Status of nation building 

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Acknowledgments

This book would not have been possible without a great deal of help and encouragement along the way. First and foremost, Professor Richard Rosecrance of UCLA was instrumental in discussing the ideas and providing detailed critiques of earlier drafts. His wife, Barbara Rosecrance, also lent a keen editing eye and helped hone the language and argument. Professor Michael Brown of Georgetown University helped teach me how to write through his editing on a related project, and many of his influences served me well here. Many others provided valuable comments on the manuscript, including Louis Kriesberg, Michael Doyle, the fellows of the Center of International Studies at Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School, numerous seminar participants, and two anonymous reviewers. I am also indebted to many people who hosted me in the field, including the members of the International Police Task Force in Brcko, Bosnia; Maladho Balde in Conakry, Guinea; and Mohammed Cisse in Dakar, Senegal. For financial assistance I need to thank Princeton’s Center of International Studies, through the Sawyer Seminar, and the Georges Lurcy Fund of the Tulane Center for Scholars. In addition to those who provided professional advice, thanks go to Eric Rosin and Sydney Mintzer for being present, and helpful, at the creation. Finally I want to thank an indirect influence, H. Bradford Westerfield, for setting me on this path to begin with.

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Abbreviations

ADFL AFRC ANC AU CNDD-FDD CPNLAF DRC ECOMOG ECOWAS ELN EPLF EPRDF EU FADH FAM FAR FARC FIS FLC FMLN FNLA FP-31 FPM

Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo/Zaire Armed Forces Revolutionary Council African National Congress African Union National Council for the Defense of Democracy/Forces for the Defense of Democracy Cambodian People’s National Liberation Armed Forces Democratic Republic of Congo ECOWAS (Cease-Fire) Monitoring Group Economic Community of West African States National Liberation Army Eritrean People’s Liberation Front Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front European Union Forces Armée d’Haiti Free Aceh Movement Rebel Armed Forces Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia Islamic Salvation Front Front pour la libération du Congo Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front National Front for the Liberation of Angola Popular Front–st of January Free Papua Movement xiii

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Fretilin FROLINAT FRY FSLN FUNCINPEC GIA IAF ICC ICG ICISS ICTY IFOR IGO IICK IMF INTERFET IRA ISAF JEM JNA JVP KFOR KLA KLF KNU KPNLF KVM

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Revolutionary Front for an Independent East Timor Front de libération nationale du Tchad (Chad National Liberation Front) Federal Republic of Yugoslavia Sandinista National Liberation Front National United Front for an Independent, Neutral, Peaceful, and Cooperative Cambodia Armed Islamic Group Inter-African Force International Criminal Court International Crisis Group International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty International Criminal Tribune for former Yugoslavia Implementation Force intergovernmental organization Independent International Commission on Kosovo International Monetary Fund International Force for East Timor Irish Republican Army International Security Assistance Force Justice and Equality Movement Yugoslav National Army Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (People’s Liberation Front; Sinhalese nationalist party) Kosovo Force Kosovo Liberation Army Khalistan Liberation Force Karen National Union Khmer People’s National Liberation Front Kosovo Verification Mission

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LDK LRA LURD MDJT MFDC MICIVIH MIF MILF MINUSTAH MISAB MLC MNF MODEL MPCI MTA NATO NDA NGO NLA NLF NPA NPFL NRA OAS OAU OHR ONUC OSCE P5

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Democratic League of Kosovo Lord’s Resistance Army Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy Mouvement pour la démocratie et la justice au Tchad Movement of Democratic Forces of Casamance International Civilian Mission in Haiti Multinational Interim Force Moro Islamic Liberation Front United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti Inter-African Mission to Monitor the Implementation of the Bangui Agreement Congolese Liberation Movement Multinational Force (Haiti) Movement for Democracy in Liberia Ivory Coast Patriotic Movement Mong Tai Army North Atlantic Treaty Organization National Democratic Alliance nongovernmental organization National Liberation Army National Liberation Front (Greece) New People’s Army National Patriotic Front of Liberia National Resistance Army Organization of American States Organization of African Unity Office of the High Representative United Nations Operation in the Congo Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe Permanent Five (members of UN Security Council)

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Palipehutu PFLO PKK RCD Renamo RS RUF SFOR SLA SLA SNM SPLA SPM SSDF TPLF UFM UIFSA ULIMO UNAMSIL UNHCR UNITA UNITAF UNLF UNMIBH UNMIH UNMIK UNOMSIL UNOSOM UNPROFOR UNRG UNSCR USC

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Parti pour la libération du peuple hutu Popular Front for the Liberation of Oman Kurdish Worker’s Party Congolese Rally for Democracy Resistência Nacional Moçambicana (Mozambique National Resistance) Republika Srpska Revolutionary United Front Stabilization Force Sierra Leone Army Sudan Liberation Army Somali National Movement Sudan People’s Liberation Army Somali Patriotic Movement Somali Salvation Democratic Front Tigray People’s Liberation Front Uganda Freedom Movement Islamic Front for the Salvation of Afghanistan United Liberation Movement for Democracy in Liberia United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone United Nations High Commission for Refugees National Union for Total Independence of Angola Unified Task Force Uganda National Liberation Front United Nations Mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina United Nations Mission in Haiti United Nations Mission in Kosovo United Nations Observer Mission in Sierra Leone United Nations Operation in Somalia United Nations Protection Force United National Revolutionaries of Guatemala UN Security Council Resolution United Somali Congress xvi

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Introduction

I   the United States led an international military operation into Somalia. The Unified Task Force (UNITAF) was a multilateral undertaking encouraged and sanctioned by the United Nations (UN) to combat a severe humanitarian crisis caused by political upheaval, violence, and drought. Its purpose was to create the security conditions necessary for the effective distribution of emergency aid. Before UNITAF’s arrival, vast quantities of food and medicine had been delivered to Somalia, only to be stolen by local warlords and gangs. Somalis were dying in large numbers from starvation and disease, and much of the population was internally displaced. UNITAF succeeded in its humanitarian objectives, ensuring the distribution of aid to those most in need and reducing the violence in some areas of the country. But the triumph of moral objectives was short-lived. When the UNITAF mission ended, in early , the UN began an operation, supported by the United States, to facilitate political reconciliation. Their efforts ended in violence and failure seven months later. The United States subsequently withdrew its forces, prompting the collapse and withdrawal of UN operations. The intervention concluded with the political crisis still unresolved. Violence

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continued to afflict the country, and humanitarian aid was still desperately needed. The postmortems on Somalia blamed the collapse of international efforts on the shift from humanitarian objectives to political objectives. Feeding Somalis was one thing, solving their problems was another. Critics charged that external actors had no business meddling in internal political crises where they had no strong interest, no desire to sacrifice their own citizens, and little familiarity with the problem. Few subscribed to the argument that ending the humanitarian crisis required resolution of the political conflict. Critics inside the United States and abroad cited mission creep and nation building as the primary weaknesses of the international approach to Somalia. The first referred to the perceived ad hoc expansion of the intervention’s objectives to include political issues, while the second referred to the effort spearheaded by the UN to promote political reconciliation and reform. Together they led to a level and style of involvement well beyond the limited humanitarian ends originally articulated and engaged problems that were neither relevant to nor appropriate for the attention of outside actors. Intervention, many felt, should not intrude on the political conditions of the target states. Historical trends backed this position, since international law, norms, and institutions have traditionally banned intervention in the internal affairs of states.1 The rash of internal conflicts that preoccupied international attention in the first years after the Cold War fell outside the legitimate interference of third parties or the compelling needs of national interest. The UN charter specifically sets domestic issues beyond the organization’s reach. Traditionally, when nations intervened they sought to provide extraordinary justification on the basis of security or to embed intervention in an organized system of competition, as during the Cold War. Neither motivation existed in Somalia or elsewhere after the Cold War. The intervention was not necessary to improve or maintain the power of any of the participants. Convention and prudence dictated that states should avoid intervention when national interests were not involved. The difficulties encountered in Somalia demonstrated the problems of acting for “moral” reasons and raised fears in the United States of a Vietnam-like slippery

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slope. After Somalia intervention seemed likely to fade as an international strategy. Strangely, however, the reverse has happened. Intervention into civil conflicts became more frequent, and its scope much broader. With each successive intervention participants adopted broader mandates, linking reform programs to military action and acquiescing in extended rehabilitation programs that operate without clear endpoints. How did this evolution come about? Why do states act where their interests seem limited at best? Why did intervention become more complex and more protracted? More important, why are states staying committed to intervention even though no such operation has yet resulted in a clear success? This book is an attempt to answer these questions. The shift in approaches to intervention over the last decade is theoretical and practical, manifest in both writing on the subject and operational approaches in the field. Yet it appears to be less a conscious choice than an evolution, with both theory and practice responding to international trends and encouraging and reinforcing changes in each other. That may explain why intervention is so fraught with mistakes. Rather than being the product of careful thought and preparation, early interventions were reactive and poorly adapted to the crises they faced. The explanation for the change, therefore, does not come from the typical “lessons of intervention” category. Indeed, the lesson we seem to have learned through experience is that intervention should be avoided. The challenges have turned out to be far more difficult than expected, and the predicted time frames extremely optimistic. Numerous writings on intervention thus describe it as a failure.2 Yet fundamental changes in understandings of security, responsible governance, the protection of human beings, and the meaning of sovereignty have taken root since the end of the Cold War. All these changes stem from the larger trend of globalization. Globalization’s significance is not simply economic, as many assume. Its importance is far more profound, leading directly to the spread of information and ideas that altered the interests, expectations, and responsibilities of states in significant ways. The ideas that gained prominence through globalization create a normative expectation for intervention based

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on humanitarian agendas that emphasize the protection of individuals and substantive qualities of governance. Those ideas also gave states a burden of responsibility for dealing with conflict and violence. Warfare is no longer viewed as the norm between states but a challenge to be met and resolved. International organizations in particular are increasingly pressured to do something to end violence, protect citizens, and decrease instability whenever crises arise. What could or should be done is not always clear, and international efforts are subject to continuous and intense debate. Flaws and failures are highlighted, while successes are often too incremental for critical and distant publics to notice or understand. The development of intervention has thus been an ongoing process, partly of trial and error and partly of nerve. Although the outcomes of actions do not yet match ideals, the development of, and commitment to, intervention and postconflict reconstruction has become a central part of the international system. How that came about and its significance for the future of state action is the subject of this book.

Theories of International Relations The changes discussed here are dependent in large part on views of security, which depend in turn on the different theoretical perspectives used to define international relations (see table .). In each case only the most important points are discussed; both complexities and subtleties receive short shrift. The points presented here are those considered to form each theory’s core identity, although in each case many different subsets of belief also exist. The discussions below are, at best, thumbnail sketches. Nonetheless, appreciating the differences provides a better foundation for evaluating the development of contemporary intervention and discussing how perspectives may have changed. Realism has been the dominant theory of international relations for most of history. It lost some primacy after the Cold War due to the decline of the East-West security confrontation but remains a powerful tool for understanding the behavior of states. Realism rests on a state-centric view of the world in which states seek to enhance their

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State interests are defined by social identities States and system constantly redefine and shape each other State identities and understandings of security dependent on prevailing beliefs at any given time International norms and beliefs are constantly changing Individuals and civil society are crucial to security Quality of state institutions affects potential for conflict Society can learn alternatives to conflict and violence Human security is most relevant Sovereignty related to responsible government

International actors are diverse States have diverse agendas System is anarchic Actors are interdependent

Social classes, corporations, most relevant actors System dominated by capitalism Security is transnational issue

Anarchy is relative term State behavior shaped by beliefs/ norms No distinction between international and domestic politics Soft power is very important

Actors at all levels are relevant Conflict need not be zero-sum Power is multifaceted

Liberalism/ Pluralism

Marxism

Constructivism

Conflict resolution

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Certain regions dominate system Conflict is class or group based Economic processes determine political relationships Domination of poor by rich is natural result of system

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Institutions can lessen effect of anarchy States will trade some autonomy to gain regulating effects of organizations Security is multifaceted—national and international Cooperation is part of self-interest Sovereignty can be shared with organizations

Security is relative rather than absolute Security is focused on national interests, external threats Anarchic system creates security dilemma where no state can be entirely secure States work for benefit of citizens Sovereignty is inviolate

States are most important actors States seek power and security System is anarchic Power is zero-sum States act for self-interest

Realism

Key Hypotheses

Concepts

Theories

Table .. Summary of theories of international relations

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security in a game that assumes constant conflict and a finite amount of power over which all actors contend. Because the system is anarchic, with no overarching or regulating government, distrust is high and cooperation unlikely. No state can rely on the assistance of others and each must be consumed with securing its own position in relation to its competitors. Power is considered to be a zero-sum commodity. Any increase for one state means a corresponding decrease for another, a fact which makes states perpetually insecure. Cooperation is therefore limited to military alliances that can help states acquire the capability to either resist attack or undertake operations against others. Classical realism draws on studies of human nature and views the desire to maintain or increase power as the driving force of politics. Neorealism, by contrast, focuses primarily on structure, arguing that the anarchic nature of the international system forces states to pursue security at the expense of other interests. In both cases the state is assumed to be a rational and unitary actor behaving out of self-interest and the balance of power is its overriding concern. Although realists differ over whether offensive or defensive postures are most effective, all focus on security as an external challenge. That is, threats to the state come from outside, not within, so that national survival is dependent on the ability to meet and counter the threats of others. That limits the potential for cooperation, even where states may have similar interests, because states will prefer to act unilaterally for immediate short-term gains rather than relying on the continued (and unlikely) fair play of others to yield long-term benefits. Realism is somewhat divided on the subject of norms and law, although consensus leans toward viewing both as marginal influences on state behavior. In the traditional view of Hans Morgenthau and E. H. Carr, norms and law create expectations of behavior that help shape international society but their value is limited because self-interest prevents adherence to norms in many cases, even if states might wish otherwise. Neorealists give more credence to norms in shaping behavior, but only those established or promoted by the hegemon(s). Norms in this view are consistent with the national interests of the strong and are driven by power rather than ethical or moral interests.

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Liberalism, or pluralism, projects a slightly more optimistic view of cooperation, arguing that states have diverse agendas that make cooperation possible across a wide range of interests. While under realism states and security are the most important actors and interests, respectively, liberalism suggests that the state itself is composed of a diversity of actors and groups, with the dominant voices changing from issue to issue. In addition, states, intergovernmental organizations (IGOs), and even nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), are all relevant international actors, thus creating diverse agendas of interest in which different priorities will prevail at different times. Although liberalism also views the system as anarchic, it suggests that collective institutions can lessen the effects of anarchy by limiting power through regulations and making behavior more predictable through rules. By removing some of the distrust between states and in the system in general, institutions give states more reason to identify areas of commonality and enhance their security by entering multilateral arrangements. Rules and law are important, therefore, because they can help limit predatory behaviors and leave states free to pursue nonmilitary interests. Classical liberals focus on the cooperative aspects of human nature as determinants of state action, arguing that individuals will work together when mechanisms are introduced to reduce levels of distrust and provide rules for interaction. Institutions thus play an important role by serving that regulatory function. Neoliberals rely instead on the power of self-interest to explain cooperation, arguing that states cooperate because they recognize that the regulatory power and longterm benefits provided by institutions and multilateral guarantees are in their best interest. Security is therefore one of many interests of the state and may be a greater or lesser concern depending on the degree of cooperation at any given time. Power need not be finite and zerosum but instead can be expanded through institutions that provide benefits to all. Interdependence among actors is considered to be high, in part because of multilateral arrangements and in part because states recognize the security value of pursuing goals collectively. That helps to temper the likelihood of conflict, though certainly not to remove it entirely.

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Marxism, sometimes included under the umbrella label radicalism, is important here because it specifically discusses relations between the developed and developing worlds. Since that is precisely the relationship most often affected by intervention, the Marxist perspective is a valuable tool in trying to understand how and why intervention occurs. Although this theory is even less unitary than those discussed above, some central concepts are nonetheless relevant. Most important, Marxism relies on historical analysis and the global economic system to explain security and domination at both the substate and interstate level. For Marxists, social groups, specifically economic classes, are the relevant actors. All relationships between states can be traced back to economic causes and the organization of elites, and security is thus dependent on where one stands in the economic hierarchy rather than on geostrategic or ideational criteria. The capitalist system determines all interactions. Wealthy states pursue imperialism for economic purposes, reinforcing the hierarchical system and creating relationships of domination and dependence with the states of the developing world. They are aided by multinational corporations, who serve as agents of interference and help promote dependence. In this kind of exploitative system the developing world has little voice or agency. Balance of power and diplomacy are irrelevant because economic domination is considered the most effective means to power. Similarly, ideas and principles fade in comparison to economic wealth, which provides power and thus gives only the developed states the ability to spread influence and, most important, limit the development of others. Constructivism is both a newer and a less all-encompassing theory; it addresses important questions regarding how state identities are determined. It departs significantly from realism and liberalism in describing the international system as a flexible rather than a static entity. Constructivism suggests that anarchy is a relative term, one that can be understood only in reference to the perceptions of state actors. Similarly, state identities are not predetermined but are constantly shaped and reshaped by policymakers’ beliefs and international norms, which are in turn shaped by organizations and in their own turn shape the definition of the system itself. The confusion this description may engender comes from the fact that, unlike the other

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theories discussed here, constructivism does not define a single path of cause and effect. Instead, it envisions a constantly evolving set of identities and interests with causal arrows working in multiple directions. While the other theories describe state behavior as directed from above in some sense, due to either the anarchic or economic systems, constructivism’s vision of behavior is circular, with no definable beginning or end. It is not simply the system that determines state behaviors, as in realism and liberalism, but also state behaviors that determine the system. Because ideas, norms, values, and interests are always changing, constructivism offers few definitive touchstones to predict state behavior. It does, however, suggest that social identities, and therefore people, matter a great deal to the international system; it thus blurs the lines between international and domestic politics. That has an important effect on understandings of security, which in constructivism are also constantly changing and may focus on national, international, or subnational levels. Power comes in multiple forms in this perspective, from the traditional material power measured by military and economic might to the persuasive power of ideas and values. All types of power can have a significant effect on states as well as the system, with ideas considered particularly relevant in shaping identities. Finally, conflict resolution perspectives also bear mention. Although it is not as often included among the theories of international relations, conflict resolution introduces issues of theoretical relevance and provides yet another view of security. Like constructivism, conflict resolution argues that actors at all levels are important, and specifically includes individuals and civil society as important pillars of security. Security itself is primarily located at the substate level, with emphasis on the actors within a state as both resources for security and threats to it. That focus has changed somewhat over time, because during the Cold War conflict resolution approaches focused more specifically on interstate tensions. Now, however, those approaches are primarily intrastate and place a greater emphasis on human security than the other theories discussed here. In keeping with that focus, conflict resolution also suggests that the quality of state governance is an essential determinant of security and thus places important emphasis

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on citizen participation, loyalty, and governmental legitimacy as functions of both state and human security. Each of these theories offers a somewhat different explanation for intervention. For realists, intervention is used to serve state security and should yield a direct payoff in the form of resources, reputation, or geostrategic position. For liberals, intervention should serve collective interests, however they may be defined at a given time, and thereby provide collective goods. For Marxists, intervention is always imperialistic and domineering, driven by the profit-maximizing interests of the wealthy at the expense of the poor. For those promoting conflict resolution approaches, intervention serves an agenda of nonviolence rather than the interests of a state and should be dedicated to transforming structures of conflict and facilitating new modes of political and social interaction. I save constructivism for last here because it is in many ways the most ambiguous. Under this theory intervention will be used for different things at different times. When prevailing beliefs and values are based on maximizing state power, intervention will be used to serve that end, as in the time of colonization; when they are based on a humanitarian calculation, it will serve that end. While the motivations are largely static under the other theories, constructivism sees the reasons for intervention as fluid, changing with the interests of states and the structure of the system.

Definition of Terms The first task for analysis is clearly a definitional one. This book focuses on third-party intervention into internal conflict, meaning conflict or unrest taking place within rather than between states. Yet that simple statement masks a complex problem. Conflicts are rarely neatly contained, so what does internal really mean? A conflict is defined here as internal when it is primarily generated and waged between different groups expressing grievances over the distribution of political and economic power within a single state. The desired prize usually concerns domestic political control or autonomy. Conflict is external when

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it is primarily generated and waged between two or more states expressing grievances or rival claims over issues that cross state borders. Here the prize may vary, with territory, resources, or strategic position at stake. External conflicts rarely involve disputes over direct control of the domestic political structure. These distinctions are of course crude, with abundant gray areas. Insurgencies often recieve support, safe haven, and material aid from neighbors, giving internal problems external links. Outsiders may encourage a group in another state to rebel, thus using external influence to spark internal violence, as happened in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) in . And neighbors may take advantage of crises to assert their own claims or gain whatever benefit they can through intervention, again as highlighted by the experience of the DRC. External parties may fight internal groups as well as each other, further confusing the ease of classification. The important distinction between internal and external, however, lies with the groups expressing opposition. When violence begins because of competition among domestic constituencies it can be considered internal, even if those groups have connections in other states. The gray areas stretch even further when considering the case of divided countries, such as Korea. When the north invaded the south in , did it start an internal war, or did the thirty-eighth parallel constitute a significant “national” border? To some extent this is a matter of judgment, but I have tried to err here on the side of inclusion. This book seeks to explain cases of intervention—why they happen and how they have changed. Accordingly, I have tried to include all cases that might plausibly fit, even if other interpretations are possible. In that spirit conflict is also defined quite broadly, to include not only violence but also cases of unrest or instability that resulted in intervention, even if the instability was more perception than reality. This broad definition ensures that all cases of intervention are included, even those in which a great power or superpower might have acted in the absence of conflict in order to secure its own interests. It also follows the approach of Patrick Regan, who argues that the common standard of one thousand battle deaths leaves out cases that do not meet the criteria for civil war but nonetheless constitute civil conflict.3

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At this point yet another ambiguity arises. What constitutes intervention? Many things can be considered interventionary, from sending mediators to imposing sanctions to conducting a peacekeeping mission. Virtually any action that affects an outcome could be classified as an intervention. Some would extend the definition to say that even inaction—for example, the decision not to provide arms to a belligerent party—is itself a form of intervention. This study addresses intervention in its most obvious and most intrusive form. The questions at issue here are the causes and objectives of multilateral military intervention. This form was chosen for four reasons. First, I want to understand why states commit their militaries and how their motivations may have changed after the Cold War. Second, I hope to explain why multilateral military actions are so common in the post–Cold War era and occur with institutional sanction. Historically states have preferred to act alone and institutions have banned military interference in the affairs of others, so this trend is significant. Third, I want to analyze the development of post–Cold War intervention, from addressing limited humanitarian issues to incorporating comprehensive and protracted nation-building mandates. How did we get from Somalia to Kosovo and East Timor? Fourth, I want to explain the most astonishing development—why states have proven willing to engage in forceful and protracted operations in spite of the many problems, the long time frames, and the lack of solid success. Since states generally want to avoid conflict, we should expect them to have powerful motivations for adopting military means to achieve their goals. This is particularly true in cases that might be considered peripheral from a security point of view. While history is rife with examples of military intervention, it has tended to occur in states or regions considered vital to a given state’s security interests. On its face that tendency does not appear to hold true any longer. Accordingly, in this study the term intervention is used to describe very specific actions on the most active end of the interventionary continuum—overt military involvement by third parties. I recognize that this definition excludes the economic and diplomatic forms of intervention included in other studies.4 That exclusion can be justified because of the costs involved. Military action is a costly action for



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states in terms of financial and human commitment, domestic repercussions, and international status and thus must have compelling reasons for its use. States generally reserve military action for situations that are seen to directly threaten national security, relate to immediate defense, or provide tangible reward. Because the costs and rewards seem somewhat unbalanced in the case of contemporary intervention, military action can be singled out as particularly worthy of analysis. Like Herbert Tillema, I also restrict this definition to “all combat-ready military operations undertaken by regular military forces.”5 Here too, the cost factor is relevant, because the provision of logistical assistance, advisors, police units, or the use of irregular forces can be explained and justified (or even covered up) far more easily than the use of regular military units. The factors and costs associated with committing national military units to action make it more unusual and therefore constitute a special case worthy of analysis. The operations analyzed here have three criteria: the military serves a primary role; the mission is actively engaged in the forceful imposition of a settlement or the protection of civilians; and the mission operates under robust rules of engagement, which means the use of force is acceptable in situations other than self-defense. Multilateral refers to operations undertaken by three or more nations operating under a single unified command or, in Regan’s definition, intervention “under the leadership of an international command structure and . . . composed of more than a few nations.”6 Cases in which multiple nations intervened but maintained independent command structures, whether for humanitarian or security purposes, count here as unilateral actions. Cases in which third parties intervened by providing equipment or intelligence but did not directly engage units of their own militaries are not considered intervention. While most unilateral interventions have a clear mandate to use coercive force when necessary, its use is more controversial in institutionally sanctioned interventions. Historically UN operations explicitly rejected the use of force, though recent operations have taken a more aggressive stance. In UN parlance forceful actions are described as third-generation operations and are based on the authority in Chapter VII of the UN charter. Chapter VII mandates the Security Council

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

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to “take such action by air, sea, or land forces as may be necessary to maintain or restore international peace and security.”7 Such operations are described by Michael Doyle as “war-making missions,” and are now linked to nation-building agendas in cases of state collapse.8 When demands for a quick response render UN operations impractical because of the ponderous bureaucracy involved in establishing and outfitting a military force, the Security Council interprets Chapter VII to allow operations led by an independent member state but sanctioned by and responsible to the council. As a result of budget and staffing problems, independently led collective operations under UN aegis have been used more frequently over the last decade as a first response in cases of civil conflict. Typically, however, such operations create the secure environment necessary for resolution efforts and then hand off the task to a more broad-based UN mission. Under the definition outlined above, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s actions in Bosnia constitute military intervention while the UN’s do not. The Unified Task Force and the later US/UN action in Somalia constitute military intervention, while the French role in Rwanda and the UN role in Cambodia do not. The focus of this study is specifically military intervention, which typically includes imposition of a settlement on still-recalcitrant parties and is quite distinct from and much rarer than either less extreme forms of intervention or peacekeeping missions. Recent operations are not limited to military action, however, but more frequently include a substantial rehabilitation or nation-building element. As will be shown, intervention has developed into a multiphased process where military force is the first step in a complex program of reform. Once violence has decreased and peace implementation begins, the military performs a supporting role to facilitate rehabilitation programs and ensure continued security. The meaning of intervention has therefore expanded from its limited role in Somalia to include efforts to rebuild the political, economic, and social structures of the target state. The discussion of expansion brings up another issue—who does the intervening? That question is important because both the who and the how have changed significantly over time. Until the end of the Cold War most interventions throughout history were carried out by indi-



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vidual states. There were some exceptions to this rule, notably the UN’s intervention in the Congo in , but relatively few. Much scholarship has been devoted to defining the states that intervene most frequently, and why.9 Since the Cold War, however, inter-governmental organizations have been far more active in the realm of intervention. The UN, North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), European Union (EU), and a variety of other regional organizations, including most recently the African Union (AU), are now active participants in both the military and civilian aspects of intervention. They are often joined by NGOs, interested states, and individuals serving as either official or unofficial representatives of their state. For the purposes of this analysis, states and IGOs are most important because those are the only actors that can provide military action. However, as the case studies will show, a variety of levels are usually employed before or even during military action, and that expansion of approaches relates directly to the post–Cold War linkage between intervention and conflict resolution. Five terms also need definition, because they will be used often in this book: peacekeeping, peacemaking, peace enforcement, peace building, and nation building. Peacekeeping describes the attempt by external actors to stop violence by monitoring cease-fire or peace agreements and providing a buffer zone between opposing parties. Peacekeeping troops are generally unarmed or lightly armed and have no coercive functions. Peacemaking refers to both coercive and noncoercive efforts to bring belligerent groups to the bargaining table and negotiate a peace agreement. In this case external actors may serve merely as mediators, as in Mozambique, or as parties to the violence, as in Bosnia. Peace enforcement pursues similar ends through coercive means, with emphasis on preserving already signed settlements. Enforcement implies military action to establish or promote adherence to the terms of a settlement and is a frequent task of contemporary intervention. In practice, of course, the line between these categories is not always clear, and one type of operation may temporarily blur into another. The distinctions are important but also must be viewed as guidelines. Peace building and nation building are often used interchangeably, but have slightly different meanings. Both concern the issue of

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postconflict reconstruction. Peace building entails measures taken to rebuild or reform government institutions and processes. Definitions vary, but scholars emphasize the objective of a self-enforcing peace based on principles of democracy, justice, and equity.10 In some cases peace building may extend to multidimensional operations addressing economic and social institutions as well in what Thomas Franck calls the “full service approach.”11 Nation building occurs when peace building means defining, shaping, and facilitating the creation of new processes and organizations, rather than reforming existing structures. Nation building is a subset of peace building and implies a wholesale remaking of the state. Nation building as practiced today is most properly an exercise in state building, with emphasis on creating the form and function of the institutions of government. These operations often take place in contexts where political, economic, and social structures are completely absent and are generally more involved and comprehensive than peace building. In addition to building procedures and functions, nation building seeks to establish less competitive forms of national and civil identity. It is intended to both create new structures and establish new norms of political and social behavior. This emphasis on building rather than reforming began in Bosnia and has now been extended to East Timor and Kosovo. Finally, the term evolution is used here in the Darwinian sense, as a process of mutation and adaptation randomly applied. Beneficial changes get replicated; harmful ones die out. Each new form or step is the result of accident, and only gets repeated when it proves suitable to the challenges at hand. Change comes largely by coincidence rather than design. The development of post–Cold War intervention worked much like the development of the species in the sense that it was neither planned nor ordered nor a rational process moving from simple to complex. Necessity and momentum rather than careful preparation drove the changes to intervention. Though obviously much faster than biological evolution, it was similarly the result of accident and adaptation, which eventually produced something related to the starting point but also very different. The trends and challenges of the environment in which intervention operated produced corresponding



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“mutations,” and helped it become more responsive to the problems it faced. That does not imply that changes always led to success, but that they became part of an ongoing process of response and adaptation. A single operation sometimes mutates throughout its lifetime, producing new approaches that are then copied and subsequently adapted in future use. The challenges of survival in a sense forced those adaptations, as policymakers responded to both ideas and events. This book analyzes this evolution, assessing how and why intervention has changed in the contemporary period. The interventions highlighted in the case studies were selected because they reflect the process of evolution described above. They provide three advantages in the effort to analyze how intervention has changed. First, they have geographic scope, covering examples from Europe to Latin America to Africa. The charge that intervention is biased by region, specifically against Africa, can therefore be assessed and either demonstrated or rejected. Looking at a wide geographic range helps determine whether the style of implementation or the money and effort expended are different across regions or whether intervention is applied relatively similarly in all cases. Second, the group of cases provides chronological consistency. Since part of the claim here is that intervention evolved over time, it is important to view the steps in that evolution and show how the cases built on each other. This group clearly reflects that progression, with each case, even those that went badly, establishing new expectations and responsibilities for the future. Finally, this set of cases involves numerous forms of military intervention, from limited humanitarian efforts to peace-building operations to full-blown nation building. They therefore allow a comparison of objectives and approaches at several points along the continuum of intervention and reflect the extent to which both practical and theoretical approaches have changed. Taken together the cases reflect the gradual acceptance of intervention along normative lines and a change in its expected objectives. Each chapter examines the origins of the conflict, the conflict itself, and the international response in order to provide a structured analysis that addresses both why intervention occurred and its effectiveness. Although many studies of intervention focus exclusively on the

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conflict, this book looks carefully at why violence began in order to provide a better analysis of the challenges facing intervention as well as the tasks necessary to make it successful. The causes of conflict have become increasingly important as intervention has become more closely connected to political rehabilitation. Although to some extent awareness of causes may be considered a positive, it also brings into question whether intervention is an appropriate or viable means of reversing such problems. A progressive expansion of tasks and greater application of conflict resolution approaches mark each operation, yet that does not necessarily translate into greater success. The case studies end with Kosovo because the military and civilian operations undertaken there mark the full incorporation of humanitarian agendas into national policy and the largest scope of reconstruction programs. Interventions undertaken since correspond to those same principles and objectives. Focusing on the five examples addressed here allows analysis of the progression from case to case in both theoretical and practical approaches and demonstrates how humanitarian concerns became part of security interests. In Somalia the link between intervention and both peacemaking and peace building was rejected. In later cases it was not. The selected cases show the development of that change, starting with the limited peace building attempted in Haiti and ending with the extensive program of nation building pursued in Kosovo. Every case of nation building undertaken since has been defined by the process of evolution that developed through these five cases. Understanding that progression therefore provides the necessary context for understanding current cases, from the Congo to Iraq. The progression also demonstrates how nation building became such an important part of the international agenda and why it is not likely to decline in importance anytime soon.



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1 Intervention Reconsidered

T   on the proposition that intervention has changed in the post–Cold War period, in both form and function (see tables ., .). In an effort to get beyond World War II while still including conflicts that emerged before bipolarity was obvious, I have chosen  as the start of the Cold War period. I have chosen  as its end. Although it predates the official end of the Soviet Union, that year saw the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the practical end of superpower hostility. That date is also consistent with the post–Cold War moment chosen by Regan and by Frederic Pearson, Robert Baumann, and Jeffrey Pickering. As noted earlier, conflict is viewed broadly here to allow the inclusion of cases where intervention occurred even if they do not meet the threshold for being classified as a civil war. Grenada and Hungary are thus included in the Cold War table (.); Haiti is in the post–Cold War table (.). Similarly, only regular military action is defined here as intervention, following Tillema’s isolation of overt military intervention as a class that deserves special analysis. Two other criteria govern the definition of this data set. First, only cases in which the target was an independent sovereign state are considered. Interventions into colonies are excluded on the grounds that



Karen insurgency

civil war

civil war

civil war

civil war civil war ethnic strife civil war

Laos –

Congo –

Guatemala – Rwanda – Iraq – N. Yemen –

popular revolt civil war civil war war of unification civil war

Hungary  Cuba – Sudan – Vietnam – Lebanon 

govt., Pathet Lao, neutralists two govts., Katanga, Kivu Provinces govt., UNRG, FAR, FP- Hutu, Tutsi govt., Kurds royalists, republicans

govt., Sumatran rebels

govt., KNU

——— ——— Syria () Egypt ()

US (), N. Vietnam () Belgium ()

———

———

USSR ——— ——— US () US, United Arab Republic

Britain, US

——— ——— ——— ———

UN ()

———

———

———

——— ——— ——— ——— ———

———

UN Command

——— ———

11:02 AM

Burma 

Trieste riots

Italy 

China, US, Britain

Yugoslavia, Albania Nicaragua

Multilateral Intervention

9/19/05

Indonesia –

South, North

war of unification govt., pro-Yugoslav citizens ——— govt., th July Movement govt., Anya nya North, South, Vietcong Maronite Christian, Sunni Muslim

monarchy, NLF govt., NLA

civil war civil war

Greece – Costa Rica  Korea –

Unilateral Intervention

Table .. Cold War conflicts Belligerents

Internal Context

Country

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govt., army units govt., Biafran separatists govt., ELN, FARC liberalizing govt. govt., govt. faction royalists, republicans govt., Kurds govt., FROLINAT govt., IRA, Irish Protestants govt. vs. FPM

mutiny

secession civil war

civil uprising insurrection civil war ethnic uprising civil war separatist mvmt.

separatist fight (West Irian War) civil war

ethnic uprising

Iran —present

———

———

———

———

Warsaw Pact () ——— ——— ——— ——— ———

——— ———

———

OAS

———

———

——— ———

11:02 AM

——— ——— ——— Iran (for Kurds) () France (–) ———

——— ———

Cuba

US

———

Turkey ()

France Iran ()

9/19/05

govt., CPNLAF, Khmer N. Vietnam (), US, Rouge Vietnam () govt., Mujahideen e-Khalq ———

govt., antijunta mvmt.

civil war

govt., Palestinian orgs.

civil war

Greek and Turkish Cypriots

govt., military group govt., PFLO

Israel –present

coup Dhofar rebellion (tribal separatists) civil war

Dominican Republic – Congo (Brazzaville)  Nigeria – Colombia –present Czechoslovakia  Oman  Yemen – Iraq – Chad – UK (N. Ireland) –present Indonesia –present Cambodia –

Cyprus –present

Gabon  Oman –

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ethnic revolt

Jumma insurgency civil war ethnic uprising rebellion civil war

civil war

separatist rebellion (E. Timor) separatist rebellion

Shaba crisis

civil war civil opposition civil war

civil war, invasion

ethnic warfare

Pakistan 

Bangladesh – Ethiopia – Iraq – S. Africa – Lebanon –

Angola –

Indonesia –

Zaire –

Nicaragua  S. Yemen  Chad –

Cambodia –

Sri Lanka –present

Khmer Rouge, KPNLF, FUNCINPEC govt., Tamil Tigers, JVP

govt., FSLN govt., Central Committee govt., FROLINAT

govt., FLC

govt., FAM

———

Multilateral Intervention

India ()

Morocco, France, Belgium () ——— Ethiopia France (), Libya () Vietnam ()

———

———

———

———

——— ——— OAU

IAF

———

———

——— ——— ——— ——— Iran () ——— ——— ——— Syria (), Israel (), ——— US, UK, France, Italy () Cuba () ———

India ()

Unilateral Intervention

11:02 AM

govt., Fretilin

govt., E. Pakistan (Bangladesh) govt., Shanta Bahini govt., EPLF, TPLF govt., Kurdish separatists govt., ANC govt., Maronites, Sunnis, Druze govt., FNLA, UNITA

Belligerents

9/19/05

Indonesia –present

Internal Context

Country

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govt., army elements govt., UNLF, NRA, UFM govt., numerous ethnic and political factions govt., Renamo

coup

civil war civil war

govt., FMLN Sandinistas, Contras govt., Shining Path govt., Gurkhas, Sikhs (KLA, KLF) ——— govt., Kurds govt., KNU, MTA govt., SPLA, NDA govt., NPA, MILF govt., PKK govt., EPRDF govt., moderates govt., Nagorno-Karabakh govt., LRA govt.,  rebel groups

civil war civil war ethnic unrest ethnic unrest

military coup ethnic unrest ethnic unrest civil war civil war

ethnic unrest civil war civil war separatist mvmt. civil war Kashmiri insurgency

Grenada  Iraq – Myanmar – Sudan – Philippines –present Turkey –present Ethiopia – S. Yemen  Azerbaijan – Uganda – India –present

——— ——— ——— Armenia () ——— ———

——— ——— ——— ——— ——— ———

——— ——— ——— ——— ———

——— ——— ——— ———

———

——— ———

———

11:02 AM

US () Turkey ——— ——— ———

Zimbabwe, Tanzania, Malawi () ——— Honduras () ——— ———

——— USSR ()

France

9/19/05

El Salvador – Nicaragua – Peru –present India –present

Mozambique – civil war

Central African Republic  Uganda – Afghanistan –

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Internal Context invasion revolution civil war civil war separatist mvmt., Casamance Kurdish uprising civil war separatist mvmt. civil war civil war secession civil war separatist mvmt. civil war civil war civil war civil war separatist mvmt. civil unrest civil war

Country

Panama  Romania  Somalia – Liberia – Senegal –present

Iraq  Yugoslavia  Croatia – Sierra Leone – Afghanistan – Russia –present Somalia –present

Azerbaijan – Tajikistan – Bosnia –

Algeria –present Angola –present Georgia –present

Republic of Congo – Burundi –present

Unilateral Intervention

——— ———

——— Namibia () ———

Multilateral Intervention

——— ———

——— ——— ———

——— ——— NATO/UN ()

Allied Coalition ——— ——— ECOMOG () ISAF () ——— UNITAF ()

——— ——— ——— ECOMOG () ———

11:02 AM

Armenia () ——— ———

——— ——— ——— UK () US, UK () ——— ———

US ——— ——— ——— ———

9/19/05

Kurds, government govt., republics govt., Krajina Serbs govt., RUF, militias govt., UIFSA govt., Chechen separatists USC, SPM, SSDF, SNM, Somaliland govt., Armenian separatists govt., Tajik opposition Bosnian Croats, Muslims, Serbs govt., FIS, GIA govt., UNITA govt., Abkhazian, S. Ossetian rebels govt., opposition militias govt., Palipehutu, CNDD-FDD

——— govt., anticommunists govt., SPM, USC govt., assorted opposition govt., MFDC

Belligerents

Table .. Post–Cold War conflicts

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ethnic unrest civil war civil war no precipitating factor Darfur rebellion civil unrest

Macedonia – Côte d’Ivoire – Liberia – Iraq –present

Sudan –present

Haiti –present

govt., Janjaweed militia, SLA, JEM pro-Aristide, anti-Aristide factions

———

——— France () ——— US, UK (); asstd. others ———

MNF ()

———

NATO () ECOMOG () ECOMOG () ———

——— INTERFET ()

——— NATO () ——— ——— EU, French-led forces ()

MISAB ()

MNF ——— ———

11:02 AM

govt., militias Indonesian military, pro-indep. groups govt., Albanian opposition govt., MPCI govt., LURD, MODEL ———

——— ——— Senegal, Guinea () ——— Angola, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Rwanda, Uganda () Angola ———

———

——— ——— Rwanda ()

9/19/05

Note: The conflicts are taken from the conflict statistics published annually by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute in SIPRI Yearbook; Micheal Clodfelter, Warfare and Armed Conflicts (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, ), vol. ; Herbert Tillema, International Armed Conflict since  (Boulder: Westview, ); Patrick Regan, Civil Wars and Foreign Powers (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, ).

civil war independence

Rep. of Congo –present East Timor –

armed forces loyal to president vs. rebel army forces govt., rebels govt., KLA govt., military faction govt., MDJT govt., RCD, MLC

politico-military crisis civil unrest secession opposition northern uprising civil war

——— govt., opposition alliance govt., ADFL

military coup civil war civil war

Albania  Yugoslavia – Guinea-Bissau – Chad –present Dem. Rep. of Congo –present

Haiti  Rwanda –present Democratic Rep. of Congo – Central African Republic –

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the colonial relationship altered the motivations and value of intervention substantially. Second, only cases of intervention during civil conflict or unrest are included. Border disputes, territorial disagreements, or other tensions between states that may have led to cross-border military actions do not appear, since this is more properly interstate than intrastate conflict. These exclusions are important because they significantly decrease the number of unilateral interventions while having no effect on the multilateral category. These stringent criteria therefore make it more difficult to demonstrate that patterns of intervention have changed from unilateral to multilateral, and ensure that the case selection is not designed to predetermine the conclusions. Two different patterns emerge. Of the sixty-eight conflicts or cases of unrest during the Cold War, thirty-five led to unilateral intervention while only six led to multilateral intervention. Unilateral intervention therefore occurred in  percent of cases and multilateral action in  percent, with no overt intervention occurring the rest of the time. By contrast, of the thirty-seven post–Cold War cases, eleven led to unilateral intervention and fifteen to multilateral intervention, or  percent and  percent respectively. The post–Cold War pattern of intervention is therefore quite different. Intervention is now far more common. Of all post–Cold War cases,  percent saw some form of intervention, compared to  percent during the Cold War. Those numbers seem surprising because with the end of bipolarity we would expect the great powers to have less, not more, interest in the periphery. When every country mattered in the war against communism (or capitalism) intervention was an important means of defense. With that logic absent, motivation for intervention should also be absent. As Regan notes, states now have less motivation to intervene on geostrategic grounds.1 The fact that the increase came in the multilateral category is another surprise, given the difficulty of creating international consensus on internal issues and attitudes toward intervention in general. Other countries usually criticize interventions rather than joining them. Yet instances of multilateral action increased by  percent in the post–Cold War period while unilateral action actually decreased substantially. That is a very significant change. The involvement of international organizations is also significant, since each case

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of multilateral intervention took place under organizational sanction. In most cases the UN provided explicit approval, though some exceptions will be discussed in later chapters. What is more, there are now two distinct types of unilateral intervention. Many of the unilateral cases in the post–Cold War period conform to traditional expectations of intervention. Based on power and security, they represent one state’s attempt to improve its strategic position and adhere closely to a realist explanation for why states intervene. But there is also a new and different kind of unilateral action represented in the post–Cold War table. In one case (Guinea-Bissau) two member states acted on behalf of a regional organization, and in two others (Sierra Leone and Côte d’Ivoire) European actors intervened to provide support for conflict resolution and peacemaking efforts. In the latter case the French force also provided initial security to prepare the way for a regional intervention and a UN operation. These cases are much harder to explain on realist grounds. Even the case of France, which is known to have a close relationship with its former colonial powers and has long been committed to maintaining its position in West Africa, does not adhere to traditional power explanations. Had France been intervening for its own purposes, it most likely would have supported the government and assisted the army in routing the rebels. Instead it assumed a more neutral role, working to reduce violence and oversee the continuing peace process without pushing a specific outcome. In so doing it engendered the resentment of both sides—the Ivorian government reproached France for lack of support, and the rebels felt cheated of their opportunity to advance on the capital. More important, from the outset France’s action was designed as a temporary measure to provide security until it could hand off to, or work with, a regional organization. Yet handing over control this way could provide no benefit to France, since any organization would likely contain influences that would diverge from French interests. The flaring violence has also put France in a difficult position and led to controversy at home.2 How France intervened and who it intervened with, therefore, belie realist explanations and suggest that at least some unilateral interventions are now based on a different understanding of the international system. All three cases noted above

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were approved and applauded by international organizations, further distinguishing them from traditional interventions. Great-power militaries are not viewed as occupiers in these cases but as constructive elements of a broad approach to conflict resolution. That many African leaders actively encouraged US intervention in Liberia in  further suggests that perspectives have changed. Great and superpowers have rarely been invited to intervene in domestic conflicts because of local fears of domination. During the Cold War the UN specifically avoided superpower participation in the few collective actions it undertook, such as the  intervention in the Congo. Furthermore, African nations have been committed to blocking direct Western involvement in order to completely rid themselves of colonial interference. The request for US action, particularly in light of the controversy surrounding its involvement in Iraq, suggests something very important about how intervention is viewed today. If the three cases noted above were separated from the more traditional unilateral actions, the percentage of unilateral interventions in the post–Cold War period would drop to  percent. That shows the difference between the Cold War and post–Cold War periods even more starkly. Since the earlier percentages consider only the fact of intervention and not its objectives or sanctioning body, however, all unilateral actions remain included. Even so, the form of intervention has changed quite a bit, with multilateral action now employed more frequently than unilateral action. Tables . and . make that change clear, but they address only the issue of structure. Determining whether the function of intervention has also changed requires further analysis on the motivations and objectives of contemporary interventions. Two critiques have been offered of the patterns presented here. The first is that the small span of time since the end of the Cold War does not yield adequate data to compare against the forty years of the Cold War. Perhaps, given thirty more years, the statistics would even out. Yet a comparison of the frequency of multilateral intervention alone suggests otherwise. For forty years only six truly multilateral operations occurred during the Cold War. In the last sixteen years we have seen fifteen. True, the post–Cold War period also includes fewer conflicts. Even so, the relative percentage of multilateral interventions

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( percent during the Cold War versus  percent in the post–Cold War period) indicates a marked difference. If the numbers were reversed the critique might be valid, but the extraordinary jump over a short period indicates a significant change in approach. The second critique concerns appearances. One could argue that in some cases multilateral intervention is just a façade, providing thin cover for self-interested states to attain their objectives. Afghanistan and Kosovo are sometimes described in this way, and the controversial intervention in Iraq may suggest that the United States has dispensed with façade entirely. Even if we are to accept that realist motivations waned immediately after the Cold War, this argument suggests that the respite was short-lived. As Mohammed Ayoob notes, states can dress realist interests in “normative garb” to appear to work within the system.3 States can therefore both pursue self-interest and appear to be playing by the rules simply by using the cover of organizations. This claim is more complex, particularly since the UN did not authorize any of these interventions. However, in some significant ways the first two actions were neither entirely unilateral nor independent because they were connected to a broader, multilateral process. Although NATO’s bombing campaign against Serbia took place outside UN approval, it was regionally sanctioned and quickly linked to a UN operation, the Kosovo Force (KFOR), which included non-NATO members, notably Russia. Similarly, the US intervention in Afghanistan was accepted if not expressly authorized by the Security Council, which recognized “the inherent right of individual or collective selfdefense in accordance with the Charter” in Resolution , passed on September , . The US action was also subsequently linked to the UN-sanctioned International Security Assistance Force (ISAF). In the first two cases, therefore, US objectives and preferences were limited by the need to work within collective contexts. The case of Iraq is much tougher, although I would argue that it revealed the limitations of power interests rather than their strength. The US action defied global opinion and was considered by many to violate international law. Although the Bush administration pointed to Iraq’s undisputed record of defying UN resolutions, its main critics at the UN did not agree that enforcement was an appropriate response.

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US policy therefore contradicted several normative expectations developed over the last decade, including: limitations on the use of force, emphasis on multilateral action, the UN as legitimizing agent, and the use of intervention to rebuild collapsed states rather than to force collapse. But in some curious ways the intervention also demonstrated the strength of the very norms it contradicted. When examined more closely, the norms promoting institutional sanction and multilateralism shaped how the United States approached the issue, in spite of its original preferences, and the aftermath of the war has reaffirmed the importance of the UN and the legitimacy it conveys. This case will be discussed at greater length in chapter . More important, nation- and peace-building goals were associated with all three interventions from the outset. In Kosovo and Afghanistan the first parties to intervene did not expect to be the sole actor. Instead, NATO and the United States anticipated providing a forceful security role in order to pave the way for a more comprehensive and UN-based force addressing political and social reforms. In both cases the UN and other organizations played a prominent role in directing reform. KFOR and the ISAF built on the objectives of the interventions that preceded them, using the creation of a more stable security climate to promote humanitarian assistance and initiate a program of rehabilitation. The case of Afghanistan is particularly noteworthy because US president George W. Bush has been forced to accept some responsibility for and involvement in nation-building initiatives, in spite of his campaign stance against such actions. The United States may have hoped to go it alone in Iraq, but turned to the UN in early  as a result of international pressure and Iraqi demands. Although in many ways power rather than principle was the guide, in other important ways the US intervention continued to reflect the normative motivations detailed here. Though it clearly contradicted the multilateral trend, the intervention did not operate wholly outside the bounds of normative expectations. Still we may ask how contemporary intervention is demonstrably different than during the Cold War. Even if the form is different, does that mean the function has changed as well? The question becomes more pertinent because nation building could be seen as a

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goal of the US action in Vietnam or the Soviet campaign in Afghanistan. Hedley Bull describes intervention as a dictatorial interference by outside powers, taken by the strong against the weak.4 In that sense, perhaps very little has changed. But there is more to the issue than that. Karen Feste concludes that during the Cold War “intervention was used by the superpowers to manage their rivalry in the context of a dynamic international environment.” Although she interprets intervention more broadly than just military action, her conclusion that it was used to rationalize superpower competition captures the essence of its purpose and function. Intervention therefore had three characteristics: it was used to prevent unfavorable changes to the status quo; it usually supported rather than opposed the existing government; and it was more commonly indirect and covert, with notable exceptions like Vietnam and Afghanistan. “Intervention was thus an instrument of foreign policy used to promote the interests of individual nations.”5 Chalmers Johnson shares that view, further arguing that intervention still corresponds to unilateral concerns.6 In many contemporary cases, though not all, unilateral intervention continues to exhibit the characteristics Feste notes. The first two characteristics also describe one multilateral operation during the Cold War, the Soviet Union’s  invasion of Hungary under cover of the Warsaw Pact. None of the features describe contemporary multilateral operations, however, indicating a change in function to match the change in form. Multilateral intervention does not seek to preserve the status quo but in fact tends to occur only well after the status quo has been undone and then seeks to promote significant change. Indeed, intervention is often criticized for taking place too late, when a state has virtually collapsed and the level of death and destruction is unconscionable. The need for reform stems from the level of collapse and further alters the status quo. Intervention then becomes a process of transformation, aimed at changing the basic interactions between state and citizen.7 Nor does multilateral intervention tend to support existing government, but rather encourages development of a local process through which an entirely new government can be created. Only in cases where

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an elected government was removed from power has intervention favored an established regime. The form and structure of government develops through a process of consultation and mediation intended to include all groups and interests. Michael Barnett notes that when contemporary interventions implement reforms they do not impose a single state’s vision of proper government. Instead, they “draw from a broader understanding of what legitimate states, societies, and economies look like,” and try to build a consensus on that basis.8 Exactly what kind of government will emerge is often not clear for some time. Finally, intervention is direct, overt, and made more so by the involvement of states, IGOs, and legions of NGOs. IGOs and NGOs explicitly promote interventions in order to pursue liberal agendas, something not true during the Cold War. The security imperatives that previously drove intervention no longer seem so central. While this cannot prove different objectives without further analysis, it does indicate that more than simply the appearance of intervention has changed.

The Transformation of Peacekeeping What accounts for the shift in Cold War and post–Cold War patterns of intervention? A glance at the literature on the subject from a hundred, fifty, or even twenty years ago shows that intervention was considered a meddlesome, manipulative, and generally negative activity undertaken to impose great-power interests on weaker states. As Feste shows, the superpowers relied on intervention to extend their influence and gain strategic advantage. But the Somalia example suggests different motivations. It began a trend in which, as Regan notes, the goals of post–Cold War intervention shifted “from stopping the fighting to supporting the outcome of negotiated settlements.”9 That understanding reflects the role of peacekeeping operations rather than power politics as the basis for contemporary intervention. Although the name remains the same, intervention has developed around completely new motivations and objectives. This is partly what makes the story of intervention so interesting. After the Cold War a long-

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standing practice was redefined into something new and, unlike its previous form, desired in the international environment. The roots of this transformation lie in UN peacekeeping efforts, which established a precedent for external action (though limited) based on serving a collective interest. The UN tradition of peacekeeping began in  with the creation of the United Nations Emergency Force (UNEF ) in Egypt. UNEF established the model for UN peacekeeping by operating on the principles of host country consent, impartiality, and resort to arms only in self-defense. The UN hoped simply to create conditions in which negotiation toward peace would be possible. Early peacekeeping operations did not affect the structure of the state in which they occurred and were primarily interpositional forces designed to separate warring parties.10 Only one, the United Nations Operation in the Congo (ONUC) violated those principles.11 That began to change in  with the transition operation in Namibia and the realization that peacekeeping could not be effective without long-term efforts to alter the structures that gave rise to violence. Then Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali championed a broader approach in his report, An Agenda for Peace, which promoted the idea of peace building and included that concept along with peace enforcement and peacemaking as important corollaries of peacekeeping.12 Increasing attention to the need for postconflict efforts to eliminate violence led UN operations to evolve into “second generation” missions including reform and rehabilitation as explicit goals.13 That led to an increase in peacekeeping operations targeting political and social development as well as security issues, with thirty-one of the fifty-four peacekeeping missions in the UN’s history authorized in  or later and incorporating these expanded goals.14 Rather than simply trying to stop conflict, peace building seeks to resolve its sources in the present and promote reforms that reduce its likelihood in the future. The efforts in Angola, Mozambique, El Salvador, and Cambodia all exemplified the new approach to peacekeeping, with varying degrees of success. In most of these cases political issues received the most focus, with efforts centered on establishing elections and creating a basis for accountable governance.

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The advent of second-generation approaches led to a further expansion into multidimensional operations that include enforcement and implementation of peace agreements, as well as rebuilding.15 This third-generation style of peacekeeping operations is distinguished by an emphasis on military force and the potential absence of two prerequisites for all other types of peacekeeping: an accepted peace agreement and host country consent to the operation. While early missions of this type focused on the military role in establishing security, later operations have made rehabilitation an equally important goal. Limited reform programs proved insufficient, leading to the development of nation-building mandates and comprehensive reform programs for government, economics, and social issues. This new approach reflects a normative shift that opens sovereign matters once exempt from intervention to become legitimate targets of international action.16 On its own, however, the changing view of peacekeeping did not necessarily herald a change in intervention as a whole. After all, peacekeeping was used during the Cold War era as well, when intervention most frequently corresponded to power interests. There is no reason why conflict resolution agendas as promoted by international organizations cannot coexist with the geostrategic agendas of states. Even the extension of peacekeeping in both the number and scope of operations should not be expected to change the fundamental security interests of states. Other forces were therefore required to change perceptions of intervention itself.

Globalization Contemporary intervention may have grown out of peacekeeping, but its philosophical justifications came from a larger trend affecting the world—globalization. Although many associate the term primarily with the development of economic interdependence, its meaning is far broader. Indeed, globalization has had a direct impact on the course of intervention by shaping important ideas like conflict resolution and human rights and giving them greater relevance in the post–Cold War world. To understand globalization through econom-

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ics alone thus misses an important point. As Jean-Marie Guehenno argues, The flaw in this analysis is to imagine that globalization can be understood wholly in terms of financial markets, and to ignore the political issue of legitimacy. It is more than a purely economic phenomenon; it affects not only the movement of goods and capital, but also the circulation of people and ideas—and therefore all aspects of our lives. Globalization is a process that changes not only the external context within which states operate, but also the very nature of states and political communities. The idea of autonomous human communities, democratically or nondemocratically pursuing their own interests, is put into question.17

That argument does not preclude the possibility of fragmentation, nor does it suggest similarity throughout the world. Instead, Guehenno points out that ideas, interests, and problems are now widely shared. What were once local issues, such as AIDS in Africa, have gained global relevance. Globalization has reduced the importance of state borders and sparked debate on the definition of legitimacy. States are no longer viewed as discrete and separate units free to establish their own rules. Governments are no longer judged in isolation from the welfare of their citizens. Globalization affected both the role of states and the configuration of the international system. New standards of behavior have developed, or, perhaps more accurately, what were once suggestions for state behavior are becoming standards against which the privileges of states are judged. Those standards place increasing emphasis on multilateralism and the relevance of institutions. The changes mean that “legitimacy does not stem from material and coercive power alone.”18 The recognition of certain issues as transnational problems helped collective action become more central to the international system by demonstrating that no state could isolate itself from potential problems. Nor did most states want to bear the costs on their own. Although that calculation is based in self-interest rather than moral commitment, it opened up avenues of cooperation on issues and in forms that realism would not predict. National security is inherently

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a unilateral concern, but the areas that led to cooperation centered on problems like the environment, transnational crime, and economic stability. In some sense they may be tied to conceptions of national security, but in an indirect way. Most important, these issues were defined as challenges to the collective rather than the unilateral good. The Asian economic flu of  and the domino effect it had on other economies was a case in point. As a result, the tradition of viewing issues from an exclusively national perspective began to break down. States and organizations alike began what Kofi Annan calls a “quiet revolution” toward different modes of interaction, changing the rules and expectations shaping international relations in the process.19 But the consequences of this aspect of globalization are far greater than simply encouraging states to work more cooperatively. The expectation of multilateralism elevated the importance of institutions, as representatives of collective interests. Increasingly, legitimacy came to be defined by institutional sanction, particularly in regard to the use of force.20 Multilateralism therefore places some constraints on how powerful nations exercise their might; it is not simply about form but refers to substance, or what John Ruggie calls “principled meanings.”21 It works on the basis of generalized principles of conduct that define appropriate actions regardless of the various participants’ specific interests. A practical demonstration came in the US-UN dialogue on forcing change in Iraq. The United States did shape UN debate, but its appeal to organizational support reflected a compromise between the preferred US approach and the preferences of other nations. Although the Bush administration had previously downplayed the need for UN approval, it found it could not avoid or ignore the organization. Its decision to use force without authorization also showed that power can still defy restrictions. In this case multilateral restraint and institutional legitimacy were not enough. Realist influences are still evident and go a long way in explaining US actions. But, the value of power is tempered somewhat, as the prolonged hostilities suggest, because power cannot be effective without legitimacy and does not itself convey legitimacy, as it once did.

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The ideas circulated by globalization also included a trend of democratization. That trend was different from earlier cases of democratization because it was much more global in its reach, stretching from Eastern Europe to Asia to Africa, and the contagion effects were much greater.22 Countries and individuals have not simply felt the effects of democratization, they have actively sought them out. The events in Ukraine in late  are a telling example. Simultaneously, intergovernmental organizations like the UN became more vocal in promoting democratic ideals as building blocks of peace. The support of such organizations helped a consensus on values coalesce at the core of the system. Max Singer and Aaron Wildavsky argue that part of the world became fundamentally different as a result, with realist interests giving way to liberal ones. They support this claim by pointing to the fact that democracies and nondemocracies no longer have equivalent moral standing in international affairs.23 Legitimacy is now determined by the extent to which a state embraces liberal principles. International organizations are more relevant in this world precisely because they represent shared values and help determine legitimacy. Michael Mandelbaum describes this as the triumph of the “Wilsonian triad,” the ideas of disarmament, democracy, and free trade espoused by Woodrow Wilson after World War I.24 Terry Karl and Phillipe Schmitter argue that the expansion of these ideas led to the creation of a fledgling international community, or what they call an “embryonic ‘transnational civil society.’”25 That community includes states as well as organizations, groups, and sometimes even individuals. More nonstate actors are now involved in the international system and place focus on issues that are traditionally less important on a state level but very important on an individual level. In the eyes of Richard Falk, the development of civil society around ideas like human rights, democratization, and environmental issues constitutes “globalization from below.”26 States are no longer the only agenda setters in international relations. Issues that concern individuals are therefore more relevant, because nonstate actors now have a forum to make their interests known. Many of these issues are associated with the liberal trends of globalization and address the protection of individuals and

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standards of government behavior. Michael Edwards argues that civil society became more important over the last decade because pluralistic forms of government and a “strong social and institutional infrastructure” are now considered important for development.27 More simply, participation matters. Development in this case refers not only to economics but also to human, political, and national advancement. The core states of the international system subscribe to similar sets of rules and principles, as Singer and Wildavsky note, making consensus on ends easier to attain even if means remain debated. Mandelbaum analyzes the impact of liberal ideas by looking at the recent speed of cultural diffusion, arguing that the influence of the liberal core increased, paradoxically, after its direct control over peripheral states ended with the Cold War. States resisted ideas that seemed linked to domination but willingly accepted them when linked to choice. Liberal principles became even more attractive as a result and served to emphasize the force of values over the value of force. That opened up debate on issues of sovereignty and governance, particularly the measure of legitimacy for a government. Globalization therefore changed the meaning of international and domestic legitimacy. Internationally, state actions are expected to be backed by institutional approval, and domestically, governments are judged by their relationship with their citizens. Responsibility rests at both levels and is used as a measuring stick for what states and actions count as legitimate. According to Mandelbaum, “the hegemony of liberal values conferred broader international acceptance of the proposition that every government ought to respect those values.”28 That does not mean that states cannot pursue their interests but rather that they are judged more stringently on how they do so. Although for Western countries the spread of liberal ideas and the spread of liberal markets were closely linked, Mandelbaum also sees economic development as a means to promote other consequences of globalization, like the emergence of civil society and technological development. Amartya Sen concurs. Though not writing specifically on globalization, he champions economic development as an important precursor to other forms of social and political interaction and stability.29 The development of civil society is particularly important because it introduces greater demand

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for participation and accountability within states. Economic advancement thus connects to agendas promoting the welfare of individuals and the relationship between government and citizen. Globalization can also have negative consequences, as described by Joseph Stiglitz. Western officials often insist on liberal economic practices regardless of a country’s preparation and suitability, with disastrous effects. Aspects like sweatshop labor in the Third World create controversy over the appropriateness of “development” and its impact on individuals. Democratization may also have painful effects by exposing societies to competition that results in lawlessness and protracted violence.30 And many fear that the combined effects of globalization erode distinctions and traditions, replacing cultural uniqueness with Western values and Coca-Cola. Globalization is not an unqualified benefit. The key point for this study centers on the ideas that globalization generated. Intervention changed because new ideas swept the world, and those ideas came from the connections that globalization created. The information revolution helped make those connections possible. Joseph Nye argues that “globalization preceded the information revolution but has been greatly enhanced by it, opening up opportunities for private transnational actors such as corporations and nonprofits to establish standards and strategies that strongly affect public policies that were once the domain of central governments.”31 Issues became global in large part because of the ease and limited cost of spreading information. Ideas and interests could be easily shared and information on crises widely disseminated. As problems became recognized as transnational, groups became transnational as well, reaching across borders to lobby and agitate for solutions more effectively. Nonstate actors could thus influence and even help define international agendas and then pressure national policymakers to respond. Nye credits the Internet in particular with increasing the voice of human rights activists and leading to an explosion in the number of NGOs worldwide. Falk also credits technology for changing the world because it raised the expectations of citizens and increased connections between them, thus creating a new form of pressure on governments. That created space for ideas not traditionally given priority, such as

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environmental degradation and land mines, to gain prominence. It also led to important changes in conflict resolution, human rights, and the civic organizations that focused on those two problems. News organizations and the role of images may also play a role in changing ideas by bringing knowledge of tragedy (or triumph) to anyone with a TV set or computer modem. Pictures have played a role in many cases of contemporary intervention, by either sparking interest in the crisis or building consensus. President George Bush is said to have been deeply affected by photos of starving Somali children in . Similarly, Richard Holbrooke credits the images of Kosovar Albanians being forced to leave their homes as a factor that helped maintain the NATO coalition in , even when the bombing campaign went much longer than anticipated.32 It would be dangerous, however, to attribute too much power to pictures alone. Photographs of the Rwandan massacres of  famously did not lead to intervention, nor did images of the crisis in Bosnia before . Even the case of Somalia may not show a strong “CNN effect.” Warren Strobel’s analysis of the media’s role shows that coverage spiked after the administration committed to US assistance but was very limited at other times.33 Many other factors, including perhaps some very personal reactions, need to be present in order to translate the horror at what is seen into the political will to intervene. Three trends sparked by globalization can help create that will: conflict resolution, NGOs, and human rights.

Conflict Resolution Although conflict resolution has been a relevant idea since the end of World War I, it became a central concern for the international community at the end of the Cold War. Its emergence was spurred in part by the numerous civil conflicts that erupted shortly after the Cold War ended, in part by pressure from citizens’ groups and organizations and in part by the new possibilities for collective action and discussion of international crises opened by the absence of the East-West divide. Perhaps the most important change, however, came as a result of in-

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creasing expectations on states to respond to crises around the world. Three factors fueled those expectations. NGOs had an important effect because they advocated greater effort on behalf of conflict resolution and served as an international conscience of sorts in both evaluating and promoting strategies of reform.34 Practical experience, particularly notable failures, also had an effect. Finally, demands for more and better responses only became louder when things went badly, as cases like Bosnia and Somalia demonstrated. International actors increasingly found that they could not avoid responsibility. Although in past eras failure might have led to retrenchment, especially in cases that did not threaten national security, expectations began to change, dragging states reluctantly along.35 In this case too, NGOs and IGOs were influential in shaping agendas of expectation and insisting on intervention as an international interest. Finally, changing definitions of sovereignty helped shape new perspectives. The convergence of state-based and individual-based security agendas led to the increasing articulation of the claim that sovereignty might be more porous than often thought. Although this remained an uncomfortable position for many states (and does still) the emerging norm of humanitarian intervention led to more discussion of what intervention might actually accomplish and eroded the obstacle that sovereignty posed.36 An expectation of commitment to conflict resolution became more central throughout the s, mirroring the emphasis on responsible governance and human rights. Conflict resolution also became a frequent topic of Security Council debates focused on finding more effective means of dealing with crises.37 Conflict resolution stresses noncoercive means to avoid or defuse crisis by relying on negotiation, mediation, and problem solving. It relies on close attention to the sources of conflict and on a variety of programs to move groups from the logic of power to the logic of rights-based approaches to interaction.38 Significantly, conflict resolution proceeds on the assumption that conflicts are not zero-sum. Success for one group need not imply defeat for another, rather “there is the possibility of discovering options for an integrative outcome whereby all adversaries gain much of what they need or want.” 39 Conflict resolution also takes account of the shifting nature of conflict,

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recognizing that interests and needs change as the context and opposing parties themselves change. Approaches therefore seek to engage different constituencies to develop inclusive solutions. Traditional military intervention does not constitute a form of conflict resolution, no matter how hard its practitioners may have tried to press that claim. Indeed, conflict resolution as commonly defined is neither violent nor coercive; it relies on problem-solving methods to reach agreement. Third-party efforts aim to create “the political will and capacities for a peace process to emerge.”40 But the task of conflict resolution grew more complicated as the pattern of conflict changed after World War II. Hugh Miall, Oliver Ramsbotham, and Tom Woodhouse note that the primary cause of warfare changed in that period from grievances between states to the “deprivation of human needs.” That change helped focus attention on the quality of governance and the link between conflict and the state’s role in providing for its citizens. Miall and his collaborators conclude that contemporary wars are more like medieval conflicts in their lack of differentiation between the state and society, soldier and civilian, political and social concerns.41 How well a state provides for its citizens helps determine its stability. That means that contemporary conflicts directly engage issues of legitimacy and human rights, and connect to the liberal consensus promoted through globalization. While conflict resolution has always been part of a humanitarian agenda, it also constitutes a crucial part of development and social transformation agendas. Conflict resolution seeks to change the norms on which societies operate by providing mechanisms for developing consensus and respecting rights in divided communities.42 It serves a particularly important role now, because “strengthening the capacity of conflict resolution within societies and political institutions . . . is a vital part of the response to the phenomena of warlordism and ethnonationalism.”43 Peace building forms a subset or specific form of conflict resolution that pursues two tasks: preventing a relapse into war and creating a self-sustaining peace. It shifts focus from stopping the violence itself to eliminating the underlying causes of violence. In a sense, peace building offers a marketplace where the end of violence

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is traded for other commodities, like political or economic opportunities.44 It envisions not only different forms of interaction but also greater access for all members of a society, with emphasis on transformation evident in both the conflict resolution and peacebuilding literature.45 Peace building aims to change how politics and society function by developing institutions and mechanisms that allow groups to interact and even bargain without resorting to violence. Obviously not a simple process, it requires long-term involvement with a society at both the governmental and grassroots levels. 46 In this sense resolution is a process rather than a single event or conclusion. The ability of agreements or reforms to decrease the grievances and incorporate the preferences of each side determines their success. John Davies cautions that solutions must be sensitive to the context, and should not promote reforms that the local context cannot support.47 NGOs are particularly important in promoting this form of conflict resolution. They are not solely engaged in relief work but also seek to promote resolution efforts at the nonofficial or grassroots level in order to instill rights-based norms and encourage consensual and inclusive interactions. The process of conflict resolution therefore need not, and in fact should not, take place exclusively at formal levels.48 Given that this book focuses on military intervention, it may seem strange to engage in discussion of an approach to conflict that eschews the use of force. Conflict resolution and intervention are more connected than they may seem, however. The multilateral interventions listed in table . mark a very different form of intervention than has been previously seen. They are sanctioned by international institutions, limited in their scope by mandate and international law, and designed primarily to create the security conditions necessary to begin the process of peace building. Only NATO’s intervention in Kosovo failed to meet these criteria by acting outside UN sanction, thus violating international law. It was, however, closely connected to peacebuilding objectives. Multilateral military action thus forms a new aspect of conflict resolution by serving as a tool to make resolution possible, addressing the first task of ending violence, and providing support to peace-building initiatives. The International Commission

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on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS) explicitly defines the international community’s responsibility to react to “situations of compelling human need” and describes military intervention as an appropriate response in extreme cases.49 As defined by the ICISS, this type of action operates only under the strict parameters outlined above, and therefore precludes the possibility of individual states invoking the claim of conflict resolution to legitimize pursuit of their own interests. The UN currently holds responsibility for establishing the legitimacy of intervention, though other organizations can claim that role under certain circumstances. The inclusion of military intervention under the conflict resolution rubric symbolizes part of a larger expansion of the concept. Miall, Ramsbotham, and Woodhouse note that the particular form of conflict facing the post–Cold War world required changes in international response, particularly when conflict resolution was attempted in active war zones.50 The concept has expanded at both extremes, from persuasive to coercive, with military intervention and citizen diplomacy both increasingly linked to conflict resolution approaches. On the persuasive end, it is now widely recognized that in some contexts state officials are not the most effective mediators for peace processes, no matter how pure their goals, because they are associated with the agenda of the state they represent. As such, they cannot always generate the trust necessary for success. “Alternative” forms of diplomacy pursued through nonofficial channels, such as prominent citizens or former leaders, expanded the potential reach and flexibility of diplomatic approaches.51 The efforts of Jimmy Carter, Nelson Mandela, and George Mitchell are prominent examples of Track II or “citizens” diplomacy. On the coercive end, international and regional organizations alike began to legitimize the use of force in order to end violence and provide room for transformation. This position rested on the assumption that peace processes could not begin until conflict ended, and it defined force as a necessary though not entirely desirable tool. NATO’s missions in Bosnia and Kosovo are examples of forceful methods designed to create and maintain peace processes. Significantly, these strategies are not mutually exclusive but are often used in combination at different points throughout a crisis, as will be discussed in the case studies.

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Nongovernmental Organizations As noted above, NGOs played a big role in changing mindsets and expectations. Their influence was dramatically affected by the spread of ideas and networking power that was part of globalization. During the s alone the number of NGOs increased from five thousand to approximately twenty-seven thousand.52 That increase reflected the role of technology in making information easier to obtain and disseminate and in connecting large numbers of people quickly. The Internet gives one person with a cause global reach, and the scope and relevance of NGOs grew from that simple possibility. As a consequence, in the s governments around the world suddenly found themselves facing a new kind of pressure group. NGOs operate by forming coalitions of interest around specific issues or goals, which then help “develop new norms by directly pressing governments and business leaders to change policies, and indirectly by altering public perceptions of what governments and firms should be doing.”53 The second point may be the most important, because it means that NGOs actually influence international agendas. By defining the issues that warrant international attention they create expectations about appropriate policy. In short, they help determine what issues are important. Governments that ignore these issues face public and private criticism. This function helped create the burden of responsibility attached to intervention. Governments can certainly ignore NGOs, and often do, but the amount of material NGOs can produce and the speed at which they disseminate it allow them to keep the issue relevant and increase the costs on governments substantially. As NGOs placed increasing emphasis on human rights, they also generated the expectation that state policy would incorporate that agenda. NGOs are therefore one of the primary forces promoting the spread of ideas. Reports, statistics, and information are now easily available on the Internet, making Amnesty International, for example, far more effective at pressing its message even though its activities are little changed from two decades ago. Although NGOs have long been active in providing humanitarian and emergency aid, the development of organizations dedicated to Intervention Reconsidered

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the study of conflict helped shape post–Cold War intervention.54 Organizations such as the International Crisis Group (ICG) and Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR) proliferated in the s in an attempt to aid in the prevention and containment of conflict. Existing organizations like the Carter and Stimson centers also turned greater attention to conflict resolution. These NGOs make an important contribution by raising awareness about crises throughout the world and by providing analysis about problems and potential solutions. Mary Anderson defines four different mandates for NGOs in addressing conflict: providing relief, promoting long-term social and economic development, promulgating and monitoring human rights, and promoting negotiation, mediation, and other nonviolent approaches to dealing with conflict.55 Not only are NGOs instrumental in focusing attention on the fact of conflict, therefore, they are also instrumental in promoting strategies to deal with it. Organizations like the ICG have emerged as leading and highly respected voices outlining necessary reforms and means of implementation. NGOs also serve as monitoring agencies, publicizing the positives and negatives of international strategies and disseminating information about what organizations and states are doing. That gives negotiators and international organizations greater credibility when they are involved in intervention because they cannot hide their motives or actions as easily as in the past.56 The constant reports on international activities in Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Iraq are a case in point. In a sense, NGOs form a global conscience. ICG analyses and briefings, for example, function as a report card for international involvement, and the organization has not been shy about dispensing criticism.57 NGO attention makes it far more difficult for international actors to pursue selfish or manipulative strategies and forces them to admit to and reconfigure failed approaches. NGOs thus place a spotlight on international actors, keeping them honest in terms of objectives and forcing debate about priorities and appropriate strategy. They deserve much of the credit for putting internal conflict on international agendas and advancing goals of conflict resolution. As Falk notes, NGOs and organizations like the UN provided the “energy” that put human rights into the global policy agenda.58 State governments were Johnny-

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come-latelies, adjusting their agenda only after global demand became quite strong. The transnational civil society noted by Falk and others helps feed the development of NGOs and ensures the centrality of value-based interests alongside the traditional concerns of states. In some cases NGOs have even acted in lieu of states, providing information, mediation, and filling basic needs where states cannot.59 NGOs play particularly important roles in peace building and conflict resolution; in many cases they are the primary means used to entrench new norms on divided communities and find ways to change cultures of violence.60 And although NGOs vary, like Web sites, in quality, they form an important means of extending agendas based on human rather than strictly national interests. They also belie one of the common myths about internal conflict—the idea that outsiders can do nothing to reduce the animosities or grievances that afflict a given society. Perhaps one of the most important roles of NGOs in extending humanitarian agendas was to constantly reinforce the belief that third-party action is essential for ending violence. In so doing they put pressure on states to respond and helped revolutionize international attitudes toward the problem of conflict and its reduction.

Human Rights Human rights have been an issue of international importance since the end of World War II, but the protection of individuals has generally been considered secondary to the rights of states. The norm of state sovereignty confers on states the right to determine their own domestic affairs, which often works in contradiction to the protection of human rights. Moreover, the competition between the United States and the Soviet Union throughout the Cold War meant that human rights were a luxury to be addressed only when security concerns had been dealt with. Even Jimmy Carter, an ardent proponent of human rights, found that he had to compromise in the interest of national security. The Reagan administration reinforced that point through its stated commitment to embrace authoritarian regimes as

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long as they were anticommunist. The United States funded a variety of repressive leaders who passed that litmus test, including Zaire’s Mobutu Sese Seko and El Salvador’s military junta. In multilateral organizations human rights fared little better. The UN regime was toothless. Regional organizations such as the Organization of African Unity (OAU) emphasized the sovereign right of their members to pursue their domestic policies unhindered and explicitly stated that the needs of states took precedence over human rights interests. The end of the Cold War and the forces of globalization changed perceptions in numerous ways. First, the United States and Russia no longer had to gain allies at all costs. Conditionality began to be introduced into bilateral and multilateral lending, requiring responsible governance and liberalization among aid recipients. Concern for the welfare of citizens accompanied efforts to encourage democratic reforms and reflected growing attention to the quality of governance. That emphasis also affected national publics from Africa to Latin America, who began to press for accountability in government. Second, the ideas revolution focused attention on humanitarian issues. Citizens around the globe began demanding greater attention to human rights and dignity. A broad humanitarian agenda became a dominant concern during the s and was fueled by technology’s ability to make abuses widely known. International organizations played a prominent role in shaping that agenda. The UN in particular defined human rights as central to its mission and closely related to international peace (see chapter ). Finally, numerous writers began to argue that sovereignty should not provide an ironclad protection for a state. This trend was encouraged by the  passage of UN Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) , which authorized international action to protect the persecuted Kurdish population in Iraq even without governmental consent. Increasingly, human rights were seen to have a “sovereignty-transcending quality” that justified efforts to protect them.61 The last issue contradicts the most basic interpretation of sovereignty, the right of states to be free from external interference. It also corresponds to Guehenno’s claim that globalization represents a collapse of the separation between domestic and international concerns.62

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In debate on UNSCR , several countries suggested that some governmental behavior might be so egregious as to warrant international attention.63 A year later Boutros-Ghali argued for reconsideration of the meaning of sovereignty in order to ensure the protection of individuals from their own government. Numerous scholars concurred, emphasizing the need to strike a more reasonable balance between protecting individuals and protecting states.64 Though sovereignty remains a guiding norm of the international system, debate on its extent and scope in the context of human rights has succeeded in making responsible governance a legitimate international concern. Karl and Schmitter view this as part of the emerging liberal consensus, which makes debate on legitimacy and the responsibility of governments to their citizens a central part of the international agenda.65

Intervention Reconsidered As a result of the influences discussed above, academic discourse also changed to highlight the challenge posed by contemporary conflict. The style, scope, and success of various types of peace settlements became topics of scholarly debate. Discussion on the sources of conflict grew more sophisticated, moving away from explanations based on deep-seated hatreds to approaches based on legitimate issues of exclusion and limitation. The literature developed a common thread that emphasized the role outside actors could play in guaranteeing the terms of peace agreements and helping to develop cultures of trust.66 Increasingly, theoretical and practical experience argued for viewing conflict resolution in its broadest sense to include strategies for reforming or even rebuilding states. Previously the end of violence was considered synonymous with peace. NGOs in particular criticized that position and pressed for greater efforts to create the conditions necessary to sustain peace and prevent the reemergence of violence. Intervention changed as a result. Whereas during the Cold War institutionally sanctioned intervention meant primarily peacekeeping, by the mid-s it often meant peacemaking, peace building, and

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where necessary, peace enforcement. Those three approaches reflect the understanding of intervention as a means of transformation. International actors came to view intervention as part of a broad strategy of conflict resolution, a first step in the process of changing cultures of violence. Certain types of intervention were exempted from traditional and legal restrictions. While unilateral action remained suspect and largely taboo, collective actions taken under the aegis of or in cooperation with international organizations gained legitimate status. And in some rare cases organizations even sanctioned unilateral action. Intervention’s focus therefore shifted toward an idea long considered central to conflict resolution strategies—the need to address the causes of violence rather than simply violence itself. That proposition may seem outlandish from a realist or Marxist point of view, since peace building seems to yield nothing of benefit to the intervenor. It seems even more strange when considering that Tillema and others have used quantitative studies to demonstrate that cases of intervention at least partially sustain the theory of power politics, with the great powers some of the most frequent actors.67 That corresponds with the expectation that states will pursue intervention in order to attain specific interests, usually strategic or economic, in order to enhance their own position or weaken that of a rival. It is supported by Feste’s discussion of superpower interventions mentioned above. Self-interest is recognized as one of the most central motivators of state action, even among nonrealists, and it is hard to imagine states committing military resources without an immediately compelling need or benefit. Undertaking such a high-cost action seems to demand exigencies of security or to argue for the benefits of domination. Frederic Pearson, Baumann, and Pickering state specifically that “humanitarian motives usually do little to further intervenors’ power interests,” while Frank Wayman and Paul Diehl note that “ethical norms of working for the good of humanity or for a cause greater than the nation. . . . are presumed to be too weak to alter state behavior, except when such alteration does not adversely affect state security.”68 These arguments suggest that the noted change may be more formal than substantive, with norms and institutions perhaps supplying convenient political cover for other interests, as has

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happened in the past. Pearson and his collaborators say as much in their study on intervention and realpolitik when they note that the United States favors multilateral action through the UN when its dominance is most secure, as immediately after the Cold War.69 While acknowledging that strategic interests remain relevant, I also suggest that the international changes witnessed since  have transformed intervention, moving it away from realist interests and toward normative, conflict resolution agendas. Pearson, Bauman, and Pickering noted the possibility of such a shift in : “the decline in territorial interventions, the relative insignificance of economic and military-diplomatic protective interventions, and the noticeable increase in humanitarian undertakings all seem to suggest that decisions to use force might be based on values not fully captured by conventional realist thinking.”70 That does not mean that realist intervention does not still occur, but it may mean that it is less accepted, even while intervention as a whole is more accepted than in the past. Moreover, humanitarian motivations have more relevance in explaining why intervention occurs than was previously thought. That argument implies two hypotheses: first, that intervention is now generally considered a positive action, and second, that intervention pursues collective goods rather than serving the national interests of the participants. Both propositions will be analyzed in the case studies to determine whether intervention does indeed correspond to these changes. The second hypothesis is immediately relevant, however, because it leads to a third important change—the expansion of multilateral intervention from a relatively hands-off treatment of political issues to the complex programs of rehabilitation and restructuring that are common today. Changing thought on intervention suggested that treating the symptoms was not enough to resolve conflict. Resolving a crisis requires focusing on its causes, which means addressing not only the political but also the economic and social divisions that led to violence. The evolution of intervention began, therefore, with the relatively simple concept of peacekeeping and developed, in the space of a decade, to something far more complex. This is particularly noteworthy because participating states do not gain large rewards for their actions. In fact, they spend large sums for intervention and are

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often subject to intense controversy over both their methods and objectives. Moreover, the international community has moved a long way from its initial belief in the intractability of conflicts, as exemplified by early reactions to the breakup of Yugoslavia. Policymakers now recognize that state weakness leads to conflict, or at least provides the conditions that allow it to rise, and have begun focusing on how to change those weaknesses.71 As a result, outside actors can focus on the causes of conflict and the approach to resolution as two sides of the same coin. Separating parties is no longer considered an adequate objective. Though it might lead to a hiatus in violence now, renewed conflict will be a certainty later. Altering that cycle requires changing the dynamics that produce tensions within the target society. That means operations are far more than military exercises but extend to address the political, economic, and social fault lines that produced violence. A glance at the structure and objectives of each multilateral operation since the end of the Cold War reflects this trend toward more comprehensive intervention. Intervention evolved to incorporate conflict resolution approaches, specifically the idea that conflict need not be a zero-sum proposition. Table . summarizes each mission’s goals. Between Somalia and Kosovo mandates became progressively more involved and more closely linked to the concept of transformation inherent in conflict resolution. Intervention now includes military action and various degrees of societal reform conducted by an international organization rather than a single state. In that form it finds broad international support and legitimacy. The continuum of intervention described in table . ranges from the use of force in a limited humanitarian context to its use in support of a full-fledged international protectorate. There are six distinct steps along the continuum, each of which requires greater levels of engagement in local issues: humanitarian aid operations (no reconstructive engagement), peacemaking, peace building, peace building with peace enforcement, nation building, and the creation of an international protectorate. As noted earlier, peace building and nation building differ in the extent of reforms initiated. While peace building seeks to reform existing

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structures and may address only selected areas, nation building oversees the creation of entirely new processes and structures in the political, economic, and social realm. The most complex approach yet tried is the international protectorate, where an international organization takes over state functions. Table . Goals of multilateral intervention Liberia  Somalia  Haiti  Bosnia  Sierra Leone  Serbia  East Timor  Afghanistan  Côte d’Ivoire  Dem. Rep. of Congo  Liberia  Haiti 

peacemaking humanitarian aid, limited peacemaking peace building, restoration of govt. peacemaking, nation building peacemaking/building, restoration of govt. peacemaking, creation of protectorate peacemaking, creation of protectorate removal of govt., nation building peacemaking, peace building peacemaking, peace building peacemaking, peace/nation building peacemaking, peace building

All the interventions undertaken since Somalia have sought to affect political and social relationships to some degree, with the extent of the rehabilitation varying with the circumstances. While restoring an elected government requires less reform, rebuilding and creating new governments requires a great deal. By giving each step along the continuum a value reflecting its level of complexity we can create a picture of the evolution intervention has undergone. We can code the steps as follows:  = humanitarian aid operations;  = peacemaking;  = peace building;  = peace building with enforcement;  = nation building; and  = creating an international protectorate (see fig. ., below). The level of difficulty has risen quite dramatically. Somalia represents one end, where participants still feared involvement. Kosovo and East Timor represent the highest point, with full-fledged international control. A similar operation was discussed for Liberia in , although the Security Council eventually settled on a comprehensive

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Figure .. Continuum of intervention nation-building operation to work in cooperation with a transition government.72 As the graph in figure . shows, most interventions undertaken since  involve peace building plus enforcement or more. Only two operations, Haiti in  and the DRC in , fall below that level. The DRC is still in a limited peace-building stage, but the UN Organization Mission in the Congo was recently expanded and is expected to engage in more reform programs once foreign forces have been withdrawn and security established. It is safe to say, therefore, that all interventions undertaken since  have worked with comprehensive reform agendas. They also tend to be more protracted, with development and implementation taking years, perhaps even decades.

The Problem of Success All this begs the question, does (or can) intervention work? In studying why states intervene, Regan argues that action is least likely when 

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predictions of success are low or expectations of cost are high.73 The historical record supports the conclusion that both unilateral and multilateral intervention can attain national security interests. We have less evidence to suggest, however, that success can be attained when intervention focuses on resolving conflict, in both the short and the long term, by facilitating the reconstruction and reformation of the state. That is a very different task from previous interventions because it requires building political processes and institutions, creating a basis for consensual politics and establishing a political and social environment of trust and common interest. The problem of changing how groups and societies perceive their environment and the other groups in it presents an enormous challenge. Nation building must build new structures, but, more fundamentally, group interests and “hostile imagery must change if conflict is to be reduced and resolved.”74 The experience of recent interventions indicates that this challenge has not yet been met. This presents a paradox because instances of intervention do not seem to be waning. In a multilateral setting, therefore, success may not be an accurate predictor and reinforces the suggestion that realist interests do not capture the trend of contemporary intervention. There is as yet no example of a complete (meaning the state is fully funcional and independently stable) and successful intervention, although both East Timor and Sierra Leone give reason for cautious optimism. The persistence of intervention in the absence of success is a strange twist to state behavior. The terms success and failure are themselves difficult to define; although they may be easy to judge in reference to national interest, when talking about conflict resolution they are highly relative terms. That does not mean that we cannot reasonably evaluate outcomes, merely that we must be careful about how we do so. What exactly constitutes success? Obviously a fully functional and independent state is the ultimate objective, but that cannot be the only means by which to measure the value of an intervention. Stephen Stedman cautions that setting standards too high prevents differentiation between objectives: “It is not that attaining good things like economic growth, equitable development, and good governance should not be striven for; it is that they form a useless standard for evaluating

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implementation actions that take place in a short period of time.”75 More important, perhaps, it is dangerous to assume that success and failure are contending poles or, as Marieke Kleiboer writes of mediation, that “a success is a nonfailure and vice versa.”76 In peace building, as with conflict resolution in general, success and failure are not clear opposites. The challenges are complex and require long-term effort to resolve. Success will rarely be quick, and what seems a failure could over time demonstrate cautious yet solid progress. The proper term of judgment is not success at all, therefore, since that implies some fixed and determinative endpoint, but rather progress, which acknowledges transformation as a process and allows for continually evolving relationships and structures within government and economics. Effective statehood is the best marker of success, but it cannot be expected to arrive quickly. Intervention should be evaluated primarily by its effectiveness in building toward working state structures, with democracy the goal but realism (as opposed to idealism) the guide. To begin progress toward success several issues need to be dealt with. First, costs must be imposed on the use of violence to attain political ends. Second, representative institutions must be created and made effective. Third, access to political and economic power needs to be broadened. Fourth, group identity needs to be reduced in the political and economic realms. Finally, citizens and local elites need to support the new processes and institutions. None of these challenges is easy, and for intervention to truly resolve conflict it must attain all five. The fourth and fifth may well be the most difficult, because they require changing how people express their interests and what they define as relevant issues. How well current efforts have succeeded can be examined more closely in the case studies to follow.

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2 Theoretical Foundations

I   chapter, I discussed a variety of informal changes—globalization, technology, liberal ideas—that have affected the practice of intervention. I call them informal because the changes came about as a result of innovation and diffusion. They were not the result of national policy or official decision making but rather of spreading ideas that affected citizens and states. Technological advancements had far-reaching implications that few world leaders could have anticipated. Globalization may have begun with economics but it extended to affect much more, creating a ferment of ideas on both the public and private levels. These changes provided the backdrop for the more formal or official changes in international relations that are the subject of this chapter. Not all the ideas discussed below became officially written rules or guidelines, but they all became the subject of debate in formal contexts by national and international representatives. That debate began with one of the most basic issues, the meaning of international security. Although leaders, nations, and styles of warfare change over the ages, the concepts on which international relations function remain quite similar. The lessons of Thucydides still explain the behavior of

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states, even after centuries. But the effects of globalization have brought some of the central tenets of international relations into question. The emphasis on humanitarian agendas suggests that secondary issues are becoming increasingly important. At the same time, the technology revolution has eroded the inviolability of state borders by bridging political and cultural divides. Although states remain the essential foundation of international relations, they are neither as sacred nor as separate as was once thought. The consequences of greater connections between states and the ease with which goods, money, people, and ideas can cross borders challenge traditional understandings of the relative value of both states and individuals in the system. The development of humanitarian aid and conflict resolution agendas forced security to expand from a narrow concept, which related to the protection of states, to a more inclusive concept, which incorporates both people and values. The reconceptualization of security provided the theoretical foundation from which international organizations, norms, and law could draw to endorse new approaches to international relations and push the legitimacy of intervention. Since the end of World War II understandings of security have been defined by realism, which holds that “security rises and falls with the ability of a nation to deter an attack, or to defeat it.”1 Security is consonant with power and military force, a logical conclusion in the realist world where relationships are considered to be determined by state capabilities. The anarchic system forces states to build and mobilize their own resources to ensure survival. Although presumably most states would prefer a safe and stable distribution of power, trust is low and fear high, so each state is compelled to maximize its strength for its own protection. In such a world security becomes explicitly military because of the constant concern that another state will use force to gain its objectives. “As a consequence, if they are to be secure all states must be constantly ready to counter force with force.”2 The consequences of anarchy are expressed by the security dilemma in which each state’s safety waxes and wanes in relation to the strength of other states. If state A grows stronger, whether by acquiring weapons or forging alliances, state B is placed in a position of relative weak-

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ness. Every improvement in security for one creates greater insecurity in the other, forcing a constant competition for more power. The logic of the relationship creates a no-win situation wherein the goal recedes further with every step forward. No state can ever be secure, which is why realism promotes a zero-sum view of the world. Two characteristics of this image are important: the outward looking nature of security and the definition of security exclusively in terms of states. Threats to a state are external in the sense that they revolve around fears of attack from outside its national borders. The enemy is other states rather than domestic groups. Problems that might arise from within the state are generally ignored. The state seeks to protect itself from power-hungry or greedy neighbors who seek its lands and resources; little thought is given to internal competitions for power. As a result, the character of the state as a whole becomes ascendant, with the interests of its citizens subsumed within concern for state survival. The welfare of individuals is indistinguishable from that of the state. Realism implies that when a state is secure, its citizens will be as well. More important, realism creates a situation where states are the most important units in the system, with rights that transcend the concerns of the individuals within them. Challenges to this view began during the Cold War, as scholars and practitioners questioned the effectiveness of articulating individual interests through the state. The development of human rights organizations like Amnesty International helped spur debate on the meaning of security, as did movements for democracy and disarmament. Together they argued for a broader concept of security to include nonmilitary issues and greater focus on individuals.3 This trend accelerated after the Cold War as a result of the changes discussed in chapter .4 International events also contributed to the debate. The experiences of states formerly in the Eastern Bloc highlighted the inadequacy of security as then understood because the threats they faced, first as socialist nations and then as transitioning ones, were internal rather than external. The Soviet Union exemplified the problem when it collapsed as a result of its own weak structures rather than a US attack. Such crises defied traditional interpretations of security. As countries struggled, it also became clear that issues like trade, resource

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scarcity, and human migration could put immense pressure on states, threatening their prosperity and stability. The prevalence of internal rather than international war, a consistent trend since , was another important development. Of the twenty-five armed conflicts occurring around the globe in  only two were cross-border wars, or wars between states. The rest involved domestic conflicts between parties within a single state.5 Even the few cases of international war now often have strong internal links; the Democratic Republic of the Congo is a prime example of how internal collapse can spark interstate conflict. Not coincidentally, as Mohammed Ayoob points out, most of today’s conflicts are located in the Third World, where the process of state making is incomplete.6 Oddly, security now prevails among the most powerful states, who have the greatest capacity to wreak catastrophic harm. Security is far less certain among smaller and weaker states, particularly those engaged in efforts to develop and consolidate domestic power. Traditional realist views of international relations would predict just the opposite. Security thus clearly has an internal dimension, and Ayoob suggests that for many states the domestic context is more important than the external one. Studies on security in the Third World reinforce the emphasis on substate and transnational security threats, focusing particularly on corruption; civil conflict between national, ethnic, or religious groups; and weak structures of government as the primary challenges to states.7 The tendency to define international issues in terms of states alone therefore came under fire after the Cold War. As state abuse and neglect of citizens became more evident, it became harder to argue that states should be left alone because they were states. The increasing prominence of the humanitarian agenda and the organizations that supported it helped prompt this change in the s.8 Liberal perspectives, which look at domestic structures as an indicator of state behavior, also played a role by focusing attention on how states govern. The first official, though unintended, step in decreasing the sanctity of the state and increasing the relevance of individuals came in , when UN Security Council Resolution  identified Iraq’s repression of its Kurdish population as a threat to international peace

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and security. The use of that language effectively obligated the Security Council to involve itself and legitimized interference into the government’s conduct toward its citizens. That precedent formed a basis for future claims that state prerogatives might have some limitations. The subsequent crises in Somalia, Bosnia, and Rwanda helped keep focus on the plight of individuals caught in violence-ridden states. In fact, throughout the s state collapse came to be framed as much in humanitarian terms as in state-based terms.9 The masses of refugees and internally displaced persons that were a consequence of these crises ensured the attention of NGOs and various UN agencies, with a trickle-up effect to the Security Council. As a result, international organizations paid increasing attention to the treatment of individuals within states, as will be discussed below. That trend also allowed governmental conduct and legitimacy to become matters for international concern because of their links to internal conflict and state collapse.10 Humanitarian concerns and liberal governance became central to security conceptions (even though not all states practiced them) because they were perceived to be related to the stability of states and the likelihood of violence. That made conflict resolution and by extension, intervention, important tools for maintaining security because of their emphasis on the transformation of conflict-ridden societies and the connection between rightsbased rule and stability. Modern definitions of security are sometimes enlarged further by adding economics, gender issues, health, migration, the drug trade, and environmental concerns. These issues are often grouped under the term human security to denote nontraditional challenges that do not relate to national protection.11 Although state survival remains the rock-bottom item of relevance, many states no longer need fear the predation of their neighbors. Even terrorism, an important security concern with potential military implications, is addressed through attention to social and economic issues as well as military ones. As Afghanistan demonstrates, terrorist organizations thrive in weak states where the rule of law is absent and governments maintain high levels of independent discretion. State stability and legitimacy is therefore considered relevant to security. Although

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dealing with the terrorist threat may at times require a military response, the larger effort to decrease the appeal and capabilities of terrorist organizations is rooted in changing the economic and social contexts that give them life. Broad definitions of security do not sit well with everyone, however. George W. Bush made criticism of humanitarian intervention a big part of his campaign for the US presidency in , arguing that it eroded the military’s ability to fulfill its primary role of defense and distracted attention from more important security concerns. Similar claims were heard after Somalia, along with the argument that the use of military force should be reserved for situations directly tied to the national interest. In these views humanitarian issues may be important but are distinctly secondary to national protection. Bush’s realist view could also be seen in his argument for war in Iraq in , which relied more directly on national security in claiming the right to prevent national attack than did Tony Blair’s justification, which linked intervention to human rights abuses. (The expansion of security is not a universally accepted point, therefore.) Bush’s forays into nation building in Afghanistan and Iraq can be read in this light, as more traditional assertions of national interest. Nonetheless, the expansion of security in international discourse led to a corresponding change in the meaning of sovereignty. Sovereignty is a sacrosanct norm in international relations that implies the formal equality of states and conveys the right of noninterference. It has existed as a controlling norm for centuries, though its degree of protection often varies.12 Since the era of decolonization, sovereignty has been defined by territorial integrity and political independence. Sometimes referred to as “negative” sovereignty, this definition formed the basis for limiting imperialism by de-emphasizing a state’s capability in favor of its legal status.13 Although the ability of a state to carry out certain functions relative to its citizenry and other international actors formed the basis of sovereignty in other eras, the current interpretation focuses on form over substance. Sovereignty is in some sense a technical term because it is conveyed by achieving international recognition rather than by demonstrating effective statehood. Sovereign states are assumed to be capable of exercising authority at home

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and abroad, whether they actually are or not, and gain an international voice and legal protections with that status. States unanimously support the sovereignty norm because of the protection it provides. But that protection is now weaker than it was. Changes in security challenge conceptions of sovereignty in four ways: by recognizing human rights claims and focusing attention on individuals, by recognizing the state as a potential source of threat to its citizens, by recognizing the connection between state legitimacy and stability, and by recognizing the importance of a variety of issues that are not defined by state structures, such as global trade or environmental protections.14 While these changes do not necessarily contradict sovereignty, particularly since its protections are not as definitive as many leaders like to think, they do create a more porous definition than leaders have been used to accepting. They also make internal conditions an appropriate means of evaluating a state’s performance. The first two challenges to sovereignty are particularly relevant to intervention because they provide a justification for action when states fail to protect or provide for their citizens. The third provides a rationale for rebuilding efforts to develop states based on consensus rather than coercion. Making substate issues relevant international concerns forces attention to what goes on inside states, not just what happens among them. That focus on domestic policy is a rather radical concept in the international system. According to Michael Barnett, it allowed IGOs, specifically the UN, to establish a “vision of how member states should organize their domestic relations.”15 Human rights standards in particular are increasingly considered to override the principle of nonintervention, thus violating sovereignty. Numerous leaders have stated that the protection of individuals is central to the idea of security.16 It is not surprising, therefore, that the centrality of human rights remains a highly contested issue. Intervention means nothing less than the “violation of a state’s sovereignty in order to protect the fundamental human rights of those within its jurisdiction.”17 But what is fundamental? And what sort of reasonable balance should be struck between the rights of states and the protection of individuals?

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Even as states and institutions assume the right to peer into the internal affairs of others, many states contest the standards being applied. China, for example, is one of the strongest voices opposing the notion that human rights concerns legitimize interference with domestic issues. Many other states join China in supporting more stringent rules of sovereignty. Though intervention is not without precedent in the international system, in the past the target areas were often not considered states or had no international voice. Now we see entities of supposedly equal status subject to the judgment of outsiders. This is a logical consequence of expanding the concept of security, but it also creates controversy surrounding intervention. Theoretically, sovereignty should not allow such intrusions. The definition of human rights alone shows the problem. Widespread disagreement accompanies any attempt to define those rights that are fundamental, with proponents of non-Western views often legitimizing their position on the basis of religion or culture. Moreover, it is difficult to draw a clear definition of security because many of the issues are linked, with the drug trade, organized crime, and terrorism sometimes working hand in hand, or weak state structures giving rise to nationalist or ethnic conflicts. Problems that do not directly affect security may create consequences that do, but they may also impinge on areas usually considered within the domestic purview. How to resolve these differences remains an unsettled question. Although some issues remain unsettled, security is now understood more broadly than it was. Its expansion came directly from the ideas associated with globalization, and it had two important consequences. It drew attention to circumstances inside states, and it connected state stability to international stability. Those changes in turn made conflict resolution and intervention important parts of international responses to internal conflict. But that meant that some of the ordering bodies of international relations also had to change. Before the s international organizations, norms, and law were steadfastly against intervention; throughout the s that changed, so that all promoted intervention within certain limitations. The theoretical connection between conflict resolution and a stable and peaceful international order made that possible. The three areas are also

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closely entwined, with changes in each area reinforcing changes in the others.

International Organizations Intergovernmental organizations are the most formal voice on international issues now existing. As collections of member states they are considered to reflect the views of the world’s policymakers. For this reason, any change in their approach to an issue holds a great deal of significance because it represents a change in international consensus. The value of IGOs is often derided, however, because their lack of enforcement power is well known. Agreements are followed according to the whim of states, which often disregard formal rulings, and organizations can only do as much as their members approve. Nonetheless, they have power, though of a different kind. State power is usually considered decisive because states can rely on military strength and coercive capability—so-called hard criteria. IGOs, by contrast, have a soft power based on their ability to shape best practices and principles. While organizations cannot command armies, they can “create actors, specify responsibilities and authority among them, and define the work these actors should do, giving it meaning and normative value. Even when they lack material resources, IOs [sic] exercise power as they constitute and construct the social world.”18 Organizations can, therefore, influence the international agenda by raising the visibility of certain issues and directing the interests of states in certain directions. The cause and effect works in both ways, with state interests shaping organizations and organizations shaping state interests. That relationship led the UN to address a number of normative issues in the s, including the importance of human rights and the international obligation to protect people as well as states. Initially at least, states continued to view humanitarian issues as secondary concerns. But pressure from parts of the UN family of organizations, like the High Commissioners for Refugees and Human Rights, forced greater attention from the Security Council. Jean-Marc Coicaud argues that a certain amount of naïveté surrounded early

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debates, and suggests that member states never intended to actually change international priorities. Nonetheless, by becoming forums for debate, organizations also became mediums of change. By addressing normative issues the Security Council engaged difficult theoretical questions relating to the very definition of a state and its rights in the international system.19 Once discussions began, and particularly in light of global events, it was difficult to argue that the protection of individuals did not deserve more attention. That in turn altered conceptions of what constituted a threat to international peace and opened up new realms of action for organizations in protecting human rights. The connections between intervention and conflict resolution grew out of this theoretical debate. There is, of course, another way to look at these changes. Authors such as John Mearsheimer are skeptical of the role of institutions and argue that attention to collective interests will only be used when convenient and when it also serves unilateral ends. In his view the anarchic system is constant and cannot be mitigated by institutions. As a result, states remain preoccupied with increasing their own strength and reducing that of their rivals.20 In this instrumentalist view, shared by Stephen Krasner, cooperation is a tactical move to serve self-interest.21 That perspective is buttressed by the claims of Kenneth Abbott and Duncan Snidal, who argue that unacceptable behaviors can become acceptable when “laundered” through institutions because the latter provide the perception of multilateral process and oversight.22 By representing collectively held values and adding a layer of control, IGOs serve as a guarantor to other states and legitimize what might otherwise be illegitimate. That claim has important ramifications for intervention, particularly now that the use of force has become less legitimate, and it suggests that multilateral intervention may simply be a convenient (and accepted) way for states to pursue interests that might otherwise be considered inappropriate. History suggests that the laundering function was seldom used successfully for intervention, even when most necessary from a state perspective, because intervention typically violated institutional interests. IGOs traditionally banned intervention on the grounds of maintaining respect for state sovereignty, peace, and stability. Intervention

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threatened stability because it violated the target state’s rights and opened the possibility of counterintervention. The one exception to this rule was the Concert of Europe, formed in , which sanctioned intervention in order to preserve stability. Its members held liberalism to blame for the Napoleonic wars and used the new organization to protect monarchical rule. They used the concert to support monarchy over republicanism, shore up conservative forces around the globe, and limit the power of other states. The concert operated explicitly on the assumption of the inequality of states. Its five great-power members took upon themselves exclusive responsibility for maintaining the stability of Europe because they were the most powerful, and in their view the most civilized, states then existing. The concert was never intended to include a wider membership. As the leaders of the continental order, Russia, Prussia, Britain, France, and Austria-Hungary assumed a right to meddle and forcefully intervene when necessary to preserve the balance of power and their own dominance within it. The five concert members established themselves as global policemen and closely linked right to might.23 Conversely, organizations founded on the assumption of the equality of nations consistently banned intervention in an effort to connect rights to status rather than power. Under the League of Nations, the UN, the OAU, and the Organization of American States (OAS), for example, strict adherence to the concept of sovereign equality required a prohibition on intervention. All member states were recognized as equal regardless of size, economic strength, or military power, and thus possessed an equal right to conduct their affairs without unwanted interference. International recognition of statehood provided automatic protection. This connection between rights and status reached its apogee under the UN, when the meaning of sovereignty underwent a fundamental reshaping as a result of decolonization. Previously, sovereignty had been considered in a “positive” sense—governments achieved that status when they possessed the capabilities to behave as states in terms of maintaining control of territory, holding a monopoly on governmental legitimacy, and entering into international contracts. Any region actually recognized and accepted as a state by the League of Nations, for example, was deemed to possess certain

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substantive qualities that made it worthy of legal protection. For those states the league banned external aggression. The situation was very different, however, in places deemed incapable of statehood. Such areas were targeted for tutelage to bring them toward civilization and ultimate independence. The league declared that “the well-being and development of such peoples form a sacred trust of civilization” and sanctioned trusteeships under mandated powers.24 The UN took the notion of equality a bit more seriously and established a prohibition on intervention as a central element of its charter: “Nothing . . . shall authorize the United Nations to intervene in matters which are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of any state or shall require the Members to submit such matters to settlement.”25 The definition of state also lost its substantive element. While the UN could not stop intervention, it could and did provide a forum for criticism and verbal censure. Even the Permanent Five (P) members of the Security Council were occasionally subject to rebuke for violating the nonintervention rule. Under the UN the meaning of sovereignty moved toward a “negative” conception, defined by legal rather than substantive criteria.26 The UN based sovereign recognition on two factors, political independence and territorial integrity. Here independence meant simply the existence of a government, not its capability. While the league had made recognition dependent on function, the UN extended recognition based on form. The extent of actual authority was not a determining factor. In cases where domestic control was severely contested, control of the capital city became the sine qua non of statehood and qualified a government to claim sovereign authority and gain international recognition as such. The OAU likewise prohibited intervention in order to avoid conflict over the inherited borders of African states. Decolonization granted independence on the basis of the existing colonial entities without considering tribal, ethnic, or traditional boundaries. Conflict over disputed lands was a distinct possibility among the emerging nations. Nearly any state could press irredentist claims, and the newly formed OAU faced the prospect of widespread violence or acceptance of the existing, imperfect borders. By granting territorial integrity to each new state, the OAU guaranteed the colonial borders in Africa and

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outlawed intervention. The OAU’s charter listed defense of its members’“sovereignty, their territorial integrity, and independence” among its purposes, and bound all member states to affirm equality and the principle of nonintervention.27 The OAS also endorsed the status quo and tempered its advocacy of democratic government with “due respect for the principle of non-intervention.”28 The organization went even further in drawing a wall around domestic issues by affirming the right of each member to conduct its own political, economic, and social affairs. Given these past prohibitions, what changed in the s? Did international organizations suddenly become more easily manipulated, opening new avenues for intervention? An affirmative answer would suggest that the current rash of multilateral interventions is really the same unilateral adventures pursued under acceptable cover. Some authors have compared contemporary intervention to imperialism, noting that both approaches combined national security and humanitarian issues and were driven by the concept of “improving” parts of the world.29 Yet contemporary actions are also different, in part because today’s participants are reluctant intervenors and in part because the objectives sought both decrease the prospect of success, as judged by reference to state interest, and increase the costs (and length) of the operation. True, costs are shared. Even so the rewards are hardly commensurate, especially when skeptical publics question the reason for the commitment. Kimberly Marten admits that intervention “is an expensive business that saps state treasuries without providing many investment opportunities for international business.”30 Instead, intervention is better explained by the increased emphasis on collective security and the expanding view that human rights standards could overrule the principle of nonintervention. Both trends made claims of sovereignty and attempts to use state interest as a justification for interference increasingly untenable after the Cold War. The role of NGOs in advancing the humanitarian agenda affected intergovernmental organizations as well as states. UN Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar declared in , “We are clearly witnessing what is probably an irresistible shift in public attitudes toward the belief that the defense of the oppressed in the name of morality should

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prevail over frontiers and legal documents.”31 Though it did not officially change the charter, the Security Council began to allow the attention of the UN and the international community to focus on domestic matters by relying on broad concepts of security. The January  Security Council summit specifically cited problems in the economic, social, humanitarian, and ecological fields as threats to international peace and issues of relevant concern. The spread of refugees justified this status in the case of civil conflicts, as did the regional implications of a state’s economic collapse. The explosion of UN peacekeeping operations in the early s reflected increased concern for domestic issues, though in a limited role. Coicaud notes that countries remain risk averse when issues of human rights are at stake.32 At the same time, the advancement of liberal goals became more clearly and unabashedly part of the UN’s agenda. The organization’s Millennium Declaration in  specifically advocated democracy by declaring on behalf of all member states, “We will spare no effort to promote democracy and strengthen the rule of law.”33 This turn toward broader conceptions of security encouraged the revitalization of IGOs because the focus on nontraditional issues intersected with the values organizations were created to advance, such as human rights, development, and justice. Chapter I of the UN charter, “Purposes and Principles,” contains only limited references to security and conflict. Most of its eleven sections instead assert the organization’s commitment to improving conditions for states and individuals. Organizations therefore gained new relevance as norm promoters and were able to help shape and sustain a consensus on consultation and the pursuit of specific values. Though criticized as ineffective during the Cold War, and rightly so, the UN emerged afterward with a widely accepted legitimacy.34 As the norms grew more entrenched, they helped shift the way in which nations pursue security and even some of the goals that they pursue.35 Conflict resolution received a great deal of focus and led to a greater degree of scrutiny for domestic affairs. Organizations became more active in a variety of areas but particularly in identifying crises and promoting efforts at reconciliation. Although mediation and negotiation were the initial tools of conflict resolution efforts, the intractability of some conflicts and inadequacy of diplo-

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macy helped create the basis for bringing intervention within the rubric of conflict resolution. The African Union (AU), which replaced the OAU in , reflected these changes when it dropped its predecessor’s emphasis on sovereignty and focused instead on civil society, development, human rights, and good governance as its objectives. Conflict resolution has become a bigger part of its agenda, on the assumption that development cannot proceed without stability, and in  it began its first intervention, in Sudan. Although the OAS continues to stress nonintervention, its Inter-American Democratic Charter of  stated a commitment to helping members who experience “irregular interruptions” of democracy, a position relevant in Haiti in . Other organizations have incorporated similar principles, including NATO and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). In  NATO shifted its focus from collective defense to collective security, with civil conflict and stability throughout the expanding European region considered important threats. Over the next decade its approach continued to shift toward promoting the importance of liberal governance and a declared willingness to support peacekeeping activities under certain circumstances.36 In  “crisis management” was specified as part of the organization’s new role, with conflict prevention and “crisis response operations” explicitly enumerated.37 In  NATO took this commitment still further when it assumed control of the international force in Afghanistan, marking its first operation outside Europe. ECOWAS was founded for economic purposes, but in  it adjusted its charter to include the maintenance of regional security, including intervention, among its objectives. This change was justified on the basis that economic developments could not be achieved unless and until stability prevailed in the organization’s member states. All these organizations also cited security and conflict resolution as grounds for undertaking intervention, and they acted on those claims in numerous instances. For NATO that may be less surprising, since it was created for military purposes, but the UN and ECOWAS, both created for distinctly nonmilitary purposes, used the expanded concept of security to justify military action on behalf of nonmilitary

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objectives. They did not advocate force to conquer territory or gain resources but to create conditions of peace in other countries. These formal changes made the evolution of intervention possible by turning ideas into policy. The United Nations established itself as the primary organization of relevance by adopting conflict resolution as a raison d’être and encouraging the use of military intervention in certain circumstances. It used the expansion of security to provide the basis for that shift. From the founding of the UN through , the Security Council passed only six resolutions citing threats to international peace. From  through , it passed thirty-three, and that trend has continued. In  alone it passed fifteen such resolutions, most of which dealt with conditions within a single state. In some measure that development may reflect the end of US-Soviet antagonism and the increased potential for consensus on a variety of issues. But it also reflects a shift in the definition of threats, from the interstate concerns for which the UN was founded to intrastate concerns as well. Human rights and, by extension, internal concerns were described in the UN’s  annual report as central to the organization’s mandate and as critical determinants of its success and relevance.38 The Security Council has repeatedly extended the meaning of threat to include severe violations of human rights, beginning with Resolution  and extending through the current crises in the Ivory Coast and DRC.39 That does not mean all cases will be acted on, simply that they can be. According to Thomas Risse-Kappen, two expectations of international behavior developed as a consequence of this shift in theoretical approaches: first, that the use of force is not acceptable outside of organizational (preferably Security Council) approval; and second, that Chapter VII of the UN charter gives the international community, as represented by the UN, the right to interfere in the domestic issues of states.40 Consensus on the second is relatively solid and will be discussed in the case studies to follow. Consensus on the first is less certain, particularly in light of the  US invasion of Iraq in spite of controversy in both the Security Council and NATO. Even so, a developing consensus makes force more difficult to justify outside the UN and is part of what defines states as either responsible international

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actors or threats. Joanne Lee and Richard Price describe this as the criminalization of violent conflict, something they attribute to the growth of international criminal law. As a result, Ayoob argues, national and international security are now closely entwined, compelling states to justify the use of force in reference to both.41 Together these expectations have enlarged the scope of international organizations by allowing them to define agendas for conflict resolution and intervention. By so doing, organizations, particularly the UN, have redefined their own relevance and ensured themselves a central role in the pursuit of international security. The first line of accepted action, even for a dominant power, is now the UN, as the issue of disarming Iraq demonstrates. States are expected to pursue their interests through organizational means and are constrained in the exercise of power in various ways. Although they can still act outside of or in defiance of IGOs, doing so affects perceptions of legitimacy and may inhibit the realization of state objectives.

Norms Changes in international norms came as a result of the increased relevance of international organizations and the increased number and relevance of NGOs. Both bodies, formal and informal, put pressure on international actors to reconsider long-held practices and expectations in world affairs. Norms are typical beliefs and behaviors that describe the dominant practice in international relations. By creating expectations about how actors will behave in certain situations they both regulate state behavior and help constitute state identity.42 Normative discourse legitimates “certain behaviors and conditions of life as ‘normal,’” and conversely, makes other behaviors seem wrong or illegitimate.43 Because norms are based on collective beliefs they represent the shared interests of states and help define those states that adhere to international standards and those that do not. Norms constitute an honor code of sorts that states adhere to by agreement rather than coercion. In essence, they are conventions that states observe in the interest of international stability. As a result, norms

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traditionally corresponded to power- and state-based definitions of international relations, with a focus on limiting the aggressive behavior of states. As with most international conventions, norms governed relations between states rather than conditions within them. The sanctity of sovereignty is one of the oldest and most settled norms and traditionally defined nonintervention as its necessary corollary. If sovereign states are protected from external interference, it follows that they should be prohibited from interfering. This norm effectively removes domestic problems or practices from international concern. But as various groups pushed liberal internationalist norms that stress the protection of individuals over state interests, these rules became harder to defend. The development of the humanitarian agenda posed an important dilemma—why should states be privileged over individuals? Norms are not binding in any way and have no mechanism to punish offenders. Their power comes from the consensus establishing their importance. Though both sovereignty and nonintervention are often violated, offending states feel compelled to provide special justifications for the violation, usually invoking the needs of security and extreme national interest. Thus the Concert of Europe justified intervention by appealing to the need for stability and the importance of the balance of power in limiting hegemony, an argument bolstered by the experience of the Napoleonic period. One hundred years later the kaiser railed at the suffocating Einkreisung he felt in Europe to justify violating Belgium’s sovereignty. The United States and the Soviet Union likewise cited strategic needs in Vietnam and Afghanistan, respectively. Calls to place intervention on a moral footing were traditionally unheeded. Protecting groups or individuals from repression was not considered a legitimate interest, as William Gladstone found when he advocated collective intervention in response to the Bulgarian atrocities of . Britain’s Grand Old Man found few supporters.44 Intervention had no legitimacy in regard to the protection of individuals. It applied only in regard to protecting preferred forms of government and the more general norm of stability that government was perceived to serve. But as I have shown, the traditional interpretations of sovereignty and nonintervention faded as security broadened. The ascendancy of

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humanitarian concerns and the suggestion that even the restoration of democracy could be related to security made power definitions less relevant. Although realism would predict that the most powerful states would shape the norms of the system, as with the concert, in this case organizations were more relevant in defining the normative agenda. NGOs and IGOs played an important role by insisting that action should be taken to address the humanitarian emergencies created by internal violence. Events in Somalia demonstrated that humanitarian crises often had political causes. A number of scholars, including Lori Fisler Damrosch and Robert Pastor, argued for justifying intervention on the basis of its role in protecting human rights and promoting conflict resolution.45 Damrosch argues that individuals possess rights outside the state to which they belong and deserve some protection if those rights are abrogated. Other writers have expanded on this theme, suggesting that a state that transgresses certain ethical values in the treatment of its citizens might be devoid of legitimacy and therefore subject to intervention.46 This conclusion rests on the theory that individuals have rights not just in reference to the state but in terms of humanity, and it coincides with notions that sovereignty needs to be reconsidered in light of internal and transnational crises.47 The argument also moves the contemporary notion of sovereignty closer to the historical tradition of capability, implying that the sovereign right to be free from interference inheres not only in juridical recognition of statehood but also, and more important, in the practice of responsible government.48 Strands of that argument first appeared after the Gulf War when UNSCR  established the right of international action, without host country consent, to protect the “human and political rights” of citizens.49 At the time the resolution was not considered to establish a precedent for other cases. But by opening the possibility that certain government behaviors could limit its degree of protection, UNSCR  helped move humanitarian issues onto the international agenda. As those issues became more central new norms began to develop, as witnessed by the  Rome Statute, which established the International Criminal Court (ICC). Philip Nel describes the ICC as a form of “norm innovation” that changes proscriptive norms into instrumental

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norms, “that is, norms that not only reflect social expectations . . . but also encourage compliance through repeated and consistent application.”50 Nel views the development of the court and humanitarian norms in general as evidence of a constructivist trend that makes norms part of the foundation of global order. NGOs proved crucial in redefining norms to include humanitarianbased interests. Not only did they press specific agendas, they also gained access to organizations accustomed to dealing only with states. As the ideas of international relations changed, so did the players. NGOs with links to the UN and the World Bank are too numerous to count. NGOs are active in a variety of areas, including social and economic justice, humanitarian assistance, peace building, and business. This reflects the emergence of conflict resolution and civil society as central concerns of the international community. Both are part and parcel of the ideas of globalization. Both also relate closely to an expanded notion of security. Efforts to promote conflict resolution and build civil society stress principles of governance based on rights rather than coercion and seek to build more stable, inclusive, and participatory societies. NGOs play an important role in advancing both interests. Not all NGOs are equally effective, and coordination with international organizations and national representatives is often poor. However, some, like the ICG, Global Witness, and ActionAid International, have been instrumental in highlighting problems and developing solutions to crises in a variety of areas. NGOs have helped serve as norm creators by defining important concerns outside of states and badgering nations and organizations to address them. These changes were all part of what Paul Stares calls a “normative reconceptualization of security that puts primary emphasis on protecting the well-being of people and the planet in general, rather than the survival of the state.”51 That trend helped turn intervention from a prohibited to an encouraged activity. Intervention in its multilateral, institutionally sanctioned form is now considered a normatively based action with benefits for the international system.52 That fact represents a significant change in perceptions. Intervention in certain forms is considered helpful. Sovereignty is viewed as more

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porous. Domestic affairs are increasingly relevant. Nonintervention is no longer a binding norm. And international organizations endorse proscribed forms of intervention for humanitarian purposes. These changes in normative theory occurred simultaneously with changes in the practice of intervention. NGOs were insisting on humanitarian agendas even while Resolution  was opening domestic affairs to international scrutiny. Scholars were arguing on behalf of a new paradigm of intervention even while UNITAF was redefining its operational meaning. The emerging norm of human rights concerns thus forced reconsideration of the protections embedded in the norm of sovereignty. Theory and practice drove changes in each other, creating new expectations for state behavior but also often creating agendas for action that were not based on a solid understanding of what outside actors could or should do. Considerations on how to act effectively trailed behind commitment to acting. As a result, some important questions remain unanswered. Specifically, how can international actors find a suitable balance between human rights and sovereignty, and how can they act effectively to reduce conflict? Few writers suggest that every problem is fertile ground for intervention, but defining criteria for action is difficult because of the human costs involved and the need to define triggers on which a wide variety of states can agree.53 The lack of consensus on the substantive meaning of human rights is problematic, as is the importance of sovereignty. States do not agree on what rights deserve external protection, and they fear creating a precedent by which they could one day become the target of intervention. That is largely why attempts to rationalize the intervention process by creating guidelines or criteria for intervention have failed. Moreover, participants often disagree on how much control outsiders should exert, how long they should stay, and how to inculcate normative values. As a result interventions are often uncoordinated, with substantial competition over means in spite of agreement on ends. States prefer to deal with crises on an ad hoc basis in order to avoid establishing criteria that could be used against them. While norms have changed, therefore, tensions between them hamper the articulation of baseline criteria on which to base intervention.

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International Law The changes favoring intervention in international law are less tangible but just as important as the changes in IGOs and norms. Until  international law largely protected order rather than justice. Since the privileges of the sovereign state were the dominant ethos of international relations, international law sought to reconcile the freedoms of each state without infringing on the freedoms of any other. Its purpose was to rein in moral and religious imperatives in favor of ordered coexistence.54 What was known as the European law of nations at the time of the Congress of Vienna defined those states that were civilized and those that were not. Those that were enjoyed the full rights and privileges of international law as then understood, which meant the sanctity of sovereignty. To meet the standard of civilization, a state had to possess positive sovereignty, with the ability to enter into binding commitments internationally, project power domestically, and gain recognition from the great powers. The distinction between order and justice remained consistent through World War I. Afterward, two contradictory legal perspectives met head-on at Versailles: the right of sovereignty versus the right of self-determination. Versailles gave partial effect to Woodrow Wilson’s cherished belief that ethnic groups forming political communities should be entitled to some measure of political independence. The negotiators at Versailles determined that such groups had some right to choose their own government and a right to be left alone in doing so. But the idea had limited utility; it applied only to states whose boundaries were shaped at Versailles. The Allies did not consider relinquishing their colonial possessions, nor, as was soon demonstrated, was self-determination intended to legitimate the right of secession. In  the Commission of Jurists established by the League of Nations stated that self-determination did not constitute a legal right to dismember an existing state. “To concede to minorities . . . the right of withdrawing from the community to which they belong . . . would be to destroy order and stability within States and to inaugurate anarchy into international life.”55 The league also established the mandate system for uncivilized states, providing “assistance” for those peoples “not 

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yet able to stand by themselves under the strenuous conditions of the modern world.”56 The distinction between those states to whom law applied and those to whom it did not was dropped after World War II, when sovereignty shifted from being a right of capability to a right of legality. Status was no longer determined by the contract between the state and its citizens; new states were distinguished by formal criteria. Once colonial domination ended, the new entities were recognized as states regardless of their administrative capabilities and long-term sustainability. The internal legitimacy of the government and its degree of effective control were not taken into account, as the experiences of places such as Mozambique and Angola demonstrate. Given this state of affairs, intervention fell out of favor in terms of legal sanction. In the eyes of the UN all states were equal by definition, with equal protections. Though a variety of powers still used intervention liberally, international law, as represented by the UN and the treaties it spawned, stood firmly against third-party interference in problems of a domestic nature. Officially, international law remains prejudiced against intervention, but several challenges to that legal tradition arose at the end of the twentieth century. The Badinter Commission on Yugoslavia proclaimed in  that “self-determination must not involve changes to existing frontiers at the time of independence.”57 That confirmed past practice and law. Beginning in the late nineteenth century the principle of uti possidetis was used to mandate that states emerging from colonization presumptively inherit the colonial administrative borders they held at the time of independence.58 This law came under attack, however, notably from Serbs in Croatia and Bosnia, who contend even now that the right of secession should adhere to national groups rather than administrative entities. The Bosnian Serbs, for example, felt that if Bosnia was allowed to secede from Yugoslavia, they should be allowed to secede from Bosnia.59 The violence that resulted from the denial of secessions from secessions in the s led legal scholars to invoke intervention as a means of guaranteeing human rights law. This legal trend accepts intervention as an extension of international laws that protect the rights of individuals and groups. The

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establishment of war crimes tribunals under UN aegis in various states afflicted by civil conflict and the trial of Slobodan Milosevic also made clear that jus in bello violations, long considered legitimate subjects of international scrutiny when committed during interstate war, were relevant even when committed in an internal context.60 Those bodies paved the way for the International Criminal Court, which came into being in July . Its four areas of jurisdiction—genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and aggression—raise human rights issues to the highest level of international scrutiny.61 The trend toward accepting intervention within the spirit of human rights law intensified over the last five years of the twentieth century. The humanitarian crises in Bosnia, Rwanda, and elsewhere provided support for the argument that failure to act was more egregious than contradicting legal tradition. Abiding by law essentially meant sanctioning tragedy. UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan addressed this dilemma when he asked, “If humanitarian intervention is, indeed, an unacceptable assault on sovereignty, how should we respond to a Rwanda, to a Srebrenica—to gross and systematic violations of human rights that offend every precept of our common humanity? In essence the problem is one of responsibility: in circumstances in which universally accepted human rights are being violated on a massive scale we have a responsibility to act.”62 This question underscores the importance of humanitarian concerns. Similar arguments were articulated in Security Council debate.63 The increasing commitment to human rights transformed intervention, under institutional sanction, into a tool supporting rather than contradicting international norms and law. That trend developed out of the changes in the meaning of security and the corresponding connections drawn by the Security Council between abuses of human rights and international peace and security. Making human rights a component of security allows the council to invoke Chapter VII of the UN charter to deal with internal conflict, which authorizes the body to take action if an event or crisis is determined to constitute a threat to international peace. Legal scholar Simon Chesterman suggests that it is now “broadly accepted” that civil conflict does qualify as a threat to international peace and security.64

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That idea was advocated most recently by the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS), which argues that states have a responsibility to take action in the face of extreme suffering.65 The commission’s “responsibility to protect” formulation reflects the core principle “that state sovereignty implies responsibility.”66 That view echoes Annan’s argument above, and highlights an important shift in considerations of sovereignty. The restraint of international law may not be appropriate in cases where it prevents other nations from enforcing human rights protections. The rights of states are increasingly contingent on their ability to protect their citizens. Law and norms shade together here, with human rights law affecting normative definitions. Sovereignty is reconceptualized as a form of responsibility for basic functions and accountability for state actions.67 Where states fail in their duties to their citizens, “a residual, fallback responsibility also lies with the broader community of states,” because in a crisis the “principle of non-intervention yields to the international responsibility to protect.”68 Some scholars seek to push legal perspectives even further and suggest that peacekeeping and peacemaking operations are a link to an imperative and fundamental system change that would create an “evolving global constitutionalism.”69 Advocating intervention when a state is derelict, however, does not eliminate sovereignty. Ramesh Thakur notes that while intervention does limit a state’s ability to exercise its sovereign rights, it “does not itself challenge that status as such.”70 Even so, the legitimacy of institutionally sanctioned collective action lacks official grounding. International law remains biased toward state interests and has not been formally changed to incorporate the humanitarian concerns now relevant in the international system. International consensus holds that Chapter VII gives the Security Council a right of intervention, but even that is not a crystal clear sanction. Those who claim a legal foundation for intervention do so by extrapolating a right to intervention from human rights law. Here the corollary assumption is the reverse from that discussed with sovereignty; if individuals have a right to protection, states must have a duty to provide that protection. Because of its global legitimacy, therefore, Security Council authorization is considered to make intervention legal.

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However, the thorny problem of intervention taken outside UN aegis remains. Is the action of a regional organization legal? What about a coalition of willing states? Consensus seems rather strong, even for those who view intervention as a useful and important strategy, that it cannot be justified outside the UN under law as now articulated. In official documents the bias against intervention remains. Classical international law does not support the legality of intervention, nor do more contemporary interpretations. Michael Glennon’s careful analysis of the Kosovo intervention shows this problem clearly.71 The report of the Independent International Commission on Kosovo agrees with his analysis, although it also considers NATO’s action valid in light of the humanitarian crisis and urges changes in international law. The tension between the limits of international law and the humanitarian justification for intervention has led to a distinction between legality and legitimacy. The Security Council is the only widely accepted means of undertaking legal intervention, but its limitations are well known. The veto structure of the council means that it can be hamstrung for political reasons and might compel states to act outside the UN. In such cases, adhering to strict legality could facilitate worse violations (crimes against human rights, genocide), forcing responsible states to weigh law against humanitarian concerns. Many justifiable acts may fall outside the council’s sanction, and ad hoc coalitions acting for humanitarian purposes but without UN endorsement are one example. Such operations have “dubious legal status,” according to Jennifer Welsh, but are not necessarily illegitimate. While the Security Council should be viewed as “authoritative with respect to matters of peace and security,” it should not be considered the only body capable of sanctioning intervention.72 Obviously this is an important distinction, because many legitimate interventions may be undertaken either in the absence of Security Council interest or the presence of a veto from one of the P. Kosovo is a prime example. However, the departure from strict interpretations of law also opens the possibility for abuse of the principle, and the leaders of France, Germany, and Russia would argue that the US intervention in Iraq falls into this category. Although Bush relied on the Kosovo precedent, many nations protested its applicability and viewed the US-British

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intervention as neither legal nor legitimate. While legitimacy may be a useful concept, therefore, it is one that both creates controversy and increases the potential for manipulation. States are reluctant to change international law so as to diminish sovereignty, which contributes to the ad hoc nature of intervention and creates dissonance between the values sought and the means available to reach them. These problems need to be addressed to bring international law more in line with contemporary international interests. Yet the centrality of the humanitarian agenda and spread of liberal ideas cannot be ignored. As presently conceived, international law excludes many important issues from consideration. Some of the changes driven by the humanitarian agenda contradict tenets of law, forcing the sort of painful choices that Kofi Annan highlights. States are supposed to adhere to the law, but what happens when being respectful of legal constraints means allowing gross violations by others? Or when relaxing the standards to promote the humanitarian agenda provides loopholes for aggression? Michael Ignatieff and Richard Falk advocate changing international law to address contemporary challenges, including internal conflict and terrorism, and thereby opening the door for more effective solutions.73 Any changes must be done carefully, however, to guard against the potential of states using human rights claims to justify aggression.

Imperialism Revisited? The changes discussed above helped provide a formal justification for intervention. Backed by the ideas and trends discussed in chapter , they also linked intervention to conflict resolution approaches based on reconciliation and transformation. But these changes raise important questions. The ideas behind intervention and nation building presuppose the acceptance of democratization and liberalization as important objectives. International stability itself is increasingly associated with the legitimacy of government. Evaluations of legitimacy are closely connected to democratic ideals like transparency, accountability, and the rule of law. This reflects the Western emphasis among

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the permanent members of the Security Council and NATO, two of the bodies that most frequently authorize intervention. The ideas spread by globalization are inherently liberal, representing the consensus of groups and organizations dominated by Americans and Europeans. It is easy to see these ideas as good because they are based on principles of equity and justice. It is also easy to say that a world based on such principles might contain considerably less suffering. However, powerful actors have said that before and used intervention to ensure specific political systems and ideas. The Concert of Europe and its defense of monarchy is a prime example. The leaders of the great powers were convinced that their approach to government was more beneficial and advanced than other systems. The concert thus justified intervention against liberal revolts that might disturb the domestic status quo in other countries by citing the need to preserve the continental order.74 Are today’s efforts to create democracy any better than the concert’s brand of intervention, or are they what Patrick Morgan refers to as New Age, “liberal imperialism?”75 Phrased another way, perhaps intervention is just another form of power politics or an unfortunate aspect of globalization, the political corollary of the Washington consensus in economics, forcing countries to conform to Western standards, for better or worse. As Marten notes, the description of intervention today, as an effort to facilitate political, economic, and social change, sounds suspiciously like definitions of empire.76 Although Marten concedes that imperialism and contemporary intervention are also very different, she uses the similarities to question whether international actors are capable of directing political development in other states. The imperialism label is indeed fairly common, used equally by affected populations who have grown weary of international oversight (as in Kosovo) and by commentators both supporting and criticizing intervention.77 Three distinct characteristics of contemporary intervention argue against that interpretation, however. First, it leaves decisions on policy and implementation largely up to local actors. In most cases the goal is to facilitate reforms rather than control or impose them. Barnett notes that contemporary interventions do not try to impose a sin-

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gle vision; rather “they negotiate their vision with the local population.”78 In Bosnia, for example, local officials are responsible for developing and then implementing reforms in both the political and economic arenas. Although international actors exercise oversight and promote specific agendas, they are limited in their degree of control, particularly when it comes to implementation. In fact, some observers criticize the international community for not exerting enough control and blame local agency for the halting pace of reform.79 Roland Paris, for example, thinks that intervention is hampered precisely because it is not imperial enough. By leaving implementation to local actors, he argues, it compromises the potential for reform.80 The partnership with local officials is both a strength and a weakness of intervention. Facilitating rather than controlling decisions ensures that local sensitivities are considered and prevents imposition of a specific government or the creation of a puppet regime controlled by external actors. More important, such approaches improve the chances of achieving sustainable reforms that conform to local realities and constraints. That, after all, is the purpose of intervention within a conflict resolution rubric. But local agency also risks seeing important reforms stymied by rivalries or obstructionist politicians who can gain more through corruption than rule of law, and it makes the rehabilitation process slower and at times unproductive. That is precisely the problem international organizations have encountered in Bosnia, where dissension among the federal representatives and intransigence from the Republika Srpska (the Bosnian Serb entity of Bosnia) have severely hindered reforms, particularly in economic areas. This emphasis on broad international participation plus local agency creates a “doubly multilateral legitimacy” but also makes goals much harder to achieve.81 Trying to get consensus among all participants is nearly impossible and may compromise the overall objectives. In the most extreme nation-building projects, local agency may be usurped by international control for some period of time. Kosovo and East Timor, for example, became international protectorates run by the UN. Even in such cases, however, international actors aim to restore local authority as soon as possible. Control is applied only as a last resort. Each of these cases presented special circumstances that

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prevented immediate local agency. Kosovo required protection within Serbia but had an unclear future status; East Timor had no national structures of rule and needed time to prepare the groundwork for independent government. Both cases presented a challenge regarding the balance between the devolution of power to local authorities and the international interest in promoting reform. The problem has been resolved in East Timor, which officially became an independent and selfgoverning state in May . It has proven more difficult in Kosovo, where severe societal divisions, continued violence, and a culture of revenge and reprisal have made international actors loath to give power to local actors who might use it to promote ethnic or violent agendas.82 That has fueled resentment and further stymied reform by making both Kosovar Albanians and Serbs suspicious of the UN’s objectives and bitter about its continued oversight. The future success of the intervention rests in large part on the UN’s ability to manage the backlash and develop mutually acceptable criteria for reform. The second characteristic that distinguishes contemporary intervention derives from the first—the importance of stability and legitimacy as objectives. Intervention is now largely tied to conflict resolution agendas and makes reconstruction its central objective. State weakness frequently leads to conflict because it foments competition for legitimacy, puts a premium on violence as a means of control, and often leads to exclusion. Scholars focusing on state development note that the frequency of conflict in the Third World is no accident and is closely tied to the challenge of consolidating and extending authority.83 Strengthening institutions and developing a societal capacity for conflict resolution can help limit violence sparked by nationalism or warlord behavior, as Miall and his collaborators suggest. The existence of stronger and more legitimate states might be able to limit the spread of violence by limiting opportunities for predatory leaders and ensuring the accountability of officials. If a state cannot control its own resources, economic issues may also spark violence.84 Reducing officials’ discretion and entrenching law and order can help remove some of the most common sources of competition. Rather than being a form of imperialism then, building more stable states may be the only way to decrease violence.

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Moreover, the international community uses intervention to rebuild an autonomous entity capable of effective statehood. Doing so provides domestic order and allows states to resist “domination by the powerful, industrialized, established members of the international system and to prevent them from permanently remaining secondary actors in that system.”85 The legitimacy of nation building hinges on this idea. In a sense this is the very antithesis of imperialism, since intervention’s purpose is to make states capable of resisting domination rather than forcing them to succumb to it. Intervention is not intended to exercise power so much as to allow development of the conditions that allow states to control and manage power for themselves. International control comes only when a state has failed to carry out what the ICISS calls its responsibility to its citizens.86 Finally, today’s intervenors do not take resources from the target, and they leave as quickly as possible. That may seem a small point, but it is important. Imperialism implied long-term control or domination. Today’s participants have little interest in exercising control, as the frequency of hasty international exits demonstrates. Indeed, they more often err by leaving prematurely than by staying too long. Short time frames and limited reform agendas are often blamed for the failure of intervention today and speak to the reluctance of the “imperialists.” Quite frankly, if this were imperialism we should expect far different results, not only in the effort expended by participants but also in their degree of control and their expectation of benefit. Even the supposed “Western” goals of intervention are not prevalent in its outcomes. In Bosnia, for example, international organizations supported officials who were far from democratic as long as they expressed commitment to the Dayton accords and efforts at reform. In Sierra Leone the UN brokered an agreement giving the rebel leader a government portfolio in order to co-opt his opposition. 87 These episodes show that even humanitarian issues are not black and white. Securing beneficial ends may at times require difficult tradeoffs and compromises. Stability may form a more immediate need than democracy. Eliminating violence gets high priority from both sides, sometimes even over notions of justice, since the target seeks autonomy

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and international actors want to protect citizens (and of course depart). American- or Western-style democracy is therefore not the primary goal of intervention, though intervention is intended to make it possible. Instead, international actors appear willing to accept officials who fall short of the liberal ideal in order to end violence and create viable political systems that include principles of participation and accountability. As with the first characteristic of allowing local agency, trading some liberalization for stability is also both a strength and a weakness. On the positive side, it allows international actors to pursue what is possible. Local realities in many collapsed states may place limits on the extent of reforms. Insisting on Western ideals can only be counterproductive. The challenge is not to develop states in the West’s image but to develop states that are based on nonviolent means of dealing with group interests and grievances. That means dealing with local officials and proposing local policies that may fall short of Western expectations. But there is a negative side as well. Accepting compromise solutions increases the level of international controversy and may lead to waning support for intervention. Many observers, both public and private, question why international institutions would support politicians who have bloody hands, such as Foday Sankoh in Sierra Leone, or implement reforms that allow corruption to persist. Such compromises risk alienating other groups and could derail the conflict resolution process by reducing trust and increasing the sense of vulnerability. While perhaps a necessity to stop violence, therefore, the need to work within local constraints can also create contradictions with the humanitarian basis of intervention. The most important task is to provide security for all the groups within the state and start a process of reconstruction that attempts to balance their needs. Though many reforms are aimed at democratization, they may fall short of Western-style practices. Expectations of intervention should be developed only within the context of local realities and should focus on effective statehood, even if imperfect, as the objective. Whether that will make publics more or less supportive of intervention is unclear, but at least it will

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place the debate on more sensible ground. Intervention should not be judged on the ideal versus the actual but on the possible versus the actual. The curious aspect of intervention today, and a trait that argues further against a comparison to imperialism, is that nations are increasingly called on to explain their failure to act rather than their willingness to do so. For example, former president Clinton later apologized for not intervening in Rwanda in . That represents quite a change from the past, when nations had to construct reasons to explain intervention. Even in Kosovo, critics questioned the method of the intervention and its sanctioning body but not its purposes. Of the two primary opposing states, neither opposed the idea of intervention in toto. China does not support intervention, but neither does it block UN peace-building efforts; it opposed any violation of Serbian sovereignty but acquiesced in the creation of the Kosovo Force (KFOR). Russia distrusted NATO control more than intervention itself, ultimately embracing a central diplomatic role and participating with KFOR. State rivalries often lead to questioning about who does what, who is included, and who is not, but far less often about what should be done or why. Another argument against imperialism derives from the fact that states of all types promote intervention, not simply the most powerful. Indeed, if intervention relied primarily on Western or American participation it would rarely happen at all. States as disparate as Malaysia, Senegal, Bangladesh, and the Nordic countries have made a significant commitment to nation-building activities and have proven willing to put their soldiers into hostile environments in the interest of conflict resolution. Non-Western states on the Security Council advocated intervention in Sierra Leone long before the major powers made a commitment. Indeed, West Africa shows a strong commitment to intervention. In spite of early controversy the regional organization made intervention central to its mandates and has dispatched troops in a number of cases. While NATO’s interventions have been some of the most visible actions, the consensus on behalf of intervention and rehabilitation is much deeper. It is by no means unanimous, as China’s

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steadfast opposition to external interference in sovereign affairs demonstrates. But neither is it only Western or based in the prerogatives of power. The primary challenge now facing interventions concerns finding the balance between local and international control. The clash between the normative preferences expressed by international actors and the realist preferences expressed by local actors creates a dilemma. While interventions promote liberalizing reforms, consensual government, and the rule of law, local authorities often seek to monopolize power and pair high levels of discretion with low levels of accountability. These two visions of the state are difficult to reconcile, particularly after explosions of violence, when all structures of restraint may have completely broken down. Kosovo provides an instructive example. The problem there is not that the international community wants to monopolize control but that local goals and international goals remain distinctly at odds in terms of reconciliation and development. The international community still struggles with developing effective strategies to change the preferences of local officials and elites. The practice of conflict resolution poses greater challenges than many policymakers have realized. That accounts for the protracted nature of intervention. Changing ways of thinking and approaches to government may be far more difficult than ending violence, particularly when the change touches on group identity and perceptions of an enemy.88 As Francis Fukuyama notes, while institutions and structures are transferable across societies, ideas and beliefs are much more resistant to importation.89 This dilemma underscores the importance of understanding the causes of conflict in any target of intervention. Rehabilitation cannot be successful without some understanding of the political, economic, and social problems that need to be fixed. If we truly intend to stop conflict we must also know why it began. The conflict resolution literature carefully details different types of conflict and its causes, but initially international actors were slow to understand the importance of such knowledge. Early in the post–Cold War period the media consistently described events in Liberia, Yugoslavia, and elsewhere as the product of “ancient hatreds” and deep animosities that, by implication,

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were unknowable to others. The realities are strikingly different. Work on the origins of intranational war concludes that elite-level actors seeking greater political and economic control play by far the biggest role in sparking civil conflict. Economic concerns in particular, and the financial viability of rebellion, are important considerations and often make war preferable to peace.90 In such cases leaders can become “war entrepreneurs,” exploiting violence to create economic reward.91 Mass-level nationalism also plays a role, but Michael Brown and others argue that leaders create nationalist frenzy, rather than vice versa.92 Economic disparity and political exclusion often form the catalyst, providing leaders a foundation of grievance on which to build the groundswell of nationalist fervor by manipulating past and present events to create a selective sense of injustice. Knowing the sources of conflict is an absolute prerequisite for effective transformation.

Selectivity In spite of the limits of law, the changes discussed in these first two chapters suggest that intervention should happen far more frequently than it does. Humanitarian crisis and state collapse occur relatively frequently, opening the door for international action. Yet the number of cases in which human rights are violated far exceeds the number of interventions. If organizations, norms, and law have truly changed as suggested, that should not be the case. If ideas, information, and NGOs are so influential in pressing humanitarian concerns, intervention should be frequent. Indeed, we should see nations and organizations active all around the globe to remedy a variety of crises. It is a paradox that the United States intervened in Haiti while ignoring Bosnia, Algeria, Burundi, and a host of other places with greater degrees of violence. Certainly the United States was concerned about refugees, but greater humanitarian crises were occurring in other places. Although many writers concur that perceptions of international security are tied to intervention, they also question whether humanitarian issues could really be a motivation because they are compromised in so many places where intervention is never considered. But

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as Damrosch points out, selectivity may be inevitable in an imperfect world. Even if standard criteria could be developed on the basis of the most generous values and fully equipped forces placed at the ready, the United Nations and other intervening states would confront hard choices regarding where to respond when numerous crises present themselves at once, as is now so often the case. We cannot expect intervention to function like a fire department, responding with standard procedures whenever the alarm rings.93 The sheer number of problems may overwhelm the available resources, or consensus may not exist on how to deal with a particular problem. Domestic concerns of potential authorizers are another issue. The P is of particular concern here, since their willingness to pursue intervention leads to UN authorization. Their power also insulates them in some cases, as Russia’s experience in Chechnya proves. RisseKappen suggests that domestic issues go a long way in explaining the degree of norm compliance among the major powers, especially because strategic motivations are so often absent. Internal pressures and interests therefore play a significant role in whether a state tries to avoid or limit its involvement. Even so, he agrees with Damrosch that double standards are inevitable because of costs and resources and “do not constitute violations of the norm.”94 Collective intervention can only occur when international agreement exists on the scope of the threat faced and domestic constituencies back the use of force. Obtaining both criteria in multiple countries is a challenge. Since most nations would prefer not to commit their financial and human resources to intervention and many publics are reluctant to support military deployment in such cases, agreement is difficult to obtain. The selectivity of intervention, therefore, does not prove that nations do not think differently about human rights or security or the importance of norms. Instead, it underscores the difficulties of obtaining consensus and proves that nations are cautious about committing resources, particularly when they feel removed from a threat. Mandelbaum argues that intervention is often half-hearted precisely because it is noble, with few connections to national interest: “the growing warlessness of Western societies inhibited good deeds as well as bad ones, making the core countries . . . hesitant to die for goals

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deemed highly desirable.”95 But the long-term commitment made in places like Bosnia, Kosovo, and East Timor shows the other side of the coin. These cases did not present as typical “interests,” yet they became targets of intervention. Experience shows that nations and organizations are willing to invest in long-term operations and show surprising commitment even in the face of enormous difficulties. The protracted nature of intervention may only increase selectivity as prospective participants become more aware and wary of the commitments they are making. Two trends have been at work in the international system: a practical trend, which led to the transformation of intervention from a tool of power politics to a tool of conflict resolution, and a theoretical trend, which led to the redefinition of important conceptual ideas like security, sovereignty, and the role of human rights. Neither clearly preceded or catalyzed the other, but instead they worked in concert to create changes in international practice and expectations. Forceful military intervention and nation building came out of those trends, establishing the domestic behavior of states as a relevant international concern and placing a responsibility on international actors to act in new ways to preserve new conceptions of international security. States responded reluctantly, and many of the important issues, like the meaning of human rights and the protections of sovereignty, remain hotly debated. The lack of certainty on these issues reflects the extent to which the changes were not conscious, but a reactive response to new international configurations and the waning of strategic imperatives as primary concerns. More important in terms of addressing international security concerns, intervention is still a process of trial and error. It began by addressing limited humanitarian issues and expanded to include conflict resolution approaches and the comprehensive rebuilding of states. Unfortunately, this process happened too quickly. Intervention expanded to take on new mandates before international actors had figured out how to accomplish the previous ones. That opened room for criticism and allowed skeptics to focus on the errors and complications. Surprisingly, however, intervention did not end. The case

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studies that follow analyze the process of evolution that began with the  intervention in Somalia and ended, at least temporarily, with the  intervention in East Timor. The analysis focuses on two areas: why intervention happened and what it achieved or is achieving. While the former relates to the issues discussed above, the latter relates to an important question that remains unanswered: Does intervention help international security? The answer is not obvious. Conflict resolution is a laudable goal, as is the effort to build more stable and accountable states. But it is not yet clear that intervention is effective in achieving either goal, particularly when security in areas like Bosnia and Kosovo remains so dependent on the international presence.

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3 Lessons in Failure Intervention in Somalia

S   first testing ground for post–Cold War interventions and the point of departure for their subsequent evolution. Liberia had descended into anarchy two years earlier, but the swift regional response kept the issue from broader international consideration. Somalia, by contrast, became a frequent topic of Security Council debate. Observers fixated on its humanitarian component rather than its security dimension, however, and shied away from directly addressing the grievances behind the conflict. International involvement began as purely humanitarian assistance, with little thought given to the causes or consequences of the state’s collapse. The onset of famine allowed outside actors to define the problem as starvation and disease rather than political crisis. They responded by providing emergency aid. That soon proved useless as the escalating chaos prevented distribution of supplies and placed NGO and UN personnel at risk. The US-led Unified Task Force (UNITAF) entered the country in December , marking the first use of Western military forces in a civil conflict since the end of the Cold War. UNITAF could not provide the quick fix many policymakers hoped for, but it did open a Pandora’s box of theoretical and normative problems. Somalia represented a far different and murkier situation than the Gulf War had presented 

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in . It was not a case of international aggression but of internal collapse. No recognized government existed and the warring parties had not crossed any borders. The intervening troops were not sent to reverse an action criticized by international consensus and law but to provide “security” in a country divided by conflict among its own people. How they would do so and whether they should were matters of debate from the outset. The story of Somalia’s collapse is by now well known. The country began its implosion in , and by  violence and then drought had combined to create a national and humanitarian crisis. The international community began its relief efforts in , but anarchy posed the real problem. No amount of food could fill the political vacuum left by the government’s collapse and ensuing factional battle for the capital. UNITAF’s military intervention was intended to aid the humanitarian effort, but when the UN drifted into political entanglements, the purposes of intervention became unclear. Though endowed with a sense of do-goodism, the series of international missions in Somalia became progressively more involved in the conflict itself yet less clearly attached to a defined and limited operational goal. The very conception of the international effort came into question after the disastrous October  attempt to capture Gen. Mohammed Farah Aideed, who was considered the biggest obstacle to UN efforts at political resolution. Whether international forces should engage in a civil war and why they would attempt to kidnap a central Somali leader were immediate and troubling questions. While most observers agreed on the need to protect and ensure the dispersion of humanitarian supplies, the prospect of delving into Somali politics did not garner the same consensus. US presidents George Bush and Bill Clinton described the intervention as an effort to feed the starving. Likewise, UN SecretaryGeneral Boutros-Ghali pressed hard for major power commitment and insisted on greater attention to African crises. Their description of the international and UN operations implied a sense of responsibility to relieve suffering where possible. But only Boutros-Ghali endorsed intervention as a means of conflict resolution. The United States initially avoided any involvement in political issues and refused to engage in the task of disarmament, even though Boutros-Ghali in

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sisted that doing so was vital to limiting the violence. Most important, US policymakers viewed the operation as a quick and simple task. UNITAF planned to get in, establish security, and get out. Bush defined

Map .. Somalia. UN Cartographic Section, no.  Rev. , July 

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a very restricted mandate for the intervention based strictly on humanitarian concerns. When Clinton expanded the US role to provide support for UN reconciliation efforts, he failed to explain the change or its connection to the humanitarian crisis. Although the massive humanitarian aid campaign did eventually help ease the famine, the failed operation to snag Aideed left the more lasting impression. As a result, Somalia left a very mixed legacy to intervention. The effort was described as humanitarian yet acted politically and left presumptuously. Stated goals changed throughout the course of the UNITAF and UN missions. Claims of nation building were trumpeted, derided, and then abandoned. By the end of  the operation was in a shambles, with the United States preparing to withdraw and the UN contingent paralyzed by uncertainty. As we look at this case there are two primary areas of focus. First, why did nations agree to intervene? Second, what perceptions defined the style of that intervention? The first question speaks to the definitions of security and norms that motivated states to act. The second speaks to the understandings of what intervention could accomplish and how they began to change just at the time that Somalia dissolved into crisis. Intervention was still widely viewed as something that should be avoided in –, but growing international concern for human rights issues also put pressure on states to help resolve crises when possible. Somalia offered a situation where the perceived potential for effective action, viewed narrowly as humanitarian assistance, overcame reluctance to get embroiled in domestic conflicts. The objectives were very clearly limited to providing aid, however, and specifically abjured involvement in political issues. Though the outcome did not work out as intended, Somalia formed a crucial starting point from which post–Cold War perspectives on intervention have evolved.

The Origins of the Conflict Unlike many other contemporary conflicts in Africa, Somalia’s crisis did not derive from the circumstances of decolonization and the development of competing nationalist visions.1 A collection of separate, nomadic, and often hostile clans with little sense of political unity, the 

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country was divided into various spheres during the imperialist period and maintained a pastoral and nomadic culture. Kinship ties defined political and economic structure, with the clan or subclan providing the most important affiliation. With the exception of the campaign of the dervishes against the British early in the twentieth century, the country had little experience with nationalism or unified revolt. Somalis did not have to demand or fight for self-rule but gained it as part of a process begun when the British assumed control of the country during World War II. The Somalization of the civil service and police began at that time, and although nationalist sentiment increased, it was neither a violent nor a wholly unifying force. The subsequent Italian trusteeship, begun in , was both closely overseen by the UN and consciously directed toward independence. The rise of nationalism that accompanied self-rule was neither deep nor decisive. From the outset of independence, however, the state was viewed as a means to personal wealth and success rather than as a means to advancement for the Somali people as a whole. This perception, rooted in the country’s political history, had important ramifications for the intervention of . Clan ties remained the most important form of connection, both in private and political life, which led to tensions between groups trying to forge an identity for the state. In this respect the imperialist legacy did make a difference. The two distinct colonial traditions—the former British protectorate in the north and the Italian regions in the south—left different imprints on development that led to increased friction between the predominant clans of each region. The traditional attitudes of pastoral Somali life were more entrenched in the north, while the south appeared more modernist. The unification of the two regions initially produced some violence, but by the beginning of  the country was a single entity. The first postindependence elections took place in  and resulted in the victory of the Somali Youth League (SYL). But the eighteen parties that took part in the election, many created the day before and most going out of existence the day after, foreshadowed a tendency to parochialism that increased the divisions in politics. Parties were created to represent narrow constituencies and rarely tried to reach across group lines. In the  election more than sixty parties filed one thousand candidates for  seats, despite efforts to encourage national Lessons in Failure: Intervention in Somalia

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platforms.2 The parliament became a center of corruption and personal aggrandizement, ignoring the interests of the society it had been created to serve. In response citizens derided the legislature as a “sordid marketplace,” and their frustrations increased as representatives publicly flaunted their wealth and position.3 Few national or local issues were ever seriously debated. Each legislator focused on recouping campaign expenses, and all voted with the SYL in the end. Regardless of the plethora of electoral choices, therefore, Somalia was effectively a one-party state with an increasingly authoritarian flavor. The political climate changed on October , , when a police guard killed President ‘Abd al-Rashid ‘Ali Shirmarke. The army took advantage of the situation to occupy key points in the capital and place members of the government under house arrest. It suspended the constitution, abolished the supreme court, and established military rule through the Supreme Revolutionary Council. The new regime insisted that it wanted to root out corruption and tribal nepotism while bringing economic and social betterment to the society as a whole. The populace signaled its approval of that platform by welcoming the new president, Gen. Mohamed Siad Barre, as a hero. Their hopes seemed well placed initially because Siad Barre emphasized the need for development and the use of public resources exclusively for that purpose. He spoke out against clan divisions, even inviting the public to air its grievances regarding the past government and make suggestions for the future.4 This was a significant change because clan affiliation traditionally superseded national identity and was an important factor in limiting the central authority. Beneath the rhetoric, however, the new president built his power base by manipulating clans and playing their interests off against each other. His primary support came from the Marehan, Ogaden, and Dulbahante subclans of the Darod clan family, and this “MOD” basis of the regime was well known and privately criticized. In a country defined by clan and subclan interests this situation was bound to create problems over the long term, and the limits of the MOD base became evident during the war with Ethiopia in the late s. The Ogaden had been a disputed area between Somalia and Ethiopia since the colonial period, and the Somali regime officially supported the right

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of self-determination for Somalis living there. Siad Barre mounted a military offensive to control the region in , believing that Ethiopia’s postrevolutionary weakness combined with the power of his Sovietequipped military would lead to success. After the initial advance, however, the Ethiopian military, bolstered by greater numbers of Soviet arms and the addition of Cuban troops, pushed the Somalis back in humiliating defeat. In the subsequent search for scapegoats, clan cleavages became more apparent, as did the corruption and patronage within the government. Rather than serving as a unifying force for the Somali nation, the regime was revealed as repressive and divisive, manipulating clan rivalries for the sake of its own power. Siad Barre’s authority eroded as a result, forcing him to rely even more on terror and repression. His complete co-optation of the instruments of government discredited institutions in the eyes of Somalis. Rather than seeking a national change, individuals looked to their clans to provide social and economic connections, leading to more polarization within society. The distrust and suspicion created by the government would later prove a major obstacle in international efforts to create an interim government in  and . Economic crisis also became acute just as the political crisis began to spiral out of control. Always heavily dependent on agriculture, Somalia experienced drastically declining production in the s. The regime neglected peasant farming in favor of building up marketing facilities, such as ports, making Somalia heavily dependent on food imports. At the same time, the decline in oil prices and the internationalization of the livestock market, Somalia’s biggest export, led to low profits and diminishing foreign exchange for the state. The foreign aid on which the country had always been dependent began diminishing at the end of the decade as well. The United States cut off military aid in  and reduced economic aid by $ million, which it sent to other African nations.5 Somalia’s declining human rights record led to this decision, with Congress, backed by human rights organizations, trying to limit or freeze the Reagan administration’s aid requests. Also heavily in debt to the IMF and World Bank, Somalia had a debt-to-GNP ratio of  percent, one of the highest on the continent, against a per capita GNP of barely $.6

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Unrest started in the north, where the legacy of the failed Ogaden offensive sparked the development of opposition groups and led to clan antagonisms between pro–Siad Barre Ogadenis and the local Issaq clan. By  unrest was rampant, and Siad Barre declared a state of emergency in October . Members of the Issaq clan formed the Somali National Movement (SNM) in  in response to the growing sense of regional discontent over the rising economic problems and declining political legitimacy of the regime. Initially based across the border in Ethiopia, the movement had little presence in Somalia itself. It was forced to take action in  when the two beleaguered governments signed a nonaggression treaty and agreed to cease harboring opposition groups against the other. With Ethiopia’s hostility waning, the SNM mounted an offensive and fought its way into northern Somalia, particularly the area around Hargeisa and Berbera, which was inhabited by Issaq communities. The regime responded by sending its entire military might against the SNM, which proved surprisingly effective as a fighting force. Within days Hargeisa, the second-largest city in Somalia, lay in ruins. Siad Barre recruited loyal Ogaden militias to attack the civilian Issaq population, and the area soon became devoid of central authority. The regime retained control of the cities, which were systematically plundered, while the SNM ruled the countryside. Interclan violence slowly spread south as it became clear that Siad Barre’s power was declining. The Somali Patriotic Movement (SPM) appeared in , composed mainly of Ogaden clansmen previously part of the armed forces or bureaucracy. The United Somali Congress (USC), formed in Rome in , prompted a mutiny of Hawiye army troops in , which led to further outbreaks of violence in the south. The precarious position of Siad Barre weakened further when at the end of  the US Congress denied all aid to Somalia, approximately  percent of the country’s GDP.7 That decision was precipitated by Congress’s opposition to the tremendous government repression in response to riots in Mogadishu and, more specifically, the execution of  civilians arrested for rioting in late July.8 The government increasingly controlled only the cities while a variety of subclan organizations held the countryside and engaged in violence against the regime and each other. The violence disrupted both

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agricultural production in the verdant interriverine region of the south and livestock trading activities in the north, exacerbating the country’s already problematic economic situation. Clan divisions became the overriding focus of both allegiance and violence, focusing opposition against the Marehan-dominated regime and army but also preventing cooperation among Siad Barre’s opponents. Attempts to create broadbased fronts failed even as the Mogadishu regime moved closer to collapse. Siad Barre was leader in name only by late , and the army lost all security functions as it moved toward massacre and banditry and then dissolved into clan-based factions. In April  a moderate group presented a manifesto demanding an attempt at political reconciliation and the appointment of a transition government, but Siad Barre arrested the signatories. Riots and looting increased, with repression the only response. In October  the three main opposition groups (USC, SNM, SPM) agreed on the common objective of defeating Siad Barre. Reduced to de facto house arrest in his compound in Mogadishu, Siad Barre departed the capital in January . With the government now officially terminated the capital collapsed into chaos—looted, nearly empty of citizens, and ruled by armed gangs who spread into the countryside. The president’s departure led to a new power struggle as the various clan and subclan organizations broke their coalition and tried to gain power for themselves. All-out civil war engulfed the country as violence spread from the capital and numerous areas declared themselves autonomous regions. The violence and famine together led to massive internal displacement of the population, creating the humanitarian crisis.

An Overview of the Conflict The lack of a national or even moderately unified group capable of taking over after Siad Barre’s departure intensified the problem in . The first round of civil war was fought to remove the government. The second round, and the one that motivated intervention, was fought to establish control over the capital. The USC split immediately into two factions, one led by Aideed and the other by civilian ‘Ali Mahdi

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Mohammed, both vying for control of the capitol and government.9 Issaq subclans in the north declared the independent Somaliland Republic and Siad Barre continued to fight while he tried to regroup his clan-based forces. The chaos increased the displacement of the population, which became hostage to militia leaders looking for a source of aid supplies and more fighters. Three times Siad Barre’s forces tried to retake Mogadishu and three times they were pushed back by Aideed’s army, adopting scorched-earth tactics in their retreat. The MogadishuBaidoa-Bardera region became known as the triangle of death, where thousands of the displaced fell under the control of vicious local clan groups.10 Mogadishu was a ghost city; utilities and water facilities were nonexistent and most of its buildings had been destroyed. Looting occurred with almost unimaginable completeness, extending to door frames, wiring, and structural steel.11 The struggle between the USC groups intensified throughout , as the absence of government combined with the violence and the onset of famine to create a situation described in January  as “the greatest humanitarian emergency in the world.”12 Drought and the halt in agricultural production caused by the occupation of the fertile interriverine area by the remains of Siad Barre’s army increased the famine throughout . In addition to fighting for political power, the primary factions in the southern area of Somalia were engaged in a fight over land resources and production control. Although the violence and suffering in Mogadishu gained the most press coverage, it became increasingly clear over the course of the conflict that the Shabelle and Jubba river valleys in the south were a critical part of the violence. Peopled by minority and pastoral communities who historically played little role in the country’s politics, the farmlands quickly shifted ownership as members of the Hawiye and Darod clans established de facto authority. The declining economic situation placed a premium on the control of landed resources in an economy where few other possibilities for accumulation existed.13 Controlling these regions, along with the plundering of international aid resources, which became such a fixture of Western attention, was a central part of Somalia’s wartime economy from  on and a key aspect of economic as well as political control.

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Attempts by clan elders to mediate a cease-fire in the south, particularly Mogadishu, failed in late . Nonmilitary intervention began with the appointment of a special representative of the secretarygeneral in early , but all attempts to negotiate with the warlords, particularly Aideed, failed. By the time the warlords agreed to a ceasefire in March, Mogadishu was in ruins and its one million citizens had been displaced to the countryside. In the capital a green line separated the two USC factions. Aideed’s forces repulsed an attempt by Siad Barre to regain Mogadishu in April , capturing key equipment and military supplies in the process and further cementing their position in the capital. That fighting also touched off a resumption of hostilities among the USC contingents in the city. In September the UN finally convinced Aideed to accept the deployment of a small UN force, but its mandate was so limited, according to his demands (to the point of being named Security Personnel rather than a Security Force), that its prospects for reducing the conflict were nil. The five-hundred-person Pakistani contingent was allowed to operate at Mogadishu’s port and airport for the purpose of escorting supplies to storage and distribution centers in Mogadishu only. The United States began the humanitarian Operation Provide Relief, but that too was centered in Mogadishu, and though it ensured delivery of food and medicine in Somalia, it did not necessarily reach the people who needed aid. The violence that consumed Somalia occurred on two levels. The first was the conflict between clans, tribes, and militias, all competing for political and economic resources. This was distilled, for the watching world, down to the subclan and personality conflict between General Aideed and ‘Ali Mahdi that became the focus because it took place in Mogadishu. But their rivalry did not begin to capture the full breadth of Somalia’s problem. The second level of violence was nonfactional and consisted of looting and banditry perpetrated by armed teenage gangs, mooryan, who terrorized Somalis and international workers alike from their “technicals,” trucks carrying up to a dozen heavily armed youths and submachine or antitank guns. Connected to no group politically, they focused specifically on gaining access to the international aid.

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Emergency aid became the sole currency of the collapsed economy, representing a means of obtaining both money and power. The more aid came in the more it fed the competition for resources. This caused two problems. First, the presence of aid increased the violence as gangs and factions vied for control of international supplies. Second, the focus on Mogadishu as a distribution point brought the displaced population into the areas of highest conflict, thereby delivering more desperate people into the zones of the warlords. The violence also meant agriculture ground to halt, exacerbating the effects of drought on the country. As the situation worsened daily, aid distribution became increasingly difficult and ineffective. At a certain point, continuing the humanitarian operation made no sense unless the violence could be limited. Throughout  and  the US State Department had consistently referred to the problem as internal and declined official US involvement on the grounds that the system was already overloaded by crises.14 The crisis of delivering aid, however, created a change of heart among both US legislators and the executive branch. In November  the United States informed the secretary-general that it would take the lead in creating a multinational force to assist the relief effort, if authorized, and that military planning was already underway. The proposed force had two restrictions: it would affect only humanitarian issues and be of limited duration. On December , , the UN Security Council adopted Resolution , committing that body to an unprecedented humanitarian operation that included using “all necessary means to establish . . . a secure environment.” International troops entered Somalia on December  with the arrival of the US Marine contingent, beginning Operation Restore Hope. These troops were subsequently joined by other forces to create UNITAF, which was charged with restoring security in limited geographic areas, mainly in the south around Mogadishu, to allow the dispersal of aid.15 The story from this point on is now infamous. UNITAF succeeded in limiting violence and protecting aid shipments enough to allow assistance to reach the citizens so desperately in need. It undertook only limited disarmament, however, and the situation remained volatile when it handed off the problem to the second phase of the United

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Nations Operation in Somalia (UNOSOM II) in May . While UNOSOM I had operated exclusively for humanitarian purposes, UNOSOM II was tasked with helping resolve the political crisis and endowed with enforcement powers. But security was precarious at best. Settlement of the conflict remained a distant hope. Since the success of more ambitious and long-term projects depended on a reduction in the violence, the reconciliation the UN hoped for was impossible to achieve. It did succeed in creating the first agreement on reconciliation in late May, establishing a two-year transition period and providing for a Transitional National Council to assume primary political authority along with a series of regional and district councils. The conflict, however, remained little changed, and the environment necessary to carry out the plan of reconciliation did not exist. The subclan warfare continued. Somalis also resisted the formation of a national government because they associated such a body with corruption and repression. In June, Aideed’s forces attacked a contingent of Pakistani peacekeepers, killing twenty-five, and from that point on fierce confrontations continued between UNOSOM II and the Aideed faction. UNOSOM II conducted air and ground operations in Mogadishu on June , removing Radio Mogadishu from Aideed’s control and confiscating and destroying weapons and equipment. For the remainder of the summer UNOSOM II continued active patrolling and confiscation of weapons, with Aideed’s forces particular targets.16 The United States maintained a presence in the UN mission and bolstered it with an independent rapid-response team of US Army Rangers. It was this unit, operating under US command, that undertook the mission to capture Aideed in October . In the process of this action, codenamed Task Force Ranger, three helicopters were shot down, eighteen Rangers killed, and seventy-eight wounded, while the remainder were rescued by a UNOSOM II unit that fought through the gunfire nine hours after being called.17 Aideed remained free, but twentyfour of his aides and supporters were captured, and he declared a cessation of hostilities against UNOSOM on October . Although security remained tense throughout the year the famine decreased and some agricultural production returned.

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Following the barrage of criticism for the US action (mistakenly assumed to be under UN command)18 in particular and intervention in general, the United States withdrew its contingents in March . UNOSOM began building a local police force in December, when the process of forming local governments also got underway. The loss of US support sapped the political will of the UN, however, as did the seeming impossibility of resolving the conflict. The mission’s mandate was gradually reduced to make it merely an overseer of the nonexistent peace process. Outside of Mogadishu the country was relatively calm, with no famine and grain harvests at  to  percent of normal.19 The lack of central government was not resolved, however, and Mogadishu remained gripped by violence. UNOSOM remained, ineffectively, until March , when it also withdrew amid continuing criticism and branded by the stigma of failure. The battle for Mogadishu continued after international forces left, with the population less hungry, if no more stable. Various agreements were brokered by outside parties but none lasted. Massive flooding at the end of  highlighted the extent to which the conflict had not yet been resolved—it was the second time in five years that violence had prevented the implementation of emergency relief efforts that could have mitigated the effects of a disaster. Since then Somalia has fared little better in the effort to achieve peace, in spite of numerous attempts. The Swiss NGO, War-Torn Societies Project International, describes it as “the most durable case of state collapse in the modern era.”20 Government is currently conducted primarily by local militias. Although a Transitional Federal Government (TFG) was established in Kenya in the fall of , the peace process has stalled since then. The TFG is broadly representative, and most major faction leaders have signed on to the peace initiative, but until the factions are disarmed it can neither return safely to Somalia nor pursue a program of rehabilitation.

The International Response The conflict in Somalia had been ongoing for several years by the time military intervention commenced in . That indicates that it 

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was not so much the presence of violence that motivated action but something else. Rather than taking advantage of instability to establish influence, international actors tried not to get involved and virtually ignored the political crisis as such. Their initial efforts addressed only the humanitarian crisis and did not make conflict resolution efforts a central part of the UN agenda. The notion that the crisis might have security ramifications was voiced in UN debate in early  but was not broadly accepted.21 International actors instead focused on providing emergency relief. UNOSOM I began operation in April  with a mandate to protect UN personnel and assist in the protection and distribution of food and medical supplies in Mogadishu. The Security Council broadened its mandate in August to encompass the whole country. Even so, the mission had limited goals, did not venture outside its humanitarian mandate, and focused exclusively on assisting at-risk populations. UNOSOM’s inability to carry out its mandate in the face of violence led to limited discussions on security in the UN. Although the secretary-general discussed the possibility that Somalia might affect stability throughout the Horn of Africa, most other participants in the debate viewed Somalia through a more narrow lens.22 Security Council members discussed the political chaos exclusively in terms of its impact on the humanitarian effort, noting only that the absence of a government meant the UN had no “interlocutor” to help coordinate the humanitarian effort.23 They did not address the roots of the violence, or explore approaches to ending the conflict. Security Council members expressed no consensus on behalf of a conflict resolution approach and pointedly separated the humanitarian and political issues. When efforts to promote reconciliation did take place in , they suffered from a lack of sensitivity to local hierarchy and customs and a lack of coordination among outside actors. Under different conditions perhaps a consensus on military action would never have been reached. However, the role of drought in exacerbating the effects of violence played a significant role. Outside actors focused on the drought as a cause of famine and malnutrition. Although emergency aid was reaching Somalia, very little of it was reaching the desperate population. Large quantities of the food (at times entire warehouses) were hijacked at the point of entry by followers of Lessons in Failure: Intervention in Somalia

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the various warlords as well as aggressive and enterprising bands of teenagers. By November  starvation claimed one thousand people per day, and an estimated  percent of the relief aid was being confiscated.24 The lack of a national government compounded the problem. Whoever owned a gun held power, and international agencies had no authority to appeal to for assistance. The UN was involved in a situation it could not handle, yet the depth of the humanitarian crisis made it difficult to leave. These circumstances created an important turning point for intervention, not only in Somalia but in post–Cold War international relations. They forced a change in the perceived uses of intervention by producing a humanitarian rationale for military action. Nations do not normally employ their militaries to do good for others, and intervention in a sovereign state is usually considered wrong. Somalia presented a situation where the scope of the tragedy induced by both humans and nature created pressure on observers to act in unusual ways on behalf of humanitarian interests. The crisis required international assistance, if only to aid the victimized population. Yet that aid was ineffective because of the warlords’ continued violence and use of commandeered resources as currency. Throughout the fall of  the status quo became increasingly untenable. In October, General Aideed ordered the expulsion of the UN’s coordinator for humanitarian assistance and tried to restrict the UN battalion from the streets of Mogadishu. In November, Aideed’s forces shelled the UN troops at the airport while his rival, ‘Ali Mahdi, shelled ships carrying food aid as they entered the port. The warlords encouraged local resistance by spreading the rumor that the UN planned to invade and take over Somalia. The hijacking of vehicles and looting of food and supplies increased. If emergency assistance were to continue, it required enforcement action to protect the food and ensure its distribution to those most in need. The updates and reports provided by the International Committee of the Red Cross and approximately twenty other international NGOs present in Somalia made the facts difficult to avoid. The choices were relatively stark: to abandon the humanitarian effort entirely or to provide the security necessary to make it work. On November  the Security Council asked the secretary-general for recommendations

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on future action, indicating that it would consider invoking Chapter VII of the charter. That required designating the conflict as a threat to international peace and security and developing a consensus that nonmilitary measures were inadequate to resolve the crisis. The United States indicated that it would take the lead in organizing and leading a military operation to deliver the humanitarian aid, if the Security Council deemed such action necessary. The Security Council met on December , , to discuss the next step. The members considered three courses of action: a show of force by UN troops in Mogadishu to induce cooperation, a countrywide enforcement operation led by a member state, or a countrywide enforcement operation under UN command. The council considered the first option ineffective. It also rejected the third option because other peacekeeping operations had already stretched the organization’s capacity too thin. The second appeared to be the only viable choice. The Security Council authorized armed intervention by the passage of Resolution , with the clarification that the military operation was designed to support the “wider mandate entrusted to the SecretaryGeneral to provide humanitarian relief and promote national reconciliation.”25 Though it authorized military action, the Security Council clearly linked that intervention to a specific UN mandate. The council also specified that intervention would be limited in scope and duration. Resolution  focused on the issue of food and its distribution; it did not make a wider claim to justifying international action in the case of civil conflict in general. That is an important point, because it indicates that conceptions of multilateral intervention and its use were still quite limited at the time. Although the resolution relied on Chapter VII and its connection to international security, the political crisis was not the primary factor for intervention. The humanitarian problem remained the center of attention, and international action was tailored to address that specifically. Exactly what sort of involvement that meant, however, was interpreted differently. The United States construed the mandate to include only humanitarian actions connected to the protection and dispersion of aid. Secretary-General Boutros-Ghali envisioned an operation committed to beginning the process of disarmament and demobilization.

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Although all parties envisioned a future attempt to bring about political reconciliation in Somalia, that task was not spelled out in Resolution . The United States thought the political reform project would be a separate, UN-only task, while Boutros-Ghali thought efforts to begin the process of reconciliation were implied in UNSCR . This difference in interpretation played a large role in determining the overall success of international intervention in Somalia. But what made the Security Council endorse intervention, particularly when it meant inviting the only superpower into what had been a sensitive region? And why would the United States offer to lead the operation, especially since that constituted a significant change of policy? The humanitarian argument may be adequate when considering the UN, but seems less so in the case of the United States. The Bush administration’s only other act of intervention, its unilateral action in Panama, was closely tied to perceived security interests and followed a long history of meddling in the affairs of Central America. Given the past relationship with Somalia it seems likely that the United States perceived a national security interest there as well. After all, Somalia had been a Cold War ally and one formerly considered critical in containing Soviet aspirations. Even though the Cold War was over by the time of the operation, Somalia had been a keystone of US security perspectives for over twenty years. In  it was still unclear what would replace the Cold War. The geostrategic considerations in Somalia—ports, a foothold in a key part of Africa, potential access to the Middle East—could not be ignored by US and Western policymakers. Though the Soviets were no longer a threat, that did not mean that strategic assets should be abandoned. The United States had long considered the Horn of Africa important for reasons of trade and strategy, and the reconfiguration of the world that followed the Cold War did not render it useless. Several international waterways that serve as important conduits for oil can be accessed or protected from Somali ports. It was in the interests of the United States, therefore, to maintain a friendly and stable Somalia. The above argues for a realist view of the US action. A Marxist interpretation focusing on economic hegemony could also be possible because of Somalia’s proximity to oil wealth. By controlling Somalia

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the United States could have thought to extend its influence in the Middle East and gradually increase its access to oil while lowering the costs. In this scenario Somalia would be a stepping-stone to other, oilproducing countries and give the United States a greater ability to dominate its most crucial resource. Although that may seem somewhat far-fetched, it is also plausible if we view intervention as economically driven, and committed to the domination of resources. Yet the evidence suggests that the United States did not want to intervene, and when it acquiesced, it construed its actions in the narrowest of ways. In July  the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) had argued against action in Somalia, calling it a “bottomless pit.”26 The Bush administration felt it had no interest in the crisis and had earlier opposed efforts to create an armed UN force to intervene. Even when intervention was authorized, some US officials felt the decision was at odds with US interests. A frustrated State Department official fumed, “We don’t have a strategic interest in Somalia and we do in an unstable Balkans.”27 The United States could gain little from participation and would lose little from Somalia’s further decline. Even within Africa the administration considered Angola and Mozambique more important to US interests.28 The decision to act in Somalia was thus distinctly at odds with security or economic interests. The depth of the tragedy affecting Somalia coincided with the emerging humanitarian agenda. That accounts for the US change of heart far more than realism or Marxism. By the time UNSCR  was passed, half of Somalia’s population of seven million had already died or was at risk of starvation. Eight hundred thousand had fled as refugees and over a million were internally displaced, compounding the humanitarian problem.29 With demand for action intensifying and the liberal humanitarian perspective in particular strengthened by the recent election of Bill Clinton, many in the Bush administration feared the appearance of callousness.30 President Bush was briefed on possible options the day before Thanksgiving and made his choice in less than an hour. His aides stressed that “the number of deaths was going up, and the number of people we were reaching was going down.”31 The administration also had strong support in Congress. Bush announced the decision by saying, “Only the United States has

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the global reach to place a large security force on the ground in such a distant place . . . and thus save thousands of innocents from death.”32 The widespread belief that the operation could be done relatively simply and without great cost to the United States helped increase support among legislators and the administration. Because observers tended to isolate the famine, and therefore aid distribution, as the primary problem, Somalia looked like an easy operation. Few people followed the causal arrow backward from the humanitarian crisis to the political crisis that caused it. Given this separation of issues, the choice was simple—Somalis needed food and the United States could help them get it. The normative commitment to providing humanitarian relief was thus strengthened substantially by the conviction that doing so would be easy and cost the actors very little. In that sense this case does correspond to Regan’s explanation of why states intervene, and does not represent a complete departure from the rule of self-interest. The chairman of the JCS, Colin Powell, initially opposed action in Somalia but changed his mind in November after considering the potential ease of the operation. Powell insisted on two criteria for US military action: a well-defined and limited time frame and no obligation to do the same elsewhere. Somalia seemed to present both, and at the time no one anticipated that intervention would contribute to an increasing sense of obligation. The UN was already present and ready to take over, and the intensity of the famine created what most believed was a rather unique situation. US and international officials bet that a massive show of force would stop the looting and banditry. Significantly, however, the United States did not construe UNITAF as aiding itself or Somalia, only Somalis. The distinction is subtle yet important. The United States agreed to lead UNITAF in order to allow the distribution of food. It pointedly did not accept or seek involvement in a program to stabilize or pacify the country. The Security Council did not discuss conflict resolution programs in depth or clearly connect them to UNITAF’s mandate. For all involved parties the humanitarian crisis, rather than the political crisis, justified intervention. Bush assured the public that “our mission is humanitarian” and that it would be brief.33 The administration articulated no politi-

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cal vision for Somalia and repeatedly described reconciliation as the UN’s job. It is difficult, therefore, to see a hidden security rationale behind the commitment to UNITAF. Acting in Somalia was important for another reason, however. US policymakers felt they faced a choice between joining an intervention in Bosnia or leading an effort in Somalia. Although they may not have felt they could gain in Somalia directly, they certainly preferred its problems and terrain to the violence that had erupted in Bosnia earlier that year. The cost calculation loomed large here, because US officials believed Bosnia would require more time and money, with little chance of success. The perceived need to make this choice shows how successful governmental and nongovernmental organizations had been in demanding attention to humanitarian problems. Humanitarian issues were becoming more central to the international agenda and placing new expectations on policymakers. For the United States, acting in Somalia presented a means of easing international pressure to act in Bosnia; it could prove its humanitarian bona fides but in a relatively cheap way. Somalia seemed a safer and essentially costeffective choice. While officials feared a Bosnian quagmire, they believed Somalia could be a short and effective operation. The key to this preference was the clause ending UNITAF once security was created. The operation had a clearly defined objective and was expected to be short. Any long-term tasks would be assumed by the UN. Said one State Department official, “to pacify the situation in Bosnia is . . . virtually impossible and would require enormous numbers of troops. In Somalia you can plan an operation that will be effective.”34 But the consensus for intervention spread much farther than the United States. We must also question why the members of the Security Council were willing to authorize such action. Why would the UN invite a superpower to spread its military might into the Horn of Africa? The answer is, quite simply, nothing else worked. In January  the Security Council had imposed an embargo on deliveries of weapons and military equipment to the country. The conflict continued, and UNOSOM I was created in early  to stem a humanitarian crisis of starvation, malnutrition, and related disease.35 That prompted the secretary-general to declare in November that the Security Council

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had “no alternative but to decide to adopt more forceful measures to secure the humanitarian operations in Somalia.”36 Moreover, the increased level of agreement within the Security Council as a result of the end of the Cold War meant that, for virtually the first time, military action could be tied to and thus restrained by council consensus. Boutros-Ghali supported the use of the military to distribute relief supplies and conceived of intervention as part of a larger program of conflict resolution. Such action was a centerpiece of his vision for the post–Cold War UN. He also sought to shame countries into action, accusing the Security Council of caring only for the war in white Bosnia while ignoring starving black Somalis. His arguments were strengthened by the fact that Somalia involved two issues with strong normative connections: sovereignty and human rights. The extended absence of government compromised the country’s sovereignty and suggested that the problem would not be easily or quickly resolved. There was no existing body in the country that could attempt to provide relief. Significantly, there was also no existing body whose rights could be violated. The enmity between factions and lack of trust in negotiations also meant that reconciliation could not proceed without external guarantees. A third party was needed to drive mediation. Likewise, the level of human suffering motivated Security Council members to seek a solution, at least to the problem of starvation. While disagreements exist among cultures as to what constitutes the panoply of human rights, most can agree that access to food is among them. Commitment to feeding Somalis grew even as the majority of aid was stolen. The juxtaposition between the plight of citizens and the greed of the warlords made council members more committed to finding a solution to get food through. The Security Council’s debate relied on the conviction that the complete anarchy justified force because it created “a unique situation that demands a unique solution.”37 The noninterference principle of Article () in the UN charter does not “prejudice the application of enforcement measures under Chapter VII.”38 By judging the human and political crisis as a threat to international peace and security, the Security Council could invoke the right of enforcement with Resolution . But the council members did not consider this argument to estab-

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lish a rationale for action outside Somalia. That is an extremely important point and reflects how limited they expected intervention to be. This case was not intended to establish broad legitimacy for military interference. The arguments made were particular to Somalia, with no apparent attempt to engage broader issues by making internal violence or its consequences components of the international agenda. By focusing on the uniqueness of this one case, they hoped to make clear that it set no precedent and should not change expectations for the future. Members provided a rationale for intervention by arguing that the normal rules did not apply in this case because “Somalia is a country without a Government, without any responsible authority, without any valid national principles.”39 This argument served three purposes. It justified force on behalf of humanitarian principles by recognizing that no internal body had the capacity to address the problem. It isolated Somalia as an unusual and presumably noncontrolling case by focusing on the unusual fact of the complete absence of a recognized authority. And it implied the need for external action to address the problems of the state itself. The lack of functioning state structures meant that the intervenors would bear some responsibility for assisting reconciliation. Even so, the issue of state building remained secondary in late . The mandate of Resolution  was “to restore peace, stability, and law and order with a view to facilitating the process of political settlement.”40 This implied future efforts at reform but did not include them formally among UNITAF’s objectives. The mandate reflected the sense of intervention as a two-step process. The primary rationale (and strongest consensus for intervention) came from the humanitarian interest. The Security Council hoped to reduce violence to serve citizens and open the possibility of reconciliation, but the political process was viewed as a somewhat distant issue, with international action limited to providing the environment in which it could take place. UNITAF ended its mission on May , , when it handed over administrative control to UNOSOM II. Its deployment had allowed for more effective distribution of humanitarian aid but had not created a fully secure situation in the country. That was in large part because

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the United States resisted the task of disarmament and avoided involvement in political reform efforts. Although the strongest option was chosen from a military point of view, the US planners removed civil affairs and military police training from the plan, thus leaving out a central component of what Boutros-Ghali hoped to accomplish.41 This was highly unusual, compared to past cases of US intervention, and demonstrated the inherent unwillingness to engage in any activities that might affect political development. It also argues further against a realist or national interest view of the US action, since the United States had not been shy about influencing development in other cases. US reluctance underscores the limited structure of the operation as conceived by policymakers. UNITAF was a short-term security mission operating on the UN’s behalf. Its primary goal was to establish a climate that allowed it to leave and UN operations to proceed effectively. The United States eschewed any activities that might involve it in larger issues and create the quagmire that administration officials feared. Though UNITAF’s efforts helped lessen the violence, the task force did not create the secure environment for which many had hoped.42 The follow-on UNOSOM II mission was therefore given enforcement powers under Chapter VII to deal with the security challenges that remained. Its mandate included controlling heavy weaponry, disarming and cantoning militias, and providing security at key installations. UNOSOM II formally expanded intervention from an exercise in providing humanitarian aid to one of promoting limited conflict resolution by UNSCR  of March . That document authorized the international community to “promote and advance political reconciliation . . . and the reestablishment of national and regional institutions and civil administration in the entire country and to create conditions under which Somali civil society may have a role, at every level, in the process of political reconstruction.” This marked the beginning of what we now call peace-building mandates. The goal shifted from exclusive focus on humanitarian aid to restoring a functioning political process by using international financial, diplomatic, and military resources. It was a landmark decision in the sense that it committed major powers to take on responsi-

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bility unconnected to their particular national interests (and that they wished to avoid, as demonstrated by the United States). But no one had much idea of what the new objective meant or how to pursue it. Animosity between the UN and Aideed hampered talks and restricted the institution’s ability to operate effectively. This inspired the infamous mission to capture the warlord, viewed by the United States and UN as the primary obstacle to peace. The Security Council authorized Resolution  on June , giving UNOSOM II clearance to conduct a series of military actions aimed at disabling weapons and equipment belonging to Aideed’s faction. This resolution was also developed under the terms of Chapter VII, but focused solely on Aideed as the target of UN action rather than the humanitarian situation in general. International intervention in Somalia, therefore, went through a three-step process: UNOSOM I, which was purely humanitarian; UNITAF, which was an enforcement action on behalf of humanitarian operations; and UNOSOM II, which made political reconciliation a central objective and linked it to enforcement action. Resolution efforts were decidedly secondary in the first two. UNITAF and UNOSOM I both conducted town meetings between soldiers and locals to discuss security and humanitarian matters and gave some encouragement to the development of local leaders. Reconciliation was not the primary focus, however. The political elements were poorly coordinated, and the operations did not try to develop legitimate alternatives to the warlords. Political issues were more central to the UNOSOM II mandate, but still the goal was to create conditions in which a process of Somalia reconciliation could begin. Rather than pressing a particular type of outcome, the discussion in the Security Council revolved around the need “to restore order, [and] disarm the warmongers . . . if we wish to assist in creating a favorable climate in which the Somali people will be able to begin to resolve its political problems and repair the country’s economy.”43 The council hoped to move from establishing security to encouraging reconciliation but viewed its participation in the latter as much more hands off. It knew little about Somali politics and had no understanding of the effort required to rebuild a collapsed state, particularly one like Somalia, where central authority had always had limited

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control. The citizens had an enormous and well-founded distrust of state government, and it had only increased as a result of violence. The situation required a sophisticated approach to conflict resolution that recognized the peculiarities of Somali political culture and included actors at numerous levels. The legacy of strong-man government meant that the average citizen relied on grassroots consultation and negotiation for conflict management. But the officials involved were not prepared to deal with a conflict featuring “fragmented decisionmaking and disorganized forces directed against civilian populations.” Nor were they prepared to fully engage in a process of transformation instituting “structural change at state level . . . and cultural change at all levels,” as the situation required.44 Yet understanding of the former and acceptance of the latter were necessary for effective resolution efforts to proceed. Most efforts to end the crisis focused on central authority, overlooking the important role of tribal leaders and clan elders, which were the heart of Somali political and social identity. Some strategies of local reconciliation were pursued but remained secondary to national efforts. The effort to reach a comprehensive settlement gradually became a more central part of UN discussions in  and was built into the mandate of UNOSOM II. In part this came from the United States. The Clinton administration took office in , bringing a greater willingness to participate in strategies of reconciliation than its predecessor. The United States spoke for many in the Security Council when Ambassador Madeleine Albright said in the spring of , “we embark on an unprecedented enterprise aimed at nothing less than the restoration of an entire country.”45 Army Rangers and Delta Force commandos were deployed to assist UNOSOM II, though they remained under US command. Military force was thus increasingly connected to issues of peace building. In March the secretary-general emphasized the anarchic circumstances motivating the mission and the goal of reconstruction when he stressed the “non-existence of a government,” and the fact “that the mission must include a commitment to establishing basic institutional structures.”46 This focus on providing or rebuilding institutional cohesion in Somali life gradually took on a more dominant role and was conceived as part of the overall

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humanitarian operation. The extent of the anarchy convinced Security Council members that Somalia required a broad and comprehensive approach. A Relief and Rehabilitation Programme accompanied the creation of UNOSOM II, intended to get the necessary international funds for projects such as reestablishment of local administration and the police force, development of food and health care systems, development of a primary education system, and plans to increase employment. Most of these efforts, however, overlooked the most pressing problem, the ongoing violence. Lack of understanding about how to end conflict and promote reconciliation doomed the effort. The punitive hunt for Aideed in the summer and fall of  showed just how unfamiliar outside actors were with the challenges presented by internal crisis. The United States and the UN justified the operation by citing Aideed’s attempts to obstruct, often violently, all attempts at political reconciliation and his willingness to target international personnel for attack. But he was also one of the most powerful political actors in Somalia. Furthermore, Aideed could use his victim status to his advantage in the war of public opinion. The effort to remove him ended the UN’s attempts at neutral facilitation and reduced global support for the intervention. More important, the hunt for Aideed launched intervention into a new era of political involvement and conflict resolution for which the participants were not prepared. International actors failed to negotiate with and nurture other leaders at the local level who could have helped develop viable alternatives to warlord rule. The best antidote to Aideed might have existed at a more grassroots level, where most Somalis gravitated anyway for political leadership. International actors overlooked this option because they knew little about Somali political history and focused naturally on the state level. They therefore missed the opportunity to pursue conflict resolution approaches outlined by Louis Kriesberg and Miall and his collaborators that try to engage multiple levels of society in the effort to alter the attitudes and power balances that lead to violence.47 The tragedy surrounding the attempt on Aideed demonstrated that the UN could not remove him, but neither could it involve him constructively in the peace process. An important lesson was learned,

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however. Not before or since has the UN interpreted an operation’s mandate to justify the targeting of an individual. Though talks continued they achieved no substantive progress. The UN mission was viewed with derision by Somalis even as it experienced problems from within. Aideed heightened his hostility to the intervention, and the incident led to the withdrawal of US forces. In November the Security Council reaffirmed humanitarian relief, and only humanitarian relief, as the priority of the UN role in Somalia, prompting a reduction in the mission. Without US backing, its capabilities were severely limited, and commitment was shaky on the part of several other participants. Though the institutional presence continued to the spring of , over its last eighteen months the mission was mainly humanitarian once more, with only “support” for political reconciliation. The first experiment with contemporary intervention did not, therefore, seem likely to encourage similar operations in the future.

Assessing Outcomes Though often associated with disaster, the interventions into Somalia were not a complete failure. The failure to catch Aideed may have been their most memorable aspect, but it did not speak for the intervention as a whole. Humanitarian goals were served, even if political ones were not. While unable to carry through its intent of rebuilding a viable state, the UN did attain the important goal of alleviating crisis conditions. The famine decreased and agricultural production rose. Improvements in security allowed supplies to reach the needy and farmers to return to work. The starvation and suffering that originally motivated UNITAF were brought under control. More important, and unknown at the time, UNITAF and UNOSOM II established a new role for intervention. They were the starting point for a developing norm of humanitarian intervention, with a conflict resolution component, carried out by military means. External powers had acted not to seize control of the state, but to make life better and safer for Somalis. The tendency to cut and run illustrated that motivation, since when security interests are involved states are more likely to persist,

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even in deteriorating circumstances. Somalia proved that humanitarian interests could be served by external intervention, and even in failure raised the possibility that state building and conflict resolution could also be legitimate objectives of intervention. Otherwise, the operations raised questions and controversies. The lack of a coherent and viable strategy for pursuing reconciliation was a serious problem. While the interventions did achieve humanitarian goals, they were far less effective when their mandates changed to embrace the more difficult problems of the political crisis. That failure stemmed in part from a lack of understanding of Somali politics or interests. I. M. Lewis argues that “‘a significant current of Somali opinion’” opposed negotiation with the warlords and preferred the use of local-level leadership to restore political structures.48 The majority of citizens did not accord national leaders much legitimacy. Although conflict resolution approaches stress that reconciliation must take place at numerous levels, from the national elite to the average citizen, in Somalia the international community ignored this dictum. UNOSOM II operated on a very rudimentary concept of resolution, and its participants could not comprehend the complexity of the political competition. They emphasized reconciliation as an end point and apparently did not realize that any peace agreement would mark the beginning of the process rather than the end. Without stable structures at some level, no political compromise could succeed. US Special Envoy Robert Oakley concurs that local level approaches would have been more successful because Somali politics operated most effectively at the clan level, even when government existed. Though Somalis hated the warlords they also feared a unified and nationally representative body. The local approach was ignored, however, while the intervening parties focused more and more narrowly on Aideed. The failure to achieve resolution in Somalia showed the need to understand local preferences and construct solutions to reflect them. The intervention also highlighted the constant tension between the pursuit of justice versus the pursuit of stability. As we shall see, this dichotomy has plagued many interventions and remains an unresolved problem today. The issue is essentially whether warlords or rebel leaders should be treated as political actors or not. For some, doing so

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rewards and legitimizes their violent tactics. For others, doing so is a necessity in the pursuit of peace. Attempts to solve the political crisis flip-flopped between these two perspectives, with Aideed the primary matter of debate. The Addis Ababa agreement, brokered in March , gave some hope for political reconciliation, but the UN team present did not approve of the legitimation of militia leaders that the document conveyed.49 The special representative of the secretary-general, Adm. Jonathan Howe, refused to meet with the signatories. The demonization of Aideed further alienated an actor essential to peace. Regardless of the government the UN pursued, it had to give Aideed incentives to rein in his supporters. Though he showed little interest in legitimacy, neither did the UN encourage him in that direction. Security Council Resolution , adopted on June , , effectively declared a UN war against Aideed by authorizing “all necessary measures against all those responsible for the armed attacks . . . to establish the effective authority of UNOSOM II throughout the country.”50 Gun fights broke out in June  when UNOSOM tried to inspect Somali National Alliance (SNA) arms caches, leaving twentyfour Pakistanis, three Americans, and one Italian peacekeeper dead. Both the military and political efforts ended in the October  assault, which captured twenty-four SNA officials but met disaster when hit by rocket-propelled grenades on the way back to base. The nine-hour gunfight and the death of American servicemen led to the end of US involvement, and shortly the UN mission as well. By the end of  efforts at political reconciliation had largely ceased. Admiral Howe preferred dealing with the warlords at a distance, and SNA representatives were increasingly cut out of reform arrangements. This ran contrary to a central proposition of conflict resolution that “a successful strategy should include a process whereby each group has the chance to behave as a legitimate political actor.”51 In the end, the focus on reconciliation was described as a fool’s errand, the failure of which initially overshadowed the very real gains made in the humanitarian arena. Surprisingly that outcome did not result in the abandonment of intervention but a reassessment of how it should be conducted. The failure of international will in Rwanda led many to conclude that So-

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malia had been an experiment not to be repeated. The image of the American Hector dragged through the streets of Mogadishu seemed to tell the whole story. Nations shunned the expense and feared the fatalities. These were the conflicts of others and it was hard to explain to domestic publics, as the United States learned, why external militaries should be placed at risk. Yet the operation proved to be a beginning rather than an ending, as the following chapters will demonstrate. The first example of post–Cold War military intervention reflects both success and failure. Nations undertook intervention in order to relieve a humanitarian crisis. Those were the conditions under which the United States offered its services to lead the operation. Although the United States had a past security interest that could have motivated its action, the evidence suggests humanitarian interests are a more compelling explanation. The deployment was limited to facilitating the distribution of relief aid and was expected to end quickly. That in itself was a somewhat remarkable commitment on the part of the great powers. Nations agreed to risk combat in order to feed Somalis, even while officials acknowledged that they had no strategic interest in the country. They qualified their involvement very carefully, however, citing the unique and unprecedented circumstances that Somalia presented. The absence of government had a lot to do with international motivations, allowing consensus on the intractability of the problem without external action. Once involved, however, the concept broadened to include political reconciliation as a more central aspect of the mandate. The task was to be carried out by the UN, but UNOSOM II was authorized to use enforcement power and was supported by elite US troops. In a sense this adoption of peace building came almost accidentally. Reducing starvation was one thing, but it was clear even when UNITAF completed its work that the solution was temporary. Providing real security for the population meant attempting to resolve the political crisis. As important as the move toward peace building may have been, it was also poorly thought out and executed. UN officials simply did not know what they were doing. The task was new, the preparation inadequate, and the comprehension of the problem minimal. Participating

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militaries had no real training for the type of operation they were undertaking. In a sense, the failure of peace building in Somalia indicates how unusual the effort was. Militaries were not accustomed to pursuing reconciliation rather than conquest. Normative interests were not usually acted on in such difficult conditions. The larger objectives could not be achieved because the intervention had no real strategy. Efforts to change in midstream were largely a failure, as the hunt for Aideed shows. Somalia thus ended as both a lesson and a warning: a lesson on the potentials of intervention, a warning on the perils of haphazard approaches.

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4 One Step Forward? Intervention in Haiti

A   surrounding international efforts in Somalia, further military intervention seemed unlikely. Events soon confirmed this view, when violence erupted in Rwanda in the spring of . Outside actors failed to take action even in the face of an obvious and extreme humanitarian disaster amply recorded on television and in the printed media. The United States carefully avoided using the term genocide to describe events in Rwanda because of the legal obligation of response the term conveys. Just as damningly, the UN withdrew its peacekeeping operation when the conflict intensified. The lack of international response seemed to demonstrate the limited utility of human rights as a motivator for action and the triumph of more traditional interpretations of national interest and security. Paradoxically, however, the lack of will shown in Rwanda increased demands for action elsewhere. Rather than proving the end of intervention, Rwanda became a casus belli that strengthened arguments on behalf of human rights issues and the legitimacy of intervention. The name itself became a codeword symbolizing international negligence. The Security Council had been forewarned of what could happen but had refused to act. That failure drew harsh criticism, all focused on intervention’s ability to lessen the human toll of conflict. 

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Map .. Haiti. UN Cartographic Section, no.  Rev. , January 

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Haiti was the first place to feel the effects of the failure in Rwanda. Just as NGOs and humanitarian agencies condemned nations as callous and power driven, the international community undertook an intervention into Haiti to restore democratic government. That operation began in September , five months after conflict, anarchy, and mass murder engulfed Rwanda without provoking international response. It was based on the emerging normative consensus that accompanied postmortems on Rwanda and laid blame at the feet of the Security Council and UN in general. But it also stretched the basis of that consensus. The controversy and outrage over Rwanda rested, like that for Somalia, on an explicitly humanitarian rationale. Observers urged the use of intervention to rescue innocent civilians from ethnic violence rather than starvation, but the objective remained focused on the protection of individuals. In Haiti the justification for intervention moved from people to principle. Intervention took place specifically to restore democracy, with humanitarian issues a relevant but not solitary concern. That introduced a subtly different source of legitimacy for intervention, one based on support for ideas and their concomitant effects on human rights. The UN thereby made the spread of democracy a central part of its mission, further reflecting the importance of liberal ideas in the international system. The problem in Haiti was not widespread violence and warfare but the repression of society by a regime widely considered illegitimate. It is unique among the cases discussed here in that the problem was a political crisis rather than an outright conflict. Haitian citizens did not like their usurper government but they were not at war with it. That was in part, perhaps, what made it a more attractive target than Rwanda. The crisis began when Gen. Raoul Cedras, the army chief of staff, led a military coup in February  that overthrew President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. In spite of condemnation and a resolution supporting democratic government by other Caribbean states, Cedras did not respond to international pressure to step down. He refused to negotiate with international mediators and broke signed agreements repeatedly. All attempts to restore the elected government failed. After two and a half years of fruitless negotiation, the United States prepared a military force to remove the junta from power. The decision to

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intervene was significant for three reasons. First, it revived the idea of constructive military intervention thought dead after Somalia. Second, it made focus on reforming political institutions a centerpiece of the mandate from the beginning. Third, it defined Haiti as a test case that affirmed the importance of democracy and human rights issues and the value of intervention in preserving them. Whereas Somalia had been described as a singular situation that did not set precedent, Haiti was explicitly viewed as a case that did establish a precedent for external involvement in political reform. International actors blamed weak institutions as a root cause of the crisis. Therefore, from the outset the approach to intervention included the development of reform programs to limit the discretionary power and increase the accountability of officials. Those objectives created a new dimension to intervention that had been absent in Somalia and opened the door for the more comprehensive operations that would follow. The presence (in exile) of a legitimate government made it easier for the international community to embrace the political problem, a marked difference from Somalia. It could do so neutrally, defending a process rather than a person. Efforts initially focused on diplomatic agreements, but over several years those attempts degenerated into a tit-for-tat scenario, with the application of threats by the international community followed by reprisal against Haitian citizens and international personnel by Haiti’s military rulers. The US-led Multinational Force (MNF) arrived in Haiti on September , , just as last-ditch diplomatic efforts secured Cedras’s voluntary departure. Encountering minimal resistance, the MNF restored security in the streets before turning over operations to the United Nations Mission in Haiti (UNMIH) in March of . Before UNMIH deployed, UN officials identified security structures and the judicial system as the twin roots of Haiti’s chronic instability and developed plans to reform them both. Efforts to create a new police force achieved some success, though plans to reform the judiciary were stymied and remained largely ineffective. A small UN contingent tasked with professionalizing the national police remained in Haiti until March . Though the police improved somewhat, the government began to unravel in  and in  drifted outside the

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bounds of constitutional operation. The International Civilian Support Mission in Haiti was the last mission operating in the country, and though it tried to continue professionalizing the police, the fragile political situation hindered the consolidation of reform and ultimately led to a second collapse.

The Origins of the Crisis Haiti’s instability derives in large part from the country’s experience with colonialism and the lack of political and economic development that it engendered. Those weaknesses were exacerbated in the twentieth century by the constant dominance and interference of the United States, which essentially chose and then supported Haiti’s rulers. The corruption, class divisions, and personalist style of rule that characterize Haiti were not only acquiesced in but actively furthered by its northern neighbor, which could not have been surprised by the entrenched nature of the system or its complete departure from the rule of law by the early s. The most important aspect of Haitian government until  was that it was anticommunist. That it was also antilegal, anti–human rights, and pro-corruption were not salient issues until . Haiti proclaimed its independence on January , , becoming the world’s first free black republic. Before independence it had been ruled by France, which gained control of the island in . In the eighteenth century the colony had been the richest in the Americas, producing  percent of the world’s coffee and  percent of British and French sugar. Slave revolts and the pressures of war in Europe led the French to abandon the island in . The new republic faced an economy hampered by the pathology of underdevelopment shaped by colonial rule and racial divisions between whites, blacks, and mulattos. The French had prohibited the building of industries and exported all raw materials for refining in France before selling them to Europe. They limited indigenous participation in the economy during the colonial period. Foreign aid provided the majority of revenue both prior to and after independence. Assembly manufacturing developed later but

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was controlled by external powers that took advantage of the abundant cheap labor to build large profit margins while preventing the development of locally controlled industry or trade. These economic weaknesses existed alongside a political culture dominated by personalities rather than institutions and the patronage and corruption it encouraged. This relationship of growth without development shaped Haiti’s political and economic structures right up to the present. Although native control of the economy characterized the country’s first years of independence, giving Haitian peasants the highest standard of living in the Western Hemisphere behind the United States, the situation quickly declined. Foreign influence increased as the country was integrated into the international economy. By the end of the century France, Germany, and the United States controlled the country’s commerce and trade, and by  only  percent of the leading merchants were Haitian.1 The US occupation from  to  made the problem of foreign dominance even more acute.2 US investors took land from the peasants for plantations, exploited cheap labor, and reinforced the class-based divisions of society by favoring the mulatto elite. Little faith was placed in the capabilities of the natives, who were described as an “inferior people,”“unable to develop any capacity of self-government entitling them to international respect or confidence.”3 The United States exercised complete control over the country, even to the point of having Marine Corps officers serve as provincial administrators. When the United States withdrew in  it transferred authority to the Haitian military, the only institution that remained viable without US support. A guardian of elite interests, the army dominated Haitian politics until . Political instability accompanied and contributed to Haiti’s economic underdevelopment. In the first part of the twentieth century, Haiti had seven presidents in seven years. In a six-month period (–), five governments followed one another until the United States installed François “Papa Doc” Duvalier in . Although in theory Duvalier was elected, the United States revealed in  that Haitian actors had engaged in massive fraud and that his opponent had probably won.4 Duvalier’s leadership made the presidency more stable but also increased the propensity for corruption and repression

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of human rights by reinforcing one of the primary legacies of the US occupation, the extension of an authoritarian and antidemocratic system. Civil society was suppressed. Cronyism determined the elite. The economy was aid driven rather than mercantilist. Duvalier undermined the military by dismissing the general staff, promoting those loyal to him, and creating a presidential guard responsible only to him. He also created the Volunteers for National Security, a militia nicknamed the tontons macoutes (bogeymen). The political system was built entirely on intimidation, patronage, and booty, with the tontons macoutes brutally extending Duvalier’s rule into the countryside. By the end of Duvalier’s first decade of rule,  percent of the population owned  percent of the wealth.5 The most brutal years of his dictatorship came between  and , when thousands were murdered and tens of thousands fled into exile, including nearly  percent of the country’s professionals and technicians.6 Political repression, martial law, dawn-to-dusk curfews, and censorship became the main features of Duvalier rule. This remained true when his son, JeanClaude (“Baby Doc”) took over as president for life in . Both Duvaliers plundered the nation’s resources (the World Bank reported, for example, that  percent of government revenues and expenditures were unaccounted for in ).7 Structural adjustment programs of the IMF caused problems in the already shaky economy by forcing a decline in agricultural production, investment, trade, and consumption.8 Neither father nor son undertook any significant projects to develop the nation’s economy but instead used foreign aid to enrich themselves and their associates. Weak attempts at industrialization did bring peasants into the cities in the early s, where the lack of viable opportunities forced them to congregate in slums. Previously isolated from the state in their subsistent rural existence, peasants now saw the limitations of the government for the first time. A movement for change began to develop in the slums of Port-au-Prince. Food riots broke out in May and November . In February  sixty thousand youths demonstrated in the capital. The Catholic Church openly supported opposition to Duvalier, as did the Vodou communities. Provincial centers became the locus for peaceful resistance to the regime, but the massive, unarmed

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demonstrations led to retaliatory military repression and killings, which led to more demonstrations. The last five years of Baby Doc’s dictatorship saw an increase in political terrorism by the government and a drastic decline in the already low standard of living. When he was finally driven out of power in ,  percent of the population had an annual per capita income of sixty dollars or less, according to the World Bank.9 The wealthiest  percent of the population still controlled  percent of the wealth,  percent of the best land, and paid . percent of the taxes.10 A turbulent period followed the US-ordered departure of Baby Doc in February . Massive unemployment and inflation created opposition to the regime, but no alternative structure or party existed that could replace it or change the political and economic weaknesses that kept the majority of the country in abject poverty. Civil society had been suppressed so effectively for so long that the inchoate protests were more an expression of disgust than a unified or coherent movement for change. Massive reconstruction of the economy was required before any kind of redistribution or sustainable development could begin. For ninety years Haiti’s economy had been based on assembly manufacturing by foreign firms, which led to high profit margins for other countries but a lack of domestic development or opportunity. The country was a model of the dependent economy that borrowed to produce, produced to sell, and sold to borrow, ensuring that all benefits accrued to only a small proportion of the population, who in turn had a great interest in maintaining the status quo. The army took advantage of the power vacuum to seize control, and a civilianmilitary junta, the National Council of Government (CNG), took over after Baby Doc’s departure. Civil society enjoyed a brief expansion beginning in , but for those who hoped that Baby Doc’s departure signaled a new era, reality quickly showed that Duvalierism still existed. The population participated in the forming of a new constitution, but reforms were slow in coming, most notably in the police force, which remained a unit of the army in spite of new constitutional provisions to the contrary. The  constitution established fundamental liberties guaranteed to all Haitians, strict separation of the three branches of government previ-

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ously dominated by the person of the president, and the creation of an independent Provisional Electoral Council (CEP) to organize and administer elections. The elections were planned for November , but continuing instability made progress toward them slow. Death squads roamed the streets at night, presidential candidates were harassed and murdered, and the ruling council announced in June that it would run the elections, sidelining the CEP. Dozens were killed for participating in peaceful marches protesting the government action. Army and militia members attacked political headquarters and radio stations throughout the year. Although public protests forced the CNG to return control of the elections to the properly designated body, it hardly mattered. A systematic campaign of violence and intimidation forced the CEP to cancel the elections at the end of November after militias used machetes and machine guns to attack citizens waiting to vote. The violence was carried out by the reorganized tontons macoutes, sent by Gen. Henri Namphy to ensure control over the elections. Numbering approximately twenty-two thousand, the organization had been revived after Baby Doc’s departure, with some units incorporated into the army and police and others functioning autonomously as a system of “justice.”11 Namphy boasted, “Haiti has only one voter. The army. Ha ha.”12 Protest did begin to coalesce, however, around Father Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Aristide became a leading voice in , demanding a new Haiti based on social and economic justice. He encouraged action against the ruling elite, making him a target of government repression. His success in surviving assassination attempts and intimidation made Aristide all the more popular, giving his message a prophetic quality and encouraging the populace to resist. New elections were held in January  but were marked by massive abstention—a  percent turnout—and fraud. Candidates from November refused to recognize the new council and boycotted the elections entirely.13 An attempt to assert civilian control over the military failed in June , leading to power struggles within the army, repeated coups, and an increase in killings, torture, illegal arrests, and detentions. At the beginning of  demonstrators filled the streets, evidence that at least the populace was more involved if still no better off since

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Duvalier’s departure. After a series of presidents passed through office, the junta reinstated the original CEP and scheduled elections for December . Advisors from the UN and the OAS helped set up the elections against a backdrop of increasing violence that reinforced the lack of law and justice in Haitian society. The army held responsibility for determining what constituted a crime and how it should be punished, making arbitrariness the standard. Together the tontons macoutes and the military, itself “macoutized,” created their own rule of law by conducting a campaign of brute force against the population to ensure the continued control of the military and the wealthy elite. The population took little interest in the impending elections until Aristide announced his candidacy in October . He promised to take Haitians “from misery to poverty with dignity” through his reformist movement, Lavalas (the cleansing flood).14 In spite of US backing for another candidate, Aristide swept the election with  percent of the vote and even survived a January  coup attempt to keep him out of office. Inaugurated in February, Aristide’s initial reforms earned high marks. He restructured and streamlined ministries, encouraged the development of civil society, incorporated reformists into his government, and decreased human rights violations. But the government was very vulnerable, particularly after international observers left, since Aristide’s populist reforms threatened entrenched groups. The fact that his followers took to the streets with his sanction to combat political opponents did not win him friends. The government fell to an army-led coup on September , . Aristide fled into exile, and a provisional government headed by General Cedras and a figurehead civilian president took power on October .

The International Response Haiti is distinguished from every other case study in this book by the fact that very little actually happened in the country.15 There was no full-fledged civil violence. The only real conflict came in the form of a diplomatic standoff between Cedras and the international community. This chapter therefore eliminates the “Overview” section, and the

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“International Response” section is divided into two parts. The first focuses on the noncoercive effort to negotiate the return of Aristide and the tension it created. The second part focuses on the military intervention and subsequent reform effort. This case is particularly interesting because it marked the first blending of conflict resolution approaches with military intervention. International actors tried to resolve the problem initially by negotiating with Cedras for the restoration of the elected government. After he broke a number of agreements they moved toward forceful measures but also continued to pursue negotiation through unofficial means. The case of Haiti thus highlights formal and informal processes of conflict resolution, as well as the place of limited, collective intervention in promoting resolution.             

Murders, abductions, and tortures increased after the September coup, causing an exodus of refugees mainly composed of Aristide supporters. In many ways, however, the violence and repression may not have exceeded Duvalier standards. While some citizens resisted, no organized opposition took up arms or sought to change the political situation by force. The power of coercion lay entirely with the army and its associated paramilitaries. The real conflict occurred at diplomatic bargaining tables, with markedly little success over the first three years. Aristide’s rule had served as only a brief reprieve from the traditional course of Haitian politics, but changes in the international environment ensured that his removal drew attention. The Santiago accord of the OAS, just signed in June , mandated nonrecognition of any regime that seized power from a democratically elected government and required diplomatic action to restore the rightful authorities. The OAS met on September  to condemn the coup and indicate its refusal to recognize the new government. After listening to an impassioned plea from Aristide the delegates imposed sanctions on the regime and agreed to initiate a civilian mission to help reestablish democratic institutions, establish justice, and negotiate his return to power. The UN did not take direct action, although the General Assembly condemned the coup in October and called on its members to

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recognize the OAS sanctions on economic, financial, and commercial ties with Haiti. The OAS sent a delegation to Haiti on October , but its negotiations with the Forces Armées d’Haiti (FADH) were interrupted three days later when soldiers ordered the representatives to leave the country. This act set the tone for the next three years, as Cedras and the FADH made clear their contempt for international efforts to either pressure the de facto government or assist Haitian civilians. International missions were tolerated or removed on military whim, as were successive negotiated agreements. In November a Colombian oil tanker under Liberian registry ran the OAS embargo. This event emboldened the de facto military leadership and showed the weakness of voluntary sanctions, since Colombia was an OAS member state and a signatory to Santiago. Diplomatic efforts by the OAS, backed by the United States, culminated in the Washington accord of early , an attempt to negotiate with parliamentarians still in Haiti. But Cedras was not present at the negotiations and refused to endorse the agreement. Fourteen months of negotiations thus ended in futility, exhausting the capabilities of the OAS. The organization possessed neither the diplomatic clout to wring concessions from Cedras nor the authority to force its own members to comply with the embargo, much less outside nations. In the fall of  the UN increased its involvement, authorizing a joint OAS/UN mission to Haiti. Cedras and his prime minister, Marc Bazin, agreed to cooperate in January  and accepted the proposal for the International Civilian Mission in Haiti (MICIVIH) to monitor human rights.16 The locus of efforts to resolve the conflict then shifted to the United Nations and United States. The United States had an interest in resolving the crisis not simply because it was the regional power but also because the refugees leaving Haiti were headed mainly to its shores. Since approval for any international presence depended on Cedras, the first attempts at resolution were designed to create pressure without controversy. This tactic was similar to early efforts in Somalia, where the UN sought Aideed’s approval for the presence and mandate of a peacekeeping contingent. The first MICIVIH units arrived in February . They were charged with “verifying” respect for human rights, even though it was clear that neither Cedras nor

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the rogue paramilitaries respected any kind of rights, human or civil. A UN special envoy also arrived in Port-au-Prince to begin discussions on how the UN could help reinforce democracy, create economic modernization, and reform the judicial and security systems. The common flaw in all these approaches, however, was an unfounded optimism that Cedras would willingly relinquish power. To the contrary, he had no interest in giving up his position or the economic rewards he gained by exploiting the porous sanctions. The Security Council moved toward coercive measures when it adopted worldwide sanctions on oil supplies, arms, and financial assets in June , forcing Cedras to the table for the Governors Island talks that began three days later. The negotiating team included representatives of the UN and the four appointed “friends” of Haiti: France, Canada, Venezuela, and the United States. This tactic introduced a more direct means of pressure than the UN could provide on its own. It also reflects a tenet of conflict resolution approaches that marry the neutral mediation of IGOs to the leverage provided by individual states as a means of developing consensus. By national and institutional diplomacy the UN hoped to gain more leverage over Cedras and demonstrate the international resolve behind the negotiations. The talks resulted in three agreements: the return of Aristide by October , suspension of the embargo following ratification of a new prime minister nominated by Aristide, and the presence of a thousand UN police trainers and military personnel to oversee the reform of the army. As the first step in achieving any of these supposed agreements, Aristide would appoint a new commander in chief and Cedras would take early retirement. The latter also required agreement on an amnesty law. With the ratification of a new prime minister, Robert Malval, in August, the UN lifted the sanctions and prepared for the return of the de jure government. The UN sponsored an inter-Haitian dialogue in New York in July, designed to establish procedures for a smooth transition. It also authorized the United Nations Mission in Haiti by Security Council Resolution  in September, “to demonstrate through concrete steps the commitment of the international community to the solution of the Haitian crisis.”17 The seeming cooperation of Cedras did

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not last for long, however, forcing the international community to reassess its approach.                        

The process of forceful intervention began when the USS Harlan County arrived with the first units of UNMIH personnel in September . Gun-waving mobs, mixed with police and army personnel, prevented it from docking in Port-au-Prince. Fearing a Somalia redux, the United States and the UN withdrew the ship after a daylong standoff. By that point Cedras had little reason to doubt his longevity, at least as a result of external forces, and interpreted the Harlan County’s departure as a lack of resolve to implement the Governors Island accords. Violence increased, prompting the withdrawal of MICIVIH personnel. The Security Council voted to restore the embargo if Cedras failed to resign within forty-eight hours of the Harlan County affair but did not threaten more active measures. Two days later the junta ordered the assassination of the minister of justice. The minister’s most important duty had been to present a bill to parliament separating the police from the armed forces and bringing all domestic security forces under the control of the justice ministry. His assassination made clear that neither the FADH nor the tontons macoutes intended to lose their grip on society. To press home his point, Cedras declared the July accords invalid. The following day the UN evacuated all personnel, reimposed the embargo, and established a multinational fleet of a dozen ships to enforce the sanctions. That marked the first forceful act taken by the international community. Though dominated by the United States, the embargo also included Canadian, Argentine, and Dutch ships.18 Venezuela summed up events in the Security Council by stating that Cedras showed “open contempt for the will of the international community.”19 October  came and went without the return of Aristide. Why did the international community choose to take a stand? This was not the kind of episode that traditionally inspired multilateral commitment. Haiti did not present a threat to peace (regional or international) or a particularly grave threat to its own citizens, a fact

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recognized within the Security Council. The media focused on the refugee crisis, but for most observers that did not reach the same depths of tragedy as the images of starving Somali children. The problem in Haiti was overtly political rather than humanitarian, one in many ways indistinguishable from the circumstances of other countries around the globe. It was not the first place nor would it be the last where the military seized power and ruled through repression. There was little to recommend it as a candidate for forceful intervention, particularly since other places were worse off and Somalia had recently shown the risks of getting involved in political issues. The motivations for intervention thus deserve careful analysis. Moreover, this case could be viewed as a unilateral activity thinly disguised as multilateral. US dominance in both the diplomatic and military efforts indicates a particular American interest. Haiti’s twentiethcentury history up to  was very much a story of US control. The multinational aspect of the MNF was very minimal, with Operation Uphold Democracy staffed  percent by the United States. While the UN clearly did play a prominent role in the negotiations, the United States just as clearly had a significant stake in matters. The Governors Island talks were in the United States, and the United States planned the military operation on its own. While most nations simply refused to recognize the military government, the US government stood firmly on demands for its departure. The US desire for intervention also contrasted sharply with the positions of its Caribbean allies. The Latin American and OAS countries strongly opposed the use of force, but even with Brazil on the Security Council, they had little leverage. Clinton said of the coup leaders in May ,“They must go,” and the following month the United States suspended all air traffic and financial transactions with Haiti.20 The crisis touched on issues of prestige and control that could be construed as part of the US national interest. This was no distant event but one taking place in the nation’s traditional backyard, both in terms of the hemisphere and the particular island. From the time of the Monroe Doctrine, the United States has claimed an exclusive right to influence the affairs of its southern neighbors and has acted often on that claim. Three other particular interests also served to transform Haiti’s

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crisis into an issue of national interest: the US history of control over Haitian politics, the refugees coming to the United States, and the protection of democracy in the hemisphere. The first and last were likely the most important because they were part of long-standing US policy in the region. Coupled with US influence over the mediation process from the start, therefore, this can easily be seen as a realist intervention serving regional power politics. Prior involvement in Haiti’s development as well as close connection to the efforts at resolution guaranteed US interest in the crisis. The realist argument is strengthened by the fact that Haiti got attention when other, far worse crises did not. The disparate treatment even forced the administration to account for why it viewed Haiti differently than other nations. William Gray, special advisor on Haiti to the president and secretary of state, outlined five critical reasons to Congress. First, Haiti was a close neighbor. Second, many Haitians lived in the United States and many US citizens lived in Haiti. The former made up a significant interest group, at least in Florida, and the latter required protection. Third, drug trafficking from Haiti was a legitimate concern and required cooperation and friendly relations between the governments. Fourth, the refugee problem needed a solution. Finally, Cuba and Haiti were by  the only two nondemocracies in the region. Haiti had been trying to establish democracy but had seen it ruthlessly overturned.21 This last suggested very traditional attitudes toward developments in the region, particularly in terms of US sensitivity to anything that might appear to shift the balance of power even moderately to the Cuban side. Even more noteworthy, reference to humanitarian issues or conflict resolution did not appear anywhere in this explanation. Instead, the administration’s explanation boiled down to three US interests motivating intervention. The most prominent was the desire to stop the refugee flow. The flight of refugees to US shores reached a high point of three thousand per day in July. They were a hot political topic, and the Bush and early Clinton strategy of interception and repatriation did not play well in the media. Pressure only increased when Clinton switched to the policy of internment at Guantánamo Bay until the crisis could be resolved and the refugees returned home.

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That approach raised humanitarian questions about the housing facilities, as well as demands that the United States take affirmative action to resolve the crisis to make return a viable option. If the United States could or would not, critics demanded that the administration admit the refugees. The United States also wanted to have favorable regimes in its near neighbors, a policy that in this case dovetailed neatly with promoting democracy. And finally, the United States hoped to maintain Haiti as the Caribbean partner it had so long been. The fact that Aristide spent most of his exile in the US capital underscores how close the US-Haiti connection remained. But two strong normative interests provided motivation for intervention as well—democracy and human rights. These were important in shaping US interests and securing multilateral authorization for the operation. In spite of its US-centric aspects, the MNF was a multilateral operation sanctioned by the UN and authorized to restore and protect democracy. The Security Council’s commitment to restoring Aristide came from two sources: emphasis on democracy as a norm promoted by the UN and a sense of responsibility for restoring the results of an election that the UN had overseen and guaranteed. 22 Democracy thus played a much wider role than its significance to US security. Though the United States unabashedly supported democracy, so did the UN. Aristide was not a favorite of the United States or the West and had not been the preferred candidate in the  elections. He exhibited socialist tendencies, had been described as potentially mentally unstable, and purportedly advocated vicious tortures against his opposition. Although this last may have been more a rhetorical than a revolutionary device, Aristide’s popular appeal derived from his radical commentary and confrontational style of leadership. Nonetheless, he had been democratically elected, and US and UN insistence on restoring the electoral results regardless of the appeal of the person demonstrated a commitment to process that distinguished the intervention from many previous US-led actions in Latin America. Moreover, US public opinion did not support the intervention, due largely to the dubious characterizations of Aristide in the media and the seemingly useless nature of picking a fight against a weakling of

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a state not critical to national security.23 In spite of the extensive media coverage of the refugees in particular, the so-called CNN effect did not sway the American public in this case. The Clinton administration acknowledged to Congress that it had little public support, particularly when weighing the lives of US troops against the benefits of democracy for Haitians. Clinton himself stated that an intervention might “ruin everything he had worked all his life to build.”24 But the claim of protecting democracy and the belief that the outcome in Haiti could serve as a warning to others was frequently repeated within the Security Council. Members argued that the international response was “of a paradigmatic importance that transcends the present case.”25 These discussions give the first indication that international actions were changing in response to ideas and values. While Somalia had been described as a unique situation with no relevance to other circumstances, Haiti was described as a model case, with potentially far-reaching effects. By working to protect democracy the Security Council hoped to send a message to would-be putschists elsewhere. That message implied, but did not directly state, that how a government gained and wielded power helped determine its status. The debates on Haiti therefore began to engage the issues of legitimacy and responsible governance in the Security Council. The emphasis on reforming the military and judicial institutions further engaged issues of the substance of governance. Intervention began to take on a reformative rather than purely protective character. While the main focus in Somalia had been on delivering aid, international efforts in Haiti focused on political change. Participants identified weaknesses in Haiti’s political culture and then connected their improvement to the overall project of resolution. The absence of civil war certainly made the situation easier than in Somalia, but even so the international willingness to address political issues marked an important change for intervention. Outside actors began to focus on political capacities, a factor ignored in Somalia, and to connect intervention to agendas of resolution and reform. Although they did not yet conceive of the full array of tasks necessary to create a self-sustaining peace, the intervention in Haiti incorporated conflict resolution in a groundbreaking way.

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Human rights played a prominent role in shaping the emphasis on reform. France had declared from the outset that “the international community can no longer, in an era when throughout the world democracy and respect for human rights are being affirmed, accept the flagrant violation of these values.”26 The slaughter of Lavalas activists as the junta attempted to eliminate the popular opposition reinforced the argument, as did the general imposition of military rule. Forty thousand Haitians fled after the coup, and the number rose as the scale of violence perpetrated against citizens rose. International mediation did not lead to any protections for Haitians. Attitudes toward force began to harden in April , when the army and a paramilitary unit conducted a massacre in Gonaives, a slum with strong Aristide supporters, by invading and shooting down fleeing residents. While that and worse was going on in the Balkans and elsewhere, Haiti seemed to be a place where something could be done. As in Somalia, the perceived effectiveness of action made it a more attractive option. The direct disregard for the international community also helped solidify the notion that these particular transgressions deserved punishment. After the Harlan County episode the relationship between the UN and Cedras deteriorated, with the Security Council reimposing the arms and oil embargo, the junta assassinating Aristide’s justice minister, the Security Council imposing comprehensive sanctions, and Cedras expelling MICIVIH. The junta thus lent a personal element to its human rights abuses, allowing them to be seen as a personal affront to the Security Council in a way that internment camps in Croatia were not. Members of the Security Council frequently cited Cedras’s “open contempt” for the UN and his willingness to challenge international decisions as a reason to get tough.27 More important, the existence of a de jure government that had asked the UN for help made consensus easier to achieve in this case. Aristide appealed from exile for UN assistance in restoring his administration. By asking for UN interference he removed the issue of sovereignty from debate, casting UN action as a means of preserving rather than violating Haiti’s sovereign rights. This was crucial because it eliminated the potential criticism that intervention would violate Haiti’s independence, and, as in Somalia, it helped create consensus.

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Argentina, cosponsor of the resolution to use force, urged members to restore to Haiti the sovereignty of which “it has been too long cruelly stripped.”28 The distinction between Haiti’s de jure and de facto rulers helped consolidate international views on intervention. One government was legal and one was not. Intervention in this context could be viewed as assistance to the elected government rather than a circumvention of its recognized power. The junta held power by force only, in a situation where it faced international, regional, and domestic opposition. Aristide’s request for help solidified his legal claim to the government and clarified the issue of sovereignty. Cedras and the junta were not legally entitled to sovereign protection. Indeed, the request of the legitimate government for assistance ensured that “it is not a question of interference in Haiti’s internal affairs.”29 The Santiago accord, while not endorsing intervention, nonetheless bound its signatories to support and assist democratic regimes. Its rules made nonrecognition of the Cedras regime a mandate rather than a choice. That did not compel the use of force, but it made the choice seem more legitimate. The presence of a democratic government also helped put focus on the developing and strengthening of Haiti’s political institutions. The Security Council expressed the belief that reconstruction’s success depended on the international community. That also differed markedly from attitudes on Somalia, which maintained that only local actors mattered in solving the political problems. Canada in particular supported the thesis that economic stability yields political stability, and that country urged international focus on development to strengthen the nascent democracy.30 Most participants in Security Council debates agreed that the crisis had important implications for the promotion of democracy worldwide and that the international community bore some responsibility for reform. This view prevailed throughout the MNF’s tenure. The most important concept to come out of discussion on Haiti, therefore, was an explicit link between intervention and postconflict peace building. In July the Security Council recognized the “unbreakable bond between political stability and economic development” and urged attention to “the roots of conflict, such as underdevelopment and the lack of a legitimate political institution.”31 Although the reform objectives would not be realized in

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Haiti, these discussions set the stage for the expansion of security to include stable government and the expansion of intervention to include nation building. One piece of law argued against intervention—the language of the UN charter authorizing Chapter VII action only in cases threatening international peace and security. Security Council members noted candidly that the situation in Haiti did not realistically affect international peace and security but supported intervention because of the “serious political and legal implications for democracy.”32 Coercive steps to remove military rule emerged as an option in the Security Council in June and received greater support when Cedras declared MICIVIH staff “undesirable” on July  and gave them fortyeight hours to leave.33 The exile of the de jure government provided the impetus for action because the issue of sovereignty could be resolved to the UN’s satisfaction. Protection of a legal government allowed a case for intervention even when security was not involved. That expanded the potential justifications for intervention and indicated the perceived importance of democratic principles in the international system. Although the crisis did not affect international peace, Security Council members believed it had international implications. The succession of accords that were formed and subsequently broken by the ruling junta helped create the belief that no other solutions existed and that the junta would not recognize other forms of pressure. The MNF therefore came to be viewed as a natural next step in the process of conflict resolution. The international community began with negotiation and then gradually increased the pressure on Cedras. When he refused to buckle, that left only two options: to let him stay or to use forceful measures to make him go. Although conflict resolution approaches are intended to avoid or prevent conflict, Haiti demonstrated that the use of military force, if properly authorized and restricted, could be a constructive means of increasing the pressure for resolution. Given these perspectives Boutros-Ghali outlined three possible courses of action to the Security Council: expanding UNMIH to approximately eleven thousand combat and combat support troops,

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adopting a resolution authorizing a group of member states to field and command a force, or allowing a multinational but non-UN force to achieve security and then yield to a beefed-up UNMIH to undertake political, economic, and social development. He noted that any transition to legitimate authorities would take place in a “disturbed and violent environment,” where the violence would certainly be interHaitian but could also be turned on international personnel.34 An interventionary force would thus require offensive capabilities to create a secure environment for itself as well as the transition. The Security Council chose a multinational force led independently of the UN simply because a UN force was not feasible. Boutros-Ghali estimated, based on other peacekeeping operations, that it could take seven to twelve months to raise troops for a UN force. Gathering the necessary equipment and preparing for deployment could take another three to six months, and that only if budget approval came quickly. Rapid deployment of a UN force was thus “beyond the present capabilities of the Organization.”35 The force authorized by the Security Council on July  in Resolution  had three primary objectives: restore civil order, restore the legitimate government, and foster democratic institutions. Uncertain of what the local climate might be, the US Department of Defense planned simultaneously for a hostile invasion and a peaceful entry. The acknowledged opposition of OAS states buoyed Cedras’s intransigence. Boutros-Ghali sent an official to Haiti in August for one last try at a diplomatic settlement, but Cedras refused to meet with him. President Clinton warned on September ,“leave now or we will force you from power.” But the administration played one last card to avoid a hostile invasion when it sent Jimmy Carter to negotiate with Cedras on September . In this case international actors tried the full spectrum of conflict resolution tactics, combining citizen diplomacy with the threat of force. By moving negotiations to an unofficial level, the United States hoped to give Cedras room to compromise. Carter’s commitment to conflict resolution and mediation, combined with his impeccable integrity, made him an ideal candidate to establish an atmosphere of trust and dialogue, without the constraints of acting as a government official. By emphasizing nonofficial or second-track

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diplomacy, the United States hoped to change the dynamics of negotiation.36 The discussion was strengthened, from the US point of view, by the fact that the invasion force was already in the last stages of preparation when Carter arrived.37 Carter secured an agreement at the eleventh hour, with the invasion force on its way. On September  the military leaders agreed to resign either when parliament voted a general amnesty into law or on October , whichever came first. The MNF arrived on September  and secured the country within days.38 Its first action, the occupation of Port-au-Prince airport on September , was the largest air operation conducted by the US Army since World War II.39 Gaining control of the country proved relatively easy for the MNF. The FADH disintegrated once the international force arrived and the de facto government collapsed. The lack of a police force created a security void that contributed to a marked rise in banditry. Cedras resigned with amnesty on October , and Aristide returned on October , when sanctions were lifted for the last time. Participants in the intervention realized, however, that his return marked only one step in the process of reform. Substantial threats to security remained, among them the disaffection of former FADH members, the continued existence of paramilitary networks and available arms, and the severe economic and development crisis. One US observer stated, “Haiti’s human and material resources are either in such short supply or have been so degraded by poverty, illiteracy, malnutrition, disease, violence, corruption, overpopulation, rapid urbanization, deforestation, and soil erosion as to raise serious questions as to its continued survival as a society and an independent nation-state.”40 The MNF’s mandate therefore included explicit mention of rehabilitation tasks focusing on political changes. That is important to note because the operation, although limited, extended the conception of intervention established in Somalia. Reform was envisioned from the outset as a central part of intervention. Indeed, as mentioned, Security Council members perceived a “responsibility” to help rebuild Haiti. That represented an important shift in the development of intervention, inching it further along the continuum toward more comprehensive operations. Even if the military could be forced out, there were no existing

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institutions, “scant basis on which such structures might be assembled,” and no capacity for absorbing foreign aid for development. Chaos would ensue if the military left.41 Participants began to realize that what happened after a crisis was equally important to how it ended. This recognition of intervention as a multiphase activity was one of the most important developments to come out of Haiti. Though the implementation remained quite limited, the idea of reconstruction became more relevant to intervention. That position was not, however, a claim for a return to an occupation like that begun in . Instead, Resolution  also indicated the MNF’s limited nature. Its duties ended when security was achieved. The resolution also extended the mandate of UNMIH, allowing it to run simultaneously with the MNF to begin the process of reform. The military element was thus only part of a broader strategy and operated in cooperation with UN efforts. The United States could not dictate terms, even though it had a significant voice in reforms, nor could it take over and run institutions as it chose. Nor, in fact, did it want to. Instead it worked to enable a process of reform within a context of multilateral consensus. Indeed, the United States preferred to have its direct military role be brief, with most long-term responsibility resting with the UN. UNMIH’s structure reflected the emphasis on development. It was the first operation to work the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) into its overall mission, naming the residential representative of UNDP in Haiti as its second in command. That was an important first step in establishing the importance of peace-building mandates. Participants also recognized the need for a well-planned and wellexecuted transition between the MNF and UNMIH, largely because the failure of Somalia was still so fresh. Outside actors sought to avoid similar mistakes and worked to limit any gaps in authority or coordination. A small UNMIH unit functioned concurrently with the MNF, and both operations worked on achieving a smooth transfer and the continuation of all activities. A sixty-person UN advance planning team arrived in Haiti in October  to work with the MNF and train UNMIH staff over the next several months.42 The US Army also provided predeployment training for many headquarters staff, with no

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significant alteration in mission size or troop capabilities before transition. When UNMIH assumed command in March , the bulk of its international troops and personnel were already in place, though the United States continued to supply nearly  percent of its approximately six thousand military personnel.43 With Cedras gone the UN focused on reforming the civilian administration and continuing to work with the police and judiciary.

Assessing Outcomes Judging the relative success of intervention in Haiti is a difficult task. Most generously, perhaps we can say that realities did not meet intentions. While participants did begin to embrace political reform, they also strove to do the minimum deemed necessary for achieving stability. The intervention ended the military dictatorship, meeting the most basic objective of the operation. That was a victory for proponents of democratic elections and an important step in releasing Haiti from the crippling sanctions it faced. Lifting the sanctions improved matters significantly because of their “disastrous impact on the Haitian economy and . . . ordinary, innocent citizens.”44 But the return of Aristide did not lead to the emergence of democracy and the strengthening of state institutions. As Haiti’s history demonstrates, one round of elections could not alone establish democracy. Rule of law was too arbitrary and the power of the military far too strong. Furthermore, the legacy of individual rule was hard to remove. Aristide personally embodied the democratic movement, creating a cult of personality or “one-manism” not so different from Haiti’s past rulers.45 This blurring of the lines between the movement and the man was captured in the slogan, “Titid ak nou, nou se Lavalas (together with Titid [Aristide], together we are Lavalas).”46 The populace could not conceive of reform as a separate process from Aristide’s leadership. The inherent weakness of the institutions of state formed a second significant problem. The UN strategy of reform focused on the formation of an independent Haitian National Police (HNP) and retraining of the judiciary. Along with separating the police from the

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military, international actors tried to completely revamp the force, from training to leadership. The first units of the HNP hit the streets within eighteen months and the new training center graduated cadets monthly thereafter. By the end of the operation the police force was five thousand strong and received solid marks for its professionalism and ability to maintain public order. Although rogue units did emerge and evidence of drug-linked corruption and human rights violations remained, many of the problems were officer-specific rather than systemic. Furthermore, immediately after the intervention the government actively punished abuse and committed itself to creating a professional force. The reform of public security was, therefore, considered a success. But these improvements could not be sustained because the police had no judicial support and represented only one small change in an otherwise arbitrary system. Though reforms were well intentioned, they were grafted onto an unsound political structure still rooted in corruption and personal dominance. The army had a long history of control. The police had no solid legal framework on which to build their efforts. Military and political factions still controlled the judicial system. Attempts to retrain the judiciary proved difficult, particularly as the political situation unraveled, beginning in . UNMIH encouraged judicial reform but did not specifically oversee and manage the process, which was left as the government’s responsibility. With the leadership’s attention and resources committed elsewhere, it proved too overwhelming a task. Judicial reform became a casualty of political squabbling. The government itself broke down amid charges of corruption, and politics were immobilized after June  because of divisions within Lavalas. The impasse ended only when Aristide’s successor, René Préval, dismissed parliament in January  in what he described as “‘abnormal circumstances with regards to the constitution.’”47 Since that time Haitian politics have once again been mired in dysfunction, with disputed elections, extralegal behavior, and increasing violence the norm. Given the political instability, judicial reform did not have much chance of succeeding. Finally, the international community simply did not understand the tasks before it any better than it had in Somalia. When the Secu-

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rity Council spoke about establishing democracy it focused primarily on restoring Aristide. That was certainly an important step but hardly the measure of democracy. Nor did standing behind the value of the ballot constitute significant reform. Haiti had no real separation between the institutions of state and no solid basis of political culture on which democracy could be established. The task was much harder, therefore, and the problems much deeper, than most members of the international community anticipated. Security Council debates show a naïveté toward the requirements for democracy and a poor understanding of Haiti’s political institutions.48 Participants tended to believe that the basis for building democracy was far more solid than in fact it was, and primarily a matter of technical adjustments. As a result, reform programs were poorly tailored to the situation and the time frame for accomplishing the objectives was far too short. UNMIH operated fully for only fifteen months, not nearly enough time to reverse over one hundred years of political underdevelopment.49 Though longer time frames do not guarantee success, they do increase its potential by creating political space for reforms to be entrenched and consolidated. In this case the brevity of the intervention left Haiti with illusory reforms that made little long-term impact. The value of trying to build democracy in Haiti is thus a matter of some debate. Some of the intended reforms crumbled quickly. A democratic transfer of power occurred in  with Préval’s election to the presidency, but that outcome was marred by controversy. Many felt Aristide should have been allowed to serve out the three years he spent in exile, in spite of constitutional term limits. In any case, Préval was a close ally of Aristide’s and the latter remained involved behind the scenes. Aristide was elected president again in November , marking Haiti’s third controversial election. Months of intimidation and the murder of opposing candidates preceded the vote. Journalists estimated the turnout to be around  percent, although the government placed participation at  percent.50 Continued controversy over the voting prompted the UN to close its police-training and human rights mission the day before the inauguration. Fraudulent vote counting allowed the Lavalas Family Party to gain several legislative seats

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without going through a second round. In response the opposition Democratic Convergence refused to recognize the result, leading to a government impasse that continued into . Said a spokesman for the convergence, “Our dispute . . . began with an electoral dispute, but now it is about the creation of a state of law for the next election.”51 The crisis allowed violence to flare again in the summer of , with Aristide supporters attacking civil society groups and preventing all efforts to discuss projects to restore law and order, while the police largely stood aside. The performance of the “reformed” police showed just how ineffective the international community had been in changing the internal structure of Haitian political life. In early  violence spread throughout northern Haiti, bringing Aristide’s fortunes full circle when he was forced out by US pressure in February. For the second time the United States led a military response to restore order, the Multinational Interim Force (MIF), and handed off to a rehabilitation operation, the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) on June , . Its mandate includes maintaining a secure environment, facilitating the constitutional process, extending the authority of the central government, and monitoring human rights.52 This process envisions a more comprehensive approach to rehabilitation on the part of international actors than applied in . Few reforms have been developed to date, however, because insecurity remains high and the UN force has not fully deployed. Though it would be easy to describe the MIF and MINUSTAH as a second attempt at conflict resolution, informed and improved by the first, an alternative perspective is also possible. In both instances,  and , the United States played a leading role diplomatically and militarily. In the latter case the United States also provided the leverage to force Aristide out, a fact that caused some controversy domestically and internationally. The issue was particularly heated because the United States had originally defended Aristide as the legitimately elected ruler and then, with greater violence threatening, suggested he was not fit to govern. Though the US State Department said that Aristide had left willingly, after discussions about the worsening political situation, others suggested that he had been pushed out the door,

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perhaps at gunpoint.53 In either case, whether his departure was consensual or coerced, ultimately the United States used its regional weight both to change Haiti’s political process and to provide a military presence. For all the reasons mentioned earlier, therefore, the intervention could be read as a simple case of self-interest on the part of the United States, and one replete with the same tactics seen in its earlynineteenth-century occupation as well as Baby Doc’s forced removal. This was not, after all, the first time the United States had pushed a Haitian leader into exile. But in some sense the interventions’ very weaknesses show the limits of realist interpretations. For surely, if this was traditional power politics, the United States would get more out of intervention than it has so far. And just as surely, particularly given its leverage in all phases, it would insist on having primary control. Yet it has not. In both cases ( and ) the United States exerted limited influence over the long-term changes, choosing to focus on the security aspect and limiting its role in directing political development. Rather than pushing its own vision of political change, something common to past involvements in Haiti, it has left rehabilitation up to the UN, and willingly so. That is hardly the behavior one might expect from a superpower committed to national security and, particularly in , skeptical of the UN’s value. It is hard, therefore, to see the interventions as a US bid for influence, and even more so considering that in both cases the steps necessary to achieve US objectives were not (or at least have not yet been) undertaken. Although the United States certainly does have an interest in a stable and democratic Haiti, it has limited its own participation to military issues and left the UN to sink or swim in the larger realm of rehabilitation. Returning to the  intervention, the international community’s action in Haiti moved intervention one step forward from Somalia by explicitly embracing political issues and limited reform. But international efforts were too limited to make a significant difference, and upholding the electoral process did not advance Haitian democracy. Aristide was too central a figure, conflating his personal role with reform rather than pushing for the development of institutions. Moreover, Haiti’s problems were too difficult and entrenched to be solved by

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reforming the police and returning the president. Economic weakness and elite control of the country are problems that have become endemic in Haiti. The scope of attempted reforms was not, therefore, commensurate with the objective. Nonetheless, the intervention was a crucial step in linking intervention to conflict resolution and expanding its potential to promote reform. The effort increased the expectations of intervention and helped redefine it to include more postcrisis and nation-building components. That result is somewhat counterintuitive, since we might expect the failure of efforts to lead states to avoid intervention. Although in the short term they did (in Rwanda), the long-term result was quite the reverse. The limited effect in Haiti helped broaden intervention once more, leading to an entirely new concept that would be tried in Bosnia. Haiti proved counterintuitive in another way. As it slid into near anarchy between  and , many observers considered it the perfect example of the “one and done” nature of intervention. Indeed, Haiti seemed to be a case where international actors felt they had fulfilled their obligation and would not get involved again, no matter how poor their efforts or dire the situation. Yet Haiti is now the one example where international actors have gone back after failure to try again. That may not indicate a precedent, especially because US involvement is so central to the case, but it does indicate that conflict resolution principles have become more entrenched. The fact that the second effort is intended to be more comprehensive is also significant, and it specifically addresses some of the political problems ignored, or perhaps not recognized, in the earlier intervention. Multilateral intervention in Haiti presents an unusual case. In  it was not a situation marked by extreme violence, and it had several realist elements that encouraged US attention. It also had several normative elements, including humanitarian concerns and multilateral consensus on democracy as a value worth defending. Regional trends supported the latter perspective, as did the recently signed Santiago accord. UN involvement in overseeing the election also helped generate interest in forceful action from a more liberal, IGO-based perspective, creating an impetus to defend the results the organization had

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helped create. Although the United States had its own reasons for involvement, it did not behave as the occupying overlord it had been in the past. The intervention it led was a limited security operation designed to restore the government and then leave reform projects to the UN. That element was similar to the operation in Somalia and demonstrated the limits that multilateral sanction and involvement could place on unilateral concerns. But the centrality of reform efforts marked an important change from Somalia. The MNF and UNMIH were more overtly political than the previous intervention had been and operated with the specific mandate of restoring a particular leader to power. The MNF was reformative as well as humanitarian. Its mandate was based on normative consensus (although not unanimous) regarding the protection of democracy, even though Aristide had not been the preferred candidate of some participants. These interests were not served well by the outcome of intervention, however. A great deal of international assistance went toward short-term gains that were not durable in transforming internal economic and social processes. While changing definitions of norms and commitment to liberal governance may have motivated intervention, they did not achieve the stability desired. However, the operation in Haiti represented a further widening of the normative conception of intervention. In Somalia international actors developed the idea of humanitarian military action. In Haiti they combined that with very limited political reforms. The concept of legitimate governance also became more prominent in Security Council debate. These changes may seem small, but they moved intervention further away from realist conceptions of power and control. In Haiti intervention became more closely tied to the extension of liberal principles and the importance of conflict resolution. The operation was thus one more step along the learning curve of intervention. Normative interests were not wholly achieved, but they were introduced in a more central and planned way than they had been in Somalia. This proved immediately relevant in succeeding cases, with long-term importance for Haiti itself when intervention took place again in .

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5 The Ongoing Struggle Intervention in Bosnia

No country symbolizes the post–Cold War changes in international relations more fully than Bosnia. Its conflict began in , before forceful intervention into Somalia had even been contemplated. The humanitarian crisis it created, including ethnic cleansing and concentration camps, initially motivated little international response beyond hand-wringing. The media popularized the violence as a product of ancient hatreds between ethnicities and religions in a conflict-prone region, thus setting it aside as something mysterious and intractable that outsiders could not change. But that characterization obscured the underlying political and economic issues that elites skillfully manipulated for their own self-aggrandizement through the creation of mass nationalism. International actors variously described the violence as an internal problem, a European problem, and a religious problem, but none of those definitions could long hide the fact that, whatever it was, the problem became a referendum on the international community itself. For three years Bosnia served as a symbol of international futility and inappropriate response; in  it became the target of a military intervention that fundamentally altered the scope and uses of intervention.

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Map .. Bosnia and Herzegovina. UN Cartographic Section, no.  Rev. , June 

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The conflict brought to the fore the clash between interests and principles that continues to shape the international system today. Bosnia was not so much a case of external actors pushing intervention to serve their own ends, but of the reverse. Strict national interest encouraged nations to avoid the problem; norms of human rights, conflict resolution, and responsible governance forced them to get involved. For external actors the tension between limited and expansive definitions of security lay at the heart of that decision. Ultimately nations could not avoid involvement because of changes in the international system, and they accepted long-term responsibility for military and civilian commitments to establish Bosnia’s security and promote reform. Though the rehabilitation operation remains controversial, it was a decisive and even somewhat radical step for international intervention. The protracted involvement is exactly what nations had tried to avoid in other cases. The close involvement with politics, economics, and social issues had also been eschewed in the past. The operation in Bosnia created new expectations and standards for intervention by entwining conflict resolution objectives with military action. The approach and time frame of the operation were markedly different than those of previous interventions. The Bosnian case marks the moment when international actors began applying an entirely new concept of intervention, one distinguished by its length and breadth. That change may not have been entirely intended, and it did not come about entirely because nations suddenly became committed to magnanimous agendas. Humanitarian issues certainly played a large role and were touted by participants, NGOs, and international officials as a reason for intervention. But reasons of self-interest can also be found, as Marten notes, since some NATO nations became hosts of large refugee populations and NATO members may have felt that conflict brought into question the alliance’s credibility for ensuring stability in Europe.1 Significantly, however, both these factors were present well before intervention began. The conflict started in , and the bulk of the refugees had entered other countries by . NATO did not take forceful action until the summer of , allowing three years of conflict and refugee transfers to elapse. During that time it played a very secondary role, ceding primary responsibility first to 

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the European Community and then to the UN, largely because its members preferred diplomatic approaches to the crisis. While selfinterest may have played some role, therefore, it either was not the primary factor or it took a long time to develop. Another factor was at work, and it had to do with coincidence. The conflict spanned the critical period of time in which intervention and security began to change. Over its first three years, outside actors tried to achieve a diplomatic solution and avoid closer involvement. By  it was clear that the operations in Somalia and Haiti had led to somewhat new conceptions of intervention. The limited reforms in Haiti opened the door to the comprehensive reform program envisioned for Bosnia. Self-interest probably did play a role in building consensus, but I suggest that it rode piggyback on expanding commitment to conflict resolution rather than the reverse. International choices were driven by humanitarian goals, and self-interest served as an added benefit. The scale of the destruction, the absence of viable government structures, and the humanitarian crisis all contributed to the decision to engage in nation building. This was truly a leap in the dark because the modest objectives and largely unsuccessful outcomes of the previous operations did not provide much guidance. Once again international actors hoped to make changes and leave quickly. The task of rebuilding Bosnia proved far more difficult, however, and changed both the structure and expectations of intervention. Peace building and nation building became a central aspect of the mandate. Military force also became part and parcel of conflict resolution. NATO military forces played a role in maintaining and enforcing the peace agreement and eventually supported civilian rehabilitation efforts, with emphasis on ending the conflict in the present and creating the conditions to prevent it in the future. The intervention did not begin with that conception but evolved into it over time. Though still viewed as a last resort, intervention came to be viewed as a constructive means of resolution and reconstruction rather than occupation and manipulation. Most observers recognized that without the military intervention there would have been no peace. After Bosnia, therefore, and in spite of all the problems encountered there, intervention was completely redefined. The demands heard for action in other places, including Liberia in , had their beginnings in . The Ongoing Struggle: Intervention in Bosnia

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But with these expanded objectives came greater expectations. International actors hoped to rebuild both structures and attitudes, replacing old institutions with systems promoting liberal principles and inspiring civic loyalty. While those goals may be laudable, there is also “no question that outsiders have attempted to control the political destiny of Bosnia . . . by force” and move “societies in directions they would not go on their own.”2 Although Bosnia has provided some evidence of success for that endeavor, it also demonstrates that the changing of norms, habits, and preferences is neither particularly easy nor always welcome. The difficulties encountered have led some commentators to question whether forcing change is appropriate, even for good reasons, and whether contemporary intervention can achieve its intended goals, especially given the resistance often encountered.

The Origins of the Conflict The roots of Bosnia’s tragedy lie in developments in the late s and s that paved the way for leaders willing to use the language of ethnic nationalism.3 Economic conditions declined dramatically as a result of unsuccessful austerity measures imposed by the government in  and the subsequent need for IMF loans granted on the condition of radical, institutional reforms and shock-therapy programs. Yugoslavia’s weak central state had little capacity to implement the reforms because it had ceded economic control to its constituent republics starting in the late ’s. The wealthier republics refused to pay for the problems of their poorer siblings and sought to resist central reforms while dealing with international bodies on their own terms. Simultaneously, the poorer republics sought to preserve the federal state in order to maintain economic balance between the republics. The contrast between Slovenia, which leaned toward Europe, and Serbia, which preferred the preservation of Yugoslavia, captured this dichotomy. The end of the Cold War also contributed to the country’s problems by affecting the special status Yugoslavia held in Western priorities. The importance of Yugoslavia in US foreign policy diminished with the end of bipolarity, resulting in less favorable aid agree

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ments, stricter IMF criteria, and less attention to and concern for internal tension. Tough times began when strict austerity measures were imposed in the mid-s. Food subsidies ended and savings were quickly depleted as the currency became devalued and inflation burgeoned. Overall unemployment reached an average of  percent in , (ranging from none in Slovenia to  percent in Bosnia and parts of Serbia).4 The collapse of economic guarantees was particularly shocking in a nation accustomed to socialist subsidies, full employment, and well-stocked stores. By  the inflation rate had reached  percent, and then nearly , percent in . GDP growth declined between  and  and, after a slight rise into positive figures in , plunged to nearly minus  percent by .5 The economy reached this crisis at the same time that the unifying ideology of the Yugoslav state was crumbling. Tito had downplayed divisions during his leadership, forbidding ethnic appeals in the interest of building commitment to the Yugoslav concept. As the economy worsened in the late s, however, and as socialist ideology was itself discredited, politicians found that the road to power lay in nationalist appeals. The economic crisis caused allegiances to splinter along republican borders, allowing the rise of politicians eager to promote first republics and then nations rather than a unified state. Slovenia was the loudest opponent of reform and strongest advocate of autonomy because it was also the richest and most Westernoriented republic. Croatia followed its path. Serbia favored strengthening the federal state because local elites hoped to enhance its position and make Serbia the dominant republic within a recentralized federation. Therein lay the crux of future problems—a large Serbian minority lived in Croatia and Bosnia, and Serbia wanted to represent them. The central government effectively ceded meaningful authority to the republics in November  when it agreed to break all ties between the federal and republican budgets, and that change translated into increased ethnic tensions. Politics became polarized between republican leaders calling for independence and those, mainly in Serbia, expressing a preference for strengthening the central government. Local politicians used the enormous inflation rate and rising unemployment to encourage popular sentiment against the state. Scapegoating of The Ongoing Struggle: Intervention in Bosnia

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other ethnicities soon followed. The images of increasingly vocal and discontented populations agitating for radical reform throughout the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe increased Yugoslavs’ disenchantment. While the federal government tried to concentrate on economic and political reform, republican leaders fanned republican and then ethnic nationalism in order to gain more leverage to oppose such reforms. This was particularly true in Serbia, where the leader of the communist party, Slobodan Milosevic, was bent on raising the status of his republic and consolidating a hold on the central state. If that failed, he hoped to incorporate all Serbs into a unified Greater Serbia. Milosevic was the first to make an explicitly nationalist appeal. In the late s he began encouraging Serb solidarity by recalling the Titoist system and its attempts to limit Serb power by dispersing the population throughout the country. Leaders first in Slovenia and then Croatia responded by portraying Serbia as the enemy of republican democracy and lauding the other republics as the guarantors of individual rights. Slovenia in particular wanted to weaken the hold of the central government, and encouraged a loose confederation among the republics. The controversy thus shifted from specifically economic issues to the language of national exploitation and ethnic rights. Milosevic’s rhetoric led to reprisals in other republics, where Serbs were discriminated against and maltreated, confirming the Serbs’ sense of victimization and tightening the noose of ethnic identification. Milosevic became more aggressive in turn, expanding his appeal to include the protection of Serbs living outside the republic. If he could not preserve a federal state dominated by Serbia, he was determined to bring all Serbs within one nation. His vision of a Greater Serbia and recollections of historic nationalism attracted immense popular support. The story of glory and grievance ranged from the battlefield of Kosovo, the heart of the Serbian empire in centuries past, to the partisan war fought during World War II pitting Serbs against Croat guerrillas collaborating with the Nazis. Reclaiming Kosovo, a semiautonomous province inhabited by an Albanian majority and a small Serb minority, was Milosevic’s first call to arms. The aggressive stance of Serbia and its expatriates and their hints of territorial expansion set off

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a wave of declarations for state autonomy that prompted similar declarations from minorities, particularly Serb, living within those states. It seemed reasonable that if Croats could seek independence from Yugoslavia, then Croatian Serbs could seek independence from Croatia. Minority populations in all republics began seeking territorial autonomy rather than protection of their civil rights, preferring to be in control of the rule making rather than lobbying for less discrimination. The nationalist drama began in earnest in April  when Milosevic attended a rally in Kosovo, where the minority Serb population embraced him as a protector against the majority Albanian leadership. This began the wave of nationalism that Milosevic so expertly promoted and that led to his consolidation of power over the autonomous regions of Kosovo and Vojvodina in defense of their Serbian minorities. By March , Milosevic held enough control over the local parties in those regions to force passage of a series of constitutional amendments giving Serbia control of four of the eight votes on the federal presidency (Serbia, Montenegro, Kosovo, and Vojvodina), effectively making Serbia, and thus Milosevic himself, the leader of Yugoslavia.6 Since Slovenia and Croatia had no intention of being dominated by Serbia, this was a critical point in shaping perspectives in other republics. In November , Slovenia, acting against Serbian dominance and to preserve its own economic position, asserted constitutional sovereignty over its borders by preventing an assembly of minority Serbs and Montenegrins gathering to protest political and economic developments. Slovenian delegates then walked out of the Extraordinary Congress of the League of Communists, held in January , when they failed to gain support for their plans to move the country toward a confederation of states. The Croatian leadership also became more assertive and led the move for adjournment when the Slovenes did not return. It was now apparent that no unifying authority existed and that the nation had disintegrated into competing authorities enjoying only regional legitimacy. Local leaders were determined to dissolve the Yugoslav federation, anticipating greater economic and political power if they ruled their own states.7 The first indications of the battle for Bosnia also became clear at this time. At his party’s congress in February , Croatia’s president

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Franjo Tudjman described Bosnia as a “national state of the Croatian nation.” The meaning of his statement became clearer in June when Croatia drafted a constitution that enshrined ethnic exclusivity, defining the state of Croatia as the sovereign state of the Croatian nation.8 The Yugoslav multiparty elections of November  confirmed the ugly rise of ethnic nationalism in just five short years and formed the point of no return for the country’s dissolution. The elections took place in a country with no history or established structure of parliamentary democracy; in a political and legal vacuum, leaders resorted to symbols and personalities. Milosevic based his appeal on the slogan, “All Serbs in one state,” a threatening proposition to the other republics. 9 Tudjman promised to build an exclusive state for Croats. The continuing economic crisis guaranteed that citizens would have to rely on their republics for social support and thus favored representatives who promised protection at home and denial of resources to others. The outcome of the elections in Bosnia was particularly important and drew the ethnic lines that led to war. The three major political parties were ethnically based, reflecting the population of the republic. They agreed to form a coalition government in order to defeat the other reformist parties, but only one party, the Muslim Party of Democratic Action actually favored the territorial integrity of Bosnia. The Serb and Croat parties favored inclusion in their patron republics. The Serbs in particular strongly opposed Bosnian autonomy, and their intransigent position guaranteed that the power-sharing arrangement would not last. The elections led to the confirmation of republican power throughout Yugoslavia and the complete breakdown in protection of minority rights. Ethnic discrimination appeared openly in all republics. Politicians rose to power by using ethnic stereotypes to simplify voters’ choices, exploiting intolerance in order to consolidate their own positions. By defining the vote in terms of ethnic identity the leaders also guaranteed that the confrontation would spill over republican borders since sizeable minority communities, particularly of Serbs, lived outside their home republic. Only Slovenia had no sizeable Serbian presence. The republic was also the most aggressive in seeking independence, holding a referendum on the subject in

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December . The population voted overwhelmingly to declare Slovenia a new state. Just days after Slovenia’s vote, Serbs in the Croatian Krajina, the border region adjacent to Serbia, reacted to Croatia’s stated intention to secede from Yugoslavia by declaring all Croatian laws not in accordance with the federal constitution void in their region and announcing their own intention to secede from Croatia. Serbian paramilitary groups began operating in the Krajina in April. Tensions escalated into fights between local Serb populations and Croatian police. On May  Serbia blocked the annual rotation of the chair of the state presidency to the Croatian representative on the grounds that he had based his platform on the goals of Croatian independence and Yugoslav dissolution. On May  the referendum on Croatian independence passed by  percent of the eligible electorate, although it was boycotted by the Krajina Serbs. They had voted seven days earlier to join the republic of Serbia.10 Croatia and Slovenia announced their independence from Yugoslavia in June . The enfeebled central government sent the Yugoslav National Army (JNA) into Slovenia in June, ostensibly to protect Yugoslav territorial integrity. In reality, the term Yugoslav was itself an anachronism. The war ended after ten days when the Slovenes gained victory through a Serb withdrawal. Milosevic then threw all his efforts into creating Greater Serbia.11 He had initially declared that Slovenia was free to leave Yugoslavia but “Croatia, with its Serbian minority, must never leave.”12 Ultimately that evolved to mean that it could never leave with the Krajina Serbs. The war that ensued was not about whether Croatia could secede but about what territory it would be allowed to take. He was adamant that the Krajina and its large Serbian population become part of Serbia. Ominous warnings also developed around Bosnia and its ethnic mix, which included a large Serb population, when Milosevic said of its possible secession, “If we have to, we’ll fight.”13 Hostilities soon became open warfare between Croats and the Krajina Serbs, assisted by the JNA. The war in Croatia lasted six months, concluding in January  when UN representative Cyrus Vance brokered a cease-fire. No comprehensive political settlement was reached, however, because the

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international inclination to recognize established republican boundaries did not correspond to nationalist aspirations.14 Observers warned that without a settlement the conflict would spread to Bosnia and Herzegovina, where the magnitude of the destruction would be far greater.15 Bosnia was the most ethnically mixed of the republics, composed of  percent Muslims,  percent Serbs, and  percent Croats. Both the Muslim and Croat communities felt threatened by the prospect of a national state ruled by Serbia.16 Milosevic and Radovan Karadzic, leader of the Bosnian Serbs, had already declared their intention to annex territory rather than cede it to an independent Bosnia and lose the dream of Greater Serbia. Worse, even while at war Milosevic and Croatia’s Tudjman had agreed in March  to carve up Bosnia between them.17 Independence meant certain violence over the place of the Serb minority as well as the Croat population in the west. Germany moved the drama forward when it recognized the independence of Slovenia and Croatia on December , . That made Bosnia’s declaration of independence a foregone conclusion since it could not remain in a Serb state. When the issue of independence was introduced in the Bosnian parliament, Serb delegates walked out. Shortly afterward they formed their own parliament and declared their intention to remain within Yugoslavia. Bosnian Croat regions in the west of Bosnia also declared autonomy as the Croat state of Herceg-Bosna, and were incorporated into the Croat economy. The international community made one weak attempt to calm tensions in Bosnia when it chose Sarajevo as the headquarters for the United Nations Protection Force, then authorized for Croatia. UNPROFOR command was established in Sarajevo in March , as fourteen thousand peacekeepers deployed to enforce the ceasefire in Croatia. German chancellor Helmut Kohl had reasoned that recognition would deter Serbian aggression, since any moves into other republics would be defined under UN rules as transborder aggression. He hoped that would end the conflict by making it an international affair that could lead to outside intervention. He could not have been more wrong, about either the internal situation or international willingness

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to respond. The Bosnian Serb population was by now so enraged that it hardly needed Milosevic to fan the nationalist flames. The isolated hostilities already taking place in Bosnian towns intensified. The republican government had lost all control over the eastern Serb and western Croat regions. It could not accept partition and felt it had no choice but to declare independence. A referendum on this issue passed overwhelmingly in February . The Bosnian Serbs boycotted the election and declared their intention to maintain an independent republic connected to Serbia. International recognition of Bosnia came on April , . That same day Karadzic declared the independent Serb Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Republika Srpska, with its capital spiritually in Sarajevo but operationally in Pale. The war promptly exploded in Sarajevo, Mostar, and Bosanski Samac, creating a massive refugee crisis, widely documented genocide and mass rape, and a siege of Sarajevo, Bosnia’s capital, that lasted for over a thousand days.

An Overview of the Conflict The violence in Bosnia actually began on April , when paramilitary groups backed by the JNA attacked Muslim towns in the northeast.18 On April  the violence escalated into all-out civil war, with Karadzic claiming that Sarajevo was under enemy occupation and must be reclaimed for Serbs. As he had promised in threats before independence, Bosnia was stillborn and did not last even one day. Sarajevo fell victim to relentless shelling and the forced expulsion of Muslims and Croats from their homes. By May the capital was under the control of independent militias operating outside a unified command, some of which were organized paramilitaries and others simply bands of criminals.19 Around the country the story was the same—Bosnian Serbs, aided by former JNA forces, tried to secure the two-thirds of Bosnian territory the Serbs claimed as their own by means of military campaigns and ethnic cleansing. The JNA forces shortly disbanded, since the federal state no longer existed, but their artillery, weaponry, and

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approximately eighty thousand troops who were Bosnian citizens became the new Bosnian Serb army, the territorial defense forces of the Republika Srpska, led by Gen. Ratko Mladic.20 The international community imposed a complete economic embargo on the rump Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY) and worked to encourage a peaceful, diplomatic solution. The embargo ruined the economy of Serbia but did not initially affect its support for Bosnian and Croatian Serbs or the intensity of the conflict. Particularly in Bosnia, the Serbs had access to large stockpiles of formerly Yugoslav arms that were passed across the border. Emergency relief efforts helped the victims in Bosnia but could not prevent the creation of new refugees or stop the massacres, mass rapes, or uprooting of entire communities. The Serb forces tried to claim the contested land by ridding it of other ethnicities, a tactic soon recognized by the phrase ethnic cleansing. Diplomatic efforts could not find a compromise between Bosnian government (Muslim) insistence on maintaining the state’s territorial integrity and Bosnian Serb insistence on creating their own independent state. Bosnian Croats in the west had already separated themselves and integrated with Croatia. The international community had little interest in taking forceful action, and the United States remained entirely distant from the early proceedings, calling it a European problem, which was in fact how the Europeans themselves initially characterized it. Major humanitarian efforts began in June, when the UN Security Council enlarged UNPROFOR’s strength and mandate to include Bosnia and imposed sanctions on the FRY. This came largely in response to the intense shelling of Sarajevo by Serb artillery and the kidnapping of Bosnian president Alija Izetbegovic. UNPROFOR succeeded in opening Sarajevo airport to humanitarian supplies, but the city itself continued under a state of siege. Serb forces also harassed relief convoys outside the city, and UN and US analysts estimated that only  percent of supplies were reaching the population.21 By the end of August  the Serbs had succeeded in creating an exclusively Serb-inhabited region covering  percent of Bosnia.22 Most important, the Serbs held a critical land corridor from Banja Luka in western Bosnia to Serbia itself. Muslim resistance remained strong, how-

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ever, particularly in Sarajevo and the eastern enclaves of Zepa, Srebrenica, and Gorazde, which were Muslim islands in Serb territory.23 The effort to achieve a diplomatic settlement was led by former US secretary of state Cyrus Vance, who had earlier negotiated the peace agreement for Croatia, and former British foreign secretary Lord David Owen. In January  they presented the Vance-Owen peace plan, which declared Bosnia and Herzegovina a state of three constituent nations, each with the right of self-determination, and divided the country into nine cantons, three each for Serbs, Croats, and Muslims, plus Sarajevo. The plan allocated  percent of the territory to the Bosnian Serbs, substantially less than the  percent they held militarily at the time of the negotiations and not enough to entice them to sign. The plan’s failure was a harbinger of things to come. The subsequent European Union plan also proposed various tripartite divisions of Bosnian territory, like the Vance-Owen plan, but met similar results. By December  the majority of Serbs had come to believe, thanks to Milosevic’s skillful use of Belgrade television, that the Bosnian Serbs were fighting for the very survival of the nation.24 The Bosnian Serbs wanted contiguous cantons and more of them. Their strong military position made compromise unnecessary. This scenario would repeat itself several times over. In April  a tenuous Muslim-Croat alliance collapsed, forcing the Bosnian Muslims to fight on two fronts when they were decidedly unsuccessful on one. The Serbian assault on the town of Srebrenica also became the first in a series of humiliations for the UN and peace negotiators. Its Muslim defenders were short of ammunition by early March. With sixty thousand refugees packing a town whose prewar population had been nine thousand, the humanitarian crisis was overwhelming. The UN commander in Bosnia, Gen. Philippe Morillon, bluffed his way through Serb lines to assess the situation and the following day promised the people in the town that the UN would protect them.25 Muslim resistance had crumbled by April , but one day later the Security Council declared it a safe area, covering the town and a thirty-square-mile area around it. This status was subsequently extended to five other areas, increasing UN involvement beyond simply the provision of humanitarian aid.

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Meanwhile, fighting in the southern and central regions intensified, particularly with the movement of Muslim refugees into central Bosnia. In the west, Croatian militias and the Herceg-Bosna defense force attempted to consolidate the Bosnian Croat republic with their own ethnic cleansing. In May, Sarajevo and the predominantly Muslim towns of Tuzla, Zepa, Gorazde, and Bihac became safe areas, but all these regions remained under heavy pressure from Serb batteries throughout the year. Milosevic pushed the Vance-Owen plan to the Bosnian Serbs in the spring, on the grounds that it could never be implemented, but Karadzic thought that was a risky basis for acceptance. Though Milosevic browbeat Karadzic into acceptance, the plan was subsequently rejected by a popular referendum. UNPROFOR units deployed in the safe areas provided humanitarian aid but could do little to stop the Serb assaults. Croats and Muslims engaged in heavy fighting over the city of Mostar and throughout central Bosnia, and though Muslim forces had some success they succeeded only in gaining an island of territory surrounded by the enemy’s holdings with three Croat-occupied areas in its midst. Further attempts at diplomacy failed. The supposed Bosnian government was virtually eliminated as a player in negotiations. In its eighteen months of existence the Bosnian parliament failed to pass a single law, the cabinet wielded no authority, and the presidency was a reality in form rather than substance.26 Negotiations instead took place between UN representatives, the Bosnian Serbs, Slobodan Milosevic, and the local Bosnian army commanders in each town or geographic area. “The military and strategic reality facing Bosnia in the spring and early summer of  was that the country was gradually being wiped off the map of Europe.”27 By the end of  the United Nations estimated that between , and , people had been killed or were missing and over  million people had been displaced, including at least . million within Bosnia.28 The UN’s minimalist approach clearly had little effect on the conflict. Over . million refugees had fled into other parts of Europe, and the UN operation had done nothing to limit Serb aggression. All sides continued to refuse peace plans tendered by international negotiators. Just when their prospects seemed bleakest, however, the Muslims

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began to fight back. They used the masses of people that had been forcibly removed from their homes to create new armies, now explicitly Muslim rather than Bosnian. Changes came internationally as well; NATO’s role increased when Serb artillery shelled a Sarajevo market on February , , leaving sixty-eight dead and two hundred injured.29 NATO immediately established a heavy-weapons exclusion zone around the city and undertook a small surgical bombing campaign. By February  no weapons had yet been removed, but the impasse was broken when Russia used its traditional connection with the Serbs to broker a deal by guaranteeing that Russian troops would take over in the areas where Serbs had withdrawn. Behind the scenes the United States was working from late  on to rebuild a Muslim-Croat federation, threatening Tudjman with the stick of sanctions if he refused to urge the Bosnian Croats to agree and offering the carrot of hastened political and economic integration into the West if he complied. Although the new Bosnian-Croat Federation, completed in early , rested on an uneasy political alliance, the joint military operations allowed it to gain back some of the Serbs’ territorial booty. The United States and Russia took formal control of the peace process in spring , but any sense of accomplishment was quickly dispelled by the bombing of Gorazde, a critical link between Serb territories. UNPROFOR commander Lt. Gen. Michael Rose warned Mladic to stop his attack on Gorazde or face NATO reprisal. Mladic responded to the warning and the subsequent pair of NATO air strikes on a Serb artillery command bunker by rounding up  UN personnel and holding them hostage. His forces in the north then began an attack on Tuzla. Conflict now affected the NATO alliance itself, where Britain and France opposed the US push for air strikes and threatened removal of their ground troops if the United States continued its insistence on the lift-andstrike approach, the lifting of the arms embargo coupled with increased use of air strikes. A five-nation Contact Group (France, Russia, Spain, UK, US) took over diplomatic proceedings in April. NATO became more aggressive in carrying out air strikes, but their limitations were highlighted in November when Bosnian Serb forces trapped a force of UN peacekeepers,

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cut their supply lines, impeded fuel deliveries, prevented all transit through Serb-held territory, and threatened retaliation in response to further air strikes.30 The Contact Group proposed a plan in July that featured a  to  percent split of territory between the Muslim-Croat alliance and the Serbs, but gave the Serbs a much-desired land corridor between their declared republic in the east and the military stronghold of Banja Luka in the northwest. The plan also provided for UN and European Union administration of sensitive areas around Sarajevo and Gorazde. This plan was also quickly rejected by the Pale assembly, which had no real incentive to give up its military gains in spite of a provision linking rejection with the tightening of economic sanctions on Serbia. This proved a critical moment in the war, however, because an open split developed between Milosevic and the Bosnian Serbs, who rejected his attempt to strong-arm their acceptance of the plan. Milosevic sought relief from sanctions, as the West had hoped he would, by pressuring Karadzic to accept a settlement. The Pale parliament rejected the plan three times before submitting it to a popular referendum, which also rejected it, prompting Milosevic to close the border to all but trade in food and medicine, cut telephone connections, and engage in a smear campaign blaming the Bosnian Serbs for starting and perpetuating the war. Although the blockade proved porous, primarily because Milosevic wanted political but not military defeat of his former protégés, he did begin to work with the international community in an effort to bring a settlement of the conflict. The other troubling development during this period was the increased activity of Croatian Serbs in Bosnia and the potential that the war could spread back into Croatia. NATO’s bombing of Ubdina airport and other targets in the Krajina caused the situation to worsen for both Bosnian and UN troops. Croatian Serbs increased the harassment and detainment of UNPROFOR personnel. The lack of a political settlement in Croatia meant that Croatian Serbs were free to help their brethren in Bosnia, adding a western threat to the Bosnian Serb advance from the east. The ongoing problems in the Krajina and Western Slavonia increased the instability in Bosnia and provided support for the Bosnian Serbs. By December the UN command, con-

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cerned about troop safety, had asked NATO to suspend its patrols of the no-fly zone to avoid further problems.31 In January , President Tudjman of Croatia demanded the withdrawal of all UNPROFOR troops from the Krajina when the force’s mandate expired in March. The UN forces in Croatia were subsequently restructured and decreased, and merely watched when Croatian government forces attacked Serbs in Western Slavonia, a UN Protected Area, in the opening of an offensive to regain the Krajina in May. The UN’s failure to react may have stemmed from what Gen. Sir Michael Rose described as an unwillingness to cross “the Mogadishu line,” the tenuous boundary established in Somalia between peacekeeping and war.32 Others suggest, however, that the Croatian attack occurred with the implicit sanction of the West and derived from a promise made to Tudjman that if he dropped the war with the Muslims the United States would help him regain the Krajina.33 The final unraveling that led to forceful intervention took place in the first eight months of . Heavy fighting resumed around Tuzla in March  and Sarajevo in May, where the Serbs forcibly entered UN depots and demanded the return of their heavy weapons. NATO responded by bombing an arms depot in Pale, which led to the seizure of three hundred UN peacekeepers, some of whom were redeployed as human shields. At the UN’s request air strikes were publicly suspended, creating the unseemly spectacle of UN personnel (literally) and NATO (figuratively) handcuffed by the Bosnian Serbs. The UN forces were restructured in June by consolidating positions, withdrawing personnel from Serb-held territory and adding tanks for the first time. Britain and France also established a twelve-thousandperson Rapid Reaction Force with more active rules of engagement, but it was too little too late. The Serbs next seized Srebrenica, overrunning the UN posts, killing approximately eight thousand men and boys, and then deporting the rest of the population.34 All the safe areas except Gorazde had fallen by the end of July, when NATO declared that an attack on that city would be met with the use of force. The Serbs had little reason to think this threat more credible than the legion of those that had preceded it. With the restructuring of UNPROFOR, however, air strikes could be used more effectively

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because UN forces were less vulnerable to Serb retaliation. Moreover, Croatian advances in the Krajina helped put Bosnian Serb forces on the run. The final catalyzing event came on August , when the Serbs again shelled a Sarajevo marketplace, this time killing thirty-seven.35 Two days later NATO began Operation Deliberate Force, a two-week air strike and bombing campaign directed against Serb targets. This operation stopped when the Serbs once again withdrew their heavy weapons from Sarajevo.36 Bosnian and Croatian forces had already been advancing from the west, and their combined offensive threatened to change the military situation that had been holding for two years. By the end of September the Bosnian and Croatian armies had managed to reduce Serb holdings from  percent of the territory to  percent. Deliberate Force had also hurt the Serbs in the east. Milosevic lashed out at the Bosnian Serbs for thwarting peace, and they agreed to allow him to represent them at the peace talks scheduled to begin in Dayton, Ohio, on November , .37 The US-sponsored Dayton negotiations brought forty-three months of fighting to a close and led to a peace settlement that allocated  percent of Bosnia’s territory to the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the alliance of Muslims and Croats, and  percent to the Republika Srpska of the Bosnian Serbs. Milosevic accepted the plan on behalf of the Bosnian Serbs, though Nikola Koljevic, the senior Bosnian Serb present at the talks, refused to initial the agreement or attend the ceremony and reportedly fainted when he heard the terms.38 The Dayton Peace Agreement retained a single state, at least in theory, as demanded by the Bosnian government, but one composed of two entities, the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Republika Srpska (RS). Sarajevo remained united and within federation territory, while the RS retained a land bridge to Banja Luka. The central government operated by means of a rotating presidency and assignment of posts by nationality. The two republics retained independent armies and police forces. Coupled with the weakness of the central government, this last provision suggested that the plan created, de facto, the partition of Bosnia the Serbs had sought. The Dayton agreement also provided for the separation and demilitarization of forces, democratic elections, and rehabilitation of civil infrastructure. The agreement’s

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final provision was a sixty-thousand-member NATO force to monitor and enforce the agreement. The Implementation Force (IFOR), mandated by UN Security Council Resolution , deployed in December  with a one-year engagement limit.39

The International Response The international response to events in Bosnia was severely criticized during the course of the war and debate has continued since. But as Steven Burg and Paul Shoup point out,“the international community faced difficult questions of both principle and policy in dealing with the Bosnian crisis . . . while international actors could not easily resolve the Bosnian conflict, they could not remain entirely aloof from it.”40 Conflict resolution was becoming a more central part of the international system, and Bosnia’s crisis, particularly its humanitarian element, seemed to demand efforts to stop the violence. At the same time, nations did not want to get involved in such a seemingly difficult issue. The values the international community was working to defend were distinctly at odds with the security concerns of the parties to the conflict. Burg and Shoup describe the distance between those operating on the basis of principle and those operating on the basis of power as a reality gap that made negotiation ineffective. The language of justice and compromise made no sense to those engaged in conquest and convinced that survival required victory. International uncertainty over the connection between force and humanitarian values formed a second problem. The issues in Bosnia were more intangible than they had been in Somalia and Haiti. Though the Serbs’ campaign of aggression was considered wrong, it was not wrong in the same concrete way that starvation or removal of a government were wrong. Ethnic cleansing may have crossed the line, but the end which produced the means, the desire of Bosnian Serbs to have their own state, was an age-old cry for self-determination. Early responses thus occupied a strange netherworld between full commitment and outright disinterest. The international community banked on reason as a means to end the conflict, but the meaning of the term

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was very different depending on one’s interest. None of the ethnic leaders wanted to lose dominance, and on a mass level fear of vulnerability to other ethnicities made violence seem reasonable. None of the international actors wanted to get directly involved, and (even acknowledging the problem of the refugees) few connected their own interests to resolution of the conflict. Given international uncertainty about the problem and solution, action was almost inconceivable in the beginning, even if it might have been effective and appropriate. Focus was placed instead on diplomatic and humanitarian efforts. As time passed the response became more aggressive, culminating in IFOR and the civilian rehabilitation mission continuing to this day. The final structure of the intervention, as it began in  and has evolved since, was significantly more comprehensive than any that had preceded it. Though Somalia and Haiti were steps in the process, Bosnia moved intervention decisively into the realm of resolution and rehabilitation. The intervention in Somalia had been criticized as nation building, but in fact that label did not fit until Bosnia. IFOR and its successor Stabilization Force (SFOR) used military force to end conflict in a more direct way than the previous interventions and ultimately served as a partner in normative rehabilitation—political, economic, social—for the first time. The reconstruction operation did not seek to reform existing institutions, but to build entirely new ones developed under international aegis. Rather than trying to avoid political involvement, the international community placed itself squarely in the middle of developing Bosnia’s future. Its involvement was evident from the moment the country’s constitution was written in Dayton by US and European mediators. Bosnia thus became the first example of full-blown nation-building intervention, demonstrating the potentials but also the problems inherent in such an effort. The international response began, as others in this study, as an effort to lessen a humanitarian crisis and mediate a diplomatic solution. Consumed by events in Croatia and other regions, the threat or actuality of violence in Bosnia did not interest the international community seriously until April , when the country’s declaration of independence triggered the conflict. Without international back-

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ing, which it had desperately but vainly sought, Bosnia was a nonstate. France and Hungary requested a meeting of the Security Council in late April and suggested the possibility of a peacekeeping force, but little consensus existed on either the origins or dimensions of the conflict. The fact that the conflict was contained, involving the fate of Yugoslavs but no others, meant that neither the UN nor individual nations felt an imperative to resolve the problem quickly. The secretary-general’s personal envoy may have spoken for many when he concluded in April that the mistrust and fighting among the parties made it impossible to undertake any type of peacekeeping attempt.41 From the outset, however, the crisis generated a clash between normative and realist responses. The years of the war,  through , were characterized by the desire of nations and organizations to avoid or substantially limit involvement. This interest was based on a simple cost-benefit analysis; the problem was not strategically important and the risks of involvement were high. Realism dictated inaction; outside nations had no reason to get involved and anticipated problems if they did. But at the same time they could not remain removed from the problem. States and organizations felt pressure to address both the humanitarian issues and the conflict itself. Reports of ethnic atrocities and the plight of citizens in the besieged capital only increased demands for a solution. The conflict violated many of the principles and ideas that had been expected to define the post–Cold War world. Although those principles did not yet constitute national or international interest, they were based on a real and growing commitment to notions of cooperation, consultation, mediation, and human rights. The International Conference on the Former Yugoslavia (ICFY), cochaired by Cyrus Vance and David Owen, became the initial focus of international efforts to resolve the conflict. Vance served as a personal envoy of the secretary-general, and Owen represented the European Community (EC). European governments were more directly involved in ICFY than the United States, which stayed out of the diplomatic process. That imbalance reflected a European-American rivalry that helped shape international response during the war in Bosnia. In  the

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United States was triumphant over its Soviet enemy and was imbued perhaps with a sense of destiny in shaping the world. Its role in the Gulf War further solidified its dominant position. The European states, however, had a strong interest in checking the rise of unipolarity. Jacques Poos, head of the EC (subsequently, EU), declared in June  in reference to Bosnia, “This is the hour of Europe, not the hour of the Americans.”42 Although the Europeans were reluctant to deal aggressively with Bosnia, they were also determined to keep the United States from meddling in what they reluctantly considered a European affair. That sense developed not so much from a real connection to or interest in the conflict but more simply from the fear that if they waited they would risk ceding action to the United States. European states wanted to retain the primacy of European power in Europe, which required taking control of problems on their own turf. The United States likewise considered the problem a European issue. It did not like the options in Bosnia and was happy to pass off leadership. Secretary of State James Baker has since written that the United States felt “it was time to make the Europeans step up to the plate and show they could act.”43 While the United States did not refuse to play any role, it made clear that it felt Europe held the main responsibility. The heavy shelling of Sarajevo that began in May  did not sway US opinion, since it feared above all that any use of force would lead to ground combat, guerrilla warfare, and a campaign of attrition reminiscent of Vietnam. There was no strategic reason for the United States to get involved, a conviction that may have been solidified by the memory of Somalia. In Bosnia’s case, therefore, national interest contributed to inaction rather than action because the Europeans wanted to assert their regional role without entangling themselves, while the United States preferred to avoid direct involvement. It was this combination of national reluctance paired with normative relevance that put international organizations on the front lines but also limited their potential effectiveness. The Europeans themselves were hardly united in  and ’. The EC split between those who viewed the problem as one of external aggression and those who viewed it as an internal conflict, with little agreement on action. France sought a forceful approach through the

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Western European Union. Britain opposed the use of force and wanted any efforts at resolution to take place through NATO, thus forcing American involvement. The ICFY process proved largely ineffective. The various groups in Bosnia relied on a nationalist definition of the state rather than a civil definition. The May  “breadline massacre” in Sarajevo led to the passage of economic sanctions on the rump Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro) and the first invocation of Chapter VII through the UN, but that was an ad hoc reaction only. The European nations were not willing to commit major resources to the issue. The UN ruled out the prospect of peacekeeping early on, unable to do more with its ambivalent membership. The reality was that no nation or institution could expect to gain from involvement. From the moment violence began, the conflict posed negatives rather than positives for any external actor that became involved. This meant that no coordination existed between the various national or institutional efforts, as shown during talks in London in July. EC representatives got the warring parties to agree to place their heavy weapons under UN supervision, but the negotiators did not seek UN authorization ahead of time and the plan was rejected by Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali.44 Diplomatic efforts to develop a peace agreement made little headway as a result. The warring parties knew no international consensus existed and that intransigence would likely be rewarded with hesitance. All attempts at diplomatic resolution foundered, limited by lack of coordination and leverage. From then until  the international response was shaped by the fact that few countries agreed on what should be done, and no one, not even the organizations involved, wanted to be stuck doing it all. No individual nation had a direct interest at stake, thus they sought resolution through multilateral rather than unilateral means. But multilateral approaches were crafted by the same ambivalent actors and were thus equally ineffective. The reluctance of member states to really commit to stopping the conflict was precisely what kept UNPROFOR so weak that it could not even defend itself. That led to further problems, since troop-contributing countries such as France became more reluctant to use force and risk their soldiers’ lives, while

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nations without a vested human interest, such as the United States, promoted increasingly forceful options. That division helped perpetuate the crisis. The Bosnian Serbs faced no credible threat from the international community and felt they could refuse settlements that did not recognize their victory. As time went on the Europeans reversed their position and began to criticize the United States for not acting. Whereas Europe had previously sought to keep the United States out, it soon tried to claim a moral high ground by highlighting its sacrifices against US absence. While the United States fiddled, the British, French, Spanish, and others risked their necks in Bosnia. In response the United States proposed the idea of lift and strike in , in its view a cost-free way to affect the war. The plan would have lifted the embargo on arming the Bosnian regime and provided air support while its army got weapons and training, allowing the United States to continue its limited involvement. By reversing the military imbalance the United States hoped to pressure the Serbs on the ground and at the bargaining table. But France and Britain opposed the idea because they feared it would place their UNPROFOR troops at greater risk, and the two countries threatened withdrawal if the United States persisted. National interests froze along this division between the sky and the ground throughout  and . What nations were willing to do depended in large part on whether their soldiers were in harm’s way. The United States was under pressure to make something happen but was willing to do so only at minimal cost to itself. At the same time, countries contributing troops to UNPROFOR felt they were already paying a significant cost and did not wish to see that rise. The attempts at resolution could move neither forward nor back because the humanitarian problems ensured that pressure to resolve the conflict remained even while nations were unwilling to bear the costs demanded. That was the conundrum of international involvement. Principle demanded action while prudence demanded separation. Nations felt they could not benefit and sought to limit their entanglement. But the emphasis of international debate shifted markedly in mid-— and not because the cost-benefit calculation for outside actors suddenly changed. While the obstacles to intervention remained, percep-

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tions of the crisis and the acceptance of more aggressive strategies of conflict resolution became quite different. After the Bosnian Serb assault on Gorazde in April, the focus of discussion centered not on events in Bosnia but on their meaning for the future of international institutions and indeed the international system itself. While earlier debate had focused on the Serbs as the perpetrators, ultimately the UN (and by extension its members) became the center of controversy for acquiescing in the destruction of values the organization was created to defend. Those discussions linked humanitarian issues and internal conflict to conceptions of international security for the first time. The shift in the tenor of Security Council debates is quite distinctive. Discussion of Bosnia as a critical and historical moment replaced the earlier uncertainty about the nature of the conflict and relevance of its effects. More important, a sense of responsibility began to permeate talks. The comment that Bosnia might “go down in the annals of modern history along with Munich,” was repeated by several Council members and underscored the perceived significance of the crisis.45 The debate began to focus on issues of morality, human rights, and styles of governance that international institutions were ostensibly created to promote.46 An emphasis on a wider need for conflict resolution also permeated the discussions. Benazir Bhutto sent a statement warning that allowing the Serbs to succeed “will represent a leap backwards to the law of force and away from our aspirations for a world ruled by the force of law.”47 These lessons would then “encourage predatory Powers to defy the world community and to violate accepted international norms. Force could become the sole currency of international relations; chaos would be its companion.”48 Although rhetoric played a role in debate, it also crystallized the fundamental choice faced by international actors and reflected the normative beliefs then prevailing. They could either strive to promote the principles shaping the international agenda after the Cold War or accept that norms were not relevant. Far more directly than even Haiti, Bosnia was seen to represent a choice for the future of international relations as a whole. Security Council members ceased viewing internal conflict as a limited issue

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and linked its effects to overall security. Humanitarian issues and conflict resolution therefore moved closer to becoming responsibilities. The collective sense that failure in this case would undercut global efforts to promote security and promote a world of “war and destruction” is quite significant.49 In some sense participants considered UN credibility to be at risk, which could be considered a self-serving interest, but it was only at risk because the importance of conflict resolution and humanitarian issues was accepted as a given. The importance of credibility therefore indicated a normative shift in both the expectations and perceived responsibilities of the Security Council. In essence Bosnia became a turning point for the relevance of norms and conceptions of security. Neither Somalia nor Haiti had been viewed as a defining moment. In fact, international actors stressed the unique characteristics of each and, in the case of Haiti, offered the possibility of only limited precedent in regard to defending democracy. Bosnia was different and was explicitly viewed as a precedent in the sense that the Security Council defined a new and different responsibility for itself and member states. Understanding of the war itself also changed, helping pave the way for intervention. Two trends played a large role in shaping intervention in Bosnia through . They formed the crux of the debate within international institutions and must be understood as a primary aspect in encouraging inaction. The first was the right of international reaction against an aggressor, and the second the sanctity of sovereignty. Although the definition of Bosnia’s crisis was hotly debated, consensus leaned toward viewing it as a case of interstate conflict. Viewing Serbia as an aggressor nation for encouraging revolt in its neighbor allowed the UN and others to focus on the diplomatic aspects of the conflict without considering the political viability of Bosnia itself. This perspective was set up in part by the EC’s recognition of Slovenia and its sister republics starting at the end of  and assumed that the new states were functioning nations once recognized as such. It also ignored the fact that the warring parties were internal and that the Bosnian Serbs and Bosnian Croats contested the very structure of the state. The failure to recognize and fully address the internal crisis im-

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peded negotiation. The early years of international involvement were focused on deterring Serbian action and hurting Milosevic through sanctions and political pressure. Although a great deal of aid and encouragement did indeed come from Serbia and its leader, the conflict had taken root much more deeply and involved mass nationalism within Bosnia itself. The most important parties were internal and pursued exclusionist agendas that encouraged all identification to focus on groups defined by us versus them. The persistence in viewing Bosnia as an established nation slowed initial approaches to intervention by perpetuating the notion that a reasonable negotiation could end the crisis. As international actors began to link the violence to the weakness of the state, they began to view resolution differently. The second trend, implied by the first, was the emphasis on Bosnia as a sovereign state. Focus on statehood was expressed most vociferously by European nations in the UN, who adhered to the notion that Bosnia remained a state and that negotiations toward peace must be continued through its government. This is why the Muslim-led government was accepted by the UN as the legitimate government of Bosnia even when that legitimacy was never accepted within Bosnia. Non-European states were less sanguine about the so-called central government, suggesting that Bosnia was dead, or nearly so, and that giving UN troops enforcement powers was a more sensible option. Not only did warlords rule the country, but they refused to recognize the government as such, calling it simply the Muslim Party. To support this position several states relied on the report of the coordinator of Red Cross operations in Yugoslavia, who described the situation as a “political vacuum” and said that the republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina “has all but disappeared.”50 The need to bolster the state and the position of the republican government motivated the idea of lifting the arms embargo, but the United States was the only great power to support such action. For both these reasons, France, Germany, and Russia remained convinced that the conflict would be resolved through negotiation only. They adhered to the belief that the international community should not intrude on the internal crisis in Bosnia beyond efforts to facilitate a settlement and the provision of emergency relief. Djibouti’s

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dire warning that Bosnia was “a ghostly union without a centrally controlled army, police force, or directly elected parliament,”51 defined the reality by the close of , but reliance on the formality of sovereignty and the lack of national interest continued to weigh against the use of force. Even the February , , shelling in Sarajevo did little to convince the Europeans that Bosnia was a lost concept. The reaction condemned the “terrorism” of the Bosnian Serbs rather than accepting the fact of Bosnia’s collapse. Only the representative of Azerbaijan extended the problem beyond Sarajevo, describing the real problem as the “annihilation” of Bosnia.52 The path of international response until  also reflected the tendency of the UN and NATO to assess the humanitarian crisis in isolation from the causes and actualities of the conflict. This was similar to the focus on effect employed in Somalia, defining famine rather than political crisis as the problem. As time went on, however, international observers began to view the conflict as what it was, a struggle over the basic definition of the state. The Bosnian Serb offensives starting in the summer of  forced a change in view. From that point on international debate reflected an emphasis on the presumption that creating a functioning nation was critical to preserving the standards of international order. Only by aiding the development of the Bosnian state could humanitarian protections and responsible governance be assured. The emphasis on sovereignty thus played a strange role, initially inhibiting action out of deference to the concept of an established state but then encouraging action in order to give substance to that conception. NATO analysts summed up the problem in late . The problem was not the typical “war of survival governed by overriding strategic imperatives” that had concerned NATO from its creation until . Instead, Bosnia represented the kind of war most prevalent in the new world order, “wars of choice,” which “tend to reflect the problems of weak states, with fragile political institutions, fragmented social structures and feeble economies.”53 That description was extremely important. It recognized inherent political weakness as a cause of conflict, and made a link between stable, responsible governance and international security. If internal conflict affected security and state weakness con-

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tributed to internal conflict, then weak states and international security were linked. The development of nation building rested on this connection. Initially international observers had interpreted the conflict as a disagreement over leadership. Over the course of the war they saw that the problem was both more basic and more complex. The belligerent parties contested the very meaning and structure of the state, and each group’s view was incompatible with the others. Even if the violence ended, Bosnia’s government would be fiercely contested and had no capacity to survive. None of the organizations involved was equipped to address such a conflict, but it seemed imperative to try. The international system became the center of reference because Bosnia’s destruction, slowly accepted as fact, suggested that the purposes of the system as conceived by institutions—peace, stability, just governance, cooperation—did not apply to meaningful contemporary issues. That realization required a fundamental rethinking about the reach and goals of international action. The conflict laid bare the shibboleth of the new world if international efforts could be so easily thwarted by regional opportunists and thugs. Hungary suggested that, if unanswered, the Serbs’ aggression “would be likely to plunge the United Nations and other international organizations concerned into paralysis, inconsistency, and ignominy.”54 The shift in international thinking did have some effect on the ground; the first use of force was achieved through NATO air strikes several times in . Over the course of the next year it became clear that principle could not triumph without extensive and determined use of force. That fact helped solidify the rather paradoxical and previously tentative marriage of force with conflict resolution agendas. UN involvement had failed because it could not define a sufficient response. Unable to compel, too weak to deter, the UN ceded institutional emphasis to NATO because it was the only body capable of acting decisively to force agreements. It was also the organization the United States preferred, a consideration that became more and more important. The global position of the United States forced its involvement as a central mediator. Responsibility also devolved more and more to the United States because many other participants were on

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the run. The EU had faded from the scene with the creation of the Contact Group.55 And the individual European nations increasingly viewed their position in Bosnia as untenable because of the vulnerability of their troops. As the United States became more involved in shaping the international strategy, the UN position declined because of the debate over the use of force. Although at first the split was institutionalized through the dual key approach to air strikes (with any NATO action requiring the approval of the UN), the Serb assault on the safe areas starting in  showed the final impotence of UN efforts. When France began discussing withdrawal from UNPROFOR, Boutros-Ghali bowed to the inevitable and advocated withdrawal of the entire UN force and the shifting of responsibility to the Contact Group and regional powers. None of the participants felt they could withdraw entirely, and none wanted to bear primary responsibility. Bosnia, by necessity, reinforced the role of multilateralism. The goal, said one US official, was “not to be left holding the bag.”56 Bosnia also reinforced the need for military muscle as a means of addressing protracted conflict. The development of contemporary intervention demonstrates that principle and force are closely intertwined, since the former has no value without the teeth of the latter. As Michael Ignatieff has written, “The disagreeable reality for those who believe in human rights is that there are some occasions . . . when war is the only remedy.”57 Events in Bosnia showed this stark reality. The fall of Srebrenica in July  convinced the United States that it was headed for ground involvement regardless of its preferences. Boutros-Ghali spoke openly on the futility of UNPROFOR remaining, but France now supported the use of force as a result of the election of Jacques Chirac in April. Although the British and French publicly lambasted the United States for its approach they upgraded and expanded their troops and their forceful capabilities.58 The French did not consult the UN when creating the Rapid Reaction Force, demonstrating the end of that body’s influence. With NATO now off the UN leash, different options could be considered. Although the Serbs could not know it, a consensus had finally developed behind a forceful response. Srebrenica and the second marketplace bombing in

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August were merely the final steps in a process that had been moving for some time to bring NATO power to bear on the conflict. Defending principle required force, so UN authority was effectively ceded to NATO. As the military became more central to the international approach, NATO took more responsibility, leading to the August  bombing and the Dayton negotiation. With that, international actors took over the development of the new Bosnian state. The United States took the lead in brokering a peace deal; the nation of Bosnia and its structure of government were essentially created in November  at Dayton. The constitution developed in Ohio built a single country in name by accepting internal partition along ethnic lines and a large degree of ethnic political autonomy. Simply declaring a country meant little, however, since the means and, perhaps more important, the will to make it a reality did not exist inside Bosnia. The political and economic aspects of rebuilding fell to the United Nations Mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina (UNMIBH), the Office of the High Representative (OHR), the top official of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe and the civilian authority in Bosnia, and the OSCE itself. The task of the intervention was more comprehensive than that of any previous effort—to oversee and facilitate the creation in fact of the new Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina by building political and economic structures that would integrate and reunify the country. The first step toward stability lay with the sixty-thousandmember IFOR, now scaled down to a little over a tenth of that number (SFOR), authorized by Annex 1A of the Dayton accords to prevent the resumption of violence and enforce the separation of the warring parties.59 Unlike in previous interventions, however, the civilian side attracted the bulk of international attention. International actors had to help build a functioning government, restart the economy, provide services of every kind, and untangle the social problems created by displacement and emigration. The international approach to resolving the conflict therefore took place on multiple levels, from institutional to bilateral to individual, and often at the same time. Institutions took over the task of conflict resolution at the outset, with the EC leading the way. When that body

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proved ineffective, it ceded authority to the UN, which eventually ceded authority to NATO. Individual nations also played a role in order to push compromise on the belligerents, with Russia using its relationship with the Serbs for leverage and the United States taking over a central role and eventually leading the negotiations at Dayton. Because national pressure did not always work, the international community also used individuals working through formal and semiformal channels to gain a settlement. The secretary-general’s appointment of Cyrus Vance to colead the early diplomatic negotiations was a means of representing US attention, even though the United States was not directly involved at the time. The lack of international consensus on the issue, however, made the diplomatic approach useless. Later, in the lead-up to Dayton and at the negotiations, Richard Holbrooke played a pivotal role. Though a member of the US State Department, he also functioned in a semiofficial manner throughout the final negotiations and developed a personal relationship with some of the key figures, including Slobodan Milosevic, that may have been instrumental in completing the agreement. Holbrooke enjoyed close access to Clinton and thus played an important role through his influence on both ends of the negotiation. The Bosnia case thus highlights several levels of the conflict resolution approach, culminating in the use of military action to enforce the final settlement and move the peace process forward.

Assessing Outcomes When NATO entered Bosnia in  its mission was described as a one-year operation after which, presumably, the country would be able to function on its own. Whether policymakers really believed that is unclear. The reconstruction operation it accompanied has made some progress but has not succeeded in making Bosnia a unified and stable country. The process has been slow in part because the intervention differed so drastically from its predecessors. There were no precedents to guide the scope of the military or civilian operations. As described above, states decided they had to act, but they had little

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idea of what to do and outlined extremely ambitious objectives. The General Framework Agreement for Peace, brokered at Dayton, contained eleven annexes. Annex  (parts A and B) dealt with the military aspects of the peace agreement and regional stability, while Annex  addressed the separation of the belligerent groups and the ethnic entities. The remaining eight annexes addressed civilian reconstruction, ranging from the national constitution to refugees to the police. 60 Annex , the nation’s constitution, established entirely new institutions of government based on principles of cooperation and consensus that were extremely hard to create after four years of war. The high levels of distrust made reconstruction difficult. The annexes addressing areas such as human rights and refugees emphasized the problems but provided little practical guidance for addressing them. The international community gave itself the task of establishing a new state in a country devastated by war and riven by ethnic factionalism. Officials who have served in Bosnia admit that they were completely unprepared for the task ahead. When they arrived they had few clear plans and only limited appreciation of the problems. As a result, they say, the international community spent  figuring out what to do,  figuring out how to do it, and only began implementing programs in .61 The international failure to coordinate and prepare before such an enormous undertaking reinforces the newness of the task and the ad hoc nature of its evolution. Though reform had been attempted in Haiti, the security situation had been far more stable and the relevant institutions already existed. In Bosnia the mandate included nothing less than rebuilding politics, economics, and society in a context where all previous institutions were either destroyed or discredited. Very few policymakers appear to have appreciated exactly what that entailed or how hard it would be. This lack of preparation reflects the slow slide into involvement to begin with. As the history shows, international actors felt they had to take action, and they associated the violence with the absence of a legitimate and functioning state. They decided, therefore, that building a state was essential for resolution, but their plans did not extend much beyond the articulation of final goals. On the positive side, the operation incorporated the reform

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ideas central to conflict resolution and sought to transform formal and informal interactions between groups. On the negative side, the participants had no idea how to do that and did not cooperate well. Some parts of both the OHR and the OSCE duplicated the other’s efforts, and they failed to share information between them. NATO initially limited itself to military issues and did not accept a role in civilian support. Melding the military and civilian operations took some time and hampered reform over the first several years. The process of linking the two proved to be a watershed change for intervention. The sixty thousand troops of NATO’s Implementation Force that entered Bosnia in December  were charged with policing three ethnically dominant sectors.62 IFOR’s military duties included supervising the zone of separation, disarming civilian groups, monitoring and confirming the withdrawal of foreign forces (ethnic Serbian and Croatian personnel and assorted mercenary groups in Bosnia), supervising the cantonment of forces and weapons as well as the cantonment sites themselves, monitoring mine removal, and ensuring freedom of movement.63 IFOR attained these objectives relatively quickly. Large-scale violence has been nonexistent. Though localized acts of violence continue, they have decreased dramatically over the years.64 But IFOR troops initially dealt only with security issues and balked at assisting the OSCE and other organizations. From NATO’s point of view the two interventions, military and civilian, were considered separate. That conception developed naturally out of the previous operations, where the military intervention had only limited involvement with reform and officially ended when it handed over authority to the UN. The circumstances in Bosnia did not support the dichotomy, however, forcing NATO to reconsider its role. The entire intervention was reconfigured in  as a result, officially making NATO a partner in the reconstruction program. The success of the civilian effort depended on NATO’s coercive power because of the many thorny issues left unresolved by the peace accords. Bosnia exemplified the symbiotic relationship between force and conflict resolution. The political structure mandated at Dayton included a federal government led by a tri-ethnic presidency, two entity governments (the Republika Srpska and the Bosniac [Muslim]–Croat

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Federation), a bicameral legislature, and a constitutional court. These bodies did not coexist easily and some groups did not want to participate in the tripartite presidency. The Serb representative, for example, refused to have his offices in the same building as the Croat and Muslim representatives for the first several years.65 NATO’s military strength was crucial to dealing with lingering animosities, beginning the process of sorting out the displaced population, and instituting real reform. The reconfiguration in  also gave greater power to the high representative (HR), by giving him the ability to remove politicians from office and force acceptance of specific reforms. This leverage was nicknamed the Bonn powers. The international community therefore applied both military and diplomatic coercion as time went on, using direct force and the threat of removal as a means to drive reform forward. Whether this is an effective or fair method of dealing with a case like Bosnia remains a matter of some debate. The war caused physical destruction and a rupturing of the social fabric. The intervention had to deal with massive displacement, mistrust, and a lack of functioning institutions. International actors responded to resistance by using greater levels of coercion, but that created a contradiction between means and ends, as noted by David Chandler.66 Essentially, international actors decided that the way to build democracy was by being antidemocratic. Early on, some of the objectives that international actors pushed may have actually hampered the success of the reconstruction project by giving too much authority to local actors who had an interest in opposing reform. Many of Bosnia’s continuing problems derive from the speed with which local government was developed and given power. The International Crisis Group (ICG) describes the commitment to early elections as one of the greatest flaws of the Dayton accords. Hard-line, ethnic-based parties were the big winners because they had the most established and financially stable organizations. Rather than establishing a sound basis for reform, therefore, elections allowed extremist leaders to gain legitimacy and reinforced the ethnic separation in the country.67 Once in office, they have been extremely difficult to shake out, particularly in the RS. Holding office makes it easier for elites to publicize their agendas, manipulate public

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perceptions, and target alternative platforms. Local authority was therefore biased from the start against significant reform. Moderate voices were easily drowned out by the more muscular and financially secure ethnic parties, whose ability to feed off corruption only enhanced their security and perpetuated corruption. A strong argument can be made for why greater international control is necessary. The international operation is trying to establish a state based on ideas such as human rights, responsible governance, and accountability, while local actors often operate through repression, pursuit of power, and exclusion on ethnic or religious grounds. In addition, the overall goals of the intervention as initially stated were mutually constraining, with the military and civilian objectives pulling in different directions. Establishing military security required separation of the warring parties and ethnicities, while rehabilitation required combining the groups into one government. Separation may have been a necessary first step toward peace, but it created a more difficult environment for the unification objective of the civilian operation. Yet the application of international fiat, even in a limited fashion, opens up the potential for controversy inside and outside Bosnia. Some critics of the intervention call for an end to international efforts at rebuilding in favor of clear-cut partitioning of the country. While acknowledging that ethnic separation is not the ideal solution, this argument suggests it must be accepted as the only practical solution for achieving stability.68 Since this is essentially the reality created at Dayton, proponents of this argument say the international community should accept the actual if unintended result and drop all pretenses of unification. Other critics say unity is possible but only if the international community gets tough and forces the necessary reforms on reluctant Bosnian institutions and leaders. They believe the intervention as applied is still too soft and allows just enough autonomy for local politicians to stymie progress.69 The intransigence and corresponding lack of reform in the RS provide fodder for this argument, since it has consistently approved reforms and then failed to implement them. Yet a third approach argues that the intervention meddles too much, causing the atrophy of Bosnian political development and democracy because of heavy-handed international control.

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Promoting, or perhaps forcing, unity by withholding major aid until the three parties make some kind of reconciliation has been proposed as the proper carrot-and-stick approach. The most fundamental issue facing the reconstruction operation remains the balance of power between the federal government and ethnic entities.70 The years of war led to the development of fiefdoms by the various ethnic elites, who established criminal economic networks to fund their war effort and line their own pockets. That situation became institutionalized with the first postwar elections, in . The ethnic parties are able to control political and economic development through the entities by linking business closely to political patronage. They do not want to see their power diminished and resist reforms that limit official discretion or introduce accountability.71 Reducing their power has proven very complex, largely because the entities control the pace of reform and the interests of local leaders contradict the norms the international community is seeking to promote. Although extremists have lost some ground, the nationalist parties gained power again in the elections of October . The victory was narrow, however, and the current HR, Paddy Ashdown, remains optimistic. The nationalist parties have endorsed reforms, but the ICG cautions that the extent of their commitment remains unclear.72 So far no legislative program has been outlined, and several national ministries are mere façades, without staff or budgets. High Representative Ashdown struggles still with the problems confronted in —establishing the rule of law, regenerating the economy, and turning the state envisioned at Dayton into a reality. The prospect of EU membership makes these goals all the more important. The ethnic and now geographic divisions are still deeply entrenched, if only out of greed. Political leaders are accustomed to the perks of their position and use ethnic and nationalist rhetoric as a means to perpetuate divisions and thus their own control and prosperity. The entities have independent control over most policy issues of consequence and little interest in unity. Central institutions are still largely nonexistent, and the federal government tremendously weak. Hard-line politicians remain more prevalent than moderates.73 The ICG argues that the international community must become more

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aggressive in order to break the grip of ethnic control: “In order to get out, the country’s foreign guardians will have to get in more deeply. In order to abjure the use of the Bonn powers, Ashdown will need in the short run to use them more intensively. In order to realize the promise of Dayton, the High Representative will have to lift the ceiling of what is meant to be permissible under the Dayton constitution.”74 Bosnia shows the inherent paradox of intervention. In order to create autonomy international actors may decide to take it away. But how much control should outsiders exert? There are no easy answers. Letting local actors assume power quickly seems appropriate but may impede reform. Keeping power with outside actors violates sovereignty, breeds resentment, and may retard local development. The case also highlights the most important lesson learned in —that intervention requires involvement, a concept that was avoided just three years before IFOR began. Since then intervention has followed the model of greater rather than lesser international reach, leading to a broad acceptance of force and nation building as tasks of resolution. After nine years of experimentation in Bosnia, consensus seems to be shifting toward greater external control. But how well that will work, and whether it can be effective in other places, remains to be seen. Economic development remains crucial to Bosnia’s political future. Since it was economic issues that in part fueled the violence to begin with, establishing stable local economic structures, creating a national economic infrastructure, and providing jobs and security for Bosnia’s citizens is a critical aspect of building a stable nation. What this amounts to is creating “a perception of hope that will cumulatively provide a disincentive to a return to conflict.”75 The intransigence of local politicians and the remaining thousands of displaced persons are obstacles to both goals. Although violence has been reduced and costs imposed on its use, many difficult problems remain. Nationalist antipathies simmer just below the surface, fanned largely by the economic crisis facing the country. When jobs and housing are not available or food is too expensive, frustration takes the form of ethnic rivalry. Police, judges, and business leaders are often in the pockets of politicians, who work to reinforce ethnic divides.76 The simultaneous emphasis on separation and unification hinders devel-

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opment, condoning ethnic identity even while trying to reduce its salience. In spite of international efforts, many local actors still do not support reform. The inability to establish the rule of law is a primary reason why. Officials gain too much from the status quo. The ICG argues convincingly that establishing the rule of law should receive priority in reconstruction. Failure to implement law and order undercuts other reforms by allowing officials to avoid accountability and providing oxygen to irregular networks of political and economic power.77 In Bosnia spoilers have been allowed to impede reform, and their success in doing so has merely encouraged their willingness to act as spoilers.78 A World Bank survey in  found very high levels of public concern over corruption and low levels of public trust in political and economic structures or officials.79 The unpredictability of the legal and policy environment discourages investment and prevents the emergence of a competitive business environment. Few elements of the economy are centralized, allowing economic power to dovetail with political connections and remain in the hands of unofficial mafias.80 The continued weakness of the central government also ensures that it remains largely irrelevant to citizens, whose main identification is with the entity governments. The persistence of corruption and accompanying perception of illegitimacy afflict political development. Citizens have little agency and little reason to respect or endorse the rules of the state.81 But to highlight these problems is also to highlight the extraordinary nature of the effort taking place in Bosnia. None of the actors wanted to get involved, yet they ended up accepting a long-term responsibility to deploy military forces and undertake complex rehabilitation. Moreover, their approach defied earlier examples of post–Cold War intervention, which had been based on short-term and extremely restrictive mandates. Ashdown hopes to be the last HR, but the operation will not end until many more reforms are consolidated. In spite of the small and incremental nature of success, we hear few voices suggesting that the civilian operation should not continue. Instead, we often hear suggestions for greater participation in developing political and economic reforms. The OSCE and OHR have learned

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to cooperate more effectively and have gradually taken greater control in shaping and occasionally forcing reform, though the effort is still based more on facilitation than coercion. The trump card for local politicians is their ability to control implementation. That accounts for many of the setbacks. Local actors do not want to lose their privileges and resist attempts to promote transparency and accountability. Even so, the international participants continue to pursue the process of rehabilitation in spite of the lack of clear success. The early years of international response to problems in Bosnia reflected a desire on the part of outside actors to avoid involvement. It was quite clear that the conflict posed trouble for external parties, with high costs and few rewards. Normative concerns, however, would not allow other nations to remain completely aloof. Over time several factors worked to motivate intervention, particularly concern over defending principles of conflict resolution, negotiation, human rights, and responsible governance. When full-scale intervention began in , the operation represented a sharp break from the actions taken until then. NATO abandoned the doctrine of limited interference and sought a wholesale reshaping of the country, first at the bargaining tables of Dayton and then in the cities and countryside of Bosnia itself. The process is shaped by normative perspectives seeking democratization, rule of law, and consensual governance. The intervention as conceived at Dayton operated on the theory that the international community would facilitate reconstruction and reform. In some cases it took direct control while local structures were developed, such as the early OSCE authority over elections. The plan, however, was to use the intervention as a means of assisting Bosnians in creating their own solutions. This left the international effort with a conundrum. On the one hand it wanted Bosnians to have ownership of their rehabilitation and construct solutions compatible to their interests. On the other hand those interests were (are) often parochial and divisive and conflict with the overall objectives that the international community seeks. NATO’s supreme commander, Gen. George Joulwan, said at the time the intervention began, “It is on the civilian side that we will determine whether we really have true peace and stability in Bosnia.”82

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If NATO had wanted to force a specific kind of government, it could have done so by now and withdrawn. Instead, we see a comprehensive and at times ineffectual intervention that is learning on the fly how to shape rehabilitation efforts in a severely divided society. That type of protracted commitment to developing stability and encouraging reform was very different than any previous international action. It represents a new calculus for intervention, based on ideas rather than power, an emphasis on putting resources in rather than taking them out, and a willingness to adopt open-ended mandates in the interest of inculcating specific behaviors. The international community is expending a great deal of effort and money, with no guarantee that its interests will be rewarded. The Bosnia operation shows a clear change from the cases discussed previously, where intervention was brief and ended even when objectives were not attained. Opposition scared off efforts in Somalia, and an inflexible time frame led to incomplete reforms in Haiti. Bosnia represents a case where international actors have not tried to limit the scope of their activities and got involved in spite of their interests, not because of them. Although the approach drew criticism, and justly so, it also opened a new era for intervention.

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6 ECOWAS, the UN, and Sierra Leone

B   gotten the lion’s share of the attention in the mid-s, but it was not the only country to host catastrophic conflict. In West Africa, Sierra Leone also experienced severe violence. This case is important to the story of intervention because it demonstrates the relevance of contemporary norms on a regional level and was the first partnership between the UN and a regional organization. Two separate processes of instability afflicted Sierra Leone throughout the s. The first was civil war, which began when the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) took up arms against the government in . It quickly focused on gaining control of the country’s rich diamond-mining areas and launched a campaign of brutality against citizens. The second was a series of coups that kept civilian governments extremely weak and brought periodic military rule. The overthrow of the democratic government of President Ahmed Tejan Kabbah triggered intervention in . The coup temporarily ended the civil war by creating an alliance between the military and the rebels and motivated action by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), which inserted a military force, the ECOWAS Monitoring Group (ECOMOG), the following day.

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Map .. Sierra Leone. UN Cartographic Section, no.  Rev. , January 

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The stated purpose of ECOMOG was to restore the weak but legitimate rule of Kabbah, by force if necessary. The Organization of African Unity (OAU) endorsed this position. While the UN did not officially sanction it, Secretary-General Kofi Annan, among others, admitted that force might be the only solution. ECOMOG troops were welcomed by the citizens and succeeded in toppling the junta in February . The problem was far from over, however. RUF rearmed and retrained when it was forced back into the bush. Former soldiers, sometimes in alliance with RUF and sometimes working in independent bands, also fought the government. Fierce violence engulfed Freetown and ECOMOG in early . The regional forces regained control over the capital, but the security situation remained unstable. Success against RUF required sustained offensives that ECOMOG did not have the manpower to mount. The UN, ECOWAS, and independent heads of state mediated several peace agreements, all of which were broken by RUF. The most controversial was the Lomé accord of , which brought infamous RUF leader Foday Sankoh into government, gave him control over diamond mining, and offered amnesty to RUF fighters. Ultimately the situation proved far more than a regional organization could handle. RUF sustained itself on diamond revenues, giving it more military and financial strength than the government. ECOMOG troops withdrew in late  and were replaced by the United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone, which took over primary responsibility for implementing and enforcing a peace process. Although international efforts were uncoordinated for some time, in early  the UN imposed tougher sanctions on RUF sponsor Liberia, and a British commitment to defending Freetown made clear that military victory would be impossible. In May RUF finally dropped its demand that the Sierra Leone Army disarm and agreed to return to the disarmament process. By the end of , nearly half the former combatants had been disarmed, the cease-fire was holding, and government authority extended to most of the country’s territory. Kabbah was reelected in May . Sierra Leone is currently an example of success in peacemaking, although the ICG cautions that “RUF’s commitment to peace is fragile and dependent upon sustained international pressure.”1

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Although this chapter is about intervention in Sierra Leone, the story cannot be told without reference to Liberia. Several things link the two conflicts. One is the presence of ECOMOG and the efforts at conflict resolution spearheaded by ECOWAS. The community’s first peacekeeping-enforcement operation was deployed in Liberia from  to  in response to internal conflict and government collapse. Until the African Union undertook intervention in , ECOWAS was the only regional organization besides NATO to use military action to resolve area crises. The other, and more important, link is Charles Taylor. Taylor, previously president of Liberia, supported and trained RUF during his own war and continued to do so after achieving political office. He used its soldiers to fight for his interests in Sierra Leone and elsewhere, spreading violence and corruption throughout the region. Although international actors did not intervene in Liberia, that country and its leader played important roles in the effort to bring peace to Sierra Leone. The reasons for and objectives of intervention in the latter case are entwined with events in Liberia and form the difference between success and failure. The point above highlights an important difference between the two conflicts, and that was the international response from outside Africa. Liberia’s war went largely unmarked by international actors, except for an occasional condemnation of one faction or another by the UN. In Sierra Leone, by contrast, the UN took a central role in peace negotiations and ultimately inserted a military force that took over when ECOMOG withdrew. The British also played an important role, in cooperation with the UN, creating a precedent for future cases. The international community used Britain’s unilateral intervention as a model to demand that other major powers make similar efforts. No such demands could have been imagined before then. The reasons for this inconsistency in treatment are an important reflection of the evolution of intervention discussed here. The difference in what the international community was willing to do in  versus what it was willing to do in  is striking. Over that time conceptions of intervention and its place in the contemporary system changed significantly. This contrast with Liberia is also, therefore, a central part of the story of Sierra Leone and of perceptions of the role of intervention in general.

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The Origins of the Conflict Sierra Leone’s history is not the typical story of gross colonial mismanagement or the enduring legacy of a favored ethnicity that created hostility and hatred among those less advanced. The Freetown area became a British colony in  and served as a base for a British antislavery squadron through the early and mid-s. The local population was swelled by “recaptives,” recently enslaved West Africans who were released from slave ships arrested on the high seas. As a result, the society was influenced by a mixture of social, technological, and religious ideas brought from up and down the West African coast that encouraged a dynamic local intellectual culture.2 The interior became a British protectorate in , and though some tension existed between the countrymen of the rural areas and the Freetown elite, it dissipated shortly after independence. The British were committed to the idea of representative democracy and had established internal self-government by . Rich in diamonds and other resources, Sierra Leone was in good condition to become a state. Independence was officially declared in April , although the British heads of the police and the army did not leave until  and , respectively. Nearly alone among African nations, Sierra Leone had a relatively peaceful political process until the s. It did not dissolve in chaos once the colonial power left, and opposition movements registered their views through legitimate channels. In  it became one of the few African countries where the opposition sought and legitimately won power through the ballot, although the process was counteracted when the military declared martial law immediately after the vote and arrested the opposition leader. Two days later renegade officers arrested the army commander, suspended the constitution, and banned all political parties. This group ruled for a year before it was toppled by a revolt of enlisted men that returned power to Prime Minister (later President) Siaka Stevens, winner of the  elections. After this series of irregularities, politics settled into a dependable course of personalistic but nonviolent rule. Stevens maintained his legitimacy through corruption and patronage. After several military coup attempts, he was able to ensure control over the army by tying the senior command to his All People’s Congress (APC). By  Sierra Leone was a de facto 

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one-party state, a status officially codified in the amended constitution enacted in . The epitome of the patrimonial ruler, Stevens was known as the father of the nation.3 Patron-client relationships were the norm throughout the political system. This made for stable politics but did not help the economy, which went into steep decline in the late s, when industrial diamond extraction began to close down and informal methods of alluvial diamond mining increased, creating a substantial clandestine diamond trade. When Stevens took power in , Sierra Leone was the fourth-largest diamond producer in the world, earning approximately $ million per year from the gems. But corruption and smuggling led to a dramatic decrease in exports and a corresponding pinch on government revenues. When Stevens left office in , the government made only $, per year on diamonds.4 The price of all Sierra Leone’s main exports—diamonds, iron ore, coffee, and cocoa—decreased throughout the s, causing further economic decline. Foreign firms withdrew from the economy in the early s, forcing the government to rely more heavily on foreign aid even while the shadow state in diamond trafficking lined the pockets of politicians who preferred personal to state enrichment. The industrial and manufacturing sectors were small and hurt by the acute shortage of foreign exchange. Smuggling of even agricultural crops became widespread as producers sought to avoid the high taxes placed on imports. The economy soon fell entirely under the control of resident Lebanese merchants and collaborating politicians, and it was said that Stevens and Lebanese trader Jamil Said Mohammed ran the state as a private enterprise.5 By the end of the s the economic growth rate was consistently negative.6 Some riots and protests occurred in the late s, but surprisingly few. Stevens’s handpicked successor, Joseph Momoh, assumed office in January , and citizens hailed the opportunity to end corruption and mismanagement. Momoh pledged to put the nation first and revive the economy. Aside from reintroducing political pluralism, he made few changes. Between  and  an estimated one-third to one-half of mined diamonds were smuggled out of the country. Inflation reached triple digits.7 The smuggling networks were all part of the patronage system “through which [Stevens] had personally ECOWAS, the UN, and Sierra Leone

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distributed the proceeds of the country’s mineral wealth to his allies. . . . In doing so, they destroyed the effectiveness of most state institutions, starving them of formal sources of revenue and turning them into extensions of their private patronage networks.”8 Institutions withered as political and economic transactions increasingly took place outside formal structures. Momoh could not reduce corruption, due partly to his own greed and partly to his need to build his own power base to counteract the strongmen of Stevens’s networks. He had to participate in the informal economy in order to pay public servants, including the army and police, and develop his own loyalists. One of the few concrete changes Momoh did create was an opening of the formal political system. A  debate on pluralism led to the creation of a National Constitutional Review Commission, which recommended a US-style executive presidency. In October  a new constitution was put into place that allowed political parties, created a unicameral legislature, and established a seven-year presidency with a maximum of two terms.9 The economy continued to founder, however; the decrease in world prices for raw materials, Sierra Leone’s main asset, hit the country hard. It was rated the poorest nation in the world in  and .10 That ranking contrasted sharply with the many opportunities for wealth in the country. Politicians, military officers, and other entrepreneurs took control of the diamond trade, circumventing the government and establishing their own operations, from mining to transportation and sale. Thousands of young men found hard work but decent pay by entering their patronage. Official diamond exports bottomed out at $, in .11 The estimated intake of individual miners was a thousand times greater. Given this state of affairs, it was only a matter of time before the lure of Sierra Leone’s diamonds attracted its neighbors. Civil war in Liberia provided the catalyst for instability in Sierra Leone. In , Charles Taylor, together with his National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL), was blocked by ECOMOG in his first attempt to gain power in Monrovia. Although Taylor controlled  percent of Liberia’s territory, ECOMOG protected the capital and prevented him from attaining the presidency through military victory. By keeping Taylor out of Monrovia and denying him control of resources as the head of

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state, ECOMOG forced him to look further afield. Taylor found two ready sources of revenue, timber and diamonds, and controlled them through “private personal syndicates.”12 Most of the diamonds, however, were in Sierra Leone. The collapse of government control over mining made them accessible nonetheless, provided Taylor established his own networks and security forces to control the process. “To the extent that Taylor’s rule was tied to the destiny of commerce, he could not confine his power to rigid territorial limits. . . . [T]he invasion of Sierra Leone in part followed the NPFL’s ‘sharp business’ practices and efforts to add to Taylor’s profits from regional trade in diamonds, timber, and cash crops beyond Liberia.”13 The course of war in Sierra Leone was thus intrinsically tied to Taylor’s economic interests. The country had resources he needed and a level of government weakness that invited exploitation. In spite of Sierra Leone’s problems, insurgency did not spring from within. Instead it was developed from without as part of Taylor’s attempt to enhance his own position by encouraging criminal behavior and violence. Taylor was the primary force behind the creation of RUF, which he used to extend his control over resources.

An Overview of the Conflict In March  a small band of rebels invaded eastern Sierra Leone. The group of roughly three hundred fighters included Sierra Leonean dissidents, Liberian rebels from Taylor’s NPFL, and a handful of mercenaries. It was not by accident that they crossed the border in the diamond-rich southeast. As the group’s eclectic composition may suggest, it had little in the way of unifying philosophy beyond profit. Taylor had another motive for his sponsorship, however—spite. Sierra Leone had served as a staging ground for ECOMOG’s  entry into Liberia and was used as a rear support base throughout the conflict. The Freetown government had also supported the anti-Taylor United Liberians for Reconciliation and Democracy (ULIMO) faction, which at times worked with ECOMOG against the NPFL. Taylor had vowed that Sierra Leone would “taste war” for its role.14

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The government sent the armed forces to deal with the uprising, which was expected to quickly disappear. RUF, little known at the time, claimed responsibility for the invaders and began a strategy of attacking rural citizens in order to highlight the government’s inability to protect them. That was a curious way to gain popular support, although RUF did claim to have an anticorruption, procitizen agenda. It also focused on youth conscription, which it employed very successfully to make itself into a viable fighting force as well as to suggest a credible popular uprising. Its numbers swelled quickly as its ruthless tactics cowed and terrorized the citizens. Mutilations and amputated limbs became a common sight in rural Sierra Leone. A number of freelance bandit factions attached themselves to the rebel cause, and as a result RUF leadership was never entirely in control of all the rebels fighting under its banner.15 By the fall it was clear that the Sierra Leone Army (SLA) was losing the war and that it was demoralized and ripe for subversion. The new troops recruited to deal with the insurgency were young, often untrained, and lacking in supplies and logistical support. The army could not mount a serious challenge to RUF, particularly once its members began to realize that brigandage yielded greater rewards than military service. Momoh asked for British military assistance but was denied. The government was extremely weak and had very little control in the countryside. By this time the nation was gripped by dissatisfaction, though no coherent opposition movements or platforms developed. RUF used vague populist rhetoric to describe itself, but it showed few political interests and waged a decidedly antipopulist campaign. Exactly what RUF stood for was unclear. It never clearly stated an ideology, and its members often appeared to care more for profit than politics. Although it claimed to be a cohesive group, RUF was really a loose umbrella under which a variety of groups, both rebel and mercenary, operated. Violence increased as more individuals took advantage of the lack of authority in the country to pursue illegal economic activities, either in diamonds or other resources. Violence was based largely on economic opportunism rather than political ideals, a fact that became clear later, when the rebels focused their efforts on diamond-mining areas.

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With the internal crisis further sapping the economy, Momoh hedged on calling elections for the new presidency. He was removed by a coup of junior and mid-level officers in April . The National Provisional Ruling Council (NPRC) was led by Capt. Valentine Strasser, who had previously served with ECOMOG in Liberia and claimed to desire a new state, free of mismanagement. Initially the NPRC practiced much better fiscal discipline than the previous government and held prices stable while building roads and expanding schools. It invested heavily in youth mobilization and anticorruption drives but disappointed RUF by not inviting the rebels to become part of the new state. More ominous, discipline and authority in the military continued to decline. Army personnel at the war front became engaged in illegal mining and often colluded with RUF, earning the nickname sobels (soldiers by day, rebels by night).16 Because Freetown served as a rear base for ECOMOG’s Liberian operations, a small contingent of soldiers was dispatched to provide security to the government soon after the war began. These troops were under the sanction of ECOMOG as part of a defense agreement between ECOWAS and President Kabbah. Their tasks were limited to protecting Freetown, however, and they did not pursue the rebels or begin resolution efforts. RUF spent  building bush camps and training new soldiers. Its military situation improved in early  when several hundred army soldiers deserted from their barracks to avail themselves more directly of the rich pickings at the front. Charles Taylor continued to provide RUF with military aid and logistics, even as Nigeria shifted two battalions of its ECOMOG troops from Liberia to assist Strasser’s war effort.17 The government struggled to recruit army personnel, accepting children from age twelve and upward. Major RUF attacks began in December , and by early  it had forced the closure of the rutile and bauxite mines in the south, a major source of government revenue, and focused on gaining control of the diamond-rich areas. Its focus on attacking strategic economic targets allowed the movement to remain well supplied while boosting the personal wealth of its leaders and further weakening the government. Taylor remained RUF’s main patron, trading guns for diamonds. RUF rebels advanced toward the capital in February , coming within

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twenty miles and overwhelming the inept SLA, but they were repelled by the Nigerian forces based in Freetown. By that point RUF controlled most of the important mines and was asset-stripping diamonds, rutile, and bauxite. In  the desperate government hired Executive Outcomes (EO), a South African security firm with mining interests. The terms of the contract were sweetened with a diamond concession valued at $ million.18 EO defended Freetown alongside ECOMOG and SLA troops in a bloody fight in May  that led to RUF’s retreat. After that, Sierra Leone experienced its only period of relative peace throughout the decade. EO branched out into the rural areas to combat RUF, and recovered most of the diamond mining operations for the government by the end of . The company also began to cooperate with the Kamajors, a rural militia that had begun to provide a local defense force when the army proved incapable.19 Their success in extending government control into the countryside enabled planning for democratic elections to go forward. EO and the Kamajors attacked RUF in its main rural stronghold in early , just as Strasser was overthrown in a palace coup led by his deputy, Brig. Gen. Julius Maada Bio. Facing demonstrations in the capital, Maada Bio promised to hold elections as scheduled. International pressure to elect a civilian government was also mounting on the military regime. Elections were set for February and won by Kabbah, a former UN official, in the second round of voting in March. Numerous coup attempts marked his first year in office. To combat the problem Kabbah retained the services of EO as well as a British company, Defence Systems Limited. EO intensified its training program for the Kamajors, which became an important military as well as political resource when Kamajor leader Hinga Norman was named deputy minister of defense. By this time EO had forced the rebels to initiate peace talks, but the negotiations ended when RUF demanded the withdrawal of all foreign security forces and the transfer of power to an interim national assembly. Since that would have meant the departure of EO, the government could not accept. Unrest in the army increased as the Kamajors became more important and the army more factionalized between loyalist and pro-

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rebel groups. Kabbah’s intention to reduce the size of the army and institute a retraining program gained him few supporters. It became increasingly apparent that he was kept in power by foreign guns. Even so, RUF fared badly in a series of battles during the summer and agreed in August to recognize Kabbah’s government and enter negotiations if EO forces were withdrawn. Popular sentiment also turned against EO as reports of its heavy fees and profits from diamond mining became public.20 The government signed a peace agreement with RUF in November, stipulating that EO would leave the country by January , which it did. From that point on peace became less likely because RUF knew Kabbah had no credible force with which to oppose them. At the time of the peace accord, Secretary-General Annan asked the Security Council to approve a modest peacekeeping force, but member states, notably the United States, declined to consider the prospect. The weak Kabbah government failed to establish a powersharing cabinet, and the military became more disenchanted as Kabbah relied more and more heavily on the Kamajors as a presidential guard. On May , , Maj. Johnny Paul Koroma led a coup against Kabbah, surprising his guards and sending the president in flight to Guinea. The following night ECOMOG units from Nigeria and Guinea landed at Sierra Leone’s two airports. The Nigerian troops stationed in Freetown tried to oust the junta immediately, but were trapped and surrounded in a hotel along with other foreigners. Koroma proclaimed the rule of the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC) and lauded the head of RUF, Foday Sankoh, as the ideological leader of the coup. This unlikely alliance between former enemies brought a quick halt to the civil war. On June , Koroma invited RUF to join the junta, making Sankoh the vicechairman, and the much-feared rebels at last entered the capital as rulers. Bolstered by OAU, UN, and ECOWAS approval, Nigeria bombarded Freetown starting in June. Ordinary citizens registered their disapproval of the coup by closing all stores and markets, and civil servants refused to report to work on behalf of the junta. Already listed as one of the five poorest nations in Africa, Sierra Leone’s economy ground to a halt. ECOWAS responded quickly by establishing a fournation committee—Nigeria, Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea, and Ghana—to

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negotiate the return of constitutional rule. The committee also imposed a military embargo on the AFRC, which was shortly backed up by UN Security Council Resolution , banning arms shipments to all parties in Sierra Leone. ECOWAS attempted to push for a negotiated settlement, but Koroma refused pressure to restore the civilian government and broke off talks in July. In August the troops in Freetown were formally named ECOMOG II.21 The AFRC conducted government primarily by looting and destroying the country. The army had degenerated to become little more than uniformed criminals who stole anything of value. One hundred thousand people were officially registered as displaced, and sixty thousand were registered as refugees. Representing only the number of officially documented individuals affected by the war, these totals were far below the number of people actually displaced. Homes of prominent individuals were torched, but the populace continued to refuse orders to resume work. When ordered to reregister all newspapers, the Sierra Leone Journalists Association issued a statement that it would do so only when the elected government was restored.22 Between June and October , ECOWAS focused mainly on diplomatic initiatives, though it did empower ECOMOG to enforce the UN embargo on arms and oil. In October the AFRC/RUF junta agreed to leave office by the following April, and in December the negotiating groups agreed on a disarmament plan. In January, however, Nigerian troops launched an assault on Freetown, forcing the junta to flee and giving ECOMOG control of the city in mid-February.23 Kabbah returned on March , escorted by neighboring heads of state, and the Security Council lifted the sanctions days later. Although its mandate had been officially fulfilled, ECOMOG could not leave the country. Kabbah had no reliable security force and commanded only the capital city. Without ECOMOG he could not sustain his rule. RUF resumed its war after being forced out of Freetown, but by that time it was clear that it had no popular following and no political ideology. Instead, it “concentrate[d] upon making money, obtaining power, punishing those who are perceived as opponents, and perpetuating the privileges of gangland authority.”24 ECOMOG countered RUF’s renewed war of terror by pursuing it into the countryside and at-

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tacking its strongholds, but ECOMOG could not defeat the rebels. The force was responsible for implementing the disarmament and demobilization of the army, maintaining law and order in the capital and its environs, and pursuing RUF. It could not do all those tasks successfully. The problem was complicated by the fact that ECOMOG received little external financial support because many potential Western donors refused to provide help as long as Sani Abacha remained head of state in Nigeria.25 By the end of August ECOMOG had ten thousand troops in the country but was badly in need of logistical and financial support. The UN authorized a support mission, the United Nations Observer Mission in Sierra Leone (UNOMSIL), but with only twenty-six officers it was far too small to make a difference. Kabbah’s government expressed its willingness to address RUF’s grievances after the rebels laid down their arms, but that was a risk the rebel leaders would not take. RUF’s attacks intensified in the north and northwest, sending thousands of citizens fleeing into the capital and surrounding districts. By the end of  disarmament efforts had reached only  percent of the opposition.26 The security situation declined markedly in December , when a rebel attack on Koidu forced the retreat of ECOMOG and led to heavy casualties. Four days later the rebels attacked a town just twenty miles from Freetown and sent thousands fleeing among the looting and destruction. UNOMSIL withdrew some of its observers to safer posts, but tension rose in Freetown as the capital braced for attacks. Aid personnel and the staffs of foreign governments were evacuated by airlift. Rebel forces continued to advance, gaining town after town. On January , , they reached the center of Freetown, where they freed hundreds of prisoners, torched buildings, and surrounded the statehouse. RUF was heavily staffed by teenage boys who had been sent into the city earlier to dig up guns buried in local graveyards. Well trained by RUF, these boy soldiers helped turn the capital into a killing zone.27 ECOMOG repulsed the rebels in brutal street to street fighting, but the capital was virtually destroyed in what was described as “a veritable orgy of rape and rapine.”28 The ongoing violence ultimately forced the UN to reconsider its role, particularly as Nigeria expressed its inability to continue its effort

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and divisions arose in ECOWAS over how to proceed.29 In early , Kabbah lambasted the UN for maintaining double standards that showed more concern for deaths in Kosovo than in Sierra Leone.30 But members of the Security Council did not want to intervene before the belligerents accepted some form of peace agreement. Thus it was not until October  that the Security Council authorized the creation of the United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL), a force of six thousand troops designed to work in collaboration with ECOMOG. The immediate impetus for the action was the Lomé agreement, in which both sides agreed to the presence of a neutral peacekeeping force composed of UNAMSIL and ECOMOG elements. The agreement also established plans to create a timetable for the phased withdrawal of ECOMOG, a stipulation necessitated in part by the internal pressures facing new Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo. Nigeria estimated the costs of its ECOMOG commitment at approximately $ million per day.31 Nigerian domestic interests would not support ECOMOG further, and the regional force could not operate without Nigerian money and manpower. The involvement of the UN at the bargaining table and on the ground left it as the only candidate to continue the peacekeeping presence. Initially authorized at a strength of six thousand, UNAMSIL grew to eleven thousand troops when ECOMOG departed. In May  it grew to over seventeen thousand, after nearly five hundred peacekeepers in remote areas were seized by RUF in an effort to prevent UN deployment to the diamond areas of Kono and Tongo and disrupt the disarmament process. The Lomé agreement tried to end the violence by bringing the rebels into government. It soon foundered, however, because of international controversy and a lack of commitment from RUF. International observers criticized the UN for presiding over a process that rewarded abusers of human rights. With international opinion sharply divided, RUF had little incentive to observe the agreement’s terms. The Lomé process stalled in May . In November the UN tried to make a new start toward a peace settlement with negotiations in Abuja, Nigeria, but made little progress until May  when the groups met again. RUF dropped its demand that the SLA disarm and agreed to return to the disarmament process.

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By the end of  nearly half of all combatants in the country had entered the disarmament process and the government had been able to extend its authority throughout most of the country except RUF’s eastern stronghold.32 UNAMSIL also extended its operations and made both the force and the mandate more robust. Several factors contributed to the change in circumstances. A British force arrived in late  to train and revamp the armed forces. At the same time RUF had extended itself too far by trying to destabilize Guinea and was beaten by Guinean forces in several border fights throughout . Guinea also sponsored a militia in Sierra Leone that engaged RUF in the diamond area around Kono throughout the summer, as well as the Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD), which struck inside Liberia. Finally, the UN imposed sanctions on Liberia’s Charles Taylor, who shortly announced his “disengagement” from RUF.33 By May  RUF was not in a position to fight, although the ICG cautioned that “their commitment to the current process has less to do with war fatigue than with peace being the smartest game for the moment.”34 By the end of  disarmament had been completed throughout the country except in two eastern districts. The RUF leadership had fragmented and its strength as a fighting organization was much diminished. Sierra Leone has become a cautious example of success in intervention. Kabbah was reelected by over  percent of the vote in May , and his Sierra Leone People’s Party won a decisive victory over the RUF Party in the parliament. What was good news for Sierra Leone, however, was not good news for its neighbors. As RUF lost ground, many of its fighters chose to leave the country and hire themselves as mercenaries elsewhere. Some of the same rebels from Sierra Leone are therefore now engaged in violence elsewhere in the region, notably Côte d’Ivoire and Liberia.

The International Response As in Haiti the story of the crisis and the international response are to some extent intertwined. The resumption of the civil war came as a

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result of ECOMOG’s actions in response to the  coup, with each feeding and shaping the other. No peace accord existed to pave the way for intervention, and ECOMOG entered an active war zone where the domestic opposition was temporarily united against the intervening force. This accounts for the expansion of ECOMOG’s mandate after Kabbah returned to power to include providing security and facilitating the extension of governmental authority throughout the country. In reality, government authority remained limited and ECOMOG could not defeat RUF decisively outside the capital. It effectively became the government’s security force, making it a party in the war. In Liberia ECOMOG had shifted between active participation in the conflict and a more neutral stance of protecting citizens and the capital. In Sierra Leone the two perspectives were far less distinct, and the force remained a consistent part of the conflict until the signing of the Lomé agreement in . There are two different groups to consider when analyzing why intervention took place: regional actors and the members of the Security Council. For the latter in particular, intervention may seem a surprising choice. It had not taken action over the seven years of war in neighboring Liberia, and the lack of great-power interest in Africa was considered a truism by the mid-s. The fact that ECOWAS acted in both Liberia and Sierra Leone seemed to remove responsibility from the UN, and Security Council members were only too happy to see the heavy lifting done by someone else. ECOWAS members had a complex mix of reasons for supporting intervention. While some states had individual motives, on an institutional level intervention provided the chance to defend democracy, demonstrate the importance of ECOWAS in addressing and potentially resolving regional conflict, and give credence to changes in the organization’s treaty, which included regional security and peacekeeping as important tasks. All three of these objectives showcase the relevance of normative values outside the traditional Western consensus. By the late s conflict resolution and democracy had been accepted as important principles within the international system—even, somewhat paradoxically, by governments that did not espouse them within their own borders. In part, states adopted these values because that was the way to be judged as a responsible member of the system. Even so, their ap

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proach to this intervention and its consequences reflect the expansion of security interests, the importance of humanitarian concerns, and the increasing entrenchment of multilateralism and conflict resolution. ECOMOG’s efforts in Sierra Leone followed notable international trends. The value of democracy and the sanctity of the ballot were principles the international community had acted to defend in Haiti. The timing of the intervention reflects the importance of democracy as a justification and motivator. ECOMOG began military action only after the coup removing Kabbah, which came after six years of conflict. Clearly it was the coup and not the conflict itself that formed the basis for agreement. As in Haiti the presence of disrupted government made consensus easier by mooting sovereignty concerns. Having an elected government ask for help contributed to the legitimacy of intervention by giving it a constructive rather than intrusive quality. Participants also had international consensus on which to justify their action. That was important even though many member states of ECOWAS did not themselves have democratic government. Defending the electoral process was viewed as a legitimate cause for ECOMOG. Intervention thus aligned ECOWAS with global norms of democracy and humanitarian action. As a result, the intervention generated less controversy than had the earlier ECOMOG operation in Liberia. In Liberia members of ECOWAS had disagreed openly about the nature of the conflict as well as which parties deserved support. A small subset of members rammed through authorization for ECOMOG’s deployment without submitting the matter to a vote of the membership as a whole. President Blaise Campaore of Burkina Faso had spoken for several of his neighbors when he expressed his “total disagreement” with the planning of the intervention.35 The facts on the ground in Sierra Leone were more concrete, partly because an elected government did exist and partly because RUF had no clear political agenda. Their brutality was viewed as criminal both inside and outside of Sierra Leone because it was tied to profit motives rather than a true revolutionary movement. The atrocities committed against civilians, especially children, made it easy to link a human rights argument to the defense-ofdemocracy claim. Although some ECOWAS members, notably Liberia and Burkina Faso, tried to combine covert support of RUF with overt ECOWAS, the UN, and Sierra Leone

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support of international norms, ECOMOG’s intervention in Sierra Leone had broad regional support and solid grounding in international principle. For most observers the decision to oppose RUF was an easy choice. ECOWAS also had the backing of international opinion to provide legitimacy from the beginning of its operation, something it had not enjoyed in Liberia. Significantly, the pressure on the UN to respond came from international actors, not the media. The mutilations and torture perpetrated by RUF against the citizens never received significant public attention until well after intervention began. Instead, NGOs, regional actors, and UN organizations like the High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) and the World Food Programme pressed for international attention on humanitarian grounds. The UN repeatedly expressed support for ECOMOG’s action, even when the ECOWAS representative to the Security Council disclaimed all knowledge of an impending offensive before the February  fight to regain Freetown. The failure to adequately inform the council violated the UN charter, which stipulates that a regional organization should not employ force without prior clearance. Yet the indiscretion brought surprisingly little criticism because of the apparent justification for ECOMOG’s action. Strong consensus rested behind the values it defended, bringing commendation rather than condemnation from the UN. The Security Council expressed its approval ex post facto, saying it welcomed “the fact that the rule of the military junta has been brought to an end.”36 A potential role for the UN in the rehabilitation process was also discussed at that time, expanding the institutional response to an international level and validating, in the eyes of many, the efforts of ECOWAS. The climate of approval on which ECOMOG rested had not existed before  and certainly not at the time of the intervention in Liberia. The precedent in Bosnia, however, linked intervention more firmly to conflict resolution and security. The opportunity to prove the community’s relevance in dealing with regional crises also played an important role in this case. For a peripheral region, this was a way to assert ECOWAS as a relevant international player. Although it had been generally praised for attempt-

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ing to do something in the Liberian war, what it did often came under attack. ECOMOG was criticized for supporting specific factions in Liberia, particularly the anti-Taylor ULIMO, and for acting as a party to the conflict. It had even gone so far as to arm and organize ULIMO fighters in Sierra Leone.37 ECOMOG had also drawn fire for the comportment of its soldiers in Liberia, who often engaged in black market smuggling and other illegal activities. Around the region the acronym was said to stand for “Every Car or Moving Object Gone.” 38 During the Liberian conflict some members of the Security Council had described ECOMOG as a “test case” for peacekeeping and an example of constructive regional action.39 The operation had not quite lived up to that promise. Sierra Leone thus offered a second chance to demonstrate success. Since the situation was less complex, with fewer belligerent parties and more clear-cut norms guiding intervention, it provided an opportunity for ECOWAS to prove its constructive contributions to regional security and perhaps at last serve as a model for other regional organizations. Finally, intervention allowed ECOWAS to make good on the principles it had established for itself. The normative consensus surrounding Sierra Leone was in part a result of timing. The international trends promoting liberal ideas had led to tangible changes in how ECOWAS defined its role and objectives in the region. ECOMOG acted in Liberia at the dawn of claims for humanitarian interventions. The institution was divided, the troops ill prepared, and the consensus on behalf of intervention as an act of conflict resolution fragile at best. By the time ECOMOG entered Sierra Leone in , intervention had a new look. Scholarly literature and the popular media championed it as a constructive form of conflict resolution based in institutions and principles rather than the unbridled pursuit of power. Bosnia demonstrated the expanding nature of intervention and the normative importance of conflict resolution. Indeed, the failure to act against atrocity had been vilified in the long postmortems on Rwanda. The normative climate had shifted considerably since ECOMOG’s inception, with willingness to participate in collective intervention demonstrating for many a willingness to adhere to the defining principles of the international system.

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Revisions to the community treaty reflected these changes. When ECOMOG I intervened in Liberia there had been no explicit wording in the treaty authorizing such an action. Its authorization had been justified on the grounds that ECOWAS could not promote its economic objectives if insecurity and violence disrupted its members. As was later explained, “We cannot achieve economic development in a climate of instability and disorder, for prosperity and war cannot coexist.”40 That intervention remained highly controversial nonetheless, because of the anglophone-francophone rivalry and a lack of consensus on the appropriateness of the task for an economic institution. Many members felt the organization had no right to intervene because sovereignty put internal affairs, even violence, outside its purview. That was more a position of convenience than principle, since it related directly to regional rivalries and a reluctance to see the organization sway the distribution of power, but it was important in making intervention controversial. ECOWAS subsequently formalized the maintenance of regional security as one of its objectives and basic principles. The changes relied on Chapter II, Article  of the ECOWAS treaty (Fundamental Principles), which specified a peaceful environment as a prerequisite for economic development. The revision, including regional security as an official part of the community’s mandate, was signed in . Chapter II, Article  (subsections e and f) made the “maintenance of regional peace, stability and security” central tasks in the community’s official mission statement. The real meat of the change, however, came in Chapter X, Article  (Regional Security). This section pledged member states to engage in conflict resolution and listed both intraand international conflict as community concerns. The specific naming of “intra-State conflicts” shows how far attitudes had changed. Subsection (f) also refers explicitly to the potential use of peacekeeping forces, when deemed appropriate. Between ECOMOG I and II the principles justifying intervention had thus been defined and included as part of the organization’s core objectives. That provided legitimacy and conveyed responsibility. Members viewed conflict resolution as a central task, for the good of the target states and the good of the community.

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Admittedly, some participants had more selfish interests behind these normative reasons for intervention. Some of the member states of ECOWAS no doubt welcomed the normative definition to the crisis as convenient cover for pursuing unilateral concerns. In this case institutional action could serve the laundering function described by Abbott and Snidal. Traditional security rivalries played an important role throughout the region and ECOWAS; numerous states viewed the crisis as a means of improving their strategic position or harming that of their rivals. While unilateral action might have caused controversy or provoked a response, working through ECOWAS allowed these states to pursue their interests in an apparently legitimate way. Chief among them was Nigeria, which deserves close analysis because of the frontline role it played in promoting and then implementing ECOMOG II and because it was also the central player in developing the community’s first intervention in Liberia. Nigeria has long sought to establish itself as a regional hegemon and has pursued policies specifically designed to solidify that role. Sierra Leone offered an important opportunity to demonstrate its leadership in the region and its dominance in ECOWAS. If the UN endorsed ECOMOG as a regional model, Nigeria’s status at home and abroad would benefit. Successful intervention could prove not only Nigeria’s role as the keystone of regional security but also its position as the leading voice in West Africa. Bolstering Nigeria’s leadership would then tilt the balance in the regional rivalry to the anglophone side, a constant concern among the local players. Possessed of a clear and noncontroversial mandate and, unlike Liberia, a seemingly less difficult conflict, Nigeria may have felt that Sierra Leone offered greater rewards than risks. The public-relations value of the intervention was underlined when Nigerian president Sani Abacha accompanied Kabbah on his triumphant return to Freetown, reinforcing Nigeria’s role in pursuing regional peace. The prospect of reward worked on an international level for Nigeria as well. Acting to restore an elected government had been, after all, the goal of the MNF in Haiti. By spearheading intervention Nigeria could cast itself as a defender of democracy, following in the footsteps of the UN to protect legitimate government. Moreover, using ECOWAS as the medium of intervention confirmed Nigeria’s willingness to abide

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by international norms and expectations concerning the value of collective action and consultation. From all perspectives, the intervention allowed Nigeria to pose as an international team player. That was extremely important because Nigeria’s government was infamous for flouting accepted international standards. In particular, Nigeria must have hoped intervention would help reduce its status as an international pariah for the egregious human rights record of its repressive dictatorship. Again, Abacha’s personal involvement signified his alignment with UN goals. The inconsistency of a nondemocratic country leading the fight for democracy played directly into the attempt to improve the country’s international standing. Intervention on behalf of the ballot and against an amoral rebel group was a way to reverse Nigeria’s image in the West, defend an internationally applauded principle, and work in concert with multilateral organizations. The perceived value of the intervention was clearly shown by the country’s effort to parlay success with RUF at the negotiating table into international recognition for itself. Abacha used Nigeria’s conflict resolution role to pursue reinstatement of its membership in the British Commonwealth, which had been suspended after the  hanging of Ken Saro-Wiwa.41 The fact that Nigeria became a democratic nation during the crisis is a testament to the extension of liberal ideas. Nigeria’s involvement in promoting democracy elsewhere increased the pressure to liberalize at home, prompting Abacha’s successor to move toward elections. Finally, intervention allowed Nigeria to oppose Charles Taylor. This interest had been a motivator in the Liberian case as well, but the outcome there brought precisely what Nigeria least wanted, a Taylor presidency. Intervention in Sierra Leone afforded another opportunity to negate Taylor’s influence, since he supported RUF financially, supplied it with arms, and provided refuge for its fighters in Liberia. UN backing surely made this motivation even sweeter; Nigeria could pursue its own interest while appearing to defend global principles. Because Taylor was supported by leading francophone states such as Côte d’Ivoire, Nigeria’s anti-Taylor position tied into the francophoneanglophone rivalry. Burkina Faso, another Nigerian opponent, also supported the rebels and was closely connected to Taylor. Intervening

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to restore the Kabbah government thus gave Nigeria the chance to burnish its image regionally and internationally while thwarting the efforts of two of its regional opponents, and all within the context of institutional and international sanction. For several other countries, most notably Nigeria’s primary opponents in ECOWAS, intervention was appealing for contradictory reasons. Liberia, Burkina Faso, and Côte d’Ivoire were closely allied with each other and opposed to any further boosts to Nigerian power.42 Intervention through the rubric of ECOWAS gave them significant advantages. Like Nigeria they could appear to support widely embraced principles, especially multilateralism, and still be able to provide covert assistance to RUF. In addition, they could hope to drain Nigerian resources by perpetuating the conflict in this fashion and therefore hope to restrict rather than expand its power. Agreeing to an ECOMOG intervention disproportionately shouldered by Nigeria provided a perfect scenario. Multilateral action allowed this group of countries to appear cooperative while using the intervention to weaken their opponent. Equally important was Liberia’s particular interest in maintaining its access to diamonds. As will be shown below, however, these varied realist interests were not served. Instead, the normative structures and objectives of the intervention shaped the outcome, ultimately shifting the focus of ECOWAS as a whole. If these motivations adhered to regional actors, what motivated Security Council members to authorize a robust peacekeeping operation in a place notoriously not considered part of the great powers’ concern and at a time when the conflict was far from settled?43 Some might view this as a classic example of grasping economic interests, with the West getting involved in order to control Sierra Leone’s resources. That hypothesis holds some merit, since the lucrative diamond trade was well outside the government’s control and therefore ripe for external authority. The lack of interest in Liberia may also be telling, since it did not offer the same economic potentials. In that case, however, the UN had not addressed the crisis in Liberia over its first two years primarily because Ethiopia and Zaire, then sitting on the Security Council, had kept the issue off the agenda. The slogan “African solutions for African problems,” advanced by the OAU, reflected the

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continent’s colonial legacy. African nations did not want to set a precedent for more intervention. That coincided with the UN’s preference not to get involved. The calculus changed in , in part because intervention had gained more legitimacy and in part because African nations actively sought international assistance in Sierra Leone. In fact, regional leaders attributed many of the region’s problems to the limited nature of international involvement in Liberia. One official viewed that case as an international failure, arguing that only the broader international community could have forced Taylor to “be a statesman rather than a criminal.”44 By  it was clear that the great powers were using force for vastly different purposes than ever before. African states could welcome rather than fear intervention because they recognized that new rules applied. In the new environment, “commitment to self-determination rules out the use of force for conquest. We can drive oppressors out; but we are not entitled to use military force to acquire an empire or new pieces of territory.”45 This point was clear even in the context of the ongoing mission in Bosnia, which ten or fifteen years earlier would have been considered blatant imperialism. As a result, the UN was far more involved in the peacekeeping effort than it had been in Liberia. Simply the fact that it discussed the issue made a major difference in terms of ECOMOG’s moral legitimacy. The time, the interests at stake—restoring democracy had solid international consensus—and the presence of another actor to do the work helped motivate this attention. ECOMOG’s presence on the ground made involvement relatively cheap for the UN. Both unwilling and unable to address every case on its own, the UN encouraged regional responsibility and sought to use ECOWAS as a model for other organizations. It hoped to motivate other regional organizations to take frontline responsibility, thus relieving some pressure for conflict resolution at the international level. The UN’s first step in providing support for ECOWAS centered on developing a comprehensive plan for postconflict restructuring. In July  it sponsored a conference to mobilize assistance for a demobilization program and rehabilitation plan. It also undertook coordination between the agencies that would participate in postconflict development efforts, and it sought to organ-

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ize the civilian aspects necessary for stability while enthusiastically endorsing ECOMOG’s military effort. Security Council discussions on the subject throughout  condemned the ongoing violence and role of RUF and praised ECOMOG’s role in restoring the government and its efforts to create stability. But a supporting role was not uncommon for the UN. The real question is how it got from there to taking over the intervention in . As the military stalemate continued, it became clear that ECOMOG could not fulfill all its objectives. More critically, pressure to withdraw Nigerian troops grew quite strong after the end of military rule in Nigeria brought the democratically elected Obasanjo to the presidency in . The country could not support the enormous costs of sustaining ECOMOG. Like NATO in Bosnia, the UN became increasingly responsible for the task of resolution and intervention as other actors faded. That included peacekeeping. The only other choice was to let the effort fall apart completely. The moral outrage against RUF made that a difficult option for an organization committed to principles of justice and human rights. The coup in Sierra Leone happened two years after the onset of nation building in Bosnia and a strong international shift toward viewing intervention as a tool of conflict resolution. The UN could let the effort fail in Sierra Leone, or it could assume the responsibility that was quickly devolving in its direction. Since it had abdicated in Bosnia and watched other organizations step into its place, there was some pressure on the UN to fulfill its objectives here. UN support initially manifested itself in two ways. The first was consistent praise for ECOMOG as a “milestone in the development of regional peacekeeping” and its “indispensable peacekeeping role on behalf of the international community.”46 The second was discussion of the need for the UN to play a central role in dealing with the crisis. Originally that was conceived as a dual-track approach of supporting ECOWAS and pursuing diplomatic settlement. But Canada stressed the need for a credible international stand in Sierra Leone and pressed for a greater commitment on behalf of the UN. Both positions were justified in Security Council debates by continual expressions of outrage against RUF. Its brutality and lack of political agenda were frequently noted as the sources of legitimacy for intervention.

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When ECOMOG began to withdraw, however, the dual-track approach could not work. The UN had to step up or step out. Britain first advocated a full-fledged peacekeeping operation in August . The Lomé agreement made that possible because a peace agreement was the rock-bottom demand of the Security Council before it considered deployment. UNAMSIL was the first UN operation to collaborate with a regional peacekeeping force. Its first months were fraught with difficulties. The military and humanitarian situation had declined over the month before its deployment in December , creating serious doubts about its capacity to carry out its tasks. Moreover, by the beginning of , UNAMSIL faced the prospect of operating alone. In such circumstances—a worsening conflict, an inadequate force—the Security Council had often shown a tendency to turn tail. In Sierra Leone, however, the problem was viewed as a “test not just of our willingness to intervene . . . but of the United Nations’ actual ability to deliver effective peacekeeping of lasting impact and value.”47 The United States seconded that conviction and warned that “it is imperative to avoid a security gap.”48 The rhetoric used in these debates is strikingly different than that used previously. In early cases the language showed hesitance and equivocation. Participants did not want to take responsibility and were not convinced that anyone should. In discussions on Sierra Leone, by contrast, participants still hoped to pass the buck but also seemed to accept that action was imperative. The acceptance of conflict resolution as a responsibility is evident in these debates. The sense throughout the council was that peace was fragile and the UN had to keep it moving forward. The council voted to have UNAMSIL assume the ECOMOG mandate, which meant assuming responsibility for disarmament, demobilization, and rehabilitation; maintenance of law and order; and protecting the civilian population. That required a doubling of the personnel and a clear Chapter VII mandate to use the force necessary to carry out those tasks.49 In spite of this support UNAMSIL’s start was not entirely successful. Citizens in Sierra Leone had trusted ECOMOG and thought the UN was responsible for its departure. That was difficult for the UN but a positive commentary on intervention in general. Externally, the

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lack of institutional structures and mass confusion in the country presented major obstacles. All societal constraints had broken down, and citizens were doing their best to survive. The UN had no effective authority to coordinate with and no means of establishing security except its own troops. Internally, coordination problems plagued the operation, particularly ambiguity regarding the operation’s willingness to use force. Different national contingents interpreted the all-meansnecessary clause quite differently. They did not operate well together, and an informal poll by the ICG in  revealed that various national contingents felt no obligation to go to the rescue of the soldiers of another country in UNAMSIL.50 The situation on the ground also turned against the UN. In May , RUF fighters tried to take over the demobilization centers at Makeni and Magburaka, demanding in both cases that UN forces hand over their weapons. The episode marked the final collapse of the Lomé process. The lack of consensus on the use of force worked to RUF’s advantage. The troops stationed at Magburaka resisted and engaged in firefights until breaking through RUF lines on May . In Makeni, by contrast, the UN troops “contributed a significant array of weaponry and equipment to the RUF.”51 In June peacekeepers in Kabala were evacuated when RUF attacked, making UNAMSIL’s position even less clear. Various other locations were also attacked and besieged by RUF, who then kidnapped the peacekeepers.52 Taking the opposite approach from that employed in Bosnia, the Security Council tried to beef up UNAMSIL and its use of force. More combat equipment was deployed in May, including artillery and helicopter gunships. UNAMSIL mounted a military operation in July to aid surrounded peacekeepers at Kailahun, the main RUF stronghold, justifying the action on the grounds that the hostility of RUF and the failure of diplomacy left no other choice. Those two issues also formed the basis for agreement on the continuing need both for a credible international military force to push the peace process and for the strengthening of UNAMSIL.53 Although the mission remained configured for peacekeeping rather than peace enforcement, the Security Council was aware of the weaknesses of UNAMSIL and sought to increase its effectiveness.

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The split that subsequently developed in the Security Council concerned how to do more rather than how to do less. Algeria, Mali, Bangladesh, and other countries endorsed turning UNAMSIL into a peace enforcement operation. The United States, Great Britain, and France favored enlarging the force and its capacity rather than changing the mandate. These were strange positions on both sides of the debate, with no one advocating departure. Significantly, perceived economic benefits were not part of the discussion, either at the state or the institutional level. Although the great powers were reluctant to increase direct involvement, they also accepted that they had to remain engaged. The dividing line fell between task and composition; between those who believed the mandate was inadequate and those who believed the force was inadequate. The larger problem was that the UN troops were ill equipped and ill trained. That was an unfortunate result of using troops from developing countries, but as the representative from Bangladesh pointed out, if developing countries did not provide them no one else would. Debate coalesced around the need to create cohesion between the capacity of the force and its objectives. UNAMSIL was thus increased to nearly seventeen thousand by the end of  in an effort to control the increase in violence. Its capacities were bolstered most, however, by the arrival of the independent British battalion deployed to Freetown. The British force cooperated with UNAMSIL but is commonly regarded as a separate intervention. Its primary task was to train and equip the SLA. It also engaged in offensive operations and attacked RUF forces on several occasions. It proved instrumental in pushing the rebels toward peace negotiations by providing aggressive muscle in some cases where the UN would not. It also had repercussions that resonate today. The United Kingdom was considered to have a special relationship with Sierra Leone because of its position as the former colonial power. That relationship came to convey responsibility. The success of the UK’s military operations made many observers feel that states with similar connections should play a central role in dealing with crises, especially where military power was necessary. That concept subsequently legitimized a French intervention in Côte d’Ivoire in  and led to demands for a US intervention in Liberia in .

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The changing international agenda therefore changed perceptions of unilateral intervention as well, though in very restricted circumstances. By  multilateral intervention was closely tied to humanitarian and conflict resolution agendas. Surprisingly, however, even unilateral action had some legitimacy in the same context. The case of Sierra Leone suggested that, when tied to conflict resolution and closely linked to a multilateral operation, unilateral intervention could bolster resolution. UN consensus throughout the development and enlargement of UNAMSIL had two central elements. Again, as in Haiti, the issue of a legally elected government loomed large in considerations for intervention. While the crisis in Liberia had presented the controversial issue of sovereignty, particularly after the sitting president was killed, the issue in Sierra Leone was more simple. A legally elected government recognized by the international community had been removed from its position by force. Haiti demonstrated that the UN found that normatively and legally unacceptable. For the UN as for ECOWAS, the Haiti example provided precedent for consensus on the importance of defending democracy and electoral results. The need to restore an elected government also accounts for the long remit of the intervention beyond the return of Kabbah in . First ECOMOG and then the UN stayed on long after that date, with troop increases and expanded mandates continually defining their experience. Some lessons may have been learned from Haiti’s ongoing problems. The weakness of the Sierra Leone government and the ongoing violence helped broaden the international approach from simply the reseating of a government to a program of peace building through stabilization and rehabilitation. Kabbah was completely dependent on the international presence for his longevity in office. Without assistance he could not perform any duties of government or even claim control outside of the statehouse. No security or rehabilitation was possible without continued external aid, leading the intervening organizations to outline programs of reform, including retraining the security forces and strengthening the institutions of government. The other factor aiding consensus was the position of RUF. Aside from their economic potential for some regional actors, RUF had few redeeming qualities. The violence they perpetrated was widely viewed

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as a criminal conflict54 with no significant political dimensions. Every Security Council debate throughout the crisis contained universal condemnation for RUF and Sankoh. Both presented no legitimate grievances that outside observers could connect with, and they behaved with reckless disregard for the citizenry. Citizens inside Sierra Leone dismissed their motivations as greed and anger and condemned their desire to use violence for personal interests. Said one refugee, “The rebels are not an ethnic group, not a race, just a lost generation.”55 RUF became associated most with the amputation of civilians’ limbs rather than an agenda for change. Given the backdrop of consensus developing around the importance and value of intervention, its use in Sierra Leone was considered noncontroversial. Every participant in debates agreed on the illegitimacy of RUF and the value of intervention as the only means left to resolve the conflict. As time went on the United States and Britain both supported a more forceful approach, with the United States favoring a peace enforcement mandate for UNAMSIL and training several regional battalions for that purpose. Britain’s deployment of personnel to retrain the army also proved critical; through its rapid response to aggression, the British battalion tipped the scales against RUF.

Assessing Outcomes The outcome of intervention in Sierra Leone is still not fully known. The war was officially declared over in January , and Kabbah set fire to several thousand decommissioned weapons to celebrate the occasion. RUF’s military wing was dismantled four months later. But stability has not yet replaced the violence. The ICG says it is “far too early to declare the danger over.”56 In terms of the present analysis, however, the outcome reflects the continued entrenchment of normative views on intervention and its uses. Debate in the Security Council took on a new tenor, with members accepting (though certainly not embracing) forceful resolution as an international responsibility. Like Bosnia, Sierra Leone was seen to have relevance for the global community, not just its own citizens. Though the rhetoric was less dramatic

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than in the Bosnia debates, it represented progress rather than disengagement. In  and  member states felt they had to make a case for international conflict’s importance to international security. In  that connection was assumed. Both the ECOMOG and UNAMSIL operations were shaped by humanitarian and conflict resolution principles. Attempts to compromise those purposes were met with harsh criticism. The Lomé accord is a case in point. A negotiation of expedience, it was brokered by the UN and regional actors to force a solution once Nigeria opted out of ECOMOG. At the time the deal was signed, there was little hope for a replacement force, and the UN wanted to end the war at all costs. As a result, the rebels obtained very favorable terms. The agreement gave RUF four cabinet posts, several public sector directorships, and some seats as ambassadors, as well as blanket amnesty. In this way the negotiators hoped to co-opt the violence by sharing the power, even to the point of giving Sankoh control of the diamond mines. Kabbah was strong-armed into accepting the terms by international actors, including the United States and the UN. But international observers condemned the agreement for rewarding injustice and brutality. Kabbah himself damned it with faint praise, acknowledging RUF’s success but emphasizing the need to end the violence.57 This episode captured the tension between the pursuit of peace and the pursuit of justice. Kofi Annan supported the Lomé agreement on the grounds that it saved citizens by ending the violence. But the motives for accepting such a deal, and its costs, came into question. Ending violence at the expense of human rights did not seem appropriate to many observers. International actors were criticized for not doing enough to ensure that right was rewarded instead of might. In fact, international opinion actually pressed for more intervention, demanding that force be used to control RUF. This stance reflected the entrenchment of new perceptions of intervention. The ICG advocated a more aggressive international posture in the interest of justice. Those positions gave intervention a clear role not only in ending violence but also, and just as important, in limiting illegitimate behaviors. That was quite different from the original concept, whereby intervention would provide aid but avoid judgment and stay aloof from political

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competition. SFOR moved away from that stance somewhat in Bosnia, but even in that case international actors tried to avoid judgments, even when doing so crippled reform efforts. The continuing failure to pressure the Republika Srpska is a case in point. In Sierra Leone intervention became more specifically linked to evaluations of legitimacy for both domestic and international actors. The UN was unable to use Lomé to decrease its commitment, and subsequently it worked to reconfigure the settlement as well as the postconflict reform program. Though the ICG remained critical and at times questioned international commitment, it is striking that international actors made any commitment at all. Most of the circumstances—location, type of conflict, regional attention—should have suggested no involvement. Diamonds were the only potential lure for international actors, yet the relevant IGOs never tried to assert any control over the country’s resources. First the intervenors turned the diamond mines over to Sankoh in the Lomé accord and then they helped extend governmental authority over diamonds and other resources. Moreover, the UN persisted in spite of numerous broken agreements and opportunities to leave, as had so often been done before. UNAMSIL has now been reduced from its maximum strength but still includes over three thousand military troops and is estimated to cost $ million per year.58 The stability of Sierra Leone cannot be considered a direct interest of the core international powers unless it is understood within the context of expanded security and normative interests. All members of the P have been or are part of the mission. That is a significant effort in what is traditionally considered a forgotten continent, and an operation not easily explained by security or money. The larger legacy of intervention in Sierra Leone was the international legitimization of ECOWAS and ECOMOG as a source of conflict resolution. That was a somewhat surprising outcome, especially because many of the participating states had their own agendas. Few of the unilateral security interests came to fruition. Burkina Faso and Côte d’Ivoire had only limited capacity to direct the intervention, largely because its institutional context meant that no one state, not even Nigeria, had complete control over its deployment. Taylor’s forces

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were defeated, but Nigeria also strained its financial resources by leading ECOMOG, a fact that led directly to its withdrawal from Sierra Leone.59 Although it has been an important and contributing member of subsequent interventions, Nigeria has not subsequently played the major role, in part because it cannot pay financially and in part because other countries have now stepped in to support and promote ECOMOG. That evolution may seem strange, but ECOMOG provided a needed benefit to the region and created a precedent for cooperation that other parts of Africa could follow. An organization long criticized for being ineffective was reborn after Sierra Leone as an actor for peace and stability in a volatile region and signaled that “African nations were also ready and capable of responding to the critical economic, political, and security challenges of the new world order.”60 Although the trend had begun in Liberia, ECOMOG’s experience in Sierra Leone consolidated its reputation as a tool of conflict resolution rather than geopolitics. The community’s membership is often divided and its capacities are limited. It is not an ideal organization, but it is one of the few willing to undertake peacekeeping efforts. Its actions validated ECOWAS as an actor working toward normative goals of regional security. The UN supported its peacekeeping and enforcement role and has worked since to improve coordination between the two organizations and help establish more formal structures to address crises in West Africa. Both organizations seek to “enhance African peacekeeping capacity.”61 This is crucial in the region because of rampant and spreading instability. The collapse in September  of Côte d’Ivoire, previously considered one of the most stable states, reinforced the region’s fragility and the centrality of Taylor as a disruptive force. ECOWAS subsequently sent troops to quell unrest in various other member states and most recently pursued conflict resolution through both military and diplomatic means to end the crisis in Côte d’Ivoire. Partnership between regional actors and the UN is considered essential for increasing conflict resolution efforts worldwide, and the UN touts ECOWAS as a model of regional activism on behalf of peace, while acknowledging its weaknesses.

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ECOWAS demonstrated its commitment to that role by establishing the Mechanism for Conflict Prevention, Management, Resolution, Peacekeeping, and Security in . The mechanism includes a conflict early warning center located at ECOWAS headquarters and local observation centers throughout the region. One of the mechanism’s goals is to establish standby units for ECOMOG, and the community is currently seeking international support for training and equipping fifteen battalions. Although the process of establishing a formal system remains incomplete, the fact that it exists at all shows how intervention has changed in both international and national perspectives. The development of a resolution and mediation capacity for ECOWAS may not have been envisioned in , but it is indicative of the contributions ECOMOG made to achieving peace, however flawed. Its efforts in Sierra Leone were widely praised even when problems were acknowledged, and ECOMOG is now firmly established as a legitimate regional actor. The normative basis underlying creation of the mechanism also indicates changing conceptions among ECOWAS member states toward conflict and its effect on the region. That does not mean conflict will cease, as events amply show. But it does mean that over time states might come to conceive of their choices in different ways and seek to pursue resolution and mediation over violence. From the UN perspective the attempt to pursue a normative resolution at first appeared disastrous. UNAMSIL was uncoordinated and at times unclear about its mandate. The original attempt to create a peaceful resolution backfired badly, both in Sierra Leone and in international public opinion. The deal brokered at Lomé rewarded brutality. Not only did the perpetrators of the atrocities gain a place in government, but the compromise countered the effort to halt the “culture of impunity,” a major goal of Secretary-General Annan.62 The UN justified its bitter bargain on the grounds that securing the safety of citizens was the most important objective. In the balance between peace and justice, the former weighed more heavily. That stance has been criticized, however, on the grounds that the compromise agreement represented a lack of interest in the problem and a desire to resolve the conflict without direct involvement. Although that may have been true at the time of Lomé, in the end a successful resolution mat-

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tered more. The climate of responsibility meant that intervention could not be avoided. In March , with ECOMOG withdrawing and RUF advancing, the representative from Jamaica asked an important question in Security Council debate, “Where do we go from here?”63 The conclusion was not that the UN should avoid the problem but that it needed to change the climate of insecurity and fear. By the end of , UNAMSIL had been expanded, and negotiators refused to discuss political issues with RUF until the latter started significant demobilization. The UN also began to discuss broader regional problems, particularly Taylor’s effect on the region. In Sierra Leone it began the long process of peace building by setting up new elections. Their successful conclusion in May  was an important step in creating progress toward durable peace. But problems still remain. True consolidation of security did not take place before the elections. Tensions continue in many areas because of the scarcity of jobs. Ex-combatants cannot be easily absorbed into society and may seek to continue illegal diamond operations. Perhaps more important, reforms must seek to reverse the years of state deinstitutionalization carried out by President Stevens and his successors. The weakness of state structures and the tendency of leaders to use illegal networks opened the door for the predation of both Taylor and RUF. Stability cannot come to Sierra Leone until state atrophy is reversed, but many internal actors interested in profit resist reforms for precisely this reason. The legacy of personalized institutions is quite long. Though international actors have dedicated quite a bit of effort and money to rebuilding Sierra Leone, therefore, the resistance of entrenched interests has made reform much slower and more frustrating than expected.64 Several border skirmishes also took place in July , although it remained unclear exactly what group had initiated the instability. Though there is reason to view Sierra Leone as a success, that view must be tempered by concern about the future. Several difficult threats to peace remain. The remnants of Charles Taylor’s mercenary forces are still adrift in the region and serve to both supplement and encourage instability by joining with other disaffected groups, as in Côte d’Ivoire. Although Taylor himself was forced

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from power in  he may still exercise indirect control over many illegal economic and military networks. In addition, many of the relevant international actors are anxious to downgrade their commitment. The United States and Great Britain in particular are eager to limit their support because of the ongoing war against terrorism. The United States hedged on intervention in Liberia for precisely this reason. Now that RUF is severely weakened and Kabbah’s own security forces have been reformed, arguments for continued international action are weakening. Kabbah’s reelection led to claims that the international task was over and intervention should end. It is not a case like in Bosnia, where institutions and interactions had to be built from the ground up. Sierra Leone has a functioning government and established institutions; the arguments are growing stronger that it is time to let them work. But the regional volatility means that could be a dangerous choice. Many former RUF members and mercenary forces are looking outside Sierra Leone for a way to make a living. Their guns give them access to money, food, sex, and “jobs.” Smuggling is pervasive in the region, and Charles Taylor still manages to sell diamonds. The question is whether international actors will commit to necessary peacebuilding activities or seek to end their involvement as soon as possible. In early  there were approximately half a million displaced persons at the meeting of the Sierra Leone, Liberian, and Guinean borders, with smugglers, rebels, and mercenaries among them. That was before Côte d’Ivoire collapsed and serious conflict flared again in Liberia, adding to the regional crisis. As mentioned above, many former combatants in Sierra Leone are now guns for hire, with no shortage of potential employers in the governments and substate groups of the region. The area is a tinderbox that almost any provocation could ignite. The Special Court for Sierra Leone, which began operation in , is working to destroy Taylor’s organized criminal networks, but its success remains uncertain. Unrest has already spread to the borders between Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, and Senegal, requiring resolution efforts by ECOWAS. Without continued effort to build on the resolution in Sierra Leone there could be dire consequences for West Africa as a whole.

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The one bright spot for intervention is the attitude of Sierra Leoneans themselves. Many citizens, both refugees and those inside the country, express a desire to move forward and prefer not to focus on blame. They believe that a new national consciousness came out of the conflict and will prevent renewed violence. In interview after interview they named commitment to democracy and peace as a central part of that consciousness. Those who have spoken to former rebels even go so far as to suggest that they also support peace and democracy and now recognize that only a select few profit from violence.65 The key for the international community is the promotion of economic development and the reintegration of former combatants. Officials at the Mano River Union (Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone) push integration as a central component of resolution because they say former soldiers, particularly children, “are weapons that could be used against us.”66 Stability depends to a large degree on providing livelihoods that do not require a gun. But unlike Bosnia, Sierra Leone presents a case where the victims and perpetrators alike seek reconciliation and stability. The divisive agendas in society are limited, and commitment to renewal quite strong. With continued effort, Sierra Leone could become the first significant international success. Intervention in Sierra Leone demonstrates the spreading of normative values underpinning intervention among regional actors as well as UN members. Intervention began under the regional auspices of ECOWAS. Although many of its members had reason to favor multilateral intervention as a means of achieving their own interests, the conduct of the intervention adhered far more closely to normative goals. The initial mandate was to restore the rule of the democratically elected president. Once Kabbah returned to power the mandate was extended to include providing security for his government and extending its authority throughout the country. The most positive development from the perspective of the region was to consolidate ECOMOG’s role as a regional peacekeeper and confirm resolution and mediation as one of its central tasks. ECOWAS has received support for the UN in pursuing those objectives and continues to play a role in providing security. Although that objective departs from the

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community’s original goal of economic integration, regional security is viewed as a prerequisite for obtaining development. From the international perspective, the intervention is more easily explained by normative than economic or security interests, particularly because actors made no attempt to control or gain from the country’s resources. Initially it appeared that the UN might have abandoned its principles when it brought RUF into the government through the Lomé agreement. That compromise reflected the difficult balance mentioned earlier—should peace or justice be the primary goal of intervention? At Lomé the UN claimed to fall on the side of peace, out of concern for the lives of the civilians threatened by the violence. It was challenged by those who believed it merely wanted a quick fix. The successful elections of May  and subsequent progress in consolidating peace suggest that developments are on the right track. The situation is still very precarious, however; in spite of a great deal of international effort, and many reforms remain limited. In some ways Sierra Leone presents a more difficult test than Bosnia because of the potential for violence to spread throughout the region and affect numerous countries. The crisis that began in Côte d’Ivoire in September  heightened concerns and opened new avenues for the spread of violence. That instability was exacerbated by Liberia’s renewed crisis in  and the beginning of an international rehabilitation operation after Taylor’s departure. All these problems feed one another and contribute to regional weakness. The mandates for UNAMSIL are continuing, but continued effort is imperative for West Africa as a whole. The depth of the international commitment to principles of security, conflict resolution, and human rights is being tested in several states in the region. Yet Sierra Leone also presents opportunities for change because the violence grew out of economic rather than identification issues, so the population is not divided into antagonistic groups. The potential for building a civic identity is therefore much higher than in other places, if the weaknesses of the state can be overcome. If the international community continues its effort, therefore, it may be able to claim a decisive success.

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7 Pushing the Envelope in Kosovo

O  , , NATO warplanes began a bombing campaign over Kosovo, a formerly autonomous region within Serbia, the dominant republic of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY). That marked the beginning of yet another change for intervention; the regional organization waged war against Serbia, and the UN eventually established an international protectorate. Although air strikes had been threatened since the previous October, the outbreak of war caught both sides by surprise. NATO officials were surprised that Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic did not acquiesce to diplomatic settlements; Serbian officials were surprised that NATO made good on its threats. Russia, an advocate of Serb interests, was incensed that NATO had circumvented the UN Security Council, leading to increased tensions with the United States. Although expected to last only a few days, NATO’s campaign continued until June, eventually extending into Serbia itself and targeting military installations as well as communications centers, power grids, and other parts of the civilian infrastructure deemed to have military applications. Although NATO members ruled out the use of ground troops at the start of the campaign, by the end of May military and political planners were increasingly embracing

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Map .. Kosovo region. UN Cartographic Section, no.  Rev. , June 

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that option. Ultimately, however, coordinated diplomatic pressure between NATO, the EU, and Russia coerced Milosevic to accede to NATO’s demands. A military-technical agreement was signed between NATO and the Serbian government on June , officially ending NATO’s war. Two distinct wars took place over Kosovo—the international war between Serbia and NATO and an internal war between Serbs and Albanians. The first was sparked by the second; NATO’s campaign was motivated by Serbia’s campaign against and general oppression of the Kosovar Albanian population. That problem did not begin in ; it had been ongoing since Milosevic became a major political player in . Although a minority in FRY, the Albanians constituted a dominant majority in Kosovo. By the late s the region was roughly  percent Albanian and  percent Serb, with a scattering of other minorities. Kosovo occupied a gray area within the Yugoslav constitution, designated an autonomous province with the right to self-rule without being granted the status of republic. But Kosovo is also considered the heart of the Serbian empire. It holds several important Orthodox religious sites as well as Kosovo Polje (lit., field of blackbirds), where Prince Lazar suffered his epic defeat at the hands of the Ottoman Empire in , signaling the end of Serbian statehood and beginning, in Serb lore, a legacy of struggle and repression. The story of the battle of Kosovo is central to the notion of Serbian identity, and in later years the region itself became synonymous with the nation. It also became the vehicle that Milosevic rode to prominence. Although Kosovo has a history of frequent domination and invasion, it was not until the nineteenth century that divisions between Orthodox Serbs and Muslim Albanians were politicized. It was also during that century that the myth of Kosovo became a nationally defining event for Serbs. Milosevic discovered the power of Kosovo’s appeal when he visited in  to address a group of Serb and Montenegrin activists. When the demonstration grew tense, Milosevic urged Serbs to defy the Albanian police and glorified them as victims of Albanian repression. He gained instant prominence and used an extreme nationalist agenda built on the myth of Kosovo to become the voice of Serbia. Once he became president of the republic, Milosevic

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annulled Kosovo’s autonomy, purged the police, the civil service, and the government of Albanians, integrated Kosovo into the Serbian republic, and instituted military rule in the region. From  on, the Albanian population waged a campaign of nonviolence to protest the Serbian repression. The repression in Kosovo did not become a central fixture in Western consciousness during the early s, however, because of the crises then ongoing in Croatia and Bosnia. The Albanians expected their plight to be addressed in the Dayton accords, which ended the Bosnian war in . When the settlement made no mention of Kosovo, the Albanian population became more radicalized. Noting that the Bosnian Serbs had been rewarded for violence by gaining their own territory, groups promoting similar tactics began to form. A trend toward forceful opposition coalesced under the umbrella of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) in , which began to mount a more systematic campaign against Serbian security forces. The ensuing violence attracted the attention of Western governments and ultimately led to NATO’s bombing, after diplomatic initiatives proved ineffective. Milosevic refused to accept a proposed settlement and used the lull created by negotiations to begin a systematic campaign to expel Albanians from the region. As thousands of Kosovars began to flee, NATO delivered an ultimatum and then commenced bombing. The intervention in Kosovo was unique in several ways. First, it was the only intervention undertaken into a country with an undisputed government and clear definition of sovereignty. The UN recognized Kosovo as part of the Serbian republic but objected to Serbia’s manner of ruling the province. Second, it was the first post–Cold War intervention undertaken without UN approval. Western nations never submitted a resolution on intervention to the Security Council because they knew that Russia and China would veto action. Russia is historically an ally of Serbia and its Orthodox Slavs, while China opposes all interventions that intrude on the sovereign right of nations to rule as they see fit. The West therefore used the sanction of NATO to circumvent the UN. That raised controversy over the legality of the intervention and caused tension between the United States and Russia that was only resolved when the latter became a central figure in the diplomatic

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endgame. Finally, the intervention was the most aggressive to date. It established an international protectorate over Kosovo, which contradicted a trend of facilitating but not controlling local agency noted earlier as a hallmark of contemporary intervention. The all-encompassing nature of the NATO and UN operations that began in June  would have been inconceivable just five years before. The UN became the ruling body in Kosovo, pushing intervention further along the continuum than even the operation in Bosnia had done. While perceived as a necessary step, running a protectorate presents significant challenges. As the sole authority in Kosovo, the UN has full responsibility for achieving positive change. Pressure rests squarely on the international community to prove that it can build an effective, fair, and stable government within a context of contested sovereignty. Doing so is all the more important, and difficult, because local actors want the right to rule themselves. A similar approach was subsequently implemented in East Timor, although there the issue was less controversial because of the clear status of that country as a result of the referendum on independence. Kosovo is a trusteeship within a sovereign nation, making the issue more complex, and the intended outcome less clear. The intervention in Kosovo also raised important theoretical questions. They included the tension between a commitment to protecting human rights and respect for sovereignty, the legality of multilateral action outside the UN, and the propriety of force being used to uphold principle. While debate on these issues had been ongoing since , the operations of NATO and then the United Nations Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) raised them to a far more prominent level. The events in Kosovo forced policymakers to confront the contradiction between traditional expectations, such as the right of autonomous state behavior, and newer expectations, such as responsible governance and the protection of human rights. NATO partially redefined itself as a result, and groups like the Independent International Commission on Kosovo (IICK) raised the prospect of making changes in international law to reflect new international realities. Kosovo has thus moved practical and theoretical considerations of intervention to center stage, where an extremely complex operational undertaking is paired with

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high-level debate about the meaning and role of intervention in today’s international system.

The Origins of the Conflict Kosovo’s history as a contested area stretches back centuries, with control over the area shifting among Bulgarian, Byzantine, Serbian, Ottoman, and Austrian rulers.1 The tension between its Serb and Albanian inhabitants developed much later. The idea that Kosovo supplied a historical and national self-consciousness for the Serbs began during the nineteenth century. National identities were developing all over Europe at that time, changing approaches to government and even the definitions of nations. For Serbia, the creation of an independent national territory went hand in hand with protest against Ottoman rule. Literature and folklore made Kosovo the centerpiece of the emerging nationalist spirit because it symbolized the moment of Ottoman domination along with the heroism of Prince Lazar. As the site of Lazar’s tragic yet valiant battle against the invaders, Kosovo represented both the greatness and despair of the Serbs. The “Kosovo covenant”—a choice offered to Lazar between the kingdom of men and the kingdom of God—is a keystone of what many refer to as the Kosovo myth. Lazar chose the spiritual reward, making his defeat all the more important as a willing sacrifice for Serbian glory; though it might suffer, the nation was also divinely chosen. Lazar’s decision gave Serbs a sense of spiritual distinction, which was emphasized in writing and film as part of the developing sense of Serbian identity. But Kosovo’s population became increasingly Albanian throughout the period of Ottoman rule, and by the mid-nineteenth century Albanian speakers outnumbered Slav speakers. Although tensions existed between the Muslim and Christian communities, the Ottoman rulers made some effort to investigate problems and reduce systematic oppression. The Albanian national movement began with the creation of the League of Prizren in , and it was really then that the stories and myths became “narratives of rival Serb and Albanian national movements.”2 The league was initially formed as a military alliance intended

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to provide some self-administration and regional defense. It continued to pledge loyalty to the Ottoman sultan. More radical members advocated independence, but the league’s ambitions remained essentially conservative and defensive. By  it was effectively serving as the government of Kosovo, and it had improved administrative efficiency and security for Muslims and Christians alike. Its success concerned the Ottoman government, however, which destroyed the league in  and imprisoned or killed its leaders. Relations between the two main religious groups also declined over this period due to the expulsion of Muslims from parts of Kosovo taken over by Serbia, Bulgaria, and Montenegro in  and . At least in Serbia’s case, there is evidence that creating an ethnically pure territory was part of state policy.3 The displaced Muslims then settled in other parts of Kosovo, however, creating a steady emigration of Serbs from those areas and creating pockets of ethnic domination. External and internal events conspired to alter ethnic relationships in Kosovo still further. The international context made Albanian Muslims more suspicious of their Christian neighbors in the early twentieth century because of the pressure the great powers were exerting on the failing Ottoman Empire. Many suspected religious motives behind great-power intrigues. At the same time, Serbia encouraged pro-Serb movements in Macedonia that spilled into Kosovo and helped increase tensions as well. Internally, the rise of the Young Turks movement created divisions in politics and society and limited the government’s authority. The weakness of the Ottoman Empire proved decisive for the next chapter in Kosovo’s history. The Kosovar Albanians opposed modernizing reforms and increased centralization. At first they supported the Young Turks but then rebelled as it became clear that the reformists’ plans did not include increased autonomy for Kosovo. In  the Albanians mounted coordinated revolts against the army, leading to the imposition of martial law. Their rebellion helped sap the empire’s strength and made the Serbian conquest in  much easier. With the Ottoman army weak and fighting internal insurgents, the Serbs were able to complete their campaign in three months. At the time of the Serbian conquest, many noticed what seemed to be a coordinated attack on Muslims. Some of the violence against

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civilians came from the army, but much also came from paramilitary units. Leon Trotsky commented, “The Serbs . . . in their national endeavor to correct data in the ethnographical statistics that are not quite favourable to them, are engaged quite simply in systematic extermination of the Muslim population.”4 Men were taken off and massacred, even in towns that surrendered peacefully. The coordinated nature of the attacks was affirmed by a commission of enquiry established by the Carnegie Endowment, which stated that the Serb government sought “the entire transformation of the ethnic character of regions inhabited exclusively by Albanians.”5 For the next three decades the Serb government also sponsored Serbian colonization of arable land in Kosovo. After World War I international leaders recognized Kosovo as part of the new Yugoslavia, although not part of Serbia in particular. Serbia increased its efforts at Serbianization, treating Albanians as immigrants to be repatriated elsewhere. Albanian schools were shut down and the Albanian language and newspapers suppressed. The Serb government settled Slav speakers in Albanian areas and confiscated Albanian lands and homes in an effort to force their emigration. In  it made a deal with Turkey to “repatriate” forty thousand Albanian families over the next six years. This program was revived in , with an estimated hundred thousand Albanians leaving as a result of “Turkification.”6 Sentiment to reclaim Kosovo had strong support outside government circles as well. In  members of the Serbian Academy of Science and Arts (SANU) wrote a memorandum entitled “The Expulsion of the Albanians,” which argued that colonization was too gentle an approach and easily defeated by the “fecundity of Albanian women.”7 The rise of communism in the aftermath of World War II helped formalize Serbia’s long campaign to incorporate the region. In July  the Communist Party members in Kosovo voted to become part of Serbia. That move initially led to increased opportunities for Albanians because Tito wanted to limit Serbian domination of Yugoslavia. The Yugoslav and Serbian constitutions passed in  and , respectively, affirmed the autonomous right of Kosovo to its own economic and cultural development. The Albanian language was given

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equal status with Serbo-Croatian in official matters and returned as a language of school instruction. That improvement in conditions for Albanians was short-lived, however. They came under increasing suspicion after Tito’s break with Moscow in , for suspected collaboration with the pro-Stalin Enver Hoxha in Albania. Many privileges and reforms were revoked. The Yugoslav secret police suspected Hoxha of infiltrating agents into Kosovo and viewed the Albanian population as traitors. Throughout the s and ’s Serbs dominated life in Kosovo, composing just  percent of the population but holding  percent of administrative and leadership positions.8 The situation improved somewhat at the end of the s, when Tito sought rapprochement with Albania and allowed the creation of the University of Pritina in Kosovo’s capital. The teaching of Albanian language and literature returned to schools once more, and regional administrative and security services were Albanized. Kosovar Albanians were even allowed to fly the Albanian flag as their national emblem starting in . The new Yugoslav constitution of  made Kosovo an autonomous province, with its own administration, assembly, and judiciary, and membership in Serbian and federal institutions. All these changes served only to inflame Serb fears about separatism and irredentism. At the same time the region was experiencing a steady decline in the Serb population and a steady increase in the Albanian population. Between  and  the Albanian population increased from  percent to  percent, while the Serbs decreased from  percent to  percent.9 This demographic change was due to high birthrates among Albanians and the out-migration of Serbs and Montenegrins; emigration for economic reasons was high among all communities. Protest erupted in  as students in Pritina demanded better conditions and republic status for Kosovo. Only the most radical minority of students demanded independence. The government responded by crushing the demonstrations and arresting and imprisoning the leaders. Polarization between the two religious communities increased throughout the s, with Serb intellectuals speaking of the genocide of Serbs in Kosovo. Serbs did legitimately fear intimidation and institutional discrimination, but stories of their ill-treatment were wildly exaggerated in Belgrade. The case of Djordje Martinovic became a

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key part of the Serbian narrative, with his alleged victimization at the hands of Kosovar Albanians symbolizing the violation felt by all Serbs.10 Notably, the protests of the Albanian miners that erupted in Kosovo in  were not for independence or an extension of Albanian rights but in defense of Yugoslavia and the  constitution. The economic troubles affecting the country also contributed to tensions; austerity measures were instituted throughout Yugoslavia and the right to control finances became a central part of the nationalist debate. Economic issues came to be expressed as ethnic concerns, contributing to problems in Kosovo and the collapse of Yugoslavia in general. It was this connection between economics and nationalism that brought Slobodan Milosevic to power, and Kosovo was the means by which he first developed that crucial link. His famous admonition to Kosovar Serbs in , “No one should dare to beat you,” won him instant popularity and established his extremist agenda. He connected that agenda more specifically to Kosovo a year later when he said, “Every nation has a love, which eternally warms its heart. For Serbia, it is Kosovo.”11 Milosevic sponsored mass rallies where Serbs were bused in from Kosovo and the unemployed were paid to demonstrate, making Kosovo and its Serb character a prominent theme nationwide. In  he pushed the Serbian assembly to assert control over Kosovo’s security, judiciary, and financial services, and then celebrated the sixhundredth anniversary of the Battle of Kosovo on the historic field. Protests were immediate, increasing state oppression and the intimidation of Albanians. Albanian-language newspapers were disbanded, Albanian state employees dismissed, schools closed, and Albanians forbidden to buy property. The Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK) was founded in response by a group of intellectuals led by Ibrahim Rugova. Rugova preached nonviolent civil disobedience in order to force international attention to the problem, prevent violent revolt, and systematically deny the legitimacy of Serb rule. The LDK also encouraged the boycotting of elections and established a parallel state apparatus. Milosevic revoked Kosovo’s autonomous status in July  and tried to ratchet up the pressure on Albanians to encourage them to emigrate. Repression grew extreme; ultimately  percent of employed Albanians were dismissed from their jobs.12 In response, LDK leaders

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issued a demand for republic status, which was changed to independence a year later when Slovenia, Croatia, and the other republics demanded secession. The LDK organized a referendum on independence in September  which passed with  percent of Kosovar Albanians in favor. In May  it held Kosovo-wide elections to elect an underground Albanian government and assembly. Schools and hospitals continued to function in basements and were funded by taxes levied by the LDK government. Rugova asked the UN to establish a protectorate; when rebuffed, he concentrated on influencing the international community by showing the efficiency of the parallel structures versus the oppression of the Serb government. The Kosovar Albanians expected their grievances to be addressed at Dayton at the end of the Bosnian war. By eschewing violence in the face of repression they hoped to ally themselves with justice and thus gain international approval and sponsorship. When the international community ignored them, it also discredited the nonviolent approach. The success of the Bosnian Serbs indicated that “international attention can only be obtained by war.”13 It was also clear that Serbia would not stop its repression. Paramilitaries, including some active in Bosnia, had been operating in the territory since . Albanian violence became more widespread, though uncoordinated. The KLA announced its existence in November  but remained a limited organization with few resources and operated by hit-and-run tactics. That soon changed when the collapse of neighboring Albania provided access to guns and allowed the creation of bases along the border in northern Albania. Serbia declared the KLA a terrorist organization and increased reprisal attacks. In January  the Serbian government dispatched more troops to Kosovo, leading to an increase in KLA membership from a mere three hundred fifty fighters to thousands. From that point on it was a full-fledged internal war.

An Overview of the Conflict The war began with a Serbian offensive in the Drenica Valley region, a notorious area of Albanian resistance near Pec. Although this was a

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relatively small beginning it began to generate international attention, though mainly from NGOs. The attacks targeted the Jashari family, members of which were known to be instrumental in the development of the KLA around Drenica. In February, Serb forces focused on the village of Likosane, killing an unknown number of Albanians. The Serbs killed their primary target, Adem Jashari, on March , along with fifty-seven others. The deaths, along with reports that the bodies showed signs of torture, inflamed the population. Human Rights Watch later concluded that the police used “arbitrary and excessive force against the villagers long after resistance had ceased.”14 Serbian forces then sealed off the area, allowing reporters in only as part of officially hosted tours. These events caused some international repercussions, although they remained limited. The Contact Group, created in  under the auspices of the International Conference on Former Yugoslavia, called for an arms embargo against Serbia.15 Security Council Resolution  of March  authorized the embargo and called for “meaningful selfadministration” for Kosovo. Finally, the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) asserted its jurisdiction over potential violations of humanitarian law in Kosovo. All together the response was tepid, however, and did little to discourage Serb activities. The greatest ramifications from the Drenica violence occurred in the ranks of the KLA. Adem Jashari became a martyr and the KLA became popularly accepted as the means to achieve national aspirations. More Albanians associated themselves with the KLA, in both fact and rhetoric, and indicated acceptance of the violent approach by creating self-defense militias all around the province. Throughout the spring of  the KLA made its organization and approach considerably more sophisticated. It claimed control over the majority of the countryside, although several independent factions emerged that prevented total coordination until after NATO’s intervention began. As the KLA threat grew, so did the Serb response. The army, police, and various paramilitaries began coordinated operations, officially called a counterinsurgency campaign, with repression increasing throughout the year. Serb forces, both official and unofficial, targeted civilians as a means of reducing support for the KLA. In re-

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sponse, the KLA attacked Serb citizens, beginning a cycle of collective targeting and victimization that continues to this day. Although Serbian abuses against Albanians constituted the majority of human rights crimes, no group remained beyond reproach in its conduct of the war. The escalating violence led NATO to consider action, with British prime minister Tony Blair in June advocating military action if diplomacy failed to alter the situation in Kosovo.16 That same month Milosevic met with Russian president Boris Yeltsin and agreed to allow unimpeded access into Kosovo for humanitarian organizations and to accept a monitoring mission. The Kosovo Diplomatic Observer Mission began functioning in July, with the participation of OSCE members and Russia. That did little to change the situation, however, and attacks on villages and citizens continued. By the beginning of August between two and three hundred thousand people were either refugees or internally displaced.17 The Serbs drove one hundred thousand more Albanians from their homes in August alone.18 In September the Security Council passed Resolution , demanding a ceasefire and the withdrawal of Serbian forces. When violence continued, NATO threatened air strikes. US Special Envoy Richard Holbrooke met with Milosevic to clarify the steps necessary to meet the demands of Resolution . He convinced Milosevic to accept a ceasefire, the removal of Serbian security forces, and the deployment of the OSCE’s Kosovo Verification Mission (KVM), but he failed to establish a timetable for peace talks. Holbrooke emphasized NATO’s threat to enforce compliance but agreed that KVM personnel would be unarmed. The KVM’s mandate was limited to monitoring and verifying the terms of the ceasefire. These agreements were confirmed at the end of October by UNSCR . Serbian forces complied with the agreement and many expected the problem to diminish by the end of . The next move in intensifying the crisis came from the Albanians. The KLA responded to the agreement as Milosevic had predicted, by beginning its own offensive. The rebels occupied areas vacated by the departing Serbian forces and mounted attacks against Serb civilians. The KLA also targeted Albanians it viewed as collaborators or sympathizers.19 Outside parties, including NATO, had no leverage and could

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not enforce compliance by any parties because of the fear that KVM personnel would suffer in retaliation. Violence and the targeting of Serbs increased in December. The Milosevic government stated that it would take action if the attacks did not cease. It backed up this threat by deploying numerous battalions on the borders with Kosovo and eventually inside the province. While not exonerating the Serb government, the IICK has noted that the increase of KLA activities and the impotence of the KVM put pressure on Belgrade to deal with the security situation.20 Matters reached a head in January , as Serbian military forces moved into Kosovo in large numbers with heavy military equipment. The massacre of forty-five Albanians in the village of Racak on January  proved a decisive event.21 Although events were later disputed, Richard Holbrooke considers Racak a turning point in motivating Western commitment to deal with the problem.22 KVM monitors investigated the site on January  and publicized the mutilation of civilians, including children. Serb officials insisted that the dead were all KLA members, and suggested that the KLA “had faked a massacre scene.”23 ICTY chief prosecutor Louise Arbour tried to visit the village but was denied entry into Kosovo on January . Certain that Milosevic was engaged in a cover-up, Western leaders began to consider a more aggressive approach. NATO members agreed to force both sides to attend peace talks and to back negotiations with the threat of military action. Russia supported the Western position at the time, although it adopted a more pro-Serb stance during negotiations. The international conference began on February  in Rambouillet, France, as war continued. KLA and LDK leaders attended, as did Kosovar Serb leaders and officials of the FRY. Problems were immediately apparent. First, groups never negotiated directly but instead “talked” via international mediators. Second, the FRY apparently never took the negotiations seriously. It sent a low-level delegation and refused to acknowledge the right of KLA members to be represented. Negotiators circumvented the problem by direct appeals to Belgrade, but that did not help the legitimacy of the talks. Third, the Albanian delegation was divided; there was bickering between KLA and LDK members as well as among KLA representatives themselves. The plan that eventu-

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ally resulted restored Kosovo’s autonomy and independent institutions but did not push for independence, delaying decisions on the region’s future status for at least three years. The KLA was to be disarmed, the Serbian security forces removed, and a NATO force deployed to ensure security and compliance with the agreement. The KLA delegation eventually signed the agreement in March, after much cajoling. The FRY contingent refused. The freedom of movement for the proposed NATO force was a major sticking point for Belgrade. Appendix B to the agreement gave it “free and unrestricted passage throughout the FRY,” a perceived infringement on sovereignty that Milosevic refused to accept.24 Though he acknowledged the force’s right to deploy in Kosovo, he balked at allowing access to the entire FRY territory. Once the talks collapsed, NATO turned its attention to carrying out its threat. Holbrooke made one last trip to Belgrade on March  to impress upon Milosevic the seriousness behind NATO’s intent to bomb. By his own account he wanted to limit Milosevic’s inclination to gamble by letting him know NATO would follow through.25 There are suggestions that international actors at Rambouillet, particularly the US, never wanted agreement but instead used the talks to create consensus for the use of force.26 Some observers felt this was the United States’ intent all along and that it never seriously tried to meet Serb demands. In essence, “an Albanian signature could trigger the bombing.”27 This also corresponds to later criticism that the US pushed the KLA version of events at Racak in order to gain international support to use greater pressure against Serbia. Although commentary on this US agenda remains speculative, there is no dispute that the United States believed that Slobodan Milosevic would respond only to the language of force. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright in particular feared appeasement and felt that Milosevic could not be trusted to adhere to any agreement without coercion. While the talks were ongoing Serb forces had continued their offensives, moving large, armored units across the northern borders. KVM personnel were evacuated immediately after the end of the talks, and NATO began its bombing campaign on March , just six days after the final collapse of negotiations. The alliance articulated three objectives: to demonstrate its seriousness and force Milosevic to change

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his policy, to deter further abuses against Albanians, and to damage the Serbian military’s ability to inflict harm. None could be attained. Hours before the bombing began Serbia had approximately fifteen thousand army troops and fourteen thousand police in Kosovo, exceeding the ceiling defined in the Holbrooke-Milosevic agreement of twelve and eleven thousand, respectively. Once the bombing started those forces launched Operation Horseshoe, a systematic campaign to force Albanians out of the region. Members of the intelligentsia were executed, and bodies of people and animals were dumped in wells to contaminate drinking water. The focus of Operation Horseshoe was not killing, however, but forced exodus. The killings that did take place were calibrated to maximize fear and induce the emigration of Albanians. Interviews that the human rights division of the KVM conducted with refugees indicate that Horseshoe was planned well before NATO began its bombing campaign. Evidence suggests a systematic and organized campaign of intimidation and expulsion. The KVM found that the Serb army, police, and militias targeted specific segments of the population, particularly men of fighting age, intellectuals, religious and community leaders, and human rights activists. Crimes against women were also widespread. By late April the Serbs had forced nearly one million Albanians from their homes. Two wars were now raging in Kosovo, an internal war of Serbs against Albanians and an international war of NATO against Serbia. In the latter, each side had expected the other to buckle easily. NATO gradually increased its pressure as it became clear that Milosevic would resist, averaging three hundred sorties per day in the first month and five hundred a day thereafter.28 NATO also expanded its target list from exclusively military targets within Kosovo to dual-use targets (radio stations, power grids, etc.) within Serbia itself. Even as its ordnance increased, however, NATO found itself powerless to help Albanians. The situation became more and more desperate as the number of refugees overwhelmed available emergency resources. Milosevic maintained throughout that Serb attacks were limited to the KLA and that human rights violations and displacement of the population were the fault of NATO and KLA forces. However, as noted, evidence of a policy of ethnic cleansing is quite strong. Available data suggests that the

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refugees did not flee but were part of an ordered expulsion carried out by Serb forces. Over the course of the NATO bombing,  percent of the Albanian population was forced from their homes.29 Although NATO did collaborate on a limited basis with the KLA, it resisted either providing it with substantial information or relying on it as a ground force for the alliance. By the end of May there was significant pressure within NATO to employ a ground force to supplement the aerial campaign. At the same time, diplomatic efforts became more coordinated. Boris Yeltsin tried to increase Russian involvement starting in late April in order to ensure that Russia had an appropriate role and that Serbia, its traditional ally, got the best deal possible. Once a coordinated position was agreed on between Russia and NATO, Martti Ahtisaari, the Finnish president and then-president of the EU, and Russian prime minister Viktor Chernomyrdin presented the demands to Milosevic. They indicated that the demands were nonnegotiable and that Milosevic had no remaining appeals. The agreement made five demands, constituting NATO’s core objectives once reworked after the onset of bombing: a verifiable stop to Serbian military action; withdrawal of all Serbian military, police, and paramilitary forces; acceptance of an international military presence; the unconditional and safe return of refugees and displaced persons; and agreement from Milosevic to work toward a final political settlement. Milosevic accepted these terms by signing the Military-Technical Agreement on June , and bombing stopped immediately. The same day the Security Council passed Resolution , establishing a UN civil administration over Kosovo as well as an international security presence led by NATO—the Kosovo Force (KFOR).

The International Response Václav Havel said of NATO’s bombing campaign, “[T]his is probably the first war that has not been waged in the name of ‘national interests,’ but rather in the name of principles and values.”30 In spite of this claim the intervention was extremely controversial. Not only did it take place within a stable, internationally recognized sovereign state,

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but it did not have UN authorization. International law and sovereignty norms favored Belgrade. Some read NATO’s aggression as a traditional story of realpolitik, with the West using its power to dominate small states and limit Russia.31 In this view control of the Balkans represented a strategic advantage, thus inviting power grabs when instability threatened, much as before World War I. Others argued that NATO and the UN contributed to the crisis by failing to address the tensions in Kosovo and provide consistent messages to Milosevic before .32 China and Russia protested the air strikes when they began, increasing tensions among the major powers, and implied that NATO was trying to marginalize the UN and assert its own dominance. They also viewed the intervention as power politics, but politics waged between institutions rather than states and driven by NATO’s lust for dominance coupled with military superiority. Some NGOs supported intervention in theory but criticized NATO’s strategy of warfare on high because it increased the potential for targeting error. After the war ended Amnesty International charged that NATO had conducted its operations without regard for the potential harm to civilians and asked ICTY to investigate the matter. Although the charges were dismissed, the challenge indicates the extent of the controversy, with humanitarian groups joining national leaders in criticism. Both the motivations for and the conduct of the intervention came into question therefore, uniting disparate voices in questioning the legality of NATO’s action from both power and humanitarian viewpoints. The motivations for intervention may have also seemed questionable because NATO had initially ignored the problem for a long time. Before  international attention to Kosovo was extremely limited. Although the Kosovar Albanians worked hard at international outreach, press coverage was sporadic. The world was preoccupied with events in Croatia and Bosnia and committed little but rhetoric to Kosovo. The OSCE criticized Serbia for its policies in  and sent an observer mission to Kosovo in early , but it ended after six months when Milosevic refused its extension. In  President George Bush issued his “Christmas warning,” promising that the United States would not let Kosovo become “a second Bosnia” and threatening air

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strikes against Serbia unless it ceased its repression.33 President Clinton reaffirmed this position two months later. But threats against Milosevic were limited, especially from late  on, because the United States and others viewed him as critical for ending the war in Bosnia. Once he forced the Bosnian Serbs to accept the deal brokered at Dayton, Milosevic became even more important as a peacemaker and linchpin of the Bosnian settlement. International actors decided to overlook Kosovo in order to keep his support. By  the Kosovo crisis had gotten harder to ignore, and the Contact Group began to take a more central role in spearheading diplomatic initiatives. But the group’s statement in September  captured the ambivalent nature of the international position: “We support neither independence nor the status quo.”34 Two problems inhibited international consensus before late : lack of agreement on the definition of the crisis and the absence of a true catastrophe. Although Kosovar Albanians were the victims of repression and prejudice, their success at organizing the shadow state and their ability to function as a community prevented serious humanitarian concern. International actors allowed Serbia wide latitude as the sovereign power (and Bosnian linchpin) and dismissed Kosovo’s demands for secession on the grounds of the Badinter Commission rulings on Yugoslavia in , giving only republics the right to secede.35 The United States in particular viewed Kosovo as an integral part of Serbia. The lack of international concern encouraged Milosevic to intensify the campaign against the Kosovar Albanians and helped motivate violent resistance. As violence escalated, independence became the sine qua non of the KLA, leaving little room for negotiation. It was not until March  that the Contact Group imposed an arms embargo and representatives of the United States and Britain began to suggest that a threat of force might be necessary. The Security Council subsequently backed up the embargo with Resolution , but various members objected strongly to the suggestion of force. In April the Contact Group froze all Yugoslav funds held abroad. It also focused on mitigating the violence by increasing the international presence in Kosovo through multilateral agencies like the UNHCR and the OSCE. International actors seemed to expect that international

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monitoring would be a deterrent for Milosevic, perhaps because of his eventual capitulation on Bosnia. That was a serious miscalculation. The earlier episode and lack of real consensus on Kosovo had taught Milosevic that the international community would try to avoid a real commitment. In late , US and European consensus began to coalesce around the idea that the threat of force was imperative for dealing with Milosevic. Policymakers based their concerns on security—Milosevic had by this time started four wars in seven years36—but humanitarian issues were closely tied to the definition of that security. His aggressive response to the increasing violence indicated a possible repetition of the Bosnia scenario. International actors had learned this was one bully they could not bluff. He had consistently defied international threats throughout the war in Bosnia until words were backed by NATO’s coercion. No one wanted a repeat of the humanitarian, political, and economic crisis in that country. Furthermore, recovery in Bosnia depended in part on stability elsewhere in the region. Intervention in Kosovo therefore had merit for the conflict itself, as well as for the region. The United States, perhaps erroneously, believed too much in the power of NATO’s air strikes, forgetting that other factors, such as the bite of sanctions and a Croatian ground offensive, had helped reverse the fortunes of the Bosnian Serbs and encouraged Milosevic to deal. Russia remained intransigently opposed, however, limiting the level of coercion available through the UN. Although many felt NATO’s credibility was on the line, in late  none but the United States felt it could act without a UN mandate.37 In this case credibility depended on both strategic and humanitarian issues—NATO needed to prove that it could limit Milosevic’s propensity for war and lessen humanitarian crisis. In large part, however, the second imperative drove the first. Bosnia had represented a case where Milosevic preyed on another country by fomenting violence through nationalism. But Kosovo was part of Serbia, an internal matter, making the calculation of security somewhat different. It was the humanitarian element, therefore, not more traditional stability concerns, that made his policies unacceptable to IGOs, NGOs, and citizens. Although the refugee issue may have helped sway some states, the mass exodus

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began after intervention, not before, thereby lessening the claim that the enormous numbers of refugees prompted action. The Security Council passed Resolution  in September , labeling Kosovo “a threat to peace and security in the region.” Although that was a limited action, this definition would later prove important in NATO’s claims for the legitimacy of its resort to force. The primary purpose of , however, was to address the growing humanitarian crisis and demand an end to Serb actions. By invoking the peace and security phrase, the Security Council assumed a right to interfere, although not yet in a coercive manner. The Holbrooke mission to Belgrade in October appeared to be a breakthrough. Western actors staked their hopes on personal relationships at this stage of the crisis. Milosevic had a grudging respect for Holbrooke as a result of the negotiations over Bosnia, and Holbrooke was considered to have something of a Midas touch in getting through to Milosevic. Reducing negotiations to an individual level was a version of citizen diplomacy that many policymakers felt could change the dynamics of the situation. Both men knew how to read each other and had some sense of how far to push. Holbrooke’s apparent success in getting a deal suggested that, with proper handling, Milosevic would compromise. But the agreement actually limited international options by introducing KVM personnel. Having used peacekeepers effectively as bargaining chips in Bosnia, Milosevic surely saw their value in Kosovo. Their presence gave him potential leverage without significantly inhibiting his policies. Without greater international pressure the deal meant nothing, and there was no agreement within the Security Council on the use of force. The limits of consensus were reached when the council endorsed the cease-fire that Holbrooke had arranged in UNSCR  later that month. Theoretically, any negotiation based on the threat of force was null and void under international law, so the council avoided any posture of coercion. Moreover, the Holbrooke agreement opened new opportunities for the KLA. A nonconciliatory approach that would force more international attention, and potentially armed intervention, was in its best interest. The cease-fire made the KLA more aggressive, not less. Since the Albanians would accept nothing short of independence, it needed

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to increase the tensions in an effort to win international support for its demands. The intensification of the KLA campaign after the October agreements then forced the Serbian response and led to the cycle of violence that culminated in the Racak massacre in January . The second Holbrooke mission, in March , was a last-ditch effort to avoid the use of force by again trading on the personal relationship. Holbrooke was charged with bluntly impressing NATO’s ultimatum on Milosevic, specifically making clear that response was a certainty if he did not back down. Even if he understood the warning, however, Milosevic certainly never expected NATO’s campaign to survive the controversy he knew it would generate. Between international disagreement and the effects of Operation Horseshoe, he gambled that NATO would quickly stop operations. The intensification of the humanitarian crisis helped tip international actors toward a more aggressive position. Kofi Annan later explained, “All the arguments put forward by officials of the FRY Government, however plausible and legitimate, cannot explain its failure to address its obligation to protect its own citizens.”38 This comment whitewashed the question of agency somewhat, since the crisis developed not from a passive failure to protect but an active willingness to attack. But the critical point is that standards of governance were developing in step with intervention. Even ten years earlier, Milosevic’s attempt to repress the Albanian population would likely have been considered an internal matter. As the role of governments vis-à-vis their own citizens became more central to considerations of security, however, the firewall between internal and international crumbled. The changes implied were still difficult for some to accept. Russia, one of the two Security Council opponents of force, was very ambivalent about the crisis. It did not support Milosevic’s repressive policy in Serbia and agreed with Western positions that Kosovo should be an autonomous region. But it could neither support the use of force against its historical ally nor accede to NATO taking a decisive role in the crisis. Its position helped close down the Security Council as an avenue of resolution and gave NATO a greater role. By the time the parties arrived at Rambouillet, NATO had a strong though not yet absolute commitment to the use of force. The confer-

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ence helped strengthen that commitment. The IICK states, “One objective was to help reticent European NATO members justify an armed intervention to their domestic constituencies, and thus build a tighter coalition in favor of what was by then being viewed as an almost certain recourse to force.”39 Serbia’s refusal to compromise provided a casus belli and demonstrated the failure of diplomatic approaches. The conference was designed at least in part to portray intervention as a last resort. Nevertheless, NATO’s decision to use force after the failure at Rambouillet was highly criticized. The loudest criticism came from Security Council members Russia and China, but scholarly opinion also divided on the issue.40 Controversy centered on the legal right of NATO to circumvent the UN when faced with a P veto and the more generalized propriety of acting without “global” consensus. Scholars have since drawn a distinction between legality and legitimacy precisely because of the political considerations attached to the veto power. While the Security Council should be viewed as “authoritative with respect to matters of peace and security,” as Jennifer Welsh argues, it is not the only body capable of sanctioning intervention.41 Other IGOs and even ad hoc coalitions may be legitimate under closely proscribed conditions. Except for China, no country suggested that the Kosovo crisis did not warrant intervention or that humanitarian issues were not legitimate subjects of forceful action. The IICK later addressed the debate and, in line with Welsh, concluded that NATO’s campaign was illegal under existing international law but nonetheless legitimate. It stated that “criticism of the international response should not undermine the clarity of the moral imperative to act in the face of massive human rights abuse.”42 The commission also argued that such interventions may uphold the spirit of the UN charter even while violating its words. This stance reaffirmed the centrality of human rights and governance norms in security and the role of international organizations in advancing those norms. An emerging dissonance exists between the limitations of traditional rules focusing on state power and the needs of emerging expectations focusing on principles, the commission argued, thereby forcing difficult decisions. The commission urged, and others concur, that international law

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should be reassessed because it is distinctly at odds with the new emphasis on humanitarian values.43 This distinction reflects a problem implicit in the evolution of intervention discussed here. Existing international agreements still create a difference between the current standards expected for state conduct and the ability of the world community to deal with offenders in a way commensurate with those same norms.44 More simply, the articulation of values is well ahead of the international community’s ability to defend them. Although expectations of responsible behavior have changed, international law remains based on realist assumptions of state actions—in part out of necessity. Providing broad sanction for intervention would allow it to be easily abused by power-hungry states. A state could justify all kinds of intervention in the name of international security, creating a new and uncontained means of predation. Yet the current restrictions also limit action that falls within moral and ethical parameters. Actions based on human security motives can be blocked by a single P veto. That was a familiar Cold War dilemma but is more difficult to accept now that principle is becoming more central to international relations. Should one state’s agenda inhibit the effort to assist citizens at risk? This question made its way into the Security Council when the Slovenian representative said,“We regret the fact that not all of the permanent members were willing to act in accordance with their special responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security under the United Nations Charter.”45 Now that security includes humanitarian issues, responsibility will increasingly clash with law. Reconciling that tension is an important challenge for international organizations, especially since normative intervention seems likely to continue. Somehow organizations need to provide protection for values even while limiting the unfettered use of power. Tony Blair addressed this theoretical debate, arguing that Kosovo demonstrated the need to reconsider the international presumption against the use of force except in self-defense in light of humanitarian issues.46 The question had been percolating since UNITAF entered Somalia but had never been addressed so forcefully or at such a high level. NATO’s intervention played an important role in forcing policy-

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makers to consider the uses and implications of intervention and its place within the international system. Although Blair’s view remains controversial due to sovereignty concerns, he made the case that principle mandates intervention in some circumstances. His argument corresponds to the claim reluctantly endorsed by Michael Ignatieff, that in some cases “if force is not used there is no future for law.”47 The argument is persuasive and harkens back to ideas expressed in some of the Security Council debates on Bosnia. Although avoiding the use of force may itself be an important value, other equally important values cannot be established without force. Security thus depends on power as a handmaiden of principle. This notion has also been considered by the IICK, which concludes that the emphasis on norms and the international acceptance of an imperative to act on their behalf has created the need for changes to international law and particularly the UN charter. While not granting NATO legality in retrospect, the commission does argue that the gap between legality and legitimacy is problematic and must be addressed in order to create a more stable and humanitarian international order. Other NATO members were also willing to straddle the divide between clear legality and legitimacy, between expectations and existing limits on intervention, because of the “overwhelming humanitarian necessity.”48 A shift in NATO’s definition helped make this possible. NATO is no longer primarily an alliance for defense. Instead, it has adopted a more activist posture based on extending the democratic community in Europe and defending norms of acceptable governance where able. Kosovo catalyzed this redefinition even more decisively than the SFOR mission in Bosnia. NATO also provides a vehicle for nations other than the United States to establish leadership and commitment to defending principle. While the United States remains the most dominant member, attention to regional and value-based interests allows others to have a more significant voice in the organization. Member states like Great Britain, France, and Germany argued for action for humanitarian reasons.49 They sought to establish NATO’s legitimacy on normative grounds, as well as their own role as defenders of values. The new norms served a constitutive function in this case, by creating a humanitarian “identity” for these states to claim. Leadership

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was connected to the support of the norms themselves. France did not want a repeat of events in Bosnia and thus was willing to act forcefully and outside UN sanction in order to avoid painful postmortems on the failure to act for humanitarian interests. The fact that it took on the biggest European share of NATO’s military activities shows its commitment to defending norms.50 One could counter the normative claim by arguing that the NATO allies also had unilateral interests that could be enhanced by their participation. France and Germany both sought enhanced diplomatic roles within NATO, while the former also hoped to gain support for a separate European defense identity. For NATO’s European members the basic credibility of Europe’s ability to respond to crisis was in question after failures in Bosnia and elsewhere and could only be enhanced by decisive NATO action. But the major European partners also wanted to distinguish themselves from the United States, which they did by insisting on Russian inclusion in KFOR once the bombing ended and, for Britain, by taking the most hawkish stance on ground troops. The European partners sought to establish their roles by connecting the language of security and humanitarianism and thereby establishing the imperative of intervention. Commitment to multilateralism and morals formed the basis of their position. Although strategic values may have been at stake, credibility and leadership depended on normative advancement. As in Bosnia, it was norms that defined interests and not the other way around. Other European allies also perceived Kosovo as an opportunity to establish their role as advocates of international norms and potential negotiators in the face of crisis. For most NATO members, “it was both a war for values and a war for a seat at the table.”51 Their desire to promote their own roles does not diminish the fact that those roles were shaped by the forceful defense of norms. The way nations sought to gain influence was by acting on behalf of principle. That is an interesting and important shift from the proposition that nations establish their status by demonstrating their power. It was these convictions that kept the alliance solid in spite of controversy.52 Although members often disagreed about both the scope and length of the campaign, commitment to the ends helped sustain

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the consensus. NATO answered attacks on the legality of its actions by pointing to the failure of all other means and the three Security Council resolutions that preceded its action. The finding of a threat to peace and security in Resolution , coupled with the invocation of Chapter VII in Resolution , were interpreted to allow the use of military force in dealing with the problem. The fact that NATO clearly had no intention of carrying out an occupation also helped mute criticism.53 Long-term rehabilitation efforts were considered the purview of the UN. The Security Council resolutions also clearly invoked the importance of humanitarian standards and defended the rules of “civilized conduct as embodied in a wide range of international conventions.”54 That, in essence, presented the international agenda. Although the UN could not authorize force, it did define the meaning of security and the expectation of government in regard to Kosovo. NATO extrapolated a right to intervene on the basis of those principles. This point is significant. While the resolutions could not be construed to approve intervention, they did codify the non-power-based dimension of security and specified both governance and individuals as central concerns. The UN’s reference to “civilized conduct” is also important. This language was the first explicit reference to a previously implicit idea. In defining the humanitarian agenda the international community attached substantive criteria to sovereignty. Other cases had suggested this change. The reconstruction programs in earlier interventions rested on the perceived need to make government both effective and legitimate. But except in the case of Haiti, the UN avoided a position of judgment and did not offer clear standards of governance. Nor did it state outright that the extent of sovereign protections depended on demonstrating responsible governance. Members had implied that position, but it had not been part of official documents. The resolution on Kosovo clearly referred to a code of conduct and suggested that governments who did not measure up would forfeit some discretion. Annan’s comment that the FRY government had not fulfilled its “obligation” to its citizens also reflects the emerging standards. The biggest boost to NATO’s solidarity, however, came from Milosevic himself. The accelerated campaign to remove the Albanian

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population after the bombing began significantly strengthened member states’ commitment, ultimately leading to serious consideration of ground troops. The massive humanitarian crisis it created and the obvious violation of human rights solidified official and public perceptions of Milosevic as a tyrant and allowed a more solid commitment to the extended use of force. The facts on the ground made it increasingly easy to link NATO’s operations with the principles articulated by the Security Council. Close to a million refugees fled from Kosovo, encouraged by Serb militias using coercion and intimidation, including summary execution and rape. The claim that NATO’s action created the crisis was not seriously considered within the alliance, and has been undercut since the campaign ended.55 Although overwhelmed by the refugee situation, NATO members were increasingly convinced that they must not fail. Aside from consensus on the tragedy itself, consensus on NATO’s goals proved crucial in maintaining solidarity behind the operation. NATO’s initial objective of protecting the Albanians in the province could not be met once Serbia accelerated the ethnic cleansing. Realizing that this was a bigger fight than it had bargained for, in April NATO outlined five new objectives to which it adhered throughout the war. They were the same criteria Milosevic accepted on June : a verifiable stop to Serbian military action; the withdrawal of all Serbian military, police, and paramilitary forces; Serbian acceptance of an international military presence; the unconditional and safe return of all refugees and displaced persons; and an agreement from Milosevic to work toward a political settlement on the status of Kosovo. Once these demands were established, NATO members “decided that they could not afford to lose this war, even at the cost of a considerable expenditure of effort and blood if necessary.”56 They also refused to compromise. This was the rare case where international actors presented a united front and stuck to it throughout negotiations. Even Russia more or less toed the international line once it joined the diplomacy. This consistency was considered crucial in preventing Milosevic from dictating terms. Unable to control the process of negotiation, he ultimately had to acquiesce. Although NATO had not expected a real war and viewed force as a tool of diplomacy, the

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articulation of its demands proved crucial in the outlook of the alliance. The clarity of NATO’s position from April  on preserved its solidarity. Some fissures did develop, such as frustration over the United States using some of its aircraft independently, but the United States preserved agreement by, for the most part, avoiding targets that its allies had vetoed. This was an extraordinary commitment on the part of the alliance to defend principles regardless of the costs. That was also what led members to consider the ground option in May and June, when it appeared that air power alone might not be enough to force Milosevic to capitulate. President Clinton apparently concluded in May that the political costs of failure would be worse than the political costs of casualties.57 When responsibility shifted back to the Security Council after Milosevic accepted NATO’s demands, members considered the establishment of a civil administration their primary order of business. They did not, however, ignore the issue of sovereignty. Indeed they could not, since Kosovo was not an independent state like the other cases discussed here. Moreover, Russia and China insisted on recognition of Serbian sovereignty over the area. But in this case new security concerns overcame traditional norms. The importance of providing protection for individuals and legal rule for the province were explicitly considered to preempt the arguments of sovereignty. Said one member, “The shift from sovereignty to human rights spells uncertainty,” but “it seems inconceivable that respect for national sovereignty and territorial integrity could . . . prompt so many States to pursue such a mistaken policy.”58 Discussion on Kosovo truly ushered in a new period of international relations, albeit still one in transition. Consensus behind humanitarian concerns forced reconsideration of traditional expectations but with no easy answers as to how to treat competing claims. The debates show the entrenchment of the idea that protection of human rights requires international action but also discomfort regarding the implications of that approach for sovereignty. The Hungarian representative seems to have summed up the position of most members when he acknowledged the normative tensions but argued that not acting “would have sent a cancerous message attractive to emulate for some and fraught with unforeseeable consequences for the rest of us.”59

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The Security Council meeting that authorized UNMIK and KFOR was extremely important because it marked the clearest articulation of the sovereignty versus intervention dilemma to date. It also showed consensus falling quite firmly on the side of humanitarian and governance norms and shifting away from exclusively state-based interpretations of international relations. That explicit shift began in March, when members appealed to norms of human rights and law in refusing to condemn NATO’s bombing campaign.60 Although these trends had been implied by earlier Security Council actions, they did not gain full voice as integral to international security until . Discussions did not abandon the importance of state protections but sought to establish a balance between them and individual protections. The debates on UNMIK and KFOR thus tied the defense of human rights and standards of governance to the maintenance of security. All members recognized the enormity of the task but considered it critical not only for the future of Kosovo but for the continued establishment of emerging norms.61

Assessing Outcomes When the air war ended on June  the UN found itself in a new position. Created as an organization dedicated to reducing international war, it was now assuming control of an area to prevent internal war. UNSCR , passed that same day, established a governing charter for the province with a civil administration run by UNMIK and an international security presence led by NATO. KFOR troops entered the province on June , eventually reaching nearly fifty thousand strong.62 Responsibility for the success of reforms thus lay entirely with the UN. Unlike in Bosnia, where significant power was retained by or quickly given to Bosnians, the UN established a protectorate over Kosovo and took on the authority and power of the state. Kosovo’s long history of distrust and tension as described at the beginning of this chapter made the task extremely complex. Although Slobodan Milosevic may have done a great deal to inflame the salience of identity, in Kosovo the tensions he created built on a long legacy of repression and opposition.

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The task of stabilizing the province in light of the most recent violence therefore entails addressing the centuries’ long animosity and insecurity felt by both Serbs and Albanians in the province. The more immediate problem faced by international actors concerned the difficulty of reconstructing a separate entity within a sovereign state along lines not reflected in that state’s political structure. Resolution  is based on an ambiguous premise. The resolution confirms the importance of “substantial authority” and “meaningful self-administration” for Kosovo, but also recognizes it as a unit within the sovereignty of Serbia. The language reflected international uncertainty regarding the future of the province. International actors were reluctant to endorse independence but committed to resisting the imposition of Serbian control. Although they considered Kosovo part of Serbia, they also wanted to limit the latter’s power over its administration. The ambiguity has not yet been resolved, even after six years. While Serbia has pushed for autonomy within Serbia, the Kosovar Albanians have predictably insisted on independence. The international community has remained in between. To return Kosovo to Serbia’s control risks another humanitarian crisis; to allow it independence defies traditions of international law and would open a Pandora’s box of separatist claims.63 The ICG calls the status dilemma “a zero-sum game.”64 Provincewide elections were held in November , creating a local authority, but the international community never specified how far its writ might ultimately extend and gave it little power. The Albanian community is not supportive of protections for the Serb minority, and the Serbs still refuse to recognize the new political institutions and look to Belgrade for protection. The distance between the two sides was highlighted in the second general election of October . While the same three Albanian parties dominated the voting, the Kosovar Serbs boycotted, as encouraged by the Serbian government. The Economist estimates that less than one percent of Serbs voted; although they have ten reserved seats in parliament, it is not clear who if anyone will agree to participate.65 This is all the more important because final status talks are slated to begin in mid-, giving the newly elected government a potentially important voice.

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The indecision over final status significantly hampers progress toward reconstruction. The UN tried to justify the hesitation by adopting a “standards over status” approach, which established attainment of certain benchmarks, including functioning democratic institutions, rule of law, and freedom of movement, as necessary precursors to status talks. That made some sense because the UN was loathe to devolve power to any authority until certain expectations about inclusivity and minority protections could be met. Yet the refusal to make a final determination for Kosovo’s future made these standards harder to meet by giving both ethnic groups a reason to obstruct cooperation and consensus. Since both groups have different visions of the future, neither has an incentive to show it can or will work with the other. Moreover, Kosovo’s history made the prospect of cooperation even more unlikely. Each side fears being dominated, and the demographic imbalance within the province maximizes Serb insecurity. The polarized viewpoints, bolstered by historical and contemporary fears, make democratic standards nearly impossible to achieve. This problem has been particularly unfortunate because in other respects the international effort in Kosovo showed the benefit of experience. In drafting the terms of UNSCR , participants sought to avoid the problem of too many cooks that had so bedeviled early efforts in Bosnia. To complement the security efforts of KFOR, they streamlined the administrative structure in Kosovo, constructing four “pillars” under the control of UNMIK: humanitarian issues overseen by UNHCR, the civil administration run by UNMIK itself, democratization and institution building overseen by the OSCE, and economic reconstruction led by the EU. All pillars report to the special representative of the secretary-general (SRSG), the administrator of the entire civilian operation. KFOR operates independently, but here too lessons were learned from Bosnia. Its mandate was constructed so as to delineate a clear and active role in assisting civilian implementation, avoiding the claims, so often heard in Bosnia, that NATO’s duty was exclusively military. How well have NATO and the UN performed their tasks? KFOR succeeded in its three main tasks over the first year: monitoring the Serbian withdrawal, deterring new intervention, and demobilizing and

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disarming the KLA. But both NATO and the UN failed to protect minorities within Kosovo. Albanian refugees returned very soon after hostilities ceased, in far greater numbers and more quickly than had been expected. Their return touched off massive violence against the Serb population, which was at first spontaneous and then part of a more systematic pattern. The ICG criticizes international actors for not adopting a consistent approach in response and failing to provide aggressive protection for minorities.66 Half of the Serb population fled Kosovo in response to the violence, leaving only about one hundred thousand Serbs inhabiting various enclaves and the northern section of Mitrovica. The problem stemmed from a sense of entitlement among the KLA and the slowness of international deployment. The KLA felt it deserved power and sought to claim political and economic control. It was able to successfully entrench itself in many areas, taking over businesses and municipalities before international troops were deployed to fill the power vacuum. As a result, minorities still do not enjoy freedom of movement and Serbs face intimidation and discrimination. The election in  did not qualify as “free and fair” and was considered only “legitimate and credible”; the second round in  fared little better.67 The Serbs still refuse to participate in the political process and have their own shadow state linked to Belgrade. The city of Mitrovica symbolizes the division. Concerned with revenge attacks against Serbs, French KFOR troops partitioned the city using the Ibar River as a line of separation, with the Serbs to the north and the Albanians to the south. That isolated members of each group from their homes and increased tensions. It also cut off northern Kosovo from the rest of the province, creating a Serb enclave right on the borders of Serbia proper and thus more responsive to Belgrade than Pritina. At times KFOR has been forced to post twentyfour-hour guards around Serb churches and monasteries throughout Kosovo, and in some areas troops guard individual apartments and escort children to and from school. Serbs too are guilty of violence. One particularly infamous example is the “bridge watchers,” a group of several hundred men in Mitrovica “who monitor the bridge which separates the Serb and Albanian parts of the divided city. Equipped with Motorola radios and sometimes truncheons, they have engaged

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in and incited violence against Albanians and internationals.”68 Bernard Kouchner, the former SRSG and head of UNMIK, said of Kosovo, “Here I discovered hatred deeper than anywhere in the world, more than in Cambodia or Vietnam or Bosnia.”69 The violence that exploded in March  shows clearly how much tension remains. Serb and Roma homes were destroyed and hundreds of Serbs fled the province. The perceived lack of security for the Serb minority led directly to Belgrade’s call to boycott. Serb distrust of the peace process began long before, however, and stemmed from international errors that limited the potential for political partnership. KFOR’s and UNMIK’s failure to blame the KLA for revenge attacks inflamed the Serb population over the first year of deployment, convincing many that they could not survive within an Albanian-dominated Kosovo. The tepid international response seemed to give the Albanians the caution light for their attacks, since as early as September  it was clear that the violence was premeditated and based solely on ethnicity. International actors have also been slow to act against KLA-affiliated criminal economic networks. The fact that many former KLA became part of the new Kosovo Protection Corps (KPC) also caused problems. The KPC was designed to be a demilitarized successor to the KLA, functioning as an emergency response agency and assisting with humanitarian assistance and rebuilding of communities. Instead the KPC viewed itself as an army in waiting and was criticized for harassing, arresting, and detaining Serbs. Although the KLA described its actions as “informative talks,” they intruded on the sole authority of KFOR to arrest and detain. Some members of the international civilian police serving in Kosovo say the KPC’s Albanian acronym, TMK, stands for “thugs mugging Kosovars.”70 One reason KFOR and UNMIK failed to go after perpetrators of violence more aggressively was that for a long time they had no way to deal with them. The justice system fell apart completely when the Serbs left. Not only did the judges leave, so did the computers, telephones, and basic tools of the trade. There was also no applicable code of law. UNMIK originally declared that law would follow the codes in force on March , , the day before NATO began bombing—that meant the law established under Belgrade’s military rule. After Al-

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banian protests against “Serb” laws, UNMIK adopted the code in place in March . This decision was not made until December , however, six months into international administration. Albanians took advantage of the vacuum to assert control over the system. Even after the laws were changed, judicial procedures remained dominated by Albanians and biased against Serbs, forcing the appointment of international judges and prosecutors in October  to complement their local counterparts. The international community has been loath to make a decision on status because of fears that it could destabilize reforms elsewhere in the region, particularly in Serbia. But avoiding the issue has only made both sides more adamant. Moreover, the current Albanian administration has made no effort to accommodate minorities or meet certain standards of governance imposed by UNMIK. Reform cannot move forward without the development of confidence-building measures between the two groups, meaning Kosovo will remain in its current state of informal partition. At present some of the central concepts of conflict resolution—developing informal interactions and creating space for each side to express its needs—cannot be implemented. The ICG describes this process as a civic contract and argues that UNMIK must address insecurities in part by establishing a framework for coexistence.71 The Serbs and Albanians currently have two completely different narratives for survival, with no overlap. Trust is nonexistent, both between Albanians and Serbs and between Serbs and the international community, and both sides have chosen exclusion as the best way to promote their ends. UNMIK and KFOR both changed the scope of intervention still further and raised new questions about its propriety. The style of trusteeship now operating in Kosovo is more aggressive and all-encompassing than the intervention in Bosnia. While the latter seeks to facilitate rebuilding and reconciliation, the former retains sole responsibility for making reconstruction a reality. That is why the enduring problems are so critical—the UN cannot lay the blame anywhere else. Unlike Bosnia, in Kosovo “the UN is directly responsible for administering justice. Neither the OSCE nor the UN can just sit back and criticize the ‘authorities’ for bias or failure to comply with international standards;

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the UN is the state and must guarantee fair trials, access to counsel . . . and utter fairness.”72 The depth of the societal division is a serious problem for UNMIK and KFOR because it affects all areas of reform. Integration and inclusion are not the preference of the local parties, and little has changed in that regard over five years. Kosovo highlights the dissonance between international positions based on peace and justice and local positions based on fear and power. The two do not mix well. The international community has pushed the local groups in directions they are reluctant to go, and there is as yet no indication that the effort can be successful. This clash between what are essentially normative views and realist perspectives is the main impediment to successful intervention. The international community still has not developed effective strategies for inculcating norms in severely divided societies, and whether it can do so remains an important question. NATO’s  intervention in Kosovo was the largest combat operation in the organization’s history, and it was waged with humanitarian objectives. That says quite a bit about the conceptual and practical shift in intervention since the end of the Cold War. An alliance associated exclusively with realpolitik and international deterrence undertook military action, at high financial and political cost, on behalf of humanitarian interests. It is now pursuing a long-term rehabilitation program in order to establish accountable governance and rule of law. Although NATO members may have hoped to enhance their own status by participating, that status was based on their willingness to use force for humanitarian interests. That NATO acted outside the bounds of the UN Security Council was even more significant. In other eras its deployment might have been considered extremely provocative or destabilizing. By  it merely raised debate about international law. Its intervention has since been judged legitimate, albeit illegal, as a last-resort approach to dealing with humanitarian crisis. To say that any group should now be allowed to intervene on such grounds pushes the precedent too far, but NATO demonstrated that a moral argument backed with sound reasoning, extensive resort to other methods, and a record of consistent UN opinion on the matter can be viewed as appropriate. Moreover, the rhetoric of Tony Blair, Bill

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Clinton, and other NATO leaders forced more extensive debate on intervention among policymakers and international officials. There is now recognition that the new role and purpose of intervention should be reconsidered within the context of international law and institutional authority. The divide between normative expectations of leadership and the ability of nations to defend those norms must be addressed. Failure to do so risks destroying the emerging consensus and limits nations’ ability to pursue humanitarian interests. The establishment of a UN protectorate over Kosovo was also a new step for intervention. UNMIK moved one step beyond Bosnia by taking control of state functions and making the UN the ruler of Kosovo. Unfortunately, it also presented a more difficult challenge when the international community had not been successful at meeting lesser ones. UNMIK and KFOR have a long way to go to bring stability to Kosovo, which is unlikely to become a multiethnic society. With hard work and years of commitment, it may become a stable society. Six years into the rehabilitation effort, insecurity and division still characterize Kosovar life. Much of the hostility can be traced back to the failure to articulate a clear end point for Kosovo. This allows extremist elements to play on Kosovars’ fears and allows Serbian shadow structures to persist in the divided northern region of Kosovo, which remains beyond UNMIK control. At present, intervention risks drifting from conflict resolution to occupation. The imminent negotiations on final status might help restore some legitimacy to the intervention, but new problems are likely to arise since the local government has not achieved the standards established by UNMIK and it does not include Serbs. Nonetheless, the desire to ensure that reforms are solidly entrenched must be weighed against the desire, indeed the right, of Kosovars to take control of their own government.

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 Conclusions

T   have told a story of change. Globalization changed the nature of the state by making borders more permeable and creating new standards of legitimacy. It also changed the nature of the international community by broadening the consensus on liberal ideas and making issues like human rights and conflict resolution a central part of the international agenda. The changes affected both those governments experiencing crisis and those merely observing it. Each was held to a standard of responsibility that placed more emphasis on the protection of individuals than on the prerogatives of states. The practice of intervention changed as a result and became part of conflict resolution approaches that, in extreme cases, required military force to end violence and provide support for reconstruction programs. An act long considered aggressive and illegal was reborn as part of an international strategy to build both intra- and interstate peace, moving from banned to desired, manipulative to constructive in the space of a decade. At the same time the use of force without institutional approval or a widely shared objective became discredited. While a traditionally banned use of force became accepted, therefore, a traditionally accepted form became suspect.

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Taken all together these changes reflected a normative revolution that seemed to raise principle above power and redefine legitimacy in the context of responsibility. Some of the basic expectations of international relations—state behavior, law, and norms—changed in the process. The changes did not come as a single event or decision but instead evolved through a series of cases that gradually altered the structure and objectives of intervention. Three cases in particular represent significant jumps in terms of that evolution. Somalia established the link between humanitarian objectives and military force. Bosnia connected military intervention to nation building and long-term reconstruction efforts. And Kosovo forced direct consideration of the theoretical issues connected to intervention, such as the meaning of sovereignty, legitimacy, and security. These cases punctuated a trend that moved intervention away from its traditional uses; rather than primarily benefiting the intervenor, operations were intended to benefit the target. By the time the international community intervened in East Timor in  the relevance of humanitarian concerns was widely accepted, as was the right of international actors to interfere in cases of “compelling human need.”1 In the case of East Timor these trends are particularly striking. Justification for the International Force for East Timor (INTERFET) was explicitly based on humanitarian arguments, even though international actors could have appealed to the claim of self-determination for the East Timorese, thereby returning security issues to the more traditional realm of the state. Instead they kept the focus on individuals, emphasizing human rights and standards of governance as keystones of security and legitimizing intervention on that basis. Several participants in Security Council debates juxtaposed Indonesia’s failure to fulfill its sovereign “responsibilities” with the international community’s “absolute duty” to end the violence.2 The language of responsibility was strikingly different from that used in past debates on Somalia or Haiti, or even Bosnia. In the view of Martha Finnemore, intervention is driven by shared norms and principles related to humanitarian standards and multilateralism and is “shaped by shared notions about when the use of force is legitimate and appropriate.”3 The consensus behind INTERFET and

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its companion UN Transitional Authority in East Timor rested on three critical concepts that had developed through the previous cases: the link between human security and international security, the importance of using intervention for rehabilitation, and the idea of international responsibility for developing and maintaining standards of governance. Though participants acknowledged the tension humanitarian rationales caused for sovereignty, they operated on a consensus that some state behaviors should not be protected. The international agreement on principles was reflected when the Spanish representative to the Security Council asked in connection to East Timor, “How is it possible that the international community and the United Nations . . . can allow these atrocities to take place and permit the derailing of a process in which they are actively involved?”4 Even some unlikely suspects support and promote these principles. NATO, previously a symbol of traditional security interests, has made a commitment to military intervention and nation building. Although it still serves to defend its members, NATO also acts occasionally as a security arm of the UN when force is needed to establish the conditions necessary for effective conflict resolution. IFOR was a relatively radical step for NATO and instigated an expansion of the organization’s objectives. By taking over ISAF and venturing out of Europe, NATO reinforced the link between intervention, conflict resolution, and reconstruction, even though its deployment remains limited. All these events reflect a complete about-face in the practice and perception of intervention. Liberian citizens even specifically asked for US intervention, and the UN discussed the possibility of establishing a UN protectorate in the country; although neither happened, the discussions themselves are significant. But how deep do these changes really go? While acknowledging that humanitarian interests play a powerful role, Marten also points to security interests driving intervention in several cases, notably the concerns of refugee hosts in Haiti and the Balkans, NATO credibility in Kosovo, and refugees and regional policy in East Timor. To this we could add resources and regional dominance in Sierra Leone, and US credibility in Somalia. Marten points to these issues partly to demonstrate that ethical norms and security concerns are not mutually ex-

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clusive considerations, and partly to explain the selectivity of intervention. This claim that the security interests of powerful states are the real catalysts for intervention becomes even stronger when considering the notable places where intervention did not occur, such as Rwanda in , or where it was relatively minimal, Liberia in  and Sudan in . Both Rwanda and Sudan presented situations of overwhelming humanitarian catastrophe, yet the great powers ignored a substantial body of evidence predicting Rwanda’s collapse and have engaged primarily in hand-wringing over Sudan. In some sense the absence of intervention in these cases may be easy to explain. No great powers hosted refugee populations from either country, and no regional hegemon or organization had a stake in proving its credibility as measured by the ability to address crises. No security interests, no intervention. Yet the answer is not that simple. The failure of responsibility in Rwanda resulted from a lack of will as well as a lack of time. Every case study in this book includes the former, at least at the outset. International responses then came reluctantly, after time had passed, problems had worsened, alternatives diminished, and demands increased. In each case the protracted nature of the conflict eventually forced two realizations: that something should be done and that outsiders would have to do it. But that consensus took two years in Somalia and Kosovo, three in Haiti and Bosnia, and six in Sierra Leone. Rwanda’s crisis, by contrast, lasted three months from the time the cease-fire fell apart until the Tutsi rebels took over the government. The great powers certainly preferred not to get involved, but they were also spared ongoing debate because the crisis resolved itself relatively quickly. Daniel Philpott argues that the ostensible security concerns in most cases of intervention are indirect and do not compel states to act for national interest.5 In his calculation the issues at stake are not commensurate with the costs and risks of military action. The length of time required to build support for intervention lends support to this claim, as it suggests that it is a reluctant choice. States would prefer to do less rather than more and move toward aggressive responses only as that position becomes difficult to sustain. Time may therefore explain some of the failure in Rwanda, but what of Sudan? The ongoing conflict and humanitarian emergency in

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the Darfur region has received ample media coverage, been described by the US Congress as genocide, and been the subject of intense Security Council debate. The population has been directly targeted for violence, and the access of relief organizations has been strictly controlled by the Sudanese government. Most international actors consider the problem at best to be one of ethnic cleansing perpetrated by a government proxy, yet no major powers have offered to lead a force in the name of humanitarian values. Several hypotheses are possible to explain this inaction. First, perhaps Sudan is truly a case where no security interests exist, leading great powers to seek low-cost, loweffort solutions. Without resources, difficult refugee issues, or strategic advantage, Sudan offers little reason for Western action. None of the P are directly affected, and even regional actors see no real benefit to be obtained by intervention. In such cases, it is far easier to rely on talk as a solution than to commit military forces. This is certainly a plausible reason for the lack of action, but so too are the other reasons offered below, demonstrating that the choices are not simple, even in the direst of circumstances. Second, it may be that international actors feel that all other options have not yet been exhausted. This is the unusual case, as in Kosovo, where a recognized government exists but is under pressure due to its treatment of a particular region. As with Kosovo, therefore, more importance is placed on negotiation because there is an entity to negotiate with. International actors tend to believe that reason and moderate pressure will convince a government to alter its policies, and they tend to rely disproportionately on verbal agreement rather than substantive action as a reason to continue negotiation. They also would prefer not to take forceful action, so diplomacy is a way of maintaining engagement but at minimal cost. The Khartoum government has played the game well so far by agreeing to control the situation in Darfur and then doing little, thereby creating space for delays of verification and further negotiation. The prospect of agreement drives further international diplomacy. This approach was recently criticized by a Washington Post editorial, however, as “a triumph of hope over experience.”6 The elixir of hope does much to explain why intervention is so often long in coming.

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Third, sovereignty poses an obstacle, again because a government exists. It is well known that China opposes uninvited intervention into a sovereign state. If a state offered to lead an intervention and the Security Council pushed the matter, a veto would be likely. Although legitimacy would likely be accorded any intervention in this case, on the basis of compelling humanitarian need, the lack of Security Council authority means that another organization or individual nation would have to build a coalition. That could serve as a deterrent because the costs are higher outside the UN setting, and the financial basis less secure. Legality would also be in question, although the debate would likely be muted. Moreover, building a coalition might itself be difficult, because concern over the violation of sovereignty provides a strong deterrent to international action. As the cases discussed here demonstrate, states are reluctant to sanction violations of sovereignty and only acquiesce when the problem is absent, as in Somalia and Bosnia, or where time has allowed an extreme justification to develop in spite of sovereignty, as in Kosovo. The fourth possibility derives from the third—the great powers are reluctant to intrude without invitation, particularly because the Sudanese government has made clear that it would treat humanitarian intervention as an invasion and has strictly controlled all access to the region. For this reason the Security Council has tried to enlist the African Union as a first responder in order to develop a response more acceptable to Sudan and increase regional pressure on the government. A small AU force deployed to Darfur in late , but its mandate is limited and its strength in the spring of  was well below the stillinsufficient target of , members. A UN peacekeeping mission was authorized in March , as part of the north-south peace agreement, but its mandate quite controversially did not cover the Darfur region. No one in Africa or the West wants outside troops to have to fight government sanctioned militias or to directly oppose the government. Khartoum’s intransigence creates a dilemma, therefore, between doing nothing or inciting violence against the intervention itself. Finally, the Sudanese government has leveraged international pressure on Darfur against the ongoing negotiations to end the decadeslong civil war between the north and the south, suggesting that too

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much of the former could jeopardize the latter. Khartoum’s hint that it deserves some leniency on Darfur because it is making compromises in the larger and longer north-south conflict has made some diplomats wary of pressing the Darfur issue, especially because significant steps have been made toward resolving the larger war and because peace finally does seem possible. Although Secretary-General Kofi Annan has tried to link the two issues, the Sudanese government has tried to delink them, a tactic successful insofar as it has increased international disagreement over how to handle the issue. The government and southern rebels signed a peace agreement in January , and there is some hope that the presence of UN troops in Sudan will gradually help develop a stronger consensus on Darfur. Although the pressure on Sudan increased in April, when the Security Council agreed to tighten an existing arms embargo and refer the Darfur crisis to the International Criminal Court, the Khartoum government rejected those decisions, as well as a demand that it submit a report on its compliance with UN human rights standards. These hypotheses show that intervention is not always dependent exclusively on international commitment to norms but is the product of numerous considerations. While humanitarian needs create a rationale for intervention, political and logistical concerns are also relevant. That does not mean that interest prevails, but that practical considerations of what can be done or how intervention might be received are important. When no government exists in the target state, or it has been usurped, the choices may be simpler, as there is no political entity to invite or oppose action and considerations of sovereignty are largely removed. That was true in most cases discussed here. Obviously intervention can still take place when a sovereign state does exist, and Marten might say the fact that it has not happened in Sudan indicates the lack of security interests there. Perhaps. But the lack of response also shows the logistical difference between deploying force in Europe, with nearby air and ground bases, and deploying them in the Horn of Africa, where that support is minimal. In such cases the AU may be a more reasonable choice, if it is capable, for both logistical and political reasons. This case demonstrates two enduring international problems: first, that the restrictions of law are

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not consistent with the demands of principle, as the sovereignty issue shows; and second, that the need for conflict resolution far outstrips the capacity. That is partly though not entirely a problem of will, because the world is just too big for a small number of countries, or even the UN, to be capable of responding to every crisis. Developing the conflict resolution capacities of organizations like the AU, from diplomacy to intervention, should therefore be a priority for the future. There is also the reverse side of the coin, which in many ways is more perplexing. Afghanistan represents a case where security interests seem to be clear, particularly for the United States, because of its terrorist connections and the permissive environment it creates for all manner of illegal transnational networks. Although it has certainly been a target of intervention, somewhat paradoxically that intervention has not had either the military or the economic support it needs to be successful. NATO’s forces have remained largely confined to Kabul, and though it began somewhat wider deployment in the fall of , ISAF has not addressed the least secure areas of the country or confronted the power of the warlords. Similarly, financial assistance for economic and political rehabilitation has been well under the minimum levels deemed necessary. Some progress has certainly been made, but security has also been allowed to decline, the central government still has limited control, and numerous warlords have asserted independent legitimacy and authority.7 Haiti presents a similar problem, again in spite of at least tenuous US security interests in preventing refugee flows. Although the United States has used military force to quell crises twice, it has also done little to assist in moving Haiti toward stability. The ICG warns that the US failure to disarm rebel groups in  has put Haiti at risk of becoming a permanently failed state.8 At present the country is drifting toward anarchy, with increasing violence and limited reform. This follows a surprising pattern noted by Marten in her examination of colonial intervention—will and commitment are often limited, even in cases where nations believe they have a direct security interest at stake. This is quite a paradox and further confuses the relevance of interest in assessing intervention. Though it may have an effect on

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motivation, it does not seem to have the expected effect on will, making the cases of aggressive and protracted reform even more noteworthy. Nations are no more likely than you or I to do things that run counter to their interests, so in any action we can find motivations that relate to a perceived benefit for the actor. But to point to that as the compelling reason for action may vastly overstate the case, because the participants in intervention spend tremendous sums of money and effort for, at best, limited reward. As Philpott points out, whatever security interests may exist are not the kind “that realists expect as occasions of intervention.”9 The fact that nations nevertheless assume the costs, even at levels below those deemed necessary to create sustainable reform, speaks to the perceived importance of humanitarian norms. At the same time, intervention remains both controversial and contradictory. It doesn’t always happen when it should, and sometimes it happens when it shouldn’t. And, even if it is true that humanitarian interests motivate action, states still try their hardest to ignore or avoid those interests because the problems are big, the costs too high, and the logistics too complex. Each case discussed here reflects this conflict between demands and preferences. Intervention is to some extent a compound of contradictions, with states often trying to resist international expectations. Some scholars therefore question the enduring relevance of principles as a motivation, arguing that the brief ascendancy of normative and cooperative interests is now over. John Gray, for example, describes the post–Cold War era as “an interregnum between two eras of conflict.”10 Others suggest that we have moved into a post-post–Cold War phase in which power politics again dominate.11 These viewpoints tend to focus on September  as a system-transforming moment and argue that the new system, though still somewhat undefined, increases the relevance of security concerns while decreasing the relative salience of other international issues. By placing security again at the forefront of international concerns, therefore, particularly for the United States, September  seemed to replace liberal and normative trends with realist ones. That might suggest that the humanitarian and multilateral norms discussed here were more of a luxury indulged at a time when central actors faced minimal threat than evidence of a significant change in state behavior.

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To some extent events bear this out. The United States focused on national protection in response to September , reviving the concept of a hostile world and promoting security imperatives to justify an assertive foreign policy. The full-scale reassertion of power politics came in March , when the United States invaded Iraq in the face of international criticism. The US administration described the operation as a preventive strike in the name of human rights and collective security to force regime change in Iraq, free its citizens from the rule of Saddam Hussein, and prevent him from aiding and abetting terrorists. But the Security Council and NATO divided over the issue, providing no institutional legitimacy for the action and forcing the United States to assemble what it termed a coalition of the willing. Any commitment the major powers, particularly the United States, may have had to multilateralism broke down as states argued over whether American or Iraqi behavior was the greater threat to the normative order. The controversy pitted Germany, France, and Russia against the United States and raised fears that US power would make the UN irrelevant. A new challenge, so-called megaterrorism, therefore seemed to revive old behaviors and reassert the logic of power and national interest at the expense of cooperation and restraint.12 But the situation was a bit more complex and does not necessarily indicate a rejection of liberal norms and a return to the unbridled pursuit of power. The US action defied global opinion and was considered by many to violate international law. Although the Bush administration pointed to Iraq’s undisputed record of defying UN resolutions, its main critics at the UN did not agree that enforcement was an appropriate response. US policy therefore contradicted several normative expectations developed over the last decade, including limitations on the use of force, emphasis on multilateral action, the UN as legitimizing agent, and the use of intervention to rebuild collapsed states rather than to force collapse. But in some curious ways the intervention also demonstrated the strength of the very norms it contradicted. When examined more closely, the norms promoting institutional sanction and multilateralism shaped how the United States approached the issue, in spite of its original preferences, and the aftermath of the war has reaffirmed the importance of the UN

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and the legitimacy it conveys. The US action also paradoxically reinforced norms of humanitarian intervention and international law through the postconflict peace-building process. Although the specifics are controversial, the goal of building a more transparent and accountable state fits within the broader humanitarian agenda. Even the nations most opposed to the invasion have supported the concept of political reform and applauded the capture of Saddam Hussein, indicating some consensus on overall objectives if not the approach used to attain them. The US invasion therefore falls into a strange purgatory, largely undercutting restraining norms in the manner and political interests for which it was undertaken yet supporting humanitarian norms in the goals it seeks to attain. In assessing the effects of September , Richard Falk predicted that one cost of America’s response would be “the damage done to the global normative order consisting of international law, prudent limits on warmaking, the authority of the UN, the promotion of human rights and democracy, as well as other widely endorsed precepts of international morality.”13 The debate on military action in Iraq seemed to support this prediction, particularly from the European perspective. George W. Bush tried to cast it as a case of prevention aimed at stopping the unlawful use of force (possession of weapons of mass destruction, assistance to terrorists, and state violence against citizens), but few agreed with his claims. Tony Blair’s explanation of the humanitarian imperative was more compelling but still highly disputed. Though bodies such as the ICISS have defined prevention as an acceptable reason for intervention, they have connected that justification closely to cases of immediate or impending humanitarian crisis.14 The US attempt to paint Iraq as a norm violator fell flat largely because none of the regime’s transgressions at the time of the invasion provided an unambiguous imperative for intervention. Saddam Hussein’s most egregious crimes against human rights had occurred over a decade earlier, as had his attempts at territorial expansion. He had done nothing new in  to create an imminent threat. Moreover, plenty of other places, including the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Liberia, presented conditions that seemed to require more immediate application of international muscle.

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The controversy in the UN, therefore, centered on power versus principle. The United States made two claims: that Saddam Hussein had to be dealt with immediately and that force was necessary to eliminate the potential threat posed by his regime.15 France, Germany, and Russia insisted conversely on adherence to UN processes, international law, and cooperative diplomacy. Their counterpoints to US policy were both specific and general; while they argued specifically that Iraq was best dealt with multilaterally and diplomatically, they also argued generally that the US commitment to a military approach was destroying the normative order and undermining international law and organizations. This was a case where shared conceptions about the appropriate use of force fell apart because the compelling humanitarian need was low while the sovereignty claims were considered high. In insisting that the UN was the only appropriate framework, French president Jacques Chirac stated, “France is not pacificist. We are not anti-American either. . . . But we just feel that there is another option, another way, another more normal way, a less dramatic way than war.”16 In some sense this statement reflected the general reluctance to endorse intervention in the cases throughout this book and the reliance on diplomacy as a solution. In Europe’s case the debate showed some agreement on the appropriate use of force. The ICISS defines a “just cause threshold” that sanctions military intervention as “an exceptional and extraordinary measure. To be warranted, there must be serious and irreparable harm occurring to human beings, or immediately likely to occur.”17 The commission defines large-scale loss of life and large-scale ethnic cleansing, including forced expulsion and rape, as legitimate triggering events. It also outlines three specific responsibilities of the international community: the responsibility to prevent, to react, and to rebuild. The cases discussed earlier show that intervention usually comes only after a specific and extreme cause is widely known and documented. Reaction is what states do best. Prevention is the most difficult of the three “responsibilities” to fulfill because states rarely agree on circumstances until they are confronted with overwhelming and clear evidence. Only as the extent of a problem becomes apparent does international opinion gradually endorse the need for force and build

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consensus on that basis. The grounds for justifying prevention are particularly difficult because the ICISS report makes clear that the precipitating cause for intervention must be in the process of occurring (as in Bosnia or Sierra Leone) or imminent (as in Kosovo). In Iraq the Bush administration had no definitive crisis on which to build consensus for either prevention or reaction. Although it claimed that Iraq was an imminent threat, its claim of immediacy had little concrete support. For many, oil rather than principle seemed most relevant in the US approach, suggesting that the normative changes discussed in reference to intervention were shallow at best. Powerful domestic interests were assumed to drive US policy, accompanied by a somewhat cavalier attitude to divergent viewpoints. Falk draws a clear distinction between US action in Afghanistan and the invasion of Iraq, arguing that the former was appropriate within a just-war framework while the latter was not. On the day the US invasion began, Russian president Vladimir Putin described the United States as the true violator of norms: “This military action is being carried out in defiance of world public opinion, in defiance of the principles and norms of international law and the UN charter. This military action can be in no way justified—neither by accusations against Iraq of supporting terrorism . . . nor by the desire to change the political regime in that country, which directly contradicts international law.”18 The US action therefore seemed to contradict the development traced here concerning multilateral action and the use of intervention to serve collective and humanitarian interests. Mohammed Ayoob argues that US behavior undermined the normative consensus at the center of the post–Cold War international order and demonstrated that the UN only matters “when it does Washington’s bidding.”19 But considered one by one, the rejection of the new norms was not nearly as complete, or as obvious, as many assumed. The very actions that seemed to indicate the irrelevance of organizations and collective principles also created conditions that demonstrated their importance. The clearest rejection of contemporary norms came in terms of limitations on the use of force outside of institutional sanction. The United States made clear from the start of the international debate

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that it would not be constrained by lack of UN support, reinforcing a point administration officials had made during the election campaign.20 The refusal to be bound by institutional preference was all the more apparent because NATO also declined to endorse US policy. In the most contentious case of potential intervention before Iraq—Kosovo—NATO had supported intervention and claimed legitimacy in lieu of the Security Council. Arguing that the veto power of the permanent members should not prevent important humanitarian actions, NATO leaders assumed a right to represent a broad consensus on behalf of intervention. That action was later approved on the grounds that the structure of the Security Council and privileges of the permanent members can inhibit the pursuit of principles recognized as collective goods, specifically humanitarian concerns, thereby justifying extraordinary measures. Political allegiances had prevented an authorizing resolution for intervention in Kosovo but did not affect the overall justifications for the action. The evidence of state violence against citizens was undisputed, even by the states that opposed intervention. The Bush administration used that precedent to claim a right of force based on the number of Security Council resolutions broken by Iraq and the failure of the Security Council to enforce its rulings. Bush referred to ten previous resolutions that Iraq had defied, circumvented, or observed selectively, focusing specifically on Resolutions  and  (of November  and April , respectively) as providing authorization to force Iraq’s compliance with international demands. Like NATO three years earlier, Bush argued that international resolutions are not particularly useful unless someone gives them teeth and forces states to meet their obligations. He also used the case to push the corresponding claim that politics limit the UN’s effectiveness. Therefore, norms can sometimes be defended only by individual states acting outside the UN but in defense of its principles, a claim generally supported by the findings of the independent commission that examined the Kosovo case. Bush felt so strongly about the case, according to Edward Luck, that he genuinely believed he could persuade the Security Council to support the US vision for Iraq.21

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But in the case of Iraq no consensus existed on the precipitating crisis. France, Germany, and a host of other states, along with the secretary-general, questioned the humanitarian justifications for intervention as well as the problem of weapons of mass destruction (WMD), since neither their existence nor their imminent use could be proven. The British reliance on human rights arguments showed a convergence with its NATO allies on humanitarian need as a justification, as well as substantial divergence on the intensity necessary to trigger intervention. The United States could not provide incontrovertible evidence to back up its claims that Iraq provided support to terrorists, and evidence of coordinated state violence against citizens was quite dated. Without an extreme and obvious emergency, few nations were willing to risk the costs, financial and otherwise, to intervene. Moreover, France and Germany insisted that diplomatic pressure and a reorganized UN approach would achieve the desired goals. While most NATO members had agreed before Kosovo that all alternative means had been exhausted, many did not believe that in the case of Iraq. When the United States intervened, it did so clearly outside the boundaries of approved international action and accordingly came under heavy criticism from its Security Council and NATO peers. The case of the other relevant norms, however, is not nearly so contradictory. Contrary to President Bush’s original claim, the lone superpower could not completely go it alone. Indeed, the United States found that other nations gave its position little credence unless backed by, at the very least, an appropriate diplomatic process. Some parts of the administration felt strongly that the United States needed to seek a solution through the UN process first, partly because it was expected if not demanded by potential allies. This is also why the administration made frequent reference to Security Council resolutions. Placing the proposed intervention into a normative framework was crucial for building legitimacy. The fact that the United States clearly wanted a particular outcome (and the one least preferred at the UN) makes its recourse to the UN all the more striking. Regardless of the US view on the matter, the administration recognized that it could not claim to be legitimate without using legitimate channels. Shared principles as expressed through the UN shaped US actions by placing a premium 

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on attempting other options (inspections) and forcing the United States to seek institutional support first. The inspections process both helped and hurt the United States, by providing another example of Iraqi intransigence even while failing to uncover solid evidence of weapons. Numerous observers, including a former arms inspector, suggested that the episode showcased the irrelevance of the UN, but six months (the length of the diplomatic process) is a long time to work for the approval of an organization that supposedly does not matter.22 Moreover, France and Germany lobbied as effectively in New York as the United States did and were able to gain many adherents to the claim that legitimacy and law are essential. The importance of institutional sanction shaped how and where the United States framed the issue, while commitment to multilateralism and the avoidance of force formed an identity for other states to rally around in opposition to US demands. Though some may have adopted the latter position for purely tactical reasons, others truly promoted those principles. The US approach was tactical too, in that it viewed the UN as a means to an end; the United States apparently wanted the organization primarily for its laundering value. But the episode is still revealing because in some sense it proved that although the UN may not matter to the United States, it does matter to the rest of the world. That lesson continues to be proven in the reconstruction period, as other nations have refused to act without UN approval. A skeptic might say that the United States simply needed six more months to prepare its military strategy and that it used the UN process to gain preparation time. While that may be true, the circumstances also reinforced the fact that, like it or not, the UN is an important international actor and provides a means of countering both political and military strength. Although in the end the United States relied on its unilateral interest and superior power, it could not avoid seeking institutional legitimacy. Moreover, it engaged in a bargaining competition in which the limits of its power were clearly on display. The United States could not win the support of its NATO allies, and when tallying prospective votes in the Security Council it could not even get Mexico on its side. Many states rejected its version of global security and refused to be cowed by US threats. The UN served its role

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both by providing a means of assessing the legitimacy of US claims and giving states a means of opposing the hegemon. Two things were evident throughout the diplomatic process: the UN does matter, even for the most powerful; and a wide array of states now helps to determine legitimacy. The US effort to obtain UN support reinforced the organization’s relevance even while demonstrating its ultimate inability to enforce the limitation of power. The Security Council debate demonstrates, as the peace-building process has in even more decisive fashion, the truth of German foreign minister Joschka Fischer’s claim that “despite the capabilities of the US, America needs the UN. And vice versa.”23 Furthermore, the United States had to find some substitute for the organization’s approval. Multilateralism became more important as the possibility of institutional support waned. There are many benefits to acting with allies, and sharing costs is one of them. Realism argues that this is one important function of alliances. But there was more to it. The United States could have acted alone with a reasonable expectation of winning the war and then not had to worry about coddling partners or sharing the spoils. According to Chantal de Jonge Oudraat, Kosovo taught the United States the drawbacks of waging war by committee.24 Since it had a strong view of what it wanted post-Hussein Iraq to look like, acting alone would have ensured that the intervention would serve US interests. And yet that was not really a serious option. After failing to gain Security Council authority, the United States focused on creating an ad hoc coalition to support its Iraq policy. While recognizing the UN as the option of first resort, the United States leaned on the Kosovo example to suggest that legitimacy can be determined by consensus rather than organizational sanction. That position coincides with the argument made by Falk and others that many of the new challenges to international security, including internal conflict and international terrorism, cannot be adequately addressed by the current structure of rules and organizations.25 Having multilateral backing allowed the United States to claim that the UN’s failure to act was a failure of responsibility and that its own action supported normative principles when the outdated bureaucracy of the UN could not. The Bush administration posed a question that

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has long bedeviled international organizations—what good is a regulatory institution that cannot or will not enforce its regulations? The question had been implied in Bosnia and every case of intervention since. In response the United States portrayed itself as a promoter of collective goods by claiming that intervention would make the world safer for all nations by addressing the WMD threat. By contrast it suggested the UN was weak, even similar to the League of Nations, in its failure to act.26 The US effort to assemble the coalition tells us something about its perceived freedom of action.27 The administration felt strongly about removing Saddam Hussein and knew it had the military power, yet it could not act alone. Perhaps more important, the importance of maintaining British support moderated the US approach somewhat, particularly after Saddam Hussein’s government fell. Finally, the US action confirmed the commitment to use intervention to rebuild collapsed states. The fact that in this case the rebuilder was also the destroyer represented a departure from previous interventions, but even so the action reflected the normative expectation of peace and nation building that has developed alongside humanitarian intervention. The speedy conclusion of the war shifted attention from the legitimacy of the invasion to the importance of reconstruction. On that topic the divisions over the war itself were much less apparent. French foreign minister Dominique de Villepin said of the rehabilitation effort, “We consider the duty of the whole international community to act pragmatically and . . . try to turn its attention to the problems of the Iraqi people.”28 The postwar debate on the purposes of the United States has been relatively limited, although its methods have generated controversy. The current concern is less that the United States is trying to establish an empire than that it will do a poor or incomplete job of reconstruction, leaving Iraq fractious, weak, and prone to violence. The fact that political rehabilitation is moving slowly and security has not yet been achieved has only increased international fears. Although states such as France and Germany disagree with the United States over how to balance US control with local interests and the role of the UN, all agree that international actors should assume responsibility for making the state work.

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Shortly after the war ended Joschka Fischer described the need to win the peace as a “common task,” with all states likely to feel the consequences of failure.29 It is easy to dismiss this apparent acquiescence simply as a means to avoid being sidelined any further. Having read the writing on the wall, France, Germany, and Russia wanted to make sure they had a stake in what happened next. Significantly, however, they continued to insist on multilateral, institutional processes and have refused to join the effort without a clear delineation of UN involvement. Even contracts and economic rewards did not sway their positions. Their demands led to some important US concessions in UNSCR  (June ), affirming the need for international involvement, giving the interim government some say over the coalition’s action, and setting a deadline for withdrawal.30 They also lobbied effectively (aided by opposition within Iraq) for UN control of political rehabilitation. The controversy over Iraq is not simply a struggle for influence, therefore, but a disagreement over how to build a stable, effective, and legitimate government. When doing so might be justified is also a source of debate. The criticisms and concerns are atypical of those attached to intervention in the past. External actors do not disagree on what should be done—they all endorse a more representative, respectful, and accountable Iraq. The source of controversy is how to get there, particularly the proper balance between external and local control. The unifying problem in this case is that Saddam Hussein did not meet the emerging standards of responsible government that are associated with formal and informal normative trends. Developing a government for Iraq that is limited by the rule of law both domestically and internationally is an objective with wide support. Although the rationale for pushing regime change may have been weak, the rationale for reconstructing Iraq has more legitimacy. Even the European governments most opposed to the war openly criticized Iraq’s dictatorship and, after its collapse, noted that Iraq might now look forward to a better future. Hussein’s regime may not have provided a rationale for intervention, at least in , but it did fall well outside emerging conceptions of responsible governance in terms of respect for international norms. The acting high commissioner for human

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rights recently stated that Saddam Hussein’s removal “must be counted a major contribution to human rights in Iraq.”31 The various Security Council resolutions, beginning with  (May , ) also indicate an international consensus on the need for reconstruction, if not on the reasons for why it was necessary. Peace building and political reform have been a consistent theme of international actors and were reinforced again in the June  resolution. Widespread approval for the capture of Saddam Hussein further underscores consensus on the lack of legitimacy for his government. De Villepin declared, for himself and Chirac, that “we are all delighted at Saddam Hussein’s arrest.”32 German chancellor Gerhard Schröder likewise expressed “great happiness” on hearing the news and congratulated the United States.33 Those reactions perhaps more than anything else illustrate the complexity of the episode within the international system. The US invasion at once defied norms and supported them. Although it brought the limitations on force into question, it also forced recognition of a central dilemma of the humanitarian agenda, that protecting norms sometimes requires military muscle. Even in this case, where the Bush administration most certainly looked at Iraq through its own agenda first and humanitarian norms second, regime change and reconstruction had some justification. In this sense the episode underscores the paradox of the international system. Normative principles may provide cover for the self-interested use of force, but the self-interested use of force may also provide cover for normative principles. That lesson was also demonstrated in Nigeria’s actions with ECOWAS and to a lesser degree perhaps with NATO in the Balkans. Even when force stems from domestic interests, it may serve a powerful role in extending and entrenching normative expectations and principles. The slow progress of reform creates controversy, however. The interim Iraqi government that assumed control on June , , inherited a fragile security situation and had only a limited working plan for Iraq’s political future. Even in a best-case scenario a constitution will not be completed until late , and the transition parliament elected in January  was still struggling into early April to name a president and the two vice presidents, which did not help perceptions

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of its effectiveness. The best-case is very much contingent on three factors: the ability of the US and Iraqi authorities to establish security, the ability of the government to establish legitimacy and gain support within Iraq, and the ability of the transition leaders to work with the UN in establishing a new political process. Progress on all three is limited and at times contradictory. The November  offensive to end the insurgency in Fallujah, for example, may have increased security there, but the flaring opposition in other cities indicates that security is likely to remain precarious. The elections were generally, and to some, surprisingly, a success, although the lack of significant Sunni participation indicates that integrating the various communities into a mutually accepted government remains a serious challenge. The difficulty in obtaining consensus within parliament underscores this problem, and has led many Iraqis to question the government’s viability and legitimacy.34 Significant tensions also exist between the United States and the UN, as evidenced first by the creation of the interim government and then by the war of words between Kofi Annan and the Bush administration in the fall of . While the former called the invasion illegal, the latter lambasted the UN for refusing to deploy an adequate mission to plan and develop and oversee the electoral process. Former SRSG Lakhdar Brahimi’s assessment in June  that the situation was something “one may choose to look at as half-full or half-empty” is still applicable in the spring of  and reflects international frustration over who controls the political process and the fragility of domestic legitimacy.35 Even so, the United States has discovered that it cannot rebuild Iraq alone, either practically or financially, and has been forced to seek help. For political reasons the United States cannot change its approach completely, but it is finding the limits of its power to effect change, whether by force or reconstruction, and international organizations are reemerging as important actors. President Bush’s criticism of the UN’s failure to act underscores its importance to overall success, since originally the claim was that the UN was not necessary. It also, of course, underscores the American inclination to use organizations when convenient, which is precisely what so infuriated many of our

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European allies. The turn back to the UN developed out of one of the more surprising parts of the whole episode, and one that indicates that the normative order is more entrenched than we may have thought. The UN became a relevant player again in February , when rising protests within Iraq encouraged the United States, at the demand of local actors, to request a UN mission to assess the political situation and determine a feasible timetable for elections. In quite an about-face, the United States gave the UN a mandate to provide suggestions for transferring power and indicated that it would accept the group’s findings.36 Since then the UN has continued to play a role in shaping political change, with the June  Security Council resolution naming the UN as the lead actor in political reconciliation, although its activities on the ground have been limited by security concerns. All parties, local and international, seem to agree that,“without the United Nations, it is difficult to look to achieving a lasting settlement” in Iraq.37 But a troubling aspect of US behavior remains—the rejection of limitations on force except with institutional sanction. The US commitment to working within multilateral settings is quite selective or, as one administration official explained, “à la carte.”38 The United States made clear throughout the process that it would not be limited by world opinion, and then it rejected not only UN but also NATO consensus. The ability of organizations to limit the actions of their members was clearly on display. But the role of the UN in Iraq shows that the backlash of power may not be as great as anticipated. The United States entered a difficult and complex situation that it cannot handle alone. Both its capacity and legitimacy are in doubt, most crucially with citizens in Iraq, as well as with other international actors. Rather than demonstrating the prerogatives of power, therefore, this case may serve as a cautionary tale arguing on behalf of promoting principle. Although it could defeat the Iraqi military, US power has not been effective in the many other tasks associated with nation building. Even basic security is difficult to achieve without a wider and more legitimate operation. The UN has emerged as the mediator between both the various domestic groups and the domestic groups and the United States, and the United States is now asking for wider international involvement. Although it continues to bluster formally, the United States

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has retreated in substance, now tacitly accepting that the UN is necessary for legitimacy. At the time of the US invasion, critics and supporters alike claimed that the action showed three certainties: the irrelevance of the UN, the importance of power rather than principle, and the destruction of the multilateral system. But a closer analysis suggests that these certainties are not nearly as absolute as many observers thought. As suggested previously, the seeming irrelevance of the UN was shortlived. In the postwar period it has emerged as a central actor, indeed, a crucial one in the minds of local Iraqis and the only body capable of bestowing legitimacy on the process of reconstruction. Its involvement provides the foundation for international and domestic cooperation, and the United States is slowly ceding authority. Contrary to all expectations, therefore, this episode has demonstrated the moral and practical power of the UN in world affairs, solidifying its position as the repository of legitimacy and reinforcing its authority on issues of peace and nation building. Although the organization did not have the capacity to restrain US power before the fact, it has gained the ability to shape the US approach after it. US might could prevail in the brutish contest between militaries, but it is not at all useful in the battle for hearts and minds nor in the process of building consensual procedures and institutions. Although US officials do not like to acknowledge the UN’s importance, it is increasingly difficult to argue that they do not require the organization’s support. Though the turn back to the UN was spurred by necessity, that does not lessen its significance. In fact, the necessity demonstrates that the UN’s relevance should not be judged solely by its inability to restrain power. Like it or not, states need the legitimizing mantle of institutions, if only because it allows other states to participate. Events in Iraq demonstrate that states, particularly secondary powers, are more and more reluctant to act outside organizational approval on significant issues. Similarly, citizens inside Iraq have helped force greater recourse to the UN, suggesting that in today’s system power cannot be judged in an absolute sense but must be balanced against perceived legitimacy.

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The issue of legitimacy also applies to the second predicted consequence, the enduring dominance of power. Chirac and Putin, among others, painted a bleak picture of what a US invasion would do to the world order. Principles, ideals, and laws would be jettisoned in favor of good old-fashioned might, leading to a collapse of the system slowly developed since World War II and strengthened after . Putin depicted the horrors of a world where “we permit international law to be replaced by the law of the fist, according to which might makes right, where the strong have the right to do whatever they please, and accept no limitations in the means to achieve their aims.”39 His concerns corresponded to a generally negative view of US tendencies present even before the Iraq imbroglio, one that portrayed the United States as hypocritical, expedient, and bullying. Realism would predict that America’s adventurism would lead the European powers to balance against it and touch off a new competition for power. John Mearsheimer notes that great powers seek to prevent potential rivals from dominating resource rich areas, and argues that they “do not work together to promote world order for its own sake.”40 Even a strong supporter of institutions like John Ikenberry agrees that the more the United States disregards institutional limits, the more likely it is that other states will react by balancing.41 But the dark world of power never really materialized, in part because Saddam Hussein himself was one of its prime practitioners and in part because the US objectives of nation building adhered far more to the world of principle. That does not mean that the Bush administration thought primarily of humanitarian norms nor that it operated from a deep concern for the collective. Evidence suggests that it was targeting Saddam Hussein almost from the moment it took office and simply sought to use whatever openings it could to justify removing him from power. Power politics and security interests were the dominating concerns here, with humanitarian issues well behind. But that is precisely why the aftermath of the US invasion makes an even stronger statement about the normative order. The US claim that it wants to rebuild a better and independent Iraq remains plausible in spite of the slow pace of nation building and the Bush administration’s unilateral tendencies. Perhaps for that very reason, Europe has

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focused on tying reconstruction more closely to the UN rather than combining to oppose US power. In a broad sense European governments support the stated US goals, although they do not trust the United States to meet them successfully without inserting too many of its own preferences in the process. The realities in Iraq, however, have reduced America’s ability to define the shape of reconstruction by itself. Any hopes the United States might have had of exploiting the situation for oil revenues or regional influence quickly dissipated as it found itself facing a long project, an enormous bill, and a population determined to have a say in its own reconstruction. In the end the US invasion has done more to reaffirm norms such as the relevance of institutions, the importance of consulting with the local populace, humanitarian ideals, and consensual government, than it did to destroy norms by defying international law. Although Clyde Prestowitz argues that the United States views Europe’s emphasis on collective action as evidence of its desire to check American power, American power in this case may have checked itself.42 Institutions in particular have become far more relevant in determining the legitimacy of power. “The pull of legitimacy,” Edward Luck argues, can “serve as a buffer for the weak and as a means to reinforce and perpetuate community values in the face of raw power.”43 One final expectation worth discussing is the claim that Iraq represented a profound and lasting rift between the United States and Europe, one that might even threaten the stability of NATO. Although it was easy to jump to that conclusion in the tense days leading up to the US invasion, the collapse of the Atlantic alliance has not materialized. The reason, once again, is that the partnership is far more entrenched within a web of institutions and multilateral constraints than is often thought. Thomas Risse points out that European complaints about US unilateralism make sense only if we accept the importance of multilateral rules. Those rules establish “standards of appropriateness against which the United States is held accountable.”44 The United States must therefore recognize that its primacy depends in part on its adherence to those standards, while Europe must accept that the United States will push against them. That symbiosis was reflected in

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the comments made after the ending of official hostilities by the same European leaders who had so berated the United States before the war. Fischer perhaps best captured the essential solidarity between European and American perspectives when he said in May , “There is no point now in continuing yesterday’s debate. . . . And whatever our position was on the Iraq war: as soon as the first shot was fired, the success of this attempt to create a new order became of crucial importance to European security.”45 The reconstruction of Iraq is thus closely tied to the goal of expanding normative and consensual principles. While the Europeans disagreed with the United States on how to begin establishing that order, in the end their common interest lies in effective nation building and, thereby, normative expansion. Many questions have yet to be answered about reconstruction in Iraq, most important, how political reconstruction will proceed. Assuming that nation building does not end disastrously and the political process moves forward, the world is likely to view the removal of Saddam Hussein as a collective good. Reaction to his capture showed the extent to which he operated outside normative bounds. The episode should also create an increased international commitment to normative action by upholding standards of governance and humanitarian protections. In the long run, Hussein’s legitimacy on those criteria may be more important than the WMD issue, especially since the evidence shows that fears about his weapons and weapons programs were extremely exaggerated. On the negative side, America’s dominance is likely to become more contentious, with other nations increasingly suspicious of its motives and interests. But this case has also shown some of the limits of power, and over the long run Iraq is likely to demonstrate not the strength of the hegemon but its weakness within a normative order. But what of the larger, unanswered question that affects Iraq and all the other cases discussed here—does contemporary intervention work? Can outsiders pursue nation building effectively? If the answers to these questions are negative then we need to reconsider the strategies currently being used to achieve contemporary norms. Humanitarian concerns and institutional action are laudable, but only if they can deliver the goods they are intended to achieve. I argued in chapter

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 that we should judge success not so much by a given end point, since that might take decades to create, but by the effectiveness of the process. Although stable, liberal states may be the desired objective, they are slow in the making. We should not ask if democracy has been achieved, therefore, but rather ask if a process has been established by which it might be achieved. The five questions introduced in chapter  provide the best means of judging the reconstruction process. Have costs been imposed on the use of violence for political ends? Have representative institutions been created and begun to function? Has access to political and economic power increased? Has the importance of group identity been reduced in the political and economic realms? And do citizens support the new institutions and processes? The record of the cases studied here is very mixed. It does not necessarily provide reason for optimism, but neither does it provide reason for pessimism. In terms of the first question, pertaining to violence, yes, we know that intervention can establish security successfully. The interventions analyzed here required about a year to bring the security situation under control, but they clearly met their military objectives. In most cases representative institutions have also been restored or created, although the extent of their control varies. The institutions may be somewhat unwieldy, as in Bosnia’s tripartite presidency, but they exist. Kosovo represents an exception to this rule; though international actors are working to increase Serb participation in the political system their efforts have been ineffective thus far and institutions remain exclusive. From there, however, the answers are less clear. In the cases where group identity created the most intense competition over political and economic issues—Somalia, Bosnia, and Kosovo—it remains extremely important. Clan identities still dominate Somali politics, and Bosnia and Kosovo remain divided along ethnic lines. While in theory access to political and economic power has increased, in reality it remains largely determined by ethnic identity. The problem is the most acute in Kosovo, where Serbs reacted to a perception (both real and exaggerated) of being shut out of the political process by removing themselves and developing a shadow state. Access has increased most in Sierra Leone, where the lack of a clear ethnic definition to the con-

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flict made it easier to develop a sense of shared commitment to the future political system. Not surprisingly, citizen support for the new political processes is minimal in most of the cases analyzed here. Again, Sierra Leone provides the most reason for optimism. But in the other cases citizens remain largely alienated from the political structure, either because of ethnic rivalry or because they perceive political institutions as ineffective and corrupt. That is the primary problem in Bosnia, where the federal government’s weakness prevents it from winning citizen support, contributes to the public perception of corruption, and strengthens the ethnically defined entity governments. In Kosovo, Albanians support the current government but also press for its national status while Serbs have opted out of the process completely. In Somalia the newly established central government remains in Kenya because the support is too limited and the violence too great for it to take power in Mogadishu. In Haiti the government was stymied by an electoral impasse for several years and is now on the edge of anarchy. All in all, the record is poor (see table .). Of all the interventions currently ongoing or complete, only East Timor provides an example of success, although its development process is also incomplete. Table .. Status of nation building Violence Institutions Access to power Group identity Citizen support

Somalia low but rising no low high low

Haiti rising

Bosnia low

S. Leone low

Kosovo low

yes low

yes low

yes improving

yes low

high (political) low

high

low

high

low

improving

low

But I argue against pessimism because at least in Bosnia, Sierra Leone, and Kosovo, the process is continuing. We do not yet know if intervention can be successful, but neither do we know that it is not successful. Contemporary intervention is part of a larger conflict Conclusions

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resolution process that combines military and civilian tasks. It is impossible to judge success in a short period of time. Outside actors have established a difficult array of tasks for themselves—to end violence and build the institutions and forms of government while seeking to build a new civic identity based on inclusion, consensus, and the rule of law. These tasks break into two distinct steps. The first three measures of evaluation relate to state building (forms and processes), while the last two relate to identity building (loyalty and ownership). Ultimately, acceptance of and commitment to the structures of the state—belief in their legitimacy, a sense of inclusion in their representation, and even pride in their development—are essential in building a sense of identity. The state-building process is thus a prerequisite for the long-term identity-building process. The lack of progress on the questions that relate to identity—specifically, how groups interact and define themselves within society—is therefore less surprising. We should expect that to be the more protracted undertaking. Creating the institutions and making them work must come first and may be the best means by which to evaluate the international efforts thus far. On that score, intervention and nation building rate somewhat better. Somalia and Haiti demonstrate that absent or limited reform programs are unsuccessful and lead to continued or renewed crisis. The international community now finds itself back in Haiti, and the need for a second effort there bolsters the argument for more comprehensive efforts the first time around. The cases of Bosnia and Sierra Leone provide some reason for hope. In both cases international actors have consistently adjusted their approach, altering both the military and civilian interventions to meet the challenges. Although implementation is often incomplete and every operation is vulnerable to criticism that it could do more, the process of state building is proceeding. The initiatives proposed by HR Ashdown in Bosnia are particularly relevant here and reflect an international effort to develop more effective means of entrenching reforms. Ashdown has increased the pressure on the entity governments and established new plans to implement law and order effectively. The ICG views the changes favorably, though their outcome is not yet known. Unifying the military, as finally happened in October , is a positive step.

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Kosovo may be an exception to the rule of progress, and it remains to be seen how the violence of March  will affect political development. The most recent elections did not inspire confidence, but the talks on final status may alter the structure of the conflict. The longest running case, the nine years of effort in Bosnia, is still a relatively shortlived example on which to base final judgments about the success of nation building. Ultimately, how long the institutions of state last will depend on how effectively international efforts can incorporate and satisfy the different groups, thereby establishing a basis for shared identity and legitimacy over the long term. The literature on conflict resolution suggests that even a settlement requiring substantial coercion can be perceived as just if the various parties feel that their interests and needs are taken into account. Obviously, however, many important problems remain, and success is in no sense guaranteed. The challenges largely stem, as Daniel Byman and Taylor Seybolt point out, from some inherent flaws in how states and organizations go about peacemaking, specifically, ignorance regarding the causes of conflict and simplistic assessments of the prospects for change.46 By contrast, Marten focuses on the more basic element of commitment, suggesting that participating nations simply are not willing to do enough to bring about significant change. Even if that will were present, the magnitude of the task and the difficulties inherent in reconciling the competing visions of multiple states, IGOs, and domestic actors prompt her to question whether the coherent vision necessary to yield success is even possible. Indeed, she suggests that the notion of imposing liberal or democratic reforms is “a pipedream.”47 In order to rectify these problems Marten advocates limiting intervention to a “security-keeping” model, which focuses entirely on restoring security inside the target state and does not involve any political engagement or function. Likewise, Byman and Seybolt advance six potential alternative strategies, ranging from exclusively humanitarian approaches to more aggressive strategies that influence the conflict by balancing the military strengths of the belligerent groups, picking and supporting a winner, or even aiding in population transfers. All their suggestions eschew aggressive attempts to change political structures.

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There is much to be said for these alternatives, since changing the military element of conflict has been far more successful than the political element, at least in the short-term. Limiting intervention’s scope also makes some sense, since the level of commitment and will exerted by outside actors is not likely to change. Marten endorses security keeping as a means to have a positive effect on violence without engaging international actors in political activities that neither they nor the target states want. Yet these suggestions are also profoundly unsatisfactory in many ways. First and foremost, security keeping is not likely to engage international actors any less, but in fact may involve them more as the underlying problems remain or worsen and conflict either continues or continuously flares anew. Haiti is something of an instructive example here. The problems motivating intervention in  were not solved, and that led to new violence and a new intervention. If, hypothetically, the current intervention were to engage only in security issues and then depart, we should expect to see crisis again and probably sooner rather than later. How many times then, will the international community be willing to engage in security keeping before deciding either that it is useless in such a recalcitrant country or that it is time to change the factors that make it necessary? The ICG argues that disarmament and development of a consultative political process are essential to solving Haiti’s security vacuum. The security problem is inextricably tied to the political problem, and without substantive efforts to strengthen political institutions, violence and instability are likely to persist. Bosnia and Kosovo also provide lessons. It seems likely that a far more aggressive and extended military presence would have been necessary in Bosnia, absent efforts to build new institutions, and may still be there today. In Kosovo we see how difficult security keeping is and how easily violence persists. Some may answer this charge, for the Balkans at least, by arguing that partition and separation of the ethnic communities in both cases could have solved the security problems and relieved the international community of much vain effort, but that is a facile argument at best. Even if partition were agreed on, a dangerous security dilemma would still exist between ethnic communities

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defined by distrust, with highly restrictive policies toward each other and with no incentives to overcome their divisions, living next to one another. Byman and Seybolt acknowledge that transferring populations to make ethnically defined states would create very weak and unstable political entities and lead to the possibility, perhaps even likelihood, of interstate war.48 Moreover, the focus on security alone ignores the very fact that led to the creation of nation building as described throughout this book— military action doesn’t work to end conflict. Political and economic weaknesses give these conflicts life and breath. Security is not possible without political change. As the origins of conflict show, these cases involve fundamental disagreements over the structure of the state and the extent of economic and political access, combined with a lack of accountability and rule of law. Economic issues shaped the conflict initially in Bosnia and Sierra Leone. Fights over power led to conflict in Haiti and Somalia, and Kosovo combined both grievances. With the exception of Sierra Leone and Haiti, each case then experienced a breakdown of identity to a single group, with national identity replaced by ethnic, clan, or religious identity. The expectation that the group would and should fulfill political and social needs then led to a corresponding backlash against competing groups and the collapse of existing political structures. There is very little that can be done to dampen conflict in any lasting way without addressing some of these problems. Security keeping, to be of any value, would likely require a permanent deployment of international troops to insure order, and that is not what most potential participants would consider a workable solution. Even so, these suggestions are important contributions in the effort to create successful outcomes. Intervention occupies a strange halfway house, constituting more than nations might want to do, thus engaging questions of will, yet less than might be effective, thus engaging questions of value. Further questioning about how these perspectives match with objectives is critical, because intervention is likely to continue. In spite of the lack of clear success, the demands for intervention have only grown louder and more frequent, while the expectations have gotten bigger. This may seem paradoxical, but it indicates the

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extent to which conflict resolution has become an accepted (and expected) norm. The challenges ahead are not lost on the participants, as evidenced by the question asked in the spring of  by the Security Council representative from Singapore,“are we moving the boulder up or is the boulder rolling backwards?”49 Although phrased in reference to Kosovo, the question resonates with intervention as a whole. Solid and verifiable success remains consistently elusive. Violence entrenches grievances, undermines institutions, and often reinforces commitment to revenge. Limiting corruption, promoting cooperation, and developing legitimacy are difficult tasks. Though the relevant norms that intervention advances may now be easy to articulate, entrenching them in collapsed states is much harder. How to do that effectively remains a question for further research. The issue is currently framed most often in terms of technique. What sort of electoral system should be established? What form should a constitution take? Iraq shows this approach clearly. But the real challenges are deeper and more fundamental. How can outside actors instill and entrench liberal norms in states governed by realist insecurities and divided by violence? Answering this question is the most important challenge now facing international interventions and will determine the success of peace building and conflict resolution for the future. The process certainly deserves time to work, and there is reason to be hopeful about some of the ongoing cases. But new cases seem to emerge daily, making it imperative that international actors begin to focus on the problem of changing attitudes rather than simply rebuilding systems. Having humanitarian and multilateral norms will be useful only if we ask hard questions about what works and what does not. Neither scholars nor policymakers should shrink from looking critically and constructively at how well the objectives and outcomes of contemporary intervention match.

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Notes

Introduction . Goronwy Jones, The United Nations and the Domestic Jurisdiction of States: Interpretation and Applications of the Non-intervention Principle (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, ). . See, for example, Anthony F. Lang Jr., Agency and Ethics: The Politics of Military Intervention (Albany: SUNY Press, ); Alan J. Kuperman, The Limits of Humanitarian Intervention (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, ). . Patrick M. Regan, Civil Wars and Foreign Powers: Outside Intervention in Intrastate Conflict (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, ), . . See, for example, Regan, Civil Wars. . Herbert K. Tillema, “Foreign Overt Military Intervention in the Nuclear Age,” Journal of Peace Research , no.  (May ): . . Regan, Civil Wars, . Bilateral operations are excluded under the assumption that it would be too easy for a powerful nation to force assistance from a client or weak ally. Drawing the line at three assumes that some degree of consensus regarding means and goals that must be achieved in order to result in united action. . United Nations, Charter of the United Nations, ch. VII, art. . . Michael W. Doyle,“Discovering the Limits and Potential of Peacekeeping,” in Peacemaking and Peacekeeping for the New Century, ed. Olara Otunnu and Michael W. Doyle (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, ), . . Regan, Civil Wars; Tillema, “Military Intervention”; Frederic S. Pearson, Robert A. Baumann, and Jeffrey J. Pickering, “Military Intervention and Realpolitik,” in Reconstructing Realpolitik, ed. Frank W. Wayman and Paul F. Diehl (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, ), –. . Elizabeth M. Cousens, introduction to Peacebuilding as Politics by Elizabeth M. Cousens and Chetan Kumar (Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers, ); John Paul Lederach, Building Peace: Sustainable Reconciliation in Divided Societies (Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace Press, ).

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. Thomas Franck, “A Holistic Approach to Building Peace,” in Otunnu and Doyle, Peacemaking and Peacekeeping, ; Caroline Hartzell, Matthew Hoddie, and Donald Rothchild, “Stabilizing the Peace after Civil War,” International Organization , no.  (Winter ): –; Barbara F. Walter, “Designing Transitions from Civil War,” in Civil Wars, Insecurity, and Intervention, ed. Barbara F. Walter and Jack Snyder (New York: Columbia University Press, ).

Chapter  . Regan, Civil Wars, . . “Côte d’Ivoire and France: A Bloody Mess,” Economist, November , , –. . Mohammed Ayoob, “The War against Iraq,” in Wars against Terrorism and Iraq: Normative and Strategic Implications, ed. Thomas Weiss, Margaret Crahan, and John Goering (New York: Routledge, ). . Hedley Bull, Intervention in World Politics (Oxford: Clarendon Press, ), . . Karen A. Feste, Expanding the Frontiers: Superpower Intervention in the Cold War (New York: Praeger, ), , . . Chalmers Johnson, Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire (New York: Metropolitan Books, ). . See for example, Nicole Ball, “The Challenge of Rebuilding War-Torn Societies,” in Turbulent Peace: The Challenges of Managing International Conflict, ed. Chester Crocker, Fen Osler Hampson, and Pamela Aall (Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace Press, ); William Maley, “Institutional Design and the Rebuilding of Trust,” in From Civil Strife to Civil Society, ed. William Maley, Charles Sampford, and Ramesh Thakur (Tokyo: United Nations University Press, ). . Michael Barnett, “Nation-Building’s New Face,” Foreign Policy, November/December , –. . Regan, Civil Wars, . . For an explanation of peacekeeping see United Nations, The Blue Helmets: A Review of United Nations Peace-keeping (New York: United Nations Department of Public Information, ). . ONUC dropped its attempt at neutrality and coerced the outcome when it used force to bring an end to the secession of Katanga Province. . Report of the Secretary-General pursuant to the statement adopted by the Summit Meeting of the Security Council on January , , A//–S/,

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June , ; Boutros Boutros-Ghali, An Agenda for Peace, d ed. (New York: United Nations Department of Public Information, ). . William Durch, ed., The Evolution of UN Peacekeeping (New York: St. Martin’s, ); James Mayall, ed., The New Interventionism, –: United Nations Experience in Cambodia, Former Yugoslavia, and Somalia (New York: Cambridge University Press, ); Otunnu and Doyle, Peacemaking and Peacekeeping. . UN, Blue Helmets; www.un.org. . Doyle, “Potential of Peacekeeping,” –. . Martha Finnemore, “Constructing Norms of Humanitarian Intervention,” in The Culture of National Security, ed. Peter J. Katzenstein (New York: Columbia University Press, ); Franck, “Building Peace”; Lori Fisler Damrosch, ed., Enforcing Restraint: Collective Intervention in Internal Conflicts (New York: Council on Foreign Relations Press, ); Damrosch, “Changing Conceptions of Intervention in International Law,” in Emerging Norms of Justified Intervention, ed. Laura W. Reed and Carl Kaysen (Cambridge, MA: American Academy of Arts and Sciences, ), –; Cousens and Kumar, Peacebuilding as Politics; Nicholas J. Wheeler, Saving Strangers: Humanitarian Intervention in International Society (New York: Oxford University Press, ). . Jean-Marie Guehenno, “The Impact of Globalization on Strategy,” in Crocker, Hampson, and Aall, Turbulent Peace, . . Ward Thomas, The Ethics of Destruction: Norms and Force in International Relations (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, ), . . Kofi Annan, “The Quiet Revolution,” Global Governance  (): –. . Joanne Lee and Richard Price, “International Tribunals and the Criminalization of International Violence,” in The United Nations and Global Security, ed. Richard Price and Mark Zacher (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, ); Thomas Risse-Kappen, “Between a New World Order and None: Explaining the Re-emergence of the United Nations in World Politics,” in Critical Security Studies, ed. Keith Krause and Michael C. Williams (New York: Routledge, ), –. . John Gerard Ruggie, “Multilateralism: The Anatomy of a Concept,” in Multilateralism Matters: The Theory and Praxis of an Institutional Form, ed. John Ruggie and Helen Milner (New York: Columbia University Press, ), ; Joseph S. Nye Jr., The Paradox of American Power (New York: Oxford University Press, ); Richard Haass, Intervention: The Use of American Military Force in the PostCold War World, rev. ed. (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, ). . Terry Lynn Karl and Philippe C. Schmitter, “Democratization around the Globe: Opportunities and Risks,” in World Security: Challenges for a New Century, 2d ed., ed. Michael T. Klare and Daniel C. Thomas (New York: St.

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Martin’s, ), –; Michael Mandelbaum, The Ideas That Conquered the World (New York: Public Affairs, ). . Max Singer and Aaron Wildavsky, The Real World Order (Chatham, NJ: Chatham House, ). . Mandelbaum, Ideas,  . Karl and Schmitter, “Democratization,” . See also Risse-Kappen, “New World Order”; Seyom Brown, “World Interests and the Changing Dimension of Security,” in Klare and Thomas, World Security, –. . Richard Falk, The Great Terror War (New York: Olive Branch Press, ), . . Michael Edwards, “Civil Society and Global Governance,” in New Millennium, New Perspectives: The United Nations, Security, and Governance, ed. Ramesh Thakur and Edward Newman (Tokyo: United Nations University Press, ), . . Mandelbaum, Ideas, . . Amartya Sen, Development as Freedom (New York: Knopf, ). . Joseph E. Stiglitz, Globalization and Its Discontents (New York: Norton, ). . Nye, American Power, . . Richard Holbrooke, conversation with author, Princeton University, April , . . Warren Strobel, Late-Breaking Foreign Policy: The News Media’s Influence on Peace Operations (Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace Press, ). . Falk, Terror War, –. . See Richard Falk, On Humane Governance: Toward a New Global Politics (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, ); Klare and Thomas, World Security; Krause and Williams, Critical Security Studies. . Damrosch, Enforcing Restraint; Reed and Kaysen, Justified Intervention. . United Nations, Provisional Verbatim Record of the Security Council, –. . See John Davies and Edward Kaufman, eds., Second Track/Citizens’ Diplomacy: Concepts and Techniques for Conflict Transformation (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, ). . Louis Kriesberg, International Conflict Resolution (New Haven: Yale University Press, ), . . Hugh Miall, Oliver Ramsbotham, and Tom Woodhouse, Contemporary Conflict Resolution (Malden, MA: Blackwell, ), . . Ibid., , –. . Davies and Kaufman, Second Track Diplomacy.

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. Miall, Ramsbotham, and Woodhouse, Conflict Resolution, . . Ibid., . . See, for example, Davies and Kaufman, Second Track Diplomacy. . Lederach, Building Peace; Krishna Kumar, Rebuilding Societies after Civil War (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, ); Stephen John Stedman, “Spoiler Problems in Peace Processes,” International Security , no.  (). . John Davies,“Power, Rights, Interests, and Identity: Conflict Management Strategies for Building a Democratic Peace,” in Davies and Kaufman, Second Track Diplomacy, –. . Miall, Ramsbotham, and Woodhouse, Conflict Resolution; Louis Kriesberg, Constructive Conflicts: From Escalation to Resolution (Boulder: Rowman and Littlefield, ); Davies and Kaufman, Second Track Diplomacy. . ICISS (International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty), The Responsibility to Protect (Ottawa: International Development Research Centre, ), xi. . Miall, Ramsbotham, and Woodhouse, Conflict Resolution, –. . Edward Azar,“Protracted Social Conflicts and Second Track Diplomacy,” in Davies and Kaufman, Second Track Diplomacy, –; Miall, Ramsbotham, and Woodhouse, Conflict Resolution. . Nye, American Power, . . Ibid. . Stephen Stedman, Donald Rothchild, and Elizabeth Cousens, Ending Civil Wars: The Implementation of Peace Agreements (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, ); Maley, Sampford, and Thakur, Civil Strife. . Mary B. Anderson, “Humanitarian NGOs in Conflict Intervention,” in Crocker, Hampson, and Aall, Turbulent Peace, –. . G. C. A. Junne, “International Organizations in a Period of Globalization: New (Problems of) Legitimacy.” In The Legitimacy of International Organizations, ed. Jean-Marc Coicaud and Veijo Heiskanen (Tokyo: United Nations University Press, ), . . For example, Tony Borden, the director of the IWPR has been outspoken in advocating different approaches in Bosnia, while the ICG leads the criticism concerning the imbalance of international and local power in Kosovo. . Falk, Terror War, –. . See Edwards, “Civil Society.” . Davies, “Power, Rights.” . Falk, Terror War, . . Guehenno, “Impact of Globalization,”  . Jane E. Stromseth, “Iraq’s Repression of Its Civilian Population: Collective Responses and Continuing Challenges,” in Damrosch, Enforcing Restraint, –.

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. Lori Fisler Damrosch, introduction to Damrosch, Enforcing Restraint; Damrosch, “Changing Conceptions”; J. Samuel Barkin and Bruce Cronin, “The State and the Nation: Changing Norms and the Rules of Sovereignty in International Relations,” International Organization , no.  (Winter ): –; Falk, Humane Governance; Donald Daniel and Bradd C. Hayes, Beyond Traditional Peacekeeping (London: Macmillan, ); ICISS, Responsibility to Protect. . Karl and Schmitter, “Democratization,” –. . Fen Osler Hampson, Nurturing Peace: Why Peace Settlements Succeed or Fail (Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace Press, ); Crocker, Hampson, and Aall, Turbulent Peace; Stedman, Rothchild, and Cousens, Ending Civil Wars; Maley, Sampford, and Thakur, Civil Strife; Walter and Snyder, Civil Wars. . Tillema, “Military Intervention”; Regan, Civil Wars; Pearson, Baumann, and Pickering, “Military Intervention.” . Pearson, Baumann, and Pickering, “Military Intervention,” ; Frank F. Wayman and Paul F. Diehl,“Realism Reconsidered: The Realpolitik Framework and Its Basic Propositions,” in Wayman and Diehl, Reconstructing Realpolitik, . . Pearson, Baumann, and Pickering, “Military Intervention,” . . Ibid., . . See for example, Mohammed Ayoob, The Third World Security Predicament: State Making, Regional Conflict, and the International System (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, ); I. William Zartman, ed., Governance as Conflict Management (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, ); Joel S. Migdal, Atul Kohli, and Vivienne Shue, eds., State Power and Social Forces (New York: Cambridge University Press, ); and Brian L. Job, ed., The Insecurity Dilemma: National Security of Third World States (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, ). . Tim Weiner, “An Evolving Idea for Liberia Envisions U.N. Trusteeship,” New York Times, August , , A. . Regan, Civil Wars, –. . Janice Gross Stein, “Image, Identity, and the Resolution of Violent Conflict,” in Crocker, Hampson, and Aall, Turbulent Peace, –. . Stephen Stedman, “International Implementation of Peace Agreements in Civil Wars: Findings from a Study of Sixteen Cases,” in Crocker, Hampson, and Aall, Turbulent Peace, . . Marieke Kleiboer, The Multiple Realities of International Mediation (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, ), .

Chapter  . Arnold Wolfers, Discord and Collaboration: Essays on International Politics (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, ), .

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. Terry Terriff, Stuart Croft, Lucy James and Patrick Morgan, Security Studies Today (Malden, MA: Blackwell, ), . . For example, Barry Buzan, People, States, and Fear (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, ); Stanley Hoffmann, Duties beyond Borders (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, ). . See Barry Buzan,“Change and Insecurity Reconsidered,” Contemporary Security Policy , no.  (): –; Nils Petter Gleditsch,“Environmental Change, Security, and Conflict,” in Crocker, Hampson, and Aall, Turbulent Peace, –; Klare and Thomas, World Security. . Taylor B. Seybolt, “Major Armed Conflicts,” in SIPRI, SIPRI Yearbook  (Oxford: Oxford University Press, ), . . Mohammed Ayoob, “Defining Security: A Subaltern Realist Perspective,” in Krause and Williams, Critical Security Studies, –. . Joel S. Migdal, “The State in Society: An Approach to Struggles for Domination,” in Migdal, Kohli and Shue, State Power; Mohammed Ayoob, “The Security Predicament of the Third World State: Reflections on State Making in a Comparative Perspective,” in Job, Insecurity Dilemma. . Jack Donnelly, “International Human Rights after the Cold War,” in Klare and Thomas, World Security, –; R. B. J. Walker, “The Subject of Security,” in Krause and Williams, Critical Security Studies, –; Gregory Reichberg and Henrik Syse, “Humanitarian Intervention: A Case of Offensive Force?” Security Dialogue , no.  (September ): –. . UN, Provisional Record, –. . Terriff et al., Security Studies Today; Tobias Debiel, ed., Fragile Peace: State Failure, Violence and Development in Crisis Regions (London: Zed Books, ). . Paul Stares, “‘New’ and ‘Non-traditional’ Security Challenges,” in Thakur and Newman, New Millennium. . Daniel Philpott, Revolutions in Sovereignty (Princeton: Princeton University Press, ); Stephen Krasner, Problematic Sovereignty (New York: Columbia University Press, ). . See Robert H. Jackson, Quasi-states: Sovereignty, International Relations, and the Third World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ); Stephen D. Krasner, Sovereignty: Organized Hypocrisy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, ). . Damrosch, “Changing Conceptions”; Thakur and Newman, New Millennium. . Michael Barnett, “The United Nations and Global Security: The Norm Is Mightier Than the Sword,” Ethics and International Affairs  (): . . Samuel Makinda, “Reconceptualizing Global Governance,” in Thakur and Newman, New Millennium.

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. Iain Atack, “Ethical Objections to Humanitarian Intervention,” Security Dialogue , no.  (September ): . . Michael N. Barnett and Martha Finnemore, “The Power, Politics, and Pathologies of International Organizations,” International Organization , no.  (Autumn ): . . Jean-Marc Coicaud, “International Democratic Culture and Its Sources of Legitimacy: The Case of Collective Security and Peacekeeping in the s,” in Coicaud and Heiskanen, Legitimacy of International Organizations, –. . John Mearsheimer, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics (New York: Norton, ). . Stephen D. Krasner ed., International Regimes (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, ). . Kenneth W. Abbott and Duncan Snidal,“Why States Act through Formal International Organizations,” Journal of Conflict Resolution , no.  (): . . Marc Trachtenberg, “Intervention in Historical Perspective,” in Reed and Kaysen, Justified Intervention, –; Jones, Domestic Jurisdiction; R. J. Vincent, Nonintervention and International Order (Princeton: Princeton University Press, ). . League of Nations, The Covenant of the League of Nations, art. . . UN, Charter, ch. , art. . . Jackson, Quasi-states. . Organization of African Unity, The Charter of the Organization of African Unity, ch. I, art. , ch. II, art.  (b–c). . Organization of American States, Charter of the Organization of American States, ch. I, art. (b). . See in particular Kimberly Zisk Marten, Enforcing the Peace: Learning from the Imperial Past (New York: Columbia University Press, ). . Ibid., . . Quoted in Keith Krause and Michael C. Williams, “From Strategy to Security: Foundations of Critical Security Studies,” in Krause and Williams, Critical Security Studies, . . Coicaud, “International Democratic Culture,” . . United Nations, Resolution Adopted by the Gen. Assembly, A/RES//. . That consensus has been reduced somewhat by the controversy over the US invasion of Iraq, still-emerging details about the oil-for-food scandal, and negative commentary on the conduct of some UN peacekeeping units. Even so, the UN’s legitimacy and importance in international affairs are significantly greater than in the past. . Brian Job, “‘Alliances’ and Regional Security Developments: The Role of Regional Arrangements in the United Nations’ Promotion of Peace and Stabil-

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ity,” in Thakur and Newman, New Millennium, –; Richard Ned Lebow, “The Long Peace, the End of the Cold War, and the Failure of Realism,” International Organization , no.  (Spring ): –; Junne, “International Organizations.” . Rebecca R. Moore, “NATO’s Mission for the New Millennium: A ValueBased Approach to Building Security,” Contemporary Security Policy , no.  (): –; David S. Yost, NATO Transformed: The Alliance’s New Roles in International Security (Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace Press, ). . David S. Yost, “NATO’s Contributions to Conflict Management,” in Crocker, Hampson, and Aall, Turbulent Peace, . . Report of the Secretary-General on the Work of the Organization, , A//. . Atack, “Ethical Objections”; Simon Chesterman, “Legality Versus Legitimacy: Humanitarian Intervention, the Security Council, and the Rule of Law, Security Dialogue , no.  (September ): –. . Risse-Kappen, “New World Order.” . Lee and Price, “International Tribunals”; Ayoob, “War against Iraq.” . Neta C. Crawford, Argument and Change in World Politics: Ethics, Decolonization, and Humanitarian Intervention (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ); W. Thomas, Ethics of Destruction. . Richard Price and Nina Tannenwald, “Norms and Deterrence: The Nuclear and Chemical Weapons Taboos,” in Katzenstein, Culture of National Security, . . W. E. Gladstone, Bulgarian Horrors and the Question of the East (London: J. Murray, ). See also Chesterman, “Legality versus Legitimacy.” . Damrosch, Enforcing Restraint; Robert A. Pastor, ed., A Century’s Journey: How the Great Powers Shape the World (New York: Basic Books, ); Reed and Kaysen, Justified Intervention; Daniel and Hayes, Beyond Traditional Peacekeeping; Durch, Evolution of UN Peacekeeping; Gareth Evans, Cooperating for Peace: The Global Agenda for the s and Beyond (St. Leonard’s, New South Wales: Allen and Unwin, ); Otunnu and Doyle, Peacemaking and Peacekeeping. This view was also advanced during the Cold War. See, for example, Stanley Hoffmann, “The Debate about Intervention,” in Crocker, Hampson, and Aall, Turbulent Peace, –; Hedley Bull, “Intervention in the Third World,” in Bull, Intervention in World Politics. . See essays in Ian Forbes and Mark Hoffman, eds., Political Theory, International Relations, and the Ethics of Intervention (New York: St. Martin’s, ). . Damrosch, introduction to Enforcing Restraint; Ernst B. Haas, “Beware the Slippery Slope,” in Reed and Kaysen, Justified Intervention, –; Ann Van

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Wynen Thomas and A. J. Thomas, Non-Intervention: The Law and Its Import in the Americas (Dallas: Southern Methodist University Press, ). . See Jackson, Quasi-States; Krasner, Organized Hypocrisy. . Stromseth, “Iraq’s Repression,” –. . Philip Nel,“Between Counter-hegemony and Post-hegemony: The Rome Statute and Normative Innovation in World Politics,” in Enhancing Global Governance, ed. Andrew F. Cooper, John English, and Ramesh Thakur (Tokyo: United Nations University Press, ), . . Stares, “Security Challenges.” . See Finnemore, “Humanitarian Intervention”; Coral Bell, “Force, Diplomacy, and Norms,” in Kosovo and the Challenge of Humanitarian Intervention, ed. Albrecht Schnabel and Ramesh Thakur (Tokyo: United Nations University Press, ), –; David Dewitt, David Haglund, and John Kirton, eds., Building a New Global Order: Emerging Trends in International Security (Toronto: Oxford University Press, ); Forbes and Hoffman, Political Theory. . For example, Haas, “Slippery Slope”; Hoffmann, Duties beyond Borders. . Murray Forsyth, “The Tradition of International Law,” in Traditions of International Ethics, ed. Terry Nardin and David R. Mapel (New York: Cambridge University Press, ), –. . Report of the International Committee of Jurists Entrusted by the Council of the League of Nations with the Task of Giving an Advisory Opinion upon the Legal Aspects of the Aaland Islands Question, quoted in David Wippman, introduction to International Law and Ethnic Conflict, ed. David Wippman (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, ), . . League of Nations, Covenant. See also Jones, Domestic Jurisdiction. . In Wippman, introduction to International Law, . See also Damrosch, “Changing Conceptions.” . See Steven R. Ratner, “Ethnic Conflict and Territorial Claims: Where Do We Draw the Line?” in Wippman, International Law, –. . For discussion of the Serb problem in particular, see Jean E. Manas, “Impossible Trade-off: ‘Peace’ versus ‘Justice’ in Settling Yugoslavia’s Wars,” in The World and Yugoslavia’s Wars, ed. Richard H. Ullman (New York: Council on Foreign Relations Press, ), –. . See Ruth Wedgewood, “Limiting the Use of Force in Civil Disputes,” in Wippman, International Law, –. . The crimes over which the court exercises jurisdiction range from specific violations, like torture, rape, and deportation, to general categories such as persecution and “inhumane acts of a similar character.” The statues establishing the court are available at www.un.org/law/icc/ or www.un.org/ice/statute/ romefra.htm.

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. Report of the Secretary-General on the Work of the Organization, , A//, para. . . UN, Provisional Record, th meeting; rd meeting; st meeting. . Simon Chesterman, Just War or Just Peace? (New York: Oxford University Press, ), . . ICISS, Responsibility to Protect, December . . Ramesh Thakur, “Outlook—Intervention, Sovereignty and the Responsibility to Protect: Experiences from ICISS,” Security Dialogue , no.  (September ): . . See also Hoffman, “Debate about Intervention.” . Thakur, “Outlook,” . . Robert Johansen, “Toward a New Code of International Conduct: War, Peacekeeping, and Global Constitutionalism,” in The Constitutional Foundations of World Peace, ed. Richard A. Falk, Robert C. Johansen, and Samuel S. Kim (Albany: SUNY Press, ), . . Thakur, “Outlook,” . . Michael Glennon, Limits of Law, Prerogatives of Power: Interventionism after Kosovo (New York: Palgrave, ); IICK (Independent International Commission on Kosovo), Kosovo Report (New York: Oxford University Press, ). See also Simon Chesterman, Just War; Damrosch, “Changing Conceptions.” . Jennifer M. Welsh, “Authorizing Humanitarian Intervention,” in Price and Zacher, United Nations and Global Security, , . . Michael Ignatieff, “The Lesser Evil: Political Ethics in an Age of Terror,” Mary C. Parker Yates Lecture, Tulane University, March , ; Falk, Terror War. . See Jones, Jurisdiction of States; Vincent, Nonintervention; Trachtenberg, “Intervention in Historical Perspective”; Barkin and Cronin,“State and Nation.” . Patrick M. Morgan,“Liberalist and Realist Security Studies: Conceptualizing Security in the Last Twenty Years,” Contemporary Security Policy , no.  (): –. . Marten, Enforcing the Peace, . . Marina Ottoway,“Think Again: Nation Building,” Foreign Policy, September/October ; Barnett, “Nation-Building”; John Laughland, “UN Tyranny in Bosnia,” Spectator, May , . The Ottoway article is available at www.crf.org/ pub/marina_ottoway/think_again_nation_building.php; Laughland is available at www.hic.hr/english/news/bosnia.htm. . Barnett, “Nation-Building.” . Tony Borden, executive director of the Institute for War and Peace Reporting. “Is It Time to Rewrite Dayton?” NATO Review (Winter –): –. See also Charles-Philippe David, “Alice in Wonderland Meets Frankenstein:

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Constructivism, Realism, and Peacebuilding in Bosnia,” Contemporary Security Policy , no.  (): –. . Roland Paris, “Wilson’s Ghost: The Faulty Assumptions of Postconflict Peacebuilding,” in Crocker, Hampson, and Aall, Turbulent Peace, –. . Marten, Enforcing the Peace, . . ICG (International Crisis Group), Balkans Report no. , Kosovo: A Strategy for Economic Development, December ; Balkans Report no. , UNMIK’s Kosovo Albatross: Tackling Division in Mitrovica, June . . Ayoob, Third World Security; Patrick Chabal and Jean-Pascal Daloz, Africa Works: Disorder as Political Instrument (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, ); Paul Collier, “Doing Well Out of War: An Economic Perspective,” in Greed and Grievance: Economic Agendas in Civil Wars, ed. Mats Berdal and David M. Malone (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, ), –. . Berdal and Malone, Greed and Grievance. . Ayoob, “Defining Security,” . . ICISS, Responsibility to Protect. . This decision was extremely controversial, and the agreement subsequently collapsed when the rebels resumed their opposition. . Stein, “Image, Identity.” . Francis Fukuyama, State-Building: Governance and World Order in the st Century (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, ), . . Paul Collier, “Economic Causes of Civil Conflict and Their Implications for Policy,” in Crocker, Hampson, and Aall, Turbulent Peace, –. See also Berdal and Malone, Greed and Grievance. . William Reno, Warlord Politics and African States (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, ). . Michael E. Brown, introduction to The International Dimensions of Internal Conflict, ed. Brown (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, ), –; Brown, “Ethnic and Internal Conflicts: Causes and Implications,” in Crocker, Hampson, and Aall, Turbulent Peace, –. . Lori Fisler Damrosch,“The Inevitability of Selective Response? Principles to Guide Urgent International Action,” in Schnabel and Thakur, Kosovo, –. . Risse-Kappen, “New World Order,” . . Mandelbaum, Ideas, .

Chapter  . Information in this section is taken from Terence Lyons and Ahmed I. Samatar, Somalia, Brookings Occasional Papers (Washington, DC: Brookings

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Institution, ); I. M. Lewis, A Modern History of Somalia (Boulder: Westview Press, ); Jeffrey A. Lefebvre, Arms for the Horn: U.S. Security Policy in Ethiopia and Somalia, – (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, ). . Lyons and Samatar, Somalia, . . Lewis, Modern History of Somalia, . . Ibid., . . The decline of the US-Soviet rivalry made a strategic toehold in the Horn of Africa less important, which led to the reduction of US aid. . Lyons and Samatar, Somalia, –; Mike Blakely, “Somalia,” in The Costs of Conflict: Prevention and Cure in the Global Arena, ed. Michael E. Brown and Richard N. Rosecrance (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, ), . . Lyons and Samatar, Somalia. . Lefebvre, Arms for the Horn, . . Both warlords belonged to the Hawiye clan, but Aideed belonged to the Habr Gedr subclan, and ‘Ali Mahdi to the Abgal. . Walter Clarke, “Failed Visions and Uncertain Mandates in Somalia,” in Learning from Somalia, ed. Walter Clarke and Jeffrey Herbst (Boulder: Westview Press, ), –. . Lyons and Samatar, Somalia, . . Jeffrey Clark,“Debacle in Somalia: The Failure of the Collective Response,” in Damrosch, Enforcing Restraint, . . Lee V. Cassanelli, “Somali Land Resource Issues in Historical Perspective,” in Clarke and Herbst, Learning from Somalia, –. . J. Clark, “Debacle in Somalia,” . . Ten thousand military personnel from France, Italy, Belgium, Canada, and Morocco constituted the rest of UNITAF. John L. Hirsch and Robert B. Oakley, Somalia and Operation Restore Hope: Reflections on Peacemaking and Peacekeeping (Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace Press, ), . . UN, Blue Helmets, –. . John Drysdale, “Foreign Military Intervention in Somalia,” in Clarke and Herbst, eds., Learning from Somalia, –. For more on UNOSOM’s actions and this particular incident, see also, UN, Blue Helmets. . President Clinton did nothing to dispel the mistaken belief that US forces were under UN command and even vaguely contributed to the misinformation, preferring to use the UN as a scapegoat than to face the domestic consequences. . Hirsch and Oakley, Operation Restore Hope, . . wsp.dataweb.ch/load.cfm?edit_id=&menu=&P=Somalia. . UN, Provisional Record, th meeting, January , , .

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. UN, “Security Council Establishes New UN Operation in Somalia,” UN Chronicle, September , . . UN, Provisional Record, th meeting, December , . . J. Clark, “Debacle in Somalia,” . . UN, Blue Helmets, . . Jon Western, “Sources of Humanitarian Intervention,” International Organization , no.  (Spring ): . . “Operation Restore Hope,” U.S. News and World Report, December , . . Western, “Humanitarian Intervention.” . “Waiting for America,” U.S. News and World Report, December , ; “-Day Relief Plan for Somalia Launched,” UN Chronicle, December . . Western, “Humanitarian Intervention.” . Bruce W. Nelan, “Taking on the Thugs,” Time, December , . . Congressional Quarterly, December , , . . “Operation Restore Hope,” U.S. News and World Report, December , . . Nelan, “Taking on the Thugs.” . UN, Blue Helmets, –. . Ibid., . . UN, Provisional Record, th meeting, December , . . UN, Charter, ch. VII, art. (). . UN, Provisional Record, th meeting, December , . . Quoted in William J. Durch, “Introduction to Anarchy: Intervention in Somalia,” in UN Peacekeeping, American Policy, and the Uncivil Wars of the s, ed. Durch (New York: St. Martin’s, ), . . W. Clarke, “Failed Visions,” . Clarke reports that this was highly unusual. One thousand civil affairs officers were deployed in Panama, and approximately three hundred were dispatched to northern Iraq after the Gulf War. By contrast, just seven civil affairs officers and thirty military police training officers were deployed in Somalia. . Different national commands interpreted the UNITAF mandate somewhat differently, resulting in divergent outcomes from sector to sector. The French and Italians were far more aggressive in pursuing disarmament than the Americans, and their sectors reported a high rate of security when UNITAF withdrew. . UN, Provisional Record, th meeting, March , . . Miall, Ramsbotham, and Woodhouse, Conflict Resolution, , . . UN, Provisional Record, th meeting, March , . . Further Report of the Secretary-General Submitted in Pursuance of Paragraphs  and  of Resolution , March , , S/.

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. Kriesberg, Constructive Conflicts; Miall, Ramsbotham, and Woodhouse, Conflict Resolution, –. . Quoted in Drysdale, “Foreign Military Intervention,” . . The agreement created a framework for regional councils and a transitional national council composed of seventy-four representatives from the various administrative regions, functioning for two years. No provisions were made for choosing the representatives until a second document was signed giving the various political factions control over their selection. Durch, “Introduction to Anarchy,” . . UN, Resolution , June , . . Lyons and Samatar, Somalia, .

Chapter  . Patrick Bellegarde-Smith, Haiti: The Breached Citadel (Boulder: Westview, ), –. . US intervention was sparked by the dismemberment of President Guillaume Sam at the hands of a mob enraged by his killing of several political prisoners. Even before that time, however, the Wilson administration had viewed the occupation of Haiti as a means of preventing European, particularly German, interference in the hemisphere. Leslie A. Benton and Glenn T. Ware, “Haiti: A Case Study of the International Response and the Efficacy of Nongovernmental Organizations in the Crisis,” Emory International Law Review (Spring ), http://www.law.emory.edu/EILR/volumes/spg/benton.html, . . Noam Chomsky, “The Tragedy of Haiti,” in The Haiti Files, Decoding the Crisis, ed. James Ridgeway (Washington, DC: Essential Books, ), . . Bellegarde-Smith, Haiti, . . Robert Maguire et al., Haiti Held Hostage: International Responses to the Quest for Nationhood,  to , Occasional Paper no. , Thomas J. Watson Institute for International Studies, Brown University, , . . Bellegarde-Smith, Haiti, –. . Ibid., . . Chomsky, “Tragedy of Haiti,” . . Ibid. . Bellegarde-Smith, Haiti, . . Michael S. Hooper and Jocelyn McCalla, Haiti, Terror, and the  Elections, New York: National Coalition for Haitian Refugees, Americas Watch, . . Elizabeth Abbott, Haiti: The Duvaliers and Their Legacy (New York: McGraw-Hill, ), xii.

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. For more on the elections see ibid.; William G. O’Neill and Elliot Schrage, Paper Laws, Steel Bayonets: The Breakdown of the Rule of Law in Haiti (New York: Lawyers Committee for Human Rights, ); Domingo E. Acevedo, “The Haitian Crisis and the OAS Response: A Test of Effectiveness in Protecting Democracy,” in Damrosch, Enforcing Restraint, –. . Maguire, Haiti Held Hostage, . . The information in this section comes from Acevedo, “Haitian Crisis”; Maguire et al., Haiti Held Hostage; UN, Blue Helmets. . Bazin had been the preferred candidate of the United States in the election won by Aristide. . UN, Blue Helmets, . UNMIH was intended to monitor and retrain the police while removing them from military control, as well as to provide humanitarian and civic action programs to support democratization. Unfortunately, these programs were thwarted by the military. . Ibid., . . UN, Provisional Record, rd meeting, October , . . Maguire et al., Haiti Held Hostage, –. . “U.S. Policy toward Haiti.” The Hon. William H. Gray III, Hearing before the Committee on Foreign Affairs, US House of Representatives, rd Congress, June , , U.S. Government Printing Office, –. . This was clearly not the position of China, which supports neither democracy nor intervention and abstained from voting on Resolution . . For more discussion on the intervention, see Gray, the Hearing before Committee on Foreign Affairs. . Taylor Branch, “Clinton without Apologies,” Esquire, September , . . UN, Provisional Record, th meeting, October , , . . UN, Provisional Record, th meeting, October , . . UN, Provisional Record, st meeting, October , ; rd meeting, July , ; Report of the Secretary-General on the UN Mission in Haiti, S//. . UN, Provisional Record, th meeting, July , . . UN, Provisional Record, th meeting, June , , . . UN, Provisional Record, th meeting, October , ; th meeting, January , . . UN, Provisional Record, th meeting, July , . . UN, Provisional Record, th meeting, January , . . UN, Blue Helmets, –. . Report of the Secretary-General on the UN Mission in Haiti, July , , S//.

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. Ibid. . See Kriesberg, Constructive Conflicts; Davies and Kaufman, Second Track Diplomacy. . Maguire et al., Haiti Held Hostage, . . The force was composed of twenty thousand US forces and two thousand military personnel from approximately a dozen other countries. See SIPRI Yearbook, . . Walter E. Kretchik, “Planning for ‘Intervasion’: The Strategic and Operational Setting for Uphold Democracy,” www-cgsc.army.mil/carl/resources/csi/ kretchik/chapter.asp. . Statement of Donald E. Schulz, Associate President of National Security Affairs, Strategic Studies Institute, US Army National War College, Carlisle Barracks, PA, before the Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere and Peace Corps Affairs of the Committee on Foreign Relations, US Senate, June , . . Ibid. . Benton and Ware, “Haiti,” . I have also discussed the difference between the transitions in Somalia and Haiti with Robert Oakley, who views Haiti as a model of what should be done. Had similar care been taken in Somalia, he believes political progress might have been far more successful. Ambassador Robert Oakley, former US Envoy to Somalia, conversation with author, Princeton University, February , . . Benton and Ware, “Haiti,” . . Elizabeth Gibbons, Sanctions in Haiti: Human Rights and Democracy under Assault (Westport: Praeger, ), . . Robert Fatton Jr., Haiti’s Predatory Republic: The Unending Transition to Democracy (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, ), –. . Quoted in ibid., . . “Haitian President Installs Premier,” MSNBC, March , . . UN, Provisional Record, th meeting; th meeting; th meeting. . UNMIH was originally authorized after the signing of the Governors Island agreement in , but it could not assume its functions because of the continuing instability. UNMIH began operation again in  after the MNF secured Haiti, though it did not assume full functions until March . . “Another Half-Change for Aristide and Haiti,” Economist, February , . . David Gonzalez, “Haiti’s Leader Takes Conciliatory Step toward His Rivals,” New York Times, July , . . UN Security Council Resolution , April , .

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. David E. Sanger and Christopher Marquis, “State Dept. Denies Leader Was Forced Out of Office,” New York Times, www.nytimes.com//// international/americas/CAPI.html?ei=&en=ad&ex= &partner=USERLAND&pagewanted=print&position; “Aristide Says US Deposed Him in ‘Coup d’Etat,” cnn.com//WORLD/Americas/// aristide.claim.

Chapter  . Marten, Enforcing the Peace, –. . Ibid., . . The information in this section is taken from several sources: Mark Almond, Europe’s Backyard War: The War in the Balkans (London: Heinemann, ); Misha Glenny, The Fall of Yugoslavia: The Third Balkan War (New York: Penguin, ); David Owen, Balkan Odyssey (London: V. Gollancz, ); Susan L. Woodward, Balkan Tragedy: Chaos and Dissolution after the Cold War (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, ); Steven L. Burg and Paul S. Shoup, The War in Bosnia and Herzegovina (Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, ); and Warren Zimmermann, Origins of a Catastrophe: Yugoslavia and Its Destroyers (New York: Times Books, ). . Woodward, Balkan Tragedy, . . Ibid., – . Laura Silber and Allan Little, Yugoslavia: Death of a Nation (New York: TV Books, Inc., ), –. . Zimmermann, Catastrophe. . Ibid., . . Woodward, Balkan Tragedy, . . Ibid.,  . Silber and Little, Yugoslavia, . . Zimmermann, Catastrophe, . . Ibid., . . Once secession was on the table, majority minority areas, geographic regions where an overall minority constituted a majority, wanted to assert their own right of secession in order to protect themselves against discrimination in what were perceived as hostile republics. The structure of international preferences and the arbitrary quality that brought to the recognition of new states is discussed in Manas, “Impossible Trade-off.” . Woodward, Balkan Tragedy, . . Ibid., .

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. Silber and Little, Yugoslavia, . . This section is extremely condensed, and by necessity skims over important developments in both the war and the peace process. It seeks to highlight events relevant to the process of conflict resolution and intervention, while recognizing that either subject on its own could make up an entire book. . Silber and Little, Yugoslavia, –. For more on the criminal composition of the militaries fighting for the Bosnian Serbs, see also John Mueller, “The Rise, Decline, and Shallowness of Militant Nationalism in Europe,” paper presented at the Rochester-Jagiellonian Conference, Kraków, May –, . . Zimmermann, Catastrophe, . Both Zimmermann and Lord Owen (Balkan Odyssey, –) suggest that, particularly early on, most Serbs outside of Milosevic and Mladic were not convinced of their “historic mission” and could have been deterred by a show of Western force. This is reinforced by Mueller’s depiction of the Serb fighters as mainly criminals and thugs more interested in looting than destiny. . James B. Steinberg, “International Involvement in the Yugoslavia Conflict,” in Damrosch, Enforcing Restraint, . . Silber and Little, Yugoslavia, . . Ibid., . . Ibid., . . Morillon declared on March , “You are now under the protection of the United Nations. I will never abandon you.” This statement would be bitterly recalled in July . David Rohde, Endgame: The Betrayal and Fall of Srebrenica, Europe’s Worst Massacre since World War II (Boulder: Westview, ), xv. . Glenny, Fall of Yugoslavia. Not simply the personnel of the government but also its structure and territory were disputed points from the first moment that an independent Bosnia was even considered. The Bosnian Serbs boycotted independence referendums and prepared for autonomy. The Bosnian Croats did not accept full independence, preferring dissociation and then integration with Croatia. The Muslims preferred full independence, but the coalition republican government collapsed as soon as independence became a possibility. Susan Woodward provides a good description of the problem in Implementing Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina: A Post-Dayton Primer and Memorandum of Warning, Brookings Discussion Papers (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, May ), esp. –. For a discussion of the determinative quality of international recognition see Manas, “Impossible Trade-off.” . Silber and Little, Yugoslavia, . . Ivo Daalder, “Fear and Loathing in the Former Yugoslavia,” in Brown, Ethnic Conflict, . . SIPRI, SIPRI Yearbook : Armaments, Disarmament, and International Security (Oxford: Oxford University Press, ), 

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. Ibid., –. This action came after NATO planes bombed installations, though not planes, at the Udbina airfield in the Croatian Krajina, which was the known takeoff point for Bosnian Serb planes used in bombing raids over Bihac. . Ibid., . . Ibid., . The assumption was that the US and UN had lost their status as peacekeepers when they undertook the hunt for General Aideed in Somalia, with disastrous results, and that successful missions must avoid this aggressive approach. . Silber and Little, Yugoslavia, –. Silber and Little also note that NATO assisted the Croats by bombing Serb communications in Knin during their offensive in August. . The massacre at Srebrenica, juxtaposed against Morillon’s promise of , exposed the farce of UN protection and helped catalyze international interest in more forceful approaches. Air support had been denied to the Dutch, for reasons still not entirely clear, and their helplessness and their presence as ear- and eyewitnesses for some of the killings was an uncomfortable situation for the international community. As evidence of the massacres became more incontrovertible, backed up by aerial photographs and findings on the ground, it became more apparent that action was necessary. . “Peace at Last, At Least for Now,” Economist, November , . . At the operation’s conclusion on September  its planes had flown , sorties, including  attack missions, and had secured the eastern section of the country. NATO, Final Fact Sheet, Operation Deny Flight, December , , www.nato.int. . Silber and Little, Yugoslavia, –. .“A Chilly Peace in Bosnia,” U.S. News and World Report, December , . . The IFOR/SFOR mandate is to monitor and enforce compliance with the Dayton Agreements. It also supports nonmilitary tasks such as creating a secure environment for elections, assisting the UNHCR and other aid agencies, preventing interference with the movement of civilian populations, and assisting in the creation of new constitutional structures. IFOR was composed of land forces headquartered in Sarajevo with divisions in Mostar, Tuzla, and Banja Luka, as well as air and naval forces. Ten thousand of the available forces are provided by non-NATO nations, including Russia. All information on IFOR comes from IISS (International Institute for Strategic Studies), The Military Balance, / (London: Oxford University Press), –. At its conclusion in December , SFOR was composed of , troops, with contributions from all NATO members plus eight non-NATO countries. It was replaced by an EU force of the same size. www.nato.int./sfor/organisation/sfororg.htm.

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. Burg and Shoup, War in Bosnia, . . Report of the Secretary-General Pursuant to Security Council Resolution , April , , S/. . Quoted in UN, Provisional Record, th meeting, June , , . . James A. Baker III, The Politics of Diplomacy (New York: Putnam, ), . . Burg and Shoup, War in Bosnia, –. . UN, Provisional Record, th meeting, April , ; th meeting, April , . . By contrast, discussion on the Congo intervention of , the UN’s first enforcement effort, centered on the strategic nature of the country and the need for neutral, multilateral action to thwart unilateral intervention by either superpower. . UN, Provisional Record, th meeting, November , . . UN, Provisional Record, th meeting, April , . . UN, Provisional Record, th meeting, April , . . UN, Provisional Record, th meeting, April , . . UN, Provisional Record, th meeting, August , . . UN, Provisional Record, th meeting, February , . . Lawrence Freedman, “Bosnia: Does Peace Support Make Any Sense?” NATO Review, November . . UN, Provisional Record, th meeting, November , , th meeting, April , . . The Contact Group was composed of the United States, Russia, and the three main troop-contributing countries of UNPROFOR: France, Britain, and Spain. . Burg and Shoup, War in Bosnia, . . Michael Ignatieff, “The Burden,” New York Times Magazine, January , , available at www.NYTimes.com. . United States, State Department, “Fact Sheet: NATO Involvement in the Balkan Crisis,” prepared by the Department of State, Bureau of European and Canadian Affairs, May , , www.state.gov/www/regions/eur/natobalk.html. . SFOR ended its tenure in Bosnia and handed over authority to an EUled military force (EUFOR) on December , . . The framework was as follows: Annex A: Military Aspects of the Peace Settlement; Annex B: Regional Stability; Annex : Inter-Entity Boundary Line and Related Issues; Annex : Elections; Annex : Constitution of Bosnia and Herzegovina; Annex : Arbitration; Annex : Human Rights; Annex : Refugees and Displaced Persons; Annex : Committee to Preserve National Monuments;

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Annex : Establishment of Bosnia and Herzegovina Public Corporations; Annex : Civilian Implementation of the Peace Agreement; Annex : International Police Task Force. The text of the agreement can be found at www.ohr.int. . Kishore Mandhyan, Deputy Head of Civil Affairs, UNMIBH, and Chris Riley, Head of Media Development, OHR, interviews by author, Sarajevo, June , , . . The French sector was based in Mostar, the US in Tuzla, and the British in Gornji Vakuf. IFOR as a whole was headquartered in Sarajevo, which was to be unified and brought under Muslim-Croat control. A large part of IFOR’s immediate duty lay in overseeing territorial swaps, including the creation of a Muslim-Croat controlled land corridor between Sarajevo and Gorazde, and oversight of the Posavina corridor connecting the eastern and western holdings of the Bosnian Serbs. “A Chilly Peace in Bosnia,” U.S. News and World Report, December , . . William T. Johnsen, U.S. Participation in IFOR: A Marathon, Not a Sprint, report of the Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College, June , . . Michael Stiers, deputy commissioner, International Police Task Force, interview by author, Sarajevo, June , . . The three did not operate under the same roof until the summer of . . David Chandler, Bosnia: Faking Democracy after Dayton (Sterling, VA: Pluto Press, ). . ICG, Europe Report no. , Is Dayton Failing: Bosnia Four Years after the Peace Agreement, October ; Paris, “Wilson’s Ghost,” –. . See, for example, Chaim Kaufman, “Possible and Impossible Solutions to Ethnic Civil Wars,” International Security , no.  (Spring ): –. . One proponent of this view is Tony Borden, executive director of the Institute for War and Peace Reporting. See “Is It Time to Rewrite Dayton?” NATO Review, Winter –, –. . Dayton architect Richard Holbrooke’s account of the negotiations and the conscious compromises made by the Western mediators in an effort to achieve a settlement are thoroughly described in Holbrooke’s Dayton memoir, To End a War (New York: Random House, ). . ICG, Europe Report no. , The Wages of Sin: Confronting Bosnia’s Republika Srpska, October ; no. , Courting Disaster: The Misrule of Law in Bosnia and Herzegovina, March ; no. , Bosnia’s Nationalist Governments: Paddy Ashdown and the Paradoxes of State-Building, July . . ICG, Europe Report no. , Bosnia’s Nationalist Governments, July . . One of the notable recent hard-liners was Ante Jelavic, the Croat member of the joint presidency, who was elected to his post but removed in March  by the high representative, Wolfgang Petritsch, for promoting Croat self-rule.

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. ICG, Europe Report no. , ii. . Johnsen, Participation in IFOR, . . ICG, Europe Report no. , Bosnia’s Precarious Economy: Still Not Open for Business, August ; no. , Wages of Sin. . ICG, Europe Report no. , Finding the Balance: The Scales of Justice in Kosovo, September . . For a full discussion of the problem, see Stedman, “Spoiler Problems.” . World Bank, Bosnia and Herzegovina: Diagnostic Surveys of Corruption, , available for order at http://publications.worldbank.org/howtoorder. . The political-economic nexus is particularly acute because Bosnia’s thirteen administrative units include five different levels of government: state, entity, canton, city, and municipality. . ICG, Europe Report no. ; World Bank, Diagnostic Surveys. . United States, State Department, “Implementing the Dayton Peace Agreement: The Importance of Civilian Implementation,” fact sheet released by the Bureau of European and Canadian Affairs, US State Department, May , , www.state.gov/www/regions/eur/bosnia/bosnia_civilians.html.

Chapter  . International Crisis Group, Africa Report no. , Sierra Leone: Managing Uncertainty, October , , i. . Paul Richards, Fighting for the Rainforest: War, Youth and Resources in Sierra Leone (London: International African Institute, ), . . John R. Cartwright, Political Leadership in Sierra Leone (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, ), –; Sahr John Kpundeh, Politics and Corruption in Africa: A Case Study of Sierra Leone (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, ), . . Adekeye Adebajo, Building Peace in West Africa (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, ), . . Kpundeh, Politics and Corruption, –. See also Reno, Warlord Politics, –. . Kpundeh, Politics and Corruption, –. . Reno, Warlord Politics, –. . Ibid., . . Ethnically, regionally, or religiously exclusive parties could be rejected by the party registration commission. Kpundeh, Politics and Corruption, . . Ibid., . . Reno, Warlord Politics, . . Ibid., .

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. Ibid., . . Adebajo, Building Peace, . . Richards, Rainforest, –. See also John Hirsch, Sierra Leone (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, ). . Ibid., –. . These troops were officially under the sanction of ECOMOG as part of a defense agreement between ECOWAS and Kabbah. . Richards, Rainforest, . Many key figures in EO served in the covert operations in Angola and Mozambique in the s and ’s. “Chronology of Sierra Leone: How Diamonds Fueled the Conflict,” Africa Confidential, www .africa-confidential.com. . The Kamajors are one of the traditional hunting brotherhoods and claim to be imbued with supernatural powers. Ostensibly impervious to bullets and able to disappear at will, the Kamajors subsequently helped ECOMOG troops as well. . EO was charging $. million per month for its services (covering less than one hundred personnel) and had invested substantial funds in exploratory mining. “Chronology of Sierra Leone,” Africa Confidential. . ECOMOG II was  percent staffed and funded by Nigeria. . Report of the Secretary-General on the Situation in Sierra Leone, October , , S//. . Nigeria was criticized for undertaking this action unilaterally. In fact, most other states supported ECOMOG but did not want to commit to resolving the crisis. Nigeria asked other countries to contribute troops; Benin, Côte d’Ivoire, Gambia, and Niger all promised troops but never provided them. . ICG, Africa Report no. , Sierra Leone: Time for a New Military and Political Strategy, April . . Abacha was infamous for his flagrant abuses of human rights. Just three years before he had earned international condemnation for the hanging of poet Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight other activists. The fact that Nigeria dominated ECOMOG made many observers refuse assistance. . First Report on the UN Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL), S//, December , ; Third Progress Report of the Secretary-General on the UN Observer Mission in Sierra Leone (UNOMSIL), December , , S//, . At this time the primary activity of UNOMSIL was training and monitoring existing police force to provide some indigenous security for Kabbah. . Edward Barnes, “The Heart of Darkness,” Time, January , . . UN, Provisional Record, th meeting, March , , . . ECOWAS faced an internal controversy that not surprisingly followed the familiar anglophone/francophone divide. Kabbah and his supporters favored

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pursuing and destroying the rebels. Côte d’Ivoire and Togo favored reaching a compromise settlement. Secretary-General Kofi Annan favored the latter view himself, but it was controversial due to the atrocities committed by RUF. William Shawcross, Deliver Us from Evil: Peacekeepers, Warlords, and a World of Endless Conflict (New York: Simon and Schuster, ), . . Ibid., . . Many, however, speculated that some of that money would end up in the personal bank accounts of various commanders. . ICG, Africa Report no. , Sierra Leone: Managing Uncertainty, October . . Ninth Report of the Secretary-General on the United Nations Mission to Sierra Leone, March , , S//, . . ICG, Africa Report no. , . . B.B.C. Monitoring Report, “Report: Taylor to Visit Banjul: Burkinabe Leader Rejects ECOWAS Intervention,” August , , in Regional PeaceKeeping and International Enforcement: The Liberian Crisis, ed. Marc Weller (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ), . . UN, Provisional Record, th meeting, February , . . Reno, Warlord Politics, –. . ICG, Africa Report no. , Sierra Leone: Time for a New Political and Military Strategy, April , . . UN, Provisional Record, th meeting, November , , and st meeting, January , . See also Ademola Adeleke, “The Politics and Diplomacy of Peacekeeping in West Africa: The ECOWAS Operation in Liberia,” Journal of Modern African Studies , no.  (): –. . Statement of the Ghanaian representative to the Security Council, UN, Provisional Record, th meeting, November , . Senegal also noted the threat “to the peace and security of the  countries of ECOWAS” caused by the proliferation of weapons circulating in the region and the problem of refugee flows. . Nigeria made this request in October , after negotiations produced a tentative agreement that the junta would hand over the government to civilians in April . “Chronology of Sierra Leone,” Africa Confidential. . UN, Report of the Inter-Agency Mission to West Africa, S//; Stephen Ellis, The Mask of Anarchy: The Destruction of Liberia and the Religious Dimension of an African Civil War (New York: New York University Press, ); ICG, Africa Report no. , Liberia: The Key to Ending Regional Instability, April . . UNAMSIL became a Chapter VII operation in early . Its original mandate was to assist with disarmament and demobilization, ensure movement

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of its personnel, and generally monitor compliance with the cease-fire. In February  the mandate was expanded to include more aggressive tasks associated with the peace negotiations. The operation was also authorized at that time to “take the necessary action” to fulfill its objectives. UNSCR , February , . . Dr. Kaba Saran Daraba, Head of Women’s Projects, Mano River Union, interview by author, Conakry, Guinea, October , . . Michael Ignatieff, Virtual War: Kosovo and Beyond (New York: Picador USA, ), . . UN, Provisional Record, th meeting, March , , S/PV... . UN, Provisional Record, th meeting, February , , S/PV.. . Ibid. . China also fully endorsed UNAMSIL, which was indicative of the consensus since that country often abstains from peacekeeping votes on the grounds of sovereignty. . ICG, Africa Report no., , Sierra Leone: Time for a New Military and Political Strategy, . . ICG, Africa Report no. , . . UN, Fourth Report of the Secretary-General on the United Nations Mission to Sierra Leone, S//, May , . . UN, Provisional Record, th meeting, November , . . Chabal and Daloz define a criminal conflict as one in which the violence is perceived to result from the “private greed of war makers.” Chabal and Daloz, Africa Works, –. . Ibrahim Bah, refugee, interview by author, Conakry, Guinea, October , . . ICG, Africa Briefing, “Sierra Leone: Ripe for Elections?” December . . Address to parliament by the president of Sierra Leone on the signing in Lomé of the comprehensive peace agreement, S//. . UN, peacekeeping facts, www.un.org/Depts/dpko/missions/unamsil. . The  transition to democracy was also a contributing factor, because President Olusegun Obasanjo found it increasingly difficult to justify the tremendous expense for ECOMOG to his constituency. . Herbert Howe, “Lessons of Liberia: ECOMOG and Regional Peacekeeping,” International Security , no.  (–): ; Margaret A. Vogt, ed., The Liberian Crisis and ECOMOG: A Bold Attempt at Regional Peacekeeping (Lagos: Gabumo Publishing, ). . Progress Report of the Secretary-General on the Implementation of the Recommendations Contained in the Report on the Causes of Conflict and the Promise of Durable Peace and Sustained Development in Africa, S//.

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. Shawcross, Deliver Us from Evil, . . UN, Provisional Record, th meeting, March , , S/PV.. . ICG, Africa Report no. , Sierra Leone: The State of Security and Governance, September . . Refugees, interviews by author, Conakry, Guinea, October –; and William Koroma, Assistant Engineer, Sierra Rutile, interview by author, October , . . Daraba interview, October , .

Chapter  . Information for this section is taken from Tim Judah, Kosovo: War and Revenge (New Haven: Yale University Press, ); Noel Malcolm, Kosovo, A Short History (New York: HarperPerennial, ); Howard Clark, Civil Resistance in Kosovo (London: Pluto Press, ); Misha Glenny, The Balkans: Nationalism, War, and the Great Powers, – (New York: Penguin USA, ); Julie Mertus, Kosovo: How Myths and Truths Started a War (Berkeley: University of California Press, ). . IICK, Kosovo Report, . . Malcolm, Kosovo, . . Quoted in ibid., . . Ibid., . . H. Clark, Civil Resistance, –. . Ibid., . . Malcolm, Kosovo, . . IICK, Kosovo Report, –. . Martinovic claimed he was attacked by two Albanians who forced a bottle into his rectum, but his story changed several times. The clinic where he was first treated judged the wound to be self-inflicted, which he later admitted but then reversed. . Quoted in IICK, Kosovo Report, . . H. Clark, Civil Resistance, . . IICK, Kosovo Report, . . Human Rights Watch, Humanitarian Law Violations in Kosovo, October , . . The Contact Group was composed of representatives from the United States, Russia, Great Britain, Germany, France, and Italy. . IICK, Kosovo Report, . . Ibid., .

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. Ivo A. Daalder and Michael E. O’Hanlon, Winning Ugly: NATO’s War to Save Kosovo (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, ), . . William G. O’Neill, Kosovo: An Unfinished Peace (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, ), –. . IICK, Kosovo Report, . . There is now some controversy over whether the massacre was perpetrated by Serb forces or staged by the KLA to implicate the Serbs. An independent team of Finnish forensic experts autopsied the bodies under the mandate of the EU, but could not address the issue of who did the killing. Some of the individual pathologists have raised questions, however, since the scene was neither isolated nor secured prior to international investigations and fighting between Serb and Albanian forces was known to have occurred the night before the discovery of the bodies. See, for example, www.globalresearch.ca/articles/BIKA .html; www.balkanpeace.org/wcs/wct/wctk/wctko.shtml. . Richard Holbrooke, conversation with author, Princeton University, April , . . Judah, Kosovo, . . Interim Agreement for Peace and Self-Government in Kosovo, www. state.gov/www/regions/eur/ksvo_rambouillet_text.html. . Holbrooke conversation. . Daalder and O’Hanlon, Winning Ugly, . See also Judah, Kosovo; Marc Weller, “The Rambouillet Conference on Kosovo,” International Affairs , no.  (): –. . Judah, Kosovo, . . Daalder and O’Hanlon, Winning Ugly, . . For further discussion of the controversy over what caused the exodus of Albanians and the available information on the subject, see IICK, Kosovo Report, –. . Quoted in Damrosch, “Inevitability of Selective Response?” . . Raymond C. Taras and Rajat Ganguly, Understanding Ethnic Conflict: The International Dimension (New York: Longman, ), –. . Daalder and O’Hanlon, Winning Ugly; IICK, Kosovo Report. . H. Clark, Civil Resistance, . . Quoted in IICK, Kosovo Report, . . IICK, Kosovo Report, –. . Richard Holbrooke suggests that Milosevic’s repeated tendency to foment violence and destabilize the region was a serious concern for international actors. Conversation with author, Princeton University, April , . . Daalder and O’Hanlon, Winning Ugly, –. . Secretary-general to president of Security Council, June , , S// .

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. IICK, Kosovo Report, . . Ignatieff, Virtual War, –. . Welsh, “Authorizing Humanitarian Intervention,” . . IICK, Kosovo Report, . . Glennon, Limits of Law. . For a discussion of this problem see G. John Ikenberry, “The Costs of Victory: American Power and the Use of Force in the Contemporary Order,” in Schnabel and Thakur, Kosovo, –. . UN, Provisional Record, th meeting, March , . . For Blair’s position and an analysis of the parliamentary debate, see Dan Keohane,“The Debate on British Policy in the Kosovo Conflict: An Assessment,” Contemporary Security Policy , no. , –. . Ignatieff, Virtual War, . . Simon Duke, Hans-Georg Ehrhard, and Matthias Karadi, “The Major European Allies: France, Germany, and the United Kingdom,” in Schnabel and Thakur, Kosovo, . . Duke, Ehrhard, and Karadi, “European Allies,” ; and Keohane, “British Policy.” . Duke, Ehrhard, and Karadi, “European Allies,” . . David G. Haglund and Allen Sens, “Kosovo and the Case of the (Not So) Free Riders: Portugal, Belgium, Canada, and Spain,” in Schnabel and Thakur, Kosovo, . . Of the (then) nineteen NATO member countries, Greece was the only one to elect not to participate on political grounds. Although its government professed general support for NATO, its populace was adamantly opposed to attacks on the Serbs. Four other NATO countries did not participate because of a lack of capacity. . Ignatieff, Virtual War. . A. J. R. Groom and Paul Taylor, “The United Nations System and the Kosovo Crisis,” in Schnabel and Thakur, Kosovo, . . IICK, Kosovo Report; Daalder and O’Hanlon, Winning Ugly. . Daalder and O’Hanlon, Winning Ugly, . . Ibid., . . UN, Provisional Record, th meeting, June , . . Ibid. . UN, Provisional Record, th meeting, March , . . UN, Provisional Record, st meeting, June , . See also, th meeting, March , . . The parameters of Russian participation initially caused some problems. Russia wanted to control its own sector, which NATO opposed because of concerns that it would lead to a Serb protectorate under Russian control. Russia

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protested its limitations by occupying the Pritina airport, a move the United States initially wanted to oppose by force. Cooler heads prevailed, however, and British and French commitment to Russian participation led to an agreement to disperse its troops throughout the other zones. . The doctrine of uti possidetis is recognized as the controlling law for secession. It stipulates that emerging states presumptively inherit the administrative borders they held at the time of independence. This doctrine was applied in the cases of Bosnia and Croatia to block the intended secession of Serb areas from each of those states. In the case of Kosovo, the doctrine provided a precedent for retaining the integrity of the Serbian republic—while Serbia could secede from FRY, Kosovo cannot secede from Serbia. This precedent also helped prevent decisions on final status. . ICG, Europe Report no. , Kosovo’s Ethnic Dilemma: The Need for a Civic Contract, May , i. . www.economist.com/cities/displayStory.cfm?Story_ID=. . ICG, Europe Report no. , Kosovo Report Card, August . . ICG, Europe Report no. , Kosovo: Landmark Election, November . . ICG, Europe Report no. , . . Quoted in O’Neill, Unfinished Peace, . . See ibid.; ICG, Europe Report no. . . ICG, Europe Report no. . . O’Neill, Unfinished Peace, .

Chapter  . ICISS, Responsibility to Protect, xi. . UN, Provisional Record, rd meeting, September , . . Finnemore, “Humanitarian Intervention,” . . UN, Provisional Record, rd meeting, . . Daniel Philpott, “Liberalism, Power, and Authority in International Relations,” Security Studies , no.  (Winter –), –. . “Diplomacy and Darfur,” Washington Post, November , , A. . ICG, Asia Report no. , Afghanistan: From Presidential to Parliamentary Elections (November ); ICG, Asia Briefing no. , Elections and Security in Afghanistan (March ). . ICG, Latin American/Caribbean Report no. , A New Chance for Haiti? (November ). . Philpott, “Liberalism, Power,” .

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. John Gray, Al Qaeda and What It Means to Be Modern (New York : New Press, ), . . Richard N. Haass, Director, Policy Planning Staff, Remarks to Foreign Policy Association, April , , www.state.gov/s/p/rem/.htm; Thomas Henriksen, “Confronting the Post Post–Cold War World,” Hoover Digest, no.  (), www.hooverdigest.org//henriksen.html; Ralph A. Cossa, “Ushering in the Post Post–Cold War Era,” Comparative Connections, October , Center for Strategic and International Studies, www.csis.org/pacfor/cc/Qoverview .html. . Falk, Terror War. . Ibid., . . ICISS, Responsibility to Protect. . President’s remarks at the UN General Assembly, September , , www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases///-.html; testimony of US Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld before the House Armed Services Committee Regarding Iraq, September , ; Press Briefing by White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer, October , , www.whitehouse.gov/news/ releases///-.html; Vice President Speaks at VFW rd National Convention, www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases///.html. . Jacques Chirac, “Chirac Makes His Case on Iraq,” interview,  Minutes, March , , www.cbs.com. . ICISS, Responsibility to Protect, xii. . Statement of Russian president Vladimir Putin concerning the military action in Iraq, March , , http://oag.ru/views/iraq_putin.html. . Ayoob, “War against Iraq,” . . George W. Bush, “State of the Union Address,” www.whitehouse.gov/ news/releases///-.html; Stewart Patrick, “Multilateralism and Its Discontents,” in Patrick and Forman, Multilateralism, –. . Edward C. Luck, “Bush, Iraq, and the U.N.: Whose Idea Was This Anyway?” in Weiss, Crahan, and Goering, Wars on Terrorism, –. .“The UN and Iraq: Irrelevant, Illegitimate, or Indispensable?” Economist, February , ; Richard Spertzel, “No Smoking Gun,” National Review Online, www.nationalreview.com/comment/comment-spertzel.asp. . Gunter Hofmann/Bernd Ulrich, Interview with Federal Foreign Minister [Joschka] Fischer on a new world order, America, and the importance of the European Union, Die Zeit, May , , www.auswaertiges-amt.de/www/en/ laenderinfos/laender/laender_ausgabe_archiv?land_id=&a_type=Interviews &archiv_id=. . Chantal de Jonge Oudraat, “The future of U.S.-European Relations” in Weiss, Crahan, and Goering, Wars on Terrorism, –.

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. Falk, Terror War; IICK, Kosovo Report. . Luck, “Bush, Iraq, and the U.N.” . The administration claimed that at least thirty-five countries were committed to the coalition, although approximately fifteen declined to be publicly named. See http://usembassy.state.gov for various discussions on the coalition, and http://news.bbc.co.uk. . Statements made by Dominique de Villepin, Minister of Foreign Affairs, during his joint press briefing with Abdullah Gul, Turkish Minister of Foreign Affairs, April , , www.info-france-usa.org/news/statmnts//villepin_ turkey.asp. .“Joschka Fischer: Speedier Iraq transition is key,” interview with Wolf Blitzer, November , , www.cnn.com//US///cnna.fischer/index.html. . Although the deadline was not binding in any way and was unlikely to be observed, the forced compromise on the part of the United States was nonetheless significant. . Report of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, “The Present Situation in Iraq,” June , www.unhchr.ch/html/hchr/docs/iraq.doc. . Arrest of Saddam Hussein, statement to media by M. Dominique de Villepin, Minister of Foreign Affairs, December , , www.info-france-usa .org/news/statmnts//villepin_arrest_husein_.asp. . “Leaders Unite in Cheering Capture,” December , , www.cnn .com//WORLD/europe///sprj.irq.saddam.world.reaction. . news.bbc.co.uk//hi/middle_east/.stm; www.news.com/News/ World/Iraq/,,---,html. . Rajiv Chandrasekaran, “U.N. Envoy Dispassionate about Iraqi Government,” New Orleans Times-Picayune, June , , A. . Report available at www.un.org/News/dh/iuraq/rpt-fact-finding-mission .pdf. . “UN Told Iraq Is Taking First Steps to Democracy,” UN Wire, February , , www.unwire.org; “U.S. Plan for Iraqi Handover Could Change Significantly,” UN Wire, February , , www.alnu.lu/articles.htm#U.S.%Plan% for%Iraq. . Patrick, “Multilateralism and Its Discontents,” . . Russian president Vladimir Putin, statement, March , , http://oag .ru/views/iraq_putin.html. . Mearsheimer, Great Power Politics, . . G. John Ikenberry, After Victory (Princeton: Princeton University Press, ), . . Clyde Prestowitz, Rogue Nation (New York: Basic Books, ), . . Edward C. Luck, “The United States, International Organizations, and the Quest for Legitimacy,” in Patrick and Forman, Multilateralism, .



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. Thomas Risse, “U.S. Power in a Liberal Security Community,” in America Unrivaled, ed. G. John Ikenberry (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, ), –. . Fischer, interview with Wolf Blitzer, Die Zeit, May , , www.cnn .com//US///cnna.fischer/index.html. . Daniel Byman and Taylor Seybolt, “Humanitarian Intervention and Communal Civil War,” Security Studies , no.  (Autumn ): –. . Marten, Enforcing the Peace, . . Byman and Seybolt, “Humanitarian Intervention.” . UN, Provisional Record, th meeting, April , .

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Index

Abbott, Kenneth,  ActionAid International,  Afghanistan, ; NATO control of the force in, ; security interests in, ; and terrorist organizations,  African Union,  Aideed, General Mohammed Farah, , , ,  Albanians, –; in Kosovo today, ; national movement, – Albright, Ambassador Madeleine,  Algeria,  ‘Ali Mahdi, Mohammed, – ‘Ali Shirmarke, President ‘Abd alRashid,  All People’s Congress,  Amnesty International, ,  Anderson, Mary,  Angola, ,  Annan, UN Secretary-General Kofi, , –, , ,  Annex A of the Dayton accords,  Arbour, Louise,  Aristide, President Jean-Bertrand, , –, , ; appeal for UN assistance by, ; clarification of sovereignty by, ; exile in US of, ; return of,  Ashdown, Paddy,  Asian economic flu of ,  Ayoob, Mohammed, , 

Barre, General Mohammed Siad, – Baumann, Robert, , – Bhutto, Benazir,  Bio, Brigadier General Julius Maada,  Blair, Tony; justification for war in Iraq of, ; theoretical debate of, – Bosnia, , , , , , –; actions of NATO in, ; degree of violence in, ; images before, , ; and Kosovo, , ; map of, ; reforms in, ; security in, ; today,  Bosnian-Croat Federation,  Boutros-Ghali, Secretary-General Boutros, , , –, , , –, –; An Agenda for Peace, ; and possible courses of action in the Security Council, – Brown, Michael,  Bull, Hedley,  Burundi,  Bush, President George H. W., –; administration of, ; on intervention in Somalia, , – Bush, President George W.: on humanitarian intervention and the military, , ; justification for war in Iraq of, , , , , , ; on UN, –,  Byman, Daniel, 

Badinter Commission, ,  Baker, Secretary of State James,  Bangladesh,  Banja Luka, , ,  Barnett, Michael, , 

Cambodia,  capitalist system, 



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Carnegie Endowment,  Carr, E. H.,  Carter, Jimmy, , , – Carter Center,  Cedras, General Raoul, , –, – Chandler, David,  Charter, UN, Chapter VII of, –, , –, , , , ,  Chechnya,  Chesterman, Simon,  China: and human rights, ; on Kosovo intervention, ; opposition to uninvited intervention by, ; and Russia,  Chirac, Jacques,  citizens’ diplomacy, – Clinton, President Bill, , , ; administration of, ; and Rwanda in ,  Coicaud, Jean-Marc, –,  Cold War period, , t collective intervention,  Concert of Europe, , ,  conflict, ; cases during the Cold War, ; civil, ; conditions enabling rise of, ; likelihood in liberalism of,  conflict resolution, , , , ; in the s, ; defined, ; at the end of the Cold War, –; and international order, ; and intervention, , ; and multilateral military action, ; and NGOs, ; and rebuilding states, ; after WWII, . See also peace building; technology Congo. See Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) constructivism, – Contact Group, – contemporary intervention, – cooperation: and liberalism, ; in realist theory, – Côte d’Ivoire, , – Croatian Serbs,  Croats,  cultural diffusion, 



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Damrosch, Lori Fisler, ,  Darfur region. See Sudan Darod clan family,  Davies, John,  Dayton peace accords, , , , ; Annex A of,  de Cuellar, UN Secretary-General Javier Perez,  de Jonge Oudraat, Chantal,  Democratic Convergence,  Democratic League of Kosovo, – Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), , , , , , , ,  democratization, ,  development, – Diehl, Paul,  diplomacy, alternative forms of,  Djibouti, – Doyle, Michael,  Drenica Valley region, , – Dulbahante,  Duvalier, François “Papa Doc,” – Duvalier, Jean-Claude “Baby Doc,” –,  East Timor, , , ; degree of intervention in, ; government today, ; success of intervention in,  ECOMOG (ECOWAS Monitoring Group), , , , –, ; in Liberia, , –, , , , , –, ; in Sierra Leone, , –, , , –, –, –, , –,  Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), , –, –, , –, . See also ECOMOG economic concerns,  Edwards, Michael,  El Salvador, ,  Enver Hoxha,  ethnonationalism,  evolution,  executive outcomes,  FADH,  Falk, Richard, , , –, , –

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Index

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Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY), , , , –, ,  Feste, Karen, , ,  Finnemore, Martha,  Fischer, Joschka, ,  Forces Armées d’Haiti (FADH),  France, ; and Rwanda,  Franck, Thomas,  FRY. See Federal Republic of Yugoslavia Fukuyama, Francis, 

Hargeisa,  Harlan County episode,  Havel, Václav,  Hawiye, ,  Holbrooke, Richard, , –; mission to Belgrade, – Howe, Admiral Jonathan,  humanitarian concerns, , ; and intervention, – human rights, –, , , , . See also technology human security,  Hungary, –t,  Hussein, Saddam, ; government of, –; removal of, , 

Gladstone, William,  Glennon, Michael,  globalization, , ; affecting more than economics, –; and economic development, –; “from below,” ; influence on intervention of, ; and information revolution, ; liberal ideas spread by, ; and nature of state, ; negative consequences of,  Global Witness,  Gonaives, massacre in,  Gorazde,  government: form and structure of, ; pluralistic forms of, ; responsibility of, to citizens,  Gray, John,  great power militaries,  Grenada, –t Guantanamo Bay,  Guehenno, Jean-Marie, ,  Guinea-Bissau, 

Ignatieff, Michael, ,  Ikenberry, John,  imperialism, –; and Marxism,  Implementation Force (IFOR), ,  Independent International Commission on Kosovo (IICK), , – Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR),  institutions, role of,  Inter-American Democratic Charter,  interdependence, and neoliberalism,  intergovernmental organizations (IGOs), ; founded on the assumption of equality of nations, ; revitalization of,  internal conflict, ; common myth and NGOs, ; defined, ; versus external, – internal violence,  international assistance,  International Civilian Support Mission in Haiti,  International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS), , ,  International Conference on Former Yugoslavia, ,  international control,  International Criminal Court, ,  International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, 

Haiti, , –t, ;  intervention level in, ; in , ; building democracy in, value of, ; government today, ; instability and economic underdevelopment in, –, –; junta in, ; limited peace building attempted in, ; map of, ; multilateral intervention in, ; the problem, ; problems of, and Aristide, –; proclamation of independence by, ; US, arrival of, ; US and UN in, . See also intervention in Haiti

Index

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

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International Crisis Group (ICG), , ,  International Force for East Timor (INTERFET), – international law and intervention, – international organizations, , –,  international protectorate,  International Security Assistance Force (ISAF),  international system, – Internet, ,  intervention, –, –, , –, , , –, –, , –, –, –, –; before and through the s, ; change in, , ; into civil conflicts, ; Cold War versus s, –; collective, ; defined, , ; development of, ; and the environment, –; frequency of, ; humanitarian, ; limiting, ; and Marxism, ; partnership with local officials, ; in post–Cold War period, ; and problem of success, –; in Somalia, –; and states’ sovereignty, ; as strategy of conflict resolution, ; and theory of power politics, ; UN establishes legitimacy of, ; and violence, causes of, . See also individual countries and areas; military intervention; theories of international relations intervention in Bosnia, ; assessing outcomes of, –; international response to, –; origins of conflict in, –; overview of conflict in, – intervention in Haiti, ; assessing outcomes of, –; international response to, – intervention in Kosovo,  Iraq, , ; origins of crisis in, –; US intervention in, ; USUN dialogue about, ; war in, , , , – Issaq clan, 



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Ivory Coast,  Izetbegovic, President Alija,  Jashari, Adem,  Jashari family,  Johnson, Chalmers,  Joulwan, General George,  Kabbah, President Ahmed Tejan, –, , , ,  Kamajors,  Karadzic, Radovan,  Karl, Terry, ,  Kenya,  Kleiboer, Marieke,  Kohl, Helmut,  Koljevic, Nikola,  Korea,  Kosovar Albanians, ,  Kosovo, , , t, , ; air war ended in, ; assessing outcomes of, ; Blair, Tony, on military action in, ; China on intervention in, , ; critics of intervention in, ; degree of intervention in, ; elections in, ; ethnic background of the war in, ; ethnic relationships in, ; genocide of Serbs in, ; history of, –; humanitarian agenda in, ; international response to, –; intervention in, uniqueness of, –; map of the region, ; minorities in, ; nation-building project in, , –; NATO’s intervention in, ; origins of conflict in, ; overview of conflict in, –; repression in, ; security in, ; theoretical questions raised by, –; the two wars in, ; UN as sole authority in, ; and US, . See also intervention in Kosovo Kosovo Force, , , – Kosovo Liberation Army, – Kosovo Protection Corps,  Krasner, Stephen,  Kriesberg, Louis,  Kurdish population in Iraq, , 

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Index

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11:57 AM

Lavalas Family Party, – League of Nations Commission of Jurists,  Lee, Joanne,  legitimacy,  Lewis, I. M.,  liberal governance,  “liberal imperialism,”  liberalism,  liberals, classical,  Liberia, , –,  Likosane,  Luck, Edward, 

multinational corporations,  Multinational Force (Haiti), , ,  Multinational Interim Force,  Namibia,  Namphy, General Henri,  National Council of Government (CNG),  nationalism,  National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL), –,  nation building, –, ; defined, – NATO: actions in Bosnia of, versus UN’s, ; bombing campaign against Serbia by, ; charged with not caring for civilians, ; creation of, ; and France, ; intervention in Kosovo by, , –, –; and “irregular interruptions” of democracy, ; Milosevic’s acceptance of demands by, ; venturing out of Europe by,  Nel, Philip, – neoliberals,  news organizations,  NGOs, –, , ; and humanitarians, ,  Nigeria,   Rome Statute,  nongovernmental organizations. See NGOs nonintervention, – Nordic countries,  norms, ,  Nye, Joseph, 

Malaysia,  Mandela, Nelson,  Mandelbaum, Michael, –,  Marehan, – Marten, Kimberly, ,  Martinovic, Djordje, – Marxism,  Mearsheimer, John,  Miall, Hugh, , , ,  military action, –, ; as an appropriate response, ; versus conflict resolution,  military intervention, ,  Millennium Declaration in ,  Milosevic, Slobodan, , –, , , , , ; goals of, ; NATO’s demands accepted by, –; rise to power of, ; threats by government of, ; and Tudjman, ; and Yeltsin,  Mitchell, George,  Mitrovica,  Mladic, General Ratko, – Mobutu Sese Seko,  Mogadishu, , –,  Mohammed, Jamil Said,  Momoh, Joseph, –, ,  Monrovia, – Morgan, Patrick,  Morgenthau, Hans,  Morillon, General Philippe,  Mozambique, ,  multilateralism, , t multilateral military action, , , 

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Oakley, US Special Envoy Robert,  Office of the High Representative (OHR), ,  Ogaden,  Operation Deliberate Force,  Operation Horseshoe,  Operation Provide Relief,  Operation Restore Hope,  Operation Uphold Democracy, 

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Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, ,  Organization of African Unity, , –,  Organization of American States, ,  Owen, David, , 

rules and law,  Russia and China,  Rwanda, , ; failure of responsibility in, ; “genocide,” term avoided by US, ; massacres of , 

Pastor, Robert,  peace building, , –, –; defined, – peace enforcement,  peacekeeping: defined, ; new style of,  peacemaking, defined,  Pearson, Frederic, , – Philpott, Daniel,  Pickering, Jeffrey, , – pluralism. See liberalism postconflict efforts,  Powell, Colin,  power: and constructivism, ; and Marxism, ; in neoliberalism, ; in realist theory,  Préval, President René, ,  Price, Richard,  Pritina, ,  Putin, Vladimir, ; on the US invasion of Iraq, 

Sankoh, Foday,  Santiago accord,  Sarajavo, ,  Schmitter, Phillipe, ,  security: and actors, ; in constructivism, ; defining, , ; human, –, ; as interest of the state, ; interests, as driving intervention, –; and Marxism, ; and protection of individuals, ; in realist theory, ; reconceptualization of, ; state and human, –; in the Third World, ; understandings since WWII,  selectivity,  self-interest,  Sen, Amartya,  Senegal,  September , US response to,  Serbia: elections in, ; nationbuilding project in, –; NATO bombing of, ; war in,  Seybolt, Taylor,  Shabelle and Jubba river valleys,  Sierra Leone, , –, ; Army, ; assessing outcomes in, –; international response to, –; map of, ; origins of conflict in, –; overview of conflict in, –; success of intervention in, ; today,  Singer, Max, – Slovenia: in , ; unemployment in,  Snidal, Duncan,  Somalia, –, , t, ; assessing outcomes in, –; attempts at a cease fire in, ; battle for Mogadishu, ; collapse of, ; December, , ; descriptors of, ; economic and political crises in,

Racak, – radicalism,  Rambouillet, , , – Ramsbotham, Oliver, – Reagan administration, – realism, – refugees,  Regan, Patrick, , ; on why states intervene, ; definition of “multilateral,” ; post–Cold War moment chosen by,  rehabilitation,  Republika Srpska,  Revolutionary United Front, ,  Risse-Kappen, Thomas, , ,  Rome Statute, ,  Rose, Lt. General Michael, – Ruggie, John,  Rugova, Ibrahim, 



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; economy of, in the s, ; emergency aid to, ; goals of the intervention in, ; humanitarian crises, political causes of, ; independence and elections in, ; international response to, –; intervention in, , –; link between intervention, peacemaking, and peacebuilding rejected, ; map of, ; and new central government in Kenya, ; operations in, ; origins of conflict in, –; overview of conflict in, –; politics today, ; testing for post–Cold War interventions, ; violence in, , ; wartime economy of, ; weaknesses of the international approach in, . See also Bush, President George H. W. Somali National Alliance (SNA),  Somali National Movement (SNM),  Somali Patriotic Movement (SPM),  Somali Youth League, – sources of conflict,  sovereign recognition,  sovereign states, – sovereignty, , –; change in the meaning of, ; changes in security challenge conceptions of, ; implication of, ; interpretation of, –; protection of individuals from their own government, ; reason for states’ support of,  Srebrenica,  Stabilization Force (SFOR),  Stares, Paul,  states: collapse in the s of, ; and IGOs, ; and individuals, , –; international issues in terms of, ; and the League of Nations, ; power of, , ; pursuit of interests by, ; sovereignty of, ; stability and legitimacy of,  Stedman, Stephen,  Stevens, Siaka, – Stiglitz, Joseph,  Stimson Center,  Strasser, Captain Valentine, 

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Strobel, Warren,  Sudan, , – Supreme Revolutionary Council,  sweatshop labor,  Taylor, Charles, , –, , – technology, ,  terrorism, ,  Thakur, Ramesh,  theories of international relations: classical liberalism, ; classical realism, ; conflict resolution, ; constructivism, –; liberalism, , ; Marxism, , ; neoliberalism, ; neorealism, ; realism, , ; summary of, t theory of power politics,  Tillema, Herbert, , ,  Trotsky, Leon,  Tudjman, President Franjo, , ,  Ubdina Airport,  Ukraine,  Unified Task Force (UNITAF), , , –, , – United Nations (UN): Cambodia, role in, ; Charter, Chapter VII of, –, , –, , , , , ; creation of, ; legitimacy of, ; operations and use of force, ; peacekeeping operations in the early s, ; protectorate over Kosovo, ; Security Council resolutions (see specific resolutions under United Nations Security Council Resolutions) United Nations Development Program (UNDP),  United Nations Emergency Force (UNEF),  United Nations Mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina (UNMIBH),  United Nations Mission in Haiti (UNMIH), –, –,  United Nations Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK), , 

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United Nations Operation in Somalia (UNOSOM): UNOSOM I, , , , ; UNOSOM II, –, –, – United Nations Operation in the Congo (ONUC),  United Nations Organization Mission in the Congo,  United Nations Protection Force (UNPROFOR), –, , , , –, –,  United Nations Security Council Resolutions: UNSCR , –, , , , ; UNSCR , , , , ; UNSCR , ; UNSCR , ; UNSCR , , ; UNSCR , ; UNSCR , ; UNSCR ,  United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH),  United Somali Congress (USC),  United States: dialogue with UN on Iraq, ; intervention in Afghanistan, ; intervention in Iraq, –; war in Iraq, – UNOSOM. See United Nations Operation in Somalia (UNOSOM) USS Harlan County,  USSR,  invasion of Hungary, 

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uti possidetis,  Vance, Cyrus, , ,  Vance-Owen peace plan,  Versailles,  violence: and importance of thirdparty action, ; and peace building, ; use of force to end, ; way to decrease, . See also individual areas and countries Volunteers for National Security,  war: cause after World War II, ; internal not international,  warlordism,  War-Torn Societies Project International,  Wayman, Frank,  weapons of mass destruction,  Welsh, Jennifer,  West Africa,  Wildavsky, Aaron, – Wilson, Woodrow,  “Wilsonian triad,”  Woodhouse, Tom, ,  Yeltsin, Boris, ,  Yugoslavia, ,  Zaire, 

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