Renegotiating the Liberal Order: Evidence from the UN Security Council 9781955055932

Table of contents :
Contents
List of Tables and Figures
Preface
1 The Security Council and the Liberal Order
2 The Rules of World Politics
3 The Critics of Collective Security
4 The Collective Security Dataset
5 Saying No on the Security Council
6 Punishing War Crimes
7 Supporting Human Rights
8 Defending Democracy
9 Threats to the Liberal Order: Russia and China
10 An Ambivalent Hegemon: The United States
11 Renegotiating the Liberal Order
Bibliography
Index
About the Book

Citation preview

Renegotiating the

LIBERAL ORDER

Renegotiating the

LIBERAL ORDER Evidence from the UN Security Council Brian Frederking

.

Published in the United States of America in 2023 by Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc. 1800 30th Street, Suite 314, Boulder, Colorado 80301 www.rienner.com and in the United Kingdom by Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc. Gray’s Inn House, 127 Clerkenwell Road, London EC1 5DB www.eurospanbookstore.com/rienner © 2023 by Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Frederking, Brian, author. Title: Renegotiating the liberal order : evidence from the UN security council / Brian Frederking. Description: Boulder : Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc., 2023. | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Summary: “Frederking challenges the increasingly popular ‘decline of the liberal order’ narrative by examining the practices of the UN Security Council in the decades since the end of the Cold War”— Provided by publisher. Identifiers: LCCN 2022030988 (print) | LCCN 2022030989 (ebook) | ISBN 9781955055864 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781955055932 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: United Nations. Security Council. | Security, International. | International organization. | World politics—1989– | Liberalism. | Constructivism (Philosophy) Classification: LCC JZ5006.7 .F74 2023 (print) | LCC JZ5006.7 (ebook) | DDC 341.23/23—dc23/eng/20221108 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022030988 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022030989 British Cataloguing in Publication Data A Cataloguing in Publication record for this book is available from the British Library. Printed and bound in the United States of America The paper used in this publication meets the requirements of the American National Standard for Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials Z39.48-1992. 5 4 3 2 1

Contents

List of Tables and Figures Preface

vii ix

1 The Security Council and the Liberal Order

1

2 The Rules of World Politics

25

3 The Critics of Collective Security

43

4 The Collective Security Dataset

61

5 Saying No on the Security Council

77

6 Punishing War Crimes

95

7 Supporting Human Rights

109

8 Defending Democracy

123

9 Threats to the Liberal Order: Russia and China

137

10

An Ambivalent Hegemon: The United States

157

11

Renegotiating the Liberal Order

181

Bibliography Index About the Book

187 199 203

v

Tables and Figures

Tables 2.1 2.2 2.3 4.1 5.1 10.1

Global Security Arrangements Speech Act Analysis of Collective Security Practices Speech Act Analysis of Security Council Resolution 678 Security Council Practices During 1990–2020 Criticizing Security Council Resolutions Security Council Practices During the Trump Years

32 37 39 67 89 177

Figures 4.1 4.2 5.1

Security Council Practices Security Council Practices—Asserting Core Liberal Rules Criticisms of Liberal Security Council Practices

vii

73 74 92

Preface

IN THIS BOOK, I USE THE ROUTINE PRACTICES OF THE UNITED NATIONS Security Council to evaluate the increasingly common argument that the liberal order—the postwar project of pursuing global security through trade, democracy, human rights, international law, and international organizations—is in decline. When I started the project, I expected to write a book about how Security Council practices provide additional evidence for this popular argument among students of world politics. If the decline narrative is true, then we should see a decline in the number of liberal practices authorized by the Security Council. To test this expectation, I created a dataset of Security Council practices for 1990–2020. Likewise, if the decline narrative is true, then Security Council members should increasingly be using nonliberal arguments to criticize resolutions. To test this expectation, I analyzed thirty years of speeches in Security Council meetings to determine whether states were using liberal or nonliberal arguments. The result? A strange thing occurred: the data did not support the decline narrative. They instead suggested a book about how Security Council practices complicate the decline narrative and indicate a greater resiliency for the liberal order. I did not want to write that book. It contradicted an emerging conventional wisdom. It seemed to minimize the implications of the Donald Trump presidency. It seemed naïve to offer relatively optimistic evidence in our turbulent times. It seemed agonizingly mainstream in an era where middle of the road politics has few supporters. Most important, the argument might not age well. We may indeed be in a transitional period leading to the end of the liberal order. However, thirty years of data about Security Council practices suggested that—as of 2020—we were not yet to that point. So, after haranguing students for over two decades with ix

x

Preface

platitudes about following the evidence wherever it leads, I wrote the book you are now reading. I attempt to make two contributions in the pages that follow. First, I marshal thirty years of evidence about Security Council practices to complicate the decline narrative. The Security Council continued to act in distinctly liberal ways throughout the post–Cold War years of 1990–2020. When states criticized resolutions, they were still more likely to invoke liberal than nonliberal rules. Most of the evidence presented here does not support the decline narrative. Second, I argue for “renegotiation” rather than decline as the appropriate way to understand the liberal order. Within this narrative, the liberal order is constituted by the interaction between two distinct bargains—the Charter bargain and the hegemonic bargain. The Charter bargain obligated the veto powers to maintain international peace and security and obligated all UN member states to comply with Security Council resolutions. The hegemonic bargain obligated the United States to provide for global security in liberal ways, and its allies agreed to support US policy. For the liberal order to continue, each bargain must influence the other. If the hegemonic bargain does not influence the Charter bargain, then world politics often approaches Westphalian anarchy. If the Charter bargain does not influence the hegemonic bargain, then world politics often approaches imperial hierarchy. World politics since the end of the Cold War has been dominated by an ongoing renegotiation over the relative strength of these two bargains. After a period where the hegemonic bargain expanded the scope of the Charter bargain, we are now in an era where the Charter bargain is limiting the scope of the hegemonic bargain. We constantly renegotiate the strength of each bargain within the liberal order. As long as each bargain continues to influence the other, the result of our current renegotiation will remain a form of liberal order. Readers should know two things before wading in. First, the data used here to support the renegotiation narrative spans 1990–2020. As the manuscript was going through the review process, Russia invaded Ukraine. The final verdict was: yes, we will publish the book, but what about this historic challenge to the liberal order? So, during the summer of 2022, I added a short case study to Chapter 9. It is the only part of the book that discusses events outside the years 1990–2020, and thus does not rely on the quantitative and qualitative data that I generated. Second, I tried to write in an accessible way, but the theoretical material in Chapter 2, and perhaps even Chapter 3, might be a stretch. Nonspecialists may safely skip those chapters and still follow the logic of the argument. I need to thank many people for their support of my research over the years. This project began with a spring 2017 sabbatical granted by McKendree University. I would not have had the time to generate the

Preface

xi

dataset and analyze the speeches without this generous sabbatical. I also thank McKendree colleagues—particularly Ann Collins, Martha Patterson, Shelly Lemons, Guy Boysen, Neil Quisenberry, Duane Olson, Brenda Boudreau, Tami Eggleston, and Lauren Thompson—for their encouragement and their example of pursuing important and interesting research within the context of a small liberal arts college that prioritizes teaching. I acknowledge colleagues who regularly attend the International Studies Association–Midwest conference and have offered counsel, friendship, and support over the years, including Paul Diehl, John Ishiyama, Marijke Breuning, Ralph Carter, James Scott, Cooper Drury, and Marc O’Reilly. I thank my professors and mentors at Syracuse University, including Gavan Duffy, Naeem Inayatullah, and Lily Ling. I thank countless conference chairs, anonymous reviewers, and scholars such as Martin Binder and Mark Klamberg for their comments on early drafts of these chapters. I particularly thank one anonymous reviewer who was generous enough to give a thoughtful critique and read the manuscript twice. This book is immeasurably better due to those comments. I thank Lynne Rienner for her honesty, kindness, and perseverance in dealing with me throughout this process. And finally, I thank my wife, Debbie, for her love and support over the years. Any mistakes in this book are entirely my own. Given the relatively optimistic implications of this argument, I hope there are not too many.

1 The Security Council and the Liberal Order

ON MARCH 24, 1999, THE NORTH ATLANTIC TREATY ORGANIZATION (NATO) began air strikes in Kosovo, and the UN Security Council held an emergency meeting. The Albanian and Muslim majority in Kosovo had begun an independence movement within Yugoslavia. The Yugoslav military responded with brutal violence, killing more than 2,000 people and generating more than 600,000 refugees. The Security Council had already authorized economic sanctions and an arms embargo against Yugoslavia for violence against civilians.1 It had demanded a cease-fire and a military withdrawal from Kosovo. It had threatened “additional measures” if Yugoslavia refused to comply.2 Negotiations had failed, Yugoslavia did not comply with the Security Council, and the violence continued. Yugoslavia had also refused to allow human rights monitors or war crimes prosecutors into Kosovo. Despite the noncompliance, Russia and China would not approve a Security Council use of force authorization. Given the inaction on the Security Council, NATO authorized air strikes to stop the war crimes and human rights violations. Russia issued blistering criticisms at the March 24 meeting, arguing that the NATO operation in Kosovo violated the UN Charter. RUSSIA: Those who are involved in this unilateral use of force against the sovereign Federal Republic of Yugoslavia—carried out in violation of the Charter of the United Nations and without the authorization of the Security Council—must realize the heavy responsibility they bear for subverting the Charter and other norms of international law and for attempting to establish in the world, de facto, the primacy of force and unilateral diktat. The members of NATO are not entitled to decide the fate of other sovereign and independent States. They must not forget that they are not only members of their alliance, but also Members of the United Nations, and that it is their obligation to be guided by the United Nations Charter.3

1

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Renegotiating the Liberal Order

China agreed, calling the NATO action “a blatant violation of the United Nations Charter and of the accepted norms of international law.”4 Russia and China argued that NATO violated principles of state sovereignty, territorial integrity, self-determination, and noninterference in domestic affairs. The UN Charter established only two legitimate uses of force: self-defense and force authorized by the Security Council. Neither applied to the NATO air strikes in Kosovo. NATO members argued that the use of force was justified by the ongoing human rights violations, an impending humanitarian disaster, and the Security Council’s unwillingness to enforce its own resolutions. They argued that they were pursuing the spirit, if not the letter, of the UN Charter. FRANCE: We cannot abandon [Kosovo] to violent repression. What is at stake today is peace, peace in Europe—but human rights are also at stake. The actions that have been decided upon are a response to the violation by Belgrade of its international obligations, which stem in particular from the Security Council resolutions adopted under Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter.5 UNITED KINGDOM: Belgrade has rejected all of the Security Council’s demands, and continues to act in defiance of the expressed will of the Council. In these circumstances, when diplomacy has failed, do we react just with further words? . . . [W]e face a humanitarian catastrophe. NATO has been forced to take military action because all other means of preventing a humanitarian catastrophe have been frustrated by Serb behavior. We have taken this action with regret, in order to save lives. . . . The action being taken is legal. It is justified as an exceptional measure to prevent an overwhelming humanitarian catastrophe.6

Russia and China submitted a draft resolution to the Security Council two days later asserting that the NATO operation constituted a threat to global security by violating the UN Charter and Yugoslav sovereignty. Only three states voted in favor of the resolution—twelve voted no. The vast majority of members did not condemn NATO for going beyond the letter of the UN Charter. An independent international commission concluded that the NATO operation in Kosovo was “illegal, but legitimate.”7 While NATO technically violated the Charter, most considered its attempt to enforce war crimes and human rights rules as legitimate. This is an example of the “liberal order”—rules and institutions that pursue global security through trade, human rights, democracy, international organizations, and international law—altering the understanding of the UN Charter and expanding the scope of legitimate global security practices.8 Many now argue that the liberal order is in decline. In this book, I analyze post–Cold War Security Council practices to interrogate the “decline narrative.” I hope to complicate and problematize that narrative by provid-

The Security Council and the Liberal Order

3

ing an alternative understanding that suggests a greater resiliency for the liberal order. This alternative begins with the assertion that the liberal order is constituted by two bargains. Each bargain provides a different form of legitimacy within the liberal order, and each must influence the other to perpetuate the liberal order. The first is the “Charter bargain” established by the UN Charter between the Permanent Five of the Security Council (P5) and all UN member states: 1. The P5 agrees to provide for global security. 2. The P5 agrees to act according to the rules in the UN Charter. 3. UN member states agree to comply with Security Council resolutions. The Charter bargain has a procedural legitimacy within the liberal order— practices authorized by the Security Council are legitimate. The second bargain is the “hegemonic bargain” between the United States and its allies developed during and after World War II.9 The hegemonic bargain is structurally similar to, but substantively distinct from, the Charter bargain: 1. The United States agrees to provide for global security in liberal ways. 2. The United States agrees to restrain itself and act through international organizations. 3. The allies agree to support US leadership. The hegemonic bargain has a substantive legitimacy within the liberal order—global security practices driven by human rights, democracy, trade, and international law are legitimate. The Security Council debates over Kosovo perfectly illustrated the tensions between these two bargains. Russia and China invoked the Charter bargain, arguing that the NATO use of force was illegitimate because the Security Council did not authorize it. The NATO allies invoked the hegemonic bargain, arguing that the use of force to protect human rights was a legitimate way to pursue global security. The letter of the Charter bargain was often inconsistent with the spirit of the hegemonic bargain. The 12–3 vote on the resolution condemning the NATO use of force not only prioritized the hegemonic bargain over the Charter bargain; it also implicitly criticized the Security Council for not fulfilling the Charter bargain by authorizing enforcement measures in Kosovo. During the post–Cold War era, the legitimacy of the Security Council often required the authorization of explicitly liberal practices. The hegemonic bargain often altered the requirements of the Charter bargain. In this chapter, I argue that understanding the liberal order as constituted by the interaction of these two bargains suggests an alternative to the

4

Renegotiating the Liberal Order

decline narrative. First, I discuss how liberal orders are distinct from other types of global orders. States consistently make “sovereignty bargains,” and the various dimensions of sovereignty show how the two bargains constituting the liberal order are distinct from other bargains. Then, I discuss the current narrative that the liberal order is in decline. If the liberal order is constituted by both the Charter and hegemonic bargains, then the decline narrative suggests that nonliberal bargains should be emerging and contesting both bargains. We can therefore analyze Security Council practices to evaluate the decline narrative. The Security Council is at the heart of the interaction between the two bargains. It is the institutional manifestation of the Charter bargain, and it has undoubtedly been influenced by the hegemonic bargain. If the liberal order is in decline, then the Security Council should be authorizing fewer practices consistent with both bargains. Finally, I summarize four arguments about what post–Cold War Security Council practices can tell us about the liberal order. First, the hegemonic bargain has often influenced the Charter bargain. Second, the Charter bargain has also limited the scope of the hegemonic bargain. Third, post–Cold War Security Council practices do not show a liberal order in decline. Fourth, if we understand the liberal order as the interaction between these two bargains, then post–Cold War Security Council practices suggest an alternative to the decline narrative. What many call a decline in the liberal order may instead be a renegotiation between the Charter bargain and the hegemonic bargain. The liberal order may be changing so that the Charter bargain has more influence and the hegemonic bargain has less influence, but that is distinct from a decline (and implied possible fall) of the liberal order. Post–Cold War Security Council practices provide an alternative to the decline narrative by illustrating the dynamics between these two bargains and suggesting a greater resiliency for the liberal order.

Global Orders The liberal order refers to rules and institutions grounded in five Enlightenment arguments about how to achieve global security.10 First, the liberal order presumes that trade not only leads to economic growth, but also reduces the likelihood of conflict and war.11 Second, the liberal order presumes the “democratic peace thesis” that democracies do not go to war with each other.12 Third, the liberal order presumes that countries with good human rights records are less likely to suffer civil wars or engage in armed conflict with each other.13 Fourth, the liberal order presumes that international law and adherence to common rules, particularly humanitarian rules about war crimes, helps reduce conflict.14 Finally, the liberal order pre-

The Security Council and the Liberal Order

5

sumes that multilateral cooperation through international organizations contributes to global security.15 The liberal order presumes the legitimacy of these five Enlightenment paths to global security: trade, democracy, human rights, international law, and international organizations. The liberal order also emphasizes interdependence. It presumes that the main threats to global security are transnational issues such as climate change, disease, economic instability, refugees, weapons proliferation, terrorism, crime, and ideologies such as authoritarianism and religious fundamentalism. These transnational threats create security interdependence—all states have common security interests, and no one state can achieve security against these threats through its own efforts. Even the most powerful countries cannot rely on military capability alone to achieve security against these transnational threats. Even the most powerful countries must cooperate with others to address them. Therefore, the solution to security interdependence is global governance. Within the liberal order, states recognize that they need to create institutions and follow rules to address interdependence and manage transnational security threats. The liberal order includes organizations committed to maintaining an open economy such as the World Trade Organization (WTO), the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the World Bank. It includes a myriad of international organizations such as the United Nations, the European Union (EU), and the International Criminal Court (ICC). It includes important principles of international law such as freedom of navigation and the protection of civilians during armed conflicts. It includes human rights treaties and norms about “the Responsibility to Protect.” It includes agreed-on rules regarding the environment, aviation, the internet, disease, terrorism, financial stability, weapons of mass destruction, transnational crime, and many other areas of world politics. It provides states with dispute resolution mechanisms, security guarantees, shared knowledge, and resources in times of crisis.16 Advocates of the liberal order argue that it has been spectacularly successful.17 It contained Soviet expansionism and managed a peaceful end to the Cold War. It integrated former enemies Germany and Japan during the Cold War and expanded dramatically after the Cold War ended. The number of interstate wars declined. There have been no wars between great powers. Western Europe ended centuries of rivalry and forged the European Union. Economic growth, global trade, and financial flows skyrocketed. Colonial empires in Africa and Asia ended for the most part. The number of democracies, treaties, and international organizations greatly increased. Human rights norms strengthened. Global poverty dramatically decreased, and the education and health of citizens around the world increased. The post–World War II liberal order has led to dramatically improved indicators of human progress, clearly decreasing conflict, poverty, and authoritarianism

6

Renegotiating the Liberal Order

since 1945. The countries with the most conflict, poverty, and authoritarianism remain those that have not fully embraced the liberal order. The liberal order, however, is not the only order in world politics. World politics is constituted by multiple orders that reconcile sovereignty (emphasized by realist theories), interdependence (emphasized by liberal theories), and hierarchy (emphasized by critical theories). A particular order privileges one over the others, but all three remain within each order. For example, the liberal order privileges interdependence, but elements of sovereignty remain in the Charter bargain and elements of hierarchy remain in the hegemonic bargain. The liberal order was built on existing Westphalian orders that privileged sovereignty and imperial orders that privileged hierarchy. The liberal order may have displaced the prominence of sovereignty and hierarchy, of Westphalia and empire, but those orders both helped shape the liberal order and remain important alternatives to it. Westphalian orders emphasize sovereignty and the existence of modern states. While sovereignty generally refers to the exclusive authority of a state over a population within specified territorial boundaries, it has multiple dimensions. While scholars differ on the most salient dimensions,18 I focus on four: (1) recognition, (2) control, (3) autonomy, and (4) legitimacy. First, sovereignty refers to states mutually recognizing each other as equals, enabling states to make agreements with each other. Sovereign states sign—and refuse to sign—treaties. Second, sovereignty refers to the ability of a state to control what goes on within its borders. Sovereign states protect themselves from foreign threats, maintain domestic order, regulate their economies, provide public goods, and decide what crosses their borders. Third, sovereignty refers to the capacity of states to exclude others from interfering in domestic and foreign policy making. Sovereign states are autonomous because no external actors exercise authority within their borders. Fourth, sovereignty refers to states having some form of legitimacy. This may be internal, where the people within the territory consider the leaders to have rightful authority. Or it may be external, where recognition and support from others grant a state legitimacy. States rarely achieve all four dimensions of sovereignty because they are at odds with interdependence and hierarchy. There are countless examples. Hierarchy can prevent recognition for some groups that aspire to sovereign statehood (Palestinians, Kurds, etc.). Interdependence can prevent control over what goes on within borders (carbon emissions and climate change, global financial markets and currency values, global pandemics and public health, technology and unemployment rates, etc.). Hierarchy can prevent autonomy over decisionmaking (the Warsaw Pact, peace agreements forced on defeated countries, conditional IMF loans, etc.). Interdependence can prevent legitimacy (the diffusion of liberal human rights norms, the designation of states as “rogues,” etc.).

The Security Council and the Liberal Order

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Interdependence and hierarchy also pit the dimensions of sovereignty against each other. For example, to increase control over environmental outcomes within their borders, states may sacrifice autonomy and agree to climate change rules. States may increase control within their borders with police and military practices that reduce their legitimacy. States may increase their legitimacy by reducing their autonomy and agreeing to human rights norms. States may surrender control over foreign direct investment or the establishment of a military base within their borders to gain external recognition or legitimacy. Given such inherent tensions within the dimensions of sovereignty, states must make “sovereignty bargains” within all global orders.19 These bargains increase some dimensions of sovereignty and decrease others. We can distinguish Westphalian, liberal, and imperial global orders by the nature of their sovereignty bargains. Westphalian orders have sovereignty bargains that privilege autonomy. Realist arguments that states pursue “self-help” foreign policies to maintain security in an anarchical world also privilege the autonomy dimension of sovereignty.20 The other dimensions of sovereignty remain important, but in Westphalian orders states are willing to sacrifice them when necessary to maximize autonomy. The autonomous pursuit of national security may lead to conflict to such an extent that others pull their ambassadors and withhold recognition. The autonomous pursuit of national security may preclude agreements with others that would help states control transnational forces within their borders. The autonomous pursuit of national security may lead states to ignore what external actors or domestic publics say is legitimate. In Westphalian orders, domestic political authorities are the only arbiters of legitimate behavior. The emphasis on autonomy means that there are no authority structures beyond territorial states. The most important rules are noninterference in domestic affairs and territorial integrity. Westphalian orders require low levels of interdependence, the predominance of authoritarian governments, cultural and economic diversity that prevents cooperation, and a cost-benefit analysis that makes periodic resort to wars tolerable.21 In liberal orders, states recognize the extent to which increasing interdependence reduces control over what goes on within their borders. They are unable to deal with issues such as climate change, terrorism, economic instability, and disease by acting autonomously. States are therefore willing to decrease autonomy to increase control over political, economic, and environmental outcomes within their borders. Cooperation to manage interdependence and increase control by definition reduces autonomy. Liberal orders alter the meanings of “nonintervention” and “domestic affairs.” What states do within their borders (harbor terrorists, build nuclear weapons, commit genocide and create refugees, emit carbon, etc.) reduces the ability of other states to control what happens within their borders. Liberal orders

8

Renegotiating the Liberal Order

therefore violate Westphalian autonomy by creating authority structures beyond territorial states—they sacrifice autonomy for control.22 Liberal orders also shift recognition practices. In nonliberal orders, recognition of others is not necessarily universal. Within spheres of influence, great-power concerts, protectorates, or empires, not all states are equal.23 Powerful states coerce others into certain arrangements—this aspect of recognition overlaps with autonomy. In liberal orders, recognition approaches universality. All states enjoy a legal notion of sovereign equality—they can join international organizations, vote in the UN General Assembly, sign treaties, engage in open economic markets, receive foreign aid, and make claims in international courts. The Charter bargain institutionalizes universal recognition—when states join the United Nations, they benefit from the Security Council obligation to protect their territorial integrity. Liberal orders also shift legitimacy practices. In Westphalian orders, legitimacy is often limited to internal notions of top-down, traditional absolutism. Sovereignty resides with the “sovereign.” In liberal orders, legitimacy shifts in two important ways.24 First, internal legitimacy tends to reside in bottom-up notions of popular sovereignty. Legitimacy may be reconfigured by domestic groups that insist sovereignty include not just rights, but also responsibilities toward the environment or human rights. Liberal orders are partially extensions of the modern democratic state—as states become more liberal, then what counts as a legitimate sovereignty bargain changes.25 Liberal states bandwagon with, rather than balance—let alone go to war—against other democracies. They cooperate through international organizations. They may even pursue “pooled sovereignty” over certain issue areas, as in the EU. The second important shift is that external factors are often sources of legitimacy. Liberal norms diffuse and influence others. States agree to international monitoring to show compliance with global rules and avoid sanctions. Recognition from other states is partially contingent on following legitimate rules. States want others to interpret them as responsible and civilized, not a rogue. All of this, of course, reduces autonomy—but it also reduces levels of interstate conflict.26 Imperial orders emphasize hierarchy. They lead to coercive sovereignty bargains that have different recognition, control, autonomy, and legitimacy rules for superordinate and subordinate states. Some bargains are neither mutually beneficial nor consensual. Some bargains do not recognize every state as equal. Some bargains increase the control and autonomy of superordinate states and reduce the control and autonomy of subordinate states. In imperial orders, superordinate states impose policies and institutions on subordinate states. They may even impose personnel and engage in regime change. At the extreme, an empire may establish only one authority structure. From a Westphalian perspective, it is difficult to characterize subordinate states within an imperial order as “sovereign.” This hierarchical

The Security Council and the Liberal Order

9

arrangement leads to different legitimacy practices for superordinate and subordinate states. For those at the top of the hierarchy, legitimate practices pursue order and attempt to perpetuate the hierarchy. For those at the bottom of the hierarchy, legitimate practices pursue justice and attempt to undermine the hierarchy. This tension between order and justice creates inherent sources of instability and conflict in all imperial orders. The postwar liberal order included two sovereignty bargains. The Charter bargain established one form of liberal order. It presumed the centrality of interdependence. States agreed to reduce their autonomy to increase recognition and control. States agreed to alter legitimacy toward bottomup notions of popular sovereignty. The central Charter agreement was to cooperate through a collective security organization rather than alliance systems to provide for global security. The major powers reduced their autonomy by accepting an obligation to maintain global security and abide by Charter rules. In return, the Charter bargain provided the major powers with more control over global security and a privileged place within a legitimate international organization. Similarly, UN member states reduced their autonomy by agreeing to comply with Security Council resolutions. In return, the Charter bargain provided member states with a security guarantee that increased their recognition, control, and legitimacy. Within the logic of liberal orders—sacrifice autonomy for more control—this was a win-win sovereignty bargain cementing the (procedural) legitimacy of the Security Council. The Charter bargain institutionalized consent for one liberal form of order. While the Charter bargain was a form of liberal order, it also included Westphalian content. Its explicit purpose was to protect the territorial integrity of states. It recognized noninterference in domestic affairs as an important principle. It did not explicitly recognize a plethora of transnational security threats. It allowed for uses of force in self-defense and the formation of alliances. It did not require any automaticity to trigger Security Council action; authorizing collective security practices was a political judgment rather than a legal requirement. It included the veto, which protected great-power autonomy and prevented the Charter bargain from imposing unwanted obligations on them. (The veto was also a form of hierarchy—the Charter bargain, while prioritizing interdependence, had elements of sovereignty and hierarchy embedded within it.) If the Charter bargain had constituted the entire liberal order, then it would have been a thin one that often resembled a Westphalian order. However, a second bargain also partially constituted the liberal order and ultimately influenced states’ interpretation of what the Charter bargain required. The hegemonic bargain was first struck by the United States and its immediate allies during and after World War II. Similar to the Charter bargain, both the United States and its allies sacrificed autonomy to gain

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Renegotiating the Liberal Order

more control, recognition, and legitimacy. The United States agreed to provide for security through free trade, democracy, human rights, international law, and international organizations. In return, the United States gained many hegemonic privileges within the liberal order. The allies agreed to support US policies, and in return gained a security guarantee from the liberal hegemon. The hegemonic bargain differed from the Charter bargain regarding the source of legitimacy. The legitimacy of the Charter bargain stemmed from a procedural notion of fairness—Security Council practices protected the territorial integrity of all states. The legitimacy of the hegemonic bargain stemmed from a substantive consensus that states should achieve global security through explicitly liberal paths to order. The hegemonic bargain often influenced the Charter bargain, and this substantive notion of legitimacy often required the Security Council to fulfill its mandate by authorizing explicitly liberal practices. The interactions between these two bargains constituted the liberal order, and Security Council practices illustrated this dynamic.27 Security Council practices were procedurally fair and substantively liberal. States perpetuated the liberal order by accepting the legitimacy of those practices. The P5 perpetuated the liberal order by authorizing Security Council practices because doing so maintained their privileged status within the liberal order. These bargains limited the autonomy of the P5. UN member states could hold the P5 accountable if they violated the bargains by withholding their consent and threatening to end the bargains. The P5 thus acted with restraint in anticipation of resistance if they violated the bargains. The P5 routinely argued that Security Council practices were consistent with UN Charter principles and international law.28 They engaged in public deliberations and provided public reasons for their actions.29 Their agendas addressed the most significant conflicts that generated more deaths and refugees.30 The P5 knew that if states interpreted Security Council practices as pursuing their narrow national interests, then they risked losing their privileged position within the liberal order.31 The differences between the two bargains, however, created many tensions within the liberal order. The Charter bargain obligated the P5 to provide for global security, and the hegemonic bargain obligated the United States to do so. The Charter bargain was universal, and the hegemonic bargain was limited to those who embraced it. The Charter bargain did not obligate the Security Council to authorize explicitly liberal paths to security. Of course, two P5 members were authoritarian states skeptical of liberal solutions to global conflict. States could therefore reconcile the tensions between these bargains in three different ways: 1. Emphasize the Charter bargain over the hegemonic bargain and limit the scope of the liberal order. If this consistently occurred, then the

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liberal order would increasingly resemble a Westphalian order. This is the decline narrative. In this scenario, the Security Council would authorize fewer liberal practices over time. 2. Implement the Charter bargain in ways consistent with the hegemonic bargain. If this consistently occurred, then such practices would perpetuate the liberal order. In this scenario, the Security Council would routinely authorize liberal practices over time. 3. Emphasize the hegemonic bargain over the Charter bargain and enforce the liberal order outside the procedures of the UN. If this consistently occurred, then the liberal order would increasingly resemble an imperial order. In this scenario, the Security Council would also authorize fewer liberal practices over time. The interaction of these two bargains is the key to understanding the possibilities of change within the liberal order.32 The two bargains must influence each other to perpetuate the liberal order. What we call the “liberal order” is the combination of the hegemonic bargain expanding the scope of the Charter bargain, and the Charter bargain limiting the scope of the hegemonic bargain. When the hegemonic bargain does not influence the Charter bargain, world politics resembles realist rivalry—this is the decline narrative. When the hegemonic bargain acts unchecked by the Charter bargain, world politics resembles empire. When the Security Council consistently and routinely authorizes liberal policies, we have evidence that the two bargains are indeed influencing each other. Analyzing Security Council practices is therefore one way to evaluate the health of the liberal order and the plausibility of the decline narrative.

Evaluating the Decline Narrative Many scholars argue that the liberal order is in decline.33 They argue that the decline spans all five aspects of the liberal order. The number of democracies around the world has started to fall. The amount of trade as a percentage of the global economy has declined. Human rights levels around the world are, at best, stagnant. Powerful countries seem more willing to ignore international law and leave international organizations when necessary to maximize autonomy and pursue their national interests. China has increased its authoritarianism, asserted itself regionally, and offered an alternative nonliberal bargain to developing countries. Russia has invaded neighbors, poisoned dissidents, undermined Western democracies, and engaged in cyberwarfare against critical Western infrastructure. The decline struck the heart of the liberal order, with the United Kingdom leaving the EU and the United States electing a president openly hostile to that order.

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Renegotiating the Liberal Order

Donald Trump’s America First policies of trade wars, weakened alliances, and broken agreements clearly undermined the liberal order. The decline narrative asserts that we may be entering an era in which some combination of sovereignty and regional hierarchies replace interdependence as the dominant source of global order. The decline narrative cites four general sources of crisis within the liberal order. The first source is liberal economic policy, which has led to painful transitions and rising inequality.34 The financial crisis of 2008 illustrated the inherent economic instability within the liberal order and exposed the United States as the source of that instability. After decades of wage stagnation, many Western citizens have concluded that the liberal order has not benefited them. The second source is the rise of nationalism and populism around the world.35 These movements prioritize national over international law; undermine human rights with criticisms of minorities, refugees, and foreigners; cooperate with authoritarian regimes and violate democratic norms; and withdraw from free-trade agreements. The third source is the shift in economic and military power from West to East.36 The liberal order cannot survive the erosion of US hegemonic power and the rise of China.37 China will increasingly assert “vital interests” in its neighborhood and attempt to alter the rules of global order—enabling mercantilist economic policies, weakening the promotion of democracy and human rights, and resisting humanitarian intervention. The fourth source is a “crisis of authority” from the US failure to support the liberal order.38 The United States has violated the liberal order in numerous ways—waging an aggressive war in Iraq, rejecting numerous treaties, criticizing the International Criminal Court, protecting Israeli actions in the Occupied Territories, and violating international law in its global war on terrorism. Trump openly preferred a Westphalian order—the primacy of the nation-state, praise for authoritarians, economic nationalism, and weakening US commitments to democratic allies.39 Realist theorists of world politics argue that the liberal order was destined to fail.40 Realists advocate the pursuit of order through a global balance of power. Realists criticize liberal institutions as ineffective because they expect states to emphasize autonomy in their pursuit of national interests. They do not expect states to act collectively and address common security threats, let alone enforce liberal rules such as democracy, war crimes, and human rights. For realists, the liberal order was ripe for a nationalist backlash. All liberal orders sacrifice autonomy for more control, but the populist critique is that the current liberal order has not delivered more control. Despite delegating state autonomy to international organizations, the result has been less control over economic outcomes and an inability to prevent the flow of goods, refugees, and immigrants across borders. The liberal order has also facilitated the rise of nonliberal challengers such as China who do not follow many basic rules. For many realists, states

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have no choice but to abandon the liberal order and strategically balance against nonliberal challengers such as China and Russia. They expect an eventual return to a Westphalian order. Critical theorists argue that hierarchy is the most important form of global order. For critical theorists, the liberal order is fundamentally hierarchical, the most recent form of colonialism and empire.41 Liberal rules about trade and markets favor the interests of the rich. Liberal rules about democracy and human rights favor the West and represent “cultural imperialism” toward the non-Western world. The liberal order justifies powerful states engaging in regime change against nonliberal states and putting compliant leaders in power. For critical theorists, liberal institutions coerce subordinate states, and their illegitimacy opens a path to alternative global orders. They expect states to withhold their consent from the liberal order and criticize it as coercive, unjust, and hypocritical. While they also expect the decline of the liberal order, it is unclear what is likely to replace it.42 In this book, I evaluate the decline narrative by analyzing the post– Cold War practices of the Security Council.43 The Security Council is an excellent indicator for the extent to which the two bargains constitute the liberal order. It is the institutional manifestation of the Charter bargain. Its practices are legitimate because the Charter bargain is procedurally legitimate within the liberal order. However, the Security Council has also invoked the hegemonic bargain and relied on international law, human rights, and democracy to resolve post–Cold War conflicts. To maintain its legitimacy within the post–Cold War liberal order, the Security Council has increasingly authorized explicitly liberal practices regarding war crimes, human rights, and democracy. We can therefore evaluate the health of the liberal order by analyzing Security Council practices. How often has the Security Council authorized practices consistent with each bargain? Has the Security Council authorized fewer liberal practices in recent years? Have states increasingly criticized the authorization of liberal practices in recent years? If the liberal order is in decline, then the Security Council should provide evidence for that decline. I looked for that evidence in two ways. First, I developed the Collective Security Dataset (CSD), an original dataset of Security Council practices for 1990–2020, to evaluate whether the number of liberal practices authorized by the Security Council have decreased. How often did it uphold the Charter bargain and authorize practices to maintain global security? How often did it authorize the pursuit of global security through Enlightenment paths to order such as democracy, human rights, and international law? If the liberal order was in decline, then the number of liberal practices authorized by the Security Council should have decreased. Second, I analyzed every speech given by a Security Council member during 1990–2020 justifying an abstention or a no vote to evaluate whether the number of realist and critical theory objections to

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Renegotiating the Liberal Order

liberal practices have increased. How often did UN member states criticize proposed liberal practices with nonliberal arguments? If the liberal order was in decline, then the percentage of nonliberal arguments on the Security Council should have increased. What are the liberal practices of the Security Council? What is evidence that the Security Council has perpetuated the liberal order? There are two forms of liberal global governance—collective security and capacity building—and the Security Council engages in both. Collective security punishes agents who break important rules. It engages in three types of practices: (1) prohibit, (2) monitor, and (3) enforce. Capacity building encourages agents to follow important rules. It also engages in three types of practices: (1) establish a norm, (2) monitor, and (3) support. Most Security Council practices are either capacity building or collective security and are thus liberal. When it creates a commission of inquiry, condemns a terrorist attack, or mediates a conflict, the Security Council engages in liberal practices. When the Security Council fulfills the Charter bargain to maintain global security, it authorizes liberal practices. One way to evaluate the decline narrative is to analyze whether the Security Council has authorized fewer liberal practices in recent years. Sometimes the Security Council engages in “core liberal practices” that go beyond the Charter bargain and invoke the explicitly liberal rules consistent with the hegemonic bargain. Two distinctions constitute core liberal practices. One is collective security versus capacity building, with collective security as the core liberal practice. The other is the assertion of explicitly liberal rules to resolve conflicts. Sometimes the Security Council asserts that agents must stop shooting at each other, or stop harboring terrorists, or stop building nuclear weapons. These are important collective security practices addressing threats to global security, but they do not assert explicitly liberal rules. Sometimes, though, the Security Council asserts that parties to an armed conflict must stop using child soldiers. It authorizes peacekeeping missions to monitor human rights violations. It encourages states to strengthen democratic institutions and respect election results. It authorizes the use of force to protect civilians during an armed conflict. The Security Council engages in core liberal practices, then, when it pursues collective security to prohibit, monitor, and enforce rules about democracy, human rights, and war crimes. When the Security Council authorizes core liberal practices, it goes beyond the Charter bargain and instead invokes the liberal aspects of the hegemonic bargain. The authorization of core liberal practices is evidence that the hegemonic bargain has influenced the Charter bargain, and the Security Council has perpetuated the liberal order. One way to evaluate the decline narrative is to analyze whether the Security Council has authorized fewer core liberal practices in recent years.

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A second way to evaluate the decline narrative is to analyze Security Council debates. When states object to a Security Council resolution, how often do they provide nonliberal reasons? Consistent with realism, how often do they assert that the Security Council should not authorize a liberal practice because states prefer autonomy and have a right to pursue their national security interests? Consistent with critical theory, how often do they assert that the Security Council should not authorize a liberal practice because it is an unjust, imperial coercion? States, however, could also object for a liberal reason—they may prefer capacity building to collective security, or they may prefer to authorize an alternative collective security practice. Security Council debates are important sites of rule construction and contestation. Saying no to a resolution may or may not undermine the liberal order. One way to evaluate the decline narrative is to analyze whether states have increasingly made nonliberal criticisms of Security Council practices in recent years.

The Arguments Understanding the liberal order as the interaction between two bargains is consistent with a constructivist approach to world politics. Chapters 2 and 3 provide the theoretical framework for this project. Chapter 2 discusses a constructivist approach that focuses on rules and language. It argues that we can analyze speech acts to evaluate whether states have invoked liberal or nonliberal rules on the Security Council. It provides a constructivist understanding of liberalism, realism, and critical theory as competing theories of world politics asserting the importance of different “security arrangements.” A linguistic analysis of Security Council speeches can tell us whether states have invoked realist rules of rivalry, critical theory rules of empire, or liberal rules of collective security and capacity building. Chapter 3 explores liberal, realist, and critical theory arguments about Security Council collective security practices and generates specific coding rules for the speech act analyses of Security Council debates. Chapters 4 and 5 provide the bulk of the data used to evaluate the decline narrative. Chapter 4 explores the CSD results about Security Council practices during 1990–2020. The CSD identifies certain practices as “liberal” and “core liberal” to evaluate whether the Security Council has authorized fewer liberal practices over time. The summary results show the great extent to which the Security Council authorized liberal practices throughout the post–Cold War period. This chapter also analyzes the CSD results over time and argues that they do not support the decline narrative. Chapter 5 presents the results of the speech act analysis of every Security Council member justifying an abstention or a no vote for 1990–2020.

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Once again, neither the overall results nor the trends over time support the decline narrative. While some of the results reflect the warning signs cited by the advocates of the decline narrative, the bulk of the results do not clearly show that the influence of the hegemonic bargain on the Charter bargain is dropping precipitously. Chapters 6 through 8 each focus on a fundamental aspect of the liberal order—war crimes, human rights, and democracy. The empirical results in Chapters 4 and 5 show different trends across these categories, and Chapters 6 through 8 explain those variations. Security Council practices regarding war crimes provide the strongest evidence for the continued resiliency of the liberal order, and Chapter 6 explains those results by analyzing use of force mandates to protect civilians during the post–Cold War era. The protection of civilians is not inherent to the Charter bargain—the Security Council could address the territorial integrity of states without such mandates. More generally, the Security Council could deal with armed conflict without addressing war crimes or trying to enforce international humanitarian law. However, the protection of civilians is now a taken-for-granted norm. No one says that addressing war crimes is beyond the jurisdiction of the Security Council. The liberal aspects of the hegemonic bargain have influenced the Charter bargain. The Security Council has routinely pursued this liberal path to peace, and those practices have not decreased in recent years. Chapter 7 addresses human rights. The Security Council asserted more human rights violations during 1990–2020 than terrorism and weapons of mass destruction violations combined. This is perhaps the most surprising CSD finding—why would Russia and China agree to so many assertions of human rights violations? This seems to provide additional evidence of the hegemonic bargain influencing the Charter bargain. Chapter 7 provides a nuanced explanation of those results. The answer is that the Security Council has increasingly applied human rights rules to armed conflicts. This is an excellent example of the interaction between the two bargains. Russia and China have indeed kept the classic liberal notion of human rights off the Security Council agenda. The Security Council has not asserted human rights violations in a typical domestic situation outside the context of an armed conflict. It has not authorized sanctions against states that tortured political prisoners or discriminated against religious minorities. This is an important example of the Charter bargain limiting the scope of the liberal order. However, Russia and China have also agreed to assert human rights violations during armed conflicts to buttress the protection of civilians norm, as discussed in Chapter 6. The power of the civilian protection norm has led to an innovative use of human rights law. Russia and China have not disputed the legitimacy of that liberal practice. Chapter 8 addresses democracy. The CSD results for democracy practices provide possible evidence for the decline narrative. Security Council

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collective security practices asserting democracy violations were not routine. It did so on only seven agenda items, and they have dwindled to zero in recent years. Perhaps we should compartmentalize our evaluation of the decline narrative into different issue areas. However, Chapter 8 focuses on the distinction between collective security and capacity building practices to promote democracy. The Security Council has pursued capacity building practices regarding democracy more often, and those practices have not declined in recent years. The chapter discusses the continued use of democracy promotion mandates in peacekeeping operations and argues that capacity building is the more appropriate form of global governance for democracy promotion. Since capacity building practices have not declined, then perhaps a decline in collective security practices regarding democracy is not strong evidence for the decline narrative. Chapter 9 discusses the roles of Russia and China in undermining the liberal order. The CSD results show that Russia and China have increasingly voted against Security Council practices in recent years. The speech act results show that both have increasingly used nonliberal justifications for their objections. The chapter includes the examples of Syria and Ukraine, the post–Cold War cases that most easily support the decline narrative because Russia and China directly challenged the liberal order and prevented the authorization of any significant liberal practices by the Security Council. The debates over Syria and Ukraine were not about the tensions between the two bargains. They were about whether to invoke any form of liberal order at all. During those debates, however, Russia and China had little support on the Security Council. When they challenged the legitimacy of the liberal order, most Council members defended that order. Chapter 10 discusses the three ways that the United States could undermine the liberal order. First, the United States could violate its commitment within the hegemonic bargain to act with restraint through multilateral institutions, as in the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Second, the United States could protect others when they violate the liberal order, as in its Security Council vetoes protecting Israeli policies in the Occupied Territories. Third, the United States could violate its commitment to provide for global security and simply walk away from the liberal order, as in the Trump administration’s withdrawal from the Iranian nuclear deal. The chapter explores all three cases, but also focuses on how other states reacted to the United States. The Security Council debates show that states rarely supported the United States with realist arguments; the few states that did support the United States made liberal arguments. Importantly, even those that criticized the United States were also more likely to use liberal arguments, imploring the United States to remain within the Charter bargain. Overall, the cases illustrated the resiliency of the liberal order.

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Renegotiating the Liberal Order

When the United States acted in nonliberal ways, most states responded with a defense of the liberal order. The analysis of post–Cold War Security Council practices presented in these chapters support four arguments. First, the hegemonic bargain has often influenced the Charter bargain. The Security Council has gone far beyond the original Charter bargain to act as a traditional collective security system to protect the territorial integrity of states. Many of its practices were consistent with liberal arguments about how to achieve security in an interdependent world.44 It has recognized numerous transnational threats to global security. It has asserted rules obligating all states beyond the circumstances of any one conflict. It has dealt with civil wars and armed conflict using explicitly liberal approaches to global order, asserting more violations of war crimes, human rights, and democracy rules than other rules (Chapter 4). Resolutions that authorized higher numbers of liberal and core liberal practices were significantly more likely to pass. When the Security Council asserted violations of core liberal rules, it was significantly more likely to authorize enforcement measures. It has altered peacekeeping norms of consent, self-defense, and neutrality to enhance the protection of civilians during armed conflict (Chapter 6). It has applied human rights law to armed conflict to further bolster the protection of civilians (Chapter 7). It has mandated peacekeeping missions to monitor democratic governance as a routine postwar conflict resolution strategy (Chapter 8). Even states that criticized these practices were more likely to use liberal than nonliberal reasons for doing so (Chapter 5). These practices were not necessary to fulfill the Charter bargain. However, the Security Council often invoked the liberal rules consistent with the hegemonic bargain and expanded its set of legitimate practices to pursue global security.45 The Security Council has routinely responded to criticisms of its practices by strengthening the liberal nature of those practices. There are many examples: expanding its agenda into transnational security threats; imposing general obligations unrelated to a particular conflict regarding terrorism and weapons of mass destruction; authorizing war crimes tribunals; using “smart sanctions” rather than comprehensive trade embargoes to avoid humanitarian crises;46 emphasizing proportionality so that sanctions do not violate human rights protections;47 using sunset clauses on sanctions so that one veto power cannot keep sanctions going indefinitely; improving due process standards for individuals targeted by sanctions;48 and improving the transparency of its working methods.49 The Security Council perpetuated the liberal order when the hegemonic bargain influenced the Charter bargain, and the Security Council routinely did so during the post–Cold War era. Second, the Charter bargain has also limited the scope of the hegemonic bargain. The influence of the Charter bargain on the hegemonic bar-

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gain is also necessary to perpetuate the liberal order. The logic of the hegemonic bargain is potentially coercive; the hegemonic bargain unchecked by the Charter bargain can resemble an imperial order. Nonliberal states have sometimes used the Charter bargain to prevent the Security Council from pursuing liberal practices. For example, the Security Council has not pursued classic liberal arguments about human rights and authorized enforcement measures against authoritarian states due only to oppressive policies against their own citizens (Chapter 7). It also has not followed the logic of the democratic peace and authorized enforcement measures against authoritarian states for the sole reason of preventing free elections and peaceful transfers of power (Chapter 8). Most importantly, the Charter bargain’s emphasis on state sovereignty, territorial integrity, and noninterference in domestic affairs has prevented the legitimization of regime change. This part of the interaction between the two bargains is essential to the perpetuation of the liberal order. The logic of the hegemonic bargain can lead to the pursuit of regime change without Security Council authorization. The liberal order cannot consistently prefer the hegemonic bargain over the Charter bargain without resembling empire. Chapters 6 through 8 also include case studies on Darfur, Libya, and Côte d’Ivoire to illustrate these dynamics between the bargains. In Darfur, the Charter bargain limited the scope of the hegemonic bargain when states invoked capacity building practices to deal with the long-standing civil war in Sudan rather than collective security practices to deal with war crimes in Darfur. When a comprehensive peace agreement ended the civil war, the Security Council then increased its collective security practices regarding Darfur. In Libya, the hegemonic bargain influenced the Charter bargain, and a concern for human rights led the Security Council to authorize the use of force to protect civilians. The ensuing NATO operation stretched its use of force mandate and facilitated regime change, leading Russia and China to conclude that in this case the Charter bargain had failed to limit the imperial potential of the liberal order. Determined to prevent future Western practices that resembled empire, they prevented even Charter authorization for liberal practices in Syria. In Côte d’Ivoire, the hegemonic bargain influenced the Charter bargain, and the Security Council intervened to ensure that an authoritarian leader did not steal an election. Once again, the logic of the hegemonic bargain can lead to regime change. But in this rare example, the Charter bargain provided its procedural legitimacy, leaving much less space to criticize those practices as hierarchical. Third, post–Cold War Security Council practices do not clearly show a liberal order in decline. Some of the evidence presented here could be consistent with the decline narrative. Russia and China have increasingly objected to Security Council practices and used nonliberal reasons for doing so. Collective security enforcement of democracy rules has dwindled.

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Renegotiating the Liberal Order

There is no plausible way to argue that the liberal order survived the Trump years unscathed. However, thirty years of data show upward slopes for many liberal practices, including asserted war crimes violations, asserted human rights violations, enforcement measures, and liberal peacekeeping mandates (Chapter 4). Thirty years of speeches by states not consenting to resolutions show that they had liberal reasons most of the time, including in recent years (Chapter 5). When powerful states such as Russia (Chapter 8) or the United States (Chapter 9) have challenged the liberal order—whether in Syria, Ukraine, or Iraq—most states on the Security Council have defended its legitimacy. The bulk of the data suggests the continued resiliency of the liberal order. Finally, these arguments suggest an alternative to the decline narrative. We can understand contemporary world politics not as a decline in the liberal order, but as a process of renegotiation between the two bargains. After the hegemonic bargain dramatically expanded the scope of the Charter bargain throughout much of the post–Cold War era, the pendulum is starting to swing in the other direction. A narrative about a renegotiated liberal order with a more prominent place for the Charter bargain (and its Westphalian content) may not seem much different from the decline narrative. However, the narratives are distinct in what they suggest about the scope and nature of the ongoing changes and the range of possible destinations. Simply put, the decline narrative suggests that fundamental changes are occurring, including the possible end of the liberal order and the emergence of nonliberal orders. The renegotiation narrative suggests that the ongoing changes are squarely within the normal politics of the liberal order. In this book, I argue that we have good reasons to problematize the decline narrative and consider the renegotiation narrative. A renegotiated liberal order in which the Charter bargain plays a larger role is still a liberal order. The Charter bargain remains a form of liberal order with a sovereignty bargain unlike Westphalian and imperial orders. Within the Charter bargain, states sacrifice autonomy to pursue more control over interdependence—the fundamental characteristic of all liberal orders. The Charter bargain engages in both capacity building and collective security practices. Most importantly, a renegotiated liberal order is not the same thing as an order in which the hegemonic bargain no longer influences the Charter bargain. As the Security Council practices analyzed in this book suggest, the hegemonic bargain continues to influence the Charter bargain. Many liberal arguments remain taken for granted, including the interdependent nature of our gravest security threats, the necessity of cooperation to address those threats, the moral imperative to punish war crimes and protect civilians during armed conflicts, and encouraging democracy in postconflict situations. Few states advocate a nonliberal order based on either great-power rivalry or empire. All of this complicates the decline narrative.50

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The renegotiation narrative also provides for a possibility not considered by the decline narrative. Earlier in this chapter, I listed three ways that states could reconcile the tensions between the two bargains: (1) by emphasizing the Charter bargain over the hegemonic bargain; (2) by reinterpreting the Charter bargain in ways consistent with the hegemonic bargain; and (3) by enforcing the hegemonic bargain outside the Charter bargain. The first option, over time, would resemble a Westphalian order. The second option, over time, would perpetuate the liberal order. The third option, over time, would resemble an imperial order. The decline narrative suggests significant movement from (2) to (1). One way to understand the renegotiation narrative is that the movement from (2) to (1) is not as significant as the decline narrative suggests. However, another possibility is that the movement could be from (3) to (2). That is, what many interpret as a decline in the liberal order could be a correction within the liberal order after too many attempts at imperial overreach outside the Charter bargain. Many non-Western states have this understanding of the contemporary world order.51 A final reason to complicate the decline narrative is normative. Sometimes a dominant narrative leads to a self-fulfilling prophecy. If enough agents believe in the inevitability of the end of the liberal order, they will adapt in ways that make the end even more likely. An end to the liberal order would mean that geopolitical power balancing or regional hierarchies would replace the pursuit of trade, democracy, human rights, and international law. It would mean not understanding interdependence as the essence of world politics. It would mean the end of multilateral cooperation to address transnational security threats such as climate change, disease, humanitarian disasters, and economic instability. It would mean the hollowing out of collective security organizations such as the WTO and the ICC. It would mean that Security Council practices return to Cold War patterns—vetoes, gridlock, a narrow agenda, and routine irrelevance. It would mean an increase in conflict, authoritarianism, and poverty. We should want to prevent that future. The renegotiation narrative suggests a greater resiliency for the liberal order. It creates more space for defending and perpetuating the liberal order. If we want to live in a decent world, then we need some form of a liberal order. Understanding our current situation as a renegotiation rather than a decline suggests that such a future is still more likely than not. Renegotiations are linguistic debates about rules. Understanding our current situation as a renegotiation of the liberal order presumes that language and rules are central to world politics. The next chapter describes one type of constructivist approach to world politics that emphasizes the importance of language and rules. It provides the framework to justify why analyzing the Security Council can provide evidence about the state of the liberal order. Security Council practices directly illustrate when the hegemonic bargain has increased the scope of the Charter bargain and when the Charter bargain has

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limited the scope of the hegemonic bargain. We are living through the current iteration of an ongoing renegotiation over the rules of world politics.

Notes 1. UN Security Council, Resolution 1160 (March 31, 1998). 2. UN Security Council, Resolution 1199 (September 23, 1998). 3. UN, Security Council, Meeting 3988 (March 24, 1999), 2–3. 4. UN, Security Council, Meeting 3988 (March 24, 1999), 12. 5. UN, Security Council, Meeting 3988 (March 24, 1999), 8–9. 6. UN, Security Council, Meeting 3988 (March 24, 1999), 11–12. 7. Independent International Commission on Kosovo, The Kosovo Report. 8. The word “liberal” sometimes refers to a particular type of global order; sometimes to a theory of world politics; sometimes to a form of the modern democratic state. I hope the distinctions are clear given the context. 9. Ikenberry, Liberal Leviathan. 10. Kant, Perpetual Peace and Other Essays. 11. McDonald, The Invisible Hand of Peace; Gartzke, “The Capitalist Peace.” 12. Gleditsch and Hegre, “Peace and Democracy.” 13. Doyle, “Three Pillars of the Liberal Peace.” 14. Russett and O’Neal, Triangulating Peace. 15. Keohane and Martin, “The Promise of Institutionalist Theory.” 16. Ikenberry, “The Future of the Liberal World Order”; Ikenberry, “The End of Liberal International Order?” 17. Pinker, Enlightenment Now. 18. Krasner, “Compromising Westphalia,” cites territory and autonomy; Litfin, “Sovereignty in World Ecopolitics,” cites control, authority, and legitimacy; Caporaso, “Changes in the Westphalian Order,” cites authority, territoriality, and citizenship. 19. Litfin, “Sovereignty in World Ecopolitics.” 20. Waltz, Theory of International Politics. 21. Zacher, “The Decaying Pillars of the Westphalian Temple.” 22. Krasner, “Compromising Westphalia.” 23. Donnelly, “Sovereign Inequalities and Hierarchy in Anarchy.” 24. Inoguchi and Bacon, “Sovereignties.” 25. Navari, “States and State Systems.” 26. Gill-Tiney, “A Liberal Peace?” 27. Scholars of legitimacy point to three sources: providing a stable order, using fair procedures, and acting according to shared norms. See Clark, Legitimacy in International Society; Franck, The Power of Legitimacy Among Nations; Claude, “Collective Legitimization as a Political Function of the United Nations”; Lake, “Escape from the State of Nature”; Hurd, After Anarchy. 28. Beardsley and Schmidt, “Following the Flag or Following the Charter?” 29. Johnstone, “Security Council Deliberations.” 30. Frederking and Patane, “Legitimacy and the UN Security Council Agenda.” 31. Cronin and Hurd, The UN Security Council and the Politics of International Authority; Johnstone, “Legislation and Adjudication in the UN Security Council.” 32. Caporaso, “Changes in the Westphalian Order.” 33. Griffith, Is This the End of the Liberal International Order?; Haas, A World in Disarray; Maull, The Rise and Decline of the Post–Cold War International

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Order; Cooley and Nexon, Exit from Hegemony; Mastanduno, “Liberal Hegemony, International Order, and US Foreign Policy”; Kacowicz, “The Problem of Peaceful Change Revisited”; Davis and Slobodchikoff, Cultural Imperialism and the Decline of the Liberal Order; Hendrickson, Republic in Peril; Mullerson, Dawn of a New Order; Acharya, The End of American World Order. 34. Colgan and Keohane, “The Liberal Order Is Rigged.” 35. Cooley and Nexon, “The Real Crisis of Global Order,” 103–118. 36. Walt, “The End of the American Era.” 37. Layne, “The US-Chinese Power Shift and the End of the Pax Americana.” 38. Rampton and Nadaraja, “A Long View of the Liberal Peace and Its Crisis”; Niblett, “Liberalism in Retreat”; Jahn, “Liberal Internationalism.” 39. Stokes, “Trump, American Hegemony and the Future of Liberal International Order.” 40. Mearsheimer, “Bound to Fail,” 7–50; Glaser, “A Flawed Framework,” 51–87. 41. R. W. Cox, Production, Power, and World Order; Murphy, International Organization and Industrial Change. 42. Babic, “Let’s Talk About the Interregnum.” 43. Excellent accounts of the Security Council include: Bosco, Five to Rule Them All; Luck, UN Security Council; Malone, Decision Making in the UN Security Council; Fenton, Understanding the UN Security Council; von Einsiedel, Malone, and Ugarte, The UN Security Council in the 21st Century; Wilson, The United Nations and Collective Security. 44. Westra, “Cumulative Legitimation, Prudential Restraint, and the Maintenance of International Order.” 45. Reus-Smit, “International Crises of Legitimacy.” For a rationalist approach to the legitimacy of the Security Council, see Voeten, “The Political Origins of the UN Security Council’s Ability to Legitimize the Use of Force.” 46. Cortright and Lopez, “Are Sanctions Just?” 47. Jayakody, “Refining United Nations Security Council Targeted Sanctions.” 48. Gehring and Dörfler, “Division of Labor and Rule-Based Decision-Making”; Heupel, “Multilateral Sanctions Against Terror Suspects.” 49. Harrington, “The Working Methods of the United Nations Security Council.” 50. Ikenberry, “The End of Liberal International Order?”; Duncombe and Dunne, “After Liberal World Order.” 51. Clunan, “Russia and the Liberal World Order.”

2 The Rules of World Politics

IRAQ INVADED KUWAIT ON AUGUST 2, 1990, CHALLENGING THE LEGITImacy of the fledgling post–Cold War liberal order. The Security Council condemned the invasion, demanded that Iraq withdraw its forces from Kuwait, and authorized an economic embargo.1 When Iraq failed to comply, the Security Council authorized the use of force to expel Iraqi forces from Kuwait: Demands that Iraq comply fully with Resolution 660 (1990) and all subsequent relevant resolutions; Authorizes Member States cooperating with the Government of Kuwait, unless Iraq on or before 15 Jan. 1991 fully implements the foregoing resolutions, to use all necessary means to uphold and implement resolution 660.2

With this language in Resolution 678, the Security Council (re)established the Charter bargain in the post–Cold War world.3 It engaged in all three steps of collective security. It prohibited states from violating the sovereignty and territorial integrity of other states, identified Iraq as an agent that violated those rules, and authorized enforcement measures. It is an important example of a Security Council practice that invoked collective security rules. In this chapter, I discuss a constructivist approach to world politics, an approach that enables us to analyze the practices of the Security Council and thus evaluate the status of the liberal order. How often does the Security Council invoke liberal rules? How often do member states criticize Security Council practices in nonliberal ways? I explain a constructivist method of speech act analysis and how that approach can help us evaluate whether states invoke liberal or nonliberal rules on the Security Council. First, I discuss constructivist ontology and the importance of language and social rules. Next, I provide a constructivist understanding of liberalism, 25

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realism, and critical theory as competing theories asserting the importance of different “security arrangements.” Then, I provide two examples of speech act analysis: a hypothetical example of North Korea and nuclear weapons, and Security Council Resolution 678 authorizing the 1991 Gulf War as discussed above.

Constructivism Many undergraduate textbooks cite realism, liberalism, and constructivism as the main theories of world politics. This framework has two major flaws. First, it does not include a range of critical theories that emphasize hierarchy in world politics. Second, and more importantly, constructivism is not a theory of world politics. Constructivism is an ontology. It tells us what is real. It tells us how to look at world politics. It is opposed to other ontologies, not to theories of world politics. One can be a realist and a constructivist, a liberal and a constructivist, or a critical theorist and a constructivist. Constructivism tells us to study social structures, language, and rules. Rules matter. Constructivism cannot tell us, though, which rules matter. It cannot tell us what the rules of world politics are. Our main theories of world politics—liberalism, realism, and critical theory—each assert that different sets of rules are central to world politics. A constructivist approach to world politics relies on linguistic methods to illustrate how agents use speech acts to invoke certain rules. It can thus help us evaluate the arguments made by realists, liberals, and critical theorists. We can analyze language to help us understand whether agents are invoking the rules that realists, liberals, or critical theorists say are important. Constructivism makes two ontological arguments about what is real.4 The first argument is that social structures govern world politics. Social rules matter. Constructivism opposes material ontologies that privilege material over social structures. The second argument is that communicatively rational agents use speech acts to construct the social rules that govern world politics. Constructivism also opposes rationalist ontologies that privilege strategic interaction over communicative rationality. Most mainstream theories of world politics posit the existence of strategically rational actors within a material structure. Constructivists instead posit the existence of communicatively rational agents within a social structure. The first constructivist argument suggests that we need to study rules.5 Using constructivist ontology does not require starting from scratch and relearning the world anew. It requires recognizing that the major concepts of theories of world politics—sovereignty, human rights, deterrence, empire, the balance of power, and collective security—are part of the social structures that govern world politics. They are the rules of world politics.

The Rules of World Politics

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The major theories of world politics provide us with different arguments about which rules are the most important. For constructivists, then, an understanding of world politics requires knowing how rules operate. Rules are constitutive and regulative. Rules are constitutive when they tell us what is possible. Rules are regulative when they tell us what is permissible. Rules enable agents to act; they tell us the nature of our situation, who we are, who others are, and what goals are appropriate to pursue. The regulative nature of rules is easy to understand—rules tell us what to do. The constitutive nature of rules is less straightforward—rules constitute social reality by defining agents and contexts. They make action possible by telling agents how to understand themselves, their situation, and their choices within that situation. The rules of world politics make action possible in the same way that the rules of tennis make double faults possible, or the rules of chess make castling possible. Rules constitute reality. We would not be able to act, or understand the actions of others, without rules. Most constructivist scholarship illustrates the importance of social rules in world politics. Constructivists tend to focus on three types of rules: beliefs, norms, and identities. Beliefs are shared understandings of the world. Beliefs make action possible by enabling agents to agree on the nature of their situation. Agents can coordinate their action when they agree on what is true. Norms are shared understandings of appropriate action. Norms guide action and make action possible, enabling agents to criticize assertions and justify actions. Agents can coordinate their action when they agree on what is appropriate. Identities are shared understandings of ourselves and of others. Identities enable us to make sense of our actions and the actions of others. Agents can coordinate their action when they agree that others are sincere. Constructivists ask the following questions about rules: What are shared beliefs about how the world works? What are shared norms about how to treat each other? What are shared identities about who the agents are? These rules constitute the social structures governing world politics. Of course, agents often contest the rules; much of world politics is disputes about beliefs, norms, and identities. Constructivists explain conflict by stating the competing rules preferred by different agents. For constructivists, the essence of world politics is the construction of politically contested rules—for example, the rules of the liberal order. Constructivism is opposed to material ontologies. Many realists use a material ontology and assert the importance of the material distribution of capabilities among states in an anarchical system. A central concept for realists is the “balance of power,” and this is generally understood within a materialist ontology—power refers to material things such as natural resources, military capability, and economic growth. Constructivism opposes only the material ontology, though, and not realism itself.

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Renegotiating the Liberal Order

One can use a constructivist ontology and understand the balance of power as a set of social rules (protect state sovereignty, increase military capability, ally with others to avoid empire, etc.) that regulate and constitute state action. The second constructivist argument is that communicatively rational agents use speech acts to construct the social rules that govern world politics. Communicative rationality defines a speech act as rational if it effectively conveys claims and invokes rules so that others correctly interpret it.6 This argument relies on speech act theory, which asserts that language constitutes social action by invoking mutually recognized social rules.7 For example, saying “I do” in a marriage ceremony is a meaningful act because it invokes the rules of marriage. A touchdown creates six points, and a promise creates an obligation, because those acts invoke rules of American football and promising. In the same way, communicatively rational agents use speech acts to invoke the rules of world politics. For example, a Security Council resolution can invoke collective security rules. While speech act theory categorizes many types of speech acts, four are most relevant to world politics: assertions, directives, commitments, and expressions. Assertions make claims about what is true. Directives tell us what to do. Commitments are promises to act in a particular way. Expressions convey a psychological state. These types of speech acts are ubiquitous in daily life and in world politics. We can categorize action— verbal and nonverbal—as a speech act within one of those categories. A treaty is a commitment, a troop movement is a directive, and an accusation of wrongdoing is an assertion. We can therefore use speech act categories to model social interaction. Speech acts are crucial to a constructivist understanding of world politics because they operate at both the agent and the structural level. Speech acts operate at the agent level by conveying implicit validity claims of truth, appropriateness, and sincerity. Communicatively rational agents can make and evaluate these implicit claims. Consider a situation where A tells B: “Destroy your nuclear weapons within three months.” This is a directive conveying three implicit claims: 1. Truth: it is true that B can destroy its nuclear weapons in three months. 2. Appropriateness: it is appropriate that A directs B to destroy its nuclear weapons within three months. 3. Sincerity: A sincerely wants B to destroy its nuclear weapons within three months. The implicit claims of speech acts enable us to model agent-level social interaction. There are four ways that B can respond to A’s directive. First, B

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could challenge the truth claim and say that it is not possible to destroy the weapons in three months. Second, B could challenge the appropriateness claim and say that A does not have the authority to tell B to destroy its nuclear weapons. Third, B could challenge the sincerity claim and say that A just wants a justification to invade. Finally, B could accept all the implicit claims and comply with A’s directive. Speech acts also operate at the level of structure because rules take the form of speech acts. Beliefs have the form of assertions making truth claims about the world. Norms have the form of directives and commitments making appropriateness claims about how we should treat each other. Identities have the form of expressions making sincerity claims about who we are and who others are. Language connects agents and structure. When we speak, and when we act, we invoke social rules. Communicatively rational agents can convey claims and interpret the claims of others only within an already existing structure of social rules. When agents perform speech acts, they are conveying implicit claims to others at an agent level and invoking social rules at a structural level. Speech act theory and the assumption of communicatively rational agents can enable us to model social interaction within constructivist ontology. Consider again the example above. More is going on than A conveying implicit claims and B evaluating those claims at an agent level. A social context of rules already exists to structure and provide meaning to the interaction. B would not know how to respond to A without the context of those rules. Perhaps A is the Security Council, B is North Korea, and the directive invokes (liberal) collective security rules. Perhaps A is India, B is Pakistan, and the directive invokes (realist) rivalry rules. Perhaps A is the United States, B is Iran, and the directive invokes (critical theory) rules of empire. The speech act itself does not invoke any particular security arrangement. Given a particular context within a given social structure, however, the directive invokes certain rules. The agent-level process of conveying implicit validity claims (truth, appropriateness, and sincerity) is simultaneous to and parallel with the structural process of invoking rules (beliefs, norms, and identities) within a particular social arrangement. While most approaches to world politics assert strategically rational actors operating in a material structure, constructivists assert communicatively rational agents operating in a social structure of rules. Instead of methodological approaches that rely on cost-benefit analyses, game theory, and utility maximization, constructivists rely on language, argumentation, and communicative rationality. Constructivist ontology includes agents who perform speech acts, convey claims, interpret the claims of others, and rely on shared claims to act. Communicatively rational speech acts convey claims of truth (invoking structurally shared beliefs), appropriateness (invoking structurally shared norms), and sincerity (invoking

30

Renegotiating the Liberal Order

structurally shared identities). Communicatively rational agents invoke the rules of certain social arrangements and criticize the rules of other social arrangements. This dialogic process of agents conveying and evaluating each other’s claims constructs social rules, including the rules of world politics. The advocates of material and rationalist ontology criticize constructivist approaches with arguments that language is “cheap talk.”8 A Security Council resolution does not alter the (material) structure of world politics. Agents strategically use language to manipulate others within material environments. Agents do not use language to convey sincere claims. Language has no constitutive effects. Fundamental material structures can explain any apparent causal effects. The processes of persuasion, contestation, and consensus building, if they exist at all, are not observable. The “real” motives, interests, and preferences of agents are derivable from material structures, not inferred by analyzing the explicit and implicit contents of language. We should not expect to discover important things about world politics from reading the minutes of Security Council meetings. Given the dominance of material ontology and rationalist models of social interaction in the study of world politics, constructivists need to show that language, rules, identity, norms, and beliefs help us understand world politics.9 This book is one attempt to do so. Speech act analysis flows from the premises of constructivist ontology and communicative rationality. We make claims and evaluate the claims of others. We invoke rules and interpret which rules others are invoking. Social interaction is an inherently linguistic, interpretive process. When agents act in strategic ways—when they engage in “cheap talk”—communicatively rational agents can (eventually) figure this out. Sincerity is an implicit validity claim of all speech acts, and others can criticize that claim. Speech act analysis can thus incorporate social interactions dominated by strategically insincere actors. Language is not cheap.10 Language constitutes the most foundational relationships embedded in politics—legitimacy, fairness, shared norms, rightful authority, and justice.11 Constructivists do not deny the reality of the material world. They argue that social structures are prior to, and incorporate, material structures. Agents must interpret the material world through already existing social structures. We can interpret physical actions only within a material structure—arms races, troop movements, missile deployments—by treating those physical actions as speech acts that convey claims and invoke rules within a social structure. Indeed, the meaning of such physical actions—which claims are conveyed, and which rules are invoked by, for example, troop movements—depends on whether the operative security arrangement is a war, or empire, or collective security. Without prior linguistic rules, agents cannot act—even

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agents who understand themselves as strategic manipulators within a material structure.

Theories of World Politics Constructivism tells us that social rules regulate and constitute world politics. It does not tell us what those rules are. Realism, liberalism, and critical theory are competing theories of world politics that assert the importance of different sets of rules, or “security arrangements.”12 Constructivists understand familiar concepts in world politics as social rules—beliefs, norms, and identities. Realism, liberalism, and critical theory suggest a wide variety of possible security arrangements that might be the operative social structure for any interaction in world politics. We can therefore understand competing theoretical arguments about world politics within constructivist ontology. Liberals expect states to advocate trade, democracy, human rights, international organizations, and international law to achieve global security. When states make these arguments, they convey (liberal) claims to other agents and invoke (liberal) structural rules of collective security and capacity building. When states make these arguments, they assert the legitimacy of the liberal order. Realists expect states to emphasize state sovereignty, territorial integrity, selfdefense, and deterrence to achieve security. When states make these arguments, they convey (realist) claims to other agents and invoke (realist) structural rules about rivalry and the balance of power. When states make these arguments, they challenge the legitimacy of the liberal order. Critical theorists expect states to emphasize hierarchy, point to unequal economic and power relations, and assert the injustice of existing arrangements. When states make these arguments, they convey (critical) claims to other agents and invoke (critical) structural rules of empire. When states make these arguments, they challenge the legitimacy of the liberal order. The major theories of world politics all assert the centrality of different sets of rules, and they argue that agents are more likely to engage in speech acts that invoke those rules. The constructivist emphasis on rules and language enables us to identify the rules that realists, liberals, and critical theorists argue that agents are most likely to invoke. Table 2.1 lists five different security arrangements: two expected by realists (war and rivalry), two expected by liberals (collective security and capacity building), and one expected by critical theorists (empire). Each security arrangement includes six fundamental rules: (1) a belief about the nature of world politics; (2) an identity establishing who the agents are; (3) a norm about the extent to which agents recognize the autonomy of others; (4) a belief about how to achieve security; (5) a

32 Table 2.1

Renegotiating the Liberal Order Global Security Arrangements War

Rivalry

Collective Security

System   (Belief)

World   politics is   anarchical.

World   politics is   anarchical.

World World World   politics is   politics is   politics is   interdependent.   interdependent.   hierarchical.

Identity

We are enemies. We are rivals.      

We are partners.   

We are partners.   

Autonomy   (Norm)

We do not   recognize   your   autonomy.

We recognize   your   autonomy.

We are obligated   to follow and   enforce certain   rules.

We are obligated We do or do   to follow certain   not recognize   rules.   your autonomy.

Security   (Belief)

 

States achieve   survival   through   (alliance)   military   capability.

States achieve   security   through   (alliance)   military   capability.

States achieve   security through   political   commitments to   follow certain   rules.

States achieve   security through   political   commitments to   follow certain   rules.

States achieve   security by   establishing   or resisting   coercive   hierarchy.

Deterrence   (Norm)

Stop attacking   me.

Do not attack   me.

Do not break   certain rules.

We will help   you follow   certain rules.

Do not challenge   our coercive   hierarchical   relationship.

Force is   sometimes   necessary to   maintain   autonomy.

Force is   sometimes   necessary to   enforce certain   rules.

Force is not   necessary.

Force is   sometimes   necessary to   maintain or   resist coercive   hierarchy.

Use of force Force is   (Norm)   necessary to      maintain   autonomy.

Capacity Building

Empire

We are   superordinate   or subordinate   agents.

Source: Author’s own.

norm to deter the actions that harm security; and (6) a norm about whether the use of force is appropriate to maintain security. These rules partially constitute and regulate world politics.13 They exist within the social structures of world politics. They are easily recognizable. Each set of rules may apply in different social contexts. These rules help us (and the agents of world politics) determine which security arrangement is operative. The first rule is a belief about the nature of world politics. Whether anarchy, interdependence, or hierarchy is the fundamental characteristic of world politics is a central distinction between realism, liberalism, and critical theory. This fundamental assertion rule leads to the differences in all the remaining rules within the competing security arrangements. The sec-

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ond rule is an identity establishing who the agents are. If agents identify each other as enemies, then they are invoking rules of war. If agents identify each other as rivals, then they are invoking rivalry rules. If agents identify each other as partners, then they are invoking either collective security or capacity building rules. If agents identify others as superordinate and subordinate, then they are invoking rules of empire. Note that while differentiated identities are intrinsic to empire (some are superordinate and some are subordinate), this may occur in other security arrangements as well. For example, the collective security identity rule is one of partners working to maintain security by following certain rules. However, one cannot have— one does not need—collective security unless some are rogues who do not follow the rules. Another example is the mirrored identities often found in rivalries where each side interprets itself as a defensive, peaceful agent besieged by an aggressive, hostile rival. A third rule in each security arrangement is an autonomy norm. When do we leave others alone? When do we intervene? In war, agents do not recognize the autonomy of others. It is appropriate to attack if an enemy is attacking you. In a rivalry, agents do recognize the autonomy of others. Often this norm refers to state sovereignty, widely understood as an important rule to maintain security in rivalries. (Calling it “autonomy” rather than “sovereignty” enables application to nonstate actors.) Collective security arrangements limit autonomy because agents are obligated to follow and enforce agreed-on rules. For those who break the rules, collective security may entail significant intervention by others. Capacity building also limits autonomy because agents are obligated to follow agreed-on rules. However, since capacity building does not include enforcement, the limits to autonomy are not as great. Finally, in empire, superordinate agents do not recognize the autonomy of subordinate agents. Superordinate agents assert the right to intervene into the affairs of subordinate agents. A fourth rule in each security arrangement is a shared belief about how to achieve security. The belief that security requires military capability characterizes war and rivalry arrangements. In war, security is about survival and requires a military capability to defeat an enemy. In rivalries, agents achieve security through increased military capability or joining alliances. The belief that security requires political agreements to follow certain rules constitutes collective security and capacity building. In collective security, states agree that security requires prohibiting certain actions and punishing those who commit those actions. In capacity building, states agree to support each other’s attempts to engage in certain actions. In empire, security (for those at the top) requires one of many possible hierarchical relationships—for our purposes, we will use the framework of “rule by intermediaries.”14 The rulers in subordinate agents cater to the interests of the superordinate agents—or risk regime change.

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Renegotiating the Liberal Order

A fifth rule is a norm deterring actions widely understood within each security arrangement to harm security. In war, the directive is to stop attacking so that an agent can regain some measure of security. In rivalries, the deterrence rule directs others not to attack and threaten autonomy. Military capability, alliance formation, and explicit threats are often necessary to invoke the rivalry deterrence rule. In collective security arrangements, the deterrence norm extends to many possible rules prohibiting actions that harm global security. The norm in capacity building arrangements is qualitatively different because the rules are positive exhortations, not prohibitions. In empire, the deterrence rule is the superordinate agent warning the subordinate agent not to challenge the hierarchical relationship. Subordinate states are not in a structural position to issue directives and invoke deterrence norms toward superordinate states. Subordinate states can challenge only the legitimacy of the hierarchical relationship. The final rule is a norm about when it is appropriate to use force. In war, the use of force is always necessary and appropriate. In rivalry, the use of force is sometimes necessary to settle disputes, preserve state sovereignty, and thwart attempts by other states to dominate world politics. In collective security, the use of force is sometimes necessary as an enforcement measure when an agent violates a rule. In capacity building, the use of force is never acceptable. In empire, the use of force—regime change!—is sometimes necessary to maintain the hierarchical relationship. Note that the use of force is consistent with war, rivalry, collective security, and empire. The use of force in and of itself does not tell agents what rules govern their interaction. Agents must justify and interpret which security arrangement uses of force invoke. This constructivist approach to the rules of world politics provides context for the argument presented in Chapter 1. The liberal order is constituted by the continuities and tensions of the Charter bargain and the hegemonic bargain. These two bargains extend across multiple security arrangements. The Charter bargain is consistent with every collective security and capacity building rule. The United Nations is primarily a liberal institution, an attempt by states to use an international organization to enhance global security. Most UN practices implicitly invoke the beliefs that the world is interdependent and that states achieve security by following certain rules. Most convey the identity of states as partners. And most recognize normative obligations to follow certain rules. Sometimes those rules include collective security enforcement, and sometimes those rules include capacity building. Most UN practices invoke liberal rules. The legitimacy of the Charter bargain is premised on the legitimacy of liberal rules. However, the Charter bargain also includes elements of realist rivalry rules. Its purpose is to protect sovereignty and territorial integrity (autonomy norm) by deterring military attacks (deterrence norm). Article 51

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authorizes alliances (security belief) and recognizes the use of force in selfdefense (use of force norm). The Charter bargain built on, and did not completely disregard, preexisting Westphalian paths to order. The Charter bargain thus has the potential to restrict the scope of the rules that the UN either enforces or encourages its member states to follow. The Charter bargain also includes an important example of hierarchy consistent with critical theory rules of empire: the permanent membership and veto power on the Security Council for the five winners of World War II. Superordinate and subordinate status are built into the Charter—an arrangement that has the potential to undermine its legitimacy. The Charter bargain thus overlaps with multiple forms of security arrangements. It could be a “thin” bargain, with the Security Council pursuing traditional notions of international security by prohibiting military attacks that violate the territorial integrity of states such as Iraq invading Kuwait. Or it could expand the notion of international security to include civil wars, weapons proliferation, and terrorism. Or it could be influenced by the hegemonic bargain and pursue international security by enforcing liberal rules regarding war crimes, human rights, and democracy. Evidence for the liberal order is the extent to which the hegemonic bargain expanded the scope of the Charter bargain and provided space for the Security Council to authorize increasingly liberal practices. Put another way, the legitimacy of the Security Council required it to authorize increasingly liberal practices in the post–Cold War world because the hegemonic bargain had influenced the Charter bargain. Of course, critical theorists characterize the liberal order as the current form of empire. They deny that legitimacy required increasingly liberal rules—taken to their logical conclusion, liberal enforcement of human rights and democracy rules lead to the illegitimate result of regime change. This constructivist understanding of rules and security arrangements thus helps illustrate the tensions in the post– Cold War global order. Speech act analysis can help us evaluate realist, liberal, and critical theory arguments. Liberals expect states to invoke collective security and capacity building rules. They expect states to presume the legitimacy of the liberal order when they debate Security Council practices. They expect states to either support or criticize Security Council practices based on liberal arguments. Realists expect states to invoke war and rivalry rules. They expect states to challenge Security Council practices and the legitimacy of the liberal order based on arguments that global order is really about rivalries and balances of power. Critical theorists expect agents to invoke the rules of empire. They expect subordinate states to challenge Security Council practices and the legitimacy of the liberal order based on arguments that the global order is really an empire. If the liberal order is in decline, then the percentage of nonliberal criticisms of Security Council practices should

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Renegotiating the Liberal Order

be increasing. Constructivist ontology provides us with linguistic tools to evaluate whether agents are invoking the rules expected by realists, liberals, and critical theorists. We can analyze language to explore whether states are upholding or challenging the liberal order. The next section provides two examples of such a speech act analysis.

Speech Act Analysis Consider an example of the Security Council addressing the proliferation of nuclear weapons and debating whether to authorize the following collective security practices: 1. Do not build nuclear weapons. (Prohibit) 2. North Korea is building nuclear weapons. (Monitor) 3. We will use force against North Korea. (Enforce) States advocating these practices convey agent-level implicit validity claims and invoke structural-level collective security rules. A speech act analysis of these collective security practices—including the implicit claims of each speech act and the collective security rules invoked by each speech act—is shown in Table 2.2. This example represents an idealized form of collective security. The first speech act is a directive that prohibits certain actions that harm global security. The second is an assertion that monitors compliance with that rule. The third is another directive that enforces the rule. All three speech acts convey agent-level implicit validity claims of truth, appropriateness, and sincerity. All three speech acts also invoke structural-level collective security rules. Anyone who disputes these collective security practices must challenge one (or more) of the validity claims. Therefore, one who disputes a speech act does three things: (1) rejects an agent-level implicit validity claim; (2) challenges the validity of the structure-level social rules invoked by that speech act; and (3) (often) invokes the rules of an alternative security arrangement. First, disputing these speech acts requires one to reject an agent-level implicit validity claim—truth, appropriateness, or sincerity—conveyed by the speech act. While it is always possible to challenge a truth claim, and while disputing the facts on the ground is often a part of Security Council debates, it is not likely in this example. The truth claims of the speech acts in this example are valid. It is also possible, but only slightly more likely, to challenge the sincerity claims. It is much more likely, then, that one would challenge the speech acts by disputing the appropriateness claims. One could argue against the appropriateness of the Security Council issuing

The Rules of World Politics Table 2.2

37

Speech Act Analysis of Collective Security Practices

1. Do not build   nuclear weapons

2. North Korea is building   nuclear weapons

3. We authorize the use of   force against North Korea

Agent-level claims

Agent-level claims

Agent-level claims

Truth: You can decide not   to build nuclear weapons. Appropriateness: It is   appropriate that we direct   you not to build nuclear   weapons. Sincerity: We sincerely   want you not to build   nuclear weapons.

Truth: North Korea is   building nuclear weapons. Appropriateness: It is   appropriate that we assert   that North Korea is   building nuclear weapons. Sincerity: We sincerely   assert that North Korea   is building nuclear weapons.

Truth: It is true that we can   use force against North Korea. Appropriateness: It is   appropriate to authorize the   use of force against North   Korea. Sincerity: We sincerely   authorize the use of force   against North Korea.

Structure-level rules   invoked

Structure-level rules   invoked

Structure-level rules   invoked

CS deterrence norm: Do   not build nuclear   weapons. CS security belief: We   achieve security by   agreeing not to build   nuclear weapons. CS autonomy norm: All   are obligated not to   build nuclear weapons. CS use of force norm: We   may use force if someone   builds nuclear weapons. CS identity: We are   partners.

CS security belief: North   Korea’s nuclear weapons   harm global security. CS autonomy norm: North   Korea is obligated not   to build nuclear weapons.

CS use of force norm: Force   is sometimes necessary to   enforce proliferation rules. CS security belief: North   Korea’s nuclear weapons   harm global security.

CS deterrence norm: North   Korea must not build nuclear   weapons. CS use of force norm: Force is   sometimes necessary to enforce   nuclear proliferation rules. CS identity rule: We are   partners. (North Korea is not   a partner.)

CS autonomy norm: North   Korea is obligated not to   build nuclear weapons. CS deterrence norm: North   Korea must not build   nuclear weapons. CS identity rule: We are   partners. (North Korea is not   a partner.)

Source: Author’s own. Note: CS = collective security.

the prohibition, or asserting that North Korea violated the rule, or authorizing the use of force. Second, disputing these speech acts requires one to reject structurallevel collective security rules. One could challenge the security belief and argue that we do not achieve global security through a rule prohibiting the building of nuclear weapons. One could argue that even if North Korea is building nuclear weapons, that practice is not harming global security. One could challenge the identity rule and argue that Security Council members are not really partners cooperating to provide global security. One could

38

Renegotiating the Liberal Order

challenge the autonomy and deterrence norms and argue that states are not obligated to follow this rule—North Korea can build nuclear weapons if it wants. One could challenge the use of force norm and argue that the Security Council should not use force in this situation to enforce a rule against nuclear proliferation. Regardless of the argument a state might make to challenge these speech acts, they all dispute the validity of a collective security rule invoked by those speech acts. They all argue that we should not invoke collective security rules in this situation. Third, disputing speech acts often (but not always) means invoking a competing set of social rules. One may challenge collective security rules and instead invoke (realist) rivalry rules, (critical theory) empire rules, or (liberal) capacity building rules. For example, one could invoke realist rules by arguing that North Korea is a sovereign state and should not have to follow global rules. One could invoke empire rules by arguing that the Security Council is illegitimately imposing a justification for regime change in North Korea. One could invoke capacity building by arguing that the Security Council should act as a neutral mediator and negotiate with North Korea. However, not all challenges to collective security practices automatically invoke alternative security arrangements. One can even challenge a collective security practice without challenging the validity of collective security rules by, for example, advocating sanctions rather than the use of force. States can have a sincere dispute about which actions to prohibit, which states to accuse of rule violations, or which enforcement measures to use without disputing the legitimacy of collective security rules. Interpreting which set of rules a state is invoking by challenging a resolution thus requires a contextual analysis—including the speech explaining the vote, the identity of the agent, and what rules the agent tends to invoke in similar situations. Speech act analysis is a qualitative, interpretive form of social science. It enables us to evaluate what (contested) rules are (partially) governing a particular interaction by studying the implicit contents of speech acts. It puts language, rules, and argumentation at the heart of agency and structure. Consider the historic example that opened this chapter—the Security Council authorized the use of force against Iraq after it invaded Kuwait. This resolution was a Security Council practice. It was a speech act. At an agent level, it conveyed validity claims. At a structural level, it invoked social rules. We can analyze the resolution’s implicit validity claims and the rules it invoked (Table 2.3). Security Council resolutions generally invoke some combination of collective security and capacity building rules. This resolution invoked collective security rules: (1) do not invade another state; (2) we achieve security by not invading other states; (3) we are obligated not to invade another state; (4) we may use force if someone invades another state; and (5) we are partners. Through the resolution, the Security

The Rules of World Politics Table 2.3

39

Speech Act Analysis of Security Council Resolution 678

1. Do not invade   another state

2. Iraq invaded Kuwait

3. We authorize the use of   force against Iraq

Agent-level claims

Agent-level claims

Agent-level claims

Truth: You can decide not   to invade another state. Appropriateness: It is   appropriate that we direct   you not to invade another   state. Sincerity: We sincerely   want you not to invade   another state.

Truth: Iraq invaded Kuwait. Appropriateness: It is   appropriate that we assert   that Iraq invaded Kuwait.

Truth: It is true that we can   use force against Iraq. Appropriateness: It is   appropriate to authorize the   use of force against Iraq.

Sincerity: We sincerely   assert that Iraq invaded   Kuwait.

Sincerity: We sincerely   authorize the use of force   against Iraq.

Structure-level rules   invoked

Structure-level rules   invoked

Structure-level rules   invoked

CS deterrence norm: Do not   invade another state. CS security belief: We   achieve security by   agreeing not to invade   other states. CS autonomy norm: All   are obligated not to   invade another state. CS use of force norm: We   may use force if someone   invades another state.

CS deterrence norm: Iraq must   not invade Kuwait. CS security belief: Iraq’s   invasion of Kuwait harms   global security.

CS deterrence norm: Iraq   must not invade Kuwait. CS security belief: Iraq’s   invasion of Kuwait   harms global security.

CS autonomy norm: Iraq   is obligated not to invade   Kuwait. CS use of force norm: Force   is sometimes necessary to   enforce state sovereignty and   territorial integrity rules. CS identity rule: We are   partners. (Iraq is not a   partner.)

CS autonomy norm: Iraq   is obligated not to invade   Kuwait. CS use of force norm: Force   is sometimes necessary to   enforce state sovereignty   and territorial integrity rules. CS identity rule: We are   partners. (Iraq is not a   partner.)

CS identity: We are   partners.

Source: Author’s own. Note: CS = collective security.

Council conveyed these claims to each other and invoked those social rules. Twelve states voted for this resolution. They agreed to the implicit claims and invoked every collective security rule in Table 2.3. Three states, however, did not vote for the resolution (Cuba and Yemen voted no, and China abstained). Like any speech act, agents can interpret and challenge the implicit validity claims conveyed, and the social rules invoked, by the resolution. Agents can dispute the resolution by invoking rules consistent with realist, critical, or capacity building

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rules. China justified its vote by invoking capacity building rules, advocating neutral mediation rather than collective security enforcement.15 By invoking capacity building rules, it did not fundamentally challenge the legitimacy of the liberal order. Yemen and Cuba, however, justified their votes by invoking empire, referring to unjust double standards (no Security Council action when the United States invaded Panama, no action regarding Israeli Occupied Territories, etc.) and hierarchical, imperial policies.16 By invoking critical theory rules, these states did challenge the liberal order. Analyzing the implicit contents of speech acts can help us evaluate liberal, realist, and critical theory arguments about world politics. The next chapter details the realist critique that collective security is not effective and the critical theory critique that collective security is not legitimate. A constructivist approach to these debates focuses on the implicit contents of speech acts like those listed in Table 2.2 and Table 2.3. Liberals expect states to accept the validity claims of Security Council resolutions and invoke collective security or capacity building rules.17 Realists and critical theorists expect states to reject the validity claims of Security Council resolutions, invoke rules of rivalry and empire, and challenge the effectiveness and legitimacy of the Security Council. The decline narrative suggests that the Security Council should be authorizing fewer liberal practices. It suggests that states should increasingly be challenging liberal Security Council practices and increasingly be invoking rules of rivalry and empire. A constructivist approach to world politics can help us explore whether Security Council practices indeed support that narrative.

Notes 1. UN Security Council, Resolution 660 (August 2, 1990). 2. UN Security Council, Resolution 678 (November 29, 1990), emphasis in original. 3. Bennett and Lepgold, “Reinventing Collective Security After the Cold War and Gulf Conflict”; Hurrell, “Collective Security and International Order Revisited.” 4. Onuf, World of Our Making; Frederking, Resolving Security Dilemmas; Frederking, “Constructing Post–Cold War Collective Security”; Frederking, The United States and the Security Council; Duffy, Frederking, and Tucker, “Language Games”; Frederking and Duffy, “Changing the Rules.” 5. Kratochwil, Rules, Norms, and Decisions. 6. Habermas, Theory of Communicative Action; Habermas, Theory of Communicative Action II; Risse, “Let’s Argue!” 7. Austin, How to Do Things with Words; Searle, Speech Acts; Searle, The Social Construction of Reality. 8. Hanrieder, “The False Promise of a Better Argument.” 9. Hultman, “UN Peace Operations and Protection of Civilians.” 10. For example, the more resolutions passed by the Security Council condemning rebel actors for violence against civilians, the more likely rebel violence

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against civilians declined. See Benson and Tucker, “The Importance of UN Security Council Resolutions in Peacekeeping Operations.” 11. Franck, The Power of Legitimacy Among Nations; Steffek, “The Legitimation of International Governance.” 12. Onuf, World of Our Making. 13. The content of these rules stem from Onuf, World of Our Making; Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict; Claude, Power and International Relations; Wendt, Social Theory of International Politics; Nexon and Wright, “What’s at Stake in the American Empire Debate.” 14. Nexon and Wright, “What’s at Stake in the American Empire Debate.” 15. UN Security Council, Meeting 2963 (November 29, 1990), 62. 16. UN Security Council, Meeting 2963 (November 29, 1990), 33, 55–57. 17. Gehring and Dörfler, “Constitutive Mechanisms of UN Security Council Practices.”

3 The Critics of Collective Security

THE DAY AFTER AL-QAEDA TERRORISTS FLEW AIRPLANES INTO NEW York City skyscrapers and the Pentagon in Washington, DC, on September 11, 2001, the Security Council passed a resolution condemning the attacks as a threat to international peace and security and recognizing the inherent right of individual and collective self-defense.1 Two weeks later, the Security Council passed a sweeping resolution authorizing member states to take a wide range of steps to address global terrorism: (1) provide no money or weapons to terrorists; (2) deny safe haven to, arrest, or extradite all terrorists within their countries; (3) freeze the funds and economic assets of terrorists; (4) share information with others to prevent terrorist acts and to capture terrorists; and (5) prevent the movement of terrorists across borders. 2 The Security Council required all states to comply with existing terrorism treaty obligations—even if states had not ratified those treaties. The Security Council pursued collective security (punishing the terrorist groups and state agents who supported them) and capacity building (helping states follow the rules about information sharing, freezing assets, and border controls) to address the threat of transnational terrorism. Theorists of world politics interpreted the resolutions passed after 9/11 in different ways. Liberals emphasized that the resolutions recognized the interdependent nature of world politics. They dealt with a transnational security threat that no one country could address by itself. Consistent with the complexity of the security threat, they invoked collective security and capacity building rules. Realists emphasized the recognition of the inherent right of self-defense. The United States did not need further authorization to invade Afghanistan—it merely invoked self-defense to capture those who committed the 9/11 terrorist acts. Critical theorists emphasized the justification for the future US “global war on terror” to engage in regime 43

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change and expand the empire. For critical theorists, the United States abused realist rules of self-defense and liberal global governance rules by invoking the expansive Bush Doctrine of preemption and invading Iraq two years later. Which set of rules a Security Council resolution invokes is contested and open to interpretation. In this chapter, I analyze liberal, realist, and critical theory arguments about Security Council collective security practices.3 First, I distinguish collective security from capacity building, the two liberal forms of global governance. Next, I discuss the realist critique that collective security is not effective. After that, I discuss the critical theory critique that collective security is not legitimate. Finally, I consider how liberals also criticize collective security practices. All three sections of this chapter generate coding rules for the speech act analyses in Chapter 5. This will help us answer important questions about the health of the liberal order. How often do states criticize collective security practices by invoking realist and critical theory rules and thus challenge the liberal order? How often do states criticize collective security practices with reasons consistent with the liberal order?

Collective Security and Capacity Building Liberals argue that we need to build institutions and agree to certain rules to address common security threats. Such a project requires states to agree on answers to many questions. What are the security threats that we have in common? How many rules do we need? Who is breaking those rules? How do we get states to follow those rules? As these questions suggest, states could pursue liberal global governance in many ways. However, we can categorize two basic types of liberal global governance: collective security and capacity building. Chapter 2 discussed the fundamental rules of these two security arrangements. This section focuses on the practices— or speech acts—that invoke the rules. Collective security engages in three types of practices: (1) prohibit, (2) monitor, and (3) enforce. Collective security is a form of liberal global governance that punishes agents who break important rules. Capacity building also engages in three types of practices: (1) establish a norm, (2) monitor, and (3) support. Capacity building is a form of liberal global governance that encourages agents to follow important rules. Collective security and capacity building practices always fulfill the Charter bargain; when they pursue global security through democracy, human rights, and international law, they also fulfill the hegemonic bargain. Collective security refers to agreements among states to act collectively and provide for one another’s security against threats common to all.4 (It

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does not refer to alliances—a realist practice—where states act collectively to provide security against external military threats.) One definition calls it an agreement “in which states have agreed by treaty to jointly meet any act of aggression or other illegal use of force resorted to by a member state of that system.”5 In a classic collective security agreement, states interpret an attack on one as an attack on all, and they agree to use force against any aggressors. It may be a universal legal obligation to provide military assistance in the event of an attack, as in the League of Nations. It may be a political decision among powerful countries to address global security threats, as in the Security Council.6 It may address only a few threats or a wide variety of threats to global security.7 All collective security arrangements, however, authorize collective action to maintain global security through three sets of practices: 1. Prohibit actions that harm global security. 2. Monitor compliance with the rules and identify rule breakers. 3. Enforce the rules by punishing the rule breakers. First, collective security organizations prohibit actions that harm global security. They could be consistent with the original Charter bargain and prohibit only aggressive uses of force and interstate war. They could prohibit other actions that harm global security such as harboring terrorists or building nuclear weapons. They could also be consistent with the hegemonic bargain and prohibit actions that violate explicitly liberal rules such as killing civilians during an armed conflict or overthrowing a democratically elected leader. Collective security organizations constantly negotiate which actions warrant prohibition. The World Trade Organization (WTO) and the International Criminal Court (ICC) are collective security organizations that enforce liberal rules. The WTO prohibits tariffs and other practices that inhibit trade. The ICC prohibits war crimes and other violations of international humanitarian law. States must agree on what actions to prohibit for a collective security organization to operate. Second, collective security organizations monitor compliance with the rules and identify rule violators. They must agree on what constitutes a rule violation and who has violated that rule. What does one have to do to violate state sovereignty? Or harbor a terrorist? Or commit genocide? How much evidence do we need that one is building a nuclear weapon? All collective security organizations engage in such monitoring. The WTO monitors compliance through routine audits and identifies domestic laws that contradict global trade rules. The ICC monitors compliance by investigating allegations that those within its jurisdiction have committed war crimes. States must agree on which agents are violating the rules for collective security to work.

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Third, collective security organizations enforce the rules by punishing the rule breakers. They must agree on when to authorize enforcement measures. How many rule violations does it take, or how serious must a rule violation be, to warrant enforcement? They also must agree on which enforcement mechanism to use in any situation. Will economic sanctions be appropriate? When does noncompliance warrant strengthening existing sanctions? When is the use of force necessary? All collective security organizations engage in practices to enforce the rules and punish rule violators. The WTO authorizes retaliatory tariffs against rule violators to enforce global trade rules. The ICC enforces international humanitarian law through the trial, conviction, and imprisonment of individual rule violators. Without agreement on this key set of practices, collective security organizations cannot work. As collective security organizations, the Security Council, the WTO, and the ICC pursue the entire scope of the liberal order. They enforce liberal rules about trade, democracy, human rights, and international law. However, the liberal order does not pursue these goals only through collective security institutions. Another form of liberal global governance is capacity building, which includes the following set of practices: 1. Establish a norm. 2. Monitor compliance with that norm. 3. Provide support to help agents follow the norm. Capacity building encourages actions consistent with the liberal order such as increasing economic growth or sending girls to school. Collective security says: “Do not do X, or we will punish you.” Capacity building says: “We will help you do X.” Both require monitoring compliance with the rules. The final step for capacity building, however, is not punitive, but instead is an offer of support to help states follow the rule. Most liberal global governance is capacity building.8 Liberals argue that economic growth, education, and food security contribute to a more peaceful world. We do not pursue collective security enforcement, however, against states with high poverty levels, or low rates of education, or subpar nutrition outcomes. We engage in capacity building and provide support for states to reach those goals. In important areas such as climate change, human rights, disease, and democratization, most international organizations engage in capacity building more often than collective security. The Security Council also routinely engages in capacity building. Examples include acting as a neutral mediator to resolve an armed conflict or authorizing a peacekeeping operation (PKO) to monitor the implementation of a cease-fire agreement.9 The UN Charter authorizes the Security Council to engage in capacity building and collective security.10 It obligates states to settle their conflicts peacefully and to refrain from using force against member states. It establishes

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only two legitimate uses of force—self-defense and force authorized by the Security Council. Any other uses of force are illegal acts of aggression. It authorizes the Security Council to address “breaches of the peace.” The scope of this phrase has dramatically expanded after the Cold War—an important example of the hegemonic bargain influencing the Charter bargain.11 The Security Council has interpreted civil wars, refugees, coups against democracies, humanitarian disasters, war crimes, weapons proliferation, terrorism, piracy, and organized crime as “breaches of the peace” warranting collective security practices. It has explicitly recognized the transnational security threats that liberals argue make us interdependent and require common rules. The Charter enables the Security Council to authorize a range of capacity building and collective security practices.12 Chapter VI lists its capacity building tools: urging parties to settle a conflict peacefully, investigating disputes, and recommending conflict resolution procedures. An extension of Chapter VI authority is the common Security Council practice of peacekeeping.13 PKOs operate under the norms of consent, neutrality, and selfdefense. (Collective security uses the opposite norms—it does not need consent, it is not neutral, and it has coercive military mandates.) PKOs based on these norms are consistent with capacity building. They attempt to create conditions to help states follow important rules, including sovereignty, non-intervention, the nonuse of force, and the peaceful settlement of disputes. Like other capacity building practices, they enable the Security Council to act as a neutral mediator and encourage states to negotiate, sign, and implement peace agreements. When the Security Council authorizes capacity building practices, it invokes liberal rules and supports the legitimacy of the liberal order. Capacity building practices—neutral mediation, peacekeeping, and monitoring the implementation of cease-fire agreements—are consistent with liberal arguments about why and how states use international organizations to pursue global security.14 Including capacity building within the scope of liberal practices is crucial to problematizing the decline narrative. Counting capacity building practices augments the quantitative findings in Chapter 4, which show how routinely the Security Council authorizes liberal practices. Also, counting capacity building arguments bolsters the speech act results in Chapter 5. When states authorize and advocate capacity building practices, they invoke liberal arguments about the role of international organizations. States that invoke capacity building rules may indeed challenge stronger collective security rules, but they are not directly challenging the legitimacy of the liberal order. They are advocating an alternative form of liberal global governance. Capacity building practices are not indicators of a decline in the liberal order. Chapter VII of the UN Charter gives the Security Council its authority to engage in collective security practices. It can determine when a

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“threat to the peace” has occurred. It can call on the parties to comply with provisional measures to prevent a worsening of the situation. It can create subsidiary organs such as judicial tribunals, sanctions committees, and commissions of inquiry. It can authorize enforcement measures, including sanctions and the use of force. Finally, Chapter VIII enables it to authorize regional organizations to engage in enforcement measures. The Security Council has used its collective security authority in ways that the writers of the UN Charter could not have envisioned.15 It has prohibited actions that bind nonstate actors as well as UN member states. It has established rules that extended beyond existing treaties or norms. It has asserted binding obligations on all states, rather than only to parties in specific conflicts, in policy areas including terrorism, weapons proliferation, and cooperation with judicial tribunals.16 It has asserted that states have violated their treaty obligations. It has referred individuals to the ICC for prosecution. The Security Council commonly debates whether to address agenda items with collective security or capacity building practices. Should it act as a neutral mediator in a conflict, or should it punish agents for violating important rules? Should it engage in collective security and punish those who violate human rights and thwart democratization? Or should it engage in capacity building and help states comply with these rules? These debates encompass all liberal global governance. Consider climate change. Should we engage in collective security and punish those who emit too much carbon? Or should we engage in capacity building and help states use alternative energy sources? These debates illustrate that one can criticize certain collective security practices without undermining the liberal order. Agents who prefer capacity building to collective security in typical policy debates are still invoking liberal global governance rules. Finally, the rules discussed in Chapter 2 show the analytical distinctions and overlap between collective security and capacity building. Collective security rules include deterrence and enforcement while capacity building rules do not. However, these two security arrangements also have rules in common: beliefs that world politics is interdependent and that we achieve security through political commitments to follow certain rules; an identity that we are partners; and a norm that we are obligated to follow certain rules. Both are liberal security arrangements. This amount of analytical overlap can lead to difficulty in distinguishing these forms of global governance when analyzing practices. For example, Chapter 6 discusses the recent Security Council practice of authorizing PKOs to use force to protect civilians. Peacekeeping is a capacity building practice; the authorization to use force is a collective security practice. The Security Council has blurred the distinction between these two security arrangements with such practices. But they remain liberal practices.

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Realism Realist theories of world politics argue that the essence of world politics is anarchy and conflict, not interdependence.17 They emphasize the remaining centrality of the Westphalian state system. Territorially bounded states are the sites of legitimate rule. They operate in an anarchic environment. They are sovereign and have exclusive authority within their own borders. They attempt to exclude others from interfering in domestic politics. They recognize each other’s sovereignty and agree to rules about territorial integrity and nonintervention. They relate to each other as legal equals. They actively develop notions of citizenship and nationalism. While these Westphalian norms have often been violated or ignored, realists argue that they remain the most important and consensual parts of the international order. The fundamental interest of states, therefore, is to maintain the Westphalian order and protect their sovereignty. Within an anarchical system, states will not often identify each other as partners, cooperate within international organizations, and obligate themselves to follow common rules. Their primary security threats are the military capabilities of other states, not common transnational issues. To protect their national interests, they must increase their own military capabilities to deter others. States will pursue self-help approaches and join alliances. The systemic results of these policies lead to balances of power or competing spheres of influence. Within an anarchical system, states have too many conflicting interests to pursue liberal global governance.18 States will interpret the obligations imposed by collective security rules to violate their state sovereignty. At most, realists recognize that great powers will use international organizations as a “concert” to develop practices of restraint and consultation to protect their interests and manage conflicts.19 In this section, I develop the realist critique that collective security is not effective. The realist critique includes two distinct notions of effectiveness. The first refers to internal Security Council decisionmaking: collective security is not effective because the Permanent Five (P5) do not routinely authorize collective security practices. The evidence that I present in this book directly addresses the decisionmaking critique. How often does the Security Council authorize (liberal) collective security practices? How often do states invoke realist rules and criticize collective security practices? A second notion of effectiveness refers to external compliance with Security Council resolutions: collective security is not effective because agents of world politics do not comply with collective security rules. The Security Council may assert rules, identify agents as breaking those rules, and authorize measures to enforce those rules, and yet the realist world of anarchy and conflict will continue to have a greater influence on behavior. Realists expect compliance to be weak and collective security to make little headway

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toward achieving a more peaceful world. While this is an important critique, it goes beyond the scope of the evidence in this book.20 For realists, collective security practices violate the Westphalian notion of state sovereignty. Realists expect states to protect their autonomy and pursue their national security interests rather than agree to follow and enforce collective security rules. Realists expect powerful countries to interpret each other as their gravest security threats. They will not identify as partners and cooperate with each other to address common transnational threats. They will identify others as rivals and form military alliances to deter those rivals from attacking them, and the resulting balance of power will dominate world politics. Conflict among the great powers will inevitably thwart collective security. Within constructivist ontology, realists argue that states are likely to engage in speech acts that invoke rules of war or rivalry.21 The realist critique of collective security applies to all three sets of practices: prohibit, monitor, and enforce. First, collective security is not effective because states will not agree on what to prohibit. States will not agree to the substance of liberal rules such as human rights, war crimes, and democracy. States will interpret liberal attempts to generate collective security rules as a violation of their sovereignty. The veto is central to this critique. Realists expect the P5 to use the veto to protect their national interests and prevent effective collective security practices. For example, China has vetoed the extension of PKOs in Guatemala in 1997 and Macedonia in 1999 because those countries engaged in diplomatic relations with Taiwan. Russia has vetoed the extension of a PKO in Georgia and multiple resolutions regarding its military activities in Ukraine. The United States has vetoed resolutions regarding its policies in Nicaragua, Libya, Panama, Kosovo, Syria, and Venezuela. In addition to protecting core national interests, realists argue that P5 countries also use the veto as a form of “soft balancing” to delay, frustrate, and undermine the policies of rivals.22 Finally, realists argue that the P5 prevent the Security Council agenda from addressing conflicts and situations central to their vital interests.23 Second, realists argue that collective security is not effective because states will not engage in monitoring and identify others as rule violators. Even when realists concede the existence of agreed-on rules (do not proliferate nuclear weapons, or do not support a terrorist group), they argue that states will often not agree on which agents are violating those rules. Collective security requires states to monitor friends and enemies, powerful states and weak states. Realists argue that national security interests will often make this unlikely. States will not agree on who is the aggressor and who is the victim, or condemn allies, or identify powerful countries as a rule violator. For example, Russia has vetoed resolutions targeting the Bosnian Serbs, Iran, and Hamas. Russia and China have both vetoed many

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resolutions targeting Syria.24 The United States has vetoed seventeen resolutions condemning Israeli war crimes, settlement policies, and military operations in the Occupied Territories. Third, realists also argue that collective security is not effective because states will not authorize enforcement measures. Even if forced to concede the first two steps—the Security Council has prohibited X and identified Y as committing X—realists argue that states often will not agree on how to enforce the rules. National security interests will often prevent states from authorizing enforcement against allies and powerful countries. For example, Russia vetoed a 1994 resolution to increase economic sanctions against the Bosnian Serbs. Both Russia and China vetoed a 2014 resolution referring Syrian president Bashar al-Assad to the ICC. The Russian vetoes protecting Syria and US vetoes protecting Israel discussed above fit into this category as well. Another version of this argument is that states agree to enforcement measures only when vital interests are involved.25 For example, states are more likely to contribute troops when deployed in their own region (the United States into Haiti, Australia into East Timor, African countries into Darfur, European countries into Bosnia, etc.). Powerful countries are willing to enforce rules in their spheres of influence (e.g., France sending troops into Mali and Central African Republic). However, if the P5 has no vital interests involved, realists argue that they will not enforce collective security rules. An important critique of the Security Council is that it did not prevent mass atrocities in places such as Rwanda or Darfur.26 For realists, the explanation is that even genocides do not always threaten the vital interests of powerful countries. In sum, realists do not expect the Security Council to routinely authorize collective security practices. They do not expect the Security Council to authorize core liberal practices regarding rules such as human rights, war crimes, and democracy. Instead, they expect states to object to Security Council resolutions and invoke realist rules regarding sovereignty, selfdefense, and national security. I relied on these realist critiques to generate coding rules for the speech act analyses in Chapter 5. When states argued that the Security Council should not authorize a collective security practice for the following reasons, I coded them as realist: • The resolution violates state sovereignty. • This issue is an internal affair. • This issue does not threaten international security. • X has engaged in self-defense. • The resolution harms X’s security. These arguments implicitly convey realist rules about anarchy, sovereignty, rivalry, and the need to maintain national security through military capability.

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Realists expect states to routinely make these arguments, undermine the effectiveness of the Security Council, and challenge the liberal order. Realists therefore can explain the narrative about the decline of the liberal order—we are returning to a Westphalian order dominated by alliances, balances of power, and spheres of influence.

Critical Theory While realists argue that collective security is not effective, critical theorists argue that collective security is not legitimate. For critical theorists, the essence of world politics is hierarchy, not interdependence or anarchy. Some states are at the top of the hierarchy, and some states are at the bottom. Realists and liberals both argue that states are in the same structural situation. The same rules apply to all states. Critical theorists, however, argue that states are not in the same structural situation. Hierarchical structures organize agents into vertical relations of super- and subordination.27 Those at the top of the hierarchy do not follow the same rules as others. Those at the top do not recognize the autonomy of those at the bottom. All agents recognize the varying amount of authority others have within the hierarchical structure and act accordingly. When agents act, they either (re)create or challenge hierarchy. They follow either the rules to pursue hierarchy and order in the interests of superordinate agents, or the rules to pursue justice in the interests of subordinate agents. The extent of hierarchy in world politics is thus constantly subject to challenge and renegotiation. There are many forms of critical theory, including feminism, Marxism, world systems theory, dependency theory, and postcolonial theories of world politics. All assert that the liberal order is a form of empire whose pursuit of order leads to injustice.28 All characterize liberalism as an ideology that justifies the status quo and ignores hierarchies based on class, race, or gender.29 Some focus on hierarchies of wealth created by the neoliberal economic policies that pursue the interests of the ruling elites, weakening the ability of the state to regulate markets and provide public goods.30 Some focus on how the technological and competitive pressures of industrial capitalism require ever expanding markets, equating global governance with imperialism and indirect forms of colonial administration.31 Some focus on how the liberal order justifies deep intrusions into the domestic affairs of developing countries, including peacekeeping operations, humanitarian aid, and ICC indictments.32 Some focus on the liberal order as an ideological construct reproducing patterns of power that manage change to the benefit of elites.33 For critical theorists, collective security is not legitimate because the postwar liberal order is the contemporary form of empire. Most theories of

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empire assert four fundamental characteristics.34 First, empires are a form of order in which the core co-opts periphery leaders and rules through intermediaries. Second, empires establish separate bargains of varying levels of coercion between the core and groups within the periphery. Third, empires engage in “divide and rule” strategies to exploit divisions in the periphery and prevent a countervailing coalition. Fourth, empires deal with resistance in the periphery with a wide variety of military, political, economic, and ideological resources. Within this framework, the role of the Security Council is to ensure that the West can govern through compliant intermediaries in developing countries. The Security Council creates the conditions for regime change to install leaders of periphery countries who will accept and perpetuate the hierarchy. It targets (nonliberal) states that threaten (liberal) order.35 This critique applies to each type of collective security practice. First, critical theorists argue that the Security Council unfairly coerces subordinate states when it prohibits certain actions. One range of arguments emphasize process: the rules are illegitimate because the Security Council has unfair decisionmaking procedures.36 An obvious example is the veto, which institutionalizes hierarchy and privileges the P5. The Security Council is also an unrepresentative body, with Western countries overrepresented and important countries such as India not permanent members. Another process critique is that the Security Council is unaccountable.37 The UN Charter includes no separation of powers or checks and balances. Its legislative powers usurp the treaty-making process and compel legally binding obligations.38 Critical theorists argue that UN members cannot hold the Security Council accountable, and any institution that lacks accountability is illegitimate. Other unfair process arguments include transparency, the penholder system,39 vague and ambiguous resolutions, and resolutions that rarely cite the Charter provisions that enable its practices.40 Another set of arguments emphasizes substance rather than process. When the Security Council prohibits certain actions, those rules are often illegitimate because they privilege Western, liberal interests.41 The substance of the rules reflect the interests of those at the top of the hierarchy.42 Sometimes this critique extends to the entire P5; for example, the Security Council pursues the nonproliferation of nuclear weapons, but not nuclear disarmament, which obligates the P5. Generally, though, this critique applies to the United States, United Kingdom, and France (P3) and the Security Council enforcing Western, liberal rules. For some critical theorists, its practices are insincere justifications for regime change. Western countries have used the entire range of collective security rules—human rights, democracy, terrorism, weapons of mass destruction, and war crimes— to justify changing the governments of rogue states. Second, critical theorists argue that collective security is not legitimate because the monitoring practices are not fair. The rules are not binding to

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all. The veto enables the P5 to protect themselves and their allies. Those at the top of the hierarchy can act with impunity and violate collective security rules. Only those at the bottom of the hierarchy are rogues for violating the rules. Critical theorists argue that this leads to unfair double standards in collective security monitoring. For example, the Security Council has identified Iraq, Iran, and North Korea as violating rules about building nuclear weapons, but not Israel, India, or Pakistan. When civil wars pit a rebel group against a UN member state, the Security Council is much more likely to assert that the nonstate rebel group is the rule violator. For critical theorists, powerful states and their allies can violate collective security rules with impunity. The United States can invade Iraq, NATO can bomb Kosovo, Russia can invade Ukraine, Syria can use chemical weapons, and Israel can occupy territory and commit war crimes. The United States routinely asserts privileges and breaks rules that others are expected to follow. Its war on terror has included drone attacks across state borders that have killed state and nonstate agents. The United States has engaged in torture—while simultaneously demanding that its troops have immunity from ICC prosecution of war crimes.43 The US position regarding Sudan and the ICC is hierarchical. Both are sovereign nation-states that did not ratify the Rome Statute and do not recognize the jurisdiction of the court. While the United States remains outside ICC jurisdiction, Sudanese officials are indicted war criminals because the Security Council referred that case. The rules apply only to those at the bottom of the hierarchy. Third, critical theorists argue that collective security is not legitimate because enforcement measures unduly reflect P5 interests.44 For example, the Security Council has passed resolutions that contradicted multilateral treaties. It demanded that Iran cease uranium enrichment even though the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) allows the pacific use of nuclear energy. It prevented ICC jurisdiction over UN operations at the request of the United States. It contradicted a terrorism treaty by demanding that Libya extradite two suspects to stand trial and subsequently authorized sanctions for Libya’s failure to do so. Consistent with the critical theory argument about noncompliance due to illegitimacy, the Organization of African Unity and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation asserted that they would not enforce those sanctions.45 Another argument is that the Security Council privileges P3 interests by overwhelmingly authorizing Western actors to use force.46 When the Security Council authorizes the use of force, it designates certain agents to carry out that enforcement mission. Other than two African regional organizations, it has always authorized the United States or its allies to use force. The political interests of the United States and its allies thus necessarily influence which enforcement measures the Security Council authorizes. They also lead to concerns about whether the Security Council has ultimate

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authority over the uses of force that it has authorized. Without clear language about the objectives of the mission, the designated agents may pursue their own interests as they use force authorized by the Security Council—as in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) operation in Libya that ended the Muammar Qaddafi regime. A final version of this argument is that the P5 uses force without Security Council authorization if they believe it is necessary to maintain hierarchy.47 Russia has militarily intervened in Georgia and Ukraine to protect its regional interests. China has expanded its military presence in the disputed South China Seas. The list of US uses of force without Security Council authorization since the end of the Cold War is quite long, including the NATO operation in Kosovo, multiple uses of force in Iraq, and the war on terror. The US invasion of Iraq in 2003 was widely understood to undermine the credibility of the liberal order. Critical theorists argue that fundamental Charter principles—the peaceful resolution of disputes, refraining from using force against member states, and respecting territorial integrity—do not constrain those at the top of the hierarchy. The rules are not binding to all. Ultimately, critical theorists argue that collective security enforcement is a form of regime change to maintain imperial rule through intermediaries. Liberal rhetoric about terrorism, democracy, and human rights is about justifying military intervention. If a periphery leader challenges the hierarchy, then the empire removes that leader and installs a more compliant one. Of course, the Security Council rarely authorizes regime change explicitly. However, critical theorists argue that when it targets periphery leaders, it creates geopolitical space for regime change—such as Resolution 1368 condemning 9/11 justifying the attempt to remove the Taliban in Afghanistan. In addition to the example at the beginning of this chapter, Security Council resolutions have led to the ultimate downfall of Saddam Hussein in Iraq, Muammar Qaddafi in Libya, Charles Taylor in Liberia, Omar al-Bashir in Sudan, and Laurent Gbagbo in Côte d’Ivoire. Is there any doubt, critical theorists ask, that regime change is the ultimate Western goal for Syria? Iran? North Korea? Perhaps even Russia and China? In sum, critical theorists argue that Security Council practices—prohibiting actions, identifying agents as violating those actions, or enforcing collective security rules—are illegitimate. They expect states to resist the authorization of liberal collective security practices. Like realists, they particularly expect states to resist the authorization of core liberal practices regarding rules such as human rights, democracy, and international law. Instead, they expect states to criticize resolutions with arguments about unfair decisionmaking procedures, unjust rules, and double standards. They expect states to undermine the liberal order by invoking the rules of empire and resisting Security Council resolutions. I relied on these critiques to generate

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coding rules for the speech act analyses in Chapter 5. When states argued that the Security Council should not authorize a collective security practice for the following reasons, I coded them as critical theory: • The resolution is in the interests of powerful states. • Council decisionmaking processes are unfair. • The resolution is really a justification for regime change. • The Council has not identified (superordinate) agents who do Y as a rule violator. • The Council has not authorized this practice for other (superordinate) agents who do Y. These criticisms invoke the rules of empire discussed in Chapter 2, conveying that world politics is an unfair hierarchy, the Security Council targets subordinate states, and it is appropriate for states to resist unjust and illegitimate practices.

Liberalism Not every criticism of collective security stems from either a realist notion of anarchy or a critical notion of hierarchy. Not every criticism of the Security Council undermines the liberal order. States may criticize collective security with justifications that invoke liberal rules. They may argue that the Security Council should pursue capacity building and neutral mediation rather than collective security. They may argue that identifying an agent as a rule violator or authorizing enforcement measures may make that agent less likely to negotiate for peace. They may argue that the Security Council should pursue an alternative collective security practice. For example, states could dispute whether certain acts harm global security and whether prohibiting those acts would increase global security. Should we, for example, put climate change on the agenda and prohibit the emission of too much carbon? States could dispute whether an agent has committed a prohibited act and whether to identify that agent as a rule violator. Have the Kurds committed terrorist acts? Did Sudan commit genocide in Darfur? Is Israel committing war crimes in the Occupied Territories? Finally, states could dispute whether to authorize enforcement, or which enforcement measure to authorize. Would issuing a referral to the ICC for war crimes help deter future crimes? Should we increase sanctions after a few months of noncompliance? Should we continue to rely on economic sanctions, or should we escalate to the use of force? There are many ways to criticize a collective security practice and still invoke collective security rules.

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States may also invoke liberal rules by criticizing Security Council inaction. A common complaint is that the Security Council has failed to address a certain threat to global security. This complaint extends to all three types of collective security practices. States could criticize the Council for not prohibiting certain acts. Why does it not prohibit the torture of domestic political prisoners? Why does it not prohibit excessive emissions of carbon? States could criticize the Council for not identifying certain agents as rule breakers. Why does it not say that Myanmar violated the human rights of the Rohingya? States could also criticize the Security Council for not using its enforcement authority. Why did it not punish Syria for using chemical weapons? Why did it not stop the genocides in Rwanda and Darfur? States can thus criticize Security Council practices without challenging liberal global governance. Not every criticism is evidence of the decline of the liberal order. Many criticisms assert that the Security Council should hold up its end of the Charter bargain. States do not criticize collective security as inherently ineffective or illegitimate. They criticize the Security Council for failing to fulfill its Charter responsibilities, or perhaps even for failing to invoke liberal rules consistent with the hegemonic bargain. Regardless of the criticism, liberals expect debates to remain within the parameters of the liberal order. They expect arguments for and against resolutions to invoke the liberal rules of collective security or capacity building. When states criticized a proposed Security Council practice in the following ways, I coded them as collective security in the speech act analyses in Chapter 5. • The resolution does not increase global security / will not work. • We do not have enough evidence that X has done Y. • X is complying / The Council should encourage additional compliance. • X doing Y is consistent with international law / enforces international law. • The Council should authorize a different collective security practice. When states criticized a proposed Security Council practices in the following ways, I coded them as capacity building. • The resolution harms the peace process / harms international security. • The Council should mediate / act neutrally / pursue peacekeeping norms. • The Council should authorize a different capacity building practice. In conclusion, this chapter has generated coding rules to analyze whether Security Council members invoked rivalry, empire, collective security, or capacity building rules when they voted no or abstained on a

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resolution authorizing liberal practices. Realists and critical theorists expect states to invoke the nonliberal rules of rivalry and empire. The decline narrative suggests that states should be doing so increasingly in recent years. Liberal theorists expect states to invoke liberal rules of collective security and capacity building when debating Security Council resolutions. The results of this speech act analysis are presented in Chapter 5. First, however, Chapter 4 presents the quantitative results from the Collective Security Dataset regarding post–Cold War Security Council practices. Has the Security Council authorized fewer liberal practices in recent years, as the decline narrative suggests?

Notes 1. UN Security Council, Resolution 1368 (September 12, 2001). 2. UN Security Council, Resolution 1373 (September 28, 2001). 3. The critiques also apply to capacity building, but since there is much more literature on collective security, and to sharpen the distinct arguments, I focus on collective security. 4. Tsagourias and White, Collective Security; Wilson, The United Nations and Collective Security. 5. Delbruck, “Collective Security,” 646. 6. Kupchan and Kupchan, “The Promise of Collective Security.” 7. Buzan, “Rethinking Security After the Cold War”; Weiss, Collective Security in a Changing World. 8. Heupel, “Combining Hierarchical and Soft Modes of Governance.” 9. Doyle and Sambanis, Making War and Building Peace. 10. Clark and Reus-Smit, “Liberal Internationalism, the Practice of Special Responsibilities.” 11. Forsythe, “The UN Security Council and Human Rights.” 12. De Wet, The Chapter VII Powers of the United Nations Security Council. 13. White, “Peacekeeping and International Law.” 14. Abbott and Snidal, “Why States Act Through Formal International Organizations.” 15. Yamashita, “Reading ‘Threats to International Peace and Security.’” 16. Rosand, “The Security Council as ‘Global Legislator’”; Johnstone, “The Security Council as Legislature.” 17. Morgenthau, Politics Among Nations; Waltz, “Structural Realism After the Cold War.” 18. Mearsheimer, “The False Promise of International Institutions”; Betts, “Systems for Peace or Causes of War?”; Negretto, “Kant and the Illusion of Collective Security.” 19. Bosco, “Assessing the UN Security Council.” 20. For analyses of the compliance critique, see Eriksson and Wallensteen, “Targeting Sanctions and Ending Armed Conflicts”; Brzoska, “International Sanctions Before and Beyond UN Sanctions”; Biersteker, Eckert, and Tourinho, Targeted Sanctions; Wallensteen and Grusell, “Targeting the Right Targets?”; Beardsley and Gleditsch, “Peacekeeping as Conflict Containment”; Fortna, Does Peacekeeping Work?; Doyle and Sambanis, Making War and Building Peace;

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Gilligan and Sergenti, “Do UN Interventions Cause Peace?”; Hultman, “Keeping Peace or Spurring Violence?”; Hultman, Kathman, and Shannon, “United Nations Peacekeeping and Civilian Protection in Civil War”; Hultman, “UN Peace Operations and Protection of Civilians”; Gehring and Dörfler, “Constitutive Mechanisms of UN Security Council Practices.” 21. Within a rationalist model of social interaction, realists argue that the Security Council can act as a means of information gathering. See Thompson, “Coercion Through IOs.” 22. Chaziza, “Soft Balancing Strategy in the Middle East”; Pape, “Soft Balancing Against the US.” 23. Boulden, “Double Standards, Distance and Disengagement”; Snetkov, “When the Internal and External Collide”; Morphet, “China as a Permanent Member of the Security Council.” 24. Totten, “Moscow on the Tigris,” 5–13. 25. Boulden, “Double Standards, Distance and Disengagement.” 26. Koester, “Looking Beyond R2P for an Answer.” 27. Bially Mattern and Zarakol, “Hierarchies in World Politics.” 28. Frank, ReOrient; Hobson, The Eurocentric Conception of World Politics. 29. Parmar, “The US-Led Liberal Order.” 30. Stokes and Maher, “Marxism and US Foreign Policy.” 31. Murphy, “Global Governance over the Long Haul.” 32. M. Cox, “The Empire’s Back in Town.” 33. R. W. Cox, Production, Power, and World Order; Gill, Gramsci, Historical Materialism and International Relations. 34. Nexon and Wright, “What’s at Stake in the American Empire Debate.” 35. Carron, “The Legitimacy of the Collective Authority of the Security Council”; Sinha, Legitimacy of Power; Ayoob, “Humanitarian Intervention and International Society.” 36. Harrington, “The Working Methods of the United Nations Security Council.” 37. Alvarez, “Judging the Security Council”; Schott, “Chapter VII as Exception.” 38. Szasz, “The Security Council Starts Legislating”; Talmon, “The Security Council as World Legislature.” 39. Loiselle, “The Penholder System and the Rule of Law”; do Monte, “The Pen Is Mightier than the H-Bomb.” 40. Elgebeily, The Rule of Law in the United Nations Security Council DecisionMaking Process. 41. An analysis of General Assembly debates for 1991–2009 found that most of the negative evaluations of the Security Council were based on process rather than substance. Binder and Heupel, “The Legitimacy of the UN Security Council.” 42. Roberts and Zaum, Selective Security. 43. Weller, “Undoing the Global Constitution.” 44. Orakhelashvili, “The Impact of Peremptory Norms”; Stojek and Tir, “The Supply Side of United Nations Peacekeeping Operations”; Aral, “The Conundrum About the United Nations Security Council.” 45. Droubi, Resisting United Nations Security Council Resolutions. 46. Sarooshi, The United Nations and the Development of Collective Security. 47. Ziegler, “Contesting the Responsibility to Protect.”

4 The Collective Security Dataset

MALI FACED TWO INTERRELATED SECURITY THREATS IN 2013: AN ISLAMIST insurgency and a nationalist rebellion. Both rebel groups had captured territory in the northern part of the country, advanced southward toward the capital city, and displaced 350,000 people. Mali’s military, outraged at the government’s inability to address the threats, ousted the democratically elected president. The Security Council responded by authorizing a peacekeeping operation (PKO) to “stabilize” Mali.1 The resolution recognized many threats to Mali’s security, including transnational crime, human rights violations, weapons proliferation, war crimes, food insecurity, and even the destruction of historic sites in Timbuktu. The Security Council gave the PKO the following mandates: 1. Support the restoration of democratic governance and elections. 2. Protect civilians under imminent threat of physical violence. 3. Monitor and investigate war crimes and human rights violations. 4. Provide humanitarian assistance, particularly to displaced persons. 5. Rebuild and train the police, legal, and justice sectors. 6. Ensure the participation of women when fulfilling its mandated tasks. 7. Consider the environmental impact of fulfilling its mandated tasks. This resolution is an excellent example of the hegemonic bargain influencing the Charter bargain. The Security Council addressed this conflict in distinctly liberal ways. It recognized the role of democracy, human rights, the rule of law, and economic development in establishing peace. It urged all states to help resolve the conflict by sending humanitarian aid, monitoring the flow of weapons and terrorists, and arresting war criminals. The Security Council did not have to address democracy, human rights, or war 61

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crimes when dealing with security threats. However, it often authorized explicitly liberal paths to conflict resolution. Determining the extent to which the Security Council has authorized liberal and core liberal practices over time is one way to evaluate the decline narrative. This chapter does so with the Collective Security Dataset (CSD), an original dataset of Security Council practices for 1990–2020.2 The CSD measures the various ways that the Security Council has pursued collective security practices. It identifies certain practices as “liberal” and “core liberal” to evaluate whether the Security Council has authorized fewer liberal practices over time. In the first section of this chapter, I introduce the CSD and discuss a range of coding and methodological issues. Next, I provide summary statistics about Security Council practices since the end of the Cold War. Many of these overall results suggest the great extent to which the Security Council authorized liberal practices throughout the post–Cold War period. The final section provides the CSD results over time and addresses the central question about whether this data supports the decline narrative. While there was a decrease in the number of liberal practices authorized by the Security Council since 2016, many post–Cold War trends do not support the decline narrative.

Measuring Security Council Practices The CSD measures Security Council collective security practices for 1990– 2020.3 How often did the Security Council prohibit actions? What actions? How often did it identify a rule violator? Who did it identify? How often did it enforce the rules? How? By capturing the extent to which resolutions invoked collective security rules throughout the post–Cold War era, the CSD can help us evaluate the competing arguments about Security Council decisionmaking discussed in Chapter 3. Did the Security Council routinely invoke liberal rules by authorizing collective security and capacity building practices? Or did states on the Security Council routinely thwart such practices by invoking realist rules of rivalry and critical theory rules of empire? The CSD can also help us evaluate the health of the liberal order and the plausibility of the decline narrative. Has the Security Council authorized fewer liberal practices in recent years? The unit of analysis for the CSD is a Security Council meeting. The dataset includes over 120 variables that code whether and how the Security Council invoked collective security rules during its 6,124 meetings in 1990–2020.4 The variables code Security Council practices during each meeting: an issue discussed, a vote taken, a rule invoked, a rule violator accused, or an enforcement measure authorized.5 Some variables are about which rules the Security Council invoked and whether those were core lib-

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eral rules. Some are about whether it identified violators of those rules, and who those agents were. Some are about whether it authorized enforcement measures, including sanctions and the use of force. Some are about whether it authorized a range of other practices, including peacekeeping operations, judicial tribunals, commissions of inquiry, or political missions. Taken together, they attempt to capture how the Security Council addressed threats to international security. How often did it invoke liberal rules of collective security and capacity building? Resolutions coded as capacity building engaged in only neutral mediation. For example, capacity building resolutions used only the following phrases: “urges,” “calls for,” “regrets,” or “expresses concern” about a course of action or situation. The CSD coded resolutions as capacity building when they did not go beyond neutral mediation—urging parties to negotiate or to comply with a cease-fire agreement. Collective security resolutions used the following phrases: “condemns,” “demands,” “deplores,” “denounces,” “deep(ly) / grave(ly) / serious(ly) concern(ed),” “unacceptable,” “illegitimate,” or “must adhere / comply.” Since encouraging parties to negotiate is a ubiquitous Security Council practice, many resolutions engaged in both capacity building and collective security. However, the CSD coded any resolution that engaged in collective security practices, including those that also engaged in capacity building practices, as collective security. Therefore, the CSD undercounts the extent of the Security Council’s capacity building practices. One methodological issue was how to code resolutions that authorized a peacekeeping operation to use force, an increasingly common Security Council practice. Traditional PKOs are a form of capacity building. They attempt to provide the conditions necessary to help agents implement a peace agreement. However, recent PKOs have increasingly included use of force mandates, and coercive mandates are a characteristic of collective security enforcement. The CSD thus coded a PKO as a collective security practice when the Security Council authorized the use of force6 to fulfill a mandate that went beyond classic peacekeeping norms. These mandates included: (1) reverse an act of aggression or recover territory; (2) protect civilians; (3) enforce demilitarized zones or disarm combatants; and (4) enforce sanctions. This was not a rare event—the CSD coded 267 resolutions that authorized PKOs to use force as collective security (see Chapter 6 on the blurring distinctions between peacekeeping and collective security). The CSD coded all prohibit, monitor, and enforcement practices as distinct collective security practices. The Security Council did not have to engage in all three types of practices to code a resolution as collective security. Any one type of practice was enough. For example, prohibiting an act without identifying a rule violator counted as a collective security practice. Identifying a rule violator without authorizing enforcement counted as a

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collective security practice. These “shame on you” resolutions—those that prohibited or monitored, but did not enforce—also invoked collective security rules. The legitimacy of the Security Council made shame on you resolutions important—agents did not want the Security Council to identify them as a rule violator. (The vast majority of vetoed resolutions were shame on you resolutions.) Also, these resolutions were often a prelude to future enforcement measures. The CSD identified the liberal practices of the Security Council. Not every meeting generated liberal practices. In some meetings, the Security Council received briefings from UN officials, civil society groups, or subsidiary organs. In others, it engaged in procedural Charter functions: nominating a judge to the International Court of Justice, recommending a Secretary-General, or issuing a report to the General Assembly. In others, it voted on a resolution, but failed to pass it. In most meetings, though, the Security Council addressed global security threats by authorizing capacity building and collective security practices. The CSD identified the following as liberal practices: 1. Capacity building—authorizing a political mission, engaging in mediation, or authorizing traditional PKO mandates. 2. Collective security (prohibit)—asserting a rule violation. 3. Collective security (monitor)—identifying a rule violator, authorizing a commission of inquiry, or passing a shame on you resolution. 4. Collective security (enforcement)—invoking Chapter VII, authorizing sanctions, authorizing the use of force, or authorizing regional organization enforcement. 5. Agenda items—discussing human rights, war crimes, or democracy; or discussing a liberal thematic agenda item (e.g., children in armed conflict). The CSD counted discrete practices within each category. For example, a PKO with one mandate (e.g., monitor a border) counted as one practice, while a PKO with three mandates (e.g., monitor a border, protect civilians, and disarm combatants) counted as three practices. A resolution asserting that Iran violated weapons of mass destruction (WMD) rules counted as one practice, while a resolution asserting that two warring states violated state sovereignty and human rights counted as four practices. A resolution authorizing an arms embargo counted as one practice, while a resolution authorizing an oil embargo, travel sanctions, and financial sanctions counted as three practices. A use of force authorization with one mandate (e.g., inspect cargo and seize weapons) counted as one practice, while a use of force authorization with three mandates (e.g., protect civilians, recover territory, and provide humanitarian aid) counted as three practices.

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The CSD also identified core liberal practices—authorizing collective security measures to enforce violations of human rights, war crimes, and democracy. Core liberal practices do not include capacity building. Core liberal practices do not include collective security enforcement of nonliberal rule violations (armed conflict, WMD, or terrorism). Core liberal practices include only the following: 1. Asserting a human rights, democracy, or war crimes violation; and 2. Invoking Chapter VII authority, passing a shame on you resolution, authorizing the use of force, authorizing sanctions, or authorizing regional organization enforcement. The CSD again counted discrete practices within each category as core liberal practices. Asserting that a state committed war crimes and authorizing financial sanctions counted as two core liberal practices. Asserting that two warring states committed human rights violations and authorizing the use of force to protect civilians and provide humanitarian aid counted as four core liberal practices. Asserting that a state violated democracy rules and authorizing a PKO to use force to fulfill three core mandates (e.g., facilitate elections, monitor human rights violations, and provide humanitarian aid) counted as four core liberal practices. Most variables were coded zero for any particular meeting—the Security Council could not engage in every practice at the same time. Some meetings had only a few nonzero variables—perhaps it included a briefing by a UN diplomat or a judicial nomination. Other meetings had around ten nonzero variables—perhaps the Security Council issued a capacity building presidential statement or authorized a political mission. When the Security Council engaged in collective security, however, the CSD had at least twenty nonzero variables for that meeting. When the Security Council addressed an armed conflict in a comprehensive and distinctly liberal way, those meetings had as many as fifty nonzero variables. For example, the Mali resolution mentioned above had twenty-five liberal practices and thirteen core liberal practices. By tracking the number of liberal and core liberal practices authorized by the Security Council during the entire post– Cold War period, the CSD can provide quantitative evidence about the health of the liberal order.

Security Council Practices The overall CSD results suggest that the Security Council routinely authorized liberal practices since the end of the Cold War. In 6,124 meetings during 1990–2020, the Security Council conveyed 3,051 speech acts—1,912

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resolutions and 1,139 presidential statements. Over 90 percent of the resolutions passed unanimously. The Security Council voted on and failed to pass a resolution only 68 times—55 times due to a veto and 13 times due to a failure to get nine affirmative votes. Those Security Council speech acts generated 20,771 liberal practices and 3,892 core liberal practices. These are not small numbers. The Security Council routinely went beyond the Charter bargain and authorized practices consistent with the hegemonic bargain. Table 4.1 summarizes those practices. Some were capacity building, including neutral mediation, traditional PKOs, and political missions. Some were discussions of explicitly liberal rules regarding war crimes, human rights, and democratization. Some were meetings with explicitly liberal thematic agenda items such as “civilians in armed conflict” or “women and peace and security.” Some were collective security practices—prohibit, monitor, and enforce. The following subsections discuss CSD results for each type of collective security practice.

Prohibit The Security Council asserted rules prohibiting certain actions 3,851 times. The CSD coded seven categories of rules. Three are the core liberal categories of war crimes, human rights, and democracy. The other four are armed conflict, terrorism, weapons of mass destruction, and transnational crime. An important CSD result is that the Security Council asserted more violations of the three core liberal rules (1,967) than the other four categories (1,884). The Security Council routinely asserted the explicitly liberal arguments that violations of war crimes, human rights, and democracy threatened global security—significant evidence that the hegemonic bargain influenced the Charter bargain. With these practices, the Security Council routinely perpetuated the liberal order. The most common rule violations asserted by the Security Council dealt with armed conflict (1,328). These rules prohibited a wide range of actions, including violating a cease-fire or a peace agreement, refusing to disarm, or refusing to withdraw forces. They prohibited states from invading another state, not recognizing a border, or sending arms to rebels in another state. They also prohibited nonstate actors from engaging in illegal secession or rebellion. This is not a surprising finding: the most common Security Council agenda items were all armed conflicts. They included Israel (349 meetings), Syria (310), Sudan (273), Iraq (269), Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) (259), Bosnia (221), Somalia (220), and Afghanistan (190).7 The Charter bargain required the Security Council to address armed conflicts as significant threats to global security. However, the Security Council expanded the definition of threats to global security and pursued explicitly liberal approaches to resolve armed conflicts.

67 Table 4.1

Security Council Practices During 1990–2020

Capacity building    Authorized peacekeeping mandates    Engaged in neutral mediation    Authorized a political mission

3,379 703 178

Collective security    Discussed war crimes    Discussed human rights    Discussed democratization    Discussed a liberal thematic agenda item

2,775 2,351 1,424 115

Prohibit    Asserted armed conflict violations    Asserted war crimes violations    Asserted human rights violations    Asserted terrorism violations    Asserted democratization violations    Asserted transnational crime violations    Asserted weapons of mass destruction violations

1,328 1,241 542 348 184 110 98

Monitor    Asserted a rule violator    Authorized a commission of inquiry

1,937 44

Enforce    Passed a shame on you resolution    Authorized the use of force       Peacekeeping operations          Total number of mandates       Multinational forces          Total number of mandates    Authorized sanctions       Arms embargo       Travel sanctions       Financial sanctions       Commodity embargo       Comprehensive embargo    Authorized regional organization       Use of force       Sanctions

106 34

Total number of liberal practices Total number of core liberal practices

20,771 3,892

Source: Author’s own and the Collective Security Dataset.

794 267 880 222 451 329 252 224 107 39

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Three important examples of an expanded definition of threats to global security include terrorism, WMD, and transnational crime. The Security Council rarely addressed those issues during the Cold War. The terrorism rules prohibited agents from committing terrorist acts or financing, arming, or harboring terrorist groups. The Security Council asserted that acts of terrorism threatened international security 348 times. The WMD rules prohibited agents from building WMD, selling related materials to others who are building WMD, or refusing weapons inspections. The Security Council asserted that violations of WMD rules threatened international security ninety-eight times. The transnational crime rules prohibited agents from engaging in piracy, drug trafficking, human trafficking, small arms sales, or the exploitation of natural resources. The Security Council asserted that transnational crime threatened international security 110 times. While these rules go beyond the original Charter bargain—to address interstate military conflict and protect state sovereignty and territorial integrity—the CSD did not code them as core liberal rules. The core liberal rules instead included war crimes, human rights, and democracy. The war crimes rules prohibited agents from engaging in a range of atrocities against refugees, civilians, UN personnel, and peacekeepers. They included sexual violence, the use of child soldiers, and preventing the delivery of humanitarian aid. The Security Council asserted war crimes violations 1,241 times, second only to armed conflict violations. The two most common rules asserted by the Security Council, then, boiled down to “stop shooting at each other” and “stop shooting at civilians.” It often invoked both sets of rules simultaneously. By insisting that parties to an armed conflict not violate war crimes, the Security Council pursued a core liberal principle about how to maintain security and resolve conflict. Chapter 6 discusses how the emerging civilian protection norms influenced Security Council practices regarding armed conflicts. In perhaps the most surprising CSD result, the Security Council asserted 542 human rights violations, the third-highest of the seven categories. Human rights rules are typically about how states treat their own citizens and are a fundamental liberal argument about how to achieve peace. This leads to an obvious question: why would Russia and China agree to so many resolutions asserting human rights violations? Chapter 7 argues that the answer is not because they, or even the Security Council as a whole, embraced classic liberal arguments about addressing domestic human rights violations to achieve global security. Instead, the answer is that the Security Council has increasingly applied human rights rules to armed conflicts. When the Security Council asserted a human rights violation, it also asserted a war crimes violation over 90 percent of the time— often in the same clause. The Security Council did not assert human rights violations to address domestic abuses unrelated to armed conflicts; it

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asserted human rights violations to strengthen the protection of civilians during armed conflicts. The Security Council asserted that an agent violated democracy rules 184 times. These rules prohibited agents from refusing to hold free and transparent elections, illegally ousting a democratically elected leader, or forcibly resisting the legitimacy of a democratically elected leader. The Security Council did not have to address armed conflicts and postconflict peace building by emphasizing such rules. While this was not a necessary approach, it is consistent with liberal arguments about the democratic peace, and the Security Council has recognized the connections between democratic legitimacy and preserving stability in precarious situations. Chapter 8 analyzes Security Council efforts, particularly through PKOs, to encourage democracy as a means of conflict resolution and postconflict peacebuilding. Other CSD results also suggest that the hegemonic bargain influenced the Charter bargain during the post–Cold War era. For example, resolutions asserting more core liberal rule violations were not more likely to be vetoed.8 Failed resolutions and resolutions that passed had no significant differences in the number of asserted war crimes, human rights, or democracy violations. Russia and China did not thwart collective security practices simply because the resolutions asserted more core liberal rule violations. Including all elected members in the analysis shows the same pattern. Unanimous resolutions and disputed resolutions had no significant differences in the number of asserted war crimes or human rights violations. Indeed, resolutions were significantly more likely to be unanimous when they asserted democracy violations. In sum, states were not more likely to object when the Security Council passed resolutions asserting violations of core liberal rules.

Monitor The Security Council identified an agent as violating a rule 1,937 times. The CSD results on Security Council monitoring practices provide more support for the realist and critical theory critiques of collective security. Realists argue that the Security Council will not target Permanent Five (P5) allies. Critical theorists argue that the Security Council will target subordinate agents. The list of the top ten agents most often accused by the Security Council of rules violations include: armed groups in Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sudan, al-Qaeda, the Taliban, Côte d’Ivoire, South Sudan, Bosnian Serbs, armed groups in Côte d’Ivoire, armed groups in Darfur, and the Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA). Consider that list. Seven of the ten are nonstate actors, and seven of the ten are African actors. Neither Syria nor Israel is on the list, despite those two

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being the most common agenda items. There are no significant actors with close relations to a P5 member on the list. Critical theorists would argue that this list supports their critique of the Security Council as perpetuating an unfair hierarchy. Below are lists of the agents most targeted by the Security Council as rule violators in each category of rules. Once again, nonstate actors and African states dominate the lists—only WMD is an exception. P5 allies such as Israel and Syria are not included. These results also suggest that Security Council monitoring practices tend to support the critiques of collective security: 1. Armed conflict: Sudan (86), DRC rebel groups (77), South Sudan (59), Bosnian Serbs (62), Darfur rebel groups (53), and the Taliban (41). 2. Terrorism: al-Qaeda / ISIS [Islamic State in Iraq and Syria] (108), the Taliban (47), and al-Shabaab (28). 3. WMD: Iraq (36), North Korea (26), and Iran (11). 4. Crime: al-Qaeda / ISIS (36), Mali rebel groups (10), and Libya rebel groups (10). 5. War crimes: Bosnian Serbs (82), Sudan (81), DRC armed groups (74), and al-Qaeda / ISIS (74). 6. Human rights: DRC rebel groups (58), Sudan (52), and Côte d’Ivoire (42). 7. Democracy: Côte d’Ivoire (38), Côte d’Ivoire armed groups (35), and UNITA (Angola) (25). Other CSD results regarding monitoring also support the critiques. Vetoed resolutions were more likely to identify Israel and Syria as a rule violator (thirty-one of fifty-five vetoed resolutions targeted either Israel or Syria). The United States vetoed seventeen resolutions protecting Israel, and Russia vetoed fourteen resolutions protecting Syria. Vetoed resolutions targeted no other agent more than twice. These results illustrate the importance of understanding collective security as three distinct types of practices—the critiques of collective security apply to monitoring more than prohibiting and enforcement.

Enforce The Security Council authorized 3,303 enforcement measures. States were clearly willing to invoke liberal rules and engage in this important collective security practice. One perhaps surprising result is that the Security Council authorized the use of force nearly 500 times. It has done so in more contexts than just textbook examples (such as the 1991 Gulf War). First, over onethird of all PKOs had use of force mandates. Chapter 6 discusses how the

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Security Council has blurred the distinctions between peacekeeping and collective security as it adapted to growing norms about protecting civilians. Second, it has authorized regional organizations to use force nearly 200 times. This is not a North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) outlier—the Security Council authorized the African Union to use force more often than it authorized NATO. Third, the Security Council issued mandates to use force in contexts beyond typical conditions of armed conflict, from enforcing sanctions (e.g., inspecting cargo) to tracking down pirates in Somali territorial waters. The CSD results regarding enforcement measures provide additional evidence of the hegemonic bargain influencing the Charter bargain.9 For example, the Security Council was significantly more likely to authorize enforcement measures when it asserted core liberal rule violations. This was true for every category of enforcement—invoking Chapter VII, authorizing the use of force, authorizing sanctions, and authorizing a regional organization. This finding held for all three sets of core liberal rules—war crimes, human rights, and democracy. States authorized collective security enforcement more often when they asserted distinctly liberal approaches to global security. Another example is that passed resolutions were more likely to authorize enforcement measures than failed resolutions.10 The P5 was not more likely to veto resolutions that authorized enforcement measures. This finding again held true across all categories of enforcement measures (Chapter VII, the use of force, sanctions, and regional organizations). Extending this analysis beyond the P5 to elected members provides mixed, but intriguing, results. Resolutions that authorized PKOs to use force were more likely to be unanimous—this provides some context for the arguments in Chapters 6 and 7 about how strengthening norms to protect civilians in armed conflict has altered peacekeeping practices. However, disputed resolutions were more likely than unanimous resolutions to invoke Chapter VII, authorize sanctions, authorize multinational forces to use force, and even authorize regional organizations to act. Elected member states were more likely to object when a resolution authorized many types of enforcement practices. Whether this is evidence of pushback against the liberal order is unclear— these objections could stem from a preference for capacity building or alternative collective security practices rather than from a preference for nonliberal security arrangements. The analysis of Security Council speeches in Chapter 5 provides context for these results. Finally, the CSD included variables that tallied the total number of liberal practices and core liberal practices authorized in each resolution, spanning across all three categories of prohibit, monitor, and enforce. The results showed that states were more likely to pass resolutions that authorized higher numbers of liberal and core liberal practices. Vetoed resolutions had

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significantly lower numbers of liberal practices and core liberal practices. The P5 vetoed resolutions that targeted allies, not resolutions that authorized larger numbers of liberal and core liberal practices. Also, unanimous and disputed resolutions had no statistically significant differences in the number of liberal and core liberal practices. Elected member states did not object more often to resolutions that authorized larger numbers of liberal and core liberal practices. The bulk of the overall CSD results thus suggest that the Security Council attempted to fulfill the Charter bargain by authorizing increasingly liberal practices. During the post–Cold War era, the hegemonic bargain routinely influenced the Charter bargain.

Security Council Practices over Time If the liberal order is in decline, then the CSD data would show that the Security Council has authorized significantly fewer liberal practices in recent years. This section presents the CSD results over time and addresses the central question about whether this data supports the decline narrative. The overall results are in Figure 4.1, which shows the post–Cold War trend of the total number of liberal and core liberal Security Council practices. The number of liberal practices and core liberal practices indeed have decreased since 2016. Perhaps the decline of liberal norms regarding trade, democracy, human rights, and international law throughout other parts of the liberal order cited by the advocates of the decline narrative are connected to the results in Figure 4.1. Perhaps the forces of populism, nationalism, protectionism, and authoritarianism will continue and an increasingly assertive China and Russia will lead to a precipitous drop in liberal practices by the Security Council into the future. Perhaps we are indeed nearing the end of the liberal order. This data on post–Cold War Security Council practices, however, does not support such conclusions consistent with the decline narrative. The current drop in liberal practices is smaller than one that occurred after 2006, and the number of liberal practices subsequently rebounded after that decline. Figure 4.1 also shows that the number of liberal practices in 2020 is still higher than at any point during 1990–2005. A regression line to fit the data would have an upward, positive slope. These data do not show a significant drop in practices consistent with the expectation of the decline narrative. They certainly do not suggest that we have reached the end of an era. The data in Figure 4.1, however, are consistent with the renegotiation narrative. The recent dip in practices is well within the normal trends throughout the post–Cold War period. The inevitable interactions between the Charter bargain and hegemonic bargain are continuing. Even if the

The Collective Security Dataset Figure 4.1

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Security Council Practices

Charter bargaining is becoming more prominent, that does not mean that the liberal order is in significant decline or likely to end. Breaking down the overall results into different types of Security Council practices provides a more nuanced picture. Figure 4.2 summarizes the prohibit practices of the Security Council by showing the number of asserted violations of core liberal rules over time. The trends for war crimes and human rights are similar to the overall results—a regression line to fit the data would have an upward, positive slope. Chapters 6 (war crimes) and 7 (human rights) further discuss the strength of these results and the extent to which they challenge the decline narrative. However, Figure 4.2 also shows that the number of asserted democracy violations has dropped nearly to zero. Collective security enforcement of democracy rules has clearly declined (although monitoring elections remains a routine PKO mandate— see Chapter 8 on the continued use of democracy within capacity building practices). Perhaps our evaluations of the decline narrative should vary according to different types of core liberal rules. The Security Council was much more likely to assert war crimes and human rights violations than democracy violations in recent years. The CSD results for many other types of Security Council practices show trends over time similar to Figure 4.1. These results also do not support the decline narrative. The list of practices that show similar trends to the one in Figure 4.1 include:

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Figure 4.2

Security Council Practices—Asserting Core Liberal Rules

1. Resolutions authorizing economic sanctions. 2. Resolutions authorizing the use of force. 3. Resolutions authorizing PKO mandates. 4. Resolutions authorizing liberal PKO mandates (the protection of civilians, supporting electoral processes, assisting refugees, monitoring human rights, enforcing sanctions, and providing humanitarian aid). 5. Meetings that discussed war crimes, human rights, and democracy. 6. Meetings with liberal thematic agenda topics (refugees, children and armed conflict, humanitarian aid, civilians in armed conflict, disease, women and peace and security, and climate and security). In sum, the CSD results of Security Council practices, as aggregate results and as trends over time, do not provide overwhelming evidence for the decline narrative. They dispute many realist and critical theory criticisms of Security Council decisionmaking (but not all). They suggest that the hegemonic bargain influenced the Charter bargain throughout the post–Cold War era. The data showing a drop in practices since 2016, when put within the context of thirty years of data, are more consistent with the renegotiation narrative than the decline narrative. Most types of Security Council practices show an upward slope during the post–Cold War era. Overall, this suggests the continued resiliency of the liberal order and the greater plausibility of the renegotiation narrative. Of course, like any dataset, the CSD has limitations. It does not include “hidden vetoes” and conflict behind the scenes. It does not address the

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compliance critique. It does not control for the number of conflicts around the world in any given year. Also, there are some possible warning signs within these results. The collective security practices regarding democracy have fallen. The veto powers are willing to protect their allies from collective security monitoring and enforcement. Importantly, another possible source of concern from the CSD results is that the number of abstentions, no votes, and failed resolutions have increased in recent years. As I argued in Chapters 2 and 3, however, not every criticism of a Security Council practice is evidence of a decline in the liberal order. In the next chapter, I show the results of a speech act analysis to determine the extent to which states are upholding and challenging the liberal order when they say no on the Security Council.

Notes 1. UN Security Council, Resolution 2100 (April 25, 2013). 2. Both the Collective Security Dataset and its codebook are available at https:// www.mckendree.edu/directory/brian-frederking.php. 3. For other recent Security Council datasets, see Allen and Yuen, “Action or Inaction”; Di Salvatore et al., “Introducing the Peacekeeping Mandates (PEMA) Dataset.” 4. The CSD relies on resolutions, presidential statements, and verbatim meeting minutes. It also relies on secondary sources such as the annual UN publication “Repertoire of the Practices of the Security Council,” and UN documents regarding peacekeeping operations and sanctions committees. 5. All references to “resolutions” include presidential statements unless the distinction is necessary for clarity. A presidential statement is a statement issued by the Security Council after some meetings. While the Council cannot invoke Chapter VII authority and issue binding obligations, it can invoke collective security rules by confirming previous resolutions that prohibit certain actions and identify rule violators. 6. The standard diplomatic phrases for the Security Council to authorize the use of force include “all necessary means,” “all necessary measures,” “all means,” and “all necessary action.” 7. Note that Israel and Syria are at the top of the list. Narrow P5 interests are not good predictors for what appears on the Security Council agenda. See Frederking and Patane, “Legitimacy and the UN Security Council Agenda.” 8. The statistical results reported in this section are independent sample ttests significant at a .05 probability level. They are available at https://www .mckendree.edu/directory/brian-frederking.php. 9. The statistical results reported in this paragraph are independent sample ttests significant at a .001 probability level. There was one exception—authorizing a regional organization to act when asserting a democracy violation. The results are available at https://www.mckendree.edu/directory/brian-frederking.php. 10. All statistical results reported in the rest of this section are independent sample t-tests significant at a .05 probability level. They are available at https://www. mckendree.edu/directory/brian-frederking.php.

5 Saying No on the Security Council

IN NOVEMBER 1991, THE UNITED KINGDOM CHARGED TWO LIBYAN NATIONals with bombing Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, three years earlier. The United States and the United Kingdom demanded that Libya surrender the two for trial in Scotland. Libya said that it would prosecute them— the relevant treaty about acts of violence against civil aviation allowed states to prosecute their own nationals and did not require extradition. Although they had ratified this treaty, the United States and the United Kingdom went to the Security Council to advocate economic sanctions against Libya for its refusal to extradite the suspected terrorists. The Security Council initially resisted sanctions, only calling on Libya to turn over the suspects.1 Libya again refused and instead asked the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to find the United States and the United Kingdom in violation of the civil aviation treaty. As the ICJ began its deliberations, the United States and the United Kingdom prevailed in the Security Council, which authorized sanctions against Libya for refusing to extradite the suspects.2 A multilateral treaty and a Security Council resolution were now at odds with each other. Five states objected to the resolution, citing a wide variety of reasons.3 China and Morocco made capacity building arguments about not undermining ongoing political negotiations. India argued that the resolution should clearly state the conditions under which the Security Council would lift the sanctions—a recurrent theme across agenda items that the Security Council has addressed with its more recent practices. Zimbabwe, in addition to typical criticisms about not exhausting all diplomatic possibilities and the harmful effects of sanctions on civilians, argued that the resolution might lead to an unnecessary confrontation with the ICJ. The Security Council punished Libya for an action that an international treaty allowed it to take, and some states did not interpret this as a legitimate 77

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practice. After the ICJ asserted jurisdiction in 1998, the Organization of African Unity said that it would not enforce the sanctions against Libya. This was a rare rebuke of the Security Council by a regional organization. States sometimes criticized proposed collective security practices and said no on the Security Council.4 While over 90 percent of all resolutions passed unanimously, there are hundreds of cases where states said no. These cases provide important evidence about the liberal order. When states voted for Security Council practices, they invoked liberal rules and perpetuated the liberal order. But how should we interpret the cases where states said no? Did they invoke liberal or nonliberal rules when saying no? How often did states say that the Security Council should not authorize a practice because world politics is really about rivalry and balances of power, and that the liberal practice harmed a state’s ability to maintain its national security within an anarchical world? How often did states say that the Security Council should not authorize a practice because world politics is really an empire and states should resist the unfair hierarchy perpetuated by that liberal practice? How often did states withhold their consent from the two bargains? Were states increasingly likely to provide nonliberal reasons in recent years? Did states saying no on the Security Council provide evidence of a declining liberal order? To answer those questions, I analyzed every speech of a Security Council member justifying an abstention or a no vote during 1990–2020. I used the coding rules generated in Chapter 3 about the various ways that states could criticize a Security Council resolution. Realists expect states to reject liberal practices because they violate state sovereignty. Critical theorists expect states to reject liberal practices because they perpetuate an unfair hierarchy. These criticisms undermine the liberal order. However, not every criticism invokes nonliberal rules. States can criticize a liberal practice by advocating an alternative liberal practice and invoking either collective security or capacity building rules. States can say no on the Security Council without undermining the liberal order. In this chapter, I explore how often states used liberal and nonliberal reasons for saying no on the Security Council. I proceed in two steps. First, I provide examples of states saying no and how the speeches were coded. Then, I present the overall results of the speech analysis and evaluate the decline narrative by analyzing the trend of results over time.

Analyzing Security Council Speeches Security Council members took the floor to explain abstentions and negative votes 611 times, and in this chapter I present the results of an analysis of those 611 speeches.5 I analyzed the speeches justifying no votes because

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these are “hard cases” for the health of the liberal order. An analysis of random speeches by Security Council members would skew the results in a liberal direction. As the Collective Security Dataset (CSD) results in Chapter 4 show, the Security Council routinely authorized liberal practices, invoked liberal rules, and perpetuated the liberal order. When states said no, however, they could do so either by providing liberal or nonliberal reasons. Those speech acts could either challenge or support the liberal order. If states generally criticized Security Council practices with liberal reasons, then that would provide evidence for the health of the liberal order. If states have increasingly used nonliberal reasons to criticize Security Council practices in recent years, then that would provide evidence for the decline narrative. I used the coding rules generated in Chapter 3 to identify realist, critical, collective security, and capacity building arguments. As with any interpretive method, some coding decisions were not straightforward. As Chapter 2 demonstrated, the rules constituting different security arrangements overlap. Depending on the context, a speech act can invoke different sets of rules. An additional complicating factor was that realist, critical theory, and capacity building criticisms all argue that collective security practices are too coercive. When states criticized a particular collective security practice, their specific reasons could possibly fit into more than one theoretical box. One set of issues was distinguishing critical theory reasons from realist reasons. This was sometimes difficult regarding Permanent Five (P5) speeches. When Russia and China criticized the United States, were they invoking rules of rivalry and the balance of power within an anarchical system? Or were they invoking rules of empire, criticizing the imperial system, and resisting US hierarchy? When the United States asserted rights of preemption in its war on terror, was it invoking realist rules of self-defense, or was it invoking rules of empire and a privileged place in the global hierarchy? Another example is the coding rule defining concerns about state sovereignty as a realist reason for saying no. Not all concerns about sovereignty, however, are realist. States could also invoke anti-imperialist rules when they criticize a Security Council practice for unfairly coercing a subordinate state. Defining concerns about sovereignty as realist likely skewed the results to increase realist reasons and decrease critical theory reasons. For the purposes of this project, however, distinguishing between realist and critical theory reasons was not critical. Nonliberal critiques of Security Council practices undermined the liberal order regardless of which nonliberal critique states used. Regardless of the coding decision, these reasons would provide evidence of states challenging the liberal order. The more important coding decisions distinguished liberal from nonliberal arguments. One example was distinguishing realist from capacity building arguments when states criticized a peacekeeping operation (PKO) because it did

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not have the consent of the host state. This could be a realist argument emphasizing sovereignty over what happens within a state’s borders. However, this could also be a capacity building argument because consent is a foundational peacekeeping norm, and peacekeeping is a form of capacity building. (Once again, the Charter bargain extended across liberal and realist security arrangements.) To maintain the overall analysis as a hard case and not skew the results in a liberal direction, I simply coded any reference to “consent” as realist. Another example was distinguishing collective security from critical theory reasons when states criticized Security Council inaction. When states referred to earlier precedents in which the Security Council did act, were they invoking collective security rules by arguing that the Security Council should again address a similar threat to global security? Was it a sincere debate about how to “do” collective security within a liberal framework? Or were they invoking rules of empire by suggesting different treatment toward subordinate actors? Were they asserting the illegitimacy of the Security Council within the liberal order? Sometimes the critical theory argument that the Security Council was unjust blurred with the liberal argument that the Security Council should live up to the Charter bargain. These coding decisions often required additional contextual and interpretive work—including who was making the argument and what arguments they made in other situations. Despite these occasional conundrums, most of the arguments were recognizably within one of the four categories. The rest of this section illustrates the coding of certain examples.

Realism Realist objections to a Security Council resolution argued that a liberal practice violated state sovereignty or harmed a state’s national security. They invoked realist rules about maintaining global security through a balance of power and the primary reality of anarchy, conflict, and rivalry in world politics. Consider a 2019 Chinese veto of a resolution about humanitarian aid. Syria was preventing humanitarian aid from getting into rebel areas, and the draft resolution proposed that international groups deliver the humanitarian aid without coordinating with the Syrian government. China said no. CHINA: We have always advocated the need for any operation to respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the countries concerned. The Syrian Government has the primary responsibility for improving the humanitarian situation in Syria and we should prioritize the provision of humanitarian assistance from within Syria. . . . Relief operations must be coordinated with the Syrian Government so as to effectively prevent relief supplies from falling into the hands of terrorist organizations or being diverted for other purposes.6

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China disputed the liberal practice of providing humanitarian aid by arguing that it violated Syrian sovereignty. It prioritized Syrian national security over the humanitarian needs of Syrian citizens. China invoked the realist rules of rivalry. As a nonliberal objection to a liberal practice, it challenged the legitimacy of the liberal order. A typical realist challenge was that a Security Council practice interfered with a state’s sovereign authority to govern itself within its borders or prevented that state from protecting its national security. Realist arguments limited the scope of the Security Council’s jurisdiction and thus the scope of the Charter bargain. At what point did internal conflicts, civil wars, refugee flows, and human rights violations constitute a threat to international security warranting Security Council action? While civil wars make up much of the Security Council agenda, states sometimes objected to liberal practices targeting the “domestic affairs” of states. For example, China provided realist reasons for its abstention to a 1998 resolution demanding a cease-fire in Kosovo. CHINA: The question of Kosovo is an internal matter of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Proceeding from the principle, recognized by the whole international community, of respect for and maintenance of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, we believe that the question of Kosovo should and can only be solved by the Yugoslav people themselves in their own way. . . . We do not see the situation in Kosovo as a threat to international peace and security . . . the draft resolution before us has not taken into full consideration the situation in Kosovo and the legitimate rights of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia within its sphere of sovereignty.7

An important set of realist challenges to Security Council practices were US objections to resolutions targeting Israel. The United States sometimes justified these votes by invoking realist rules, arguing that Israel had a right to self-defense in a region rife with war and conflict. Many US statements echoed Israel’s position and disputed even the legitimacy of capacity building, challenging the notion that the Security Council should act as a mediator in the Israeli-Palestinian dispute. Here is a typical statement after the United States objected to a 1997 resolution demanding that Israel end its settlement policies in the Occupied Territories. UNITED STATES: [The] United States does not believe that the Security Council or the General Assembly should be in the business of inserting themselves into issues that the negotiating partners have decided will be addressed in their permanent status talks. Such interference can only harden the positions of both sides and make their work even more difficult. In doing so, the Security Council would add to existing tensions in the region, complicate the efforts of all parties to get the negotiations back on a productive track, and distract attention from the main objective, which is making progress towards a peaceful, prosperous Middle East.8

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Elected members also provided realist reasons for saying no to Security Council resolutions during the post–Cold War era. For example, South Africa objected to a 2007 resolution establishing a judicial tribunal to investigate the assassination of Lebanon’s prime minister. SOUTH AFRICA: It is not appropriate for the Security Council to impose such a tribunal on Lebanon. . . . We also do not believe that the Council has the right to bypass the procedures required by the Lebanese Constitution for the entry into force of an agreement with the United Nations. In discarding the Lebanese Constitution the Security Council is contravening its own decision regarding the need to respect the sovereignty, territorial integrity, unity and political independence of Lebanon.9

Arguments that the Security Council should not authorize a particular practice because it would interfere with the domestic affairs of a UN member state weakened the ability of the hegemonic bargain to influence the Charter bargain. Noninterference in the domestic affairs of member states is a Charter principle. However, many of the fundamental rules of the liberal order—do not harbor terrorists, do not build nuclear weapons, or do not commit genocide—could be construed as domestic affairs. When the Security Council authorized collective security practices to enforce such rules, it conveyed liberal arguments that interdependence is the essence of world politics and international security required that states follow certain rules. States that invoked realist rules to dispute the appropriateness of such practices therefore undermined the legitimacy of the liberal order.

Critical Theory Another way to object to a Security Council resolution was to invoke critical theory rules that a liberal practice unjustly perpetuated hierarchy. States argued this in a variety of ways, including that the practice was in the interests of powerful states, it justified regime change policies, or it illustrated a double standard about the treatment of superordinate and subordinate agents. An example was this Russian statement explaining its veto of a 2017 resolution authorizing sanctions against Syria for using chemical weapons. RUSSIA: The statements we have heard have left us in no doubt that the draft resolution was based on the Western capitals’ anti-regime doctrine. . . . The draft text submitted for a vote today needed the Joint Investigative Mechanism for the sole purpose of laying responsibility for the use of chemical weapons at the door of Al-Assad’s Government, thereby creating additional reasons for regime change in Damascus.10

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Russia disputed the liberal practice of authorizing enforcement measures against a state that used weapons of mass destruction (WMD) by arguing that the real purpose of the resolution was to justify regime change. It invoked the critical theory rules of empire, charging Western powers with using the Security Council to pursue coercive policies and perpetuate hierarchy. As a nonliberal objection to a liberal practice, it challenged the legitimacy of the liberal order. Critical theory arguments on the Security Council by elected members were sometimes dramatic and combative. One example was Cuba’s objection to a 1990 resolution authorizing sanctions on Iraq for invading Kuwait. Cuba argued that the United States was using the Security Council to justify neocolonial policies. CUBA: Is this really a defense of the principle of non-intervention? Are we really talking about defense of the principle of the non-use of force in international relations? Is it really the need to respect the independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity of States that motivates the United States to urge these sanctions against Iraq? Is that really the reason? Is the defense of the legitimate interests of the Kuwaiti Government really the concern that has led the United States delegation to act? Or is it the hegemonist and interventionist ambitions of the United States in the Middle East? My delegation has no doubt as to what the answers to those questions would be.11

When the Security Council next considered a resolution to authorize the use of force against Iraq for invading Kuwait, Cuba argued there were double standards regarding the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories and the recent US invasion of Panama. CUBA: Apparently those [Palestinian] territories can be occupied forever. There seems to be no need to impose sanctions against the occupier when it is Israel. Was any account taken of the opinions of the non-aligned countries and the countries of the Middle Eastern region, with proposals for more effective action to compel Israel to withdraw its troops from the occupied territories and recognize the rights of that other Arab people, the people of Palestine? . . . Seven months ago the territory of another small and weak country was invaded by the military force of a great Power and in a matter of hours that Power, the United States, took possession of that country. . . . There was, of course, no United States draft resolution calling for the imposition of sanctions against the United States, but beyond that—regrettably I must say this—there was likewise not much sentiment in favor of such a proposal among the other members of the Council, and consequently the Security Council did not even make a statement on the matter. . . . In other words, we should let the United States choose how, where and when those principles should be applied?12

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Critical theory arguments that hierarchy was fundamental to world politics and that there was one set of rules for powerful states and another set of rules for subordinate states showed up in many Security Council agenda items. For example, Egypt objected to a 2016 resolution urging all states to sign a nuclear proliferation treaty that required nonnuclear states to remain non-nuclear, but also obligated nuclear states to negotiate eventual nuclear disarmament. EGYPT: This draft resolution, inappropriately, makes no reference to the obligation stipulated in article VI of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons that calls on nuclear-weapon States to achieve nuclear disarmament. . . . It sends the wrong message to the international community, that the Security Council is selective, biased and engaged in a cherrypicking approach when it comes to the global nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation regime.13

When powerful states considered the issue of nuclear weapons, they were generally more concerned about proliferation (the rules that apply to the less powerful states) than they were about disarmament (the treaty obligation that applies to the more powerful states). When states made such arguments, they invoked critical theory rules about hierarchy and challenged the legitimacy of the liberal order.

Capacity Building Capacity building objections to a resolution generally argued that a particular collective security practice harmed an ongoing peace process and that the Security Council should instead engage in neutral mediation. An example of a capacity building argument was this Chinese statement explaining its abstention on Resolution 2418 authorizing an extension of sanctions on individuals in South Sudan who were not complying with an ongoing peace process. CHINA: The Security Council should exercise great caution in implementing sanctions, and its action ought to help advance the political settlement process in South Sudan and lend support to the good offices and mediation efforts of regional organizations. . . . However, the annex to the resolution just adopted includes some high-ranking officials of the Government of South Sudan on the proposed sanctions list and threatens an arms embargo. Given the current circumstances, those elements are not conducive to furthering the political peace process in South Sudan and could further complicate the situation.14

China criticized the use of sanctions by advocating that the Security Council instead engage in neutral mediation. It criticized a collective security practice by invoking the rules of capacity building. Note how capacity building objections play an intermediate role in the analysis about the lib-

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eral order. By invoking capacity building rules, China was not supporting a core liberal practice of the Security Council. It withheld its consent to stronger forms of liberal global governance. However, by advocating an alternative form of liberal global governance, it did not directly challenge the legitimacy of the liberal order. China still made the liberal argument that we can use international organizations to pursue global security. Capacity building criticisms were often pleas to slow down and try forms of neutral mediation before authorizing collective security practices. Like the “peace versus justice” dilemmas in postconflict transitional societies, capacity building arguments sided with peace against the collective security pursuit of justice. Here was a typical example, with Qatar criticizing a 2006 resolution demanding that Iran end its nuclear enrichment activities. QATAR: We do not agree with the submission of this draft resolution at a time when our region is inflamed. We would have seen no harm in waiting a few days so as to exhaust all possible ways and means in order to determine Iran’s real intentions and the degree of its willingness to cooperate, particularly since Iran has not rejected the package that was offered to it; it has simply asked for a period of time in which to consider it . . . the fact that this draft resolution was submitted at this critical time serves to achieve neither the stability of the region nor the unity of the Council.15

In a similar example, Brazil justified its objection to a 2010 resolution authorizing sanctions against Iran to give diplomatic meetings more time. BRAZIL: We will vote against the draft resolution also because the adoption of sanctions at this juncture runs counter to the successful efforts of Brazil and Turkey to engage Iran in a negotiated solution with regard to its nuclear program. . . . Brazil considers it unnatural to rush to sanctions before the parties concerned can sit and talk about the implementation of the declaration. . . . The adoption of sanctions in such circumstances sends the wrong signal to what could be the beginning of a constructive engagement in Vienna.16

As these examples illustrate, capacity building arguments were not fundamental challenges to the liberal order. While they criticized collective security practices, they advocated an alternative form of liberal global governance. Whether the Security Council should fulfill its Charter mandate through collective security or capacity building practices was a common debate—but a debate within the parameters of the liberal order.

Collective Security Collective security objections to a Security Council resolution generally advocated an alternative collective security practice than the one authorized

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by the resolution. States making collective security arguments preferred stronger sanctions, or weaker sanctions, or an escalation beyond sanctions to authorize force. Such objections continued to invoke liberal rules and did not challenge the legitimacy of the liberal order. An example was this 1993 UK statement criticizing a resolution exempting Bosnia from an arms embargo authorized during the wars in the former Yugoslavia. UNITED KINGDOM: The present situation is deeply worrying, but it should not be a cause of despair nor should it be seen as a reason for adopting what we regard as a solution of despair . . . such a decision will fail to help the people it is designed to assist, and would more probably result in a deterioration of the situation and a collapse of our efforts to solve the crisis . . . we do not see how the UN efforts in Bosnia could be sustained following a decision to lift the arms embargo . . . the adoption of this resolution would be seen as a signal that the UN was turning its back on Bosnia and leaving its inhabitants to fight it out.17

The UK did not dispute the legitimacy of collective security rules; it argued that the Security Council should do collective security in another way. Criticism like this did not undermine the legitimacy of the liberal order. Another example of a collective security criticism was to oppose a resolution that proposes relative inaction. Sometimes states criticized a resolution because it did not go far enough to address an international security threat. For example, in February 2019 Russia brought forward a draft resolution on Venezuela that was relatively friendly toward the Nicolás Maduro regime. It failed to receive nine votes, and this statement by Peru was typical of those voting no. PERU: [The resolution] does not take into account the fundamental aspect of the problem in Venezuela, which is the existence of an illegitimate regime that has caused one of the most serious humanitarian crises and exoduses in the history of the region—a result of its disastrous economic management and corruption—and neither does it take into account the flagrant violations of human rights and individual freedoms or the urgency of holding free presidential elections. . . . Peru questions the willingness of a regime that—as we saw last weekend and heard in the Council two days ago—not only opposes the much-needed access to humanitarian assistance but also denies the existence of an emergency and crisis, ignoring the situation and showing no concern for the 3.4 million citizens who have had to flee the tragedy.18

When states said no to urge the Security Council to live up to its Charter obligations and address threats to international security in an explicitly liberal way, they invoked collective security rules and upheld the legitimacy of the liberal order.

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Often states criticized a resolution using more than one type of argument. One example was a December 2015 resolution reauthorizing a PKO in South Sudan supporting the implementation of a peace agreement among hostile factions within the newly created state. It included three core liberal mandates—to protect civilians, monitor human rights, and deliver humanitarian assistance—and threatened future sanctions against actors who violated the peace agreement. Russia abstained, justifying the vote with a collective security rationale advocating an alternative approach to the establishment of a future judicial tribunal in South Sudan. RUSSIA: We cannot agree with the language pertaining to the intention of the Security Council to evaluate the work of the future hybrid court in South Sudan, for, in line with the peace agreement and the decisions of the African Union, the establishment and work of that judicial body is the exclusive purview of the African Union Commission.19

Russia also provided a critical theory rationale, complaining about an unfair decisionmaking process in which Western powers perpetuate hierarchy and prioritize their national interests over the interests of others. RUSSIA: We also have serious questions with regard to the working methods used by some of our colleagues in the Security Council, who abuse the practice of pen-holding by inconsiderately pushing through their national priorities and neglecting the red lines drawn by other delegations. That undermines Council unity and could have a negative impact on the effectiveness of its work.20

There were even examples of a state using all four arguments in a single speech! One was a 2008 speech by Indonesia after voting against a resolution authorizing an increase in sanctions on Iran. INDONESIA: Notable progress has been made in resolving the outstanding issues between Iran and the IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency], as demanded by those resolutions. . . . It had been our expectation that the draft resolution would reflect those complex dynamics and mixed findings and not succumb to an overly one-dimensional characterization of where we are today. . . . [Collective security] Indonesia remains to be convinced of the efficacy of adopting additional sanctions at this juncture. Essentially, we are not convinced that more sanctions— however incremental, well-targeted and reversible—would move us forward in resolving the question of Iran’s nuclear program. Will they instead have a potential negative impact at a time when progress is being made? We wonder, therefore, whether imposing more sanctions at this juncture is the most sensible approach. . . . [Capacity building] The NPT [Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty] guarantees the inalienable right of all States parties to develop, research, produce and use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes without discrimination and in accordance with the Treaty. Nonetheless, we are often trapped in a vicious cycle, as there is

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Renegotiating the Liberal Order no guarantee given to non-nuclear States regarding the security of supply of nuclear technology and materials for peaceful purposes. They remain prone to suspicion in their attempts to exercise their rights . . . [Realism] we should not only emphasize the non-proliferation obligations of non–nuclear weapon States, but that we must also require nuclear weapon States to comply fully with their nuclear disarmament obligations under article VI of the NPT, on which there has barely been any progress so far. [Critical theory]21

Saying no on the Security Council was not in and of itself evidence for the decline narrative. Conveying realist and critical theory reasons for saying no undermined the liberal order; conveying capacity building and collective security reasons did not. Analyzing the speeches of states saying no and determining the relative amount of liberal and nonliberal reasons provides additional evidence about the plausibility of the decline narrative.

Why States Said No on the Security Council The overall results of the speech analysis are presented in Table 5.1. The speeches generated 868 criticisms of Security Council resolutions. In the post–Cold War era, when states said no, they justified those votes with more liberal criticisms (499, or 57 percent) than nonliberal criticisms (369, or 43 percent). When states said no, most of the time they did not challenge the legitimacy of the liberal order. When states said no, they were more often advocating an alternative form of liberal global governance. Even after removing abstentions and analyzing only no votes, states still provided more liberal than nonliberal reasons, albeit at a lower percentage of 51 percent. These results do not suggest that states routinely used nonliberal arguments to dispute Security Council practices and challenged the legitimacy of the liberal order during the entire post–Cold War era. As with the overall CSD results in Chapter 4, these aggregate results also suggest the relative health of the liberal order. These results varied slightly across the three categories of core liberal rules. Consistent with the CSD findings, the Security Council was more likely to act in liberal ways when addressing war crimes. When states objected to resolutions asserting war crimes violations, they provided liberal reasons for their objections over 60 percent of the time (247 out of 410). The liberal reasons were dominated by capacity building arguments (180 of 247), and the nonliberal reasons were split evenly between realist and critical theory arguments. When removing the abstentions and including only negative votes in the analysis, exactly half of the arguments were liberal (57 of 114). These results support the argument in Chapter 6 that

Saying No on the Security Council Table 5.1

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Criticizing Security Council Resolutions Total

No Votes

Abstentions

Liberal Nonliberal

499 369

125 120

374 249

Capacity building Collective security Realist Critical theory

281 218 161 208

53 72 50 70

228 146 111 138

Source: Author’s own.

growing norms about the protection of civilians during armed conflict remain a dominant theme of the liberal order. When states objected to resolutions asserting human rights violations, they again provided liberal reasons for their vote a majority of the time (99 out of 188). The liberal reasons were dominated by capacity building arguments (69 of 99), and the nonliberal reasons were dominated by realist arguments (56 of 89). However, removing the abstentions and analyzing only negative votes on resolutions asserting human rights violations shows that states provided nonliberal reasons more often (40 of 63). This important subset of cases spanned across only four agenda items. Three (Myanmar, Zimbabwe, and Venezuela) were attempts by the United States, United Kingdom, and France (P3) to pursue classic liberal arguments about human rights absent a long-standing armed conflict, and Russia and China pushed back. The fourth was Syria, a conflict in which Russia and China were clearly determined to prevent liberal global governance. The set of objections to resolutions asserting democracy violations was small, generating only thirty-one criticisms. The Security Council asserted democracy violations less often, and those resolutions were more likely to be unanimous. Given that caveat of the small sample size, the results show that when states objected to Security Council resolutions asserting democracy violations, they provided liberal reasons for their objections only 42 percent of the time (thirteen out of thirty-one). The liberal reasons were again dominated by capacity building arguments (twelve of thirteen), and the nonliberal reasons were again dominated by realist arguments (twelve of eighteen). Consistent with the CSD findings, the speech analysis results also suggest that Security Council practices regarding democracy were not the strongest part of the liberal order. Combining the speech analyses with CSD variables about different types of collective security practices offers more evidence about when

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Security Council members offered liberal and nonliberal reasons for saying no. First, regarding the prohibit practices, states were more likely to use liberal criticisms when the Security Council asserted armed conflict violations. 22 When the Security Council addressed armed conflicts—an unambiguous part of the Charter bargain—the debates were more likely to remain within a liberal framework. States were more likely to use nonliberal criticisms, though, when the Security Council asserted terrorism, WMD, and democracy violations. The correlations with war crimes and human rights violations were not significant. The results on the core liberal rules are thus mixed—one of the three (democracy) led to states using more nonliberal criticism, which provides some partial support for the critiques. The results on the noncore liberal rule categories are also mixed—two of the three (terrorism and WMD) led to states using more nonliberal criticisms. The prohibit practices of the Security Council offer no clear pattern explaining when states were more likely to use liberal or nonliberal criticisms. Second, there were significant differences within Security Council monitoring practices, particularly when it identified either Israel or Syria as a rule violator. When the Security Council targeted Israel as a rule violator, states were more likely to use liberal criticisms to justify saying no. The countries more likely to protect Israel from collective security enforcement—the United States and its allies—were also more likely to remain within a liberal framework and advocate neutral mediation. However, when the Security Council targeted Syria as a rule violator, states were more likely to use nonliberal criticisms to justify saying no. The countries more likely to protect Syria from collective security enforcement—Russia and China—were more likely to challenge the liberal order when saying no. Third, regarding the enforcement practices of the Security Council, states were more likely to use liberal criticisms when the Security Council asserted Chapter VII authority, authorized sanctions, and authorized PKOs to use force. These important collective security enforcement practices were less likely to elicit nonliberal criticisms. However, one category of collective security enforcement was more likely to elicit nonliberal criticisms—the authorization of multinational forces to use force, the quintessential collective security practice. The juxtaposition of the use of force findings here is important. When states said no to authorizing PKOs to use force, they were more likely to use liberal criticisms; when states said no to authorizing multinational forces to use force, they were more likely to use nonliberal criticisms. The textbook version of collective security is still controversial. This context is important for the argument in Chapter 6 that the Security Council has blurred the distinction between peacekeeping and collective security to protect citizens during armed conflicts. The liberal order supports the protection of civilians

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in armed conflicts, and it is politically easier to authorize PKOs to use such force. Finally, there is a positive correlation between the number of core liberal practices and the number of liberal criticisms. When the Security Council considered resolutions authorizing a relatively high number of core liberal practices, and states objected to those practices, those objections were more likely to remain within a liberal framework. States were less likely to resist core liberal practices with nonliberal criticisms. When states criticized core liberal practices, they were more likely to advocate alternative forms of liberal global governance. States were less likely to challenge the legitimacy of the liberal order with realist and critical theory arguments when the Security Council pursued the strongest and most explicitly liberal practices. Separating the results by individual members leads to expected differences. The criticisms of the P3 were much more likely to be liberal (97 percent for the United Kingdom, 85 percent for France, and 79 percent for the United States). The P3 were also less likely to say no (only 102 of 868); their liberal criticisms therefore do not dominate the analysis. China and Russia combined for 357 objections and thus had more influence on the overall results. Both made roughly the same number of liberal and nonliberal justifications for saying no. Russia split evenly with 50 percent liberal objections, and China’s objections were 48 percent liberal. When Russia and China objected to liberal practices throughout the post–Cold War era, they did not disproportionately do so with nonliberal arguments. Elected members said no 404 times, and, consistent with the overall results, 57 percent of their justifications were liberal. Once again, the overall results do not suggest that Security Council members overwhelmingly challenged the legitimacy of liberal global governance when they dissented on Security Council resolutions. The CSD results showed that states increasingly abstained and voted against resolutions in recent years. Did states also increasingly use nonliberal criticisms to dispute those recent resolutions? Figure 5.1 provides the results of the speech analysis over time regarding all Security Council practices. While there have been more objections in recent years, most of those objections continued to convey liberal arguments. States have not disproportionately challenged the liberal order in recent years by objecting to Security Council resolutions with nonliberal criticisms. The results are similar even when limited to the core liberal practices of the Security Council. More states have indeed said no in recent years to resolutions authorizing core liberal practices, but they have continued to use more liberal criticisms when doing so. Once again, more no votes on the Security Council does not necessarily provide evidence for a decline in the liberal order. In sum, the results of the speech analyses do not provide strong evidence for the decline narrative. The CSD results in Chapter 4 show that the Security Council routinely authorized liberal practices in the post–Cold War

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Figure 5.1

Criticisms of Liberal Security Council Practices

era, and most of those practices have not sharply declined in recent years. The speech analyses presented in this chapter show that when states objected to those practices, they were more likely to use liberal reasons. There was not a disproportionate recent increase of states criticizing Security Council resolutions in ways expected by realists and critical theorists. Throughout the post–Cold War era, states were more likely to argue that the Security Council should do liberal global governance in another way rather than argue that the Council should not do liberal global governance. The legitimacy of the Security Council has continued to hinge on the authorization of liberal practices. The following chapter discusses the strongest part of this argument, focusing on Security Council practices regarding war crimes and the protection of civilians during armed conflicts.

Notes 1. UN Security Council, Resolution 731 (January 21, 1992). 2. UN Security Council, Resolution 748 (March 31, 1992). 3. UN Security Council, Meeting 3063 (March 31, 1992), 51–58. 4. Unless there is an explicit distinction, for the sake of brevity the references to states saying no in this chapter include abstentions. Both withhold consent to the practices authorized by a resolution. Both challenge validity claims conveyed by a resolution. Both help prevent the passage of a resolution, which requires nine affirmative votes. When justified by nonliberal reasons, both no votes and abstentions challenge the legitimacy of the liberal order.

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5. An appendix with every coded speech analyzed in this chapter is available at https://www.mckendree.edu/directory/brian-frederking.php. 6. UN Security Council, Meeting 8697 (December 20, 2019), 5. 7. UN Security Council, Meeting 3930 (September 23, 1998), 3. 8. UN Security Council, Meeting 3756 (March 21, 1997), 5–6. 9. UN Security Council, Meeting 5685 (May 30, 2007), 3–4. 10. UN Security Council, Meeting 7893 (February 28, 2017), 7–8. 11. UN Security Council, Meeting 2933 (August 6, 1990), 38–40. 12. UN Security Council, Meeting 2963 (November 29, 1990), 53–56. 13. UN Security Council, Meeting 7776 (September 23, 2016), 4–5. 14. UN Security Council, Meeting 8273 (May 31, 2018), 6. 15. UN Security Council, Meeting 5500 (July 31, 2006), 2–3. 16. UN Security Council, Meeting 6335 (June 9, 2010), 2–3. 17. UN Security Council, Meeting 3247 (June 29, 1993), 133–134. 18. UN Security Council, Meeting 8476 (February 28, 2019), 4. 19. UN Security Council, Meeting 7581 (December 15, 2015), 2. 20. UN Security Council, Meeting 7581 (December 15, 2015), 2. 21. UN Security Council, Meeting 5848 (March 3, 2008), 10–11. 22. The results in this section are based on bivariate correlations with significance determined at the .05 level. The results are available at https://www.mckendree .edu/directory/brian-frederking.php.

6 Punishing War Crimes

THE SECURITY COUNCIL DID NOT AUTHORIZE SIGNIFICANT COLLECTIVE security practices to prevent war crimes in Rwanda and Bosnia during the 1990s. At the end of that decade, there was widespread recognition that protecting civilians during armed conflicts was central to the legitimacy of the Security Council.1 The Security Council responded by increasing the liberal nature of its practices. It created judicial tribunals with jurisdiction to prosecute war crimes in Bosnia and Rwanda and obligated all states to cooperate with those tribunals.2 It began a thematic agenda item called “civilians in armed conflict.” It began a new practice in 1999, authorizing a PKO to use force in Sierra Leone to protect civilians during an armed conflict. Ten years later, it asserted the fundamental importance of protecting civilians in Resolution 1894: Demands that parties to armed conflict comply strictly with the obligations applicable to them under international humanitarian, human rights and refugee law, as well as to implement all relevant decisions of the Security Council and in this regard, urges them to take all required measures to respect and protect the civilian population and meet its basic needs.3

This unanimous resolution did not address a particular conflict or assert that a certain agent had violated this rule. It asserted a rule that applied to all conflicts. It said that the Charter mandate to maintain international peace and security required the protection of civilians during armed conflicts. It said that adherence to international humanitarian law (IHL) was necessary to achieve global security. The Security Council could no longer address armed conflicts without dealing with war crimes against civilians. Every Security Council member took the floor and offered wholehearted support.4

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International law is a central liberal path to peace. Agreed-on rules about the use of force, the peaceful resolution of conflict, and foundational norms of reciprocity and good faith are important components of a liberal approach to global security. Rules prohibiting war crimes are a vital element of the liberal argument that international law contributes to global security. The prohibition on killing civilians is a shared, taken for granted norm in Security Council debates. No one argues that it is appropriate for a party to an armed conflict to kill civilians.5 No one argues that war crimes are beyond the jurisdiction of the Security Council. This is an important example of the hegemonic bargain influencing the Charter bargain and increasing the scope and liberal nature of Security Council practices. The Collective Security Dataset (CSD) results in Chapter 4 showed that Security Council practices regarding war crimes have strengthened during the post–Cold War era. In this chapter, I explain those results by analyzing the changes in peacekeeping norms during the post–Cold War era. The Security Council increased the number of core liberal practices regarding war crimes by incorporating the protection of civilians (POC) norm as a central component of peacekeeping operations (PKOs). Despite the conceptual differences between peacekeeping and collective security, the Security Council has routinely invoked collective security rules through what it calls “peacekeeping.” Then, I present a case study of Darfur, an excellent example of the Charter bargain limiting the scope of the liberal order. Despite the growing importance of the POC norm, some states continued to invoke the competing security arrangement of capacity building to deal with the long-standing civil war in Sudan rather than invoke collective security rules to deal with the war crimes in Darfur.

Peacekeeping and the Protection of Civilians IHL details how states should treat the soldiers and citizens of other countries during interstate wars. It prohibits certain weapons, defines combatants and noncombatants, requires humane treatment for prisoners of war, and bans the use of force against civilians. The CSD and speech act results regarding war crimes suggest that IHL rules increasingly function as shared global norms. The Security Council dealt with criticisms that it was insufficiently enforcing those rules by altering its peacekeeping practices to protect civilians during armed conflicts. That is, it strengthened and increased its core liberal practices to fulfill its Charter mandate and maintain its legitimacy.6 The changing nature of post–Cold War conflicts and growing norms about protecting civilians during armed conflict have altered the Charter bargain. Most post–Cold War conflicts were civil wars, and many civil war combatants committed war crimes. The Security Council thus made two

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pragmatic moves. First, it embraced the trend in international law to apply war crimes rules to civil wars. While IHL originally referred only to interstate wars, the Security Council routinely asserted that civil war combatants had committed war crimes. Second, it blurred the distinction between collective security and peacekeeping by authorizing robust PKOs with use of force mandates to protect civilians. UN documents have emphasized the changing nature of civil wars and the importance of war crimes to justify evolving PKO mandates.7 The 2000 Brahimi Report first advocated “robust peacekeeping” because “no failure did more to damage the standing and credibility of United Nations peacekeeping in the 1990s than its reluctance to distinguish victim from aggressor. . . . Peacekeepers—troops or police—who witness violence against civilians should be presumed to be authorized to stop it, within their means, in support of basic United Nations principles.”8 At the 2000 Millennium Summit, Secretary-General Kofi Annan argued that the Security Council faced a “crisis of credibility” due to its lack of protecting civilians in armed conflict.9 The 2005 World Summit Outcome Document recognizing a Responsibility to Protect, adopted by 170 countries, extended that responsibility to the Security Council.10 A 2009 UN study asserted: “The security of civilians in postconflict environments is critical to the legitimacy and credibility of UN peacekeeping missions, the peace agreements they are deployed to help implement, and the institution of the United Nations itself.”11 The Security Council responded to these growing demands. It passed the landmark 2009 resolution discussed at the beginning of this chapter asserting that all parties to armed conflicts must adhere to IHL and protect civilians. It used Responsibility to Protect language more often during 2010– 2015, and using that language became less contentious over time.12 It required the Secretary-General in 2009 to make annual reports about war crimes violations around the world. It was more likely to authorize robust PKOs with use of force mandates when the warring parties targeted the civilian population.13 It was more likely to pass resolutions on civil wars that had significant levels of rape and sexual violence.14 However, the most important change in Security Council practices was to move away from PKOs with capacity building rules and toward PKOs with coercive use of force mandates to protect civilians.15 To maintain the legitimacy of the Charter bargain, the Security Council strengthened the liberal nature of its practices and blurred the distinction between peacekeeping and collective security. Traditional PKOs followed norms of consent, neutrality, and selfdefense.16 The consent norm stipulates that the Security Council will authorize a PKO only with the consent of the parties to a conflict. The neutrality norm establishes that the PKO will not take sides in a conflict. The self-defense norm affirms that the PKO will not have coercive rules of

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engagement. These norms are consistent with Article VI mediation practices. Traditional PKOs generally monitor compliance with a cease-fire or peace agreement. They are a form of capacity building, helping states follow important rules such as the peaceful settlement of disputes, the nonuse of force, nonintervention, and territorial integrity. Collective security enforcement operations follow the opposite norms: they do not need the consent of the parties, they are not neutral in the conflict, and they authorize coercive use of force mandates. The Security Council altered its practices regarding all three PKO norms. The consent norm is consistent with (Westphalian) legal principles such as territorial integrity and the sovereign equality of states. It was long understood that guaranteeing the cooperation of the parties to the armed conflict would increase the chances of mission success. Consent is central to any capacity building practice—one can only help agents who actually want the help. However, the nature of post–Cold War conflicts has complicated the consent norm. Most post–Cold War conflicts are civil wars with multiple parties, and it often has been difficult for the Security Council to gain the consent of all the combatants. In those circumstances, it had to deal with “spoilers,” who did not consent or continued to commit war crimes.17 The Security Council responded to these difficulties by weakening the consent norm.18 It regularly sent PKOs into conflicts without the consent of all the parties. In most cases, it sent PKOs into civil wars with the consent of only the host government. In a few cases (Central African Republic, Eritrea, Côte d’Ivoire, and Sudan), it authorized a PKO without the full consent of even the host state.19 The neutrality norm states that PKOs do not take sides in a conflict. The nature of contemporary conflicts and the growing importance of POC rules have also complicated this norm. Neutrality in many traditional peacekeeping contexts—for example, Bosnia in the 1990s—required inaction toward those committing war crimes.20 The Security Council has thus altered the neutrality norm to require impartiality in the implementation of its mandate.21 PKOs are no longer neutral in the sense that they cannot influence the course of events. They are now impartial in the enforcement of war crimes rules. When an agent in an armed conflict commits war crimes, then the PKO can act against that agent and protect citizens. The Security Council no longer considers this a violation of neutrality; it is an impartial implementation of the PKO mandate to protect citizens. Enforcing a prohibition on war crimes—in effect, engaging in collective security—was considered a neutral peacekeeping practice. This normative shift led to conundrums about how to protect civilians without strategically taking sides in a conflict.22 This shift also encouraged retaliation against PKO forces and often turned them into combatants in the conflict. In short, it has blurred the distinction between peacekeeping and collective security.

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The self-defense norm prevents coercive uses of force against the parties to a conflict. Like consent and neutrality, the self-defense norm is consistent with capacity building and an Article VI approach to conflict resolution. However, the nature of post–Cold War conflicts has also led to the alteration of this norm. The only way to protect citizens is to authorize coercive uses of force.23 The Security Council thus altered the self-defense norm to mean “defense of the mandate.”24 This norm change is crucial given the dramatic expansion of post–Cold War PKO mandates in areas that go beyond the POC norm.25 The Security Council has increasingly invoked Chapter VII to authorize PKOs to use force in defense of POC mandates, further blurring the distinction between peacekeeping and collective security. While the Council has continued to call them PKOs, they have adhered to none of the traditional peacekeeping norms. They often did not have the consent of all the parties, entered the conflict on the side of the host government and against rebel forces, and had coercive mandates to help the government stabilize the country. In these cases, the Security Council invoked collective security rules with its PKOs.26 The Security Council has authorized PKOs in ten different conflicts to use force to protect citizens since 2000.27 An extreme form was the use of stabilization forces in Mali, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), and the Central African Republic.28 These missions included the first coercive mandates and offensive combat forces under UN command and control. There were no peace agreements or cease-fires to monitor. The mandates were to “neutralize” armed groups—an ironic linguistic twist on the norm of neutrality. They were sometimes combined with explicit collective security operations—authorizations for multinational troops to use force (the French in Mali, and French and European Union [EU] troops in the DRC). They resembled counterterrorism operations and often acted as a military arm of the host state.29 The Security Council recognized that what they called “peacekeeping” was really collective security, stating in every annual reauthorization that these missions were exceptions “without creating a precedent or prejudice to the agreed principles of peacekeeping.”30 This evolution in PKO norms has led to inevitable difficulties.31 How does a PKO protect civilians without taking sides in a conflict? Are peacekeepers now combatants under international law? Killing a peacekeeper is a war crime, but is killing someone in a stabilization force a war crime? How does a PKO encourage political solutions to a conflict while also using coercive force in that conflict? How does the UN protect other agencies doing humanitarian work when the parties to the conflict interpret peacekeepers as combatants? How does the UN recruit troops for PKOs when they are now more vulnerable to attack? Despite those questions, the Security Council has authorized stabilization forces in Mali, the DRC, and Central African Republic twenty-seven times, and twenty-five

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were unanimous resolutions. The Security Council has continued to cite the exceptional nature of these PKOs and insisted that it has not fundamentally changed peacekeeping norms. However, this is a useful fiction necessary to make their reauthorization politically palatable. The Security Council is clearly invoking collective security rules by authorizing use of force mandates to enforce war crimes rules and protect civilians. It is just easier to call it “peacekeeping.”32

Darfur The first genocide of the twenty-first century was in Sudan, where the government and allied militias destroyed over 80 percent of the villages of four ethnic groups living in Darfur.33 The conflict in Darfur led to 400,000 deaths and 2.7 million refugees. The realist critique that the Security Council is ineffective plausibly applied to Darfur.34 It did not authorize collective security enforcement to end a genocide. It did not authorize an oil embargo against an oil-exporting regime that was committing war crimes. China echoed Sudan’s realist argument that any UN forces without its consent violated its sovereignty, abstaining on six Darfur resolutions.35 The Permanent Five (P5) had material interests inconsistent with collective security enforcement. Sudan was a major oil exporter to China. Russia was the largest seller of weapons to Sudan. Sudan provided the United States with intelligence in its post–September 11 war on terrorism. The United States, United Kingdom, and France (P3) did not push China too hard on Darfur because it needed China’s cooperation on other issues, including nuclear proliferation in North Korea. The United States was not willing to act outside the Security Council (as in Iraq) to pressure Sudan into action. Darfur does not look like a rousing success story for liberal global governance. However, the Security Council did authorize travel and financial sanctions, an arms embargo, a no-fly zone, the largest PKO in UN history, the largest humanitarian operation in UN history at that time, and it referred the situation to the International Criminal Court (ICC). No one vetoed a resolution on Darfur. The Security Council authorized a PKO to use force to protect civilians, and it unanimously reauthorized that PKO twelve times. It renewed the economic sanctions thirteen times, with only one Chinese abstention on those resolutions. No state argued that the conflict in Darfur was beyond the jurisdiction of the Security Council. No state argued that the Security Council should not address war crimes violations. Multiple resolutions explicitly stated that Sudan had a Responsibility to Protect its population.36 One complication to additional collective security practices in Darfur was Sudan’s lack of consent, a typical realist argument challenging the liberal order. However, the more important competing security arrangement was the

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alternative liberal global governance approach of capacity building. When the Darfur crisis began, the Security Council was mediating negotiations between the government of Sudan and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) to end a civil war that had lasted over twenty years. The Security Council had difficulty reconciling capacity building practices regarding the civil war with collective security practices in Darfur. How could it act as a neutral mediator to help end the civil war with the south and simultaneously accuse Sudan of war crimes in Darfur? Aggressive actions to end the genocide risked undermining the negotiations to end a long-running civil war. Add the critical theory argument that referring Sudan to the ICC was an unfair double standard, and all three alternative security arrangements competed with collective security. The POC norm had many obstacles to overcome in Darfur. After Sudan and the SPLM agreed to a final peace agreement in 2009, however, and the tensions between capacity building in the civil war and collective security in Darfur went away, the Security Council consistently passed unanimous resolutions authorizing the use of force to protect civilians in Darfur. The civil war in Sudan began in 1983 when the SPLM, dominated by Christians in the south, rebelled against the Islamic government. The SPLM wanted regional autonomy, control over newly discovered oil resources in the south, and an end to sharia law. The civil war led to over 2 million deaths and 5 million displaced persons. A July 2002 peace agreement finally ended the civil war and enabled the south to have a referendum on secession after a six-year transition period. The Security Council helped broker this peace agreement and committed to a series of capacity building practices to help implement the agreement. Then, the conflict in Darfur began. Two rebel groups—the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) and the Sudan Liberation Movement/Army (SLM/A)—attacked military installations and captured the airport in Darfur’s capital. They demanded that the negotiations to end the civil war also address their concerns for more autonomy. Sudan and allied militias responded by committing a massive amount of war crimes to suppress the insurgency. While the government bombed villages from the air, the militias engaged in campaigns of killing, torture, rape, forced displacement, and the destruction of crops and livestock. Sudan’s president Omar al-Bashir would not consent to UN forces in Darfur, using realist arguments about state sovereignty and critical theory arguments about how a UN mission would place Sudan under a “trusteeship.” Instead, after Sudan signed a cease-fire agreement with one of the rebel groups (not both), al-Bashir agreed to the first ever African Union (AU) PKO in April 2004. The presence of AU troops prevented the overall situation from worsening, but they did not have the capacity to deter attacks against civilians. Pressure on the Security Council to act led to a resolution authorizing an arms embargo on nonstate groups and a threat to impose economic sanctions if Sudan did not arrest those responsible for war crimes.37

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States interpreted this resolution in different ways, invoking the entire range of security arrangements. Some invoked the Responsibility to Protect, arguing that the Security Council should do more because Sudan failed to protect its citizens.38 Others said that Sudan had the primary responsibility to protect its citizens and pointed to AU forces as the most appropriate organization to assist. China and Pakistan argued that the resolution went too far, combining realist arguments for sovereignty and capacity building arguments that the resolution may harm diplomatic efforts. Sudan invoked empire rules, saying that Western states were abusing war crimes rules to legitimize neocolonial interference in its affairs. Sudan resisted the perceived hierarchy and threatened war against the UN should it authorize peacekeepers in Darfur without its consent.39 Given these varied interpretations, the Council did not back up its threat to authorize sanctions against Sudan. China, Russia, and even the United Kingdom argued that sanctions might undermine ongoing peace talks between Sudan and the SPLM. The Arab League opposed sanctions under any circumstances. Despite both Secretary of State Colin Powell and a US congressional resolution calling the situation “genocide,” capacity building in the civil war trumped collective security in Darfur. Unable to authorize sanctions, the Security Council instead established a commission of inquiry.40 China and three others abstained, offering typical capacity building arguments. CHINA: The Security Council and the international community should focus on encouraging the Sudanese Government to continue to cooperate, rather than doing the opposite. We should fully support the African Union in its mediation efforts, rather than increase its difficulties. We should help bring about an early agreement with a view to the achievement of a political solution between the Sudanese Government and the rebels, rather than send the wrong signal and make negotiations more difficult.41

The situation in Darfur deteriorated. The parties violated the cease-fire with impunity. Sudan arrested no militia leaders. The AU PKO could not protect civilians. The Security Council tried to juggle capacity building in the south and collective security in Darfur with a November 2004 resolution that declared support for the peace process between Sudan and the SPLM and demanded that all actors end war crimes violations in Darfur.42 In January 2005, Sudan and the SPLM signed a comprehensive peace agreement, paving the way for the Security Council to authorize a PKO to monitor its implementation. Later that month, however, the commission of inquiry authorized by the Security Council concluded that Sudan and the militias had committed many war crimes in Darfur, including killing civilians, torture, forced disappearances, destroying villages, and rape. The United Kingdom demanded that any resolution authorizing the PKO to monitor implementation of the north-south peace agreement also include

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an ICC referral on Darfur. Unable to do capacity building and collective security at the same time, the Security Council broke a two-month deadlock by decoupling the issues. It first authorized a PKO, the United Nations Mission in Sudan (UNMIS), to monitor the Sudan-SPLM peace agreement.43 The resolution invoked Chapter VII authority, condemned war crimes violations in Darfur, and included a POC mandate—without stating that UNMIS troops would go to Darfur. Four days later, it authorized travel and financial sanctions against any individuals committing war crimes in Darfur.44 It also authorized a no-fly zone and expanded the arms embargo to all actors—the first action targeting the government of Sudan regarding Darfur. Russia, China, and Algeria abstained, again prioritizing diplomacy and mediation over collective security. RUSSIA: It is important to give time to the united Government of the Sudan . . . so that it can show itself in a positive light, including with regard to Darfur. The imposition of sanctions against that Government is hardly likely to create a constructive atmosphere for its efforts . . . both the African Union and the League of Arab States have unequivocally opposed the unfounded strengthening of sanctions pressure in the Darfur context.45

The Security Council referred the Darfur situation to the ICC two days later on March 31, 2005. The debate spanned all four security arrangements. Supporters of the resolution invoked collective security rules, emphasizing the importance of enforcing rules against war crimes. FRANCE: France welcomes the historic resolution that has just been adopted. For the first time, the Security Council has referred a situation to the International Criminal Court. Thus, it has sent a twofold and very forceful message not only to all those who have committed or might be tempted to commit atrocities in Darfur, but also to the victims: the international community will not allow those crimes to go unpunished.46

Four countries did not support the resolution. China abstained, again making capacity building arguments that the resolution would harm ongoing peace processes in Darfur and in the wider civil war between the Sudanese government and the south of Sudan. CHINA : In addressing the issue of impunity . . . it is also necessary to make every effort to avoid any negative impact on the political negotiations on Darfur. When punishing the perpetrators, it is also necessary to promote national reconciliation. When trying to solve the question of Darfur, it is also necessary to sustain the hard-won results in the NorthSouth peace process.47

The United States abstained due to its hostility toward the ICC. The United States made realist arguments that the resolution violated Sudan’s sovereignty because Sudan was not a party to the ICC.

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Algeria and Brazil made critical theory arguments that the resolution was a double standard given previous capitulations to US requests for immunity from ICC jurisdiction. BRAZIL: [It] would be a contradiction to mention, in the very text of a referral by the Council to the ICC, measures that limit the jurisdictional activity of the Court. . . . Brazil has consistently rejected initiatives aimed at extending exemptions of certain categories of individuals from ICC jurisdiction, and we maintain our position to prevent efforts that may have the effect of dismantling the achievements reached in the field of international criminal justice.49

Despite this vigorous debate and the oddity of the United States and China abstaining on the same resolution (it happened only twice during 1990– 2020!), the Security Council took the historic step of enforcing war crimes violations by referring the situation in Darfur to the ICC. Despite the capacity building concerns regarding the civil war, the strengthening POC norm led it to invoke collective security rules in Darfur. Violence continued throughout 2005, including the killing of AU peacekeepers in October. The Security Council responded with only a series of presidential statements condemning the violence.50 When it authorized sanctions against four individuals committing war crimes,51 Russia and China again abstained, prioritizing diplomacy and mediation.52 On May 5, 2006, Sudan signed a peace agreement with one Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) faction (but not both factions, and not with JEM). The agreement did not mention UN peacekeeping, and Sudan still would not consent to a PKO. However, the Security Council expanded UNMIS into Darfur without Sudan’s consent in August 2006.53 It explicitly extended the Chapter VII authorization to use force and the POC mandate into Darfur. In unusual language, the Council “invited” Sudan to consent to the deployment. UNMIS was now monitoring the civil war peace process and the Darfur peace agreement. It was also violating all three peacekeeping norms: consent, neutrality, and self-defense. It was invoking collective security rules with use of force mandates to protect civilians in both contexts. Russia and China again abstained, using realist arguments about the need to gain Sudan’s consent before authorizing a PKO. In July 2007, after much diplomatic pressure by the United States and China, Sudan agreed to a joint AU-UN PKO, the United Nations–African Union Hybrid Operation in Darfur (UNAMID).54 UNMIS returned to its

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original mandate and focused on the north-south peace process. UNAMID had a Chapter VII use of force mandate to protect civilians in Darfur. It was the largest PKO in history at that time, with over 26,000 troops. While the United States justified its vote by invoking collective security rules enforcing the POC norm, China justified its vote by invoking the capacity building rules of traditional peacekeeping norms. Even with a unanimous resolution, the juggling of alternative liberal approaches to global governance continued. UNITED STATES: UNAMID will have a strong mandate to protect civilians and to support the implementation of the Darfur Peace Agreement. . . . These displaced people are highly vulnerable to attack, malnutrition and disease, and they need our immediate help. The brutal treatment of innocent civilians in Darfur is unacceptable to the United States. . . . UNAMID has the authority under Chapter VII to use force to prevent armed attacks, to protect civilians and to prevent any disruption of the implementation of the Darfur Peace Agreement.55

CHINA: The purpose of this resolution is to authorize the launch of the hybrid operation, rather than to exert pressure or impose sanctions. . . . Peacekeeping deployment is only one aspect of the settlement of the Darfur issue. The two-track strategy should continue to be implemented by accelerating the political process. The fundamental prerequisite for achieving lasting peace and stability in Darfur is to encourage all factions in the region to conclude and implement a comprehensive peace agreement.56

In July 2008, the ICC began the process to issue indictments and arrest warrants for al-Bashir. This would be the first ICC indictment for genocide, and the first ICC indictment against a sitting head of state. The announcement led to a backlash—the AU, the Non-Aligned Movement, the Arab League, and the Organization of the Islamic Conference all requested that the Security Council defer any Sudan decision by the ICC. Russia and China agreed, using the familiar combination of realist and capacity building reasons. The Security Council as a whole, however, did not authorize a deferral. It did not stop the ICC from enforcing war crimes rules in Darfur. The ICC indicted al-Bashir and issued arrest warrants for war crimes and crimes against humanity in March 2009. (The ICC also issued indictments against two government ministers, a militia leader, and a leader of a Darfur rebel group.) In July 2010, it issued a second arrest warrant on charges of genocide. Sudan did not cooperate with the ICC by arresting al-Bashir, again citing realist arguments about sovereignty. Multiple African states ignored their obligation under the Rome Statute and also refused to arrest al-Bashir when he entered their country, making critical theory arguments about double

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standards. States resisted expanding the liberal order and putting a head of state on trial for war crimes with a series of nonliberal arguments. The final turning point ending the civil war was a December 2009 agreement on the terms of a referendum in the south on the question of independence. This breakthrough also weakened the tensions between the pursuit of capacity building practices in the civil war and collective security practices in Darfur. From that point on, the Security Council passed every resolution reauthorizing UNAMID and its use of force mandate to protect citizens unanimously. Also from that point on, the Security Council passed every resolution but one reauthorizing the economic sanctions unanimously (China abstained on Resolution 1945 in October 2010). It strengthened the UNAMID mandate when the conflict increased in April 2014. No Security Council member objected to authorizing a PKO to enforce rules against war crimes. The Security Council maintained the PKO presence throughout the conflict. Sudan and the Darfur rebels signed a peace agreement in August 2020, and UNAMID ended in December 2020. Security Council practices regarding Darfur illustrated the importance of the POC norm and the tensions between the two bargains. The hegemonic bargain influenced the Charter bargain—the Security Council unquestionably required the protection of civilians during the armed conflict. Enforcing war crimes violations was an agreed-on social norm. The Security Council could have invoked realist rules on Darfur and not intervened. That approach would also have avoided critical theory charges of neocolonialism and regime change. Those alternative security arrangements, however, did not dominate the debate. The more relevant alternative security arrangement was capacity building—the main debate was whether to emphasize capacity building to end the civil war or collective security to punish war crimes violations in Darfur. Competing liberal approaches to global governance—and the competing bargains at the center of the post–Cold War liberal order—dominated the debate. Preferences for capacity building limited the scope of the liberal order and the extent of collective security practices in Darfur. Capacity building may sometimes fail to live up to the hegemonic bargain, but it never violates the Charter bargain. Even with this tension between the two bargains in this case, the protection of civilians in Darfur remained a compelling norm— the United States abstained on the ICC referral, and Russia and China approved sanctions and the use of force. The Darfur case shows that even when the Charter bargain pushed back against the hegemonic bargain, protecting civilians in armed conflicts remained a shared norm at the heart of the liberal order. The next chapter discusses how the strength of this norm also influenced Security Council practices regarding the assertion of human rights rules during armed conflicts.

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Notes 1. For example, United Nations, Uniting Our Strengths for Peace, 132. 2. UN Security Council, Resolution 1265 (September 17, 1999). 3. UN Security Council, Resolution 1894 (November 11, 2009), emphasis in original. 4. UN Security Council, Meeting 6216 (November 11, 2009), 3–16. 5. Linklater, Violence and Civilization in the Western States-Systems, 341. 6. Cater and Malone, “The Origins and Evolution of Responsibility to Protect at the UN”; Komp, “How the Responsibility to Protect Influences the Security Council’s Powers, Limits and Dynamic”; Mathias, “UN Peacekeeping Today.” 7. For an important discussion, see UN Security Council, Meeting 4877 (December 9, 2003). 8. United Nations, Report of the Panel on United Nations Peace Operations, 51. 9. UN Security Council, Meeting 4194 (September 7, 2000), 3–4. 10. International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty, The Responsibility to Protect. 11. United Nations, Protecting Civilians in the Context of UN Peacekeeping Operations, 2. 12. Gifkins, “R2P in the UN Security Council.” 13. Bellamy and Hunt, “Twenty-first Century UN Peace Operations”; Hultman, “UN Peace Operations and Protection of Civilians.” 14. Benson and Gizelis, “A Gendered Imperative.” 15. Nasu, “Peacekeeping, Civilian Protection Mandates and the Responsibility to Protect”; Wills, Protecting Civilians. 16. Nasu, International Law on Peacekeeping; Boutros-Ghali, An Agenda for Peace; Berdal, “Revisiting the ‘Responsibility to Protect’ and the Use of Force.” 17. United Nations, Report of the Panel on United Nations Peace Operations, para. 48. 18. White, “Peacekeeping and International Law”; Tsagourias, “Consent, Neutrality, and the Use of Force in Peacekeeping.” 19. UN Security Council, Resolution 1159 (March 27, 1998); UN Security Council, Resolution 1320 (September 15, 2000); UN Security Council, Resolution 1528 (February 27, 2004); UN Security Council, Resolution 1590 (March 24, 2005). 20. A 2008 UN peacekeeping document stated: “The need for evenhandedness towards the parties should not become an excuse for inaction in the face of behavior that clearly works against the peace process . . . or the international norms and principles that a United Nations peacekeeping operation upholds.” United Nations, United Nations Peacekeeping Operations, Principles, and Guidelines, 33. 21. Donald, “Neutrality, Impartiality, and UN Peacekeeping.” 22. Megret, “Between R2P and the ICC”; Boulden, “Mandates Matter.” 23. K. E. Cox, “Beyond Self-Defense.” 24. United Nations, Report of the Panel on United Nations Peace Operations, para. 51; United Nations, United Nations Peacekeeping Operations, Principles, and Guidelines, 31. 25. Bellamy and Hunt, “Twenty-first Century UN Peace Operations”; Mateja, “Between Doctrine and Practice.” 26. Russia and China have supported this norm in its Council practices. See Foot, China, the UN, and Human Protection. See also the Russian and Chinese statements in UN Security Council, Meeting 4046 (September 17, 1999); UN Security Council,

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Meeting 4312 (April 23, 2001); UN Security Council, Meeting 4492 (March 15, 2002); UN Security Council, Meeting 6216 (November 9, 2009). 27. The list includes Sierra Leone, Haiti, Burundi, Liberia, Sudan, Democratic Republic of the Congo, South Sudan, Côte d’Ivoire, Central African Republic, and Mali. 28. Curran and Holton, “Resonating, Rejecting, Reinterpreting”; de Coning, Aoi, and Karlsrud, UN Peacekeeping Doctrine in a New Era; Piiparinen, “Intervening to Strengthen Sovereignty”; Aurobinda Mahapatra, “The Mandate and the (In)effectiveness of the United Nations Security Council.” 29. Karlsrud, “United Nations Stabilization Operations.” 30. For example, see UN Security Council, Resolution 2100 (April 25, 2013). 31. Bellamy and Hunt, “Twenty-first Century UN Peace Operations.” 32. Lipson, “Peacekeeping: Organized Hypocrisy?” 33. Bellamy and Williams, “The UN Security Council and the Question of Humanitarian Intervention in Darfur.” 34. Udombana, “Still Playing Dice with Lives,” 97 35. Contessi, “Multilateralism, Intervention and Norm Contestation.” 36. UN Security Council, Resolution 1564 (September 18, 2004); UN Security Council, Resolution 1574 (November 19, 2004); UN Security Council, Resolution 1706 (August 31, 2006). 37. UN Security Council, Resolution 1556 (July 30, 2004). 38. UN Security Council, Meeting 5015 (July 30, 2004), 10–11. 39. UN Security Council, Meeting 5015 (July 30, 2004), 13. 40. UN Security Council, Resolution 1564 (September 18, 2004). 41. UN Security Council, Meeting 5040 (September 18, 2004), 2–3. 42. UN Security Council, Resolution 1574 (November 19, 2004). 43. UN Security Council, Resolution 1590 (March 24, 2005). 44. UN Security Council, Resolution 1591 (March 29, 2005). 45. UN Security Council, Meeting 5153 (March 29, 2005), 2–5. 46. UN Security Council, Meeting 5158 (March 31, 2005), 8. 47. UN Security Council, Meeting 5158 (March 31, 2005), 5. 48. UN Security Council, Meeting 5158 (March 31, 2005), 3. 49. UN Security Council, Meeting 5158 (March 31, 2005), 11. 50. UN Security Council, Presidential Statement 48 (October 13, 2005); UN Security Council, Presidential Statement 67 (December 21, 2005); UN Security Council, Presidential Statement 5 (February 3, 2006); UN Security Council, Presidential Statement 16 (April 11, 2006). 51. UN Security Council, Resolution 1672 (April 25, 2006). 52. UN Security Council, Meeting 5423 (April 25, 2006), 2. 53. UN Security Council, Resolution 1706 (August 31, 2006). 54. UN Security Council, Resolution 1769 (July 31, 2007). 55. UN Security Council, Meeting 5727 (July 31, 2007), 7. 56. UN Security Council, Meeting 5727 (July 31, 2007), 10–11.

7 Supporting Human Rights

ONE OF THE MOST SIGNIFICANT POST–COLD WAR CONFLICTS OCCURRED in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). In addition to a complicated civil war with multiple domestic warring parties, regional conflicts also spilled over into the DRC, with neighboring countries—including Sudan, Rwanda, Uganda, and Angola—going after domestic enemies within DRC territory. These regional conflicts led to over 3 million deaths and 6 million displaced people. The external conflict that most influenced DRC stability was the 1994 Rwandan genocide. The Hutus who committed the genocide in Rwanda ended up losing that civil war and fleeing into the DRC as refugees. The new Rwandan government sent its military into the DRC to capture those who were wanted for war crimes. A 1999 cease-fire and a UN peacekeeping operation (PKO) began the slow process of military withdrawal from the DRC. However, the Hutus formed a range of armed militia groups that threatened Rwandan and DRC security interests, as well as terrorized the population in eastern DRC provinces. The Security Council mandated the PKO to disarm domestic armed groups in December 2002.1 It authorized the European Union (EU) to use force to restore order in May 2003.2 It authorized sanctions against those who violated an arms embargo in April 2004.3 It ultimately authorized stabilization forces to protect civilians. The PKO mandates also focused on human rights to protect citizens from armed militia groups. Indeed, during 2017–2020, the Security Council passed five DRC resolutions that each referred to “human rights” at least thirty-five times!4 These resolutions condemned human rights violations by all armed groups in the DRC, identified domestic armed groups that had engaged in sexual violence and used child soldiers, asserted that human rights violations fueled the violence in the DRC, and authorized PKO mandates regarding sexual violence, the protection of children, and access to 109

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humanitarian aid. Security Council members did not question the emphasis on human rights. This statement was typical. UNITED KINGDOM: [The resolution] gives clear priority to the essential tasks of protecting civilians and supporting the implementation of the political agreement; it reaffirms the importance of human rights, including monitoring and reporting on human rights in the context of the elections; and it retains the robust mandate of the [PKO] to tackle armed groups in order to protect civilians, including through the Intervention Brigade.5

Human rights are central to the liberal order. Human rights as negative rights (consistent with limited government such as due process, freedom of speech, and freedom of religion) embody Enlightenment arguments about the nature of liberty. Human rights as positive rights (consistent with government provision of public goods such as food, water, education, and health care) is the culmination of Enlightenment arguments about the worth of individuals and the conditions necessary for all to flourish. Only the term “collective security” appears more often than “human rights” in the UN Charter. Human rights drove the decolonization process. It revolutionized international law—in addition to states having rights and obligations toward each other, they also have obligations toward their citizens. It animated transnational movements regarding poverty, race, and gender. And it has remained a mandate for many UN agencies. The liberal advocacy of human rights extends beyond philosophical arguments about the nature of liberty and the worth of all individuals. Human rights are also a pathway to peace. Liberals argue that the violation of human rights leads to conflict. States that violate the human rights of their own citizens not only will be more likely to suffer civil wars, but also more likely to engage in conflicts with other states. The liberal pursuit of global security includes capacity building and collective security practices to ensure human rights. The logical conclusion of these arguments is that a legitimate way for the Security Council to fulfill its UN Charter mandate to maintain global security is to authorize collective security practices and prohibit, monitor, and enforce measures against those who violate human rights.6 The Security Council has not, however, pursued this classic liberal argument about human rights. This is an important example of the Charter bargain limiting the scope of the hegemonic bargain. In this context, traditional notions of state sovereignty have limited the scope of legitimate collective security practices to enforce human rights rules. The Security Council has not asserted human rights violations in a typical domestic situation outside the context of an armed conflict. For example, it has not authorized sanctions against states that tortured political prisoners or discriminated against religious minorities. Instead, it has applied human rights rules to armed conflicts to bolster the protection of civilians (POC) norm. As in the

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DRC, the Security Council has routinely asserted that parties to armed conflicts have violated human rights rules. It has adopted liberal arguments about human rights as a conflict resolution strategy—but in a way analogous to war crimes as discussed in Chapter 6. The Security Council has asserted liberal rules about human rights—but only in the context of armed conflicts. The shared norm constituting legitimate Security Council practices has been to protect civilians in armed conflicts, not to enforce human rights in a way consistent with classic liberal arguments. In this chapter I first argue that the Collective Security Dataset (CSD) results about human rights stem from the Security Council applying human rights rules to armed conflict. I also summarize Russian and Chinese efforts to keep the classic liberal notion of human rights off the Security Council agenda. Next, I look at the important example of Libya, where concern for human rights led to a Security Council authorization of force to protect citizens. The ensuing North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) operation stretched its military mandate and ended Muammar Qaddafi’s regime. It cemented Russian and Chinese adherence to the critical theory argument that human rights are simply a Western ruse to justify regime change. The Libya operation stretched the boundaries of the liberal order and generated additional resistance to that order. When the Charter bargain fails to check the hegemonic bargain, the liberal order can resemble empire.

The Security Council and Human Rights The CSD results show that the Security Council asserted human rights violations 542 times in 1990–2020, more than it asserted terrorism and weapons of mass destruction (WMD) violations combined. This is clear evidence that the hegemonic bargain has influenced the Charter bargain. Why would Russia and China support so many resolutions that asserted human rights violations? The answer is not that the Security Council has embraced the classic liberal argument about how human rights lead to peace. It has not asserted human rights violations in “typical” domestic situations. It has never punished a UN member state for religious discrimination, due process violations, censoring the press, or torturing political prisoners. The hegemonic bargain has not influenced the Charter bargain to this extent. Instead, the influence has been limited to asserting human rights violations during armed conflicts to enhance the POC norm. The Security Council has fused war crimes and human rights when addressing armed conflicts. When the Security Council asserted a human rights violation, it also asserted a war crimes violation 94 percent of the time. This fusion is neither necessary nor logically consistent with the Charter bargain. Human rights are distinct from war crimes. Human rights refer

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to how states treat their own citizens. War crimes refer to how states treat the citizens of other states during armed conflicts. The Security Council has never asserted that human rights violations unconnected to an armed conflict threatened global security. It has asserted human rights violations only in the context of ongoing, armed conflicts. It has blurred the distinctions between human rights and war crimes in two important ways.7 First, given the number of civil wars in the post–Cold War era, the Security Council has applied war crimes rules to civil wars. States can now commit war crimes against their own citizens in a civil war, and nonstate agents can now commit war crimes against their fellow citizens in a civil war. Second, and more central to the argument in this chapter, the Security Council has applied human rights rules to situations of armed conflict to offer additional legal protections to civilians.8 States can now violate the human rights of other states’ citizens in the context of an armed conflict. Nonstate actors are now also obligated to comply with human rights rules during an armed conflict, particularly if they control territory.9 In the context of an armed conflict, war crimes and human rights violations now overlap greatly. As the DRC example illustrates, the Security Council has passed resolutions asserting that armed militias attacking civilians constituted not only war crimes, but also human rights violations. Similar to the Security Council blurring the distinction between collective security and peacekeeping to strengthen the liberal order and protect civilians during armed conflict, it has also blurred the distinction between human rights and war crimes. The conflation of human rights and war crimes goes beyond the Security Council.10 UN General Assembly and Human Rights Council resolutions have explicitly condemned human rights violations during armed conflicts. The International Court of Justice has ruled that states have committed human rights violations during armed conflicts and military occupations. The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia ruled that consistent usage across human rights treaties can count as customary international humanitarian law (IHL) and help clarify ambiguous rules regarding the prohibition on torture. This trend within the liberal order is a pragmatic attempt to increase protections for civilians during armed conflicts. Human rights rules often provide greater protections for civilians than war crimes rules, particularly regarding the arbitrary deprivation of life, bodily integrity, detentions, and due process.11 The Security Council has embraced this trend.12 The CSD results showed that it authorized PKOs to monitor human rights violations 351 times. It established many sanctions regimes with designation criteria related to human rights.13 It created thematic agenda items related to human rights (“children and armed conflict,” “civilians in armed conflict,” and “women and peace and security”) that have led to regular briefings by UN

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human rights officials, including an annual report by the Secretary-General on child soldiers and sexual violence during armed conflict. The most important practice, of course, is the routine assertion of human rights violations in its resolutions. Russia and China have accepted the practice of asserting that human rights violations in situations of armed conflict constitute a threat to international security. Within this context, the Security Council has routinely asserted liberal arguments about the connection between human rights and global security. Russia and China do not, of course, want the Security Council to pursue the classic liberal project regarding human rights. They object to a sole focus on human rights violations within one country when no armed conflict is occurring. They consider human rights in that context as an internal matter that does not threaten international security. Russia and China make realist arguments about prioritizing state sovereignty and protecting national security. Both also make critical theory arguments that Western advocacy of human rights is a means to promote regime change in nonliberal countries, perhaps even in their own countries.14 Both argue that human rights in this sense should not be on the Security Council agenda. Both have vetoed resolutions targeting North Korea, Myanmar, and Zimbabwe for human rights violations. The following is a typical statement by China during a meeting about human rights in North Korea. CHINA: The Charter of the United Nations stipulates in no uncertain terms that the primary responsibility of the Security Council is the maintenance of international peace and security. The Security Council is not a forum for discussing human rights issues, still less for the politicization of such issues. Given the current context, in which international peace and security are facing a plethora of dire challenges, the Council should scrupulously honor its responsibility and focus on issues related to international peace and security with undivided attention.15

Russia and China have prevented Security Council action even when human rights violations trigger cross-border refugee flows, as in Myanmar’s treatment of the Rohingya. The Security Council has routinely cited the international security implications of refugee flows to justify expanding its agenda and dealing with civil wars. However, refugee flows stemming from human rights violations in Myanmar have not led to a similar agenda expansion. The Security Council mustered only ten meetings, one presidential statement, and no resolutions on the Rohingya crisis through December 2020. Given Russian and Chinese resistance to the classic liberal pursuit of global security through human rights, the Security Council has asserted human rights violations without also asserting war crimes violations only forty-five times.16 This small set of statements, though, are not examples

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of the Security Council asserting that states harmed international security by committing human rights violations outside the context of armed conflicts. Two were 1992 presidential statements on the historically unique case of apartheid South Africa. The rest referred to either an ongoing conflict or a postconflict situation in which human rights violations continued. The Council also did not pursue much collective security enforcement— over two-thirds (thirty-one of forty-five) were shame on you statements. Twelve of the remaining fourteen were resolutions on Haiti that did not explicitly name a particular violator. Only two targeted a specific violator, and they were nonstate agents in Sierra Leone and Somalia. These resolutions did not enforce the classic liberal argument by stating that human rights violations by governments (absent an armed conflict) threatened international security. Russia and China objected only once to this set of resolutions—a Chinese abstention on a 1991 resolution immediately after the Gulf War demanding that Iraq end human rights violations against its Kurdish and Shia citizens, an early post–Cold War resolution in which the United States, United Kingdom, and France (P3) flirted with the classic liberal argument about human rights. (The P3, of course, could not get Russia and China to go further and ended up enforcing no-fly zones against Iraq without Security Council authorization.) While Russia and China rarely objected to these resolutions, they also rarely made public statements in support. Indeed, given ninety chances, there is only one—Russia supported a 2004 presidential statement on Haiti. RUSSIA: Moscow shares the international community’s deep concern about the wave of violence and human rights abuses that has engulfed Haiti along with the seizure of a number of cities, armed conflict and widespread turmoil, resulting in great loss of human life. We firmly condemn the acts of violence in Haiti. In the alarming situation that is developing, we call on all forces in Haitian society to put an end to violence and to undertake peaceful dialogue.17

The pattern of Security Council assertions of human rights violations is clear. When resolutions conflated human rights with war crimes and asserted human rights violations in the context of an armed conflict—when the purpose was to strengthen the POC norm—Russia and China consented to the liberal order. When resolutions did not conflate human rights with war crimes and pursued the classic liberal project, Russia and China objected. While this distinction was crucial, the line between human rights violations during an armed conflict and human rights violations in typical domestic contexts was not always clear. In the next section, I look at the important example of Libya. Russia and China initially supported the use of force to protect citizens from the Libyan government. When the NATO

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operation led to the end of the Qaddafi regime—when the Charter bargain failed to check the imperial potential of the hegemonic bargain—Russia and China invoked the rules of empire and became harsh critics.

Libya Arab Spring protests erupted in Benghazi, Libya, on February 16, 2011.18 The Qaddafi regime responded with a wide range of human rights abuses and even air strikes against unarmed protesters. International condemnation was immediate. The UN Human Rights Council established a commission of inquiry. The General Assembly suspended Libya’s membership on the Human Rights Council. The European Union and the African Union condemned Libya. The Arab League even suspended Libya’s membership. Human rights groups argued that Libya’s actions might constitute crimes against humanity, an important category of war crimes within IHL. Even when the context was state violence against unarmed citizens—prior to an obvious situation of violent conflict between two armed groups—the liberal order conflated human rights and war crimes. The Security Council acted quickly, unanimously deploring “the gross and systematic violation of human rights . . . against the civilian population made from the highest level of the Libyan government.”19 The resolution asserted human rights and war crimes violations. It referred the situation to the International Criminal Court (ICC), whose jurisdiction includes war crimes, not human rights violations. It imposed financial sanctions on senior regime officials and authorized an arms embargo. Despite the quick response, however, the veto powers framed the resolution in different ways. The UK emphasized the importance of human rights justifying a swift approach to the building crisis in Libya. UNITED KINGDOM: The violence we have seen and the incitement to further violence by Colonel Al-Qadhafi are totally unacceptable, and my Government has expressed its profound condemnation of them. Today’s resolution demands an immediate end to violence and repression, full respect for human rights and international law, and accountability for those responsible for the violence.20

France explicitly invoked the Responsibility to Protect norm and even said the resolution heralded a new era in liberal global governance. FRANCE: The text, unanimously adopted today, recalls the responsibility of each State to protect its own population and of the international community to intervene when States fail in their duty. We hope that the responsible parties of the Libyan regime will hear the message of the international community and put an end to the unacceptable violence

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Even Russia came perilously close to conveying the classic liberal argument that human rights violations threaten international peace and security. RUSSIA: We condemn the use of military force against peaceful demonstrators and all other manifestations of violence and consider them absolutely unacceptable. . . . This [resolution] is necessary in order to prevent a full-scale civil war and to preserve Libya as a united, sovereign State with territorial integrity. All the parties involved must show restraint and observe the norms of international civil and human rights law.22

China, however, did not mention human rights. China gave its standard argument in situations where it could not stop the expansion of the liberal order. It cited the “special situation” and said that the resolution should not establish a future precedent. CHINA: China is deeply concerned over the turbulent situation in Libya. In our view, it is of the greatest urgency to secure the immediate cessation of violence, avoid further bloodshed and civilian casualties, restore stability and normal order as soon as possible, and resolve the current crisis through peaceful means. . . . Taking into consideration the special situation in Libya at this time and the concerns and views of the Arab and African countries, the Chinese delegation voted in favor of resolution 1970.23

Subsequent events solidified the conflation of human rights and war crimes. The brutal response to the Arab Spring protests led to an armed insurrection and an opposition group called the National Transitional Council (NTC). Many government officials (including the Libyan ambassador to the UN) resigned and joined the opposition. Military officials defected and joined the insurrection. Qaddafi responded by sending government forces to the outskirts of Benghazi and escalating air attacks against civilians. Regional organizations such as the Arab League, the Organization of the Islamic Conference, and the African Union called on the Security Council to establish a no-fly zone to protect civilians. Significantly, these organizations all rejected foreign intervention with the goal of regime change. The NTC also called for a no-fly zone, warning that Qaddafi’s recapturing of Benghazi would lead to 500,000 deaths. On March 17, Qaddafi addressed his country and announced an imminent attack on Benghazi, saying that he would show “no mercy” on those who refused to surrender. On that same day, the Security Council authorized NATO to establish a no-fly zone to “protect civilians and populated areas under threat of attack.”24

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It was the first time the Security Council had authorized multinational forces to protect citizens without the consent of the host state. It explicitly did not authorize “a foreign occupation force of any form on any part of Libyan territory.” Still, five countries abstained—China, Russia, and the significant examples of Brazil, Germany, and India. Germany offered a collective security rationale, preferring to strengthen sanctions rather than use force. (This was the only time in the post–Cold War era that Germany did not vote with the P3.) The other four claimed that the resolution did not clearly limit the use of force authorization, presciently conveying the critical theory argument that the use of force could result in regime change. INDIA: The Council has today adopted a resolution that authorizes farreaching measures under Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter, with relatively little credible information on the situation on the ground in Libya. We also do not have clarity about details of enforcement measures, including who will participate and with what assets, and how these measures will exactly be carried out. It is of course very important that there be full respect for the sovereignty, unity and territorial integrity of Libya.25

Russia and China referred to the POC norm, requests by regional organizations for the no-fly zone, and “special circumstances” to justify abstentions rather than a veto. RUSSIA: Our position regarding the clear unacceptability of the use of force against the civilian population of Libya remains unchanged. Any attacks against civilians and other violations of international humanitarian law and human rights must immediately and unconditionally cease. . . . I underscore yet again that we are consistent and firm advocates of the protection of the civilian population. Guided by this basic principle as well as by the common humanitarian values that we share with both the sponsors and other Council members, Russia did not prevent the adoption of this resolution.26 CHINA: China has serious difficulty with parts of the resolution. Meanwhile, China attaches great importance to the relevant position by the 22-member Arab League on the establishment of a no-fly zone over Libya. We also attach great importance to the position of African countries and the African Union. In view of this, and considering the special circumstances surrounding the situation in Libya, China abstained from the voting.27

The hegemonic bargain had once again influenced the Charter bargain. Russia and China did not veto the resolution. The Security Council authorized multinational forces to protect civilians from their own government without the consent of that government. Given the context of an ongoing civil war, the use of force to protect citizens eventually expanded in practice so that NATO ended up taking sides. 28 The NATO military intervention began by enforcing the no-fly zone with attacks

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against Libyan air defense systems. NATO also targeted troops retreating from Benghazi that posed no threats to civilians. It supplied weapons, provided air support, and offered logistics and intelligence to rebel groups. It attacked hundreds of military targets, including one that led to the death of Qaddafi’s son. The ultimately coercive logic of collective security enforcement emerged. Previous supporters of the no-fly zone, such as the Arab League, soon argued that the military intervention had gone too far. Russia and China routinely made the critical theory argument that the advocacy of human rights rules was not sincere, but merely a justification for regime change. 29 The NATO operation in Libya was not a watershed moment for the liberal order, they argued, but instead a return to neocolonial practices. The NATO military intervention was crucial in ousting the Qaddafi regime. The rebels gained control over Tripoli in August. By September, the General Assembly decided that the National Transitional Council would represent Libya in the UN, and the Security Council established a political mission to help with the transition to the next government.30 By October, Qaddafi was captured and killed, the NTC declared victory and announced plans to hold elections within eight months, the Security Council ended the no-fly zone,31 and NATO ended its military operations. The Security Council intervention with a mandate to protect the human rights of Libya’s citizens led to the fall of Libya’s oppressive government. For liberals, it was an appropriate path to global security. For realists, it was an egregious violation of state sovereignty. For critical theorists, it was hierarchical, neocolonial regime change. As in many other post–Cold War contexts, toppling an authoritarian leader led to greater insecurity. Conflict continued after the NATO troops left, beginning with pro-NTC and anti-NTC armed groups clashing in Benghazi throughout 2012. The number of armed groups expanded and eventually included Islamist groups linked to al-Qaeda. In September 2012, Islamist militants stormed the US embassy and killed four Americans, including the US ambassador. Renegade generals tried to seize the parliament. Armed groups captured oil fields and bought weapons with illegal oil sales. Elections had extremely low turnout due to security concerns. The Tripoli international airport was destroyed. Islamist groups controlled large sections of Benghazi, Sirte, and Tripoli. An armed group freed one of Qaddafi’s sons, who was on death row for crimes committed during the 2011 uprising, from prison. The lawlessness led to increased levels of smuggling and human trafficking across the Mediterranean Sea. It was difficult to argue that the NATO intervention had ultimately led to increased levels of security and human rights in Libya. On May 10, 2011, the Security Council met with “protection of civilians in armed conflict” as the agenda item. Russia, China, India, and South

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Africa all warned against the further use of POC mandates to intervene into conflicts and justify regime change. INDIA: Efforts to protect civilians must respect the fundamental aspects of the United Nations Charter, including the sovereignty and integrity of Member States. Any decision to intervene that is associated with political motives detracts from that noble principle and needs to be avoided. . . . In that context, I cannot but ask the question: Who watches the guardians? There is a considerable sense of unease about the manner in which the humanitarian imperative of protecting civilians has been interpreted for actual action on the ground.32

Despite the controversy over the use of force, Security Council practices continued in Libya throughout the conflict. The Council extended the sanctions, the arms embargo, and the political mission—but authorized no further peacekeepers or troops on the ground. It increased sanctions against those proliferating weapons and authorized states to use force (to inspect cargo, seize contraband, or deny entry into ports) to prevent weapons from going to Islamist groups.33 It extended the use of force authorization to prevent the illegal sale of crude oil.34 It extended it again to inspect and seize vessels suspected of human trafficking.35 All of these practices continued through December 2020. The Security Council passed thirty-six resolutions on Libya after the NATO military operation, and thirty-one were unanimous. The only Russian and Chinese abstentions were on a November 2018 resolution that added gender-based violence as a separate criterion for sanctions, a May 2020 resolution that altered the process by which member states could seize Libyan oil, and a September 2020 resolution that mandated the political mission to monitor cease-fires without the consent of the parties. Security Council practices in Libya illustrated the ambiguities of human rights within the liberal order. The Security Council acted when it conflated war crimes with human rights and asserted human rights violations to protect civilians during armed conflict. It did not act in the absence of an ongoing armed conflict. Not every situation, though—for example, Libya’s efforts to crush Arab Spring demonstrations—fit neatly into one of those boxes. The liberal norms of human rights and POC were sometimes persuasive even without the existence of full-fledged armed conflict. Regional organizations called for Security Council action in Libya. Russia and China recognized the special circumstances of the Libya situation. As in other situations where resolutions referred to “unique” or “special” circumstances, they recognized that the legitimacy of the Security Council required it to authorize liberal practices. That is, the hegemonic bargain had again influenced the Charter bargain. Failing to protect civilians and enforce human rights rules was unacceptable to UN member states, and Russia and China did not (initially) object.

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Of course, Russia and China did object when the NATO operation led to the fall of Qaddafi. The spirit of the hegemonic bargain had trumped the letter of the Charter bargain. The NATO use of force went beyond the literal Security Council authorization to protect civilians—but followed the ultimate logic of the hegemonic bargain about human rights—and led to regime change. While the increasingly liberal nature of the Charter bargain required the Security Council to protect civilians, regime change was not a mutually understood part of that bargain. Unlike in Darfur, the Charter bargain did not limit the ambitions of the hegemonic bargain in Libya. It did not prevent the liberal order from looking like empire and triggering critical theory arguments. Russia and China explicitly argued that the West used human rights as a ruse to get rid of an anti-Western leader. Suspicion of Western motives about regime change, then, directly influenced their future obstruction to liberal global governance in Syria. The Libya case thus illustrates the complexity of the liberal order. Once again, the strength of the liberal order is the unquestioned legitimacy of the POC norm during armed conflicts. Human rights, when invoked in the context of armed conflicts, is also a shared norm. However, there are limits to the liberal order. One limit occurs when the authorization of collective security enforcement to protect human rights—even to protect civilians during an armed conflict—leads to regime change unauthorized by the Charter bargain. The liberal order requires each bargain to influence the other. To avoid Westphalian anarchy, the hegemonic bargain needs to consistently expand the scope of the Charter bargain. To avoid empire, the Charter bargain also needs to consistently limit the scope of the hegemonic bargain. For many states, Libya is an example of the hegemonic bargain acting unchecked by the Charter bargain. They want the pendulum to swing back in the direction of the Charter bargain. Such changes are not a sign of the decline in the liberal order. It is instead a normal renegotiation between the two bargains constituting the liberal order. The decline narrative implies that Westphalian anarchy will return once the liberal order ends. Another possibility, one explained by the renegotiation narrative, is that the liberal order is undergoing a correction to avoid the imperial potential of the hegemonic bargain. This implication of the renegotiation narrative provides context for the discussion of the Security Council’s practices regarding democracy in the next chapter. The overall CSD results show a decline in practices regarding democracy. However, that decline is overwhelmingly concentrated within collective security practices. The CSD results show no decline in Security Council capacity building practices regarding democracy, particularly those in peacekeeping mandates. Emphasizing capacity building rather than collective security practices regarding democracy is another example of the Charter bargain limiting the scope of the hege-

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monic bargain. It is thus consistent with the renegotiation narrative that the liberal order is changing to avoid the imperial logic of an unchecked hegemonic bargain.

Notes 1. UN Security Council, Resolution 1445 (December 4, 2002). 2. UN Security Council, Resolution 1484 (May 30, 2003). 3. UN Security Council, Resolution 1493 (July 28, 2003). 4. UN Security Council, Resolution 2348 (March 31, 2017); UN Security Council, Resolution 2409 (March 27, 2018); UN Security Council, Resolution 2463 (March 29, 2019); UN Security Council, Resolution 2502 (December 19, 2019); UN Security Council, Resolution 2556 (December 18, 2020). 5. UN Security Council, Meeting 7910 (March 31, 2017), 10. 6. Gowland-Debbas, “The Security Council as Enforcer of Human Rights”; Ramcharan, The Security Council and the Protection of Human Rights. 7. Hathaway, et al., “Which Law Governs During Armed Conflict?” 8. Hill-Cawthorne, “Humanitarian Law, Human Rights Law and the Bifurcation of Armed Conflict.” 9. Siatitsa and Titberidze, “Human Rights in Armed Conflict.” The Security Council first asserted that nonstate actors must respect human rights in UN Security Council, Resolution 1564 (September 18, 2004). 10. Orakhelashvili, “The Interaction Between Human Rights and Humanitarian Law.” 11. Greenwood, “Human Rights and Humanitarian Law.” 12. Genser and Stagno Ugarte, The United Nations Security Council in the Age of Human Rights; Weschler, “Acting on Human Rights.” 13. Giumelli, “Understanding United Nations Targeted Sanctions.” 14. Ziegler, “Contesting the Responsibility to Protect.” 15. UN Security Council, Meeting 7353 (December 22, 2014), 3. See also UN Security Council, Meeting 7575 (December 10, 2015); UN Security Council, Meeting 7830 (December 9, 2016). 16. Regarding Iraq, see UN Security Council, Resolution 688 (April 5, 1991). Regarding Afghanistan, see UN Security Council, Resolution 1076 (October 22, 1996). Regarding Sierra Leone, see UN Security Council, Resolution 1370 (September 18, 2001). Regarding Haiti, see Security Council, Resolution 1529 (February 29, 2004); UN Security Council, Resolution 1576 (November 29, 2004); UN Security Council, Resolution 1608 (June 22, 2005); UN Security Council, Resolution 1702 (August 15, 2006); UN Security Council, Resolution 1944 (October 14, 2010); UN Security Council, Resolution 2012 (October 14, 2011); UN Security Council, Resolution 2070 (October 12, 2012); UN Security Council, Resolution 2119 (October 10, 2013); UN Security Council, Resolution 2180 (October 14, 2014); UN Security Council, Resolution 2243 (October 14, 2015); UN Security Council, Resolution 2313 (October 13, 2016). Regarding Libya, see UN Security Council, Resolution 2040 (March 12, 2012); UN Security Council, Resolution 2095 (March 14, 2013); UN Security Council, Resolution 2144 (March 14, 2014); UN Security Council, Resolution 2174 (August 27, 2014). Regarding Guinea-Bissau, see UN Security Council, Resolution 1949 (November 23, 2010); UN Security Council, Resolution 2092 (February 22, 2013); UN Security Council, Resolution

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2103 (May 22, 2013); UN Security Council, Resolution 2111 (July 24, 2013); UN Security Council, Resolution 2157 (May 29, 2014); UN Security Council, Resolution 2404 (February 28, 2018); UN Security Council, Resolution 2459 (March 15, 2019). 17. UN Security Council, Meeting 4917 (February 26, 2004), 9. 18. Komp, “How the Responsibility to Protect Influences the Security Council’s Powers, Limits and Dynamic”; Bellamy and Williams, “The New Politics of Protection?”; Morris, “Libya and Syria”; Chesterman, “Leading from Behind”; Hehir, “The Permanence of Inconsistency”; Hehir, “Assessing the Influence of the Responsibility to Protect.” 19. UN Security Council, Resolution 1970 (February 26, 2011). 20. UN Security Council, Meeting 6491 (February 26, 2011), 2. 21. UN Security Council, Meeting 6491 (February 26, 2011), 5. 22. UN Security Council, Meeting 6491 (February 26, 2011), 4. 23. UN Security Council, Meeting 6491 (February 26, 2011), 4. 24. UN Security Council, Resolution 1973 (March 17, 2011). 25. UN Security Council, Meeting 6498 (March 17, 2011), 5. 26. UN Security Council, Meeting 6498 (March 17, 2011), 8. 27. UN Security Council, Meeting 6498 (March 17, 2011), 4. 28. Henderson, “International Measures for the Protection of Civilians in Libya and Côte d’Ivoire”; Ulfstein and Christiansen, “The Legality of the NATO Bombing in Libya”; Wedgwood and Dorn, “NATO’s Libya Campaign 2011.” 29. Adebajo, “The Revolt Against the West”; Palma, Technocracy and Selectivity. 30. UN Security Council, Resolution 2009 (September 16, 2011). 31. UN Security Council, Resolution 2016 (October 27, 2011). 32. UN Security Council, Meeting 6531 (May 10, 2011), 10. 33. UN Security Council, Resolution 2174 (August 27, 2014). 34. UN Security Council, Resolution 2146 (March 19, 2014). 35. UN Security Council, Resolution 2240 (October 9, 2015).

8 Defending Democracy

THE HAITIAN MILITARY OUSTED THE DEMOCRATICALLY ELECTED JEANBertrand Aristide in September 1991. This crisis presented an early test for the emerging liberal order. Would the Security Council embrace the liberal argument that authoritarian reversals of democratic elections threaten global security? The Security Council initially pursued capacity building, supporting negotiations that led to the Governors Island Agreement, where the military agreed to return Aristide to power. When the junta failed to comply with the agreement, the Security Council switched to collective security and authorized economic sanctions.1 The military continued to hold on to power, and the situation led to political violence, a refugee crisis, and a humanitarian disaster. The regime’s defiance extended to expelling a UN political mission and international human rights observers. In July 1994, the Security Council authorized multinational forces “to facilitate the departure from Haiti of the military leadership . . . and the prompt return of the legitimately elected President.”2 This was the first time the Security Council had authorized force to restore a democracy.3 The resolution referred to “the unique character of the present situation in Haiti . . . requiring an exceptional response” to justify an expansion of the Security Council’s core liberal practices.4 The resolution did not explicitly state that overthrowing a democratically elected leader was a threat to international security. It instead cited three threats: (1) the humanitarian and security situation in the country; (2) the increasing number of Haitian refugees in the region; and (3) noncompliance with the Governors Island Agreement and other Security Council resolutions. The Security Council acted because the military coup led to destabilizing conditions—including the violation of international law—that, in turn, threatened global security. 123

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The use of force quickly led to the exile of military leaders and the restoration of Aristide to the presidency. The hegemonic bargain again altered the Charter bargain. The Security Council broadened the scope of threats to global security to include liberal arguments about how democratic institutions can lead to peace. Democracy is a fundamental part of the liberal order. Democracies minimize the risk that competing interests will erupt into armed conflict. They are more likely to respect the rule of law and human rights. They are more likely to experience economic growth. Democracies foster the conditions for peace not only within states, but also between states. Liberals advocate the democratic peace thesis—democracies do not go to war with each other.7 When democracies interact with each other, they externalize their domestic norms of peaceful conflict resolution. Democracies trust each other to settle conflicts according to international law, good faith, and reciprocity. This trust does not extend to authoritarian governments, which rely on intimidation and violence to suppress domestic dissent. Conflicts between democracies and nondemocracies can more easily escalate to military conflict. The democratic peace thesis has an obvious implication for liberal global governance—encouraging democracy around the world is one path toward global security.8 An increasing number of democracies would create a larger zone of peace in which conflicts of interest do not lead to war. Democracies would more likely embrace the liberal order and strengthen trade, international law, and human rights. Encouraging democracy is therefore a central part of liberal global governance. Many international organizations, including the Security Council, engage in capacity building to promote democracy. The more difficult question is whether, and under what circumstances, the liberal order should pursue collective security practices to enforce democracy. How often should the Security Council authorize

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sanctions and the use of force against regimes that reverse democratic elections, as it did in Haiti? Similar to the classic liberal argument about human rights, the Security Council has never embraced the democratic peace thesis to the extent that it authorized enforcement measures solely because a government did not meet democratic standards. Many authoritarian governments exist without the threat of collective security enforcement. This is an important example of the Charter bargain limiting the scope of the hegemonic bargain. Also similar to human rights, the Security Council has asserted democracy violations almost exclusively in the context of ongoing armed conflicts. The Security Council has acted when violating democratic rules has exacerbated already unstable conditions to threaten regional security. It has thus recognized one implication of the democratic peace thesis: an illegitimate overthrow of a democratically elected government can worsen other conditions that threaten international security. This chapter proceeds in two steps. First, I distinguish collective security from capacity building practices to promote democracy. The Security Council has pursued collective security enforcement, but not in a routine way, and those practices have decreased over time. This is one way in which the Collective Security Dataset (CSD) data possibly support the decline narrative.9 However, the Security Council has more often pursued capacity building, and I discuss the continued use of peacekeeping operation (PKO) democracy promotion mandates. Finally, I explore the case of Côte d’Ivoire, a rare example where the Security Council intervened to ensure that an authoritarian leader did not steal an election. This case also illustrates that the logical conclusion of the hegemonic bargain often leads to regime change.

Security Council Practices and Democracy The Security Council has never embraced liberal arguments about the democratic peace by asserting that democracy violations alone constituted a threat to global security. It has never explicitly said that regime change was necessary because a UN member was insufficiently democratic. However, it has sometimes argued that authoritarian disruptions of democratic rule exacerbated other conditions—political violence, refugees, humanitarian disasters, military intervention by other states, regional stability—that threaten global security. It has sometimes recognized the liberal argument that democracy plays an important role in the nexus of interdependent global security issues. By asserting that democracy violations—in conjunction with armed conflict, human rights, and war crimes violations—threaten global

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security and warrant collective security enforcement, the Security Council has sometimes invoked liberal arguments about the democratic peace. The CSD results showed that asserting democracy violations was not a routine collective security practice. The Security Council asserted democracy violations 184 times during 1990–2020, about 4.5 percent of all asserted violations. It did so on only seven agenda items—the Security Council did not target most authoritarian states. It authorized economic sanctions with the goal of restoring an electoral democracy four times, and it authorized the use of force that eventually restored an electoral democracy three times.10 All of these cases revolved around an armed conflict— when the Council asserted a democracy violation, it also asserted a war crimes violation 63 percent of the time. It asserted a democracy violation without asserting a war crimes violation only forty times. Similar to human rights, these exceptions do not provide much evidence that the Council has pursued classic liberal arguments about the democratic peace absent an armed conflict harming regional security. In addition to Haiti and Côte d’Ivoire (discussed in the next section), the Security Council also asserted democracy violations in the following agenda items: 1. Angola suffered an intermittent civil war during 1975–2002. In 1993, the Security Council condemned the opposition rebel group for ignoring the results of a postconflict election that it lost and again resorting to violence.11 It also authorized sanctions against the group in 1997 for not complying with a peace agreement that obligated it to disarm, form a political party, and recognize election results.12 2. Burundi ended decades of Tutsi military rule with elections in 1993 that brought a pro-Hutu government to power. Tutsi soldiers assassinated the new president, beginning a civil war that led to 300,000 deaths. The Security Council condemned the Tutsi military coup and established a commission of inquiry on the assassination.13 It also condemned a subsequent 1996 military coup14 and authorized a 2004 PKO with a use of force mandate to protect civilians.15 3. Military coups removed the first democratically elected leaders of Guinea Bissau in 1999 and 2003. After the military assassinated another elected leader in 2009, the Security Council condemned the violence and established a commission of inquiry.16 After a fourth military coup in 2012, the Council imposed travel sanctions on members of the military regime.17 4. In 1996, war-torn Sierra Leone elected as president Ahmed Tejan Kabbah, who signed a peace agreement with a rebel group supported by Liberian president Charles Taylor. When the peace deal unraveled, the military deposed Kabbah and suspended the constitution. The Security Council responded with arms and oil embargoes.18 In

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February 1998, a regional organization authorized an intervention force to restore Kabbah. The Council neither authorized this use of force nor criticized it. In 1999, the rebels drove the regional organization troops out of the capital city and negotiated a power-sharing agreement with Kabbah. A UN PKO (with a use of force mandate to protect civilians—the very first one!) then monitored the peace agreement and became embroiled in the conflict, including an incident in which rebel forces kidnapped hundreds of troops. With the help of British troops and a diamonds embargo, the UN forces eventually defeated the rebels. Kabbah was reelected in 2002 elections in a landslide. A judicial tribunal authorized by the Security Council later convicted militia leaders and Taylor for war crimes. 5. Military mutinies in the Central African Republic in 1997 led the Security Council to authorize French forces and an African Union (AU) PKO to maintain security.19 It condemned a coup attempt in 2001 and demanded that elections take place according to peace agreements in 2009 and 2013. 20 When the conflict expanded in 2014, the Security Council authorized economic sanctions as well as a PKO with stabilization forces and French forces (again) to protect civilians.21 While this is not a long list, the critical theory critique of monitoring again applies—all the targeted agents were African. The limited scope of these practices also helps explain the results in Figure 4.2 showing a decline in asserted rules violations regarding democracy over time. These conflicts occurred in the 1990s and 2000s. When the conflicts ended, so did the asserted democracy violations. In the final years of the CSD dataset, the Security Council did not assert democracy violations when given the chance—for example, after the 2013 postelection violence in Kenya and the 2014 military coup in Thailand. (However, a resolution requesting the Security Council to defer an International Criminal Court [ICC] investigation of the postelection violence in Kenya failed with only seven votes in favor.) Another reason for the decline of collective security practices over time is that collective security is not necessarily the more appropriate form of liberal global governance to address democracy promotion.22 The logic of collective security is to prohibit, monitor, and enforce—do not do certain things or we will punish you. This logic can apply to democracy by prohibiting egregious rule violations—for example, do not use violence to overturn the results of an election. Not every rule, however, prohibits action. Many rules require positive actions and follow the logic of capacity building: here are some important rules to follow, and we will help you follow them. Many democratic practices are positive actions—including forming political

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parties, compromising, holding elections, and accepting the legitimacy of others. Promoting democracy in most (including postconflict) contexts requires not collective security, but capacity building. The extent to which the Security Council authorizes collective security practices to enforce democratic norms is not necessarily an indicator of the health of the liberal order. A better indicator is the number of overall liberal practices, including capacity building. Indeed, most Security Council practices regarding democracy are capacity building in the form of PKO mandates.23 Common PKO mandates include monitoring a cease-fire or peace agreement, mediating negotiations among the parties, and monitoring a border. Other mandates risk bringing peacekeepers into the conflict such as maintaining security, disarming rebel groups, and demilitarizing certain areas. While these are important peacekeeping practices, they are not explicitly liberal approaches to conflict resolution. The Security Council could limit peacekeeping to such mandates. However, other PKO mandates are more directly influenced by liberal arguments: protecting civilians, repatriating refugees, monitoring human rights violations, delivering humanitarian aid, and facilitating elections or democratic governance. Of the more than 3,379 PKO mandates authorized during 1990–2020, nearly half (1,558, or 46 percent) were liberal mandates. The Security Council has clearly embraced liberal arguments about conflict resolution when authorizing PKOs. Promoting democracy was not a minor peacekeeping practice.24 The Security Council authorized a PKO to facilitate elections or democratic governance 338 times, second only to monitoring human rights violations (351) and more often than delivering humanitarian aid (266), repatriating refugees (239), and protecting civilians (213). It authorized twenty-two different PKOs with an election or democracy promotion mandate in the post– Cold War era. This was not a top-down process driven by the Security Council—over sixty states requested UN electoral assistance during 1989– 1996.25 During 1999–2013, the Security Council authorized nineteen new PKOs, and sixteen had democracy promotion mandates. The Security Council even gave a PKO temporary governing authority in Kosovo and East Timor while the parties negotiated future democratic institutions.26 As of December 2020, seven of twelve existing PKOs had a democracy mandate—and the five without one were authorized during the Cold War. The routine nature of democracy promotion in UN peacekeeping shows that the democratic peace thesis has influenced Security Council practices. These mandates assume that democratic institutions will facilitate longterm stability and enable the eventual withdrawal of peacekeeping forces. Democracy mandates are also consistent with the larger role of external security guarantor that PKOs play. PKOs generally monitor the implementation of a peace agreement. They encourage compliance because the parties trust the PKO to ensure that the other side is also in compliance. This

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has traditionally applied to military matters between states—cease-fires, troop withdrawals, and so forth. However, in the post–Cold War context of civil wars, peace also requires agreement on future domestic governance. Liberal arguments about democracy and elections have become central to this process. PKO mandates take for granted that long-term peace following a civil war requires agreement on postconflict democratic institutions. PKOs facilitate democratization by following the logic of an external security guarantor.27 Governments want rebel groups to disarm, demobilize, and form political parties rather than militias—and PKOs monitor, and sometimes even enforce, that disarmament process. Rebel groups want to ensure that future elections are free and fair—and PKOs monitor, and sometimes even administer, the election process. Important democratic norms of trust, compromise, recognizing the legitimacy of the opposition, and not altering the rules to rig elections in one’s favor take time to develop. PKOs help establish those norms by monitoring the compliance of each side. They help create the legitimacy of democratic institutions by engaging the formal rivals in the institution-building process, providing technical assistance regarding writing constitutions, training the police and military, and strengthening civil society. They help convince the former rivals that they can use democratic institutions to claim access to power and resources without resorting to violence. They represent the global legitimacy and resources that flow from participation in the liberal order. These PKO practices, in effect, apply liberal arguments about democracy and peace to post–civil war combatants. These mandates cannot prevent a determined aggressor from cheating during the peace process. Some civil war combatants fail to negotiate, compromise, and support democratic institutions. Successful capacity building requires agents willing to follow the rules. Some critics, however, argue that focusing on democracy and elections can be counterproductive.28 Democratic politics can be contentious and, in a postwar context, exacerbate fear and hatred between contending rivals. Elections can make other goals—political reconciliation, stability, and effective governance—more difficult. Creating democratic institutions without establishing democratic norms may only lead to elected leaders acting in authoritarian ways once in office. Postconflict societies in developing countries may not have the capacity to provide for basic human needs, and the resulting insecurity may sour the population on democracy. Democratic norms are more important than democratic institutions, including elections, and democratic norms take time to develop. For these critics, encouraging postwar combatants to hold a quick election is not an optimal conflict resolution practice. Despite these concerns, the Security Council has applied the logic of the democratic peace thesis and authorized democracy PKO mandates

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throughout the post–Cold War era. The CSD results show that the number of PKO mandates supporting democracy over time has not declined— unlike the trend for the assertion of collective security rules. Perhaps the decline in asserted democracy violations in Figure 4.2 provides some evidence for a decline in the liberal order. Possibly, though, the Security Council has recognized that capacity building is the more appropriate form of global governance regarding democracy promotion. Capacity building is always consistent with the Charter bargain—and it is less coercive, less controversial, and does not lead to external hostile regime change. The irony, of course, is that democratic elections are a type of regime change— but one that is peaceful and legitimate within the liberal order.

Côte d’Ivoire A rare example of collective security enforcement of democracy rules in the post–Cold War era occurred in Côte d’Ivoire. The Security Council asserted democracy violations within the context of a larger armed conflict and widespread war crimes violations. In response to the conflict, the Council authorized a range of sanctions29 and a PKO and French forces with mandates to protect civilians.30 It encouraged elections as a central part of the conflict resolution process. When an incumbent president disputed the election results and the country again deteriorated into armed conflict, the Council strengthened the POC mandate for the French forces and the PKO. As in Libya, UN forces engaged in a military conflict, fought alongside opposition forces, and helped remove a head of state from power. The Council authorized these collective security practices in forty-three resolutions over an eight-year period. Despite plausible criticisms stemming from alternative security arrangements and the literal outcome of regime change, forty-two of the forty-three resolutions were unanimous. Côte d’Ivoire was a French colony that became independent in 1960. Its first president, Felix Houphouet-Boigny, held power throughout the Cold War. He signed a defense agreement that allowed a French military base in the country, and France was willing to intervene in its former colonies to support African allies against domestic insurgencies. HouphouetBoigny won a 1990 election in which opposition parties were on the ballot for the first time, defeating Laurent Gbagbo of the Ivorian Popular Front. Houphouet-Boigny died in 1993, and his successor, Henri Konan Bedie, won a 1995 election boycotted by Gbagbo and the opposition parties. Bedie was overthrown by General Robert Guei in a 1999 military coup, and Guei then ran for president in 2000 against Gbagbo. Guei pronounced himself the winner, but a popular uprising forced him to flee, and Gbagbo became the president. In 2002, a civil war erupted between

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Gbagbo’s southern Christian supporters and northern Muslim supporters of Alessandre Ouattara. France did not respond to the civil war by activating the defense agreement and intervening to help the government. Instead, it led the Security Council response to the conflict as the penholder. In February 2003, the Security Council authorized troops from France and an African regional organization to use force with a mandate to protect civilians.31 For Gbagbo, this amounted to a French betrayal. He used critical theory arguments, characterizing the conflict not as a civil war, but as a “war of second independence” and an anticolonial war against imperialist forces.32 He also used realist arguments and nationalist rhetoric to galvanize his supporters against the “foreign” invasion. Throughout the conflict, he criticized the Security Council as neocolonial due to the central role of France, the historical colonizer of the region, in the enforcement efforts.33 Despite this consistent rhetoric from the leader of a UN member state, no Security Council member objected to any Côte d’Ivoire resolution using such arguments. When negotiations (held in Paris) led to a peace agreement in March 2003, the Security Council authorized its own PKO—in addition to the regional PKO and the French forces—to monitor the implementation of this agreement and oversee the forthcoming elections.34 Similar to Sudan, the Security Council was now doing peacekeeping and collective security at the same time. The PKO tried to mediate the conflict in an ostensibly neutral way, and the French forces tried to protect citizens from attacks by government troops. Also similar to Sudan, the government did not interpret the peacekeepers as neutral. The peace agreement ended when the military killed 120 people during an anti-Gbagbo march. The civil war erupted again, and the opposition soon controlled much of the northern part of the country. Gbagbo continued the narrative that French intervention amounted to a regime change policy. In July 2004, the warring sides negotiated another cease-fire, agreeing to hold an election in 2005 when Gbagbo’s term expired. Gbagbo again violated the cease-fire in November 2004, this time by killing nine French troops in an air strike. The French were now combatants in the conflict, and they retaliated by destroying military planes, seizing an airport, and bombing Gbagbo’s neighborhood. Violent anti-French protests ensued in the south, and French troops clashed with the demonstrators. The Security Council responded by condemning Côte d’Ivoire and authorizing an arms embargo and a sanctions committee to designate individuals harming the peace process for travel and financial sanctions.35 The escalated collective security practices complicated the Security Council’s mediation and election oversight responsibilities, and the escalated violence complicated efforts to hold an election in 2005. The military attacked opposition supporters throughout the campaign. Disputes arose throughout the country about who was a citizen and who had the right to vote. When the PKO

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began to monitor the voter registration process, Gbagbo’s troops attacked the peacekeepers. Human rights groups argued that Côte d’Ivoire was committing war crimes by using child soldiers, attacking civilians, and attacking peacekeepers. The opposition groups in the north were also routinely violating human rights and selling diamonds illegally to fund their insurgency. Amid efforts to deal with the armed conflict, the war crimes, the human rights violations, and the illegal diamond sales, the Security Council continued to emphasize the importance of elections as a means to help resolve the conflict. Below is a typical statement by France during a March 2005 meeting. FRANCE: That election—which all parties to the peace process want to be fair, transparent, free and open—is at the heart of all political calculations . . . the opposition parties requested that the United Nations organize the upcoming elections in order to ensure their credibility. . . . Everything possible must be done to be sure that elections are held according to the timetable that has been set, that is to say, next October—seven months from now—because the holding of free, open and transparent elections is the only solution to the crisis.36

When October arrived, though, Gbagbo announced a postponement of the election. In addition to the ongoing violence, disputes over citizenship and voting rights overwhelmed the preparations for the elections. Gbagbo would now be in office beyond his constitutionally mandated term. The African Union developed an unusual plan after the election postponement. First, Gbagbo would remain in office for twelve months. Second, the AU would mediate an agreement between the parties to name a transitional prime minister to run the government and prepare for elections in October 2006. Third, the UN Secretary-General would coordinate an international working group of AU and UN officials to mediate all outstanding issues between the parties. Fourth, the Security Council would increase the size of its PKO to provide security during the upcoming elections. The Security Council endorsed the AU plan and increased the size of its PKO.37 It also asked the Secretary-General to name a UN official to arbitrate any disputes regarding the election process and to certify that the elections, including the voter registration process, met international standards. These AU and Security Council decisions stripped Gbagbo of much authority over election preparations. The violence, election disputes, and noncompliance by Gbagbo continued, however, and when October 2006 arrived the transitional government announced another postponement of the election. The cycle repeated again, with the AU asking the Security Council to endorse another twelve-month extension, and the Security Council obliged with Resolution 1721. During the deliberations on this resolution, France advocated clauses stating that

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international agreements are predominant over domestic constitutions and urging Côte d’Ivoire to pass constitutional reforms limiting presidential powers. The United States opposed those clauses, arguing that they posed a dangerous precedent.38 The resolution, though, maintained the role of the special representative of the Secretary-General (SRSG) to arbitrate election disputes and certify that the election met international standards. To this point, the Security Council had condemned both sides for war crimes violations, imposed an arms embargo on both sides, authorized a diamond embargo to minimize the ability of opposition groups to buy weapons, and authorized a sanctions committee to identify individuals blocking the peace process. Despite Gbagbo’s rhetoric and the role of the French forces, the Security Council had not (yet) explicitly taken a onesided approach and favored the opposition over the government. In December 2006, France initiated an attempt to target leading government figures in the sanctions committee and failed due to opposition by Russia and China. Preferences for capacity building once again limited the scope of the Security Council’s collective security practices. The overall thrust of the Council’s practices remained an attempt to mediate differences and protect civilians in the ongoing conflict. The violence and voting registration disputes continued throughout 2007. A March agreement to name one of the opposition leaders as the transitional prime minister failed when his plane was shot down in June. When the Security Council met on October 22 to discuss the situation, states continued to emphasize the importance of the elections.39 However, later that week the government postponed the elections for a third time. In addition to the voting rights issues, the opposition groups would not agree to disarm prior to the elections. Eighteen months later, the government announced that it had resolved the voting registration issues and it would hold the election in November 2010. The opposition did not agree to disarm and demobilize. The country would hold an election with armed combatants each patrolling the territory it controlled. The Security Council passed more resolutions increasing the number of peacekeepers and even shifted troops from Liberia to monitor the elections and protect civilians. Côte d’Ivoire finally held UN-supervised elections with Gbagbo running against Ouattara on November 29, 2010, five years after Gbagbo’s term had expired. While there was violence on both sides, the UN, the AU, the European Union (EU), and the domestic election commission declared that Ouattara was the winner. Gbagbo disputed the results and took his case to the Ivoirian courts. On December 3, the Constitutional Council cancelled 660,000 votes in the north and declared Gbagbo the winner. On December 7, the Secretary-General defied the court ruling and reported to the Security Council that Ouattara had won the election.40 Gbagbo did not heed the widespread calls to step aside and demanded that the UN peacekeepers and

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the French troops leave the country. Gbagbo’s troops killed unarmed protesters demanding that he accept the results of the election. The civil war erupted again. The postelection violence brought on by Gbagbo’s refusal to concede the election and engage in a peaceful transition of power generated more collective security practices.41 The ICC announced that it would investigate the situation for war crimes. The Security Council unanimously authorized travel and financial sanctions on Gbagbo and others in the regime (including his wife), strengthened the POC mandates for the UN mission and the French forces, and demanded that Gbagbo step aside and respect the election results.42 It was unclear whether the resolution authorized the troops to take sides in the conflict and remove Gbagbo from power. The resolution did not explicitly state this. China emphasized this point. CHINA: China always believes that United Nations peacekeeping operations should strictly abide by the principle of neutrality. We hope that the United Nations Operation in Côte d’Ivoire will fulfil its mandate in a strict and comprehensive manner, help to peacefully settle the crisis in Côte d’Ivoire and avoid becoming a party to the conflict.43

Other states emphasized the need for the troops to protect civilians and argued that Gbagbo’s actions were responsible for the imminent threat to civilians, implying that the removal of Gbagbo was necessary to fulfill the mandate to protect civilians. UNITED STATES: We have urged former President Gbagbo to step aside so that President Ouattara, as the duly elected President of Côte d’Ivoire, can govern. . . . This resolution sends a strong signal that Mr. Gbagbo and his followers should immediately reject violence and respect the will of the Ivorian people. As violence continues, Côte d’Ivoire stands at a crossroads. Mr. Gbagbo and his supporters can continue to cling to power, which will only lead to more innocent civilians being wounded and killed and more diplomatic and economic isolation, or Mr. Gbagbo and his followers can finally reject violence and respect the will of the Ivorian people.44

Once again, there was tension between the two bargains. While the resolution did not explicitly authorize regime change, the more robust use of force mandate to protect civilians and the escalation of hostilities inevitably brought the UN peacekeepers and French forces more directly into the conflict. They, in effect, joined with the opposition forces who favored Ouattara and fought against the standing military of a UN member state. They responded to the (larger number of) atrocities committed by the army much more often than the (smaller number of) atrocities committed by the opposition forces. Within a month, the joint efforts of the UN, French, and opposition forces took over the capital city. They drove Gbagbo from the presi-

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dential residence and arrested him. Ouattara was sworn in as president. When the ICC later indicted Gbagbo with four counts of crimes against humanity, the Ivoirian government extradited him to the court. The Security Council clearly tipped the scales of this conflict so that the legitimately elected leader could take power. As in Libya (and in Haiti), the intervention did not end the violence and lead directly to domestic governance based on liberal norms. French forces remained until June 2016, and UN peacekeepers remained until April 2017, to maintain security in the unstable post–civil war environment. Ouattara won again in 2015, but the main opposition parties boycotted the election. After controversially altering the constitution to allow him to serve a third term, Ouattara won in 2020—and again the opposition boycotted the election. While collective security enforcement measures restored the legitimately elected leader of Côte d’Ivoire in 2010, democratic norms have not taken root. Collective security practices alone cannot establish these norms. Côte d’Ivoire was a rare case of collective security enforcement of democracy rules. The case illustrated why capacity building may be the more appropriate form of global governance to encourage democracy. It also provided another example of how the liberal order— sometimes even when practices are authorized by the Security Council and thus consistent with the Charter bargain—taken to its logical conclusion leads to regime change. Russia and China are important critics of regime change, and the following chapter analyzes their practices on the Security Council: to what extent have Russia and China defended the Charter bargain from the increasing scope of the hegemonic bargain (consistent with the renegotiation narrative), and to what extent have they undermined the liberal order (consistent with the decline narrative)?

Notes 1. UN Security Council, Resolution 841 (June 16, 1993); UN Security Council, Resolution 917 (May 6, 1994). 2. UN Security Council, Resolution 940 (July 31, 1994). 3. Malone, Decision Making in the UN Security Council. 4. UN Security Council, Resolution 940 (July 31, 1994). 5. UN Security Council, Meeting 3413 (July 31, 1994), 12. 6. UN Security Council, Meeting 3413 (July 31, 1994), 14. 7. Dafoe, Oneal, and Russett, “The Democratic Peace.” 8. Mancini, “Promoting Democracy.” 9. Duncombe and Dunne, “After Liberal World Order,” also suggests that while the liberal order may continue, democracy promotion is in decline. 10. Pickering and Peceny, “Forging Democracy at Gunpoint.” 11. UN Security Council, Resolution 804 (January 29, 1993). 12. UN Security Council, Resolution 1127 (August 28, 1997).

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13. UN Security Council, Resolution 1012 (August 28, 1995). 14. UN Security Council, Resolution 1072 (August 30, 1996). 15. UN Security Council, Resolution 1545 (May 21, 2004). 16. UN Security Council, Presidential Statement 2 (March 3, 2009). 17. UN Security Council, Resolution 2048 (May 18, 2012). 18. UN Security Council, Resolution 1132 (October 8, 1997). 19. UN Security Council, Resolution 1125 (August 6, 1997). 20. UN Security Council, Presidential Statement 18 (July 17, 2001); UN Security Council, Presidential Statement 35 (December 21, 2009); UN Security Council, Resolution 2021 (November 21, 2011). 21. UN Security Council, Resolution 2149 (April 10, 2014). 22. Carothers, “Taking Stock of US Democracy Assistance.” 23. A recent study found that the duration of peace improved when the liberal aspects of peace agreements, including UN peacekeeping missions, were implemented. MacGinty, Joshi, and Long, “Liberal Peace Implementation.” 24. Studies differ on the effectiveness of PKOs in facilitating democratization. For evidence of positive effects, see Joshi, “United Nations Peacekeeping, Democratic Process”; Brancati and Snyder, “Time to Kill.” For evidence of negative effects, see de Mesquita and Downs, “Intervention and Democracy”; Fortna, Does Peacekeeping Work? 25. Boutros-Ghali, An Agenda for Democratization, 2. 26. Cierco, “Evaluating UNMIT’s Contribution.” 27. Doyle and Sambanis, Making War and Building Peace. 28. Paris, At War’s End. 29. UN Security Council, Resolution 1632 (October 18, 2005); UN Security Council, Resolution 1643 (December 15, 2005); UN Security Council, Resolution 1975 (March 30, 2011). 30. The Security Council first authorized the PKO and French forces in UN Security Council, Resolution 1464 (February 4, 2003). It renewed or altered the mandate thirty times. For example, see UN Security Council, Resolution 1584 (February 1, 2005). 31. UN Security Council, Resolution 1464 (February 4, 2003). 32. Piccolino, “David Against Goliath in Côte d’Ivoire?” 8. 33. Chandler, Empire in Denial. 34. UN Security Council, Resolution 1479 (May 13, 2003); UN Security Council, Resolution 1528 (February 27, 2004). 35. UN Security Council, Resolution 1572 (November 15, 2004). 36. UN Security Council, Meeting 5152 (March 28, 2005), 16. 37. UN Security Council, Resolution 1633 (October 21, 2005). 38. Paris, At War’s End. 39. UN Security Council, Meeting 5765 (October 22, 2007). 40. UN Security Council, Meeting 6437 (December 7, 2010), 2–3. 41. Bellamy and Williams, “The New Politics of Protection?” 42. UN Security Council, Resolution 1975 (March 30, 2011). 43. UN Security Council, Meeting 6508 (March 30, 2011), 5. 44. UN Security Council, Meeting 6508 (March 30, 2011), 5.

9 Threats to the Liberal Order: Russia and China

UKRAINE HAS DEBATED WHETHER TO JOIN THE LIBERAL ORDER OR remain within Russia’s sphere of influence throughout the post–Cold War era. In 2008, a pro-Western Ukrainian government announced plans to join the European Union (EU). Russia responded with a massive disinformation campaign in 2010 to elect a pro-Russian president, Viktor Yanukovych (whose campaign manager was Paul Manafort). When Yanukovych announced an end to the plans to join the European Union, Ukrainian citizens demonstrated in the streets for three months. Yanukovych, unable to stem the opposition, fled to Russia on February 20, 2014. The parliament promptly restarted the process to join the EU—and possibly the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Russia responded again, this time using military force to seize Crimea, a Black Sea peninsula with an ethnic Russian majority, and a Soviet era naval base. To muddle the obvious violation of international law, Russia organized a March 16 referendum in Crimea. Voters had two choices: join Russia or assert autonomy under a 1992 constitution. Remaining within Ukraine was not an option. The Security Council met on March 15 to consider a draft resolution declaring that the referendum had no legal validity and calling on states not to recognize Russian claims to Crimea. Russia vetoed the resolution, the lone vote against it. Russia did not defend its veto by invoking rules about spheres of influence or self-defense. States rarely admit to undermining the liberal order. Russia instead tried to muster legitimacy by referring to liberal arguments about international law, democracy, and human rights. RUSSIA: The draft resolution runs counter to one of the basic principles of international law, the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples. . . . [A]s practice has demonstrated, in the majority of cases, the realization of peoples’ right to self-determination is achieved without the

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Renegotiating the Liberal Order agreement of the central authorities of the State. With respect to Crimea, that case resulted from a legal vacuum generated by an unconstitutional armed coup d’état carried out in Kyiv by radical nationalists in February, as well as by their direct threats to impose their order throughout Ukraine.1

Other states disputed these arguments, asserting that Russia violated the Charter rule of territorial integrity by acquiring territory with military force. The United States in particular gave a spirited defense of the liberal order. UNITED STATES: Russia put itself outside the international norms that we have painstakingly developed to serve as the bedrock foundation for peaceful relations between States. The reason only one country voted against the draft resolution today is that the world believes that international borders are more than mere suggestions. The world believes that people within those internationally recognized borders have the right to chart their own future, free from intimidation. . . . Crimea is part of Ukraine today. It will be part of Ukraine tomorrow. It will be part of Ukraine next week. It will be part of Ukraine unless and until its status is changed in accordance with Ukrainian and international law.2

Russia held the referendum on the next day and announced that Crimea had voted to join Russia. Two days later, Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine. The United States and the EU responded with economic sanctions and removed Russia from the Group of 8 (G8). Undeterred, Russia continued its aggression toward Ukraine with military incursions into eastern provinces. Of course, eight years later, Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, again directly challenging the liberal order. Russia made wildly implausible arguments about how the military operation was necessary to rid Ukraine of Nazi influence. Even when Russia had obviously invoked imperial rules of regional hierarchy by invading a neighbor, it again tried to muster legitimacy by outlandishly invoking liberal rules about protecting democracy and human rights against authoritarian forces in Ukraine. Russia and China are the most obvious threats to the liberal order. Both want hegemonic privileges to violate liberal norms in their neighborhoods. Both are authoritarian states that view liberal arguments for democracy and human rights as threats to their own regimes. Russia has poisoned political dissidents, hacked Western infrastructure targets, and undermined Western democracies with misinformation campaigns.3 China has expanded its domestic authoritarianism and surveillance, massively violated the human rights of the Uighurs, pursued mercantilist rather than liberal economic policies, and increased its military presence in the South China Sea—ignoring the legal ruling of an international tribunal in the process.4 As permanent members on the Security Council, Russia and China can veto the authorization of liberal practices.5 They can use the veto to protect national interests. As Chapters 7 and 8 discussed, they have limited the scope of Security Council practices about

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human rights and democracy to ongoing armed conflicts. They are hardly staunch defenders of core liberal practices on the Security Council.6 However, Russia and China also agreed to thousands of liberal Security Council practices during the post–Cold War era. They implicitly recognized that the legitimacy of the Security Council has sometimes required an expansion of liberal practices. They referred to “unique” and “special” circumstances to justify their assent to those liberal practices—consent from local and regional actors, the humanitarian imperative to protect civilians, and unambiguous situations of chaos and instability. While they have limited the scope of the liberal order and the Security Council’s core liberal practices, they have not routinely prevented the authorization of those practices. There is a difference between defending the Charter bargain against the influence of the hegemonic bargain and invoking realist and critical theory rules to undermine the liberal order. The former is evidence for the renegotiation narrative; the latter is evidence for the decline narrative. The bulk of post–Cold War Security Council practices support the renegotiation narrative rather than the decline narrative. Of course, Russia and China have also engaged in many practices that challenged the legitimacy of the liberal order. There is indeed some good evidence for the decline narrative. In this chapter, I analyze the extent to which Russia and China have increasingly undermined the liberal order on the Security Council in recent years. First, I analyze the Collective Security Dataset (CSD) results and speech analyses regarding Russian and Chinese action on the Security Council. The results provide some warning signs: both have increasingly voted against Security Council practices in recent years, and have increasingly used nonliberal justifications for their objections. Next, I focus on the Syrian civil war. Unlike earlier examples, Syria is not about the tensions between the two liberal bargains. It is about Russia and China preventing any form of liberal global governance. Then, I address the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. Both Syria and Ukraine are important examples of Russia and China challenging the legitimacy of the liberal order, providing some support for the decline narrative. What is striking about the Security Council meetings on Syria and Ukraine, however, is how few countries supported Russia and China (this is also true when the United States undermined the liberal order—see Chapter 10). States were more likely to vigorously defend the liberal order when it was under assault by powerful countries.

Russia and China on the Security Council Russia and China had similar post–Cold War voting records on the Security Council. They either supported or opposed the same resolution 96 percent of the time. They voted yes on roughly 94 percent of the resolutions, vetoed

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around 1 percent, and abstained on 5 percent. They agreed to the thousands of practices discussed in Chapter 4—asserting rules violations, identifying actors as rule violators, and authorizing enforcement measures against rule violators. The speech act results in Chapter 5 showed that Russia and China used liberal arguments 50 percent of the time to justify saying no. Combining the overall CSD and speech results, then, shows that Russia and China said yes 94 percent of the time and, when they said no, their objections remained within a liberal framework half of the time. Russia and China even implicitly recognized that the legitimacy of the Security Council and the Charter bargain required the authorization of core liberal practices. They did not routinely prevent the hegemonic bargain from influencing the Charter bargain. The CSD results showed that many collective security practices did not influence Russian and Chinese voting behavior on the Security Council.7 For example, whether a resolution asserted armed conflict, democracy, terrorism, or transnational crime rules did not influence their voting behavior. Also, whether a resolution authorized the use of force or a regional organization to act did not influence their voting behavior. Most importantly, there were no significant differences based on the number of liberal practices or core liberal practices authorized by a resolution. Russia and China did not say no when the Security Council authorized higher numbers of liberal practices. They did not routinely undermine the liberal order by preventing the authorization of increasingly liberal Security Council practices. What did influence Russia and China, however, was identifying Syria as a rule violator. Half of all Russian and Chinese vetoes were on resolutions targeting Syria (and Syria was the target of less than 1 percent of all resolutions). This stark pattern drove all the other significant findings. Russia and China were more likely to object to resolutions that asserted war crimes, human rights, and weapons of mass destruction (WMD) rules—the rules that were more likely to apply to the Syrian civil war relative to other conflicts. They were more likely to object to resolutions invoking Chapter VII, passing shame on you resolutions, and authorizing sanctions—also the enforcement measures more likely to apply to Syria relative to other conflicts. The war in Syria is a clear outlier within the thirty years of data. The speech act analyses show similar results. Most collective security practices did not influence whether Russia and China made liberal or nonliberal arguments when saying no. For example, no type of enforcement measure authorized in a resolution influenced their arguments. Most of the categories of asserted rule violations did not matter. The total number of liberal practices also did not influence which type of argument they made. Only two types of liberal practices were significant, and they suggest important limits about the extent to which they were willing to assent to the hegemonic bargain influencing the Charter bargain. Russia and China were

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more likely to use nonliberal arguments to justify objections—they were willing to challenge the liberal order—when resolutions asserted human rights violations and targeted Syria. Russia and China were more likely to prevent an expansion of liberal practices with nonliberal reasons when the Security Council used human rights to target Syria. These results suggest that regime change justified by human rights violations—that is, repeating the Libya episode—is the limit of the liberal order. For Russia and China, that is where the liberal order spills over into empire. The speech act analyses also show that when Russia and China challenged the liberal order by objecting to resolutions with nonliberal arguments, they often had different reasons for doing so. China’s nonliberal arguments were more likely to be realist (fifty-nine of eighty-five), and Russia’s nonliberal arguments were more likely to be critical (fifty-four of ninety-three). These findings are consistent with the varying identities of each state.8 China sees itself as a rising power, and realist arguments often promote the interests of powerful states. When China objected to liberal practices with nonliberal reasons, it was often to avoid external commitments and to focus on national interests. Russia sees itself as trying to maintain its status against a more powerful West. When Russia objected to liberal global governance with nonliberal reasons, it was often pointing out unjust hierarchies and championing the interests of subordinate states. (This is the opposite of arguments made by China and the USSR during the Cold War! In that era, Russia was the realist rival and China was the subordinate state challenging hierarchy!) Although their voting patterns were similar and their policies often complemented each other, they did not always invoke the same alternative security arrangement when challenging the liberal order. Analyzing the CSD and speech act results over time for Russian and Chinese actions on the Security Council provides some evidence consistent with the decline narrative. The CSD results show that both have objected to liberal practices, and core liberal practices, more often in recent years. The speech act analyses show that they have also increasingly made nonliberal arguments to support those objections in recent years. The war in Syria has clearly driven those trends. The Security Council considered and failed to pass a resolution on Syria twenty-five times, accounting for more than a third of all failed resolutions during 1990–2020. Russia vetoed fourteen resolutions on Syria—half of their post–Cold War total—and China vetoed eight of those resolutions.9 The debates over Syria were often qualitatively different from typical debates about whether the Security Council should emphasize the Charter bargain or the hegemonic bargain. Russia and China routinely challenged all types of liberal practices, including the provision of humanitarian aid. The Syria debates were not about whether to authorize collective security or capacity building practices; they were about whether to authorize any liberal policies at all.

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Syria No conflict during 1990–2020 supports the decline narrative more than the Syrian civil war.10 Russia and China prevented global governance policies to protect their national interests in the Middle East.11 Russia militarily intervened to support the Bashar al-Assad regime, maintain access to its only naval base outside Russian borders, fight Sunni Islamist terrorists, maintain its status as an important Middle East power, and minimize Western influence in the region. China joined Russia’s efforts on the Security Council because it interpreted the Syria war as another US attempt at regime change, this time with the intent of reducing Iranian influence in the region. Russia and China consistently referred to NATO overreach in implementing the Libya resolutions when defending their vetoes, portraying the votes as necessary to prevent another Western intervention that would escalate turmoil in the region.12 Vladimir Putin even interpreted Western calls for al-Assad to step aside to have regime change implications for Russia itself.13 The Syrian civil war was the quintessential post–Cold War conflict. It generated and exacerbated many interconnected security threats: armed conflict, war crimes, human rights violations, terrorism, chemical weapons, refugees, and humanitarian disasters. The conflict had implications for many important regional actors, including Iran, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Israel, the Kurds, Lebanon, and Iraq. It was at root a domestic conflict between a Shia regime and an opposition representing the majority Sunni population. It was also a proxy for the Sunni-Shia conflict in the Middle East, US efforts to minimize Iranian influence in the region, and the greatpower geopolitical rivalry between the United States and Russia. When terrorists took advantage of the chaos and asserted the existence of an Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), US antiterrorism policies inevitably brought it into Syria and risked clashes with Russia. The use of chemical weapons in the conflict constituted some of the worst war crimes in the post–Cold War era. The war risked triggering other regional conflicts, including Turkey and the Kurds, and Syria and Israel in the Golan Heights. The refugee crisis generated an anti-immigrant backlash that propelled European populism and Brexit. The civil war was a complicated and consequential conflict. It cried out for global governance. The Security Council mustered little. The conflict began when Syrian military forces killed Arab Spring protesters in March 2011. Its origins were similar to the Libya crisis. The government repression escalated the protests, which, in turn, escalated alAssad’s attempts to crush the protests. Some military officials defected and formed the Free Syrian Army (FSA), the first armed opposition group against the al-Assad regime. The Arab Spring had spawned a civil war in

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Syria. The United States, consistent with its position on Libya and Egypt during the Arab Spring, called on al-Assad to step aside. In contrast to the quick response to Libya, the Security Council was unable to generate consensus about Syria. Russian and Chinese resistance to collective security measures began with a veto of an October 2011 resolution condemning Syria for violence against civilians and threatening future sanctions if those violations continued. China remained within a liberal framework, making typical capacity building arguments about enforcement measures undermining diplomatic efforts to end the conflict. Russia, however, immediately referred to Libya and made critical theory arguments objecting to any future collective security enforcement. RUSSIA: We cannot agree with this unilateral, accusatory bent against Damascus. We deem unacceptable the threat of an ultimatum and sanctions against the Syrian authorities. . . . Given the basis of statements by some Western politicians on President Al-Assad’s loss of legitimacy, such an approach could trigger a full-fledged conflict in Syria and destabilization in the region as a whole. The collapse of Syria as a result of a civil war would have a very destructive impact on the situation in the entire Middle East. The situation in Syria cannot be considered in the Council separately from the Libyan experience. The international community is alarmed by statements that compliance with Security Council resolutions on Libya in the NATO interpretation is a model for the future actions of NATO in implementing the responsibility to protect. . . . These types of models should be excluded from global practices once and for all.14

Brazil, India, and South Africa also failed to support the resolution. Brazil and India echoed China’s capacity building arguments, while South Africa made critical theory arguments, saying that the resolution was “designed as a prelude to further actions.”15 Of course, many within the United States were indeed lobbying to arm the FSA, and the United States began sending “nonlethal” aid in May 2012. The Arab League tried to break this early deadlock with a February 2012 resolution demanding that Syria end the violence against its civilians, withdraw its military from major cities, and cooperate with a fact-finding commission established by the UN Human Rights Council. Russia and China again vetoed this resolution. China argued that the resolution was one-sided and did not equally condemn violence from all parties to the armed conflict. Russia again argued that the resolution was a slippery slope toward regime change.16 Unable to pass a resolution, the Security Council settled for two presidential statements. A March 2012 statement endorsed a peace plan drafted by UN envoy Kofi Annan.17 An April 2012 statement “called on”—not “condemned” or “demanded”—Syria to stop using heavy weapons in cities.18 Building on this limited momentum, the Security Council passed its first resolution on the conflict on April 14, 2012—a unanimous

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shame on you resolution asserting rules violations by both Syria and the armed opposition groups.19 After the parties negotiated a cease-fire one week later, the Security Council established an observer mission—not a peacekeeping operation (PKO)—to monitor the cease-fire for three months.20 While this would be a minimal response toward other conflicts, Russia and China treated it like a significant move and warned about future slippery slopes in a post-Libya world.21 Russia and China then vetoed a resolution three months later to renew the observer mission. China criticized the resolution as “seriously flawed” and “unbalanced” by trying to “put pressure on only one party.” It referred to Western countries as “arrogant” in their attempt to impose their interests “by outside forces.”22 Russia also escalated its rhetoric against Western countries, calling them “Pharisees.” RUSSIA: We simply cannot accept a document, under Chapter VII of the Charter of the United Nations, that would open the way for the pressure of sanctions and later for external military involvement in Syrian domestic affairs. The Western members of the Security Council denied such intentions, but for some reason refused to exclude military intervention. Their calculations to use the Security Council of the United Nations to further their plans of imposing their own designs on sovereign States will not prevail. . . . These Pharisees have been pushing their own geopolitical intentions, which have nothing in common with the legitimate interests of the Syrian people.23

No draft resolution to this point had authorized any enforcement measures. The vetoed resolutions were shame on you statements that, at most, threatened future sanctions—a standard Security Council practice. As a result, no Security Council action occurred for over a year. Two US policies in 2012 solidified Russian and Chinese suspicions about Western motives. First, the United States issued a redline warning that any use of chemical weapons by Syria would encourage it to consider intervention. Second, the United States—along with the United Kingdom, France, Turkey, and some Gulf states—recognized a coalition of opposition groups (excluding Islamist militias) as the legitimate Syrian government. As the Security Council failed to act, the civil war escalated. In April 2013, ISIS formed, joining al-Qaeda and al-Nusra as fundamentalist Islamist groups fighting in the war against the al-Assad regime. In May, Hezbollah forces from Lebanon launched an offensive into Syria to support al-Assad. In July, the United States began sending weapons to “moderate” Syrian opposition groups. Kurdish groups established autonomous zones in the north. The number of armed groups in this complex conflict was proliferating. After many reports of chemical weapons use by Syria against opposition forces, Syria crossed the US redline in August and used chemical weapons in an attack in Damascus that killed more than 1,400 people. In

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the first crucial geopolitical crisis of the conflict, both the United States and Russia moved to de-escalate the situation, agreeing that if Syria placed its chemical weapons under international control, the United States would not conduct a military strike. The Security Council passed a resolution demanding that Syria cooperate with the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW).24 Foreign ministers attended the meeting that passed this resolution. US Secretary of State John Kerry said the following. UNITED STATES: We are declaring together, for the first time, that the use of chemical weapons, which the world long ago determined to be beyond the bounds of acceptable human behavior, is also a threat to international peace and security, anywhere they might be used, any time they might be used, under any circumstances. . . . [W]hen institutions like the Security Council stand up to defend the principles and values that we all share, and when we put violent regimes on notice that the world will unite against them, it will lead not only to a safer Syria, but to a safer world.25

The OPCW eventually confirmed that Syria had destroyed the chemical weapons it declared in June 2014. However, while this resolution avoided US intervention and destroyed many chemical weapons, it did not end the use of chemical weapons in the war. The conflict worsened in 2014. The Islamist groups increased their attacks. Syria began to prevent humanitarian aid from reaching areas controlled by the opposition. Peace talks in Geneva broke down because Syria refused to discuss the possibility of a future transitional government. Syrian and Hezbollah forces captured the last rebel strongholds near the Lebanon border in March. After ISIS declared a caliphate from Aleppo in Syria to the eastern part of Iraq in June, the United States began air strikes against ISIS in September. Three 2014 Security Council resolutions reflected these trends. One condemned terrorist attacks by groups associated with al-Qaeda and, without mentioning Syria, the denial of humanitarian aid.26 Another authorized UN humanitarian agencies to use certain routes into Syria.27 Another expressed “grave concern” that ISIS controlled Syrian territory.28 All three were shame on you resolutions. On May 22, 2014, the United States, United Kingdom, and France (P3) finally submitted a draft resolution authorizing an enforcement practice— referring Syria to the International Criminal Court (ICC). Russia and China vetoed it, with China making capacity building arguments and Russia offering critical theory arguments about double standards. RUSSIA: The last time the Security Council referred a case to the ICC . . . did not contribute to a return of normalcy or justice in Libya, and instead evaded the most pressing issues. The death of civilians as a result of NATO bombardments was somehow left outside its scope. Our colleagues from NATO countries arrogantly refused to address that issue altogether.

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Renegotiating the Liberal Order They even refuse to apologize, even as they waxed eloquent about shame. They advocate fighting impunity but are themselves practicing a policy of all-permissiveness. The United States frequently indicates the ICC option for others, but is reluctant to accede to the Rome Statute itself.29

The conflict changed dramatically in 2015. Fundamentalist forces took control of more territory. ISIS seized the ancient city of Palmyra in May, destroyed monuments at a pre-Islamic era World Heritage site, and according to the OPCW used mustard gas in at least one attack. An al-Qaedalinked group took control of the Idlib Province in July. These advances led to the key moment in the civil war—Syria invited Russia to intervene. Russian military intervention made an al-Assad victory much more likely. It exacerbated the already significant refugee crisis. Given ongoing US special operations in Syria against ISIS, it made a direct US-Russia military confrontation possible. It conveyed the extent of Russian interests in the conflict and lessened the likelihood of an escalatory US intervention. Most importantly, a veto power was now a combatant in the conflict. There would be no sanctions, no ICC referrals, and no troops on the ground mandated to protect civilians. There would be no collective security enforcement against a veto power or an ally of a veto power. Despite reports by the OPCW confirming that Syria was responsible for multiple chemical weapons attacks in the previous two years, all the Security Council could muster in the twelve months following the Russian intervention were two “all parties must comply” resolutions.30 The Russian military intervention escalated divisions on the Security Council. The Permanent Five (P5) began an unusual pattern of submitting dual resolutions, with each side knowing that the other would veto their own resolution. The veto powers generally invoked the “we are partners” collective security identity rule on the Security Council. They avoided bringing forward resolutions with little support. The public displays of conflict exemplified by the dual resolutions, however, invoked the “we are rivals” realist identity rule. The first set of dual resolutions occurred on October 7, 2016, when Russia first vetoed a resolution demanding a ceasefire around Aleppo and the provision of humanitarian aid. Then, the P3 vetoed a Russian resolution that included neither a cease-fire demand nor the requirement to allow humanitarian aid. The rhetoric escalated. Russia again referred to Libya to justify its veto and even criticized France by name. The United States directly accused Russia of war crimes.31 By November 2016, the Russian and Syrian forces were close to taking Aleppo, the most important remaining rebel stronghold. The siege created a humanitarian disaster. A victory would end any possibility that the war might end on the West’s terms—a transitional government, alAssad leaving office, and war crimes trials.32 The US rhetoric of the outgoing Barack Obama administration used starkly moral terms. It accused

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Russia of lying and acting in bad faith.33 It named military leaders who were committing war crimes. UNITED STATES: The reality is that the Al-Assad regime and Russia are continuing their starve-get-bombed-or-surrender strategy in eastern Aleppo: bombing the city’s 275,000 residents and pausing to see if any will surrender to the Al-Assad regime. . . . Russia and the Al-Assad regime are waging a campaign that includes sieges, the blocking of humanitarian aid, the indiscriminate bombardment of civilian areas and the use of barrel bombs. . . . Will Russia condemn—here in the Chamber today, or any day—even a single air strike by the Al-Assad regime? Choose any of the hospitals that the Al-Assad regime has destroyed, or any of the schools. Will Russia ever condemn its ally, Bashar Al-Assad, here at the Council for a single one of those attacks?34

These criticisms had no effect. On December 5, 2016, Russia and China vetoed another resolution demanding that all parties cease to fire around Aleppo and allow humanitarian aid. Syria did not want to allow humanitarian aid through border crossings that it did not control. That is, it would allow in humanitarian aid only after the opposition had surrendered. Over 800 humanitarian personnel were killed, and over 70 humanitarian nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) operating in Syria suspended cooperation with the UN in 2016. Later that month, Syria, backed by Russian air power and Iraniansponsored militias, completely recaptured Aleppo. After it had achieved a military victory, Syria consented to humanitarian aid. Russia and China then agreed to two resolutions demanding that all parties allow humanitarian aid into Aleppo.35 Samantha Powers, in her last speech as UN ambassador in the Obama administration, issued blistering criticisms. UNITED STATES: Aleppo will join the ranks of those events in world history that define modern evil and stain our conscious decades later: Halabja, Rwanda, Srebrenica and now Aleppo. . . . It should shame them. Instead, by all appearances, it is emboldening them; they are plotting their next assault. Are they truly incapable of shame? Is there literally nothing that can shame them? Is there no act of barbarism against civilians, no execution of a child that gets under their skin or just creeps them out a little bit? Is there nothing that they will not lie about or justify? To the members of the Council and all States Members of the United Nations, I say that the ghastly attacks that we are witnessing in Aleppo will not stop if the city falls. The regime and its Russian allies will only be emboldened to replicate their starve-and-surrender-and-slaughter tactics elsewhere.36

The P3 made one more attempt at enforcement with a February 28, 2017, resolution that authorized economic sanctions against Syria for its use of chemical weapons. Russia and China issued another veto, and this time Iraq rather than Libya became the cautionary tale—now the West was again

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using WMD as a ruse for regime change.37 Nikki Haley had now replaced Samantha Powers at the UN. Despite the coziness between Donald Trump and Putin, Haley continued US criticisms of Russia, China, and Syria. UNITED STATES: Russia and China made an outrageous and indefensible choice today. They refused to hold Bashar Al-Assad’s regime accountable for the use of chemical weapons. They turned away from defenseless men, women and children who died gasping for breath when Al-Assad’s forces dropped their poisonous gas. They ignored the facts. They put their friends in the Al-Assad regime ahead of our global security. . . . When members start making excuses for other Member States killing their own people, the world is definitely a more dangerous place.38

With the military aspects of the war trending in Syria’s direction, and Russia and China preventing any collective security enforcement, the Security Council focused on chemical weapons investigations and humanitarian aid. Monitoring the use of chemical weapons to identify perpetrators was not controversial in most contexts. Providing humanitarian aid is also a routine, noncontroversial practice. However, Russia and China prevented even these minimal forms of liberal global governance. After Syria used chemical weapons and killed dozens of people in the northern province of Idlib on April 4, 2017—and after the United States targeted a Syrian air base with cruise missiles two days later—Russia vetoed an April 12 resolution condemning Syria for its chemical weapons use (China abstained).39 Russia and China then vetoed three attempts to continue the OPCW investigation into chemical weapons use in Syria established by Resolution 2235.40 Russia again used the Iraq analogy and regime change warnings to justify the vetoes.41 An April 2018 chemical weapons attack in Douma led to another round of dual resolutions. The P3 vetoed two Russian resolutions: one condemned the use of chemical weapons but authorized no investigation, and another authorized an investigation to include Syrian information about the activities of nonstate actors.42 Russia vetoed a P3 resolution that established an investigation of the chemical weapons attack in Douma.43 The United States, United Kingdom, and France responded with a wave of air strikes on Syrian targets. When Russia brought forward a resolution condemning the air strikes as acts of aggression against Syria, only three states voted in favor—Russia, China, and Bolivia.44 Russia and China also continued obstructing the provision of humanitarian aid, preventing four different resolutions during 2019–2020.45 They justified these votes primarily with realist arguments about not violating Syria’s sovereignty and the need to prevent aid from going to “terrorists.”46 The Security Council managed four resolutions during 2017–2020 demanding that Syria allow humanitarian aid—and Russia and China abstained on

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all four.47 Western countries continued their criticism of Russia’s and China’s weak support for basic humanitarian rules throughout the conflict. UNITED STATES: The Al-Assad regime and its allies have engaged in attacks that have devastated civilians, as well as civilian infrastructure, such as schools, hospitals and water facilities. . . . While they can continue to try to hide behind lies and disinformation in the Council today, there is no doubt that the regime and Russian forces responsible for those attacks must be held accountable for their actions. . . . What we are witnessing is not counter-terrorism but an excuse to continue a violent military campaign against those who refuse to accept the Al-Assad regime’s authority. . . . Russia has unequivocally proven, through its actions in the Council and on the battlefield, that it has no interest in protecting Syrian civilians.48

Throughout the Syrian conflict, the Security Council passed twenty-two resolutions. It asserted rules violations regarding armed conflict, war crimes, human rights, and WMD. It authorized monitoring and fact-finding missions. It authorized no enforcement measures. The fourteen resolutions vetoed by Russia and China asserted more WMD rules violations than the twenty-two resolutions passed by the Security Council. Russia consistently used critical theory arguments to justify its opposition, thoroughly challenging the liberal order.49 The only evidence for the resiliency of the liberal order is that few states voted with Russia and China when they presented their dual resolutions. Eight times, Russia and China highlighted their opposition to the Western approach to Syria by presenting their own alternative resolutions at the same meeting, and those resolutions received little support. The objections to the Russian and Chinese resolutions were overwhelmingly justified by liberal collective security arguments. When Russia challenged the liberal order, others vigorously defended it. Perhaps this is an example where contestation about the application of norms—in this case regarding humanitarian aid and chemical weapons—eventually strengthens them.50 Overall, however, the Security Council debates on the civil war in Syria were not primarily about the tensions between the two liberal bargains. Russia and China generally did not defend the Charter bargain to limit the influence of the hegemonic bargain. They consistently challenged the liberal order by preventing basic forms of global governance and invoking nonliberal rules to justify their actions. They consistently challenged the liberal order by enabling Syria to violate liberal rules and pursue its national security interests without the possibility of collective security enforcement. They recognized and encouraged anarchy and hierarchy rather than interdependence. They equated the liberal order with regime change—they interpreted the Charter bargain as thoroughly influenced by

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the hegemonic bargain—and acted so that al-Assad would not suffer the fate of Saddam Hussein, Muammar Qaddafi, Omar al-Bashir, Laurent Gbagbo, and others. They invoked nonliberal rules and prevented even minimal forms of global governance.

Ukraine As this book was going through the peer review process, Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022. The obvious question was what this important historical event meant for the relative plausibility of the decline and renegotiation narratives. Although the quantitative and qualitative evidence I relied on to support the renegotiation narrative ends in 2020, I attempt to address the Russian invasion of Ukraine in this section. This important case supports the decline narrative in ways similar to the Syria case discussed above. In the Syria and Ukraine cases, Russia directly challenged the legitimacy of the liberal order; it did not use the Charter bargain to limit the influence of the hegemonic bargain. In both, it vetoed attempts to authorize basic forms of global governance. In both, Russian actions invoked nonliberal spheres of influence rules and hierarchy rules. Also in both, Russia had few supporters. Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine essentially presumed the accuracy of the decline narrative, and he calculated that the West would not defend the liberal order. The evidence from the Security Council for the continued resiliency of the liberal order is how vigorously most members criticized Russia for violating the Charter bargain. Given the Russian veto, of course, much more evidence existed outside the Security Council. Ukraine heroically resisted the military invasion. Its immediate neighbors took in refugees. Western countries sent huge amounts of military aid to Ukraine and authorized historically stringent economic sanctions on Russia, including sanctions on oil and gas that increased global inflation. Germany altered seventy years of foreign policy and doubled its military budget. Sweden and Finland applied to join NATO. The ICC sent its largest ever team of experts to investigate alleged war crimes. It is too soon to know whether the Russian invasion will ultimately facilitate a decline in the liberal order or illustrate its continued legitimacy. The outcome may indeed symbolize a great deal about the two narratives. Whatever the future outcome, however, the initial response to the invasion included historic attempts to defend the liberal order. The Security Council held twenty-one meetings on Ukraine in the first five months of 2022.51 Three were prior to the invasion as Russia amassed 150,000 troops on the Ukrainian border. They included briefings from cease-fire monitors from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in

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Europe, UN mediators, and the Secretary-General, all of whom echoed US warnings about an imminent invasion. The other meetings spanned a wide range of issues emanating from the conflict—humanitarian aid, mediation efforts, war crimes, the raid of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, the Russian allegations of biological weapons plants, refugees, health, women’s rights, and the global food shortage. They included two statements from the Secretary-General and one from Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky. The rest of this section is based on an analysis of those twenty-one meetings. A striking feature of the discourse was how often Russia’s justifications for the war invoked liberal rules about war crimes, democracy, human rights, and international law. The list is quite long and includes the following: the Ukrainian government was an unconstitutional junta because the 2014 Maidan revolution was an illegitimate coup. Ukraine had consistently violated cease-fire agreements for the conflict in the eastern provinces. Ukraine had committed genocide. The newly sovereign republics in eastern Ukraine had requested military assistance from Russia, and the incoming troops were a “peacekeeping mission.” Ukraine had stockpiles of biological weapons. Ukraine was trying to get nuclear weapons. The Ukrainian government was full of Nazis.52 Perhaps these arguments were simply ludicrous propaganda. Perhaps they trolled the West: since the liberal order was really about regime change, Russia could also play that game. Perhaps, though, these arguments also show the continued relevance and legitimacy of the liberal order. The only way Putin could plausibly gain support was to offer liberal reasons for the war. An equally striking feature was that so many interpreted Russia’s liberal justifications as nonsense, but took his nonliberal arguments— Ukraine was not a real state, or Western intervention would lead to nuclear escalation—seriously. Below is a typical example. UNITED STATES: President Putin asserted that Russia today has a rightful claim to all territories—all territories—from the Russian Empire; the same Russian Empire from before the Soviet Union, from over 100 years ago. That includes all of Ukraine. It includes Finland. It includes Belarus and Georgia and Moldova; Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan; Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Lithuania; Latvia, and Estonia. It includes parts of Poland and Turkey. In essence, Putin wants the world to travel back in time—to a time before the United Nations; to a time when empires ruled the world. But the rest of the world has moved forward. It is not 1919. It is 2022.53

The overwhelming trend in these meetings was that states recognized the extent to which the Russian invasion of Ukraine undermined the liberal order and harshly criticized Russia for violating the Charter bargain.

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For example, on the day after the invasion, the Security Council met to consider a resolution submitted by an astounding eighty-one states, all of whom attended the meeting. The resolution condemned Russia’s aggression and demanded that Russia withdraw its forces, allow humanitarian aid, and ensure the protection of civilians.54 Most Council members explicitly charged Russia with undermining the fundamental rules of world politics. UNITED STATES: We are here today because of Russia’s unprovoked, unjustified, unconscionable war on Ukraine. . . . Russia chose to violate Ukraine’s sovereignty, to violate international law, and to violate the Charter of the United Nations. . . . The Council, charged with maintaining international peace and security, was created to prevent precisely this kind of aggression from ever happening again. Russia’s latest attack on our most fundamental principles is so bold and so brazen that it threatens our international system as we know it. We have a solemn obligation to not look away. We believe, to our core, that the noble intentions of this institution should still have a place in solving twenty-first century problems.55

Russia vetoed the resolution, relying on its litany of unconvincing arguments invoking liberal rules. Russia did not admit to breaking liberal rules. It did not say that it preferred spheres of influence or regional hierarchy to the Charter bargain. It did not rhetorically challenge the liberal order, even when its actions obviously did so. Three countries abstained (China, India, and the United Arab Emirates), also justifying their votes with liberal reasons. All three invoked the Charter bargain and the territorial integrity of all states. They preferred capacity building and diplomacy to collective security. China warned that asserting rule violations and authorizing sanctions would only make the situation worse. No one explicitly supported Russia’s aggression or invoked nonliberal rules. Two days later, on February 28, the Security Council took the unusual step of calling a special emergency session of the General Assembly. This was only the second “Uniting for Peace” meeting in forty years, used when the Security Council is deadlocked on an important security issue. The General Assembly considered a resolution like the one vetoed by Russia, now sponsored by 90 countries. Over an extraordinary three days, 115 countries spoke, mostly to criticize Russia and defend the liberal order—the final vote was 141–5. There were significant exceptions—35 countries abstained, including China, India, and South Africa. The General Assembly debate differed from the Security Council debates in one important way: the few who criticized the resolution did invoke nonliberal rules. One approach invoked a realist world of conflict and rivalry, arguing that NATO expansion caused the Russian action. The other approach invoked a critical theory world of empire, alleging hypocrisy and double standards given the lack of a UN response to Western military ventures. No one, though,

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argued that the war was appropriate or contributed to global security. No one cheered a possible end to the liberal order. Russia’s early actions in the war—committing massive war crimes violations, attacking the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, preventing the delivery of humanitarian aid, and implementing a blockade that caused global food shortages—made it easy to criticize Russia in blunt terms for violating basic rules of the liberal order. Here is one example. FRANCE: Russia, a permanent member of the Council, is violating the most fundamental principles of the Charter of the United Nations. It is riding roughshod over international humanitarian law. It is violating human rights and trampling on the Geneva Conventions. France reiterates its call for an immediate cessation of hostilities, which must come before any peace talks. The protection of civilians, including children and humanitarian personnel, as well as civilian infrastructure, is a top priority.56

Struggling to gain any traction in these meetings, Russia tried to invoke the rules most centrally embedded within the liberal order and submitted a resolution about the humanitarian situation in Ukraine in March 2022. Others easily recognized the tactic of using liberal principles to undermine liberalism itself. Only Russia and China voted in favor.57 Overall, these Security Council meetings suggest the continued resilience of the liberal order. The discourse largely remained within liberal parameters. Prior to the invasion, every Council member, including China, urged Russia to pursue diplomacy and not invade Ukraine. There was a steady drumbeat of arguments criticizing Russia that the invasion challenged the liberal order. No one, including Russia, consistently tried to support the invasion with nonliberal arguments based on assumptions of anarchy or hierarchy. The overwhelming legitimacy of the liberal framework harmed Russia—it was extremely difficult to support Russian actions with liberal reasons. As in Syria, and as I show regarding the United States in the next chapter, when powerful actors unambiguously challenge the liberal order, few come to their defense.

Notes 1. UN Security Council, Meeting 7138 (March 15, 2014), 2. 2. UN Security Council, Meeting 7138 (March 15, 2014), 3–4. 3. Averre and Davies, “Russia, Humanitarian Intervention and the Responsibility to Protect.” 4. Lee, Heritage, and Mao, “Contesting Liberal Internationalism”; Jones, “Contesting Within Order?” 5. Chaziza, “Soft Balancing Strategy in the Middle East”; Chan, “A Keen Observer of the International Rule of Law?”

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6. Eastin, “Legitimacy Deficit.” 7. The statistical results in this section are based on bivariate correlations significant at the .05 probability level. The results are available at https://www .mckendree.edu/directory/brian-frederking.php. 8. Chen and Yin, “China and Russia in R2P Debates at the UN Security Council.” 9. The draft resolutions include UN Security Council, Draft Resolution 612 (October 4, 2011); UN Security Council, Draft Resolution 77 (February 4, 2012); UN Security Council, Draft Resolution 538 (July 19, 2012); UN Security Council, Draft Resolution 846 (October 8, 2016); UN Security Council, Draft Resolution 1026 (December 5, 2016); UN Security Council, Draft Resolution 172 (February 28, 2017); UN Security Council, Draft Resolution 315 (April 12, 2017); UN Security Council, Draft Resolution 884 (October 24, 2017); UN Security Council, Draft Resolution 962 (November 16, 2017); UN Security Council, Draft Resolution 970 (November 17, 2017); UN Security Council, Draft Resolution 321 (April 10, 2018); UN Security Council, Draft Resolution 756 (September 19, 2019); UN Security Council, Draft Resolution 961 (December 20, 2019). 10. Gulnar and Katman, “Syria Policy of Russia as a Permanent Member of the United Nations Security Council”; Totten, “Moscow on the Tigris”; Aurobinda Mahapatra, “The Mandate and the (In)effectiveness of the United Nations Security Council.” 11. Alterman, “Chinese and Russian Influence in the Middle East”; Freire and Heller, “Russia’s Power Politics in Ukraine and Syria.” 12. Morris, “Libya and Syria”; Forsythe, “The UN Security Council and Human Rights.” 13. Roy, “Russia and Syria: Explaining Alignment with a Regime in Crisis.” 14. UN Security Council, Meeting 6627 (October 4, 2011), 3. 15. UN Security Council, Meeting 6627 (October 4, 2011), 6. 16. UN Security Council, Meeting 6711 (February 4, 2012), 9. 17. UN Security Council, Presidential Statement 6 (March 21, 2012). 18. UN Security Council, Presidential Statement 10 (April 5, 2012). 19. UN Security Council, Resolution 2042 (April 14, 2012). 20. UN Security Council, Resolution 2043 (April 21, 2012). 21. UN Security Council, Meeting 6756 (April 21, 2012), 2, 8. 22. UN Security Council, Meeting 6810 (July 19, 2012), 11. 23. UN Security Council, Meeting 6810 (July 19, 2012), 8. 24. UN Security Council, Resolution 2118 (September 27, 2013). 25. UN Security Council, Meeting 7038 (September 27, 2013), 4. 26. UN Security Council, Resolution 2139 (February 22, 2014). 27. UN Security Council, Resolution 2165 (July 14, 2014). 28. UN Security Council, Resolution 2191 (December 17, 2014). 29. UN Security Council, Meeting 7180 (May 22, 2014), 12. 30. UN Security Council, Resolution 2254 (December 18, 2015); UN Security Council, Resolution 2258 (December 22, 2015). 31. UN Security Council, Meeting 7785 (October 8, 2016), 4. 32. Gowan, “End Times Diplomacy at the UN.” 33. UN Security Council, Meeting 7822 (November 30, 2016), 13. 34. UN Security Council, Meeting 7817 (November 21, 2016), 10. 35. UN Security Council, Resolution 2328 (December 19, 2016); UN Security Council, Resolution 2332 (December 21, 2016). 36. UN Security Council, Meeting 7834 (December 13, 2016), 5. 37. UN Security Council, Meeting 7893 (February 28, 2017), 6, 9.

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38. UN Security Council, Meeting 7893 (February 28, 2017), 4. 39. UN Security Council, Draft Resolution 315 (April 12, 2017). 40. UN Security Council, Draft Resolution 884 (October 24, 2017); UN Security Council, Draft Resolution 962 (November 16, 2017); UN Security Council, Draft Resolution 970 (November 17, 2017). 41. UN Security Council, Meeting 8105 (November 16, 2017), 12. 42. UN Security Council, Draft Resolution 175 (April 10, 2018); UN Security Council, Draft Resolution 322 (April 11, 2018). 43. UN Security Council, Draft Resolution 321 (April 10, 2018). 44. UN Security Council, Draft Resolution 355 (April 14, 2018). 45. UN Security Council, Draft Resolution 756 (September 19, 2019); UN Security Council, Draft Resolution 961 (December 20, 2019); UN Security Council, Draft Resolution 654 (July 7, 2020); UN Security Council, Draft Resolution 667 (July 10, 2020). 46. UN Security Council, Meeting 8623 (September 19, 2019), 3, 9. 47. UN Security Council, Resolution 2393 (December 19, 2017); UN Security Council, Resolution 2449 (December 13, 2018); UN Security Council, Resolution 2505 (January 13, 2020); UN Security Council, Resolution 2533 (July 11, 2020). 48. UN Security Council, Meeting 8623 (September 19, 2019), 5. 49. Mahmood, “Changing Dynamics of the World Order.” 50. Deitelhoff and Zimmeran, “Things We Lost in the Fire.” 51. See UN Security Council, Meeting 8968 (February 17, 2022); UN Security Council, Meeting 8970 (February 20, 2022); UN Security Council, Meeting 8974 (February 23, 2022); UN Security Council, Meeting 8979 (February 25, 2022); UN Security Council, Meeting 8980 (February 27, 2022); UN Security Council, Meeting 8983 (February 28, 2022); UN Security Council, Meeting 8986 (March 4, 2022); UN Security Council, Meeting 8988 (March 7, 2022); UN Security Council, Meeting 8991 (March 11, 2022); UN Security Council, Meeting 8998 (March 17, 2022); UN Security Council, Meeting 8999 (March 18, 2022); UN Security Council, Meeting 9002 (March 23, 2022); UN Security Council, Meeting 9008 (March 29, 2022); UN Security Council, Meeting 9011 (April 5, 2022); UN Security Council, Meeting 9013 (April 11, 2022); UN Security Council, Meeting 9018 (April 19, 2022); UN Security Council, Meeting 9027 (May 5, 2022); UN Security Council, Meeting 9028 (May 6, 2022); UN Security Council, Meeting 9032 (May 12, 2022); UN Security Council, Meeting 9033 (May 13, 2022); UN Security Council, Meeting 9036 (May 19, 2022). 52. For example, UN Security Council, Meeting 8979 (February 25, 2022), 12–14. 53. UN Security Council, Meeting 8970 (February 21, 2022), 3. 54. UN Security Council, Draft Resolution 155 (February 25, 2022). 55. UN Security Council, Meeting 8979 (February 25, 2022), 3. 56. UN Security Council, Meeting 8983 (February 28, 2022), 5. 57. UN Security Council, Meeting 9002 (March 23, 2022).

10 An Ambivalent Hegemon: The United States

THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT (ICC) IS A COLLECTIVE SECURITY organization that was created in 2002 to enforce international humanitarian law. It has indicted heads of state, military generals, and leaders of armed domestic groups for war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide. Its jurisdiction includes war crimes committed in the territory of states that joined the court, even if the accused individuals are citizens of a state that did not join the court. Its jurisdiction is “complementary” to states—the ICC acts only when states are unwilling or unable to prosecute. It is thus possible that citizens of a nonstate party could appear before the court. In this unlikely scenario, a state refuses to join the court, its soldiers commit war crimes in a state that did join the court, the first state refuses to prosecute its accused nationals, the ICC investigates and indicts the accused soldiers, and a state party to the court arrests and extradites them to the ICC. The United States did not join the ICC in order to shield its soldiers stationed around the world from ICC jurisdiction.1 The United States also demanded that the Security Council bar the ICC from prosecuting any soldiers in UN authorized missions from states that did not join the court. It even threatened to veto UN missions with US soldiers if they did not get immunity. The United States wanted the Security Council to weaken the territorial jurisdiction of the ICC. It wanted the Security Council to undermine the liberal order. When the Security Council refused to do so, the United States on June 30, 2002, vetoed the renewal of a peacekeeping operation (PKO) in Bosnia and used realist arguments to defend its vote.2 The Security Council held an emergency meeting where over forty states criticized the United States. Some argued that the United States had invoked rules of empire by asserting that it should be immune from international law. 157

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Others lamented how the United States was attacking a newly created institution intended to strengthen the liberal order. No one defended the US position. The criticism led to a compromise—a renewal of the Bosnia PKO, but also a deferral of all ICC investigations against soldiers in UN missions for one year.3 Ten days later, states again took the floor of the Security Council to criticize the United States. This statement from Canada was typical. CANADA: The ICC’s principal purpose is to try humanity’s monsters, the perpetrators of heinous crimes. We regard the ICC as a centerpiece in the effort to end impunity for genocide and other mass crimes. . . . We are also concerned about the legitimacy of the action recommended to the Security Council. Under the Charter, Member States have entrusted certain powers under certain conditions to the Council in order to maintain international peace and security. The exercise of those powers is a solemn responsibility. The Council has repeatedly affirmed that impunity is a threat to international peace and security and that accountability for international crimes contributes to stability. We are distressed, therefore, that the Council, in purporting to act in our name, appears in this resolution to come down on the side of impunity, and for the most serious of international crimes.4

Despite these criticisms, the Security Council a year later renewed the immunity for another twelve months. Two years later, it refused to renew the immunity for a third time—the United States had by then invaded Iraq, and the Abu Ghraib pictures of US soldiers torturing Iraqis altered the context of the US demand. The United States again threatened to veto PKOs, but did not follow through, ultimately unwilling to challenge the liberal order in such an open and direct way. The United States has played a complex role in the liberal order.5 It is at the center of the hegemonic bargain, committed to provide global security and an open economy. In most contexts, it has championed the liberal paths to order: trade, democracy, human rights, international law, and international organizations. The Collective Security Dataset (CSD) results and speech act analyses illustrate the overall US commitment to the liberal order. The United States voted for resolutions 98 percent of the time, and when it voted no, it gave liberal reasons for that no vote over 80 percent of the time. The United States was less likely to say no when Security Council resolutions authorized more liberal practices, invoked Chapter VII, or authorized enforcement measures. In some contexts, however, the United States has undermined the liberal order.6 It has invoked realist rules by failing to ratify many treaties, including the Rome Statute that created the ICC. It has also invoked rules of empire by asserting hegemonic privileges, as the ICC example also shows. In this chapter, I analyze the three ways that the United States could undermine the liberal order. First, the United States could violate its commitment within the hegemonic bargain to act with restraint through

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multilateral institutions. It could unilaterally pursue global security without Security Council authorization and trigger criticisms of empire. Therefore, I analyze the 2003 invasion of Iraq, where this scenario seemed possible. Second, the United States could protect others when they violate the liberal order. Therefore, I analyze US vetoes protecting Israel from collective security enforcement measures. Third, the United States could violate its commitment to provide for security and an open economy. It could walk away from the hegemonic bargain. Therefore, I discuss the Donald Trump presidency, when a populist America First isolationism made this scenario possible. In each of these three sections, I emphasize certain Security Council meetings—immediately before and after the US invasion of Iraq, during the second Palestinian intifada, and during the Trump administration regarding the Iranian nuclear deal. In this chapter, I also focus on how other states reacted when the United States pursued nonliberal policies and invoked realist rules. States had four options: (1) support the United States with realist arguments; (2) support the United States with the liberal arguments; (3) criticize the United States with critical theory arguments; or (4) criticize the United States with the liberal arguments. The cases show the following patterns regarding these four options. First, states rarely supported the United States with realist arguments. Second, the few states that did support the United States made liberal arguments. They could not characterize the United States as undermining the liberal order and then declare support for the United States. Third, critics were also more likely to use liberal arguments, imploring the United States to remain within the Charter bargain. Fourth, a sizable minority of the critics—particularly regarding Israel—made critical theory arguments, referring to coercion, hierarchy, double standards, and injustice. Overall, the cases illustrated the resiliency of the liberal order. When the United States undermined the liberal order, most states responded with a defense of the liberal order.

Iraq The current decline narrative is not the first. The global community also debated this during the post–September 11 era of the Bush Doctrine, the invasion of Iraq, and US antiterrorism policies.7 The United States undermined the liberal order by refusing to act with restraint through multilateral organizations. After 9/11, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) invoked the collective self-defense clause for the first time, but the United States invaded Afghanistan unilaterally. The Security Council did not explicitly authorize the US use of force in Iraq, and some allies did not join the “coalition of the willing.” The United States engaged in antiterrorism

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policies inconsistent with the liberal order, including illegal assertions of self-defense, cross-border operations targeting terrorist suspects, and detention and torture. The United States asserted hegemonic privileges, engaging in policies that it did not want others to pursue. It seemed plausible that the United States had combined realist and imperialist policies to such an extent that they could end the bargains constituting the liberal order. The United States argued that 9/11 fundamentally changed world politics. The combination of Islamic terrorism, weapons of mass destruction (WMD), rogue states, and a relatively open international system created existential security threats that the liberal order was inadequate to address. The United States asserted an expansive right of preemptive, anticipatory self-defense because only a we-have-to-get-them-before-they-get-us logic was sufficient to achieve global security against those threats. Charter rules about the use of force and territorial integrity and liberal rules about human rights were now impediments to national and global security. This era starkly illustrated the interactions and tensions between the two bargains. Critics of the Bush Doctrine conflated the two bargains, arguing that any violation of the UN Charter undermined the liberal order. The use of force in Iraq was thus an illegitimate assertion of empire. For the coalition of the willing, the use of force in Iraq was consistent with the hegemonic bargain. The two bargains were distinct, and global security sometimes required prioritizing the hegemonic bargain over the Charter bargain. This tension played out every time the United States used force without Security Council authorization in the post–Cold War era. The 2003 invasion of Iraq was not unique. Other examples ranged across multiple issue areas: 1. Human rights: no-fly zones in Iraq (1993) and NATO intervention in Kosovo (1999). 2. Terrorism: missile strikes in Iraq (1993), Sudan (1998), Afghanistan (1998, 2001), and war on terrorism policies in Pakistan, Somalia, Iraq, and Syria. 3. WMD: missile strikes in Iraq (1998) and Syria (2017, 2018). Some prioritized the hegemonic bargain and accepted the above uses of force. Others prioritized the Charter bargain and criticized them. The mainstream debate was about the extent to which the Charter bargain limited the scope of the hegemonic bargain and, thus, reigned in the United States. For critical theorists willing to challenge the liberal order, though, the US invasion of Iraq was the most obvious US assertion of empire in the post–Cold War era. The tensions between the bargains emerged regarding Iraq when the United States could not convince the Security Council to legitimize the use of

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force.8 The United States accused Iraq of threatening global security by building WMD, supporting terrorism, and violating Security Council resolutions. It consistently threatened to use force on its own if the Security Council failed to act. George W. Bush told the General Assembly on September 12, 2002, that Security Council inaction would “render the UN irrelevant.”9 The Charter bargain would not limit US options. The United States threatened unilateral action at an October 17, 2002, Security Council meeting. UNITED STATES: This is a regime that has invaded two of its neighbors and tried to annihilate one of them; a regime that has used chemical weapons on its neighbors and its very own citizens; a regime that has lied about its development of weapons of mass destruction; a regime that signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and then proceeded to develop a major nuclear weapons program. . . . Now, the spotlight is back on the Security Council. We hope and expect that the Council will act and play its proper role as a safeguard of our common security. If it fails to do so, then we and other States will be forced to act.10

After two months of negotiations, the Security Council passed Resolution 1441 asserting that Iraq was in “material breach” of earlier resolutions regarding its WMD programs, weapons inspections, ties to terrorists, and human rights violations. It required future weapons inspections and granted Iraq a “final opportunity” to comply with its disarmament obligations. It stated that Iraq would face “serious consequences” if it continued to violate its obligations. It required the Security Council to reconvene to determine whether Iraq had fulfilled its obligations. However, it did not explicitly authorize the use of force. This intentional ambiguity enabled all parties to declare victory.11 France, Russia, and China insisted that additional Security Council action was required to authorize enforcement measures.12 The United States did not agree.13 The weapons inspectors reported to the Security Council in March 2003 that Iraq had no nuclear weapons program. They said that while there was no evidence of chemical and biological weapons, they could not yet confirm that Iraq had none. They characterized Iraqi cooperation as “not immediate” as required by Resolution 1441. They said they needed additional months to complete the inspection process.14 The Security Council debated whether to continue the inspection process or to go ahead and determine that Iraq remained in material breach of Security Council resolutions. Russia, China, and France argued for further inspections. The French speech was passionate, and the chamber erupted in rare applause. FRANCE: Nothing will be done in the Security Council, at any time, in haste, out of a lack of understanding, out of suspicion or out of fear. In this temple, the United Nations, we are the guardians of an ideal; we are the guardians of a conscience. The heavy responsibility and the immense

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Renegotiating the Liberal Order honor that are ours must lead us to give priority to disarmament through peace. It is an old country, France, of an old continent such as mine, Europe, that speaks before the Council today, that has known war, occupation, barbarity—a country that does not forget and that is aware of all it owes to the fighters for freedom who came from America and elsewhere. And yet, France has always stood upright in the face of history and before mankind. Faithful to its values, it wants to act resolutely with all the other members of the international community. We believe in our ability to build a better world together.15

The Security Council then held two extraordinary meetings. On March 11–12, 2003, immediately before the war, over fifty states addressed the Security Council. On March 26, after the war had begun, over eighty states addressed the Security Council. Not one state echoed realist US arguments about the Bush Doctrine and self-defense to support the invasion of Iraq. Instead, the supporters argued that the war fulfilled the hegemonic bargain and was necessary to maintain global security. They did not dismiss the Charter bargain; most argued that the purpose of the war was to enforce Security Council resolutions. However, they ultimately argued that, in this case, the hegemonic bargain superseded the Charter bargain. Here is one example. SOUTH KOREA: Over the past 12 years, Iraq has repeatedly refused to comply with its disarmament obligations under the relevant Security Council resolutions. . . . If Iraq today faces the serious consequences of which it was warned in resolution 1441, it has no one but itself to blame for failing to take advantage of the time and opportunities provided. Under these circumstances, the coalition action by the international community should be construed as last-resort, but inevitable measures taken after the exhaustion of all possible diplomatic efforts to resolve the issue peacefully.16

The majority of states criticized the war at these meetings (including eleven Security Council members). The majority of their arguments were also liberal. Most of the critics defended the legitimacy of the Charter bargain and chastised the United States for violating that bargain. SOUTH AFRICA: The war in Iraq should not destroy the foundation of the rules-based system of collective security with which the United Nations and its Charter provide us. The founders of the United Nations sought to bring predictability to international governance. They envisaged a world order in which the lives of the innocent and weak would be protected, and not one that is premised on military might and the law of survival of the fittest.17

However, some states were also willing to assert critical theory arguments that the war amounted to empire, referring to injustice, imperialism, coercion, double standards, and regime change. The plausibility of these arguments did the most damage to the liberal order. Even these states, how-

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ever, also defended the Charter bargain. For those who equated the hegemonic bargain with empire, the Charter bargain remained a legitimate way to limit its scope. LIBYA: The evil aggression that is being conducted by the United States and the United Kingdom, as well as a small number of other allied nations, against an independent and sovereign State that is a Member of the United Nations constitutes a flagrant violation of all laws and international norms. It is a blatant violation of the purposes and principles of the United Nations Charter, and it disregards all the efforts of the institutions that are responsible for maintaining international peace and security. . . . The two States declared that regime change in Iraq, establishing freedom and democracy and respect for human rights, was the main objective. So, we wonder whether it is legal to commit aggression against another State and to change its regime.18

One striking characteristic of the speeches criticizing the war in Iraq is how easily they combined liberal and critical theory arguments. Was the war a logical extension of the liberal order, a nonliberal lurch toward empire, or perhaps both? When the United States pursued policies that plausibly resembled empire, it became difficult to distinguish liberal from critical theory arguments. MALAYSIA: The doctrine of pre-emptive strikes has no foundation in international law. Malaysia views the unilateral military action undertaken by the United States and its allies as illegal and as being tantamount to an invasion of an independent and sovereign nation. What is more, it is a unilateral action taken on a selective basis and premised on tenuous evidence, while a viable mechanism exists to ensure Iraqi compliance with relevant Security Council resolutions. . . . [T]he pre-emptive use of force threatens the very foundation of international law, making war once again the tool of international politics and of the powerful in subjugating the weak and defenseless. It also erroneously asserts the notion that might is right.19

The critics conflated the two bargains and interpreted any deviation from the Charter bargain as a violation of the liberal order. The reaction against the war in Iraq attempted to (re)establish limits on the hegemonic bargain by elevating the importance of the Charter bargain. Two themes in the second meeting reinforced this pattern. Nearly every state asserted the necessity of providing humanitarian aid in Iraq and that the warring parties must follow international law on the treatment of noncombatants, the rules for occupying powers, and Iraqi self-determination. Regardless of whether states criticized or supported the United States, they remained within a liberal framework. No one invoked nonliberal rules by asserting a framework where the only options were to support the United States because we live in a realist world or to criticize the United States for expanding the empire.

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The two liberal bargains dominated the debate. US policies after the atrocities of 9/11 put unusually severe stresses on the liberal order, but they did not fundamentally change world politics. The liberal order thus endured beyond the invasion of Iraq. Even many US policies regarding Iraq during this period remained within a liberal framework.20 The United States worked diligently to try to get the Security Council to legitimize the use of force. It complied with the UN Charter and notified the Security Council of its use of force, justifying it as an enforcement of WMD resolutions, not as an Article 51 act of self-defense. It asked the Security Council afterward to authorize the presence of coalition forces in Iraq. Finally, the CSD results presented in Chapter 4 showed that the Security Council rejuvenated its liberal practices after the Iraq War. Consider again Figure 4.1: the number of liberal and core liberal practices authorized by the Security Council soared after 2003. The US invasion of Iraq exacerbated global tensions, destabilized the Middle East, and harmed US interests, but it did not end the liberal order.

Israel US vetoes on the Security Council protecting Israel from collective security enforcement have also undermined the liberal order. For both the United States and Israel, the realist rules of war and rivalry have dominated Israel’s relationship with its neighbors. Israel’s enemies have violated the hegemonic bargain regarding democracy and human rights and the Charter bargain regarding self-determination, aggression, and terrorism. Israel therefore has argued that the liberal order is not adequate to maintain its national security interests—the exact argument the United States made after 9/11. Israel has invaded its neighbors, controlled the Occupied Territories, committed war crimes, and acquired WMD. It has signed few treaties and eschewed multilateral negotiations to resolve the Palestinian conflict. For realists, Israel has engaged in legitimate self-defense. For critical theorists, the United States has extended its hegemonic privileges to Israel. Israel sees only anarchy and conflict, and the Palestinians see only hierarchy and coercion. Few see interdependence or the possibility of a win-win outcome. US vetoes perpetuate this pattern, enabling Israel to pursue self-defense in an anarchical world and convincing Palestinians that they are subordinate actors in a regional empire. Despite the intractability of this conflict, Security Council resolutions have asserted principles that contribute to a global consensus about its appropriate resolution.21 1. The acquisition of territory by force is a fundamental violation of international law.

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2. The territory conquered by Israel in 1967 are occupied territories. 3. Israel is obligated to follow the Geneva Convention’s rules on occupied territories. 4. Israeli settlements violate the Geneva Conventions and are a major obstacle to the peace process. 5. A just resolution of the conflict requires full Israeli military withdrawal from the Occupied Territories and the creation of an independent Palestinian state. 6. The United Nations should play a lead role in the negotiations process. Israel has rejected this liberal framework and insisted on realist rules. Israel has even disputed the legitimacy of capacity building within the Charter bargain, unable to interpret the UN as a neutral actor.22 It has preferred bilateral negotiations to avoid pressure from third parties to follow liberal rules. Israeli rejection of liberal global governance has often put the United States in awkward positions. While the United States has sometimes supported Security Council resolutions targeting Israel, it has also vetoed many resolutions to protect Israel from collective security enforcement. These vetoes illustrate a US willingness to undermine the liberal order. The conflict between Israel and its neighbors is one of the more unusual Security Council agenda items. The Security Council had more meetings on this agenda item during 1990–2020 than any other (348 meetings). However, those meetings generated only nineteen resolutions and fifteen presidential statements. The United States voted for twelve resolutions and abstained on seven others.23 Of the thirty-four total statements, eleven engaged in neutral mediation, encouraging the parties to negotiate a resolution to the conflict. The Security Council thus asserted that Israel had violated a rule less than once per year. Some of the asserted rule violations were armed conflict rules, with the Security Council demanding that Israel withdraw troops from Jerusalem or other Palestinian cities. Most of the asserted rules violations were war crimes—violations of the Geneva Conventions such as using violence against noncombatants, illegal deportations, denying humanitarian aid, demolishing homes, and building settlements. All were shame on you resolutions. The Security Council has never authorized an enforcement measure targeting Israel. The United States vetoed seventeen Security Council resolutions targeting Israel during 1990–2020. Resolutions targeting Israel were only 0.7 percent of all Security Council resolutions, but they represented 77 percent of all US vetoes. Some of the vetoed resolutions asserted violations of armed conflict rules, demanding that Israel withdraw troops from Gaza or southern Lebanon. All asserted war crimes violations, including expropriating land, altering the status of Jerusalem, building settlements, killing noncombatants and UN personnel, deporting Palestinians, building

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the “security wall,” assassinating and detaining Palestinian officials, using disproportionate force in Gaza, and denying humanitarian aid.24 Once again, all were shame on you resolutions. The typical pattern was for the Security Council first to pass a shame on you resolution and then escalate to enforcement measures if noncompliance continued. US vetoes occurred at the initial stages of this pattern, preventing the Security Council from entering later stages and considering enforcement measures—similar to Russia’s protection of Syria. A clear pattern in the US voting record on Israel is that eleven of its twelve votes in favor of resolutions in 1990–2020 occurred during the two Palestinian intifadas (all twelve occurred during the George H. W. and George W. Bush administrations—the United States during the Bill Clinton and Barack Obama administrations never voted for a resolution targeting Israel!). In this section, I analyze Security Council debates during the second intifada during 2000–2005, a period in which the United States voted for six resolutions and vetoed seven others. I focus on two meetings when many states reacted to a US veto.25 As with Iraq, states had four options: (1) support the United States and Israel with realist arguments; (2) support the United States and Israel with liberal arguments; (3) criticize the United States and Israel with critical theory arguments; or (4) criticize the United States and Israel with liberal arguments. These meetings exhibited three patterns. First, few states supported the United States—there was no analogous coalition of the willing regarding Israel. Second, the few who did support the United States were more likely to make liberal than realist arguments. Instead of making explicitly realist arguments about Israeli self-defense requirements against Palestinian terrorism, states were more likely to argue that the Security Council should pursue neutral mediation, not target Israel with collective security practices. Third, while critics were again more likely to make liberal arguments, there were also more critical theory arguments than during the Iraq War. In sum, member states understood that US vetoes protecting Israel undermined the liberal order. Unlike the Iraq War, critics of the United States were more likely to assert the existence of unjust hierarchy, coercion, and double standards. Similar to the Iraq War, supporters tried to justify the US position within a liberal rather than a realist framework. Intifada refers to Palestinian uprisings against the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The first intifada began in 1987 when Palestinians engaged in protests, strikes, boycotts, and widespread throwing of stones and Molotov cocktails at Israeli forces. Negative global reactions to the Israeli military response helped create the context for the Oslo Accords and peace talks throughout the 1990s. The second intifada grew out of the collapse of that peace process. Unlike the first, Palestinian tactics escalated beyond demonstrations and rock throwing to include suicide bombings,

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sniper fire, and Hamas rocket attacks from the Gaza Strip. Israel responded with military attacks, air raids, extrajudicial killings, deportations, and preventing the delivery of humanitarian aid. Over 3,200 Palestinians and 1,000 Israelis died during 2000–2005. While the United States was willing to support Israel’s realist claims of self-defense, most of the world condemned Israeli policies as violations of the liberal order. The second intifada began on September 28, 2000, when future Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon visited a site in Jerusalem considered holy to both Jews and Muslims and triggered a spiral of violence. The Security Council passed a resolution that “deplored” the provocation at the holy site and “condemned the excessive use of force against Palestinians.”26 The United States abstained, enabling the Security Council to assert that Israel had committed war crimes. A subsequent draft resolution establishing a UN observer mission to monitor the security of Palestinians in the Occupied Territories failed when seven states abstained.27 Those opposed (including France, Russia, and the United Kingdom) argued that a UN observer mission would undermine ongoing negotiations. A preference for capacity building again prevented the authorization of a collective security practice. When those negotiations broke down, some Security Council members again submitted a draft resolution on March 27, 2001, to establish a UN observer force to protect Palestinians in the Occupied Territories. It expressed “grave concern” at recent settlement policies, implicitly conveying that Israel had violated the Geneva Conventions. The United States vetoed this resolution. UNITED STATES: The United States opposed this draft resolution because it is unbalanced and unworkable and hence unwise. It is more responsive to political theatre than political reality. In this draft resolution, some pretended that the Council could impose a solution, including a protection mechanism for civilians, in the absence of an agreement between the parties. . . . Last December, a similar draft resolution failed to receive the nine affirmative votes required for adoption, sending a message that the road to the just and lasting peace we all seek in the Middle East does not begin in this Council. That road begins in the region, and the parties themselves must make the difficult choices required.28

The United States criticized the Security Council for trying to “impose a solution” because Israel would neither consent to an observer mission nor comply with the demand to end settlements. Note that the United States also interpreted routine UN mediation practices as an attempt to “impose a solution.” Israel wanted bilateral negotiations, not the UN acting as a neutral mediator. The United States supported that Israeli position, conveying that Israel could ignore the liberal order. The Security Council next attempted to pass a resolution endorsing a proposal from an international commission headed by former US senator

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George Mitchell urging an immediate cease-fire, concrete action by Palestinians against terrorism, a halt to Israeli settlements, and the withdrawal of Israeli forces to preintifada positions as preconditions for continued negotiations. Importantly, it did not endorse a UN force to protect Palestinians. Israel rejected the proposal, severed diplomatic relations with the Palestinians, attacked Palestinian government buildings, continued its settlement policies, and announced plans to build a “security wall” in the West Bank. When the Security Council considered a draft resolution calling for a “mechanism” to monitor the implementation of the Mitchell Report on December 14, 2001, the United States vetoed it, casting the only negative vote.29 Twenty-three states addressed the Security Council at that meeting. The United Kingdom, which abstained, remained close to the US position and referred to Israeli security concerns about terrorism. UNITED KINGDOM: The Palestinian Authority . . . must dismantle the Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorist networks. We again urge the Palestinian Authority to crack down on the terrorists who are using the Palestinian areas to launch attacks. They should be arrested and brought to justice. . . . Israel has a right to security and is entitled to take steps to protect itself from terrorist attack, but it should ensure that its actions remain proportionate and avoid civilian casualties. As the European Union is making perfectly clear this week at the highest level, Israel must at once withdraw its military forces and stop extrajudicial executions. . . . The United Kingdom will abstain in the voting on the text in front of us because it does not reflect the realities on the ground.30

The vast majority of countries criticized the United States for preventing Security Council action, and they made distinct but parallel liberal and critical theory arguments. The liberal arguments emphasized the need for both parties to end the violence and negotiate a two-state solution. The US veto encouraged Israel to continue its (realist) policies and perpetuate the conflict. The critical theory arguments emphasized the Israeli occupation as the source of the conflict. The US veto encouraged Israel to continue its (hierarchical) policies and perpetuate regional empire and coercion. Despite these differences between liberal and critical theory assertions, all critics argued that the US veto enabled Israel to avoid negotiations and ignore the liberal order. The statement from Singapore below was a standard liberal argument. SINGAPORE: Our humble view is that we should not provide the extremists with a veto on the resumption of the peace process. All sides should be called upon to exercise maximum restraint and not allow these extremists to drive the agenda. All parties should immediately rejoin the Middle East peace process . . . there is no alternative to a negotiated peace settlement based on Security Council resolutions 242 (1967) and 338 (1973). In our view, now more than ever, the international efforts of mediation and facil-

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itation, including those of the United States, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations, as well as those of other key regional players, should be redoubled.31

Many countries combined liberal and critical arguments, blaming Israeli policies for the conflict and advocating the need for a negotiated twostate solution. MALAYSIA: The brutal military and other actions taken by the Israeli Government against the Palestinian National Authority and President Yasser Arafat himself must not be allowed to continue. These actions are brazen acts of aggression and intimidation. . . . Non-action by this Council will send the wrong signal to Mr. Sharon, who will be emboldened to take whatever further measures he wishes, with impunity. . . . We strongly believe that the cause of peace would be better served if friends of Israel, particularly the United States, used their close relationship with Israel to moderate its policies and practices against the Palestinians and influence it to manifest greater commitment to the peace process, and not condone its hostile and aggressive behavior.32

Israel began a massive military assault in the West Bank after a Hamas suicide bomber killed twenty-eight Israelis celebrating Passover in March 2002. The dramatic escalation of the conflict initially influenced the US position on the Security Council, which then supported four resolutions within a month.33 All four demanded an immediate cease-fire, an end to all acts of terrorism, affirmed a two-state solution, and called on the parties to implement the Mitchell Report, including the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Palestinian cities. The fourth resolution, after a meeting in which twenty-nine nonmembers addressed the Council, authorized a fact-finding mission regarding Israeli restrictions on humanitarian aid to refugee camps. As the conflict continued (and plans for the war in Iraq escalated), the United States began a two-year pattern of not supporting seven resolutions targeting Israel. These resolutions criticized the destruction of Palestinian infrastructure,34 the killing of UN personnel and destruction of a World Food Program warehouse,35 deportations of Palestinians,36 settlement policies and the security wall,37 extrajudicial killings,38 the demolition of homes,39 and military attacks in Gaza.40 The United States consistently argued that the resolutions were one-sided, failed to condemn Palestinian acts of terrorism, and did not recognize Israel’s right of self-defense. The Bush Doctrine led to a convergence of US and Israeli policies—an expansive notion of self-defense against terrorist threats. A Security Council meeting on October 14, 2003, included thirty-six member states reacting to the United States casting the lone negative vote against a resolution on the Israeli security wall. Once again, the few states not in favor of the resolution made more liberal than realist arguments.

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They did not support the Israeli position that the wall was necessary for realist reasons; instead, they combined criticism of the wall as a violation of international law with a larger preference for neutral mediation in the conflict. GERMANY: While recognizing Israel’s need for security, we consider the security fence to be detrimental to the implementation of the road map. We believe that the fence might become an obstacle to the peaceful resolution of the conflict and the establishment of a viable Palestinian state, living alongside Israel in peace and security. The path of the Israeli fence departs from the Green Line, cutting deep into Palestinian land, sometimes on the basis of the confiscation of land. All of that entails serious humanitarian and economic consequences for the Palestinian population.41

Most states, including Arab and Islamic states, criticized the US veto with liberal and critical arguments. They alternatively characterized the security wall as a violation of international law and a physical manifestation of imperial coercion. All argued that the wall made a political solution more difficult. PAKISTAN: A viable Palestinian State cannot be established in the bantustans that will be created by the separation wall. The peace which Israel seeks will not result from the continuing illegal occupation and suppression of a Palestinian population in these lands which is hostile and aggrieved. It is imperative to recognize that the separation wall is an unlawful annexation of occupied Palestinian territory. It must be declared illegal by the Security Council, and the Government of Israel must be asked to cease, and reverse, its construction. We do not believe that terrorism is an excuse for the construction of that wall. . . . The taboo of terrorism should not be misused to circumvent the peace process. The peace process, which we have all supported, must be rescued.42

The Israel case is similar to the Iraq case in two ways. First, states rarely supported the United States with realist arguments. Second, more states reacted to US policies with liberal arguments than nonliberal arguments. Even the critics of US policies generally remained within the Charter framework and chastised the United States for violating the Charter bargain. The liberal order can withstand some punches from the hegemon. The cases also differed in two ways. First, while states supporting the United States in Iraq could argue that the United States was upholding the hegemonic bargain, they could not do so regarding Israel. They instead relied on a preference for capacity building within the Charter bargain, not an expansive interpretation of the liberal order. Second, and more importantly, more states made critical theory arguments regarding Israel. It was harder to justify US policies with liberal arguments and easier to criticize them with critical theory arguments. This

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suggests that US support for Israel was the more harmful policy to the liberal order.43 During the Iraq debates, no one ignored the liberal order and saw the only options as supporting the United States because we live in a realist world or criticizing the United States for expanding the empire. The debates remained within the tensions of the two liberal bargains. During the Israel debates, however, more states saw the only options as supporting Israel because we live in a realist world or criticizing Israel for expanding the empire. While the majority of the speeches remained within the liberal order, a sizable minority invoked nonliberal rules.

Trump The United States could also undermine the liberal order by walking away from the two bargains. In 2016, the United States elected a president who wanted to abandon the US commitment to provide for global security and an open economy. Donald Trump made populist, isolationist arguments that the liberal order was no longer in US interests. His consistently zero-sum worldview even led to criticisms of NATO and bilateral alliances in Asia. His hostility to the liberal order extended to the Covid-19 pandemic, the quintessential example of our interdependence: the United States did not participate in global efforts to develop vaccines and ensure their distribution around the world in 2020. Trump’s policies challenged the entire spectrum of the liberal order.44 1. Trade: the United States withdrew from the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement; put tariffs on imports from the United States’ largest trade partners (Canada, Mexico, China, and the European Union [EU]); blocked the appointment of members to the World Trade Organization (WTO) dispute resolution body; and “renegotiated” the North American Free Trade Agreement with Mexico and Canada. 2. Democracy: Trump had testy relations with many democratic countries and good relations with some authoritarians; issued no statements of support for pro-democracy protests around the world, particularly in Hong Kong; and violated many democratic norms within the US domestic political system. 3. Human rights: the United States removed the promotion of human rights from its National Security Strategy; separated families at the US-Mexico border; reduced protections for migrants and asylum seekers; and issued no criticisms of human rights violations in countries such as Russia, China, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey. 4. International organizations: the United States left the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the UN

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Human Rights Council, and the UN Relief and Works Agency; Trump consistently criticized the UN, NATO, and the EU; and supported the UK withdrawal from the EU. 5. International law: the United States withdrew from many treaties, including the Migration and Refugee Treaty, the Paris Climate Accords, the Iran nuclear agreement, the Treaty of Amity with Iran, and the Open Skies Treaty; put sanctions on ICC prosecutors investigating alleged war crimes in Afghanistan; and recognized Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights and Jerusalem, clear violations of international law. The most important example of Trump’s assault on the liberal order at the Security Council was withdrawing from the Iran nuclear agreement. The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) was a textbook example of collective security. Iran violated fundamental WMD rules, the Security Council authorized economic sanctions, and Iran eventually agreed to follow the WMD rules in return for an end to the sanctions. While it was a long, complicated, and bumpy process, it followed the standard blueprint for collective security enforcement using economic sanctions. It illustrated how liberal global governance could address a serious threat to international security without resorting to force. The events leading to the JCPOA began when the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reported to the Security Council in March 2006 that Iran had violated the WMD rules by kicking out its inspectors. As a state that ratified the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), Iran was obligated to allow IAEA officials to inspect their nuclear facilities. The Security Council demanded that Iran allow IAEA inspections, authorized sanctions when Iran failed to comply, and steadily strengthened the sanctions as Iranian noncompliance continued.45 By 2010, the sanctions had expanded to trade restrictions on conventional weapons and use of force authorizations to inspect cargo and seize weapons.46 The EU banned its members from buying Iranian oil. US financial sanctions excluded Iran from the global financial system and blocked it from using US dollars. Foreign direct investment in Iran dried up. The sanctions imposed after 2010 alone reduced Iran’s economy by 20 percent.47 The economic harm imposed by the sanctions encouraged Iran to negotiate, and long rounds of talks led to the JCPOA in July 2015. The JCPOA imposed limits on Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for the lifting of Security Council sanctions. It placed fifteen-year limits on how much uranium Iran could stockpile, the number of centrifuges Iran could have to enrich its uranium, and the levels to which Iran could enrich its uranium. The deal included monitoring requirements of Iran’s nuclear facilities for thirty years. In return, the Security Council, the United States,

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and the EU would progressively lift the sanctions targeting Iran for violating WMD rules.48 (US and EU sanctions due to terrorism, human rights, and ballistic missile programs continued.) If Iran violated the agreement, the sanctions could “snap back” into place. The deal ensured that Iran would produce no nuclear weapons for fifteen years and would need at least an additional year after the agreement expired to do so. Given the extended monitoring requirements, the global community would know if Iran began to build nuclear weapons and could (again) respond accordingly. The Security Council endorsed the JCPOA with Resolution 2231 on July 20, 2015. Critics emphasized the narrow scope of the deal. While it addressed the Iranian nuclear program, it did not address Iranian support for terrorism or other aggressive policies. They argued that lifting the sanctions would enable Iran to further those destabilizing policies and increase its influence in the region. They presumed that Iran would not moderate its policies and would continue to threaten US and Israeli security interests in the region. Iran would simply build nuclear weapons after the fifteen-year period expired. For the critics, the appropriate way to deal with Iran was isolation and punishment, with many sympathetic to regime change. Many Trump policies in the Middle East would center on countering Iranian influence— supporting the Saudi-led war in Yemen against the Houthis, unquestioned support for Israel, and negotiating multiple agreements between Israel and Sunni countries. The JCPOA was in effect when Trump entered office.49 Iran had complied with the agreement, and the IAEA provided the Security Council with quarterly reports to verify that compliance. The UN, EU, and the United States were unwinding the sanctions. However, after renewing the sanctions waivers and certifying Iranian compliance for sixteen months, Trump announced on May 8, 2018, that the United States was withdrawing from the JCPOA and reimposing sanctions on Iran. The US sanctions extended to all who traded with Iran, including the allies who signed the JCPOA. US policy was not only violating the JCPOA and Resolution 2231, but also imposing sanctions on those who complied with the agreements. (The United States never enforced the sanctions against its allies.) The policy undermined international law, international organizations, and trade, three pillars of the liberal order—and it consistently encouraged its allies to do the same. However, all the other parties, including Iran, criticized the United States and vowed to continue with their JCPOA obligations. As the United States began to restart sanctions, the others ignored the United States and soldiered on with the agreement. The Security Council held an extraordinary summit-level meeting with heads of state in attendance on September 26, 2018. Trump spoke first, criticizing Iran and the JCPOA:

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Once again, states could respond in four ways: (1) support the United States with realist arguments; (2) support the United States with liberal arguments; (3) criticize the United States with critical theory arguments; or (4) criticize the United States with liberal arguments. At this meeting and throughout all the meetings on Iran during the Trump administration, states rarely supported the United States. As with Iraq and Israel, no one echoed US realist arguments. Unlike Iraq and Israel, though, it was not plausible to support the United States with liberal arguments. The United States was fully outside the liberal order, and it was alone. Similar to Iraq and Israel, most countries made liberal arguments, supporting the JCPOA and criticizing the United States for leaving the agreement. SWEDEN: The JCPOA—the Iran deal—is a historic achievement. It is a concrete example of effective diplomatic non-proliferation efforts. The agreement prevents nuclear proliferation in Iran. . . . This is why Sweden, together with the rest of the European Union (EU), deeply regrets the United States unilateral withdrawal from the agreement—a decision with far-reaching consequences that makes our world more unsafe. And frankly, what are the alternatives to the agreement? Undercutting a concrete multilateral non-proliferation tool dangerously undermines our joint non-proliferation efforts elsewhere. Together with our EU partners, we will try to mitigate the adverse effects of the United States policies.51

Some states also made critical theory arguments about double standards in US policy, including one remarkable example from Bolivian president Evo Morales. BOLIVIA: The United States has once again demonstrated its contempt for international law, multilateralism and the principles and purposes of the Charter of the United Nations. Every time the United States invades a country, launches missiles or finances regime-change, it does so together with a propaganda campaign that reiterates that such action is in the name of justice, freedom, democracy, human rights or for humanitarian reasons. . . . It is not interested in human rights or justice. If so, it would sign and ratify international human rights treaties. It would not threaten the investigative mechanisms of the International Criminal Court. It would not encourage the

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use of torture or withdraw from the Human Rights Council. It would not separate migrant children from their families or put them in cages. The United States is not interested in multilateralism. If so, it would not have withdrawn from the Paris Agreement or renounced the global compact on migration. It would not launch unilateral attacks or make unilateral decisions, such as illegally declaring Jerusalem to be the capital of Israel. Such contempt for multilateralism is motivated by its desire for geopolitical control and to appropriate natural resources.52

The US sanctions began to have their intended effects on Iran by the beginning of 2019. Iran bristled at what it called the “economic terrorism” of the United States. Iran announced on May 8, 2019, that it would engage in “remedial” breaches in response to the US withdrawal from the agreement and subsequent sanctions. The IAEA confirmed that Iran subsequently surpassed the limits on its uranium stockpiles and on the level of enriched uranium. These violations did not suggest that Iran was in a mad dash to build nuclear weapons. It was technically violating the agreement to express its disapproval with US policy. Iran repeatedly stated that it would return to compliance with the JCPOA when the United States did so. This pattern continued. In September 2019, Iran announced a third breach regarding research and development obligations. In November 2019, the IAEA announced a fourth breach, saying that it found evidence of uranium in a location undeclared by Iran. During this period of diplomatic escalation, the United States killed Qasem Soleimani, a top Iranian general, on January 2, 2020. Three days later, Iran announced that it would breach a fifth JCPOA rule regarding the number of is centrifuges. It reiterated a willingness to end all the violations if the United States rejoined the agreement. The United Kingdom, France, and Germany (but not Russia and China) finally responded to the Iranian violations by triggering the JCPOA dispute resolution mechanism on January 14, 2020. This provision required the parties to negotiate a claim that one party had violated the agreement. Such a process, if it failed, could then lead to a referral to the Security Council, which could then reinstate sanctions. The Europeans had begun the process to snap back the sanctions in an attempt to regain leverage in the negotiations. It did not work. Iran threatened that it would withdraw from the NPT and end IAEA inspections if they referred the situation to the Security Council. Ultimately, the Europeans backed down, preferring to salvage the agreement rather than reauthorize sanctions. They did not want to adopt the US position. The agreement sputtered along throughout 2020. Iran remained in technical violation of the agreement, but the IAEA confirmed that the violations were marginal and did not represent an all-out attempt to build nuclear weapons (Iran continued to comply with the monitoring rules). An October deadline loomed at the Security Council, when the arms embargo on Iran

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established by Resolution 2231 was set to expire. The United States vowed to prevent its expiration and maintain the arms embargo—even if it meant claiming that it was still a party to the JCPOA to do so! On August 14, 2020, the United States submitted a draft resolution to extend the UN arms embargo against Iran. Only one other state (the Dominican Republic) voted yes. The United States was again isolated. Most states again made liberal arguments, defending the JCPOA and criticizing the United States. SOUTH AFRICA: South Africa views the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) as one of most important diplomatic achievements in the area of nuclear non-proliferation. We believe it is an exemplar of collective action to consolidate peace through cooperation and collaboration on the basis of a binding agreement, and, therefore, its preservation and implementation should be foremost. We are also of the view that the JCPOA has contributed significantly to the reduction of tensions over Iran’s nuclear program and remains vital to promoting peace, stability and the normalization of relations.53

The Iran example showed the resilience of the liberal order. The United States undermined the liberal order and ended up isolated as others continued to invoke liberal rules and support the agreement. The agreement remained in place when Trump left office. To what extent did the Trump years undermine the liberal order? The CSD provides some evidence about the extent to which the number of liberal practices authorized by the Security Council changed during those years. Table 10.1 summarizes two comparisons: Security Council practices per meeting during the Trump years compared with the rest of the post–Cold War era, and compared with the previous eight years during the Barack Obama administration.54 While Security Council practices relative to the Obama years show either stagnation or declines in liberal practices, the number of Security Council practices relative to the entire post–Cold War era show many increases. Similar to the summary results in Figure 4.1, the recent decline in liberal practices understood within the entire post–Cold War context does not support a conclusion that the liberal order is in decline. The second column in Table 10.1, comparing the Trump years to the Obama years, however, shows that the Security Council did not escape the Trump assault on the liberal order. Not one CSD variable moved in a liberal direction. Not one type of Security Council practice increased during the Trump years. Indeed, some comparisons showed significant differences in a nonliberal direction. The Security Council was less likely to assert WMD and democracy rules during the Trump years. There was also more conflict and dissension on the Security Council—more abstentions, more no votes, more failed resolutions, more Russian abstentions and no votes, and more

An Ambivalent Hegemon Table 10.1

177

Security Council Practices During the Trump Years

`

Compared to Entire Post–Cold War Era

Compared to Obama Years

Number of liberal practices Number of core liberal practices Invoke Chapter VII Shame on you resolutions Assert armed conflict rule Assert terrorism rule Assert WMD rule Assert war crimes rule Assert human rights rule Assert democracy rule Number of liberal rule violations Authorized multinational forces   to use of force Authorized PKOs to use force Authorized PKOs to protect civilians Authorized core liberal PKO mandates Number of sanctions authorized Authorized enforcement of core   liberal rules Authorized regional organizations Number of unanimous resolutions Number of failed resolutions Number of Russian vetoes and   abstentions Number of Chinese vetoes and   abstentions Number of US vetoes and abstentions

More More More likely No difference More likely No difference No difference More likely More likely Less likely More More likely

No difference No difference No difference No difference No difference No difference Less likely No difference No difference Less likely No difference No difference

More likely More likely More likely More More likely

No difference No difference No difference No difference No difference

More likely Fewer More More

No difference Fewer More More

More

More

More

No difference

Source: Author’s own. Notes: Results are based on independent sample t-tests of Collective Security Dataset data at a .05 significance level. WMD = weapons of mass destruction; PKO = peacekeeping operation.

Chinese abstentions and no votes. Still, the majority of the comparisons resulted in statistically insignificant differences. While the Trump years were not good for liberal global governance on the Security Council, it also was not fatal. The first column in Table 10.1, comparing the Trump years to the rest of the post–Cold War era, reinforces this point. It incorporates the entire CSD dataset and suggests that, despite the bump in the road brought on by the Trump years, Security Council practices do not provide overwhelming evidence for the end of the liberal order. The same warning signs about a lack of unanimity in voting patterns appear—the war in Syria is an extremely

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important exception to the overall trends. However, many Security Council practices were more likely during the Trump years when compared with the rest of the post–Cold War era. Resolutions authorized more liberal and more core liberal practices. They were more likely to assert armed conflict, war crimes, and human rights violations. They were more likely to authorize enforcement of core liberal rules, core liberal PKO mandates, the use of force, and collective security practices by regional organizations. Even during the Trump years, the hegemonic bargain continued to influence the Charter bargain and Security Council practices. These findings also suggest the continued resiliency of the liberal order, and in the concluding chapter I make a final argument for the plausibility of the renegotiation narrative.

Notes 1. Weller, “Undoing the Global Constitution.” 2. UN Security Council, Meeting 4563 (June 30, 2002), 2. 3. UN Security Council, Resolution 1422 (July 12, 2002). 4. UN Security Council, Meeting 4568 (July 10, 2002), 3. 5. Cronin, “The Paradox of Hegemony.” 6. Mastanduno, “Liberal Hegemony, International Order, and US Foreign Policy”; Haas, A World in Disarray. 7. Glennon, “Why the Security Council Failed”; Berdal, “The UN Security Council”; Gray, “A Crisis of Legitimacy for the UN Collective Security System?” 8. Morris and Wheeler, “The Security Council’s Crisis of Legitimacy”; Mor, “Power and Rhetorical Bargaining”; Malone, The International Struggle over Iraq. 9. UN General Assembly, Statement by President Bush, September 12, 2002, at https://www.un.org/webcast/ga/57/statements/020912usaE.htm. 10. UN Security Council, Meeting 4625 (October 17, 2002) (Resumption 3), 10–12. 11. Byers, “Agreeing to Disagree.” 12. Blokker, “Is the Authorization Authorized?” 13. UN Security Council, Meeting 4644 (November 8, 2002), 3. 14. UN Security Council, Meeting 4714 (March 7, 2003). 15. UN Security Council, Meeting 4707 (February 14, 2003), 12–13. 16. UN Security Council, Meeting 4726 (March 26, 2003), 34–35. 17. UN Security Council, Meeting 4726 (March 26, 2003), 20–21. 18. UN Security Council, Meeting 4726 (March 26, 2003), 16–17. 19. UN Security Council, Meeting 4726 (March 26, 2003), 8. 20. Johnstone, “US-UN Relations After Iraq.” 21. Graubart and Jimenez-Bacardi, “David in Goliath’s Citadel.” 22. Gruenberg, “An Analysis of United Nations Security Council Resolutions.” 23. Resolutions approved by the United States are UN Security Council, Resolution 672 (October 12, 1990); UN Security Council, Resolution 673 (October 24, 1990); UN Security Council, Resolution 681 (December 20, 1990); UN Security Council, Resolution 694 (May 24, 1991); UN Security Council, Resolution 726 (January 6, 1992); UN Security Council, Resolution 799 (December 18, 1992); UN Security Council, Resolution 1397 (March 12, 2002); UN Security Council, Resolution

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1402 (March 30, 2002); UN Security Council, Resolution 1403 (April 4, 2002); UN Security Council, Resolution 1405 (April 19, 2002); UN Security Council, Resolution 1515 (November 19, 2003). Resolutions on which the United States abstained are UN Security Council, Resolution 1850 (December 16, 2008); UN Security Council, Resolution 1073 (September 28, 1996); UN Security Council, Resolution 1322 (October 7, 2000); UN Security Council, Resolution 1435 (September 24, 2002); UN Security Council, Resolution 1544 (May 19, 2004); UN Security Council, Resolution 1860 (January 8, 2009); UN Security Council, Resolution 2334 (December 23, 2016). 24. The draft resolutions condemning war crimes include UN Security Council, Draft Resolution 270 (March 27, 2001); UN Security Council, Draft Resolution 1199 (December 14, 2001); UN Security Council, Draft Resolution 1385 (December 20, 2002); UN Security Council, Draft Resolution 891 (September 16, 2003); UN Security Council, Draft Resolution 980 (October 14, 2003); UN Security Council, Draft Resolution 240 (March 25, 2004); UN Security Council, Draft Resolution 516 (June 1, 2018). The draft resolutions condemning Israeli settlements include UN Security Council, Draft Resolution 394 (May 17, 1995); UN Security Council, Draft Resolution 199 (March 7, 1997); UN Security Council, Draft Resolution 241 (March 21, 1997); UN Security Council, Draft Resolution 24 (February 18, 2011). The draft resolutions condemning military operations in Gaza include UN Security Council, Draft Resolution 783 (October 5, 2004); UN Security Council, Draft Resolution 508 (July 13, 2006); UN Security Council, Draft Resolution 878 (November 11, 2006). 25. UN Security Council, Meeting 4438 (December 14, 2001); UN Security Council, Meeting 4841 (October 14, 2003). 26. UN Security Council, Resolution 1322 (October 7, 2000). 27. UN Security Council, Draft Resolution 1171 (December 18, 2000). 28. UN Security Council, Meeting 4305 (March 27, 2001), 5–6. 29. UN Security Council, Draft Resolution 1199 (December 14, 2001). 30. UN Security Council, Meeting 4438 (December 14, 2001), 9. 31. UN Security Council, Meeting 4438 (December 14, 2001), 12–13. 32. UN Security Council, Meeting 4438 (December 14, 2001), 23–24. 33. UN Security Council, Resolution 1397 (March 12, 2002); UN Security Council, Resolution 1402 (March 30, 2002); UN Security Council, Resolution 1403 (April 4, 2002); UN Security Council, Resolution 1405 (April 19, 2002). 34. UN Security Council, Resolution 1435 (September 24, 2002). 35. UN Security Council, Draft Resolution 1385 (December 20, 2002). 36. UN Security Council, Draft Resolution 891 (September 16, 2003). 37. UN Security Council, Draft Resolution 980 (October 14, 2003). 38. UN Security Council, Draft Resolution 240 (March 25, 2004). 39. UN Security Council, Resolution 1544 (May 19, 2004). 40. UN Security Council, Draft Resolution 783 (October 5, 2004). 41. UN Security Council, Meeting 4841 (October 14, 2003), 19. 42. UN Security Council, Meeting 4841 (October 14, 2003), 21–22. 43. This conclusion is consistent with the CSD findings in Chapter 4 that the critical theory and realist critiques of Security Council monitoring practices are the most plausible. 44. Löfflmann, “America First and the Populist Impact on US Foreign Policy”; Stokes, “Trump, American Hegemony and the Future of the Liberal International Order.” 45. UN Security Council, Resolution 1696 (July 31, 2006); UN Security Council, Resolution 1737 (December 23, 2006); UN Security Council, Resolution 1747 (March 24, 2007); UN Security Council, Resolution 1803 (March 3, 2008).

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46. UN Security Council, Resolution 1929 (June 9, 2010). 47. Juneau, “The Enduring Constraints on Iran’s Power After the Nuclear Deal.” 48. Seyrafi and Ranjbarian, “Iran Nuclear Agreement.” 49. Bahgat, “US-Iran Relations Under the Trump Administration.” 50. UN Security Council, Meeting 8362 (September 26, 2018), 2. 51. UN Security Council, Meeting 8362 (September 26, 2018), 22. 52. UN Security Council, Meeting 8362 (September 26, 2018), 8–9. 53. UN Security Council, Document 805 (August 14, 2020), 27. 54. The results in this section are based on independent sample t-tests at a .05 significant level. The results are available at https://www.mckendree.edu/directory /brian-frederking.php.

11 Renegotiating the Liberal Order

IN ALL LIBERAL ORDERS, STATES RECOGNIZE THAT INTERDEPENDENCE IS the fundamental characteristic of world politics. They agree to sovereignty bargains in which they sacrifice some autonomy and construct rules and institutions to address transnational security threats. The postwar liberal order was constituted by two such bargains. One was the Charter bargain, which obligated the winners of World War II to maintain international security and obligated all UN member states to comply with Security Council resolutions. States agreed to pursue global security through collective security practices authorized by the Security Council rather than a realist system of alliances or an imperial system of hierarchy. The Charter bargain relied on one important liberal path to order—cooperation within international organizations. However, the Charter also emphasized Westphalian rules such as the territorial integrity of states and noninterference in domestic affairs. It also did not explicitly authorize the Security Council to pursue other liberal paths to order such as human rights, democracy, and international law. It created space for realist practices such as alliance formation and the use of force in self-defense. Left to its own devices, the Charter bargain could often resemble a Westphalian order. The United States and its allies established the second bargain constituting the liberal order. Within this hegemonic bargain, the United States agreed to provide for global security in liberal ways, and the allies agreed to support US policy. Relative to countries outside the hegemonic bargain, they pursued free trade, nurtured domestic democratic systems, respected the human rights of their citizens, adhered to international law, and cooperated through multilateral organizations. However, they also allowed the United States to put military bases in their countries. They granted the United States some hegemonic privileges. They isolated, confronted, and 181

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Renegotiating the Liberal Order

sometimes engaged in regime change against nonliberal states. The hegemonic bargain included elements of hierarchy and coercion. Left to its own devices, unchecked by the Charter bargain, the hegemonic bargain could resemble an imperial order. These two bargains constitute the liberal order. Each bargain must influence the other to perpetuate the liberal order. If the hegemonic bargain does not influence the Charter bargain and expand the scope of liberal practices used to maintain global security, then world politics resembles Westphalian sovereignty. If the Charter bargain does not influence the hegemonic bargain and reduce the scope of those same practices, then world politics resembles imperial hierarchy. If both bargains adequately influence each other, however, then the liberal order continues. Understanding the liberal order in this way suggests an alternative to the decline narrative. World politics since the end of the Cold War has been dominated by an ongoing renegotiation over the relative strength of these two bargains. After a long period where the hegemonic bargain expanded the scope of the Charter bargain, we are now in an era where the Charter bargain is limiting the scope of the hegemonic bargain. We are constantly renegotiating the liberal order. The renegotiation narrative is distinct from the decline narrative by suggesting that the current challenges to liberal rules are not fundamentally rupturing the liberal order. Instead, they are part of the normal tensions inherent within any liberal order, which can include occasional periods of reversal.1 The renegotiation narrative thus suggests a greater resiliency for the liberal order than the decline narrative. The hegemonic bargain is still influencing the Charter bargain. Many liberal arguments remain taken for granted, including the interdependent nature of our gravest security threats and the necessity of cooperation to address those threats. A global order where the Charter bargain plays a more prominent role, and the hegemonic bargain plays a less prominent role, is still a liberal order. Within the renegotiation narrative, we are not necessarily descending into a Westphalian anarchy. Instead, it suggests the possibility that the current changes are necessary to perpetuate the liberal order by correcting for the coercive potentials of the hegemonic bargain. This argument relies on constructivist ontology asserting the primary importance of social rules and language. Global orders are constituted by fundamental rules regarding identity, the nature of security, autonomy, deterrence, and the use of force. Communicatively rational agents perform speech acts and simultaneously convey implicit claims to each other and invoke the rules of security arrangements such as war, rivalry, collective security, capacity building, and empire. We can analyze speech acts to determine which claims agents are conveying and which rules agents are invoking. Realists expect states to invoke rules of war and rivalry and undermine the liberal order; critical theorists expect states to invoke rules of

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empire and undermine the liberal order; and liberals expect states to invoke rules of collective security and capacity building and perpetuate the liberal order. We can therefore analyze the speech acts of states—for example, the practices authorized by the Security Council or statements made during Security Council meetings—to determine if they are invoking liberal or nonliberal rules. The Collective Security Dataset (CSD) showed that the Security Council routinely authorized liberal practices throughout the post–Cold War era. The hegemonic bargain greatly influenced how the Security Council fulfilled the Charter bargain. The Security Council expanded its agenda to address security threats emanating from interdependence and dealt with armed conflict using explicitly liberal approaches to global order. The Security Council asserted more violations of core liberal rules (war crimes, human rights, and democracy) than other rules (armed conflict, terrorism, weapons of mass destruction [WMD], and crime) during the post–Cold War era. Resolutions asserting violations of core liberal rules were also significantly more likely to authorize enforcement measures. Most importantly, the CSD results over time did not support the decline narrative. Thirty years of CSD data showed upward slopes across the post–Cold War era for most liberal Security Council practices. The recent dip in overall liberal practices was therefore more consistent with the renegotiation narrative than the decline narrative. Speech act analyses of statements made by Security Council members showed a similar pattern. Thirty years of speeches by states not consenting to resolutions showed that they used liberal reasons a majority of the time, including in recent years. The bulk of this evidence problematizes the decline narrative. Breaking down the empirical results showed variations across Security Council practices with respect to war crimes, human rights, and democracy. The interaction between the two bargains differed regarding these liberal paths to order. Evidence that the hegemonic bargain has continued to influence the Charter bargain was strongest regarding war crimes. The Security Council has increasingly prohibited, monitored, and enforced war crimes throughout the post–Cold War era. These practices have not decreased in recent years. The protection of civilians, while not intrinsically part of the Charter bargain, is now a taken-for-granted norm. The Security Council has altered peacekeeping norms of consent, neutrality, and self-defense to institutionalize the protection of civilians within peacekeeping missions. Security Council practices regarding war crimes provided little evidence for the decline narrative. Within the framework of the renegotiation narrative, the Charter bargain has not pushed back against the hegemonic bargain regarding liberal practices punishing war crimes. Human rights practices illustrated a different interaction between the bargains. The Security Council has routinely asserted human rights violations,

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suggesting an influence of the hegemonic bargain on the Charter bargain. Those practices have not declined precipitously in recent years. However, the assertions of human rights violations were limited to armed conflicts. The Security Council has applied human rights law to armed conflicts, in effect conflating human rights and war crimes to enhance the protection of civilians. The Security Council has not embraced classic liberal arguments about human rights and authorized enforcement measures against states for the sole reason that they have pursued oppressive policies against their own citizens. Most global governance regarding human rights remains capacity building rather than collective security. This is an important example of the Charter bargain limiting the scope of the hegemonic bargain and protecting state autonomy in some areas within the liberal order. Security Council practices regarding democracy showed yet another trend. Collective security enforcement of democracy rules was not routine throughout the post–Cold War era and has recently dwindled close to zero, another example of the Charter bargain reducing the scope of the hegemonic bargain. The Security Council has rarely followed the logic of the democratic peace and authorized enforcement measures against authoritarian states for the sole reason that they prevented free elections and peaceful transfers of power. However, the Security Council has authorized capacity building practices regarding democracy throughout the post–Cold War era, and those practices have not decreased in recent years. More specifically, it has routinely authorized peacekeeping missions to monitor democratic governance as a conflict resolution strategy. The Security Council has often embraced the necessity of democratic governance to address post–civil war situations, further evidence of the hegemonic bargain continuing to influence the Charter bargain. The most important threats to the liberal order on the Security Council remain Russia and China. While both have consented to all the trends discussed above, they also have increased their opposition to liberal Security Council practices in recent years and have increasingly used nonliberal reasons for doing so. Of course, the United States has not always fulfilled its role within the liberal order. When it has violated the obligation to work within international organizations—the Bush Doctrine—its policies seemed to invoke imperial rules. When it has violated its obligation to provide for global security—the Donald Trump years—its policies seemed to invoke Westphalian rules. When it has protected allies from collective security enforcement—Israel—its policies conveyed to some that they live in a realist world and to others that they live within a regional hierarchy. The case studies in Chapters 6 through 10 also illustrated the various ways in which the bargains can influence each other. In Darfur, the Charter bargain limited the scope of the hegemonic bargain. A preference for capacity building to mediate Sudan’s long-running civil war won out over robust

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collective security enforcement of war crimes in Darfur. In Côte d’Ivoire, the hegemonic bargain expanded the scope of the Charter bargain, and in a rare example, the Security Council authorized the use of force to prevent an authoritarian leader from stealing an election. In Libya, the hegemonic bargain again expanded the scope of the Charter bargain. The Security Council authorized the use of force to enforce human rights rules and protect citizens against their own government without that government’s consent. The subsequent North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) military operation and regime change in Libya stiffened Russia’s and China’s resolve to prevent such future missions. They obstructed the authorization of most liberal practices regarding Syria to such an extent that most Security Council debates were about whether to invoke liberal rules at all, not a debate about which bargain to emphasize. Finally, the US examples in Chapter 10 (Iraq, Israel, and Iran) all showed that when US policies undermined the liberal order, the vast majority of states responded within a liberal framework— both the supporters and critics of those US policies. Security Council practices during 1990–2020 showed the many ways in which the two bargains have influenced each other. They suggest the continued resiliency of the liberal order. They suggest a continued renegotiation of the liberal order. They suggest an order where the Charter bargain recently has increased its influence over the hegemonic bargain. Such a renegotiated order may mean that the United States will no longer be the central guarantor of global security. It may mean that liberal states will rely on capacity building more than collective security to pursue democracy and human rights. It may mean that liberal states will make more concessions to nonliberal states on issues in their neighborhoods. It may mean that states will intervene more into the economy. It may mean an increased stigmatization of regime change. It may mean fewer peacekeeping missions, treaties, and judicial rulings. However, even these trends occurring in combination are distinct from an end to the liberal order. That outcome would require power balancing, spheres of influence, and regional hierarchies to replace the two bargains. It would require drastic reductions in multilateral cooperation to address transnational security threats such as climate change, disease, humanitarian disasters, and economic instability. It would require the irrelevance of collective security organizations such as the Security Council, the World Trade Organization (WTO), and the International Criminal Court (ICC). It would require China’s authoritarian model to spread. It would require, ultimately, that states prioritize autonomy over the cooperation necessary to manage interdependence. We have many reasons to believe that we can avoid this possible future.2 The most important is that interdependence remains the fundamental characteristic of world politics. States are less threatened by rival states

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than by the transnational dangers of climate change, pandemic diseases, financial crises, nuclear proliferation, and cyberwar. States still face common security threats that they cannot address unilaterally with military capability. To influence what goes on within their borders, states will need to address these threats together within a rules-based liberal order. The unfettered pursuit of autonomy will remain harmful to the interests of all states—as the Russian invasion of Ukraine vividly illustrates. The liberal order has facilitated the rise of many states, and they will continue to want rules and institutions that protect trade and investment rights. Liberal institutions enable them to acquire influence abroad and legitimacy at home. It is not clear how an alternative order such as the purported Beijing model would advance the interests of most states. The durability of the liberal order ultimately stems, ironically, from its incorporation of Westphalian elements.3 The Charter bargain includes state sovereignty and great-power decisionmaking. It includes institutions that intend to solve the problems of sovereign states. Despite the ideological preferences of the hegemonic bargain, states do not necessarily have to be liberal democracies to participate in, gain from, and support the liberal order. The renegotiation narrative suggests that although the future liberal order may be less liberal, it will still be a form of liberal order.

Notes 1. Zacher, “The Decaying Pillars of the Westphalian Temple,” 61. 2. Ikenberry, “The Next Liberal Order”; Ikenberry, “The Future of the Liberal World Order.” 3. Deudney and Ikenberry, “Liberal World.”

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Index

Afghanistan, 43, 55, 66, 159–160, 172; Taliban, 59, 69–70 African Union, 54, 71, 78, 87, 101–104, 115– 117, 127, 132 al-Assad, Bashar, 51, 82, 142–150 al-Bashir, Omar, 55, 101, 105, 150 al-Qaeda, 43, 69–70, 118, 142, 144–146 Angola, 69–70, 109, 126 Arab League, 102, 105, 115–118, 143 Aristide, Bertand, 123–124 Bolivia, 148, 174 Bosnia, 50–51, 66, 69–70, 86, 95, 98, 157–158 Brazil, 85, 104, 117, 143 Bush, George W., 161, 166; Bush Doctrine, 44, 159–162, 169, 184 Capacity building, 110, 120, 141–145, 152, 165, 167, 170; democracy promotion, 123–130, 133, 135; liberal order, 14–17, 19–20, 31–35, 38–40, 182–185; Security Council, 43–48, 56–58, 63–66, 71, 73, 77–81, 84–89; Sudan, 96–106 Central African Republic, 51, 98–99, 127 Charter bargain, 34–35, 44–47, 66–72, 80–82; China, 139–141; democracy, 124–125, 130, 135; human rights, 110–111, 117–120; liberal order, 3– 4, 8–11, 13–22, 181–186; peacekeeping, 96–97, 106; Russia,

139–141, 149–152; United States, 159–165, 170, 175 China, 11–13, 19, 39, 55, 161, 171, 175; collective security, 50–51, 69, 72, 77, 79–81, 84–85, 89–91, 138–141; human rights, 16, 68, 111–115 Collective security, 43–48, 110, 123, 140–141, 152, 157, 159, 172, 178; constructivism, 25–26, 28–40; Cote d’Ivoire, 130–135; international relations theory, 43–58; Israel, 164– 167; liberal order, 9, 14–21, 181–185; Libya, 117–118, 120; peacekeeping, 95–100, 112, 125– 128, 130; Security Council, 62–71, 73–75, 78–80, 82, 84–90, 114; Sudan, 100–106; Syria, 143, 146, 148–149 Collective Security Dataset, 13, 15–17, 58, 139–141, 158; decline narrative, 72–75, 79, 88–89, 91, 120, 125–127, 183; Security Council, 62–72, 96, 111–112, 129, 164, 176–177 Constructivism, 15, 25–31, 34–35, 40– 41, 50, 182 Cote d’Ivoire, 55, 69–70, 98, 130–135, 185 Critical Theory, 26, 44, 69, 101, 104– 106, 182; democracy, 127, 131; human rights, 117–120; liberal order, 13, 15, 31–32, 35–40, 52–56, 78–84, 87–92; Russia, 139, 143, 145, 149,

199

200

Index

152; United States, 159–164, 166, 168, 170, 174 Cuba, 39–40, 83 Darfur. See Sudan Decline narrative, 3–4, 11–21, 40, 58, 120, 125, 135, 139, 141–142, 150, 159; evidence, 62, 72–74, 78–79, 88–91, 182–183 Democracy, 2–3, 5, 31, 35, 151, 158, 164, 171; democratic peace thesis, 4, 124–129, 184; liberal order, 10–14, 16–21, 120, 135, 137–140, 181–185; Security Council, 44, 46, 50–51, 53, 55, 61, 65–74, 89–90, 176 Democratic Republic of the Congo, 65, 70, 99, 109–112 Egypt, 84, 142 Empire, 5–6, 8, 11, 19–20, 26, 102, 111, 115, 120; critical theory, 13, 15, 28– 35, 38–40, 44, 52–53, 55–58, 62; liberal order, 78–80, 83, 141, 151– 152, 157–160, 162–164, 168, 171, 182–183 European Union, 5, 8, 11, 99, 109, 115, 133, 137, 171 France, 2, 100, 103, 114, 115, 124, 153, 161–162, 167, 175; collective security, 51, 53, 89, 91 Gbagbo, Laurent, 55, 130–135, 150 Germany, 5, 117, 150, 170, 175 Haiti, 51, 114, 123–126, 135 Hamas, 50, 167–169 Hegemonic bargain, 34–35, 44–47, 57, 61, 66, 69, 71–72; China, 139–141; democracy, 124–125, 135; human rights, 110–111, 115, 117–120; liberal order, 3–4, 9–11, 13–22, 82, 181–186; peacekeeping, 96, 106; Russia, 139–141, 149–150; United States, 158–164, 170, 178 Hierarchy, 26, 31–2, 35, 69, 82–84, 87, 102, 138, 159, 164, 166; liberal order, 6–9, 13, 52–56, 78–79, 149– 153, 181–184 Human rights, 16, 18–21, 26, 31, 61, 81, 87, 124–126, 132; liberal order, 35, 109–114, 181–185; Libya, 115–120;

Russia and China, 137–141; Security Council, 46, 48, 50–51, 53, 55, 57, 64–74, 89–90; Syria, 142–143, 149; United States, 158, 160–161, 164, 171, 174, 178 India, 29, 53–54, 77, 117–119, 143, 152 Intifada, 159, 166–168 International Atomic Energy Agency, 87, 172–173, 175 International Criminal Court, 5, 21, 45– 46, 48, 51–52, 127, 185; Cote d’Ivoire, 134; Libya, 115; Sudan, 54, 100–106; Syria, 145–146, 150; United States, 157–158 International humanitarian law. See War crimes International law, 31, 110, 123–124, 137–138, 151–152, 163–164; liberal order, 2–5, 10–13, 181; United States, 170–174; war crimes, 96–99 Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). See al-Qaeda Israel, 164–175, 184; collective security, 51, 54, 56, 66, 69–70, 81, 83, 90 Iran, 29, 50, 54–55, 42; collective security, 64, 70, 85, 87; United States 172–176 Iraq, 25, 35, 114, 142, 147–148; collective security, 25, 38–39, 54–55, 66, 70, 83; United States, 12, 17, 158–164, 166, 169–171, 174 Kosovo, 1–3, 50, 54–55, 81, 128, 160 Kurds, 6, 56, 114, 142, 144 Kuwait, 25, 35, 38–39, 83 Lebanon, 82, 142, 144–145, 165 Legitimacy, 30, 47, 69, 129, 162, 165, 186; liberal order 3, 6–10, 31, 34–35, 39, 81–88, 91–92, 120, 137–140, 150–153; Security Council, 13, 16– 20, 40, 64, 95–97, 119 Liberal order, 2–4, 40, 44, 105–106; China, 137–141, 149–153; decline narrative, 11–15, 34–36, 72–75, 78– 86, 88–91; democracy, 123–124, 128–130, 135; Donald Trump, 171– 178; human rights, 110–112, 114–116, 118–121; international relations theory, 4–11, 27, 31, 46–48, 52, 55–57; renegotiation narrative,

Index 181–186; Russia, 137–141, 149–153; United States, 157–160, 162–168 Liberalism, 15, 25–26, 31–32, 52, 56–58, 153 Libya, 111, 114–120, 135, 141–147, 185; collective security, 19, 50, 54–55, 70, 77–78 Mali, 51, 61, 65, 70, 99 Myanmar, 57, 89, 113 North Atlantic Treaty Organization, 19, 54–56, 70, 137, 159, 185; Donald Trump, 171–172; Kosovo, 1–3, 160; Libya 111, 114–120, 72; Syria 142– 143, 145; Ukraine 150, 152 North Korea, 29, 36–39, 54–55, 70, 100, 113, 171 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, 54, 87– 88, 172, 175 Obama, Barack, 146–147, 166, 176–177 Organization of African Unity. See African Union Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, 145–146, 148 Ouattara, Allesandre, 131, 133–135 Pakistan, 29, 54, 102, 160, 170 Panama, 40, 50, 83 Palestinian occupied territories, 12, 17, 40, 51, 56, 81–83, 164–167 Protection of civilians. See War crimes Putin, Vladimir, 142, 148, 150–151 Qaddafi, Muammar, 55, 111, 114–116, 118, 120, 150 Realism, 12–15, 26–27, 31–40, 118, 131; liberal order, 43–44, 49–52, 56–57, 69, 74, 78–82, 88–92, 141, 181–182; Sudan, 100–106; Syria, 146, 148; United States, 157–160, 162–171, 174 Regime change, 106, 111, 113, 125, 130– 131, 134–135; critical theory, 33–35, 38, 53–56, 82–83; liberal order, 8, 13, 19, 116–120, 141–143, 148–151, 162–163, 173, 182, 185 Renegotiation narrative, 4, 20–22, 72, 74, 120–121, 135, 139, 150, 178, 182–186 Rwanda, 51, 57, 95, 109, 147

201

Russia, 11, 16–17, 19–20, 161, 167, 171, 175–176; collective security, 51–52, 55, 69–70, 72, 79, 82–83, 86–91, 139–141, 184–186; human rights, 68, 111, 113–115; Syria, 142–149, 166; Ukraine, 137–138, 150–153 Security interdependence, 5–7, 9, 12, 32, 49, 52, 82, 149, 164, 171, 181–185 Sierra Leone, 95, 114, 126 Somalia, 66, 71, 114, 160 South Africa, 82, 114, 118, 143, 152, 162, 176 South Sudan, 69–70, 84–87 Sovereignty, 2, 4, 6–9, 12, 19–20, 25–26, 28, 33–34, 148, 152; human rights, 110, 113, 117–119; liberal order, 45, 47–51, 64, 68, 79–83, 182, 186 Sovereignty bargains, 4, 7–9, 20, 181 Speech acts, 15, 25–31, 35–40, 50–51, 57; Security Council, 65–66, 79, 98, 140–141, 158, 182–183 Sudan, 19, 51, 54–57, 66, 69–70, 96, 100–106, 131, 160, 184–185 Syria, 19–20, 120, 160, 166, 177, 185; collective security, 50–51, 54–55, 66, 69–70, 80–82, 89–90; Russia, 139– 150 Terrorism, 5, 7, 12, 18, 35, 99, 183; Iran, 173, 175; Iraq, 159–161; Israel, 164, 166, 168–170; Security Council, 43, 47–48, 53–55, 65–70, 90, 140; Syria, 145–147 Transnational crime, 5, 61, 66–68, 140 Trump, Donald, 12, 17, 20, 148, 159, 171–178, 184 Turkey, 142, 144, 171 Ukraine, 20, 50, 54–55, 137–139, 150– 153, 186 United Kingdom, 2, 11, 77, 110, 114– 115, 175; collective security, 53, 86, 89, 91 United Nations Charter, 1–3, 10, 46–48, 53, 110, 160, 164; Chapter VI, 46; Chapter VII, 47–48, 64–65, 71, 75, 90, 99, 103–105, 117, 140, 144, 158 United Nations General Assembly, 8, 64, 81, 112, 115, 118, 152, 161 United Nations Human Rights Council, 112, 115, 143, 171, 175

202

Index

United Nations Security Council: capacity building, 43–44, 46–48, 56– 58, 63–66, 71, 73, 77–81, 84–85, 87–89; collective security, 62–72, 96, 111–112, 129, 164, 176–177; economic sanctions, 18, 46, 48, 51, 54, 56, 63–65, 71, 77–78, 82–87, 90; peacekeeping, 18, 20, 46–48, 57, 63, 80, 96–100, 125, 128–130; uses of force, 14, 16, 19, 25, 48, 54–55, 63– 65, 70–71, 73, 90, 99–100; veto, 35, 50–51, 53–54, 64, 66, 69–71, 74, 113, 137–141, 157–159 United States, 17, 20, 29, 40, 114, 124, 133–134, 138–139; Iran, 171–176; Iraq, 159–164; Israel, 164–171; liberal order, 3, 9–12, 157–159, 181, 184–185; Security Council, 40, 43, 50–54, 77, 79, 81, 83, 89–91; Sudan, 100, 103–106; Syria, 142–149

War crimes, 35, 61, 140, 150–152, 157, 172, 178; Cote d’Ivoire, 130, 132– 134; Israel, 164–165, 167; liberal order, 12–21, 95–96, 109–114, 125– 127, 183–185; Libya, 115–116, 119; peacekeeping, 96–100; Security Council, 46–47, 50–56, 64–71, 73– 74, 88, 90, 92; Sudan, 100–106; Syria, 142, 146, 149 Weapons of mass destruction, 5, 16, 18, 35, 47–48, 148, 172, 176, 183; Iraq, 160–164; Security Council, 53, 61, 64–68, 70, 83, 90, 111, 140 Westphalia. See Sovereignty World Trade Organization, 5, 21, 45–46, 171, 185 Yemen, 39, 173 Yugoslavia 1–2, 81, 86, 112 Zimbabwe, 77, 89, 113

Venezuela, 50, 86, 89

About the Book

IS THE LIBERAL ORDER IN DECLINE? CAN WE SEE EVIDENCE OF THAT decline in the UN Security Council? Brian Frederking challenges the increasingly popular “decline” narrative by examining the practices of the Security Council in the decades since the end of the Cold War. Relying on both qualitative and quantitative data, Frederking shows that the council has consistently enforced liberal rules to resolve conflicts regarding war crimes, human rights, and democracy. What many interpret as a decline, he argues, is instead a process of renegotiation—the outcome of which remains a liberal order, but one that is less influenced than in the past by the United States and its allies. Brian Frederking is professor of political science at McKendree University.

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