In this introduction to the thematic section, Howard Clark argues that preparing to intervene in an emergencyis no substitute for addressing the roots of war, and that, ultimately, peace depends on the people.
Can't bomb the world to peace
Howard Clark
"Post-intervention peaceoperations" is the theme for this section of Peace News — an apt topic for the final edition of the paper to be co-published with WarResisters' International.
Our focus is less on classical peace-keeping, where the UN deploys a lightlyarmed force with the consent of the con-flicting parties. Rather, while providing information on the whole contemporarypeace-keeping scene, we examine in more depth the latest generation of "peaceoperations", where the UN intervenes, takes over government and rebuilds socialinstitutions.
Among advocates of augmenting thecapacity for international military intervention, there is a spectrum of opinion.Before the attack on Iraq, various commentators were speculating about wherethe hawks would look for their next "preventive war". At the other pole, the"doves"--who urge that there is a "responsibility to protect" (see box onp33) beleaguered populations from criminal rulers--are more concerned aboutissues of legitimacy, consistency in applying human rights standards, and enhanc-ing the role of the UN and regional institutions in the world order.
Across the spectrum, however, there seems to be an acceptance that militaryintervention cannot stop at ejecting one set of rulers--it has to take responsibilityfor building up systems of governance to take their place.
Challenging "the doves"
The peace movement generally addresses the alarming politics and criminal actions of the hawks. This issue of Peace News looks more at the dove-ish end of thespectrum, where we find people who are our allies in denouncing the war in Iraqand who, while generally preferring negotiation to military action and whileinsisting on the need for UN authorisation, also believe that there need to bemore military interventions.
As an example, Spanish prime ministerZapatero kept his electoral promise to withdraw forces from Iraq, but has main-tained the previous government's commitment in Afghanistan where Spain par-ticipates in both the UN-sanctioned ISAF and the US-led "Operation EnduringFreedom". Other examples include people who might well have taken part in thebroad peace movement in the days of the Cold War but who, especially sinceBosnia and Kosovo, want to expand the brief for international interventionsauthorised by the UN and relevant regional bodies in order to bring criminalregimes to book and take over the reigns of administration.
In legitimising the military--alliances,the distortion of governmental budgets and of scientific enquiry--the doves arein many ways more important than the hawks because of their reasonableness,sincere respect for human rights, and willingness to speak to genuine humani-tarian concerns. And it is in response to them that the traditional preparations forwar are now accompanied by preparations for greater military intervention, forinstance by programmes to increase the capacity for post-war management andstate-building. Sometimes this even
stretches to contracting bodies whoseexpertise has been of great value to the peace movement, including in Britain theBradford University Department of Peace Studies.
A new role
After 40 years in which it had (with the exception of Korea) been confined to"peace-keeping operations" carried out with the consent of the warring parties,the UN found itself in a new situation in the 1990s. The end of the Cold War andvarious wars that followed brought demands for the UN to play an expandedrole, yet repeatedly it found itself out of its depth and improvising. Now it islooking to standardise procedures and to prepare for rapid deployment for complexmulti-dimensional missions, including preparing a corps of administratorsprimed to rebuild a state after war.
It is therefore timely to analyse peaceoperations, and in particular to warn against practices that might prejudice thelong-term future of war-torn territories. Internal evaluations, such as that carriedby the UN Panel on Peace Operations (that produced the Brahimi report) con-centrate on logistical problems--rapid deployment, coordination, lack of stan-dard models--while an academic evaluation such as the Review of Peace Opera-tions carried out by the International Policy Institute at King's College, London, ismainly concerned with how effectively the mandate was implemented. Here, our standpoint is different. We have an understanding of peace that fun-damentally questions the validity of peace operations as an "add-on" to a militarycampaign, while the principles on which we wish to construct peace are profoundlyat odds with the practices of peace "enforcement" we have been witnessing.
No to "negative peace"
Peace News (and WRI) contend that peace cannot be imposed. A military intervention might impose a ceasefire and so create the conditions for some form ofcoexistence, but interrupting hostilities with curfews, military checkpoints andphysical separation is a long way short of establishing peace. Even "negative peace"(absence of armed conflict) cannot be sustained for long by military means alone.
The time to build peace is now — whether that is before or after or even during war. At whichever moment we are in, at whichever point of a conflict cycle,there is potential for peace-building. In the UN schematic, "peace-building" isseen as coming after war. Further, rather than an accurate term such as "post-war", generally the term used nowadays is "post-conflict" — a weasel phrase that not only ignores the continued existence of conflict after war, but also tends to gloss over the impact that war itself has.
No blank pages in history
Sometimes it sounds as if the advocates of military intervention expect war to wipethe slate clean. A key concept these days is that of the "failed state"--a term that, nomatter what the intention of its authors, exonerates international factors in de-stabilising a society, downplays the importance and the complexity of what socialfabric and structures exist, and discounts the society's own potential for regeneration.
Warning of the "spectre of state collapse" does not amount to an analysis ofthe interacting causes of conflict, whilst in addition a peace-building policy needsto strengthen the elements conducive to creating the conditions for peace, andidentify what might be considered the "peace constituency" in the situation--that is the network of people, groups and even institutions determined to bringpeace about.
Peace depends on the people
Military intervention implies a promise to the threatened population--that those whointervene are committed to support them rebuild their society. Not surprisingly thispromise seems to have a sub-text--"put things in our hands"--as with the UNMission in Kosovo's (UNMIK's) triumphal slogan "Bringing peace to Koso-vo". And sometimes when a spokesperson for a threatened population appeals forinternational intervention, it sounds as if they are looking for a "deus ex machina"--a sustainable peace, however, has to be grounded in the efforts of the population.
Kofi Annan and others stress the important role of "civil society" and NGOs, but the impact of highly-funded international operations is actually tomarginalise voluntary activity. They talent-spot the leadership of voluntary actorsand offer them highly-paid jobs (that very rarely use their talents), while the inflowof project funding spawns a host of local NGOs who are not pursuing their own
agenda to reshape their society but aremore like small businesses, seeking contracts to carry out work desired by theinternational funders.
Peace is a long-term project
Military interventions tend to go hand-inhand with media mobilisations demanding"quick-fix" solutions to conflicts that are basically intractable. The media lose theirinterest, "compassion fatigue" sets in, and the reconstruction funding diminishes.Going to war communicates an urgency that post-war processes can never matchand accords the situation a priority that cannot be maintained. Once militaryoperations are over, the immediate necessities--of relief and shelter, of curbingcollective reprisals or looting, of marking minefields or areas where cluster bombsare scattered--are intensely demanding
and time-consuming. And they are just the beginning. The return of refugees, the construction of new social institutions(usually including police forces), the disarming and reintegration of former-com-batants, the complex of issues around transitional justice and "dealing with thepast"--all these require to be addressed, often while tackling the very issues thatled to war in the first place!
Preparing to intervene in an emergency is no substitute for addressing the roots of war and conflict.
Wars do not happen spontaneously: if their outbreak cannot always be predicted, what can be done is to analyse the conflicts of interest and tensions that might lead to war and to act upon them.
Howard Clark is a long-term Peace News collaborator.
