Textbooks

2004-5 United Nations Peacekeeping

Printer Friendly Version

This free online textbook is available to all. No log-in is required to view any of the chapters and sections.

Within the essays there are links to other sections of our site such as blocks [bl], the evidence database [db], the CX Guide [cx], and lectures [l]. Subscription access is required to access those links.

Over the next few months the textbook will grow in size and we will be adding additional features for our Gold, Platinum, and Master multi

Introduction

This affirmative argues that the United States should support U.N. efforts to develop, and deploy when needed, a rapid reaction force that could respond to potential security crises around the globe. Proposals for such a force have been discussed since the early 1990s.

One thing that is important to understand is that there are essentially three different proposals for such a force: a permanent standing reserve peace force, a rapid response force, and a permanent peacekeeping force.  The Georgetown Law Journal explained the difference between the tree proposals in 1993: 

Alan K. Henrikson has proposed a three-tier U.N. force structure consisting of: (1) a Standing Reserve Peace Force, (2) a Rapid Response Peace Force, and (3) a Permanent Peacekeeping Force. The Standing Reserve Peace Force would provide the U.N. with a pool of military forces earmarked for U.N. service, but held back and maintained within the military establishments of individual states; this force could consist of as many as 500,000 troops. Henrikson's Rapid Response Peace Force would be smaller, more centrally organized, and subject to direct U.N. command when activated. When not activated, its forces would not be held permanently under U.N. control, but would be maintained by the contributing member states as separate national contingents. These troops, however, would be tasked primarily for U.N. missions and held ready for call at short notice. Finally, the Permanent Peacekeeping Force would be a standing U.N. force, commanded by officers appointed by the U.N. Military Staff Committee, and stationed in U.N. controlled bases. Its officers  and troops would be recruited directly as volunteers from the national military forces of U.N. member states.  (March, pp. 783-4)

Within each of these are even different proposals.  Charles Knight of the Project on Defense Alternatives, explained different proposals for a U.N. standing army in 1995:

James Meachum, former military editor of the Economist, envisions a reinforced infantry brigade for the United Nations comprising three infantry battalions, one engineer battalion, one helicopter battalion (or regiment), and one signals battalion.63 Meacham sees the brigade serving either as (i) a rapid deployment force to be withdrawn when member-state follow-on forces arrive, or as (ii) a nucleus for a coalition effort, or even as (iii) a force carrying sole responsibility for an operation from beginning to end. Because of its potential role as a nucleus, he provides the proposed brigade with larger helicopter, engineer, and signals units than is common for forces of this size. Meacham sees the UN brigade relying on the logistics infrastructure of a host country, which might also provide for its lift needs. Another option is a division of labor among UN member states with one providing base support and others providing lift support The host country might also assume responsibility for basic training, while the brigade would make arrangements for specialized training. Service would be open to all with no country quotas - - as in the French Foreign Legion and the period of service would be 3-5 years. Officers would either rise through the ranks or be seconded to the force by UN member states. Lukas Haynes and Timothy Stanley have proposed a 5,000 person UN “fire brigade,” which could expand to a strength of 10,000 after an initial period of testing and development.64 Designed to operate in low-intensity, low-technology combat environments, the proposed force would have a primary mission of armed humanitarian relief. However, it could also undertake (especially in its more developed form) preventive deployments, missions to protect or rescue UN personnel, enforcement of economic sanctions, enforcement or policing of formal peace agreements, and the protection of small, unarmed states from externally-based low intensity threats. Finally, the authors envision the proposed force serving eventually as a “nucleus and command center to which other UN peacekeeping units could be attached as states would make them available” an option that might enable the smaller and less capable military powers to play a bigger role in peace operations.65 The initial force proposed by Haynes and Stanley would comprise three, large, self-sustaining battalions. Although “trucks, jeeps, and armored personnel carriers would be the primary vehicles,” these would be augmented by “a few air transportable light tanks, artillery, and anti-aircraft guns.”66 The authors also see each battalion incorporating some observation aircraft and helicopters, armed and unarmed. Haynes and Stanley suggest that military personnel active in UN member-state militaries be eligible for service on a volunteer basis; recruitment would occur through national military establishments. These volunteers would not be assigned or attached to the United Nations in the fashion of seconded personnel, but would instead serve for their tour as military analogues of “international civil servants.” The authors suggest that no more than five percent of the brigade’s personnel come from any one country and no more than 20-25 percent from any one region. Initially the authors see the force based in a single host country. “Later on, if the experimental phase succeeds enough to warrant expansion, it would be desirable to have elements of the force dispersed close to likely operating areas in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East” utilizing the surplus base facilities of member states.67 Another version of the UN “fire brigade” was suggested by the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands in 1994 in response to the slow response of the UN to the developing crisis in Rwanda. A working group of the Netherlands’ Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Defense later conducted a preliminary study into the modalities of such a UN Rapid Deployment Brigade.68 They propose a light infantry brigade with a immediately deployable strength of 2-5,000. It would be motorized and partly equipped with APCs for protection. The primary missions of the brigade would be rapid deployment for crisis prevention and humanitarian intervention. Operations would be of short duration and the brigade would usually serve only as the advance party for a larger international peacekeeping force. Former US ambassador Jonathan Dean has proposed a UN readiness force “to head off or extinguish conflict in the crucial early stages.”69 Personnel would be trained “from the bottom up” with leading officers nominated by the Secretary-General and confirmed by the Security Council. He sees the force as possessing its own air transport and permanent bases. For the near-term, he suggests that the United Nations commission NATO to administer but not necessarily command the brigades in Europe. Eventually, the United Nations “would have to create a professional command structure of its own with a planning staff, intelligence, logistics, and communications to enable the UN commander to exercise full control. ”70

Retired US Army Colonel Timothy Thomas envisions a corps-size force or legion, which he describes as small, elite, mobile, and professional.71 Also part of the force would be tactical aviation and logistics assets. Thomas sees his proposed force “dispersed globally as independent brigades, stationed in cantonments provided by host governments in lieu of UN dues.”72 Normally, a corps would have at minimum 55,000 personnel, and usually many more although Thomas does not specify troop numbers (VITAL FORCE: A PROPOSAL FOR THE OVERHAUL OF THE U.N. PEACE OPERATIONS SYSTEM, October 1995, http://www.comw.org/pda/vforce.pdf )

Although the details of each of the specific proposals is unlikely to be a central element of most of your debates, the distinctions between the three basic proposals that have been discussed are very important. The basic difference between numbers 1&2 and number is that the third option – the Standing Army option – obligates the U.S. and other countries to designate forces that would operate under U.N. command in the event of a crisis.  After many years of debating this proposal, it was largely deemed so politically infeasible that the approach is not even serious discussed.

The Affirmative

The affirmative argues that the United States should support one of the first two proposals to develop  an ear-marked Rapid Reaction Force that would be ready to respond to crises that could potentially arise.

Advantages

Genocide/Conflict Prevention.  The primary advantage comes to preventing different conflicts across the globe from escalating.  Many authors argue that it was the failure of the international community to act in time in Rwanda that was responsible for the genocide that took place in the 1990s.  There is good evidence that a rapid reaction force would deter such genocides and de-escalate lethal civil conflicts.  The Campaign to End Genocide explains this rationale for the proposal:

Time is one of the most crucial factors in preventing an emerging crisis from erupting into a major war. Under the current United Nations Peacekeeping structure, it takes an average of between three and six months from the the time the UN Security Council decides to establish a peacekeeping mission until the United Nations is able to deploy peacekeepers and support equipment. Crises in Rwanda, Bosnia and more recently, the Congo and Sierra Leone, highlight the need for a readily deployable international peacekeeping force. There is no standing UN army. During those months while the member nations decide whether to volunteer to send troops and equipment, thousands of people die and a small crisis can escalate, cross borders and proliferate to neighboring states.

U.N. Good/Multilateralism.  This would be a significant commitment to the U.N. that would probably boost U.S. global multilateral leadership. For more on debating this advantage, see the essay in the Debater’s Topic Guide

Plans

There are different plans that you could support.  There more you engage the literature on this issue the more you will see the differences of each proposal and the advantages and disadvantages of each.

What I propose doing is to pass the THE RAPID RESPONSE ACT that was debated in the house a few years ago.  The Campaign to End Genocide’s website explains (http://www.endgenocide.org/ceg-rrf/abouthr938.html): 

• would the Police and Security Force do? It would:
• be able to deploy within 15 days of a Security Council resolution to establish international peace operations, with a limited deployment of no more than six months for any given mission;
• only be deployed when the Security Council determines that violations of human rights and/or breaches of the peace require a rapid response to ensure adherence to negotiated agreements to prevent or end hostilities;
• consist of at least 6,000 volunteers employed directly by the UN, who train together and are appropriately equipped expressly for international peace operations, including civilian policing; and
• be given the authority to protect itself, execute negotiated peace accords, disarm combatants, protect civilians, detain war criminals, restore the rule of law, and to carry out other purposes as detailed in Security Council resolutions.

What will the Police and Security Force not do?

• The Police and Security Force is not a permanent army. Its primary purpose is to fill the three to six month average gap between when the Security Council authorizes a peacekeeping operation and when the international community is ready to deploy national forces. It can only be deployed with a Security Council resolution, over which the U.S. has veto power.
• The Police and Security Force will not serve in any specific area for more than 6 months. It will be a temporary force until a more permanent peacekeeping mission, can be established.

This force will not be used in large-scale interventions (i.e. Kuwait). It will not fight its way into ongoing conflicts.

Passage of this act would allow you to claim most of the rapid deployment solvency without linking to disadvantages derived from having U.S. forces operate under U.N. control.

Harms Answers

The best answers to the harms can be found in the Debater’s Topic Guide essays on civil conflicts and multilateralism

Solvency Answers

The weak part of this affirmative is the solvency.  There are strong arguments that others countries wouldn’t support this even if we did, that ethnic conflicts can’t be deterred, that intervention by outsiders will still not be fast enough, and that outside intervention will fail to prevent and stop conflicts from escalating. Almost any criticism of U.N. peacekeeping can be directed against this approach.

Disadvantages

Politics.  Ear-marking troops to a U.N. stand-by force at a time when the U.S. is stretched to the limit in Iraq and policy-makers are skeptical of the U.N. would be very politically unpopular, particularly with Bush’s conservative base.

Civil-Military Relations.  The military would oppose having its forces ear-marked for such U.N. operations.

Counterplans

This affirmative is hard to run a counterplan against. Agent counterplans are difficult to win because there is strong evidence that the U.S. needs to provide leadership to get a variety of other countries to contribute troops.  If you want to try to solve the genocide advantage to the case with an agent counterplan, you need to have an actor like the EU contribute enough troops so that additional contributions by other actors are not needed.  This won’t solve the multilateralism advantage, but it does solve the genocide advantage and you can always impact/internal link turn the multilateralism advantage.

Kritiks

Any kritiks of U.N. action link to this affirmative.

Topicality

Support.  “Support” is a potentially viable negative argument because the point of the Rapid Reaction force is to intervene in places where there are not yet U.N. PKOs. 

Peacekeeping Operations.  The force could be used for more than PKOs. It could be used to directly intervene in conflicts where no PKO has been established.

Conclusion

This case appears to be at the “heart” of the UNPKOs topic. It is strategically strong in that it is difficult to counterplan, and the affirmative will be able to win most of the harms debate.  The weakness is the solvency and the strength of the disadvantage links. The negative will also be to make some strong topicality arguments, though I think they will have trouble winning those arguments because the case seems to be at the “heart” of the topic.

Video Lectures