Posted on: July 27th, 2009 by Ernie Regehr
Traditionally, when Canadian Governments have had no convincing idea of what to do on a particular issue, or when they’ve known what should be done but just didn’t want to do it, their preferred option has been to appoint a Royal Commission to study the matter – often with constructive and useful results.
The international community seems to have reached that same point of immobilizing uncertainty when it comes to the collective deployment of military force in support of peace and security in situations of serious conflict – so, perhaps it’s time for another international commission.[i]
In fact, Canada, with a history of involvement in UN Peacekeeping and UN-approved (and not approved, as in Kosovo) peace support operations, is well-positioned to encourage the international community to engage broad questions of the utility and the limitations of collective force, the conditions that have to be in place for it to be effective, as well as the methodologies or rules of engagement that should guide the multilateral resort to force under Chapter VII of the UN Charter.
One obvious context for such a study would be Afghanistan. The resort to force has certainly been prominent, and the failure to advance Afghan security has been just as prominent.[ii] Furthermore, few would argue that this insecurity could be overcome simply through the application of still more military force – that being the point of the now widely shared recognition that the war in Afghanistan will not end with a military victory over the insurgents. At the same time, it is also a widely shared view that the withdrawal of foreign military forces now would risk the precipitous descent of Afghanistan into generalized civil war with even more devastating consequences for Afghans.
Indeed, this description of conditions, prospects, and risks in Afghanistan broadly conforms to post-Cold War experience in both counterinsurgency[iii] and peacebuilding. Sri Lanka joins some other exceptions to the rule, but it remains the fact that insurgencies are only rarely defeated on the battlefield.
One key lesson from post Cold War military peacekeeping, robust and otherwise, is that international intervention forces depend on key non-military conditions and measures for them to be effective in advancing the safety and well-being of vulnerable people and fragile governments: a broad political consensus or at the very least the active pursuit of one; a host government capable of establishing and renewing its basic legitimacy; economic and social measures that make a discernable difference to the lives of people; and disarmament, that is, a visible and credible effort to gather and control instruments of violence.
Domestic law enforcement is a relevant analogy inasmuch as it too, or especially, is most successful when it is bolstered by a basic consensus as to the rightness or justness of those laws, and when the law-making institutions themselves are regarded as legitimate. In other words, a society can function in accordance with the rule of law when the people overwhelmingly give their consent and voluntary compliance because they believe that to do so is better for everyone, including themselves. The resort to force is thus reserved for the exceptions, for the spoilers.
But, of course, UN-mandated interventions tend to be ordered when there is a catastrophic absence of national consensus and when public institutions have manifestly lost public confidence. Thus, international interventions are by default guided by the basic premise that when this kind of political consensus and trust in public institutions are absent it is a deficiency that can be over-ridden by sheer force. But experience calls that premise into questions. In the absence of a concerted focus on political, governance, economic, social and disarmament measures that are designed to gradually build collective trust, it is genuinely naïve to assume that military forces, no matter how robust, will be able to force consent and thus compliance. Afghanistan is in the process of demonstrating the point.
On the methodology question, the security community continues to be torn on the relative merits of, on the one hand, search and destroy operations against mobile insurgents and, on the other, geographically focused efforts to secure areas and communities where there is a reasonable prospect that it can be sustained. [iv] In Afghanistan, it must be said, the tide may be turning toward the latter.
A recent ICG report argued that international forces “should focus on securing and protecting population centres and roads rather than on large-scale sweeps through areas with a limited Afghan institutional presence.”[v] Canadian officials were also recently reported as saying the focus will increasingly turn to reinforcing security in communities where it can be sustained and allow reconstruction to take hold, rather than expending military resources in pursuing Taliban in far-flung areas of the province where, even if they are located and driven out, there is no possibility of maintaining a continuous presence.[vi]
The UN Secretary-General’s most recent report takes up the issue of military methodology, especially the use of air power and civilian casualties: “It is critical that this fight be conducted in a way that weakens the terrorist threat and boosts popular support. I am profoundly concerned about the risk posed by an increase in civilian casualties and by a type of military conduct that alienates the population from the international community.”[vii]
Similarly, the US General who now heads ISAF has issued a new “tactical directive,” making the point that international forces “must avoid the trap of winning tactical victories – but suffering strategic defeats – by causing civilian casualties or excessive damage and thus alienating the people.[viii]
So, what would a commission on multilateral military intervention look into? Well, it would look into these very questions of the utility, limitations, conditions, and methodology of multilateral intervention.
In a recent discussion hosted by the Canadian Council for International Cooperation, Canadian NGOs working in conflict zones agreed that the international community would benefit from a collective study that focused on “the efficacy of, limitations of, and institutional arrangements for the military component of UN-led and UN-authorized peace operations. This would include examining much more closely and systematically the role of multilateral security forces under a Chapter VII mandate for the direct protection of civilians with a view to developing doctrine, standard operating procedures and training.”
The International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty concluded that in extraordinary circumstances the responsibility to protect vulnerable people from crimes against humanity would have to include the collective resort to force. Now it is time for a successor commission to examine the methodologies and conditions needed to make the resort to force a genuinely constructive contribution to the pursuit of peace and stability in failed or failing states and in support of the safety and well-being of vulnerable people.
eregehr@ploughshares.ca
Notes
[i] International commissions are almost as ubiquitous as Canadian Royal Commissions once were. Their impact, which is mixed, is explored in: Andrew Cooper, John English, and Ramesh Thakur,
International Commissions and the Power of Ideas, United Nations University Press, 2005.
[ii] The most recent Secretary-General’s report on “The Situation in Afghanistan” (A/63/892-S/2009/323, 23 June 2009) is straight forward in its overview: “The security situation has continued to deteriorate” (para 6).
[iii] The well known and oft quoted study by Seth Jones for the Rand Corporation, How Terrorist Groups End, examined almost 650 terrorist groups from 1968 to 2008. Of those, 268 ended during that period, and the report offers what its authors call “stark” results: “Terrorist groups end for two major reasons: members decided to adopt nonviolent tactics and join the political process (43 percent), or local law-enforcement agencies arrest or kill key members of the group (40 percent) (pp. 18-19). Only seven percent of the groups were defeated by military means. Most groups in the study were relatively small urban organizations and thus not amenable to military action or attacks, but clearly amenable to police and law-enforcement action. (The study defines “terrorism” as involving “the use of politically motivated violence against noncombatants to cause intimidation or fear among a target audience” – p. 3. Only non-state groups are counted, although the authors acknowledge that states do a times engage in the same kinds of acts – but the current study was confined to looking at non-state groups.) In 10 percent of the cases the “terrorist” groups achieved their aims (an example of the latter being the ANC of South Africa). Indeed, the larger the groups were, the more likely they were to achieve their goals – among large and very large groups, 35 percent and 20 percent respectively achieved their aims. The study also found that the prospects for effective military action against groups increased the larger the groups were. So, larger groups, like the Tamil Tigers and the Taliban of Pakistan and Afghanistan, are at the same time more vulnerable to military defeat and more likely to achieve their goals. Even so, the Rand study found that among large and very large groups, only 12 percent and 15 percent respectively ended because they were militarily defeated. [Seth G. Jones and Martin Libicki, How Terrorist Groups End: Lessons for Countering al Qa’ida, Rand Corporation 2008, 225 pp.http://www.rand.org/pubs/monographs/2008/RAND_MG741-1.pdf.]
The 2008 edition of the annual peace process yearbook produced at the University of Barcelona comes to similar conclusions in its examination of 78 armed conflicts dating from the 1970s, of which 33 had ended (another 15 were in the process of being resolved, while the rest remained active). Of the 33 that had ended, 27 (or 82%) ended through negotiated peace agreements, while 6 (or 18%) were ended militarily (in five cases the Governments won, and in one the “rebel force” won – that case being the Rwandan Patriotic Front).[Vicenç Fisas, 2008 Peace Process Yearbook, School for a Culture of Peace, University of Barcelona, 1988. http://reliefweb.int/rw/lib.nsf/db900sid/SODA-7GB8PS/$file/08anuarii.pdf?openelement.]
And a 2004 issue of the Journal of Peace Research focused on the “duration and termination of civil war,” also concluded that the military defeat of rebel groups is the exception in civil wars. Many factors are obviously involved, but because rebels or insurgents can win by not losing – that is, to be successful in pressing their case they have to be able to prolong war, not win it – they are able to force governments into negotiations and then to continue the pursuit of their objectives through political processes. And, by the way, the evidence also suggests that as insurgent or rebel groups enter into negotiations, their demands tend to moderate over time, yielding to accommodation and compromise. [“Duration and Termination of Civil War,” Journal of Peace Research, Vol. 41, No. 3. 3 May 2004. http://jpr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/41/3/243.]
[iv] For example: “Consolidating security and advancing well-being in areas of the country nominally under Government control are critical to prevent the civil war from spreading. So, what is needed is ongoing security assistance to protect reconstruction outside the current war zones and to train and reform Afghan forces—not for counterinsurgency war, but to provide security services that win the trust of local communities.” Ernie Regehr, “A peace to keep in Afghanistan,” The Ploughshares Monitor, Spring 2008, volume 29, no. 1.
[v] “Afghanistan: New U.S. Administration, New Directions.” International Crisis Group, Asia Briefing N°89, 13 March 2009. http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?id=6007&l=1.
[vi] “Canadian officials are planning to direct aid to the most receptive neighbourhoods in and around Kandahar city, leaving out places deemed too far-flung or ‘empathetic’ to the Taliban insurgency….[O]fficials said past mistakes have taught them to apply a ‘direct focus on specific, small areas.’ The intent is to provide the villages enough security and assistance to allow normal daily life to unfold as the Afghan government intends – something that happens in very few places at present….’We can’t be everywhere at once, so where do we want to be?’ said Lieutenant-Colonel Carl Turenne, the base’s military commander. Delivering aid to key areas of Kandahar city, he said, will likely prove a better investment than setting up outposts in restive rural regions. Several such bases were set up by Canadian soldiers a couple of years ago in hope of taking the fight into outlying regions. But many have since been abandoned or dismantled after proving to be lightning rods for insurgent attacks.” [Colin Freeze, “Canada to focus efforts on Kandahar city,” The Globe and Mail, 21 May 2009. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/canada-to-focus-efforts-on-kandahar-city/article1143158/]
[vii] Para 57 (see note ii).
[viii] NATO/ISAF. Tactical Directive. 6 July 2009. International Security Assistance Force, Headquarters, Kabul.http://www.nato.int/isaf/docu/official_texts/Tactical_Directive_090706.pdf.
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Posted on: July 17th, 2009 by Ernie Regehr
The UN General Assembly will take up the doctrine of the “responsibility to protect” next week, reviewing the Secretary-General’s 2009 report[i] on implementation and launching a general debate. It may only be more words, but this is an issue on which words can really be a matter of life and death.
Since it was formally adopted at the 2005 Summit meeting of the General Assembly, R2P has been a doctrine honored rather more in principle than in practice. The victims of that continuing abstraction are well known. Today they live and die especially in Afghanistan, the Congo (Kinshasa), Iraq, Somali, Sudan, and Zimbabwe – these being among the locations where people are still prominently targets of at least one of the four key crimes from which the people of the world were promised protection through R2P – genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, crimes against humanity.
In each case the national Government is manifestly failing to protect its own people, often for myriad reasons that are certainly not all of their own doing or not doing, and in each case the international community is having only spotty, if any, success in effectively protecting people in extraordinary peril.
Those who bear the brunt of those crimes are unlikely to be heartened by the prospect of another debate at the United Nations, but without debate, without some concerted diplomatic, political, and intellectual push to forge new ways of, and commitments to, responding, their particular crises will only deepen and others will be added.
A core suspicion that still attends R2P debates is the worry that the noble objective of protecting vulnerable people will simply be appropriated by the big powers as one more justification for their interference in the affairs of smaller and weaker states. But, at the same time, the main impediment to operationalizing R2P with some measure of consistency is the reluctance of those same big powers to accept any binding obligation to intervene on behalf of vulnerable people outside their own jurisdiction.
One positive consequence of this mutual wariness of intervention is that the doctrine’s attention to non-military remedies has been strengthened. The 2005 UN Summit, which formalized the R2P principle or doctrine, places the primary responsibility for protecting people on national governments, the sovereignty as responsibility principle. When states “manifestly” fail in meeting that responsibility, the international community then has the responsibility to use “diplomatic, humanitarian and other peaceful means, in accordance with Chapters VI and VIII [regional multilateral organizations] of the [UN] Charter,”[ii] to come to the aid of those threatened with genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, or crimes against humanity.
And only when those peaceful means are clearly failing does the R2P doctrine allow for (it does not require it), with Security Council approval according to the Charter, more coercive measures under Chapter VII – and even in those cases the debate centres increasingly on the imposition of nonmilitary coercion through measures like diplomatic and economic sanctions and arms embargoes before accepting, as the Secretary General puts it, “the application of coercive force in extreme situations” that relate specifically to any of the four crimes covered by the R2P doctrine.
The R2P principles are by now well established, thus, as the Secretary General (SG) points out in his report, “the task ahead is not to interpret or renegotiate” this doctrine, but it is “to find ways of implementing [it] in a fully faithful and consistent manner” (para 2).
But faithful and consistent implementation of the responsibility to protect is impeded by a “paucity of will” (para 63) that is rooted in part in that extreme reluctance of the major powers to allow themselves to be formally bound to act in response to unforeseeable external circumstances. That reluctance has resulted in a refusal to clearly define the conditions, the warning signs, that should trigger specific actions in a process of gradually escalating responses to escalating conflict and growing vulnerability. In fact, the SG’s report, probably anticipating the resistance, specifically rejects the pursuit of “a rigidly sequenced strategy or tightly defined ‘triggers’ for action” (para 50).
At the same time, the SG’s report makes an important case for undertaking investigations and fact-finding missions “early in a crisis” (para 53) as part of an early warning and response process. But for that to happen early on and consistently in an environment that generally lacks the political will to act, there is a need for some way to trigger such investigations that is not dependent on a heavily politicized decision-making process. The Security Council, General Assembly, and Human Rights Council, for example, all have investigative powers, but there is not a process that automatically triggers or mandates investigations when certain conditions obtain. In the absence of such triggers to launch investigations, responses remain subject to highly politicized decisions on a case-by-case basis. As a result the international community will continue to avoid acting in too many cases – to the extraordinary peril of vulnerable people in the affected countries or regions.
The need for certain kinds of reasonably objective triggers for action is reinforced by a study reported in the Washington Post which indicates a general tendency for individuals and the public to react much more strongly and to show greater concern for small-scale suffering than large-scale suffering. The more victims, it seems, the easier it is to look the other way. It is a phenomenon similar to the impact of changes brought by a small amount of light – the difference between darkness and a five watt bulb is dramatic; the difference between a 90 watt bulb and a 100 watt bulb is hardly noticeable, even though the latter change is twice the watts of the former.[iii]
The coming General Assembly debate will not be decisive for the millions who still face threats of genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, or crimes against humanity. It will nevertheless be an opportunity for states to reaffirm the basic principle of sovereignty as responsibility and to reaffirm the international community’s obligations toward vulnerable people. Above all, it should mark a transition from abstract principle to efforts to carefully track abuses and to delineate avenues of concrete, consistent action – in short, the words should ultimately lead to saved lives.
eregehr@ploughshares.ca
Notes
[i] United Nations. “Implementing the responsibility to protect,” Report of the Secretary-General. 12 January 2009. Follow-up to the outcome of the Millennium Summit (A/63/677).http://www.un.org/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=A%2F63%2F677&Submit=Search&Lang=E.
[ii] Repeated in para 1 of the Secretary General’s report (2009).
[iii] Shakar Vedantum, “Mass Suffering and Why We Look the Other Way,” Washington Post, 5 January 2009.http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/04/AR2009010401307.html
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Posted on: April 22nd, 2009 by Ernie Regehr
That was the debate question at a recent “wars with words” session at the Canadian War Museum.[i] The debaters were Major-General (ret’d) Lewis MacKenzie and myself. What follows is a slightly abbreviated version of my opening statement.
It’s clear that historically, Canada has been prominently and sacrificially engaged in both peacekeeping and warfighting. And it probably isn’t controversial to say that in Afghanistan today the men and women of the Canadian forces are again called on to serve in both roles – but saying that certainly implies an evolved and expansive definition of peacekeeping.
I take that term to include multilateral operations from consent based “peacekeeping” to “peace enforcement” in more hostile environments. The UN DPKO’s Principles and Guidelines Document describes the former as “a technique designed to preserve the peace, however fragile, where fighting has been halted,” and the latter as “the application, with the authorization of the Security Council, of a range of coercive measures, including the use of military force” to restore peace and security.[ii]
And, it is important to add, whatever the terminology or the mission, military contributions to peacekeeping are dangerous and always and ultimately dependent on the courage and willing service of skilled and dedicated men and women of national military forces.
A defining feature of peacekeeping, both as monitoring and enforcement,[iii] is that it is necessarily accompanied by a range of political, economic, and social measures,[iv] notably as institution-building efforts.[v] That is why, when Canada is deciding whether to participate in a particular Chapter VII mission, Foreign Affairs considers whether “the peacekeeping operation will take place alongside a process aimed at a political settlement to the conflict.”[vi] & [vii]
The military element of peacekeeping is multilaterally authorized intervention designed to support the political settlement of conflict – it is not an alternative to political process. And that is a primary way in which it differs from “warfighting.” Rather than being designed to facilitate or support the political resolution of conflict, warfighting is designed to over-ride politics by dint of force and to impose, rather than negotiate, an outcome.
For example, when the international community forced Iraq out of Kuwait in 1991 it clearly set aside political process and negotiation and Security Council diplomacy in favor of war – and, in the process, it must be said, it upheld a key principle of international law and produced the primary desired outcome, one which has proven sustainable.
So that’s roughly how I understand the distinction between “peacekeeping and warfighting” – the former is an aid to political process, the latter over-rides it.
The salient question now is not which Canada has done more of, or which it is best at. Instead, the following argues that in the future Canada should focus particularly on peacekeeping as a model in its military contributions to international peace and security. Two basic considerations are invoked: a) the vital interests of Canada; and b) the very real limits to the utility of military efforts to impose sustainable peace and security outcomes.
The Canadian interest
I think it is widely agreed that the security and well-being of Canada are inextricably bound up with global stability and prosperity. We rely on an international order that respects Canadian sovereignty and territorial integrity; we want and need an order that functions according to broadly accepted rules or international laws. So Canada necessarily has a history of responding to security concerns beyond our borders, not only when our interests are directly threatened, but also when there are serious strains on the stability of the international system on which our security and prosperity ultimately depend.
Importantly, the Canadian interest is also shaped by a core value that commits us to coming to the aid of the world’s most vulnerable – partly because chronic human suffering undermines confidence in and respect for a rules based order and thus undermines our vital security interests, but also because we simply recognize ourselves as constituents of a common humanity.
Limits to force
The difficult question is when and how does the collective resort to force make an effective contribution to advancing those objectives?
The skilled use or threat of force can, on its own, achieve certain kinds of objectives efficiently and decisively – e.g. to depose a regime (Afghanistan 2001, Iraq 2003), to facilitate humanitarian assistance (Baidoa/Somalia 1992), and to reverse aggression (Iraq/Kuwait 1991).
But the successes also display the limits.
- The destruction of the regime in Iraq could not be followed up with the timely creation of a new political order and effective protection of a vulnerable population.
- The expulsion of the Taliban regime was followed by the early establishment of a new government, but military forces now are not managing to protect vulnerable people or entrench that new order throughout the country.
- The delivery of humanitarian assistance in Somalia saved many lives but also dispersed insecurity to hitherto relatively safe parts of that country.
- The 1991 Gulf War led to the disastrous Shia revolt in southern Iraq (on mistaken assumptions of a weakened Saddam and of American support), followed by brutal repression (many thousands killed, habitat destroyed, IDPs).
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Moreover, and this is the key point, there are conditions in which the limitations of force cannot be overcome simply by deploying more of it. To be effective in advancing political and institution-building objectives in intra-state settings, effective military force depends on the simultaneous attention to political process, along with governance, development, and other peacebuilding efforts. Indeed, if those accompanying measures are not actively pursued, the escalation of force is much more likely to lead to the escalation of violence without advancing the strategic or over-riding objectives.
There is a relevant parallel in domestic law enforcement – the operations in Afghanistan, Iraq, the DRC, and other places are after all substantially about restoring domestic order and law enforcement.
Even in our own stable societies, it is true that the domestic threat and use of force are a factor in generating confidence that the rule of law will prevail. But it is also critically important that law enforcement takes place in the context of strong public belief in the rightness of the law, broad confidence in the justice system overall, and acceptance of the legitimacy of the government. In such conditions, enforcement is largely directed toward the exceptions, the spoilers.
Take away confidence in the justice system and public institutions generally and voluntary consent erodes and society quickly becomes ungovernable. And when that happens, simply adding more police will not convert that society into a compliant and stable order – not if the people distrust both the law and the enforcers. When genuine grievance and utter distrust of the authorities are combined with ready access to guns, the inevitable result is the escalation of violence, well beyond isolated spoilers, and the disintegration of public order.
Peacekeeping
The relevance of all this for the peacekeeping-vs-warfighting discussion I think is found in the basic reality that the pursuit of stability and respect for the rule of law requires enforcement to be linked to the nurture of public trust – which in turn requires efforts to build political consensus, to build up the legitimacy of public institutions, and to meet the expectation that enforcement is driven by basic fairness.
I take that multi-dimensional approach to be the essence of peacekeeping – that is, the use of military forces in combination with political and economic measures to gradually build a stable and sustainable society and to deliver on the expectation that the spoilers will be dealt with.
In the many situations in which high levels of chaos and violence prevail, these political and economic measures are obviously extremely difficult to advance, but it is also not realistic to assume that military force alone will be able to force compliance. In such circumstances perhaps the best short-term hope is that key national institutions can be protected and the most egregious of emerging humanitarian needs can be met while political efforts are intensified to forge a new and inclusive political consensus. Any effort to substitute political engagement with intensified militarily action to defeat those outside the consensus is likely to be doomed to failure and entrenched warfare.
Indeed, that is the conclusion of a Rand study (Seth Jones)[viii] – “How Terrorist Groups End.” Of 268 groups that ended over a period of almost 40 years (1968-2006):
- 40% “were penetrated and eliminated by local police and intelligence agencies”;
- 43% “reached a peaceful political accommodation with their government” (in negotiations they moved to progressively narrower demands);
- 10% won;
- Only in 7% of the cases was military action the primary or decisive force in the ending of terrorist groups.
A University of Barcelona study[ix] looked at 80 civil and interstate armed conflicts, and of those that ended during that period (just over half):
- 15% ended through victory of one side or the other; and
- The rest through negotiations.
By the way, the proportionality calculus for the appropriate use of force is also bound to be different for peacekeeping and warfighting. If the mission objective is to destroy a regime, with the understanding that rebuilding belongs to a post-war agenda, there will be a different measure of acceptable collateral damage than if the immediate mission objective is to protect people and to defend public institutions and build public confidence in them.
Afghanistan:
If I can be allowed one concluding observation on Afghanistan, it is to note that international forces have obviously found it most challenging to maintain local security in those parts of the country that are most sharply outside the political consensus that was achieved in Bonn in late 2001 and early 2002. The insurgency is most active and advanced in those areas of the country, to put it another way, where confidence in public institutions and the government in Kabul is obviously the lowest.
The prominent military response to the insurgency has followed the warfighting model – that is, the assumption that the broad communal distrust in the south is not a matter for negotiation but can be over-ridden through counter-insurgency warfare.
Greater reliance on a peacekeeping/peace support framework would recognize that the insurgency is rooted in grievance, not only in extremism, and that building security requires more attention to negotiating political accommodation. Indeed, that is being increasingly recognized.
Conclusion:
So, are we a nation of peacekeepers or warfighters? I’ve tried to make the point that both self-interest and effectiveness (and, one might add, the situations we are most likely to face in the future) counsel us to build on the peacekeeping model. That does mean maintaining a significant and complex military capacity; but it also and especially means the need to build up a much more dynamic political and diplomatic engagement capacity and to devote major resources to help build-up and refine the UN’s operational capacity.eregehr@ploughshares.ca
Notes
[i] http://www.warmuseum.ca/cwm/whats-on/programs-activities/conference-wars-with-words.
[ii] United Nations Peacekeeping Operations: Principles and Guidelines. United Nations Department of Peacekeeping Operations and Department of Field Support. 2008.
http://pbpu.unlb.org/PBPS/Library/Capstone_Doctrine_ENG.pdf
“Peacekeeping is a technique designed to preserve the peace, however fragile, where fighting has been halted, and to assist in implementing agreements achieved by the peacemakers. Over the years, peacekeeping has evolved from a primarily military model of observing cease-fires and the separation of forces after inter-state wars, to incorporate a complex model of many elements – military, police and civilian – working together to help lay the foundations for sustainable peace.
“Peace enforcement involves the application, with the authorization of the Security Council, of a range of coercive measures, including the use of military force. Such actions are authorized to restore international peace and security in situations where the Security Council has determined the existence of a threat to the peace, breach of the peace or act of aggression. The Security Council may utilize, where appropriate, regional organizations and agencies for enforcement action under its authority.”
“United Nations peacekeeping operations may also use force at the tactical level, with the authorization of the Security Council, to defend themselves and their mandate, particularly in situations where the State is unable to provide security and maintain public order.”
[iii] Cedric de Coning, Julian Detzel, Petter Hojem, “UN Peacekeeping Operations Capstone Doctrine, Report of the Tfp Oslo Doctrine Seminar, 14 and 15 Ma7 2008, Oslo, Norway.
http://www.nupi.no/publikasjoner/boeker_rapporter/2008/un_peacekeeping_operations_capstone_doctrine_report_of_the_tfp_oslo_doctrine_seminar_14_15_may_2008_oslo_norway.
“The new doctrine makes a distinction between peace enforcement, which implies the use of force at the strategic level, i.e. where consent is lacking, and robust peacekeeping, where there is consent at the strategic level, but where force may have to be used at the tactical level to manage spoilers. The distinction between peace enforcement and robust peacekeeping is thus not about how much force is being used, but rather about the context within which force is being used. Examples for the tactical use of force could be military actions against breakaway factions, criminal elements or spoilers that are trying to hinder the execution of the mandate, or pose a risk to civilians, aid workers and UN personnel.”
“Some argued that a UN force, which is only mandated and capable of using force at the tactical level is doomed to fail if one of the main parties withdraws its consent, and may end up stuck in the middle of a new war without the capacity to even properly defend itself. Others argued that thewithdrawal of strategic consent requires a political solution. Iraq and Afghanistan demonstrate that significant military capability does not necessarily guarantee the maintenance of consent. The doctrine recognizes that the UN is not well-positioned to project force at the strategic level, and it notes that regional organizations or coalitions of the willing have been called upon to stabilize such cases, or to augment UN consent based missions when strategic force becomes necessary. In doing so, the doctrine may implicitly recognize the Secretariat’s preference for this division of labor given the operational limitations of UN peacekeeping operations and the importance of the UN having a legitimate and viable consent-based peace and security instrument at its disposable into the future.”
[iv] Aleisha Arnusch, “From Peacekeeping to PRTs,” 2007. Pearson Peacekeeing Centre.
[v] Security Council SC/9583, 23 January 2009. Thematic Debate.
http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs//2009/sc9583.doc.htm.
[vi] DFAIT, “Canada and peace operations” site, modified 130608,
http://www.international.gc.ca/peace-paix/act_gov.aspx?lang=en.
[vii] François Grignon and Daniela Kroslak “The Problem with Peacekeeping”, in Current History, International Crisis Group, April 2008.http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?id=5393.
“The military component of a peacekeeping mission is only as effective as the mission’s political masters make it. When asked last year if the 26,000-person force approved for UNAMID by the UN Security Council were sufficient, Salim Ahmed Salim, the AU’s Special Envoy forDarfur, rightly responded that what matters is “not how large a force it is but what they have come to defend,” since “without an agreement on peace, even a force of 50,000 can’t change the situation here radically.” A UN Security Council peacekeeping mandate with civilian protection provisions can only be implemented in the context of a political agreement. And the implementation of a mandate depends on the will to interpret it politically and to enforce it with the means provided.”
“In complex emergencies such as those facing the DRC, Sudan, and Somalia, the hostage population can only be sustainably protected if an effective political strategy accompanies the deployment of peacekeeping operations.”
[viii] Seth G. Jones and Martin C. Libickihow, How Terrorist Groups End: Lessons for Countering al Qaida, RAND Corporation, 2008. http://www.rand.org/pubs/monographs/2008/RAND_MG741-1.pdf.
[ix] Vicenc Fisa, 2008 Peace Process Yearbook, School for a Culture of Peace, University of Barcelona,http://www.humansecuritygateway.info/showRecord.php?RecordId=26461.
Posted on: April 5th, 2009 by Ernie Regehr
As anticipated,[i] the just concluded 60thAnniversary NATO Summit in France and Germany launched a process to review the Alliance’s Strategic Concept, including its nuclear weapons doctrine, with a view to adopting a new strategy at the next Summit.
The final paragraph of the declaration on Alliance Security[ii] speaks of “renovating the Alliance,” which begs the obvious question of why further renovate a house whose original design has long given way to a series of unwieldy lean-tos and whose function has little relevance to a dramatically changed neighborhood. But in the meantime and until that basic questioned is addressed, NATO’s nuclear chamber certainly needs some serious attention.
“A broad-based group of qualified experts” is to assist the Secretary-General who, in turn and in consultations with NATO states, is to develop the new Strategic Concept for approval at the Portugal summit a year from now.
The much longer Summit Declaration,[iii] which also promises a new Strategic Concept, devotes only one of its 62 paragraphs (para 55) to nuclear issues, but it does include a welcome repetition of earlier declarations that “arms control, disarmament and non-proliferation will continue to make an important contribution to peace, security, and stability” (para 54). The nuclear paragraph reaffirms the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and calls on NATO members to work constructively toward a successful outcome for the 2010 Review Conference. The NATO leaders point out that the arsenals of member states have been “dramatically reduced” and they promise an ongoing commitment “to all objectives enshrined in the Treaty.” They also call for universal adherence to the International Atomic Energy Agency’s “Additional Protocol” – an agreement to allow more intrusive and effective inspections of nuclear facilities. Both Iran and North Korea are called on to adhere to all relevant UN Security Council Resolutions.
A re-reading of the current Strategic Concept, adopted by the Washington NATO Summit in 1999,[iv] leaves little doubt of the need for major nuclear renovation. Eight of its paragraphs include substantive references to nuclear weapons, all reflecting an architectural style firmly rooted in the 1980s.
The 1999 document argues (para 46) that, due to “the diversity of risks with which the Alliance could be faced, it must maintain the forces necessary to ensure credible deterrence and to provide a wide range of conventional response options.” It then goes on to say, “the Alliance’s conventional forces alone cannot ensure credible deterrence. Nuclear weapons make a unique contribution in rendering the risks of aggression against the Alliance incalculable and unacceptable. Thus, they remain essential to preserve peace.”
Deterrence is presented as a broad, essentially open-ended, threat to use nuclear weapons against any aggressor – including, by implication, non-nuclear weapon states. The ultimate deterrent, i.e., “the supreme guarantee of the security of the Allies,” is described as being “provided by the strategic nuclear forces of the Alliance, particularly those of the United States” (para 62) – which, in the context of NATO expansion to the east, means the post-Cold War era has been one of the steady geographic expansion of the American nuclear “umbrella.”
The 1999 Strategic Concept sets out a commitment to the indefinite retention of nuclear weapons in Europe (para 46): “To protect peace and to prevent war or any kind of coercion, the Alliance will maintain for the foreseeable future an appropriate mix of nuclear and conventional forces based in Europe and kept up to date where necessary, although at a minimum sufficient level.”[v]
Current NATO strategy also holds that “nuclear forces based in Europe and committed to NATO provide an essential political and military link between the European and the North American members of the Alliance. The Alliance will therefore maintain adequate nuclear forces in Europe” (para 63).
The recent Obama-Medvedev statement[vi] is a measure of the extent to which NATO’s current retentionist nuclear doctrine is a serious security anachronism – out of date and out of place in the new security environment. Among other things, the American and Russian leaders declared the commitment of their “two countries to achieving a nuclear free world.” They also emphasized their support for the NPT, and called for negotiations toward “a verifiable[vii] treaty to end the production of fissile materials for nuclear weapons.” They emphasized the importance of the entry into force of the nuclear test ban treaty and US President Obama promised to work for American ratification.[viii] They also agreed to begin negotiations on a new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) with a view to reaching record low levels of legally binding limits on strategic nuclear weapons.
Language for a new NATO approach to nuclear weapons is available in the Obama-Medvedev statement, in the burgeoning anthology of nuclear abolition statements, and the logic on which the NPT itself was originally constructed – namely, that nuclear weapons, far from being “essential to preserve peace”, are ultimately an unacceptable risk to humanity, and that their elimination, not their retention, is essential to security.
Rather than asserting that the “strategic nuclear forces of the Alliance” are “the supreme guarantee of the security of the Allies,” NATO’s new Strategic Concept would do well to reflect the new reality articulated by Mikhail Gorbachev’s warning that “with every passing year [nuclear weapons] make our security more precarious.”[ix] Indeed, a new NATO statement could borrow from the 2008 statement by Henry Kissinger and his colleagues[x] and thus also acknowledge that “without the vision of moving toward zero, we will not find the essential cooperation required to stop our downward spiral” toward greater insecurity.
Over the course of the next year NATO states will have the opportunity to restate the vision and to make major efforts towards its realization.
eregehr@ploughshares.ca
Notes
[i] “NATO summit: a chance to kick the nuclear habit,” Disarmingconflict post, 18 February 2009. http://disarmingconflict.blogspot.com/2009_02_01_archive.html [ii] Declaration on Alliance Security, Issued by the Heads of State and Government participating in the meeting of the North Atlantic Council in Strasbourg/Kehl on 4 April 2009. http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/news_52838.htm [iii] Strasbourg/Kehl Summit Declaration, Issued by the Heads of State and Government participating in the meeting of the North Atlantic Council in Strasbourg/Kehl on 4 April 2009. http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/news_52837.htm [iv] NATO. 1999. The Alliance’s Strategic Concept, Approved by the Heads of State and Government participating in the meeting of the North Atlantic Council in Washington D.C. on 23rd and 24th April 1999. http://www.nato.int/docu/pr/1999/p99-065e.htm. [v] There are currently estimated to be between 150 and 240 nuclear weapons, all US B61 gravity bombs, held in five countries in Europe – Belgium, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, and Turkey. All of the European countries hosting US nuclear weapons are non-nuclear weapon state parties to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). [vi] Available at CBS News “Political Hotsheet.” 1 April 2009. http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2009/04/01/politics/politicalhotsheet/entry4909175.shtml [vii] Obama’s support for a “verifiable” treaty is a reversal of the Bush policy. [viii] Also a reversal of Bush policy. [ix] Gorbachev, Mikhail. 2007. The nuclear threat. The Wall Street Journal, January 31. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB117021711101593402.html#. [x] Shultz, George P., William J. Perry, Henry A Kissinger, and Sam Nunn. 2008. Toward a nuclear-free world. The Wall Street Journal, January 15. http://online.wsj.com/public/article_print/SB120036422673589947.html.
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Posted on: March 6th, 2009 by Ernie Regehr
Whatever the real point of Ottawa’s mini-tiff with Moscow last week, one can’t help but conclude that Ottawa will regularly be turning to the Russian Bear to help get Canadians bullish on a new fleet of fighter aircraft.
The last time Canada went shopping for fighter aircraft it settled on the CF-18 from McDonald Douglas of the US in the largest single military purchase in Canadian history. The Air Force is now gearing up to replace the CF-18s, and given a price tag that could go to $10 billion, the new fighter aircraft could once again be the largest single Canadian military purchase ever.
Russia’s Bears – long-range, four-engine, propeller driven aircraft built to deliver nuclear weapons to North America – were bolstered by the generally threatening ambience of the Cold War to figure prominently in the rationale for acquiring the CF-18 fighter/interceptor. The Cold War is no more, but the Bears are still with us and they remain ready and willing to serve as the theatrical foil to Ottawa’s manufactured bravado about defending our sovereignty.
“We will defend our airspace,” said Prime Minister Harper, noting his “deep concern” about the “increasingly aggressive Russian actions around the globe and into our airspace.”[i] Not content this time with conventional political hyperbole, the Prime Minister elaborated: “We also have obligations of continental defence with the United States. We will fulfill those obligations to defend our continental airspace, and we will defend our sovereignty and we will respond every time the Russians make any kind of intrusion on the sovereignty in Canada’s Arctic.”[ii]
Of course the Russian bombers specifically did not enter Canadian airspace – indeed, they never have. There was no “intrusion on the sovereignty in Canada’s Arctic.” They did what they have done for decades and that is fly in international airspace near Canadian and American airspace to train their pilots and test North American reactions; and the Canadians and Americans, grateful for the opportunity to test their own reaction times and routines, dutifully “scramble” their fighter aircraft and go out to greet the Russians.[iii]
For the Russians the point presumably is to continue to announce themselves as a continuing presence on the global stage. For Canada the point is certainly to keep a prudent eye on events near our borders, but when a routine event is elevated into an international incident the point is also to announce a continuing requirement for fighter aircraft and to lay the political foundation for the announcement of a brand new fleet.
The Government has set 2012 as roughly the date for a decision on the CF-18 replacement, although the basic intention was signaled a decade ago when Canada began its participation, initially in the Concept Development Phase, in the US-led Joint Strike Fighter program (JSF).
The aircraft in question in the JSF program – a consortium of nine countries[iv] – is the F-35 from the Lockheed-Martin company in the US, a new design not yet in production. There will be other aircraft in the running, but given Canada’s investment of more than $150 million in its development phase,[v] the F-35 will be a chief contender. The JSF is described in Canadian background notes as “the biggest and most expensive combat aircraft project in history.[vi]
Ottawa’s currently stated requirement is for 65 aircraft; this is down from an earlier ask of 80 (indeed, as the estimated costs rise the number required tends to decline).[vii] Current estimates have hit on about $50 million per aircraft, but some analysts think that number could yet double, depending on the overall production run. The additional program costs – namely, training, infrastructure, follow-on development, and so on – could double that figure and bring the overall bill into the $10 billion range.
Of course, part of the calculation is that both participation in the JSF development program and the purchase of the F-35 will yield major benefits to Canadian industry.[viii] The Government press release said the participation gave Canada “access to up to $8 billion in industrial participation opportunities.”[ix] Like the cost of the aircraft itself, estimates of the industrial benefits also enjoy a measure of inflation. To date, the development phase is reported to have yielded $212 million in contracts for more than 70 Canadian companies, and a more recent statement of potential sales claims $9 billion by 2035.[x]
Any decision on new fighter aircraft will obviously have to be preceded by a thoroughgoing public debate on the need.
The primary role for Canadian fighter interceptors is obviously to patrol approaches to Canadian airspace, but the question begging to be asked is just how many and what kind of aircraft does that really take. The Russian Bears are real, of course, but they are a real symbol of a threat – the real nuclear threat to North America obviously comes from intercontinental ballistic missiles, against which there is no defence possible or contemplated.
The more serious air threat that Canadian interceptors must address is not a military threat but a law enforcement threat in the form of small aircraft that illegally intrude into Canadian airspace and territory, most often laden with illegal drugs. Are large, state-of-the-art, fighter aircraft the best means of tracking the piper cubs of drug runners?
New fighter aircraft would also be available to support Canadian participation in overseas military missions – but here too there is an obvious question about the relevance of fighter aircraft in peace support operations.
eregehr@ploughshares.ca
Notes
[i] David Ljunggren, “Russian bomber neared Canada before Obama visit,” Reuters, 27 February 2009. http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSTRE51Q2W220090227?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews.
[ii] “Russia Denies Bomber Approached Canadian Airspace,” CBC News, 27 February 2009. http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2009/02/27/arctic-russia.html?ref=rss.
[iii] The only real dispute was whether Russia told Canada, as it routinely does, about the flight in advance. The Russian Embassy in Ottawa said “the adjacent countries were informed of the flight in good time,” but Ottawa said it was not informed. “Russia Denies Bomber Approached Canadian Airspace,” CBC News, 27 February 2009. http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2009/02/27/arctic-russia.html?ref=rss.
[iv] In addition to the US and Canada, coalition members are the UK, Netherlands, Denmark, Italy, Norway, Turkey, Australia.
[v] “Canada’s military eyeing futuristic fighter jets,” Canwest News Service. 26 june 2007. http://www.canada.com/topics/technology/story.html?id=7a365ab7-22b5-4d06-9de7-7a6177af4b62.
[vi] Michel Rossignol, “The Joint Strike Fighter Project,” 19 February 2003, Library of Parliament. Government of Canada. http://dsp-psd.pwgsc.gc.ca/Collection-R/LoPBdP/PRB-e/PRB0207-e.pdf.
[vii] David Pugliese, “Canada Weighs Fighter Options,” DefenseNews, 14 July 2008. http://www.defensenews.com/story.php?i=3637165.
[viii] “US, Canada sign agreement on Joint Strike Fighter.” US DOD News Release No. 060-02, 07 February 02. http://www.defenselink.mil/releases/release.aspx?releaseid=3232.
[ix] “Canada’s New Government Signs on to Phase III of Joint Strike Fighter Program….” Industry Canada, 12 December 2006. http://www.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/ic1.nsf/eng/02150.html.
[x] Allison Lampert, “Joint Strike Fighter program boosts aerospace industry,” 02 August 08, Canwest New Service. http://www2.canada.com/vancouversun/news/business/story.html?id=659a65d6-2ae0-48e3-99d8-4aab98a5d103.
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Posted on: February 18th, 2009 by Ernie Regehr
While Afghanistan will certainly dominate the talk at the 60th Anniversary NATO Summit in April, leaders are also scheduled to launch a process to review the Alliance’s Strategic Concept, a key element of which is a controversial and outdated nuclear doctrine.[i]
The Strategic Concept – the current version of which was adopted in 1999 – is the Alliance’s official statement of purpose and outlines its force posture and approach to collective security. Nine of its 65 paragraphs refer to nuclear weapons, the central claim being that the nuclear arsenals of the United States in particular, but also of the United Kingdom and France, are “essential to preserve peace” and are “an essential political and military link between the European and North American members They are supposed to keep your sexual life intact! viagra sales in india jealt.mx treats erectile dysfunction effectively, which is a condition characterized by the inability to achieve or maintain an erection for intercourse. This is because they normally have uncontrolled sugar in their blood system, which slows down the symptom of erectile dysfunction by inhibiting http://www.jealt.mx/servicios-dictamenes.html generic viagra discount PDE 5 enzymes and supporting cyclic GMP. This means there should be some form of sexual stimulation, whether it jealt.mx viagra without side effects is thinking about having great sex, or lightly stroking one another. Regular use of NF Cure capsule with Shilajit capsule improves vitality, cialis 5 mg vigor and energy levels. of the Alliance.”[ii]
Firmly rooted in east-west deterrence and nuclear war-fighting assumptions, NATO doctrine is markedly out of sync with the new anti-nuclear counsel from such Cold War stalwarts as Henry Kissinger, Helmut Schmidt, Richard Burt and a host of other government leaders and security professionals now calling for accelerated nuclear disarmament.
In his recent speech to the 45th Munich Security Conference, Mr. Kissinger reaffirmed his earlier call for the pursuit of a world without nuclear weapons, pointing out that “any use of nuclear weapons is certain to involve a level of casualties and devastation out of proportion to foreseeable foreign policy objectives.”
Richard Burt, the senior arms control official in the Administration of the first President Bush, now works through the Global Zero initiative, supported by The Simons Foundation of Canada and a broad range of public figures, for the abolition of nuclear weapons. The group is pledged to work “for a legally binding verifiable agreement, including all nations, to eliminate nuclear weapons by a date certain.”
Even the Alliance leader is now committed, as the Obama White House website puts it, to pursuing the “goal of a world without nuclear weapons.”
All of these statements represent a rather a large shift away from NATO’s claim that nuclear weapons are “the supreme guarantee of the security of the Allies.”
This recent wave of nuclear abolition statements by mainstream security professionals is rooted in two linked concerns.
First, the 20,000-plus nuclear warheads remaining in current arsenals, several thousand of them poised on missiles ready for firing at a moment’s notice, represent an ongoing threat of mass indiscriminate destruction to the point of global annihilation.
Second, that threat is heightened by the growing risk that nuclear weapons, as well as weapons-friendly technologies and nuclear materials, will spread to more states, and even to non-state groups.
NATO thus has the opportunity to fashion a new strategic doctrine that, on the one hand, takes full account of the threats posed by nuclear weapons, and, on the other hand, takes full advantage of the political momentum that is now finally available to allow states to get serious about doing something about that threat. Rather than continuing to insist, for example, that nuclear weapons “preserve peace,” NATO doctrine would do well to follow the new realism of former Soviet Leader Mikhail Gorbachev’s assessment that “with every passing year [nuclear weapons] make our security more precarious.”
Inasmuch as all NATO members are signatories to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), a good place to start would be for the new Strategic Concept to welcome the groundswell of calls for the world without nuclear weapons that the NPT envisions. Responding to those calls NATO should then reaffirm its commitment to implementing the disarmament and nonproliferation priorities and procedures elaborated through the NPT review process.
One important measure of NATO’s sincerity will be its handling of the 150-250 US tactical nuclear weapons that remain in Europe. If it were to take up the proposal of former German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt that those now in Germany be removed, and then also remove those in the four other European states that currently host them, NATO would earn important disarmament bona fides and give a major boost of confidence to a seriously flagging non-proliferation regime. It would also honor the longstanding international call that all nuclear weapons be returned to the territories of the states that own them.
Non-nuclear weapon states of the NPT that are not part of NATO rightly regard the removal of nuclear weapons from the territories of European non-nuclear weapon states as essential for full compliance with Article I of the Treaty. The NPT requires that “each nuclear-weapon State Party to the Treaty undertakes not to transfer to any recipient whatsoever nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices or control over such weapons or explosive devices directly, or indirectly.”
The nuclear disarmament and nonproliferation regime is currently under severe stress. The failure of nuclear weapon states to fully implement the disarmament provisions of Article VI of the NPT, along with NATO’s ongoing claim that it plans to rely on nuclear weapons for the foreseeable future, has entrenched the double standard of nuclear “have” and “have not” countries. In the long run, that double standard is not sustainable. NATO cannot credibly claim that the security of NATO states sheltered within a peaceful Europe requires nuclear weapons, while at the same time calling on all other states, including those in conflict zones such as South Asia or the Middle East, to fully and unconditionally reject nuclear weapons.
At the coming Summit NATO has an opportunity to begin the process of reinventing its security doctrine, to take new initiatives to end its reliance on nuclear weapons, and to engage other states with nuclear weapons in the serious pursuit of reciprocal disarmament, and in the process revitalize the NPT.
eregehr@ploughshares.ca
Notes
[i] This article appeared in the February 18, 2009 issue of Embassy. http://www.embassymag.ca/page/view/nato_summit-2-18-2009.
[ii] Detailed references for all quotes and sources are available in Ploughshares Briefing 09-1: Ernie Regehr, NATO’s Strategic Concept and the Nuclear Abolition Imperative. February 2009. http://www.ploughshares.ca/libraries/Briefings/brf091.pdf.
Posted on: January 9th, 2009 by Ernie Regehr
Some critics of Israel’s military action in Gaza charge that its extensive use of American-origin weapons violates US arms transfer laws. Whatever the merits of that particular charge, it is the type of issue that an arms trade treaty would regularly be called on to settle.
The proposed arms trade treaty (ATT), on which negotiations are about to begin at the UN,[i] is intended to ensure that international arms transfers are guided by obligations of States under the UN Charter and international law more broadly. The NGO Steering Committee that promotes an ATT articulates a foundational principle built on key elements of international law with direct relevance for arms transfers: “States shall not authorize international transfers of arms or ammunition where they will be used or are likely to be used for violations of international law, including: breaches of the UN Charter and customary law rules relating to the use of force; gross violations of international human rights law; serious violations of international humanitarian law; acts of genocide or crimes against humanity.”[ii]
The national arms transfer regulations of many countries already reflect that basic principle, as does the US Arms Export Control Act[iii] which provides that “Defense articles and defense services” can be provided to another country “solely for internal security (including for antiterrorism and nonproliferation purposes), for legitimate self-defense,” and to assist the recipient country’s participation in UN operations and related actions.[iv]
The US Foreign Assistance Act provides that, “no security assistance may be provided to any country the government of which engages in a consistent pattern of gross violations of inter-nationally recognized human rights.” [v]
In the course of current Israeli attacks in Gaza, as well as previous Israeli military operations in Palestine and Lebanon, commentators[vi] and critics have argued that Israel’s actions violate self-defence and international humanitarian law requirements and thus its use of US-origin weapons violates American export conditions. Canadian foreign affairs analyst Eric Margolis says “Israel’s use of American weapons against Gaza violates the U.S. Arms Export Control and Foreign Assistance Acts.”[vii] William Hartung, Director of the Arms and Security Initiative at the New America Foundation and an expert on US arms transfers, wrote in 2002, for example that, “the use of U.S. weapons in the conflict between Israel and the Palestinian authority appears to be a clear violation of the U.S. Arms Export Control Act prohibiting U.S. weapons from being used for non-defensive purposes.”[viii] In an extensive 2008 report Hartung documents Israeli use of US-supplied cluster bombs in Lebanon, also in possible violation of US export laws.[ix]
In 2007 US State Department officials sent a preliminary report to Congress citing “likely violations” of US-Israeli arms transfer agreements linked to Israel’s use of cluster bombs among villages in the 2006 attacks on Lebanon.[x]
Other reports from human rights organizations and the US State Department cite similar violations of international obligations – for example, the latter’s report on Israel for 2001 accused the Israeli Defense Force of “excessive use of force” and of deliberate attacks on Palestinian civilian institutions and civilian areas.[xi] A 2008 UN report refers to Israel’s failure to meet the obligations under international law of an occupying power.[xii]
Israel makes the opposite claims. In the case of cluster bombs in Lebanon, Israel says civilians were not targeted and were warned by leaflets dropped from aircraft in advance of any attacks. Israel describes its military actions in Gaza as entirely about self-defense – to halt rocket attacks on Israeli civilians and to prevent other kinds of terror attacks on Israel. Civilian casualties occur, they point out, not because of direct attacks, but as a consequence of direct attacks on legitimate targets that are in close proximity to civilians.
Current commentary and analysis cover the full range of interpretations, from Frank Gaffney’s insistence that “by any reasonable definition, Israel’s operations in Gaza are defensive,”[xiii] to Robert Fisk’s descriptions of specific attacks as “war crimes.”[xiv]
The legal questions at the heart of this heated debate centre on interpretations of basic, but not necessarily precise, concepts such as legitimacy and proportionality, self-defense and aggression, the thresholds that define “gross” violations of human rights or “deliberate” attacks on civilians, the definition of “excessive” use of force, and the severity and frequency of alleged violations of internationally recognized humanitarian law and human rights standards.
These are questions that are necessarily politicized and are unlikely, to understate the point, to yield to consensus in the context of current Israeli action in Gaza – the United States certainly will not charge Israel with violating US arms export conditions. But, difficult as such questions are, the proposed ATT will necessarily and regularly force them onto the public agenda. In fact, had such a treaty been in place now, it would at least have offered procedures and mechanism for examining possible infractions of international law, including the culpability of the supplier when arms are supplied to a State in which it could be reasonably predicted that those arms would be used unlawfully (possible US culpability is also relevant for Canada inasmuch as there are Canadian-built components in many US weapons systems).
A detailed and useful report on implementing an ATT, prepared by the UK NGO Saferworld,[xv] makes it clear that under any foreseeable arms trade treaty, arms transfer decisions will remain national. Even though the focus is international law, an arms trade treaty is unlikely to submit national export decisions to international adjudication.
Furthermore, compliance with such a treaty will be pursued largely through political and diplomatic dialogue, debate, and censure. Authoritative external legal judgments on compliance or noncompliance will not be the norm. Instead, treaty provisions for enhanced transparency and reporting, for consultation and mechanisms for raising formal complaints, and for monitoring transfers and weapons use will be put in place to generate close public scrutiny and thus create strong political incentives to comply.
Gradually, and with obvious difficulty, international consensus will have to build on the distinctions between legitimate and illegitimate transfers.
For now, a definitive answer on the legality or legitimacy of arms transfers destined to be used in operations like the action in Gaza will continue to elude consensus in the international community. But the fact that the role of arms suppliers is being raised, including the clandestine deliveries to Hamas, reinforces the importance of establishing a treaty which can provide institutional mechanisms through which to help determine facts, facilitate the debate, and thereby hold arms suppliers and recipients more accountable.
Notes
[i] The General Assembly, First Committee, resolution established an “open-ended working group” to pursue a “legally binding treaty on the import, export and transfer of conventional arms” based on the principles of the UN Charter and other existing international obligations – available at Reaching Critical Will: http://www.reachingcriticalwill.org/political/1com/1com08/res/L39.pdf
[ii] Compilation of Global Principles for Arms Transfers, the NGO Arms Trade Treaty Steering Committee, Amnest International, 2006, available at: http://www.iansa.org/campaigns_events/documents/Global_Principles_for_Arms_Transfers_2007.pdf. [iii] Sec. 502.Utilization of Defense Articles and Services. TITLE 22, CHAPTER 39, SUBCHAPTER I, §2754 Purposes for which military sales or leases by the United States are authorized; http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode22/usc_sec_22_00002754—-000-.html.
[iv] US export laws are compared to proposed global arms transfer principles in greater detail in: Rachel Stohl, US Small Arms and Global Transfer Principles (Annex B), Ploughshares Working Paper 06-1, 2006.
[v] Sec. 502B, (US) Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 (P.L. 87–195), p. 230, http://www.usaid.gov/policy/ads/faa.pdf.
[vi] Joe Parko, “Israel is illegally using U.S. weapons in its attack on Gaza,” OpEdNews.com, 28 December 2008, http://www.opednews.com/articles/Israel-is-illegally-using-by-Joe-Parko-081228-823.html.
[vii] Eric Margolis, “Israel Strikes at Obama,” 4 January 2009, Toronto Sun, http://www.torontosun.com/comment/columnists/eric_margolis/2009/01/04/7912556-sun.html.
[viii] William D. Hartung and Frida Berrigan, “US Arms Transafer and Security Assistace to Israel,” Arms Trade Resource Center, 6 May 2002, http://www.worldpolicy.org/projects/arms/reports/israel050602.html.
[ix] William Hartung and Frida Berrigan, “US Weapons at War: Beyond the Bush Legacy,” December 2008, New America Foundation, http://www.newamerica.net/publications/policy/u_s_weapons_war_2008_0.
[x] “Israel may have broken US arms export laws: official,” Muzi.Com, 29 January 2007, http://lateline.muzi.net/news/ll/english/10034372.shtml?cc=35606.
[xi] “Israel and the occupied territories: Country Reports on Human Rights Practices – 2001,” Released by the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, March 4, 2002, US Department of State, http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2001/nea/8262.htm.
[xii] “Situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967,” report of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, General Assembly, 25 August 2008.
[xiii] Frank Gaffney, “Defensive action,” Commentary, The Washington Times, 6 January 2009, http://washingtontimes.com/news/2009/jan/06/defensive-action/.
[xiv] Robert Fisk, “Why do they hate the West so much, we will ask,” The Independent, 7 January 2009, http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-why-do-they-hate-the-west-so-much-we-will-ask-1230046.html.
[xv] Making it work: Monitoring and verifying implementation of an Arms Trade Treaty, Saferworld, May 2008, http://www.saferworld.org.uk/publications.php/312/making_it_work.
eregehr@ploughshares.ca
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Posted on: December 18th, 2008 by Ernie Regehr
Despite widespread complaints about the sorry state of Canadian military spending, Canadian contributions to international peace and security are more heavily weighted toward the military than they are in key European middle power countries.
Given the UN Security Council’s recent attention to Article 26 of the UN Charter,[i] it is worth asking whether the world’s 33 million military personnel (plus 54 million reservists) and the $1.3 trillion it spends annually on military forces are what the framers of that Article had in mind when they called on states to maintain international peace and security “with the least diversion for armaments of the world’s human and economic resources.”[ii]
As a general proposition, many will certainly agree that this human and material treasure could be put to more productive use, but in most particular cases the point is likely be disputed.
Take Canada, for example. Canada is the world’s 14th highest military spender[iii] and might logically be regarded as among those states guilty of the excessive diversion of economic resources to military purposes – but it’s obvious that many disagree. Indeed, the prominent, if not prevailing, view among those interested in these matters is that Canadian forces are seriously understaffed and underfunded.
During recent discussions of the formation of a Liberal-NDP Coalition, to be supported on confidence votes by the Bloc, the Canadian historian and military affairs analyst J.L. Granatstein warned that “ideological and anti-military concerns of the coalition partners” could not be relied on to “restore” Canadian forces as the national interest requires.[iv]
The International Institute for Strategic Studies lists Canada as the 6th highest military spender in NATO, in addition to being the 14th highest in the world, yet Douglas Bland of the Queens University Defence Studies Program says “many billions more” will be needed to rebuild the Canadian Forces after the current Afghanistan mission.[v]
Canada’s ranking in the top 10 or 20 percent of the world’s military powers (the 14th highest in absolute military spending, and 26th from the top in per capita military spending) doesn’t deter another military analyst from declaring that “Canada has been a defence laggard for so long that it hardly warrants as news that we remain one today”[vi] – did we mention that Canada has the 6th highest defence budget in NATO?
There is another way of measuring the level of resources devoted to armaments or development and that is obviously to look at the defence to development spending ratio of a number of like-minded states.[vii] In 2004 that ratio in Canada was 3.8:1 – that is, military spending was at just under four times the level of development assistance spending, putting Canada roughly in the middle of the OECD rankings.[viii] The most balanced ratio was held by Luxembourg (1.2:1), while the most disproportionate ratio belonged to the United States (24.8:1). While those are both examples outside the mainstream, ratios in selected like-minded countries ranged from 5.9:1 for Germany to 1.6:1 for Denmark, 2.2:1 for Netherlands, 2:1 for Sweden, 2:1 for Norway, and 1.8:1 for Ireland. In other words, Canadian peace and human security spending was weighted more heavily toward the military than in most of these like-minded states.
In 2006 (the most recent year for which such figures are available) the Canadian ratio of defence to development spending had climbed to 4:1. The ratio in Germany had dropped to 3.6:1, and in Denmark it was 1.7:1, Ireland 1:1, Netherlands 1.8:1, Norway 1.7:1, and Sweden 1.5:1. In all of these states the spread between military and ODA spending had narrowed; in Canada it had widened.
Notably, if Canadian development spending had reached the declared target of .7% of GDP by 2006 (with defence spending maintaining its rate of growth), the Canadian defence to development ratio would of have been roughly the same as Sweden at about 1.5:1 and generally comparable to the ratios in the Nordic and some other like-minded European countries.
For now, however, Canadian contributions to international peace and security do remain more heavily weighted toward military spending than they are in key European countries – and that doesn’t seem to be quite in the spirit of Article 26.
(eregehr@ploughshares.ca)
[i] See the December 16 posting here.
[ii] These numbers are for 2006, taken from The Military Balance 2008 (International Institute for Strategic Studies, Oxford University Press).
[iii] The Military Balance 2008 (International Institute for Strategic Studies, Oxford University Press).
[iv] J.L. Granatstein, “The Coalition, the Obama Administration, and the Canadian Forces,” The Canadian Defence and Foreign Affairs Institute (http://www.cdfai.org/granatsteinarticles/The%20Coalition,%20the%20Obama%20Administration,%20and%20the%20Canadian%20Forces.pdf).
[v] Douglas Bland, “The Afghan mission has taught our politicians a lesson,” The Globe and Mail, 27 November 2008, http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20081126.wcoafghan27/BNStory/politics/?page=rss&id=RTGAM.20081126.wcoafghan27.
[vi] Andrew Richter, “What Happened to the Promise of Large Defence Spending Increases?” Canadian Defence and Foreign Affairs Institute, Summer 2007 Newsletter (http://www.cdfai.org/newslettersummer2007.htm).
[vii] See the 5 September 2008 posting in this space, “How Canada Spends its Peace Dividend,” https://www.igloo.org/disarmingconflict/howcanadas.
[viii] Military spending data is drawn from The Military Balance 2003-2004 (International Institute for Strategic Studies, Oxford University Press); and data on ODA is drawn from OECD statistics, Table 4: “Net Official Development Assistance from DAC countries to Developing Countries and Multilateral Organizations,” at www.oecd.org/dataoecd/43/26/1894401.
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