A rchive Date
[ 25-05-2000 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ U.N ]
|
[The UN dithers, and soldiers die
By PETER WORTHINGTON
Toronto Sun
May 25, 2000
The shambles in Sierra Leone where 500 UN "peacekeepers" were disarmed, taken hostage by rebels, or wandered lost in the jungle is only the most recent of UN military missions gone awry.
Retired Canadian Maj.-Gen. Lew MacKenzie, with nine UN peacekeeping missions on his resume dating back to the 1960s, has been a victim of UN policy. He defined the problem as that of insufficient troops, inadequate equipment, lack of direction, misunderstanding, incompetence, poor judgment and dithering at UN headquarters.
He has noted that every "after-action" report made when a mission fails, "reads almost the same." Getting decisions from UN headquarters in New York was a prime headache when MacKenzie commanded UN forces in Sarajevo in the early 1990s. The UN's agenda often (usually?) differs from the soldiers'.
While all criticisms are valid, perhaps the essential issue is that of soldiering - what the army should be, should do, and how best to achieve its goals. This continuing dilemma dates back to 1956 when Canada became the core country involved in UN peacekeeping.
In those days our military was ostensibly geared for war (against the USSR) as were all western nations. Peacekeeping was a secondary, albeit important function - using a fire hose as a garden hose, whereas in today's peacemaking the garden hose of our military is expected to fight fires - and fails.
In the old days of peacekeeping, potential belligerents welcomed (or tolerated) UN troops as a face-saving way to avoid war. Since the demise of the USSR, warring parties tend not to want outside interference, which means UN troops have to be better than those they are forcing "peace" upon.
PEACEKEEPING/PEACEMAKING
Most UN members have so-so armies, ill-designed for either peacekeeping or peacemaking. The Canadian army, and to a lesser degree the British and American military, has lost sight of the basic purpose of the military and has become, if not soft, at least redirected.
This trend was noted as far back as 1963 by military historian T.R. Fehrenbach, who commanded U.S. Army units at the platoon, company and battalion level in the Korean war. He analyzes soldiering in his immensely readable history of the Korean conflict, This Kind of War, which accurately foresaw the debacle that was the American military in Vietnam.
In a way, he anticipates what the military has become since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the threat of nuclear war has diminished, and the spectre of everlasting "peace" looms.
In essence, liberal society's basic purpose is to live, while the military's role is to stand ready to die, if need be, to protect society's right to live. These purposes require conflicting values, ethics, methods. In times of total war and national peril, the "citizen-soldier" is formidable, maybe even unbeatable.
He rallies to the cause, rather as a "holy war," and is capable of great sacrifice, courage, resourcefulness, determination, as was seen in World War II. But with peace, the citizen-soldier wants to get out of the military, go back to his life and loses interest in soldiering for the sake of soldiering.
In peacetime, the liberal view reigns supreme.
Inevitably, the military tends to adopt the liberal values of society - of which there are innumerable examples today: quota systems; equal rights; lowering of standards; relaxed discipline and training; cutbacks; an egalitarian approach where, to quote a French general, "An order is no longer an order, but a topic for debate."
"Liberal society, in its heart, wants not only domination of the military, but acquiescence of the military toward the liberal view of life," writes Fehrenbach. While civilian control of the military is essential, "if (society) wants an army worth a damn ... the military must maintain a hard and illiberal view of life and the world." Therein lies the rub.
While soldiers may be prepared to die, society (government) wants wars without casualties - witness Kosovo where no one on our side died. The 78 days of air strikes killed civilians and, as we now know, knocked out 14 tanks, 18 armoured personnel carriers, 20 artillery pieces - not 120 tanks, 220 armoured carriers and 450 artillery pieces as originally claimed by the U.S. and NATO.
Fehrenbach noted that in the Korean war the enemy was generally more disciplined, fought bravely and for longer than U.S. troops, despite the overwhelming firepower, air power and resources of UN forces. Similarly, in Vietnam the Americans were outfought man-for-man by their enemy.
What this indicates is the need for what Fehrenbach calls "legions" of professional soldiers, ready to defend liberal society but who have their own code and will fight foreign wars (peacemaking?) as their country demands. In wars where national survival is not at stake, professional soldiers or legions are preferable to citizen - soldiers.
In Sierra Leone, UN troops from Nigeria, Kenya, Zambia, Guinea, Ghana, Jordan, even India, hardly constitute a new version of Caesar's legions that protected Rome's frontiers.
As for Canada, well, our government has already decided ...
Letters to the editor should be sent to editor@sunpub.com Worthington appears Tuesdays, Thursdays Copyright © 2000, Canoe Limited Partnership. All rights reserved.
 World Fact Book (CIA)]
|