Keeping the Peace in the Post Cold-War Era:
Strengthening Multilateral Peacekeeping

The strengthening of multilateral peacekeeping is in the broad interest of the Trilateral countries. The new era we are all entering is so far one in which disorder is spreading in many corners of the world, and multilateral frameworks, in one way or another, often provide useful frameworks in which to address one or another conflict situation. Beyond particular conflict situations, strengthening multilateral peacekeeping will be important for Trilateral countries in developing post-Cold War cooperation with Russia and China through the United Nations Security Council, and with Russia and other former Soviet republics in frameworks such as NACC (North Atlantic Cooperation Council) and CSCE. It will be of major importance in sustaining and adjusting the security partnership among the Trilateral countries themselves, including adjustments in the roles of Germany and Japan and in the role of the United States.

A number of current peacekeeping operations are faltering. Part of the problem is that public opinion and governments have been calling for additional, ambitious multilateral operations—notably in the framework of the United Nations—without providing the resources and nurturing the structures that can sustain these operations over time. If allowed to continue over time, this gap between what the UN is asked to provide and what it can do could have disastrous consequences for the very multilateral frameworks which Trilateral countries—to which this report is primarily addressed—say they want to strengthen.

The extension of multilateral operations beyond the traditional UN peacekeeping tasks of the Cold War era is also proving to be more complicated and dangerous than some had imagined. United Nations Under-Secretary-General Marrack Goulding, in remarks to the Trilateral Commission annual meeting at which a draft of this report was discussed, set out three conditions that must exist for a proposed peacekeeping operation to succeed: “(1) the mandate or task for the peacekeeping operation must be clear, practicable and accepted by the parties; (2) the parties must pledge themselves to cooperate with the peacekeepers and those pledges must be credible; (3) the Member-States of the United Nations must be ready to provide the human and material resources needed to do the job.” As he also noted, “on any particular day only a minority of the actual or potential conflicts in the world fulfill those conditions.”

In sum, strengthening multilateral peacekeeping in the post-Cold War era will not happen automatically. Strengthening UN and other multilateral frameworks is not a means for Trilateral and other governments to avoid their responsibilities, but rather a useful means in many conflict situations for meeting those responsibilities in a shared manner.

The four central chapters of this report address particular aspects of the challenge. John Roper focuses on the widening range of tasks being organized under the broad rubric of multilateral peacekeeping, and proposes improvements in arrangements for deploying forces. Enid Schoettle’s chapter concentrates on the financing of peacekeeping, and how it should be improved. Masashi Nishihara asks what more particular Trilateral countries can bring to the effort—and what challenges they face in doing so. Olara Otunnu’s chapter is concerned with maintaining the broad legitimacy of United Nations action. A brief final chapter draws together recommendations from the four central chapters and offers a few concluding comments. The address which Marrack Goulding gave to the Commission is published as an appendix.

Authors
(titles at time of publication)

John Roper, Director of the Institute of Security Studies, Western European Union; former Member of the British Parliament and Editor of International Affairs.
Masashi Nishihara, Professor of International Relations, National Defense Academy, Yokosuka.
Olara Otunnu, President, International Peace Academy, New York; former Ambassador to the United Nations; former Foreign Minister of Uganda.
Enid Schoettle, Senior Fellow and Director of the Project on International Organizations and Law, Council on Foreign Relations, New York.