Preventive Diplomacy, Crisis Management and Conflict Resolution

Preventive Diplomacy, Crisis Management and Conflict Resolution Lothar Rühl "Preventive Diplomacy" has become a political program both for the UN and the CSCE during 1992. In his "Agenda for Peace", submitted to the World Security Council of the UN in June 1992 as a political guideline for peace operations, Secretary General B. Boutros-Ghali has emphasized "preventive diplomacy" as one of the peaceful means of conflict prevention by foresight. "Preventive" is meant as active instead of merely reactive diplomacy. It has to serve the political purpose of crisis management: containment and reduction of tensions, if possible also mediation before the outbreak of actual conflict. As stated in this document and on many other occasions by the Secretary General of the UN, "preventive diplomacy" consists of "measures" aimed at preventing disputes and quarrels between parties (i.e. states and possibly internal contests within countries), the escalation of such controversies into conflict and finally, at limiting conflicts, once they have broken out inspite of the efforts to prevent them. In sum such measures are designed to moderate political confrontation between countries or populations before it produces violence and armed conflict. The CSCE guidelines The CSCE "Helsinki Document" of July 1992 does not explicitly mention "preventive diplomacy". It only speaks of "preventive measures" together with "early warning" in the specific context of crisis and conflict in its relevant third part of the conference decisions (III/1-62). The subject matter is dealt with under the heading "Early Warning, Conflict Prevention and Crisis Management - Peaceful Resolution of Conflict". This purpose is to be achieved by "peace-keeping operations" of the CSCE in very much the same way as envisaged in the Boutros-Ghali "Agenda for Peace" for "preventive diplomacy" and "peace-keeping" by the UN, the "preventive measures" mentioned in the CSCE catalogue being essentially the same as those envisaged under the heading "preventive diplomacy" in the "Agenda for Peace" for the UN. The main difference lies in the absence of "peace-making" and "peace enforcement", while an equivalent to "peace consolidation" is suggested in the 1992 CSCE Helsinki Document. The substantive equivalent of the UN "preventive diplomacy" can be found under the headings for "early warning" by "collection of information" and the "monitoring of developments" as part of the actions the CSCE Consultative Council or its permanent executive "Committee of High Officials" may undertake, in order to "manage crises" and "prevent conflict". "Observation and Reconnaissance missions" can be dispatched to areas of tensions or crisis in order to ascertain the fact and report to the competent CSCE organism, which in turn may initiate or promote "good services" to the adversaries for peaceful settlement of their conflict by negotiation, propose a "mediation" or "arbitration". These "procedures and mechanisms" for peaceful conflict resolution are grouped under the heading "Political Crisis Management" (III/6-8). "Reconnaissance and Reporting missions" appear again under the heading "Instruments of Conflict Prevention and Crisis Management" (III/12-16) and lead over to the catalogue of guidelines for CSCE "peace-keeping activities", that may extend from simple "observation" via "surveillance missions" with military and civilian personnel, to watch over the correct implementation of cease-fire and withdrawal agreements between opponents, to even "large operations of military forces" for "peace-keeping", including "support for the maintenance of law and order" (III/18) as an "operational element" of the CSCE"s "overallcapability for conflict prevention and crisis management" as a complementary activity to "the 146

political process of conflict resolution" (III/17). It is spelled out that CSCE "peace-keeping" would take place "within the framework of chapter VIII of the UN Charter", that they need "the consent of the directly concerned parties", that they will be executed in a "non-partisan" manner, that they cannot be considered as a substitute for negotiation and hence would be "limited in time" (III/22-25). It is clear that these principles for "peace-keeping" restrict all CSCE activities for this purpose to the substance of Boutros-Ghali's "preventive diplomacy" even in case of "large operations" with military personnel and the use of "military forces" for "larger missions": combat missions are excluded as all other "coercive measures" in support for the "maintenance of peace and stability" or "law and order". The 1992 "peace-keeping" program of the CSCE is not supposed to lead to forceful "peace-making" let alone to "peace enforcement" by the use of military force. There is a measure of legal ambiguity in the formulation of these principles, which could be interpreted in different ways. But when all is said, it must be assumed that no such consequence as resulting from the UN operations in Somalia during the year 1993 are intended by the authors and the signatories of the Helsinki Document. Therefore the issue of "preventive deployment" of military forces in support of "preventive measures" of "political crisis management" and "peace-keeping activities" for the purpose of "conflict prevention" and "resolution of conflict" has been excluded from the Helsinki decisions and remains an open issue for further consideration by the CSCE partners. The reference to the UN in the context of peace-keeping and crisis management (III/19) cannot be considered as a political bridge from New York to Vienna for a transfer of coercive missions of peace-making by a UN mandate to the CSCE as a "regional arrangement" under chapter VIII of the UN Charter and the authority of the UN Security Council. No such intent can be read into the CSCE documents as of 1992/93. The experience with CSCE policies vis-à-vis the Yugoslav conflict, i.e. the war in Bosnia- Herzegovina, and the armed conflicts in the Caucasus region, clearly point to an agreed common policy of restraint and non-intervention. Beyond observation of crises and good services of civilian and military personnel for local mediation between hostile parties, monitoring of cease-fire and withdrawal/disengagement agreements or standing watch over demarcation lines on disputed territory, no use of military force is as yet envisaged be the "CSCE Community" (Helsinki Declaration, Paragraph 23). The proclamation of the CSCE in 1992 as a "regional arrangement" under Chapter VIII of the UN Charter does not change this negative political doctrine, denying the CSCE the right and the means to intervene into conflicts with military force for "peace-making" and "peace enforcement" in the sense of the "Agenda for Peace". The passive use of military force by preventive deployment into danger zones or contested territories as a "force in being" to demonstrate resolution, to suggest readiness for protection and thus to exercise deterrence of aggression, would seem to remain possible under the doctrine of the CSCE Helsinki document. However, this is only an assumption. CSCE observers have been sent to the Balkans and to Moldova as well as to the Caucasian region on missions of good services, observation and local mediation to reduce tensions and prevent or end the outbreak of violence. But there is no established pattern as yet and "preventive deployment" of military forces has not yet taken place. In the "Agenda for Peace" a logical link is presented between "preventive diplomacy" and the other task of "peace-making", "peace-keeping", the enforcement and the consolidation of peace by various measures, including the deployment of the UN forces with the consent of the parties. Although "preventive diplomacy" (III/23 Agenda) is meant to reduce tensions in time before the eruption of an international crisis, a border dispute on the ground or a civil war, 147

such contingencies are not mentioned. The core of the concept of "prevention" by diplomacy or political measures under the auspices of the UN is containment and de-escalation of crisis as a preparation for a peaceful resolution of conflict. Actors of "preventive diplomacy", according to the Boutros-Ghali doctrine for the UN, can be either the Secretary General himself or high-ranking official representatives under his authority, the Security Council (WSC), the General Assembly of the UN or finally "regional arrangements" under the UN Charter, also qualified as "regional organizations" for cooperation and security (supposedly such as the CSCE in Europe and parts of Northern Asia, the OAU in Africa, ASEAN in South East Asia and the Latin American treaty associations). The means of "preventive diplomacy" in the UN context, as singled out in the agenda, are "Early Warning" by observation and collection of factual evidence for timely information on emerging and developing crises, "Confidence Building Measures" (different from those in the CSCE Final Act of Helsinki 1975 and its follow-on CSCE documents, i.e. the 1986 Stockholm document of the Conference on Disarmament and Confidence Building in Europe and the 1990 Paris Documents) and last not least "preventive deployment" of military elements and force in areas of crisis or emerging conflict. Again, there is no detailed description of such contingencies, but the logical suggestion is that "preventive diplomacy" may lead via "preventive deployment" of military personnel for the general purpose of observation, information, "early warning" and "confidence building" to military intervention and occupation by forces with combat capabilities and even a comprehensive military mission including combat operations. The UN mission in Somalia illustrates this escalatory potential in both such contingencies and the missions for UN forces in support of "peace-making" as well as for "peaceful" measures of "preventive diplomacy" conducted with the assistance of "preventive deployment" of military observer or "humanitarian assistance" missions, and of course of wholesale military forces as a back-up for diplomacy, i.e. political operations of mediation or rebuilding of legal order and authority. This is particularly the case, when military forces of the UN or the service of the UN are being used to provide protection for populations or for authorities, to exercise directly police power, to organize local administration, public services, technical assistance etc. (such as in the Congo 1960/61, in Cambodia or in Somalia 1992/93). Critical issues and questions In such cases the gradual involvement of UN military as well as diplomatic and other civilian personnel poses a set of critical issues and questions, as can also be seen in Croatia and Bosnia-, where the UN has not intervened "manu militari" in the conflict and where "preventive diplomacy" and "preventive deployment" of international forces had not been attempted before the crises escalated into armed conflict in a series of full-fledged wars of secession from Yugoslavia for national independence. The ambiguity of UN operations and their political limitations as well of UN "peace-making" policy and "humanitarian" action is spelled out by the Somalian example in 1993. The case of Macedonia as an example of "preventive diplomacy cum preventive deployment" of a small (US) military force has to be considered by itself as well as within the UN context. The critical aspects of "preventive diplomacy" are related to (1) ambiguous situations, where escalatory risks have to be identified and neutralized in time, if prevention is to succeed, to (2) emerging armed conflicts, which erupt rather suddenly out of a political crisis such us a revolution leading to civil war and an armed rebellion of parts of the population against the 148

central authority of the state and hence to armed secession, to (3) a break-down of political relations with the international community due to internal causes or to the consequences of an international policy of sanctions and the isolation of a country or a region from without, to (4) political partisanship on the part of those who exercise such diplomacy, in favor of one or several parties to the conflict against the other(s). The first two aspects have been illustrated in Yugoslavia since the successful conclusion of the Paris Conference of the CSCE in November 1990. The third aspect has come to light both in the Caucasian conflicts and in Central Asia, even if only temporarily. The fourth aspect, which is the most complex and the most critical one for international security as well as for international peace-keeping, is highlighted in all the present crises: Several countries, participating in UN, EC or CSCE operations of peacekeeping, have tended to side with the cause of one of the parties to the conflict or, at least, to indirectly favor one side by preventing or neutralizing sanctions, military action and even political pressure. The reasons for such policies or occult leanings need not be discussed here, they are mostly of a historic or cultural, often of a purely tactical, sometimes of a long-term strategic nature. They can be seen in the Yugoslav case as well as in the Moldovan and the Caucasian ones; such reasons were obvious on various sides in dealing with Iraq during and since the Gulf conflict of 1990/91. The weakness of the existing mechanisms It is important, however, to recognize the paralyzing effect of such attitudes on the part of the international actors in a given crisis. International peace-keeping and even more so peacemaking can be obstructed by political purposes and influences, especially on the part of major powers or groups of states. The entire history of the UN until 1990 can be taken as a case in point. The other side of partisanship is disagreement between partners in an alliance or coalition such as NATO or the EC in the Yugoslav conflict. "Peace-keeping" can be reduced to the smallest common denominator, in this case to humanitarian assistance to victims of the conflict without proper protection, let alone efficient mediation for the ending of violence. "Conflict resolution" then becomes extremely difficult, since little pressure can be brought to bear on the parties, at least not on the stronger or winning side as in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Under such circumstances, "preventive deployment" of military forces will be of limited value in support of "preventive diplomacy", since the governments, providing forces or military personnel on the ground, will tend not to let their contingents become involved in operations against one side or the other, but to lend indirect support to those favored. Foreign forces will tend to remain passive and hence may become forces of stalemate in order not to act as forces of intervention and decision. International peace-keeping will then tend to freeze a given situation and balance of forces to the advantage of one side over the other or in a balanced stalemate such as in Croatia. An "armed mediation" from outside will then become extremely unlikely and the conflict will have to resolve itself as the political-military "market forces" [will] sort themselves out in competition as best they can. International "peace-keeping" forces can do no more than watch over lines of demarcation, regulate "border-crossing" traffic, protect humanitarian assistance to all sides and legitimize by their presence "le fait accompli". This is what UN "peace forces" have mostly done wherever they were sent: This is what happened on Cyprus since 1964, freezing the division of the island until the Turkish intervention in 1974, when the partition was changed, ever since guarded by UN forces. It happened in Palestine after 1948 in and around Jerusalem, then since 1967 on the Golan, etc. The CSCE has developed the chapters of the Final Act of Helsinki and of the Charter of Paris in the 1992 Helsinki Document to include methods of its own "peace-keeping" on the basis of non-partisanship, which corresponds to the "neutrality" doctrine, developed by the UN for this 149

purpose in order not to be drawn into a conflict, in which the UN Security Council does not wish to intervene or for the regulation and resolution of which it has no policy or no means. Without the coercive option of the use of force, CSCE peace-keeping will not become "peacemaking" and the new chapter on "peace resolution of conflict" (III/57-62) is the logical conclusion to a strictly non-interventionist doctrine of international security. In the full circle of this political self-constraint "preventive diplomacy" and "preventive deployment" of military forces in its support will tend to produce only a marginal impact on events and on the minds of the actors in crises and conflict. It cannot lead to the kind of "armed mediation" of conflict which was the classical policy of the powers in the 18th and 19th centuries in Europe vis-à-vis disturbances of the European order, which were no part of their own stratagemes. The CSCE will not be capable of serving the UN as an instrument for regional security in Eurasia. The possible role of Russia in the CSCE as well as in the UN frameworks within the limits of the CIS as an internationally recognized "factor of order and stability", as claimed by the present Russian government and President Yeltsin himself, remains ill-defined and contested by its neighbors (especially by Ukraine, the Baltic countries, Poland and Moldova). A "security partnership" between the Russian Federation and NATO for the purpose of extending security by a "joint security guarantee" (as put forward in Yeltsin's October letters of 1993) would, of course, change the conditions for international peace-keeping both in Europe as a whole and within the CIS without a political structure but with the Russian armed forces as the dominant military element in the East and NATO as the foundation of security in the West. The CSCE and the "North Atlantic Cooperation Council" (in which all NATO members, all former Soviet Republics and all former allies of the Warsaw Pact are participants) could provide a formal international framework and legitimacy both for NATO and for Russia to act together. A regional Security Council could be set up as the mantle for a new European "Concert of Powers", in which Russia would have an equal "pro forma" standing with the USA, the three major West European partners Britain, France, Germany, plus Italy and Spain would more or less represent the "European Union" and another five countries, such as Poland, Turkey, Ukraine, Sweden and Kazakhstan would contribute on a rotating basis. Such a grouping could even act for the UN and participate in global as well as handle regional security from simple "peace-keeping" to "peace enforcement and consolidation". (paper received in December 1993) 150