More Peacemaking

There Will Be More International Military Interventionism in Internal Armed Conflicts.

After the end of the Cold War, there was a strong belief that the UN should assume a greater role in resolving international conflict, in what has been termed ‘a euphoria for

peacekeeping.’ To deal with the predominantly intrastate nature of post-Cold War conflicts, new types of peacekeeping operations were established. Hence, the 1990s witnessed a significant shift in the development of peacekeeping (now usually referred to as “peace support operations”) in terms of the types of tasks, the spectrum of actors involved as well as the mandates and the level of force used in peacekeeping operations. Most importantly, there has been a gradual, controversial evolution towards relying on the use of military force to enforce peace agreements between parties in internal conflicts. The concept of “peacekeeping with muscle” was revived.¹⁴⁵ The changes in political thinking about the international

community’s role in intrastate conflicts have been no less profound, and have challenged core aspects of the traditional concept of state sovereignty.¹⁴⁶ As Michael Glennon has observed, the “the anti-interventionist regime has fallen out of sync with modern notions of justice” and we now have “a vague new system that is much more tolerant of military intervention.”¹⁴⁷ The shift in political thinking on state sovereignty and military interventionism has been accompanied by a significant restructuring of European armed forces towards peacekeeping

144The protracted civil war in Lebanon for example (1975-1989) demonstrated the security implications of the emergence of a territory outside the control of a government. Lebanon became the host of a truly international network of revolutionary guerrilla movements and terrorist organisations, including both organisations with a local or regional cause, such as the Palestinian groups and Islamic resistance movements, and organisations such as the Armenian ASALA, and the Japanese revolutionary groups Japanese Red Army. For the Lebanese civil war, see for example Sirriyeh (1989). For Lebanon and international terrorism, see Hoffman (1998).

145 See Morrison et al (1997) and Goulding (1996).

146 For a discussion of state sovereignty and humanitarian interventions in the 1990s, see Semb (1998) and Annan (1999a).

147 According to Glennon, “[t]he new system acknowledges something else that the U.N. Charter overlooks: that the major threats to stability and well-being now come from internal violence as or more often than they do from cross-border fighting – and that to be effective, international law needs to stop the former as well as the latter.”

See Glennon (1999).

and peace enforcement operations in internal conflicts. The process towards a common European security and defence policy has been motivated largely by the need for an

independent European military capacity for such military contingencies. Hence, it is probably safe to assume that in the future the military forces of the European powers will to a

considerable extent be deployed and used “out-of-area” (i.e. outside the territory covered by EU and NATO member states) for peacekeeping or peacemaking purposes, with a significant enforcement component. Such involvement is most likely in conflict areas in Europe’s geographical periphery and other areas deemed vital to European security interests. The Balkan peninsula (which is – at least geographically – almost in the middle of Europe) has already moved well into NATO (and increasingly the EU’s) security space. It is not far-fetched to assume that both the Southern Mediterranean, the Middle East, the Persian Gulf, the Southern Caucasus and the Caspian Sea Basin gradually will be seen as a potential area for multilateral military peacekeeping interventions by NATO or the EU.

Studies in settlements of violent internal conflicts indicate that one of the most decisive factors for a successful outcome is sustained outside involvement throughout the peace process.¹⁴⁸ Fen Osler Hampson has argued that conflict settlements that “enjoy high levels of third party assistance and support during the entire course of the peacemaking and peace building process are arguably more likely to succeed than those that do not.”¹⁴⁹ According to a study by Lake and Rothchild, the failure of a number of peace agreements

is partly attributable to the unwillingness of the international community to provide mediators with economic, logistical, police and military support needed to oversee the process of

disarmament, integration of the armed forces repatriation of refugees, and holding of general elections.¹⁵⁰

This suggests that if the international community is more willing to use resources, including a sustained international military deployment, for intrastate conflict resolution, the chances of resolving violent intrastate conflicts will become better.

Increasing international peacemaking and peace building efforts during the 1990s clearly indicate that the international community on the whole is becoming both more willing and able to end intrastate conflicts. Popular commentary has seen ethnic cleansing everywhere and portrays this as a phenomenon of the post-Cold War era. Data on endings of violent

nationalist conflicts strongly suggest, however, that the post-Cold War is not one of unchecked nationalist violence on a global scale, despite the resurgence of internal wars in Europe’s eastern and south-eastern periphery. ¹⁵¹ Ayres has shown that there have been three

148 Hampson (1996) and Hansen et al (1997).

149 Hampson (1996), p. 13.

150 Lake and Rothchild (1996), p. 72. See also Hansen (2000).

151 Recent studies suggest that the end of the Cold War did not significantly increase ethno-nationalist violence on a global scale. Ayres’ data “indicate that neither fighting intensity, total deaths per months, nor deaths per 1000 population showed any significant differences between the Cold War and post Cold War conflicts.” Ayres (1999), p. 112.

major waves of conclusions to violent nationalist conflicts in the post war era: late 1940s and early 1950s, a small group in the 1970s and a third (and largest) in the late 1980s and early 1990s. These conflict endings in the latter period were resolved more frequently by

agreements than defeat compared to earlier periods. While 22 conflict episodes began from 1985 to1996, 25 episodes ended during the same period. Studies of the way these conflicts ended (defeat or agreement) suggest that the end of the Cold War, in addition to contributing to some new nationalist conflicts, has brought a wave of peacemaking by means of

negotiations rather than military action. Thus, Ayres’ study supports the thesis that a new international order is emerging, which is more capable of dealing with internal armed conflicts and bringing these to a negotiated settlement.¹⁵²

4.6.1 More Muscular Peacekeeping Will Bring More Terrorism in the Short Run, But Less in the Long Run

The effects of greater international interventionism in internal conflicts on the occurrence of terrorism are complex. The overall effect of increasing multilateral military involvement in internal conflict resolution will probably be a reduction of both domestic and international terrorism in the long-term, for a number of reasons. More determined external involvement to resolve internal conflicts will reduce or contain these conflicts, and will address at least to some extent some of the causes that motivated the conflict in the first place. International terrorism has often been a by-product of protracted armed conflicts, and by improving its ability to address internal armed conflicts at an early stage, the international community may prevent internal conflicts from becoming sources of international terrorism.¹⁵³

In the short run, however, there are several reasons why terrorism may indeed increase as a result of more muscular peacekeeping. Stedman’s thesis on spoiler problems in peace

processes, theories on democratisation and terrorism as well as theories on terrorism and state legitimacy all strongly suggest that terrorism tends to occur precisely in such transitional phases. Hence, more muscular peacekeeping, for example by enforcing peace accords on recalcitrant parties, or more generally by using military force in societies in transition from a civil war situation towards the implementation of a peace accord, may indeed trigger violent counter responses, including domestic terrorism. Some empirical studies also show that the level of domestic terrorism in Europe has increased during controversial peace enforcement operations, such as the Kosovo air campaign and the Gulf War.¹⁵⁴ We may therefore expect more incidents as a result of increased military interventionism in internal conflicts, but the long-term effect will most probably be a lower level of terrorism.

152 According to Ayres, “one may refer to a ‘new era of nationalist peace’ in the aftermath of the Cold War,”

rather than talking about a new era of unleashing nationalist conflict. See Ayres (1999) p. 113.

153 In 1994-95 it was pointed out that the likelihood of a terrorist threat in Europe would increase if the plight of the Bosnian Muslims was not resolved. In particular, one feared an Iranian-supported irredentist and possibly fundamentalist Bosnian mini-state on the Balkans. The forceful intervention of NATO in 1995 and the subsequent long-term commitment of Europe and the United States to resolve the conflict in

Bosnia-Herzegovina was partly a result of the belief that “another Palestinian disaster” in the European heartland would have severe consequences, including the risk of more terrorism. See e.g. Farley (1994).

154 Bjørgo (1992).