De-Mythologizing Peacekeeping

2015 ◽  
Vol 19 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 33-55
Author(s):  
Vesselin Popovski
Keyword(s):  
United Nations ◽  
Military Force ◽  
Military Engagement

Peacekeeping, one of the major innovations in United Nations history, has been regarded as an activity falling under ‘Chapter Six and a half’ of the un Charter. Many have also urged that peacekeeping be made more robust and to engage with military force against ‘spoilers’. This article questions these two myths – ‘Chapter Six and a half’ and ‘robust peacekeeping’ – and argues that providing ambiguous half-half mandates and expecting peacekeepers to engage robustly has created a lot of confusion. It advocates for clarity and distinction between peacekeeping and military engagement, and recommends to delegate these two roles to two fully separate actors, well equipped and trained to exercise them professionally.

Who Fights for Reputation

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Keren Yarhi-Milo
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Impression Management ◽  
Use Of Force ◽  
Military Force ◽  
Political Leaders ◽  
Self Monitoring ◽  
National Leaders ◽  
Foreign Policy Crises ◽  
Image Enhancing ◽  
Military Engagement

This book provides an original framework, based on insights from psychology, to explain why some political leaders are more willing to use military force to defend their reputation than others. Rather than focusing on a leader's background, beliefs, bargaining skills, or biases, the book draws a systematic link between a trait called self-monitoring and foreign policy behavior. It examines self-monitoring among national leaders and advisers and shows that while high self-monitors modify their behavior strategically to cultivate image-enhancing status, low self-monitors are less likely to change their behavior in response to reputation concerns. Exploring self-monitoring through case studies of foreign policy crises during the terms of US presidents Carter, Reagan, and Clinton, the book disproves the notion that hawks are always more likely than doves to fight for reputation. Instead, it demonstrates that a decision-maker’s propensity for impression management is directly associated with the use of force to restore a reputation for resolve on the international stage. This book offers a brand-new understanding of the pivotal influence that psychological factors have on political leadership, military engagement, and the protection of public prestige.

Fiji: The Militarization of Politics in a Small-Island Developing State

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vijay Naidu
Keyword(s):  
United Nations ◽  
21St Century ◽  
Small Island ◽  
Military Force ◽  
National Politics ◽  
Early 21St Century ◽  
Island States ◽  
Military Commanders ◽  
The Republic ◽  
The Military

The Republic of Fiji is a small archipelagic state of less than a million people in the southwest Pacific. It has a relatively minuscule military force in global terms but is the largest among the island states of Oceania. The size of the Republic (formerly “Royal”) Fiji Military Forces (RFMF) in the early 21st century is due to its role in peacekeeping for the United Nations. The Fijian military became entangled in Fiji politics having usurped political power on four separate occasions in the last 30 years, and it can be unequivocally said that there has been a militarization of politics. At first, the military’s involvement in national politics was on the behest of defeated politicians but, 30 years later, the military itself has become a major political player. This is most evident by the fact that former military commanders and coup. The military has becoming a powerful player in Fiji politics has occurred in haphazard but overwhelming ways. Fiji politics has an ever-present “elephant in the room” which is the RFMF.

Security Council Resolution 678 and Persian Gulf Decision Making: Precarious Legitimacy

1991 ◽  
Vol 85 (3) ◽  
pp. 516-535 ◽  
Author(s):  
Burns H. Weston
Keyword(s):  
United Nations ◽  
Security Council ◽  
World Order ◽  
The United States ◽  
United Nations Security Council ◽  
Recent Book ◽  
Military Force ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
The Military ◽  
Rule Making

In his recent book The Power of Legitimacy Among Nations, Thomas Franck defines “legitimacy” as it applies to the rules applicable among states. “Legitimacy,” he writes, “is a property of a rule or rule-making institution which itself exerts a pull toward compliance on those addressed normatively because those addressed believe that the rule or institution has come into being and operates in accordance with generally accepted principles of right process.In adopting Resolution 678 of November 29, 1990, implicitly authorizing the use of force against Iraq in response to Iraq’s August 2, 1990 invasion and subsequent occupation of Kuwait, the United Nations Security Council made light of fundamental UN Charter precepts and thereby flirted precariously with “generally accepted principles of right process.” It eschewed direct UN responsibility and accountability for the military force that ultimately was deployed, favoring, instead, a delegated, essentially unilateralist determination and orchestration of world policy, coordinated and controlled almost exclusively by the United States. And, in so doing, it encouraged a too-hasty retreat from the preeminently peaceful and humanitarian purposes and principles of the United Nations. As a consequence, it set a dubious precedent, both for the United Nations as it stands today and for the “new world order” that is claimed for tomorrow.

scholarly journals International law on the principle of non-use of force or the threat of force

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 115-122
Author(s):  
Vladimir A. Jilkine
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
United Nations ◽  
International Law ◽  
Use Of Force ◽  
Military Force ◽  
Legal Analysis ◽  
Fundamental Factor ◽  
The World ◽  
The United Nations

The Article presents an analysis of the main provisions of the principle of non-use of force or the threat of force proclaimed in the UN Charter and amended by Helsinki Final Act. The UN Charter puts first the principle of non-use of force or the threat of force among the main principles of international law, which is a fundamental factor in ensuring peace and safety throughout the world. The only mechanism for making decisions on the use of military force as the final argument can only be the UN Charter. The problem of the use of force was and remains one of the most complex and debatable in international law. The article provides a comparative and legal analysis of sources of international law governing the use of force or the threat of force in international law and individual cases in the practice of international relations. Russia does everything possible to prevent the use of military force in violation of the Charter of the United Nations, destabilization of the situation in the world, and builds international relations on the principles of international law for ensuring the reliable and equal security of states.

Objects and subjects: Strategic use of childhood in the debate over the Canadian contribution to MINUSMA

Childhood ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 27 (3) ◽  
pp. 294-309
Author(s):  
Iuliia Hoban
Keyword(s):  
United Nations ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
Policy Implications ◽  
Military Force ◽  
Conflict Zones ◽  
Discursive Analysis ◽  
Canadian Armed Forces ◽  
Post Conflict ◽  
Security Discourse ◽  
Political Problem

The debate over the scope of the Canadian military’s contribution to the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali evolved from the ambitious promise of ground troops to the deployment of narrow support to the mission. This article examines how the strategic use of childhood in political persuasion shaped security discourse and the nature of the Canadian contribution to United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali. This article analyzes political and media genres of discourse to examine mechanisms which (re)constructed, legitimized, and constituted childhoods during the debate on the Canadian peacekeeping deployment to Mali. Looking through the lens of critical discursive analysis, the article demonstrates the policy implications of rendering children as, what Marshall Beier defined, “security anxieties.” Representing children as potential security threats to the Canadian Armed Forces reveals their agency; it also, however, ignores the multiple, fluid roles of children in areas of conflict. This reductionist type of agency calls for correction on behalf of policy actors, furthering the objectification of children as a political problem. Examining how childhood is employed in influencing the debate about the use of military force, this article enhances our understanding of how narratives on childhood have consequences for global security. This article also displays significant opportunities to use the critical discursive approach to explore the diverse and complex experiences of children in conflict zones and (post)conflict societies.

Peace Soldiers: The Sociology of a United Nations Military Force.

1977 ◽  
Vol 92 (1) ◽  
pp. 165
Author(s):  
George L. Sherry ◽  
Charles C. Moskos
Keyword(s):  
United Nations ◽  
Military Force

scholarly journals WHAT HAPPENED THAT LEAD TO THE WAR IN KOSOVO

2019 ◽  
Vol 30 (6) ◽  
pp. 1511-1516
Author(s):  
Plamen Bogdanov
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Human Trafficking ◽  
International Security ◽  
The State ◽  
Military Force ◽  
The Republic ◽  
Security Organizations ◽  
International Trafficking

As it is well known, in Kosovo on June 12 the last war in which the country has passed has ended. On this date, NATO troops, called KFOR, have been established in the territory of Kosovo, an international military force that still operates within the territory of the state and is responsible for the security of the Republic of Kosovo, in accordance with United Nations Resolution 1244 United States and based on Kumanovo's technical-military agreement. This military force has the mandate to create and maintain the security of Kosovo's citizens and at the same time to control and oversee Kosovo's borders. It should be noted that this military force has a mandate to operate within the territory of Kosovo, but we must bear in mind that today Kosovo needs immediate access to international security organizations such as Europol and Interpol for reasons of growth (terrorism, human trafficking, international trafficking in narcotics, etc.), as well as in terms of nationality and problems that threaten the globe. Control of the entire territory of Kosovo is a challenge in itself.

The United Nations & Civil Wars

Daedalus ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 147 (1) ◽  
pp. 185-196
Author(s):  
Jean-Marie Guéhenno
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Civil Wars ◽  
Security Council ◽  
Military Force ◽  
Recent Experience ◽  
Political Strategy ◽  
Long Term Trends ◽  
The Cold War

The UN engagement in civil wars was almost nonexistent until the end of the Cold War, but recent experience brings some important lessons: the traditional principles of peacekeeping are ill-suited for civil war, as demands on peacekeepers, in particular the protection of civilians, are expanding. But military force is there to support a political strategy. The UN must focus on politics, using its comparative advantage–its independence–to win the confidence of the parties, while preserving its access to big powers to put pressure on them. However, it is challenged by the growing divisions in the Security Council, the changing nature of conflict, and a crisis of states that reflects long-term trends. This is not a reason for the UN to abandon its role in ending civil wars, but it needs to recalibrate its ambitions and adapt its approach: be less state-centric and more inclusive; more robust militarily; and more disciplined in its priorities.

The Emperor Without an Empire

2021 ◽  
pp. 329-362
Author(s):  
William Klinger ◽  
Denis Kuljiš
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Nuclear Test ◽  
Military Coup ◽  
Nuclear Disarmament ◽  
Military Force ◽  
Human History ◽  
Soviet Policy ◽  
State And Society ◽  
Small Countries

This chapter recounts the end of the age of destalinization and the changes of every aspect of Soviet policy under Mikhail Suslov and Leonid Brezhnev. It mentions Indonesian President Sukarno's disagreement with Marshal Tito's claim that the 1963 Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty had contributed to the safety of small countries. It also talks about the drafted resolution for nuclear disarmament, which became obsolete as soon as it was written and sent to the United Nations in New York. The chapter details how Brezhnev and Suslov set in motion a massive armaments race and the creation of the greatest military force in human history that prioritized Russian imperialism and total militarization of state and society. It discusses the year of the Lusaka conference that saw the fall of Prince Norodom Sihanouk of Cambodia, who was ousted in a military coup.

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