Turning to the UN Security Council: terming crisis a threat to international peace
When do states turn to the United Nations Security Council? Today the term threat to peace is interpreted more widely than ever before ranging from inter-state conflict over internal wars to humanitarian crisis. Alarming the Security Council to international crisis is an exceptional foreign policy choice. By far more conflicts are not brought to the attention of the Security Council than are put before that body. The paper explores when states actually turn to the Security Council and term a crisis a threat to international peace. One the one hand, the Security the Council has assumed a much more visible and active role in international dispute settlement since the end of the Cold War. On the other hand, the unilateral decision of the United States to invade Iraq raised serious doubts about the legitimacy and effectiveness of the UN’s collective security system. A much repeated truism reminds UN scholars that any system of collective security can be only as good as its members want it to be. But so far we do not have a clear understanding of what its members do want it to be. While the option to involve the UN Security Council in any situation endangering peace is equally open to all states, only some states address the UN in some conflict situations. From this starting point, this paper contributes to the understanding of the role of the UN in fostering conflict resolution as well as shedding light on foreign policy choices by states. In what situations do states turn to the Security Council? Which states take the decision to alert the Council? And what do states want from the Council once they did? Addressing these questions, the paper presents instances in which states decided to turn to the Security Council. The systematic assessment builds on a set of case studies that includes different types of conflict situations in the 1990s as well as different states. States bring crisis situations before the Council which they either perceive as an immediate threat to themselves or as a threat to norms shared by the international community. The paper concludes with some generalizations about reasons for states to turn to the UN Security Council.
JAPAN'S ENGAGEMENT DILEMMAS WITH NORTH KOREA
Since March 2000, a dizzying array of countries has embarked on a path of engagement with the reclusive Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK). At the front of this list of countries, which started with Italy and now includes every European Union (EU) state except France, stand the U.S., the Republic of Korea (ROK), and Japan. Given the halfcentury of cold war conflict in which the three allies’ relationships with North Korea were constructed, and the crises in 1994, 1998, and 1999 over nuclear weapons and intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM) tests, the notion of engagement with the DPRK appears almost oxymoronic. In part, this assertion derives from the nature of engagement as a diplomatic tool. Engagement differs from containment, which uses deterrence and threats of punishment (negative sanctions) to deal with the challenger, and everyday diplomacy in the sense that it is a strategy that employs positive incentives to achieve peaceful change when an existing power structure or hierarchy is confronted by challengers. The use of engagement, therefore, historically and theoretically presumes at least three things:
An Anachronistic Policy
The Strategic Obsolescence of the "Rogue Doctrine" It has been ten years since General Colin Powell, then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff manufactured the "Rogue Doctrine" as the basic template for US military strategy in the post-Cold War era. With the Soviet Union in irreversible decline and no other superpower adversary in sight, Powell elected to focus US strategy on the threat allegedly posed by hostile Third World powers--the so-called "rogue states." Although intended largely as an interim measure--a means of maintaining defense spending at near-Cold War levels until a more credible threat appeared on the horizon--the antirogue strategy has become the defining paradigm for American security policy. But while immensely popular on Capitol Hill, the Rogue Doctrine has become increasingly irrelevant to the security environment in which American forces operate. Under current US military policy, the Department of Defense is required to maintain sufficient strength to simultaneously fight and defeat two Iraq-like regional adversaries. These adversaries-generally assumed to include Iraq, Iran, Libya, and North Korea-are said to be dangerous because of their potent military capabilities, history of antagonism toward the West, and their pursuit of weapons of mass destruction (WMD). Although not linked by treaty or formal alliance, these states are said to pose a threat because of their common disregard for the accepted norms of international society. The Rogue Doctrine is presently the main guiding principle for the structure, orientation, and disposition of US military forces. Other tasks are, of course, assigned to the armed forces on a regular basis, as demonstrated most recently by the air war against Serbia. But these other missions, including multilateral peacekeeping operations, are considered "add-ons" to the primary mission of fighting the rogues; they do not g overn the basic organization of the Armed Services. Just as US forces were once trained and equipped for the overriding task of resisting a Warsaw Pact invasion of Western Europe-the "Fulda Gap mentality"-they are now trained and equipped to repeat Operation Desert Storm again and again. The Rogue Doctrine also significantly influences US foreign policy. For instance, much effort has been put into isolating fran from the international community, despite the fact that most of the United States' allies do not share Washington's views on the necessity of doing so. The United States also expends great political capital in trying to maintain economic sanctions on Iraq-even though a growing number of states have concluded that the sanctions have outlived their usefulness. Unfortunately, the Rogue Doctrine has been subjected to very little critical analysis. Few in Congress have questioned the rationale behind the "two war" policy that now governs US strategy, or its US$275 billion per year cost (soon to rise to US$300 billion). The mass media has not behaved any better; references to the "rogue state threat" are common, but are rarely accompanied by any analysis of political and military developments in the states involved or of the changing nature of the security environment. If we are to adopt a realistic approach to future perils, therefore, it is essential to look more critically at the dominant US security paradigm. The Rise of the Rogue Doctrine The origins of the Rogue Doctrine can be traced to the final weeks of 1989, when General Colin Powell commenced a search for a new, post-Soviet military doctrine. Recognizing that the threat of a US-Soviet clash had lost all plausibility in the wake of the Berlin Wall's collapse, Powell sought to construct a new threat scenario that would justify the preservation of America's superpower capabilities in a world with no Sovietlike opponent. Working closely with General Lee Butler, then Director of the Strategic Plans and Policy Directorate (J-5) of the Joint Staff, Powell conceived of a strategy in which regional threats, not the monolithic threat of the Soviet Union, would govern US military planning in the years to come. …