ENFORCING THE PEACE
Presentation by Professor Kimberly Marten

October 16, 2005
Summary by Janet Wahl

Professor Kimberly Marten of Barnard College, Columbia University, presented key concepts in her new book, Enforcing the Peace: Learning from the Imperial Past, at All Souls Church on October 16, 2005, at 1 p.m. The Unitarian Universalist UN Envoy Group sponsored this discussion with Professor Marten, whose new book received the 2005 ForeWord Gold Award for the best book in political science published by an independent press. Adult Education and the Peace Task Force were cosponsors.

Professor Marten compares the current peacekeeping efforts of the UN with the colonialism of Great Britain, France and the United States of a century ago. During that time, imperialistic, liberal states tried to maintain a presence in foreign territory to further their own security, augment their resources, and share the benefits of their own cultures, that is, to remake societies in their own images. When a conflict occurred, eventually the countries would come to a truce, and the peacekeeping forces would attempt to enforce the agreement.

Things have changed. More recently, while these democratic, liberal states have entered a territory for much the same reasons, their peacekeeping efforts go beyond the aim of stopping a threat of war; they include a fundamental goal of making foreign societies look more like the West, thereby hoping to create a more stable and secure international environment. These are now multilayered, "complex peacekeeping operations." However, because of local factions in the occupied territory, i.e. warlords, ethnic groups, tribes, and religious groups, merely enforcing peace agreements is no longer adequate. Instead, police work is necessary to prevent civil strife between these local groups. If the infrastructure has been destroyed, this only contributes to chaos which, in turn, is fertile ground for terrorism. Dr. Marten supports her concepts by citing the events in Haiti in 1994, Bosnia in 1995, Kosovo in 1999, and most recently Afghanistan and Iraq.

The type of police work necessary to create stability in a country today requires a:

• 1) Strong political will to stay with sufficient resources,
  
• 2) Consistent policy choices among countries with different sets of values,
  
• 3) High priority on a military agenda,
  
• 4) Effective coordination among the peacekeeping partners, all of whom have different and sometimes incompatible ideals,
  
• 5) The approval of the occupied country.

The multilateralism in the late 1990's and the beginning of the 21st century makes these requirements much more difficult to achieve. If these commitments are not actualized and the constituents of the occupied country do not have a voice, chaos results. Chaos does not enable the local population to become independent. One example is Afghanistan, where local people complained that police corruption was so pervasive that it was difficult to function in everyday life. Police were involved in burglary rings and extortion. In spite of an election, this corruption does not change the daily politics. Furthermore, there were no cooperating nations to share the burden of police work. The United States in Afghanistan acted unilaterally instead of multilaterally to try to gain control over societies' politics without the commitment to police to create stability which would enable local people to become independent.

Establishing multilateralism is very difficult as evidenced in the United Nations. The Security Council needs the support of all members; any member can veto a proposed action. It is unlikely that the charter of this procedure will be rewritten, which will perpetuate the same action guided by self-interest. The UN is inherently political; it cannot ignore politics. It does not always put peace enforcement where it is needed. For example, in Darfur the Sudanese government is sponsoring ethnic cleansing; Arabs are killing darker skinned Africans. So who is standing in the way of UN involvement? China, because China gets oil from Sudan; the Chinese military is guarding pipelines. Russia sells weapons to the Sudanese. If the US wants to do more through the UN, it must get around the Security Council which includes China and Russia.

The African Union has attempted to play a peacekeeping role in Darfur. It is difficult to support the African Union, a group of African countries without many resources or stability. The US has given support through the African Union. Currently there is a successful mission to help resolve civil war in the South. However, the US fears that too much pressure in the North would undermine the Southern peace effort. Indeed it is complicated.

Security is a step to peace. Economic and political control of a state by occupiers has not brought peace. If we ultimately do not learn lessons from the past in order to establish security, we will continue to repeat mistakes.

In response to questions suggesting that there may be alternative ways of achieving peace, Professor Marten responded that her focus was on "enforcing the peace" as she believes that this is the approach most likely to work.

This summary oversimplifies the concepts in the book. For very rich and detailed descriptions and examples of these concepts, the reader is encouraged to read Enforcing the Peace .