CIAO DATE: 2/99

Preventing Deadly Conflicts: Failures in Iraq, Yugoslavia, and Kosova

Raimo Väyrynen

Joan B. Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies
University of Notre Dame

International Studies Association
40th Annual Convention
Washington, D.C.
February 16–20, 1999

1. Introduction

Conflict prevention is an art that various actors practice to forestall the outbreak, escalation, or restarting of serious hostilities between the parties. Being an art, there is no prescribed formula for effective conflict prevention. This is the view held in particular by the practitioners who argue that only three properties, i.e. experience, expertise, and endurance can make a real difference in conflict prevention. To be effective, the practitioner must know the background, context, and dynamics of the conflict well enough to be able to judge when and how to act to suppress or resolve the conflict.

The academic would argue, in turn, that the background, context, and dynamics of the conflict can be only changed if there is adequate and reliable knowledge of these factors. This knowledge can, of course, be obtained in several ways; statistical exercises provide generalized information on how deadly conflicts have broken out and escalated, case studies shed light on decision-making processes and strategies of action, and rational-choice approaches provide a benchmark for how the conflicts and their prevention should be handled.

Both diplomatic and academic professionals believe that deadly conflicts can be prevented, though they may disagree on how to attain this goal and what kind of knowledge is needed for the preventive action. Perhaps the main dividing line between diplomatic and academic approaches to conflict prevention is whether one has, to be effective, to focus on the root causes of violence or whether the involvement in the conflict process is sufficient. This distinction has been systematized by Ted Robert Gurr and Barbara Harff who list various coercive capacities, tensions, and incentive for political action as the background courses and then add eight different “accelerators”. Together, these background conditions and the accelerators define the propensity and intensity of the conflict. ₁

The discussion on the relative merits of the focus on background causes and conflict process is somewhat futile, however, as neither of them can provide a sufficient solution. They hint to very different approaches. The structural causes of a violent can be effectively tackled only by economic, institutional, and cultural strategies to build peace. The situational causes are tackled by efforts to alter the balance of incentives in the manner that the parties inch towards a greater understanding and compromise.

There are different views on the priority of the structural and situational emphases. Thus, the Commission on Global Governance advocates the structural approach: “a comprehensive preventive strategy must focus on the underlying political, social, economic, and environmental causes of conflict”. ₂ On the other hand, the assumption that detrimental socio-economic and cultural conditions lead to violence has been denied. It has been also pointed out that inept social reforms may inadvertently exacerbate violence. On the basis Michael Lund denies the “wisdom of equating preventive diplomacy with the job of correcting often pervasive and deeply rooted social ills”. He favors a more targeted and operational strategies of prevention. ₃

Obviously, the deeper reconstruction of the actors and their mutual relations, i.e. conflict transformation, has usually only a long-term impact. On the other hand, the manipulation of incentives may produce a temporary ceasefire, but hardly any lasting results. Therefore, the policies of cooperative and coercive peacemaking must be accompanied with long-term efforts at sustainable peacebuilding. These observations lead to two maxims of preventive action; (a)threats and punishments may be needed to convince the target on the futility of aggression, but, in the end, peace is possible only by peaceful means and (b) the prevention and containment of violence can work, over a long term, all parties consider the distribution of benefits and influence, and the respect of identities to be largely acceptable.

The interests of the agent of conflict prevention and of the target are, by definition, dissimilar. If there were similar, no efforts at coercion and influence would be needed. On the other hand, there must a measure of agreement, because otherwise preventive action would amount to preventive war. This requirement of the minimum communality between the actors means that they have to develop conventions on how different preventive actions should be interpreted and responded to. If no such action framework exists, then we are back in the standard power politics and, even worse, military power politics because the lack of conventions signifies the failure of diplomacy.

During the cold war, the framework and conventions of preventive actions were rather well defined. The great powers practiced that art by unilateral means and cooperated either bilaterally or through the United Nations only when the situation threatened to escape out of control. Very little attention was paid to the structural causes of violence and their mitigation. To the contrary, the great powers often exacerbated the root causes by delivering arms and propping up corrupt, clientelist governments.

In the post-cold war era, the situation has changed significantly. The old framework and conventions have broken down, but have not been replaced by new ones. Major powers have reduced their military and economic presence in the peripheries which have also become more exposed to the institutional and market forces of globalization. As a result, the local roots of violence and emergencies have surfaced and developed a new local and regional conflict dynamic. ₄

Unilateral interventions by major powers have declined, though not entirely disappeared, and they have been replaced by the UN and, increasingly, NATO interventions. These collective measures of conflict prevention and containment have not been, however, integrated in any action framework and conventions covering them are diffuse and unenforceable. The international community is at loss in trying to prevent the local conflicts in various parts of the world. However, through practical experience, a framework and set of conventions may be emerging.

This paper focuses on the recent historical development of the idea and practice of preventive action, the explication of its theoretical and conceptual underpinnings, and the critical test of its efficiency by three case studies. The paper contrasts the framework and conventions of conflict prevention during and after the cold war. The paper also makes an effort to outline the contours of the new strategy and assess it by various political and ethical standards.

 

2. The preventive actions by the United Nations

2.1. Hammarskjöld’s legacy

The revival of the international interest in early warning preventive diplomacy in the 1990’s signifies their second coming. The first wave of preventive diplomacy occurred during Dag Hammarskjöld’s tenure as the UN Secretary-General. He was convinced that the great powers were, if left to their own devices, were a risk to the world peace; not only because of the danger of the nuclear war, but also their increasing involvement in the local crises in the 1950’s. To mitigate these risks, Hammarskjöld made a strong effort to develop preventive rather than corrective solutions to international crises. His main goal was to keep great powers out of peripheral crises and thus forestall their escalation to relations between them. ₅

Preventive diplomacy was to be exercised or troops deployed in the the trouble spots to “obviate the competitive intrusion of the major powers.” ₆ In Hammarskjöld’s view, prevention was particularly needed when the conflict threatend to create a “power vacuum between the main blocs.” In such cases preventive action “must in the first place aim at filling the vacuum so that it will not provoke action from any of the major parties.” ₇

The neutralization of Gaza in 1956–57 is an example of how the competitive great-power intervention was prevented by deploying UN troops (UNEF) and getting Egypt and Israel tacitly to acquiesce with the situation. ₈ Neutralization can also rely on an accord between major powers as happened in Laos in 1962 when fourteen nations, assembled at the Geneva conference, accepted the “Declaration on the Neutrality of Laos.” The Soviet Union and the United States were able to agree on the Laotian neutrality because neither of them considered the country to be strategically important enough to warrant an armed confrontation between them. ₉

Hammarskjöld’s preventive actions relied primarily on diplomatic tools to mold the political situation in the target area. The lack of independent capabilities by the United Nations to operate on the entire spectrum of preventive actions meant that there was no recourse to more coercive measures should they have turned out to be necessary. Moreover, the great powers were critical of multilateral elements in Hammarskjöld’s preventive diplomacy and preferred to influence the course of crises by unilateral or, at best, bilateral means. The cold-war framework made the United Nations an arena rather than an actor in preventive diplomacy.

Hammarskjöld’s strategy of preventive action was based on multilateral diplomacy which was complemented by the occasional deployment of peacekeeping and preventive contingents. The time frame of his actions was short-term; instead of structural reforms in the parties to the conflict, the aim was to isolate and freeze the conflict and in that way forestall its escalation. This approach created a pattern of preventive diplomacy, still visible today, that is based on the provisions of Chapter VI of the UN Charter on the peaceful settlement of disputes.

2.2. The Charter provisions

This point of departure contains a strong presumption against the use of force. The Charter points out that “armed force shall not be used, save for common interest” (Preamble) and that member states “shall settle their international disputes by peaceful means” (Art. 2:3), and that its membership is open only to “peace-loving nations” (Art. 4:1). Clearly, states are expected under all conditions to refrain from the use of military force, except for self-defense and, as later stipulated, to get rid of colonialism and racial oppression. The right to self-defense exists, however, only until “Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and security” (Art. 51).

The Charter makes a clear distinction between the pacific settlement of disputes and enforcement actions which the Security Council can use only when “international peace and security” is threatened. Thus, while conflict prevention is conceptually distinct from the peaceful settlement of disputes, they have been politically linked. The traditional conflict prevention emanated from the pacific settlement, but tried to employ a greater variety of means. ₁₀

The Charter states that the parties to a conflict have the primary responsibility to seek a solution by peaceful means. For this purpose, the Security Council can investigate the matter and call upon the parties to settle their dispute by such means (Art. 33 and 34). Should the parties fail in that, they are obliged to refer the dispute to the Council (Art. 37).

The primacy of the bilateral settlement is qualified by a reference to the possibility of third-party assistance and the right of any member state to bring the dispute to the attention of the Security Council or of the General Assembly (Art.35). If this does not happen, the Security Council has, if the dispute is “likely to endanger the maintenance of international peace and security”, the right to “recommend appropriate procedures or methods of adjustment” (Art. 36 and 37).

In practice, the United Nations role in the peaceful prevention of conflicts boils down to its early-warning and investigative functions on the one hand and its mediating role on the other. Since the 1980’s, the UN has made repeated, but not always successful efforts to strengthen its early-warning capacity to monitor destabilizing inter- and intra-national developments that can give rise to political, military, and humanitarian crises. Early-warning is obviously linked with the investigative role of the UN which probably has been underutilized in the past. ₁₁

The Charter even provides (Art. 65) for the flow of pertinent socio-economic information from the ECOSOC to the Security Council which would give an opportunity to integrate the structural and situational strategies of conflict prevention by the world organization. Although member states are not obliged to cooperate with the UN fact-finding and investigative missions, they are potentially an important way to collect new information, elicit cooperation from parties, and thus help to prevent the outbreak of a conflict. It has been rightly suggested that the UN should much strengthen its capacity to assess social and economic trends that can be conducive to violence. ₁₂

In his An Agenda for Peace, Boutros Boutros-Ghali clearly saw early-warning, fact-finding, and confidence-building as key elements of preventive diplomacy. Moreover, to him they were means to an end, i.e., to meet the responsibilities of the Secretary-General’s office under the Charter. They include Art. 99 which entitles the Secretary-General to bring to the attention of the Security Council any matter that threatens international peace and security. Seen in this way, preventive action overlaps with “peacemaking” which has, either before or after the outbreak of violence, the task of “bringing hostile parties to an agreement” by means specified in Chapter VI of the Charter. ₁₃

2.3. Preventive deployment

In the UN parlance, conflict prevention uses primarily diplomatic means, but it may also utilize military instruments for the purposes of deterrence and territorial control. This could mean the establishment of demilitarized zones or the preventive deployment of UN forces. They are passive military arrangements by which the risk of aggression can be reduced and the escalation of a crisis thus prevented. The value of preventive deployment was stressed in the statement by the Security Council meeting of the heads of governments, organized in January 1992, under the UN auspices. The statement pointed out that preventive deployment can take several forms, but it must enjoy the support by the parties involved. ₁₄

The preventive deployment of UN forces in Macedonia, since 1995, comprising first Nordic and then also U.S. troops provides one of the few concrete examples of this approach. It has been suggested by Clive Archer that the sending of Nordic troops to Macedonia continued their traditional peacekeeping missions and reflected a liberal-institutionalist view on the nature of international security dilemmas and the ways to ameliorate them. ₁₅

According to this view, preventive deployment is preferable to active measures of crisis management and enforcement which are used only after the conflict has erupted. Preventive multinational deployment establishes a salient limit to ward off the spill-over of conflict to new territories.

The liberal-institutionalist view of the preventive deployment looks over, however, the power-political and domestic aspects of the policy. The success of UNPREDEP in Macedonia was also due to the participation of the U.S. troops in the mission. It sent a message that the leading military power of the world was committed to prevent the horizontal proliferation of hostilities which obviously enhanced the saliency and the credibility of the UN mission. Moreover, the deployment of troops was not only intended to keep Serbia at bay, but also contain the domestic tensions between the Albanian minority and the Macedonians. The outbreak of violence between them could have spilled over to other parts of the former Yugoslavia, especially Kosovo, thus escalated the conflict. ₁₆

2.4. Peaceful settlement

Third-party mediation involves, in turn, efforts to prevent a conflict and its escalation by bringing parties to a mutual agreement; in that way it defuses the potential for violence. Together with preventive deployment, mediation is a key instrument in the peaceful settlement of disputes which the Charter considers the most advisable tool for UN actions. However, in the early 1990’s UN interventions into local crises were increasingly justified under Chapter VII as enforcement operations, though such an ambition was usually more characteristic of the goals than of the capabilities that were available for the UN.

A critical distinction in the third-party intervention is whether it is carried out by a neutral or a principal mediator. A neutral mediator has neither direct interest in the dispute nor capacity to force the parties to an agreement. It can only try to modify and create “realistic empathy” in their mutual relations. The principal mediator is, on the other hand, involved in a three-way bargaining with parties. Its goal is to modify their payoff structures, either by rewards or coercion, in order to bring them to an agreement. ₁₇

Despite the enforcement mandates given by the Security Council, the UN does not possess capabilities to act as a principal agent in a crisis. Therefore, when acting on its own, it only can try to prevent or settle the conflict by an impartial, integrative approach. This task was clearly in Kofi Annan’s mind when he stated that he has used the office of the Secretary-General as a “bridge between two or more parties wherever I believed an opportunity for the peaceful resolution of disputes existed.” There are, however, limits on what the UN can accomplish by peaceful means. Annan had to confront the world “with a sense of reality about how far a leader can be pushed by peaceful means.” ₁₈ Thus, while re-emphasizing the primacy of the peaceful settlement, he is also ready to authorize, if the need arises, the use of force. He did that in Bosnia in August 1995 and has in 1998–99 repeatedly stated that force may be needed in Kosovo to break the deadlock.

One possibility is that the UN acts as a neutral mediator, while a coalition of its member states assumes the role of a principal mediator and uses more muscular means of influence than the UN itself can do. ₁₉ This distinction helps to describe the Bosnian peace process during the fall 1995 in which the United States and its key representative, Richard Holbrooke, chose a forceful mediating role, while the European Union had to conduct in the sidelines a “diplomacy by the pay phone.” ₂₀

It is commonly accepted that the UN should stress prevention over intervention, i.e. enforcement. The UN can use peaceful preventive measures when the Security Council has determined that “the continuance of the dispute or situation is likely to endanger the maintenance of international peace and security” (Art 34). Enforcement measures are in order when it has determined the existence of a “threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression” (Art. 39). Strictly speaking, this means that the UN is not allowed to use force in pre-emptive prevention of violence, but it has to rely in that task on peaceful means only.

This means that if the UN wants to be serious about preventing violence, it has to restore the efficacy of the peaceful settlement of conflicts instead of toying with enforcement operations in which it can seldom succeed. The fundamental consequences of taking violence prevention seriously has been perceived clearly by Thomas Weiss; “what is required is nothing less than a shift in the dominant way that the international community attacks problems. In formulating responses, new policy lenses should be tinted with preventive peacebuilding rather than intervention in and management of conflicts once they have erupted.” ₂₁ This shift to prevention can also be justified by the fact that mediation and other third-party strategies are seldom effective in solving or managing protracted, entrenched conflicts. ₂₂

 

3. Toward a comprehensive framework

3.1. Phases of preventive actions

The United Nations provides, of course, only one forum for preventive action. Therefore, one needs a more comprehensive framework which considers both, unilateral, bilateral, and multilateral means of prevention as well as short- and long-term actions. The means can range from persuasion through negotiation to the use of incentives and coercion to attain the desired goal of violence prevention. Such a broader perspective draws attention, in addition to the UN, to the policies of regional organizations, individual governments, and non-governmental actors to prevent conflicts.

Today, the concept of preventive action is usually extended to cover the entire conflict spectrum from the latent phase of the crisis through the use of force to the post-crisis prevention of its recurrence. This approach was essentially adopted in An Agenda for Peace which defined preventive diplomacy as “action to prevent disputes between parties, to prevent existing disputes from escalating into conflicts and to limit the spread of the latter when they occur.” ₂₃ This definition does not include the post-conflict prevention, and in may, in fact, be debated whether that aspect of prevention should a part of the concept. I have included it for the simple reason that the recurrence of war can be as and even more destructive than its outbreak in the first place.

Thus, preventive action can be said to comprise three different, but interrelated approaches: (a) conflict prevention, i.e. preventing violent disputes from arising between parties; (b) escalation prevention, i.e. preventing both the vertical and horizontal spread of hostilities’; and (c) post-conflict prevention, i.e. preventing the re-emergence of violent disputes. The notion of three successive strategies of prevention deviates from the traditional approach in which the focus has been on pre-conflict actions to nip violence in the bud. In this tradition, intra-crisis prevention is called either conflict regulation or management, while conflict termination, starting from a ceasefire and leading to a peace settlement, is not usually thought in terms of prevention at all. ₂₄

The dominant approach to violence prevention today seeks to correlate its different instruments with various phases of the conflict cycle. Thus, the degree of escalation and ripeness of conflict is supposed to determine which instruments of prevention are most effective in each phase of the crisis. ₂₅ A major problem with this approach is its tendency to consider the process of escalation in too simple and mechanistic way ranging from the latent phase through intensification and culmination to de-escalation and eventual termination. ₂₆

To avoid this trap, a more specific conception of escalation is needed. Such a conception is offered by Richard Smoke who defines escalation as “the crossing of saliencies, which are taken as defining the limits of conflict. As a war escalates, it moves upward and outward through a pattern of saliencies that are provided situationally.” Rather than considering escalation as a self-propelling process in which stakes and means are gradually and reciprocally amplified, Smoke suggests that the strategic steps taken by the parties to cross salient limits are the defining characteristics of the escalation process. ₂₇ This does not, of course, mean that escalation does not contain interactive and reciprocal elements, but that they are elements of broader strategies which may be initiated also for internal reasons and not only as a response to the actions by the others.

Smoke observes that escalation “moves upward and outwards”; i.e., it has both a vertical and a horizontal dimension. Vertical escalation means an increase in the magnitude or intensity of violence in terms of the amount of human and material destruction. Its prevention aims to limit such a damage. Horizontal escalation expands, in turn, the geographical and social domains of conflict and draws into the sphere of violence new people, communities, and states. Both of these escalatory processes violate their own salient limits whose crossing third parties may try to prevent. In the vertical escalation these limits are social and legal, while in the horizontal escalation they are often territorial.

To prevent vertical escalation, the international community must stress the legal restraints specified in the laws of war, ban arms deliveries, especially of more lethal weapons, and communicate clearly a message, accompanied with appropriate material punishments, that the further escalation of violence and destruction will not be tolerated. Wars of law provide normative standards against which the qualitative escalation of violence can be judged and measures to prevent it undertaken. These standards can also be explicitly communicated to the target to mark the limits of acceptable behavior and deter it from stepping beyond them.

In the Gulf War of 1990–91 the Security Council resolutions made repeated, although unsystematic references to the humanitarian laws of war stressing the need of Iraq to comply with them. The Bush Administration also tried to impress Saddam Hussein on the key importance of military limits, such as the non-use of biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons. Although Iraq violated laws of war in a number of ways, these qualitative military limits on escalation held. On the other hand, while the coalition try to follow the details of humanitarian law carefully, its air warfare bordered the violation of the limits imposed by the international law. The United States also prepared contingency plans for the potential use of tactical nuclear weapons. ₂₈

The prevention of horizontal escalation requires the territorial containment of conflict and thus of its geographical spill-over. Horizontal escalation relies primarily on neutralization and deterrence. It can be stemmed, for instance, by establishing demilitarized zones, safe areas, and by deploying preventively third-party troops as a deterrent. In the conflict resolution perspective, it should also be possible to work for a peaceful territorial change in which diverging interests are adjusted, for example, by redefining sovereignty and, if needed, separating it from the physical control of the territory. ₂₉

Preventive diplomacy aims either to limit the objectives of perpetrators of violence or the means used by them, or possibly restrict the domain of violence . The focus on objectives means that the agents of violence are coerced or persuaded to behave as status quo powers. On the other hand, the emphasis on means signifies a greater concern with the real human and material consequences of the conflict. The prevention of horizontal escalation seems to be more linked more with the effort to limit power-political objectives, while the prevention of vertical escalation leads to attempts to ban or restrict the use of especially destructive means of warfare.

The discussion of the escalation process is based on assumption that it is strategically driven. Therefore, the process also must be addressed by strategic responses. These responses must try to contain both the vertical and horizontal spread of violence by limiting either objectives or means, or both, of the parties to the conflict. Neither of these can be easily restricted before the outbreak of violence, partly because of the sovereignty of states, partly because of the in-built inertia of the international community to become involved in conflict prevention early on. For this reason, preventive action becomes often possible only after the violence has broken out. If the intra-war prevention fails, then the fighting has to run its course until the parties are ready for a compromise, often brokered by third parties.

Peace agreement is only the first step to build a more stable peace within or between states. Several factors — such as the lack of a common long-term perspective among the parties, the weakness of international commitment, the prominence of spoilers, or an adverse economic situation — can reopen the floodgates of violence. The peace process is usually precarious and unpredictable, and can thus relapse back into hostilities as has happened, for instance, in Angola and Sierra Leone. A cease-fire does not yet equal to a stable peace, but is only a modest beginning to this end.

The success of peace settlement can be assessed by several criteria. The most obvious one is the termination of major public and private violence in society. More demanding criteria include the sharing of power in society, the reconstruction of economy and civil society, the return of displaced people, and the disarmament, democratization and reintegration of the military. ₃₀ Without such deeper strategies of transformation, the operational manipulation of political processes can be futile as the underlying differences in social identities and material interests continue to erode the society. Structural remedies can have a long-term preventive impact by reducing economic frustrations and social tensions, and in general by diffusing the potential for violence. ₃₁

However, there is no guarantee that such remedies are effective, because the correlation between structural tensions and violence in society is moderate at best. It is probably more relevant to focus on the operational prevention which aims to forestall the re-escalation of the conflict by political measures after the peace agreement has been concluded. In such an approach the societal agents and the balance between the spoilers and those who are willing to give peace a chance matter a lot. These agents are obviously endowed with different resources, and thus different placed in the social structure, but still their actions, interests, and goals are probably more potent factors in the post-conflict peace-building than the distribution of resources.

The importance of post-conflict prevention means that the international community should think the resolution of violent conflicts in a long-term perspective; fostering the establishment of a stable framework for the exercise of public power and the implementation of social and economic reforms. Such a negotiated framework for reforms can only be created by an agreement between all relevant parties willing not only to stop violence, and for this end to control their military forces, but also to become engaged in constructive cooperation to seal the political deal. It is no wonder that in an atmosphere poisoned by the legacies of war and different prospects for controlling the post-war society, the parties can easily return to the use of military force. ₃₂

Obviously, the role of the international financial institutions and other donors is central both in preventive development before the outbreak of wars and in the reconstruction of war-torn societies. In the conflict prevention phase the donors should make sure that they do not foster inequities and instabilities that can push the society to the brink of violence, and beyond it. In the case of Rwanda, it has been suggested that the lopsided development model pushed by the donors paved way to its disaster in 1994.

A more specific, and a more demanding strategy of conflict prevention would require an intervention targeted at those groups which threaten to launch or escalate ethno-national violence. ₃₃ In other words, international aid should have “extra-developmental” and “extra-humanitarian goals” to mitigate conflicts, promote distributive justice, and support tolerance between various identity groups. ₃₄

3.2. Tools of prevention

One classification of preventive actions can be created by combining the temporal dimension with the nature of strategies used. Thus, they can be defined either as; (a) short-term diplomatic or military operations which try to avoid the outbreak or escalation of violence; (b) medium-term mitigation of tensions in society by political or constitutional arrangements to share power in a legitimate manner; or (c) long-term policy to reduce social inequities and tensions and strengthen the preconditions for peace. ₃₅ The last two approaches are embraced by the Commission on Global Governance which concludes that “a comprehensive preventive strategy must focus on the underlying political, social, economic, and environmental causes of conflict.” ₃₆

While constitutional and structural policies to prevent violence can make an important contribution to peace over a long term, its preservation often requires more immediate political and diplomatic actions. These “proximate” measures of conflict prevention are more immediate and can be targeted more carefully than the “remote” structural reforms. The role of agents in “proximate” measures is, of course, more pronounced.

It would be erroneous, though, to expect that the these measures of prevention always produce quick and successful results. Such unrealistic expectations overlook problems due, among other things, to indirect effects and nonlinear relationships. Because of them, outcomes in complex social relations do not necessarily match intentions. Therefore, a policy instrument can yield insufficient results which may, in turn, stimulate calls for increased and potentially misguided efforts to remedy the problem. ₃₇ Conflict prevention operates in a confounding environment in which the outcome of an initiative can never be known in advance.

A pivotal distinction in preventive actions is between punishments and incentives. Punishments impose costs which are supposed to ensure the compliance of the target with the terms of agreement, while rewards offer incentives to reach the same aim. A critical question concerns the relationship between these two strategies; can incentives be effective without being backed up by the deterrent effect of punitive measures? Political realists have invariably come to the conclusion that the efficacy of rewards hinges on the readiness to use force as a strategy of last resort. A revisionist realist might say that carrot-and-stick offers are a more potent strategy than pure coercion, especially if they rely on a previous reputation of resolve and proper timing. ₃₈

On the other hand, liberals can consider rewards as a form of mutually beneficial exchange, though shadowed by cost-benefit calculations. Then, economic incentives are a form of payment which the other party reciprocates by political compliance or concessions. Opposed to this rationalist interpretation is the constructivist view suggesting that economic rewards are primarily a form of communication, a signal, which can help to mitigate the atmosphere of hostility and pave way to a cooperative relationship. According to these approaches, material benefits or reconstructed identities are more important than a brute power in producing positive, preventive effects. ₃₉ The interpretation of rewards as a form of communication comes close to stressing cognitive persuasion as an important means of inducement and leadership in international relations. ₄₀

Punishments and incentives can be discussed in a more nuanced way linking them with the concepts of reassurance, deterrence, and compellence. In reassurance, parties try to increase incentives to cooperate and persuade each other about the futility of using force. In a deterrence relationship, the preventing actor conveys a message to the target that the use of force would have major costs and would, therefore, not be cost-effective. Deterrence accepts the status quo and tries to maintain it either by denial or a threat of punishment; it is a passive policy of prevention. Compellence, on the other hand, seeks to alter the behavior of the target and is thus used when prevention has, in the first place, failed. ₄₁

Reassurance, deterrence, and compellence are “hands-off” strategies in which influence is wielded from outside by manipulating the payoffs of the targeted actor. In “hands-on” approaches, the third parties become engaged inside the conflict which they try to transform in a peaceful direction. ₄₂ External efforts to change an actor’s policy pushes the target to search for more information on the threats and their credibility, estimate the consequences of potential concessions, and create an internal consensus to accept such concessions. ₄₃

Compelling threats have a secondary preventive function, but they also contain a risk of escalation which may leave every party worse off. Unilateral preventive actions may be interpreted by others as an effort to gain advantage at the expense of other actors and thus fuel the escalation of the conflict by inviting other parties to join the game. The risk of escalation in compellence supports the strategy of “remote deterrence” in which the third parties, although wielding influence in the region, commit to remain disengaged in the conflict. ₄₄ A lesson of this idea is that in some cases it may be better for the third parties to keep their hands off than to become involved; in that way they may make less harm.

While compellence may require action, pre-emption always does so. In pre-emption the preventing actor makes a positive or a negative move that reduces the need or the opportunity of the others to use power. In Michael Lund’s terminology “pre-emptive engagement” consists of early political measures to prevent the outbreak of violence, while “pre-conflict peacebuilding” aims to create a political, societal, and institutional milieu defusing conflict dynamics. Finally, “crisis prevention means efforts intended to halt the escalation of hostilities, or contain their spread, in order to prevent them from becoming a crisis or war.” ₄₅ Preventive war is the most extreme form of prevention; military force is used in the expectation that war is unavoidable and, therefore, the quicker side is supposed to gain initiative and thus suffer less damage.

“External” approaches are based on the manipulation of payoffs to persuade or compel parties to change their behavior. Ideally, the change is expected to lead to the de-escalation of violent conflict. Another alternative is that preventive action results in non-escalation, thus reinforcing the stalemate in a conflict. The stalemate can be difficult to detect empirically and, in spite of its success in forestalling escalation, preventive action may be considered a failure as violence continues. In reality, non-escalation may, over a longer term, enhance opportunities for resolving the conflict as a mutually hurting stalemate can be a precondition for the termination of violence. ₄₆

In practice, the coercive prevention of violence is seldom successful. It tends to harden the situation and elicit counter-reactions, and thus lead to the escalation of violence. Thus, threats and coercion can be inefficient and even counterproductive, except for in the stalemate in which the parties have already started to move towards a solution. In such a situation threats can be “useful in tightening the jaws of a deadlock, making the stalemate more painful and future alternatives more attractive.” The deadlock can be made even more productive by combining coercion with incentives and rewards. ₄₇

In general, promises and rewards are a more effective way of gaining preventive influence than threats and punishments because both sides can benefit from them. Positive power works when the actors involved “have a common interest in making an exchange, when suspicion does not cloud their perceptions of one another, and when the two can reach an agreement regarding the terms of the transaction.” ₄₈

3.3. North Korea and Iraq

These preconditions may be hard to meet, however, as evidenced by the international efforts to prevent by incentives North Korea from acquiring nuclear weapons. After having initially considered multilateral negative sanctions, the United States struck a $ 4.5 billion deal with Pyongyang to deliver it South Korean light-water reactors in exchange of it giving up the nuclear-weapon option. The process leading to the 1994 Framework Agreement shows how complicated preventive action can be; in particular North Korea pursued a policy of brinkmanship and the media almost became to dominate the communications between Washington and Pyongyang. ₄₉ Later developments have proved that the success of prevention was only temporary and North continues to pursue the capacity to deliver nuclear weapons.

The effectiveness of various preventive actions can be partially tested by the (failed) efforts to avoid the Iraqi attack on Kuwait in 1990. Before the attack, there was ample evidence that Saddam Hussein was deeply dissatisfied with the lack of Kuwaiti responsiveness to Iraq’s economic problems which accumulated in Bagdad the pressure to act. However, the signs of increasing aggressiveness were not taken seriously in other Arab countries or the responses were, at best, half-hearted. The U.S. commitment to defend the Gulf states was not communicated clearly and, therefore, its willingness to support them was perceived to be uncertain. ₅₀

In other words, reassurance was never tried and deterrence failed. However, even if the Arab countries had responded more positively to Iraq’s concerns, by addressing the territorial issues and changing Kuwait’s oil policy, and/or the United States had mounted an effective political and military deterrent, it is unclear whether Saddam Hussein would have reoriented his policy. ₅₁

After the Iraqi invasion to Kuwait in August 1990 both constructive and coercive means were used to convince Saddam to limit his objectives and desist from Kuwait. Multinational troops were deployed in Saudi Arabia (Desert Shield) to prevent the advance of Iraqi troops there. These troops formed the backbone for the subsequent military operation against Iraq (Desert Storm). Moreover, the Security Council imposed, under Resolution 661, mandatory economic sanctions on Iraq. Parallel to these coercive measures both major powers and Arab countries were active in seeking for a peaceful solution to the crisis. Whether due to these measures or other reasons, the further escalation of the Gulf crisis was avoided and a brief stalemate ensued in the fall 1990.

In the end, neither diplomatic efforts nor coercive measures persuaded, however, Iraq to withdraw from Kuwait resulting in the failure of the preventive diplomacy. ₅₂ This happened even if the Western coercive diplomacy after the invasion was more systematic than the dismally failed deterrence strategy before it. ₅₃ The failure was due primarily to Saddam’s intransigence, but also to the timidity of the early international actions to address the underlying economic and territorial problems, and the U.S. and British determination to push towards an early military solution rather than wait for the sanctions to have an impact. Several Security Council resolutions provided a collective legitimation for the enforcement actions, but otherwise the UN was pushed to the sidelines in the intra-crisis prevention. ₅₄

The Gulf war experience suggests that in an intractable confrontation in which perceptions, if not interests, are diametrically opposed, both constructive and coercive preventive actions have only limited chances of success. The opportunities are even slimmer if one or more of the parties, especially if they are autocratic, feel that their own power position is at stake. The perception of external challenge, and the crisis within the regime, may have been important reasons for Saddam to fight instead of making adequate concessions to placate Western policy makers. The feeling of being cornered was further enhanced by Iraq’s virtual lack of allies in its confrontation with the rest of the world. If a cognitive closure occurs, as obviously happened in Baghdad, preventive diplomacy have only scant opportunities to succeed. ₅₅

 

4. The Former Yugoslavia

Yugoslavia’s break-up and vicious cycles of violence were neither sudden nor unpredictable. Rather they progressed by stages; initial signs of instability were gradually crystallized in deliberate assails by nationalists on the federal order leading to its political collapse and ultimately to the outbreak of war. The political collapse was accelerated by the deep economic crisis and the structural adjustment program imposed by the IMF. The costs of the program motivated further the richer northern republics to abandon the federation. ₅₆

4.1. A European failure

The systemic collapse and the outbreak of violence in 1991 was also facilitated by the relative lack of interest by the international community. In the early phases of the conflict the role of the CSCE remained limited; it had neither an adequate structure or resources to tackle effectively the spiraling crisis. In 1991 the European Community made several efforts to contain the deterioration of the crisis, but with only meager results. The main reasons for the failure of the preventive diplomacy by the EC were the lack of internal agreement on the direction of common policy and the absence of established institutions and practices to formulate and implement such a policy. Moreover, partly these reasons, the negotiation diplomacy of the EC was legalistic rather than instrumental and was thus unable to generate political clout in the fast-moving crisis.

Once Germany decided to recognize Slovenia and Croatia, the EC was forced to mask its differences by lofty references to international principles whose operational significance was, however, limited at best. The biggest mistake made by the key third parties was perhaps to give up the idea of a unified, (con)federal Yugoslavian state. Its preservation would have permitted a more flexible approach to manage the political transition. Once the model of a single Yugoslavia was discarded and the process of fragmentation started, the inability of the EC to use enforcement operations to back up its political initiative further reduced its credibility and influence. It was pushed to the sidelines which gave, in turn, rise to a strong and long-lasting political hangover in West European capitals. ₅₇

4.2. The contradictions of the UN

Somewhat paradoxically, the United Nations turned out to have strengths that the EC did not possess. It had in the Security Council a decision-making structure which, although inequitable and cumbersome, could rely on the Charter and produce mandates for actions informed by its past practical experiences. The UN became also a forum where the West European powers could paper over their mutual differences and both Russia and the United States could become legitimately involved in the management of the Yugoslavian crisis. Thus, the UN turned out to be the only viable multilateral organization which could attempt the restoration of peace.

On the other hand, the Yugoslav crisis epitomized a basic dilemma of the United Nations; how to reconcile the tension between the need of a strong action, for which a mandate existed in the Charter, and the reluctance and timidity of the leading member states to commit themselves seriously to enforcement and peace-building. As it turned out, this discrepancy ultimately destroyed the credibility of the UN mission in Yugoslavia. The lack of strategic action by the UN was justified by references to the principle of non-intervention to a civil war or, alternatively, of impartiality which would permit an efficient delivery of humanitarian relief. ₅₈

A related problem was the constantly evolving mandate of the UN involvement in Yugoslavia which complicated the development of a strategic preventive approach. ₅₉

It is fair to conclude that the UN failed in the early prevention of the Yugoslav conflicts; partly because it did not become directly involved in these efforts before late 1991. Thus, the eventual UN successes and failures must be judged by its ability to prevent the escalation of hostilities after it became involved. In the end, the UN did not succeed well in this task, either. The failure became obvious in 1994 with the loss of the legitimacy of its operation and definitely by the summer 1995 when the United States stepped in the diplomatic and military process. ₆₀

The main reason for the UN failure appears to be that its operations followed a sort of “multilateral logic” which was supposed to be self-enforcing, but in reality was not autonomous as the Security Council, and its permanent members, lacked willingness to take direct responsibility for stopping the war. Being able to predict the “logic”, the most aggressive parties, especially the Serbs and Croats, could take advantage of it and adjust their moves accordingly. These parties chose a strategy which maximized gains, but stopped on the other hand short of moves that would have made the West to react forcefully. ₆₁

Thus, the conflict in Bosnia can be characterized as a limited asymmetric brinkmanship. Its limited nature meant that the aggressors went repeatedly to the brink, but avoided to plunge so deep that the West would have had to respond militarily. The West also had an element of brinkmanship in its strategy, but it was never strong and credible enough to force the aggressors to desist and not even stop their advances. In that sense the brinkmanship strategy was asymmetric.

In such circumstances, traditional peacekeeping was unable to prevent the escalation of violence and made it a hostage of the Serb strategy. The weakness of peacekeeping, due to its limited mandate of action and resources, was further compounded by the UN’s own mistakes and the priority given to the preservation of its own organizational image. ₆₂ One is tempted to conclude from the Yugoslavian experience that traditional peacekeeping is unable to have a preventive intra-crisis impact if the aggressor is determined and chooses to use force. To be successful, the UN forces must have adequate resources, try to avoid unnecessary exposure, and permit the use of limited force.

The UN involvement in Yugoslavia started on September 25, 1991 by the adoption of the Security Council Resolution 713 which invited the parties to agree on a ceasefire and imposed an arms embargo on all parties to the conflict. The ceasefire was intended to discontinue hostilities in Croatia and thus permit the deployment of peacekeeping forces, UNPROFOR, which happened in early 1992. The resolution was not “intended to prejudge the terms of a political settlement.” However, such a settlement could be reached only if the border disputes and minority problems had been solved. Unfortunately, the UN overlooked almost entirely these problems, both in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina. ₆₃

4.3. The arms embargo

The ban on arms imports was a page taken from the guidebook of traditional preventive diplomacy; its aim was to forestall the involvement of major powers in a local conflict and thus its further escalation. The arms embargo was also consistent with the peacekeeping mission as it reduced, at least conceptually, the threat posed by the local arms race to the multinational troops. Once again the reality turned out to be different, however. The arsenals, especially heavy weapons, were in 1991 distributed in a highly unequal manner. Serbia enjoyed material superiority both in relation to Croatia and the Bosnian government which explains its initial military successes. Thus, the reluctance of especially Britain, France, Russia, and the UN itself to lift the embargo favored, in reality, Serbia. ₆₄

On the other hand, the embargo was not consistently enforced and arms flowed from outside to all parties to the wars. Croats benefited most from this traffic as they imported arms both for themselves and demanded a hefty commission from arms transferred through their territory to the Bosnian government. ₆₅ As arms embargo did not prevent the continuation of fighting, one may argue that its lifting could have ended the war earlier. The lesson here is that the compliance with the “multilateral logic” may have blocked possibilities that existed outside it to stop violence.

Those defending the embargo have suggested that its cancellation would have increased the destructiveness of the war and the vulnerability of peacekeepers. It has been suggested, though, that the permission to deliver weapons to the parties would not have produced such adverse effects. Moreover, a better military balance between the Bosniaks and Serbs might have hastened rather than delayed a political compromise due to the military stalemate on the field. ₆₆ This suggestion harks back to the idea that a mutually hurting stalemate can be an effective means to prevent the vertical escalation of violence during a crisis.

The alternative to lifting the arms embargo would have been its stricter enforcement. It could have severed the link between the availability of arms on the hand and the political radicalization of all parties and their moves to establish paramilitary forces on the other hand. ₆₇ The downside of a stricter enforcement of the arms embargo would have been an even more pronounced military superiority of Serbia which could have handed to it a victory in war. No Western power, and certainly not the United States, was willing to accept this outcome (in fact, in the U.S. there was a bipartisan lobby which advocated the arming of the Bosniaks. ₆₈

4.4. Safe areas

The preventive efforts of the United Nations in Croatia and Bosnia did not stop but rather permitted the continuing use of military force. This fact has to be compared with its ability to provide humanitarian aid and thus prevent the spread of hunger and diseases. It appears that humanitarian aid, whose delivery was often difficult, reduced significantly the human suffering in Bosnia. On the other hand, the aid was delivered only to places where the militarily strongest parties permitted it to go. There is also other, though limited evidence that humanitarian action also prolonged the war by supporting indirectly military activities. ₆₉ Overall, the UNPROFOR actions, while reducing human suffering, were unable to protect civilian populations and thus flawed. This was, in turn, due to the inability to enforce on the ground the numerous ceasefires, which were negotiated under the UN auspices. ₇₀

This conclusion seems to be supported by the turn of events in 1995 when the horizontal escalation of war became even more visible with the Serb violation of the UN-declared safe areas and the Croat-Muslim counterattack to the Serb-controlled territories. The Security Council declared in May 1993 by Resolution 824, following Resolution 819 on Srebrenica in April, that Sarajevo, Tuzla, Zepa, Gorazde, Bihac, and Srebrenica were “safe areas.” This declaration was intended to stop in these areas the policy of “ethnic cleansing”, remove the menace of Serb troops, and assure unimpeded access to them. The Security Council Resolution 836 in June 1993 authorized the troops to use force as needed to defend the safe areas. Later on, NATO was asked to provide close air support for their defense.

Despite UN resolutions, NATO ultimata, troop deployments, and even readiness to use air power, the commitment to the defense of safe areas never became credible due to the reluctance of the member states to provide necessary troops or the United Nations to accept them. It seems that those leaders involved did not seriously intend to defend the safe areas should their harassment by the Serbs escalate into a military takeover (and the Bosniaks misuse their status). For the UN and relevant member states, the pre-conception that the safe areas were not defensible was proved in 1995 when the Serbs took over Srebrenica, Zepa, and Gorazde. ₇₁ One can speak here of a self-fulfilling prophecy. The safe areas were indefensible for the reason that their protection was never seriously contemplated as the avoidance of fighting with the Serbs was a central UN guideline.

The conclusion of this analysis is not particularly encouraging. In the worst European crisis after World War II, the regional organizations, especially the OSCE and the EC, were unable to act effectively. Therefore, the United Nations became the “peacekeeper of the last resort.” The interests of the permanent members of the Security Council confined it, however, to a role which was essentially contradictory; mission goals were unrealistically ambitious and mixed in comparison to limited political commitments and material resources.

This discrepancy opened a “window of opportunity” to the stronger parties, the Croats and the Serbs, to promote their own goals by the means of military aggression, political harassment, and the coercive displacement of people. In this situation the prevention of neither the vertical nor horizontal escalation turned out to be feasible. The UN intervention itself and the decision not to resort to full-fledged enforcement operations can certainly be defended. The failure of the preventive strategy should be rather attributed to the reluctance or inability to conduct limited enforcement operations which would have protected civilians in the safe areas and assured the delivery of humanitarian aid to all those in need, independently of whether it was accepted by parties to war. ₇₂

 

5. Iraq and the Kurds

In Northern Iraq the international community has made efforts to protect the Kurds from Saddam Hussein’s murderous policy. In the aftermath of the Gulf war in March 1991, Kurds rebelled against Saddam Hussein whose Republican Guard soon put down the uprising. This resulted in a humanitarian crisis in which numerous Kurds died of hunger and cold daily in mountain passes. To protect Kurds and keep Saddam out of the area, Western powers (Britain, France, Turkey, and the United States) declared air exclusion zones north of 36th parallel. Though falling loosely under the Security Council resolutions on Iraq, the establishment of the no-fly zone was not specifically authorized by the United Nations.

“Operation Provide Comfort” has been mostly humanitarian by nature as it has delivered food, medicine, shelter, and other supplies to the Kurds of Northern Iraq. The town of Silopi at the Iraqi-Turkish border became the gatekeeper of the humanitarian relief. ₇₃ The operation, costing $ 2.7 billion in 1991–94, became so significant that one observer has called it a “new sector of the economy.” ₇₄ The “dual sanctions” imposed by the United Nations against Iraq and by Baghdad on the Kurdish area have created human suffering, but also corruption and black-market operations. Kurdistan has a war economy in which predation and clientelism abound. This has benefitted especially the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) which has extracted millions of dollars from Turkish and Iraqi truckers who have transported contraband fuel and goods in violation of the sanctions regime. ₇₅

The CIA operated effectively within the humanitarian operation to keep the region outside Saddam Hussein’s control and undermine his power, if possible. ₇₆ In fact, the CIA was a major tool of the U.S. preventive actions in the region. Also the links with Turkey served the same purpose. Indeed, politically and logistically, Turkey has been the linchpin of the Operation Provide Comfort; aid has been channeled through its authorities. This has given them an opportunity to establish greater control over Iraqi Kurds, in addition to launching cross-border raids against the peshmerga.

The internal protection of Kurds in Northern Iraq by the CIA and the humanitarian aid can be construed as a mode of preventive action by which the Baghdad government is restrained from attacking them(this protection has not applied to Turkey’s use of military force against the Kurds). However, the preventive protection of Kurds against Iraq came to an end in late August 1996 when Saddam Hussein, at the invitation of the KDP, headed by Massoud Barzani, sent some 450 tanks and 40.000 Republican Guard troops to Erbil. ₇₇

The main motivation of this raid seems to have been to destroy the ascendant power of Jalal Talabani’s Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) which has been associated with Iran. The KDP had traditionally controlled the Turkish border, sometimes in cooperation with the Turkish army, while the PUK had been more influential in the southern part of Kurdistan. However, the military advances of the PUK vis-as-vis the KDP (it took over Erbil in 1994)threatened to close the smuggling routes for Saddam’s government and its intermediary, the KDP. Thus, the factional struggle in 1994–96 was not only about the political leadership of Kurdistan, but also concerned the territorial and economic control of trade routes and ensuing financial benefits. ₇₈

Pretty much like in the Former Yugoslavia, the conflict in Northern Iraq is a multilevel complex. Its overlay consists of the contest between Iran and Iraq on the control of Northern Iraq where Tehran, in competition with Baghdad, makes an effort to spread its influence. On the other hand, Turkey and the United States try to ensure that neither Iran nor Iraq can gain complete control over the region. For them the most stable alternative would be the control of the region by a Kurdish group or coalition which is friendly towards the West. However, at the local level the two Kurdish factions have been involved in their own struggles for power. How, then, the outbreak and escalation of violence can be prevented in such a multilevel conflict?

Obviously a two-level preventive strategy is needed to combine the deterrence of Iraq and Iran to invade into the area and consolidation of a Kurdish faction which can rule the region. From 1991 to 1995 such a situation existed in Northern Iraq, but by the fall 1996 stability had broken down in several respects. Although the conflicts between Kurdish factions can be traced back at least to the 1970s, they intensified by the middle of the 1990s. The tensions between the KDP and the PUK reflected their different backgrounds (rural and conservative vs. urban and liberal), but more importantly the stronger economic and military position of the KDP which had gained from its alliance with Turkey to keep the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in check. ₇₉

The political disintegration of the Kurdish Iraq is no novel development, but rather its permanent condition. Kurdish nationalism is transnational more than national, and it is not underpinned by any state structures. Multiple bases of legitimacy make that Kurdish nationalism is not unified, but divided by factional competition. This fragmentation is compounded by “parallel diplomacy” in which neighboring states have established relations with minorities in other countries. In the post-Cold War conditions, the “parallel diplomacy” has become less constrained, while minorities have become more mobilized. ₈₀ The “parallel diplomacy” was clearly working in Northern Iraq in August-September 1996.

One way of keeping the arrangement of preventive protection in place is to isolate the zone of turmoil from external influences. This was the policy followed by Turkey and the United States and formulated by General John Shalikashvili, Chairman of the U.S. Joints Chiefs of Staff; no “party or force should be allowed to make use of the extraordinary situation in Iraq to intervene in its affairs.” ₈₁ Paradoxically, Saddam’s military operation, happening within Iraq’s international borders, helped to keep the Iranians out of the conflict and was thus compatible with U.S. interests. This was one reason why the U.S. retaliation by cruise missiles, dictated also by domestic factors, was targeted at air defense installations in Southern Iraq instead of the Republican Guard in the north. Partly for this reason the strikes did not seem to impress Saddam much.

It is also clear that strikes on Southern Iraq had very little influence on Iran and the relations between the Kurdish factions whose relations the United States tried to ameliorate by talks in London. Washington tried also to re-establish its relations with Barzani to enhance thus the political control over Northern Iraq. This happened in spite of Barzani’s distrust with the United States and his effort to keep working contacts with Baghdad. Washington’s interest may be due to the fact that Barzani has consolidated KDP’s control of Northern Iraq, including its largest city, Sulaymaniyah, previously controlled by Talabani. Now that the PUK has been defeated and expelled from cities, the KDP may be able to provide a modicum of stability in the area. ₈₂

The failure to prevent the deterioration of situation in Northern Iraq is due to several reasons. First, the protection of Kurds and the prevention of conflict has not had a particularly high priority in the U.S. foreign policy. As the U.S. strategic interests were limited, the humanitarian momentum of Operation Provide Comfort soon faded away. ₈₃ Second, international involvement in conflict prevention has been limited. The United States has not, largely at the Turkish insistence, enlisted other major powers for the preventive efforts, while its own commitment of resources has diminished. Therefore, there has been a limited use of either sticks or carrots to end the fighting between the KDP and the PUK.

Third, warnings had been in the air at least since March 1995 on the increasing Iranian involvement in the fighting between the KDP and the PUK. In spite of that the Clinton administration did not take any effective measures to prevent such involvement. This could have been due either to the intelligence failure or lack of credible strategy of prevention. ₈₄ If the U.S. actions were ineffective, others were prepared to do even less. Everyone else, including Saudi Arabia and the West European powers, have been reluctant to start a new round of military confrontation with Iraq and/or Iran over Kurdistan. ₈₅ The complexities of confrontation with Saddam over the weapons of mass destruction, UNSCOM, and sanctions are enough to fill the agenda.

While the patrolling of the no-fly zone has continued, and even intensified recently, the U.S. political and military commitment to Kurdistan seems to become even thinner. The United States flew in the aftermath of the August 1996 crisis 2,000 Kurds working for its agencies, including the Military Coordination Committee (MCC) and the CIA, to Guam from which they have been now relocated to the United States. It has also reduced the humanitarian aid to the Kurds and counts on NGOs to deliver it; in 1991 the U.S. aid amounted to $ 600 million, but decreased to $ 22 million in 1996.

Washington’s new focus has been more on securing the aerial supremacy and control the oil fields and transportation routes. ₈₆ The U.S. withdrawal from the Kurdish politics means that one crucial aspect of the preventive strategy, i.e. bridge-building between factions, has diminished in importance and impact. This seems to strengthing the role of Turkey in controlling the Kurdish politics (though the Turkish politics itself is in turmoil). The Iranian opportunities to practice “parallel diplomacy” in the area will probably increase.

 

6. Kosovo

The crisis in Kosovo has been overshadowed of that in Bosnia. During the Bosnian war, it gained little international attention which was paid to the atrocious war in the neighboring country. After the Dayton agreement, the Kosovo issue has gradually become more prominent, but the international community has had neither willingness nor means to deal with the situation in any conclusive manner. Moreover, Kosovo’s legal status is different from that Bosnia whose sovereignty was recognized in 1992 by the key powers. The 1974 constitutions of both Kosovo and Serbia defined the former as “the constituent part” of the latter and the same provision was incorporated in the Serbian constitution of 1990. On the other hand, in 1974–88, until Milosevic canceled its status, the “autonomous province” of Kosovo had the same de facto position as the other members of the Yugoslav Federation. ₈₇

The dominant international view (including that of the Badinter Commission) is that Kosovo is an integral part of Serbia, though the methods of Serbian there rule have been roundly condemned. The common recognition that Kosovo is a part of Serbia has provided arguments for Belgrade against any Kosovar demands on independence or far-reaching autonomy. The Belgrade government has insisted that its full sovereign rights in Kosovo prohibit any external interference with the conflict. The Kosovo Albanians are said to have the same legal rights as any other citizens of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FYR)and, therefore, no autonomy is needed. This rejection applies also to the demands to restore the autonomy that Kosovo enjoyed before 1988 and to make Kosovo the third FYR republic, along with Serbia and Montenegro. Belgrade’s political strategy has played heavily the card of “Greater Albania” which supposedly would result from Kosovo’s independence. ₈₈

On the other hand, most Albanians of Kosovo have resolutely rejected the Serbian overrule and demanded, over the short term, full independence and, over the long term, integration with Albania. With the possible dissolution of Macedonia, this development would open the gates to the establishment of a Greater Albania which both Serbia and the West abhor. In 1991, the Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK), headed by Ibrahim Rugova, declared independence for Kosovo and started resisting the heavy-handed police rule of the Serbs by a coherent strategy of non-violent. As a part of its resistance, the LDK has built a parallel society, complete with its own political institutions, taxation, and educational and health-care facilities. ₈₉

However, the lack of progress in gaining independence in Kosovo and the political and military mobilization in Albania hardened the attitudes of the Kosovars. The non-violent strategy of Ibrahim Rugova was sidelined by the more militant opposition, often supported financially by the Albanians living outside the region (the situation is not unlike that in Northern Ireland). The conflict entered a more intense phase in February 1998 when the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA, or Ushtria Clirimtare e Kosoves, UCK, by its Albanian name) and other paramilitary troops started operations against the Serbian police and military units deployed in the province. The Albanians were able to conquer about one-third of it, part of which has since then been recaptured by the Serbian forces.

Developments since early 1998 have mixed killings by the KLA and even more actively by the Serbian forces and various attempts at ceasefires and political compromises.

The vertical escalation of the conflict in the summer 1998 was manifested both in the intensified fighting and the humanitarian crisis. On the military side the KLA is outgunned by the superior Serbian firepower and it has little hope to win the war by military means. However, the KLA has advantages in the familiarity with the terrain and the recruitment base among the Albanian population of which some 2000 have been killed and 250,000 uprooted from their homes. The International Crisis Group describes aptly the military situation in Kosovo: “the asphalt belongs to the Serbian security forces and the forest paths to the UCK.” The crisis in Kosovo resembles many other local wars of today; civilians are the main victims of fighting, displacement, and hunger, and humanitarian supplies are diverted and confiscated to serve political purposes. ₉₀

The vertical escalation of the crisis in Kosovo means the failure of the international preventive strategy. ₉₁ Why did the failure occur and was there, after all, any international preventive strategy? The answer to the latter question is easy; yes, there have been extensive efforts by the international community to restore peace and prevent the re-escalation of the war. The UN Security Council has passed several resolutions, NATO has followed the developments keenly and deployed forces in Macedonia, the OSCE has been active on the ground, the European Union has taken stands, the Contact Group has met regularly, Presidents Clinton and Yeltsin has issued a common statement, and the U.S. diplomatic teams have been almost hyper-active in trying to stem the escalation of violence.

Isn’t that enough; what else can be expected from the international community? The main problem in the international reaction has been the lack of a unified framework of action and the prioritization of various goals in the region. Much like in the early phase of the Yugoslavia crisis in 1991–92, the involvement of multiple international agencies and governments have hampered the development of a clear-cut and effective strategy. In part, this has been due to genuine disagreements between the key players. In particular Russia and, to a lesser degree, France have been reluctant to use military coercion against Serbia advocating political solutions instead.

On the other hand, the leading powers and international organizations have learned from the failure in Yugoslavia. The Contact Group has worked actively from the very eruption of the crisis in Kosovo. The Clinton administration has not shied away from an active political and possibly military involved. A strong U.S. diplomatic team, comprising Richard Holbrooke, Chris Hill and William Walker, has operated in and around Kosovo and, in cooperation with NATO and the OSCE , been able to produce some interim results. ₉₂ On the other hand the complexity of the political situation in Kosovo has made effective preventive action extremely difficult.

The decline of Rugova’s authority, the splintered nature of the KLA, at least until recently, and the uncompromising demands for independence have made pragmatic negotiations with the Albanians difficult. On the other hand, the Belgrade government has had three levers in its relations with the West; it has needed Milosevic’s good behavior in Bosnia, the Serbian argument on its sovereignty in Kosovo has at least some validity, and there has been a general fear of the emergence of a Greater Albania. Milosevic has used quite skillfully all these levers; he has not upset the West in Bosnia and the argument on sovereignty has had some appeal, especially in the context of a Greater Albania scenario. On the other hand, Milosevic should not be given too high a grade, because he has pushed as far as he has been able to and avoided concessions on principal issues at almost any cost.

It is often suggested that a major reason for the lack of success in preventive action has been the reluctance of NATo to use air strikes as a medium of politics. The lack of military decisiveness by NATO is partly true, but the hesitation is also understandable. It is less than clear how the political objectives, on which there has been little agreement within NATO and the Contact Group, can be achieved by air strikes. The Serbian positions can be bombed, but the KLA can hardly be persuaded by threatening by such strikes. NATO has recognized that pinprick strikes will not be enough; as General Klaus Naumann, chair of its Military Committee pointed out, NATO “must be ready to escalate so far that the political goal is reached. This cannot be achieved by air operations alone.” ₉₃

In February 1999, the Contact Group has pulled its act together and a multi-tier strategy has emerged. All main parties will meet in France for a few weeks to agree on the ground rules of the solution for Kosovo. They would include the establishment of the security and other institutions in the ethnic proportion of the population (90 vs. 10 per cent) and the cutting the Serbian units back to 2,500 troops. If there is not an agreement within specified time, and certainly before the celebration of NATO’s 50^th anniversary in April 1999, NATO will initiate large-scale air strikes against Serbian targets and bombed into submission. The KLA guerillas and other paramilitary forces will be disciplined by deploying 30,000 or so ground troops in Kosovo, thus making it, along with Bosnia, a Western protectorate.

The potential agreement does not solve, however, the pivotal issue; the future status of Kosovo which has been left deliberate open in the Holbrooke-brokered agreement in October 1998 and in the preparations for the talks in France. The hint is that Kosovo will formally remain a part of the FYR, but it will gain an autonomy for a three-year test period after which its status will be finally decided, for instance by a referendum. This issue is closely linked with the preventive strategy that the West has pursued.

An important reason for the lack of a consistent and effective policy by the West in Kosovo is the fact that the prevention of the horizontal escalation of the conflict has the priority to its vertical proliferation. The West has been adamantly against the KLA victory because it could open the floodgates to a Greater Albania. Such a development would destabilize Macedonia and possibly the entire region by drawing in the conflict countries like Bulgaria and Greece. ₉₄ Kosovo’s independence would also permit the spill-over of the Albanian clan politics and weaponry to Kosovo and Macedonia; movements which today are partially controlled by the Serbian border patrols. For this reason, the West has permitted the war in Kosovo to continue to retain some balance of power on the ground. According to some interpretations, NATO even nodded to the Serbs to finish the KLA off in summer 1998. ₉₅

However, the return of Kosovo to a complete Serbian control is out of question. Whether we want or not, the conflict has become internationalized (which the KLA has preferred all along. There is still considerable resistance in the West to the independence of Kosovo, also for the reason that it would upset the strategy of the international community in Bosnia where demands for partition would grow. Therefore, the West has been working since the late summer 1998 for various compromise solutions for Kosovo. They all combine the internal autonomy for the Albanians with the continuation of the external aspects of the Serbian sovereignty, glued by the commitment to review the arrangement after a specific period of time.

This may be the best what can be accomplished over the next few months. However, the recognition is growing that full independence for Kosovo may be the only viable option over the long-term and that the worries about a Greater Albania and other related fears may be exaggerated. ₉₆ Perhaps in anticipation of the regional policy to contain the emergence a Greater Albania, the United States has intensified its relations with the government in Tirana. Milosevic and Serbia obviously are opposed to Kosovo’s independence. However, its domestic economic and political situation may be such that for very selfish reasons Milosevic may opt, after a tough political fight, for granting independence to Kosovo. ₉₇

 

7. Conclusion

In these three case studies I have compared preventive strategies pursued within and outside the UN framework with the help of the conceptual apparatus developed in the beginning of the paper. The key issues concern the efficacy and feasibility of various preventive actions, ranging from deterrence and compellence through incentives to mediation and other means of peaceful settlement. It has become clear that there is no single strategy of preventive action, but multiple approaches whose efficacy and feasibility varies greatly.

It seems that it is very difficult to mobilize a concerted international operation before the outbreak of the crisis. Moreover, has been observed that only early and decisive interventions tend to produce cooperative outcomes. ₉₈ The stakes of main actors must thus be very high if they decide to engage collectively and forcefully in a particular country. Both the cases of Bosnia and Kosovo underline the validity of this conclusion. The Iraqi situation is somewhat different as the United States and the international coalition have used major force against it. The reason for this was not, however, the effort to forestall a crisis in northern Iraq, which has been managed by clandestine and humanitarian operations, but the containment of Saddam Hussein’s government in general.

Usually, major powers prefer “hands-off” deterrence to “hands-on” intervention, diplomatic efforts to coercive measures, and economic sanctions to the use of military force. This is, in part, due to the reluctance of the military to become involved in open-ended preventive missions. One has also to keep in mind the opposition of smaller countries and the friends of the targeted actor to the use of raw military force against it. The conflict theaters are complex today; the political and economic structures are fragmented and the situation, in general, is difficult to manage. Therefore, there is little willingness to intervene unless there is not an agreement on political goals and they can be matched with appropriate instruments of prevention.

For all these reason, the pre-conflict prevention is, in part, a pipedream. This does not, of course, mean that there have not been any success stories. It seems apparent that, for instance, the OSCE’s High Commissioner for National Minorities has done good work in containing the outbreak of inter-ethnic hostilities, especially in the post-Soviet space. However, most of the preventive action seem to take place after violence has already been used. Thus, the main goal becomes the escalation prevention and perhaps especially the prevention of the horizontal escalation.

No doubt, the increasing destructiveness of civil wars — especially if there are triggering events like ethnic cleansing or Srebrenica — also fosters international action to forestall the further spiraling of violence. However, in “normal” conditions the potential spill-over of the crisis across borders is a source of greater concern. The reason for this may be principle of sovereignty and territorial inviolability that form the foundation of the present world order. The horizontal escalation of conflicts threatens to destabilize a regional subsystem or the entire international system. While the loss of life in a crisis-ridden country is regrettable, it cannot match the risk of a large-escalation of the crisis.

The goal of violence prevention has not reached a dead end. There is a need to develop packages of preventive strategies and apply them creatively to especially forestall the escalation of conflict once it has become manifest. While there is no single master strategy, the need of preventive actions by the international organizations and individual governments is as real as it has been before. The real problem is not the availability of timely and accurate warning, but the “warning-response gap” which makes the initiation and successful conduct of preventive actions difficult. ₉₉

 

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Endnotes

*: Paper prepared for the 40^th Annual Convention of the International Studies Association, Washington, D.C., February 16–20.  Back.

Note 1: Ted Robert Gurr & Barbara Harff, Early Warning of Communal Conflicts and Genocide: Linking Empirical Research to International Responses. Tokyo: The United Nations University (1996), pp. 14–18, 50–52. A related approach has been adopted by Michael E. Brown who makes a distinction between “permissive conditions” and “proximate causes”; see his Introduction, in Michael E. Brown (ed.), The International Dimensions of Internal Conflict. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press (1996), p. 28.  Back.

Note 2: Commission on Global Governance, Our Global Neighborhood. Oxford: Oxford University Press (1995), pp. 93–98.  Back.

Note 3: Michael Lund, Preventing Violent Conflicts. A Strategy for Preventive Diplomacy. Washington, D.C.: The United States Institute of Peace Press (1996), pp. 35–36.  Back.

Note 4: For more detailed analyses along these lines, see Christopher Clapham, Africa and International System. The Politics of State Survival. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (1996) and Stephen Ellis, “Africa after the Cold War: New Patterns of Government and Politics.” Development and Change, vol. 27, no. 1, pp. 1–28.  Back.

Note 5: For a detailed scrutiny and assessment of Hammarskjöld’s preventive diplomacy, see Brian Urquhart, Hammarskjöld. New York: Alfred A. Knopf (1972), esp. chs. 10–11, 13 and 15–16.  Back.

Note 6: Inis L. Claude, jr., Swords Into Plowshares. Problems and Prospects of International Organization. New York: Random House (4th ed. (1971), p. 317.  Back.

Note 7: Quoted from Hammarskjöld’s introduction to the 1959–60 annual report of the United Nations, reproduced in Joel Larus (ed.), From Collective Security to Preventive Diplomacy. New York: John Wiley (1965), p. 402.  Back.

Note 8: Cyril E. Black, Richard A. Falk, Klaus Knorr & Oran Young, Neutralization and World Politics. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press (1962), pp. 76–80.  Back.

Note 9: David K. Hall, “The Laos Neutralization Agreement, 1962”, in Alexander L. George, Philip J. Farley & Alexander Dallin (eds.), U.S.-Soviet Security Cooperation. Achievements, Failures, Lessons. New York: Oxford University Press (1988), pp. 435–65.  Back.

Note 10: Claude op.cit. 1971, p. 317.  Back.

Note 11: N.D. White, Keeping the Peace. The United Nations and the Maintenance of International Peace and Security. Manchester: Manchester University Press (1993), pp. 74–77.  Back.

Note 12: The United Nations in its Second Half-Century. The Report of the Independent Working Group on the Future of the United Nations. New York (1995), pp. 17–18.  Back.

Note 13: Boutros Boutros-Ghali, An Agenda for Peace. Preventive Diplomacy, Peacemaking and Peacekeeping. New York: The United Nations (1992), pp. 11–15, 20–2.  Back.

Note 14: White op.cit. 1993, pp. 184–85.  Back.

Note 15: Clive Archer, “Conflict Prevention in Europe: The Case of Nordic States and Macedonia.” Cooperation and Conflict, vol. 29, no. 4 (1994), pp. 367–86. See also Gareth Evans, Cooperating for Peace. The Global Agenda for the 1990s and Beyond. St. Leonards, Australia: Allen & Unwin (1993), pp. 81–85.  Back.

Note 16: Sophia Clément, Conflict Prevention in the Balkans: Case Studies of Kosovo and the FYR of Macedonia. Paris: Western European Union, Institute for Security Studies. Chaillot Papers 30 (1997), pp. 13–24.  Back.

Note 17: Thomas Princen, Intermediaries in International Conflict. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press (1992), pp. 18–31.  Back.

Note 18: Kofi A. Annan, “Walking the International Tightrope.” The New York Times, January 19, 1999.  Back.

Note 19: Such a division of labor between the UN Secretary-General as the principal diplomatic mediator and the Security Council as the agent of enforcement has been endorsed by Giandomenico Pico, “The UN and the Use of Force. Leave the Secretary-General Out of It.” Foreign Affairs, vol. 73, no. 5 (1994), pp. 14–18. See also Thomas G. Weiss, “Intervention: Whither the United Nations.” The Washington Quarterly, vol. 17, no. 1 (1994), pp. 121–22.  Back.

Note 20: The combination of negotiations with coercion, even in the pre-Dayton strategy, has been denied, however, by Holbrooke himself: we did not “consider bombing as part of negotiation strategy,” see Richard Holbrooke, To End A War. New York: Random House (1998), p. 104.  Back.

Note 21: Weiss op. cit. 1994, p. 121.  Back.

Note 22: Jacob Bercovitch, Paul F. Diehl & Gary Goertz, “The Management and Termaination of Protracted Interstate Conflicts: Conceptual and Empirical Considerations.” Millennium, vol. 26, no. 3 (1997), pp. 751–69.  Back.

Note 23: An Agenda for Peace ... op.cit. 1992, p. 11.  Back.

Note 24: For a standard approach, see Hugh Miall, The Peacemakers. Peaceful Settlement of Disputes since 1945. New York: St. Martin’s Press (1992), pp. 40–43.  Back.

Note 25: See Hayward Alker, Ted R. Gurr & Kumar Rupesinghe, “Conflict Early Warning Systems.” Paper prepared for the XVI World Congress of the International Political Science Association, Berlin, August 21–25 (1994) and Ruddy Doom, Early Warning and Conflict Prevention. Minerva’s Wisdom? Brussels: Vlaamse Interuniversitaire Raad (1996).  Back.

Note 26: This problem is also evident in Kalypso Nicolaïdis, “International Preventive Action: Developing a Strategic Framework”, in Robert I. Rotberg (ed.), Vigilance and Vengeance. NGOs Preventing Ethnic Conflict in Divided Societies. Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institution (1996).  Back.

Note 27: Richard Smoke, War. Controlling Escalation. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press (1977), pp. 30–34 (the quotation is on p. 34).  Back.

Note 28: For a more detailed analysis, see Adam Roberts, “The Laws of War in the 1990–91 Gulf Conflict.” International Security, vol. 18, no. 3 (1994), pp. 134–81.  Back.

Note 29: For an in-depth study of territorial conflicts and their resolution, see Arie Kacowicz, Peaceful Teritorial Change. Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press (1994).  Back.

Note 30: Fen Osler Hampson, Nurturing Peace. Why Peace Settlements Succeed or Fail. Washington, D.C.: The United States Institute of Peace (1996), pp. 8–11.  Back.

Note 31: The post-conflict early-warning and prevention is systematically discussed, in the context of the Ethiopian, Namibian and Ugandan cases, by Nat J. Colletta, Markus Kostner & Ingo Wiederhofer, The Transition for War to Peace in Sub-Saharan Africa. Washington, D.C.: The World Bank (1996).  Back.

Note 32: For further reflections, see Harvey Waterman, “Political Order and the ‘Settlement’ of Civil Wars”, in Roy Licklider (ed.), Stopping the Killing. How Civil Wars End. New York: New York University Press (1993), pp. 292–302.  Back.

Note 33: Wolfgang H. Reinicke, “Can International Financial Institutions Prevent Internal Violence? The Sources of Ethno-National Conflict in Transitional Societies”, in Abraham Chayes & Antonia Handler Chayes (eds.), Preventing Conflict in the Post-Communist World.l Mobilizing International and Regional Organizations. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution (1996), pp. 312–17. While international economic actors have started paying attention to the need of military reforms and conflict resolution in the recipient countries, their concrete achievements have been rather timid so far; see Nicole Ball, “International Economic Actors”, in Edward Kolodziej & Roger E. Kanet (eds.), Coping with Conflict. After the Cold War. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press (1996), pp. 168–97.  Back.

Note 34: Milton J. Esman, Can Foreign Aid Moderate Ethnic Conflict? Washington, D.C.: United States Institute of Peace. Peaceworks No. 13 (1997) and Development Assistance as a Means of Conflict Prevention. Oslo: Norwegian Institute of International Relations (1998).  Back.

Note 35: In the United Nations the third strategy is called “preventive peacebuilding [which] comprises an extensive menu of possible actions in the political, economic and social fields, applicable especially to possible internal conflicts”; see Boutros Boutros-Ghali, Confronting New Challenges. Annual Report on the Work of the Organization.. New York: The United Nations (1995), pp. 218–19.  Back.

Note 36: Our Global Neighborhood. The Report of the Commission on Global Governance. London: Oxford University Press (1995), pp. 93–98.  Back.

Note 37: Robert Jervis, “Systems and Interaction Effects”, in Jack Snyder & Robert Jervis (eds.), Coping with Complexity in the International System. Boulder: Westview (1993), pp. 31–33. For a useful discussion of various pitfalls in conflict early-warning, see Nicolaïdis op.cit. 1996, pp. 27–31.  Back.

Note 38: Steven Graffenius & Jungil Gill “Pure Coercion vs. Carrot-and-Stick Offers in Crisis Bargaining.” Journal of Peace Research, vol. 29, no. 1 (1992), pp. 39–52.  Back.

Note 39: Realist, liberal, and constructivist interpretations of incentives are discussed in an excellent paper by Tuomas Forsberg, “The Efficacy of Rewarding Conflict Strategies: Positive Sanctions as Face Savers, Payments and Signals.” Paper prepared for the 37th Annual Convention of the International Studies Association. San Diego, April 16–20, 1996, pp. 11–23.  Back.

Note 40: Raino Malnes, “ ‘Leader’ and ‘Entrepreneur’ in International Negotiations: A Conceptual Analysis.” European Journal of International Relations, vol. 1, no. 1 (1995), pp. 96–97.  Back.

Note 41: John M. Rothgeb, Jr., Defining Power. Influence and Force in the Contemporary International System. New York: St. Martin’s Press (1993), pp. 139–40.  Back.

Note 42: Nikolaïdis op.cit. 1996, pp. 37–39.  Back.

Note 43: Alexander L. George, Forceful Persuasion. Coercive Diplomacy as an Alternative to War. Washington, D.C.: The United States Institute for Peace (1991), pp. 5, 12–14.  Back.

Note 44: The concept has been coined and elaborated in Amitai Etzioni, Winning Without War. Garden City, NY: Doubleday (1964), pp. 86–87, 98–100.  Back.

Note 45: Lund op.cit. 1996, pp. 44–49.  Back.

Note 46: I. William Zartman & Johannes Aurik, “Power Strategies in De-escalation”, in Louis Kriesberg & Stuart J. Thorson (eds.), Timing the De-escalation of International Conflicts. Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press (1991), pp. 155–57.  Back.

Note 47: Aurik & Zartman op.cit. 1991, pp. 177–81 (the quotation is from p. 181).  Back.

Note 48: See Rothgeb op.cit. 1993, pp. 110–17 (the quotation is from p. 117). The efficacy of incentives, possibly mixed with punishments, has been also stressed by David Cortright, “Incentives and Cooperation in International Affairs”, in David Cortright (ed.), The Price of Peace. Incentives and International Conflict Prevention. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield (1997), pp. 3–18.  Back.

Note 49: Laure Paquette, “The North Korean Nuclear Crisis in 1992–94: Did Preventive Diplomacy Occur?,” in David Black & Susan J. Rolston (eds.), Peacemaking and Preventive Diplomacy in the New World (Dis)order. Halifax, N.S.: Center for Foreign Policy Studies, Dalhousie University (1995), pp. 89–104 and Leon V. Sigal, Disarming Strangers. Nuclear Diplomacy with North Korea. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press (1998).  Back.

Note 50: George Bush argues, though, that “it is total misreading ... to conclude that we were giving Saddam a green light to to seize his neighbor.” However, he was told that the United States does not “take a stand on territorial disputes” which can easily be construed as an implicit permission to act; see George Bush & Brent Scowcroft, A World Transformed. New York: Alfred A. Knopf (1998), p.311.  Back.

Note 51: Claude Rakisits, “The Gulf Crisis: Failure of Preventive Diplomacy”, in Kevin Clements & Robin Ward (eds.), Building International Community. Cooperating for Peace Case Studies. St. Leonards, Australia: Allen & Unwin (1994), pp. 63–72 and Janice Gross Stein, “Deterrence and Compellence in the Gulf, 1990–91. A Failed or Impossible Task.” International Security, vol. 17, no. 2 ( 1992), pp. 147–79.  Back.

Note 52: It is uncertain whether the United States ever wanted a compromise. Bush issued a de facto declaration of war as early as August and declared, later on, that there would be “no compromises, no bargaining for hostages, no trade-offs.” He even hoped an additional provocation by Iraq to justify the use of force; Bush & Scowcroft op.cit 1998, pp. 332–33, 350 and 407.  Back.

Note 53: This conclusion is made by Stein op.cit. 1992, pp. 177–78.  Back.

Note 54: For a detailed background analysis, see Rakisits op.cit. 1994, pp. 72–102.  Back.

Note 55: For an analysis of the cognitive closure and its impact on the outbreak of World War I, see Richard Ned Lebow, Between Peace and War: The Nature of International Crisis. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press (1981).  Back.

Note 56: A history, with selected documentation, on the various phases of Yugoslavia’s dissolution of Yugoslavia has been written by Branka Maga, The Destruction of Yugoslavia. Tracing the Break-Up 1980–1992. London: Verso (1993).  Back.

Note 57: For more detailed analyses, see Mario Zucconi, “The European Union in the Former Yugoslavia”, in Abram Chayes & Antonia Handler Chayes (eds.), Preventing Conflict in the Post-Communist World. Mobilizing International and Regional Organizations. Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institution (1996), pp. 237–78, Carsten Giersch, Konfliktregulierung in Jugoslawien 1991–1995. Baden-Baden: Nomos (1998), and Raimo Väyrynen, “The Failure of Preventive Action in Yugoslavia.” International Peacekeeping, vol. 3, no. 4 (1996).  Back.

Note 58: These dilemmas are discussed in greater detail in Raimo Väyrynen, “Enforcement and Humanitarian Intervention: Two Faces of the Collective Action by the United Nations”, in Chadwick Alger (ed.), The Future of the United Nations: Potential for Twenty-First Century. Tokyo: The United Nations University Press (1998).  Back.

Note 59: Spyros Economides & Paul Taylor, Former Yugoslavia, in James Mayall (ed.), The New Interventionism 1991–1994. United Nations Experience in Cambodia, Former Yugoslavia and Somalia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (1996), pp. 66–68.  Back.

Note 60: Giersch op.cit. 1998, pp. 252–63.  Back.

Note 61: This idea is derived from Norman Cigar, Genocide in Bosnia. The Policy of ‘Ethnic Cleansing’. College Station: Texas A&M University Press (1995), pp. 160–61. See also Economides & Taylor op.cit. 1996, pp. 76–77.  Back.

Note 62: For critical early assessments of UN performance in Yugoslavia, blaming especially the indecisiveness and reluctance of its leading member states, see Åge Eknes, “The United Nations’ Predicament in the Former Yugoslavia”, in Thomas G. Weiss (ed.), The United Nations and the Civil Wars. Boulder: Lynne Rienner (1995), pp.109–26 and David Rieff, “The Illusions of Peacekeeping.” World Policy Journal, vol. 11, no. 3 (1994), pp. 1–18.  Back.

Note 63: Rein Müllerson, International Law, Rights and Politics. London: Routledge (1994), pp. 125–36 and Steven L. Burg, “The International Community and the Yugoslav Crisis”, in Milton J. Esman & Shibley Telhami (eds.), International Organizations and Ethnic Conflicts. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press (1996), pp. 248–50. In 1995 this neglect came to haunt the UN Croatia solved the Gordian knot by a sword. Croatia captured Western Slavonia and Krajina, its sovereign parts, in which UNPROFOR had protected the Serbian military control, but in retaking the territories badly violated the rights of its own Serb citizens.  Back.

Note 64: Reneo Lukic & Allen Lynch, Europe from Balkans to the Urals. The Disintegration of Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union. Oxford: Oxford University Press/SIPRI (1996), pp. 295–300.  Back.

Note 65: David Owen, Balkan Odyssey. New York: Harcourt Brace (1995), pp. 45–46.  Back.

Note 66: Cigar op.cit. 1995, pp. 166–77.  Back.

Note 67: Susan L. Woodward, Balkan Tragedy. Chaos and Dissolution after the Cold War. Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institution (1995), pp. 365–66.  Back.

Note 68: This started, in fact, as a part of the implementation of the Dayton accord, through the “equip-and-train” program which Pentagon resisted fearing that it will increase the risk of a future war between the Bosniaks and the Serbs; see Holbrooke op.cit. 1998, pp. 276–78.  Back.

Note 69: Larry Minear et al., “Humanitarian Action in the Former Yugoslavia: The UN’s Role 1991–1993.” Thomas J. Watson Jr. Institute for International Studies. Brown University. Occasional Paper # 18 (1994), pp. 121–25.  Back.

Note 70: Woodward op.cit. 1995, pp. 328–30.  Back.

Note 71: Lukic & Lynch op.cit. 1996, pp. 290–94 and Both & Honig op.cit. 1996.  Back.

Note 72: Economides & Taylor op.cit. 1996, pp. 88–89 and Väyrynen op.cit. 1998.  Back.

Note 73: Chris Seiple, The U.S. Military/NGO Relationship in Humanitarian Interventions. Peacekeeping Institute, U.S. Army War College (1996), pp. 24–26 and Chris Kutchera, Le défi kurde ou le reve fou de l’indepéndance. Paris: Bayard (1997), pp. 92–110.  Back.

Note 74: Hamik Bozarslan, “Kurdistan. Économie de guerre, économie dans la guerre”, in Jean Francois & Jean-Christophe Rufin (eds.), Économie des guerres civiles. Paris: Hachette (1996a), pp. 120–23.  Back.

Note 75: Ibid., pp. 112–16, Sheri Laizer, Martyrs, Traitors and Patriots. Kurdistan after the Gulf War. London: Zed Books (1996), pp. 111–12, and Katherine A. Wilkens, “How We Lost the Kurdish Game.” The Washington Post, September 20 (1996), pp. A13–14.  Back.

Note 76: Evan Thomas, Christopher Dicken & Gregory Vistica, “Bay of Pigs Redux.” Newsweek, March 25 (1998), pp. 36–44.  Back.

Note 77: Kutschera op.cit. 1997, pp. 138–44.  Back.

Note 78: Laizer op.cit. 1996, pp. 59–64, 111–13 and 124–25 and Wilkens op.cit. 1996.  Back.

Note 79: Kanan Makya, “The Politics of Betrayal.” New York Review of Books, vol. 43, no. 16 (1996), pp. 8, 10.  Back.

Note 80: Hamit Bozarslan, “Kurds: States, Marginality and Security”, in Sam C. Nolutshungu (ed.), Margins of Insecurity. Minorities and International Security. Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press (1996b), pp. 104–11.  Back.

Note 81: Quoted by Stephen Kinzer, “Iraqi Attack on Kurdish Region Was Part of a Larger Campaign That is Aimed at Iran.” New York Times, September 3, 1996, p. A6.  Back.

Note 82: The reluctance of the CIA to participate in 1996 in the raid against Saddam within Iraq can be partly explained by the effort not to offend Barzani; cf. Thomas, Dickey & Vistica op.cit. 1998.  Back.

Note 83: Wilkens op.cit. 1996.  Back.

Note 84: Wilkens op.cit. 1996, p. A14.  Back.

Note 85: “Iraq and America.” The Economist, September 21, 1996, pp. 45–46.  Back.

Note 86: Steven Lee Myers, “U.S. Seeks to End Direct Aid for Kurds.” New York Times, September 12, 1996, p. A4 and Warren Richey & Scott Peterson, “Iraqi Kurd Advance Makes Mockery of U.S. ‘Safe Area’.” Christian Science Monitor, September 11, 1996, pp. 1,7.  Back.

Note 87: Robert M. Hayden, “The State as Legal Fiction.” East European Constitutional Review, vol. 7, no. 4 (1998), p. 45.  Back.

Note 88: A good example is the declaration of the FYR Federal Assembly on December 3, 1998: “The fact that high American representatives state that they cannot dislocate Kosovo and Metohija from Serbia, that they cannot detach and annex it to some ‘Greater Albania’ as long as the Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic is in power, is in fact a recognition of the policy of Yugoslavia and its President to defend the territorial integrity and sovereignty of the country”; published in Review of International Affairs (Belgrade), vol. 69, no. 1074–75 (1998), pp. 1–2.  Back.

Note 89: The background of the conflict has been traced, for instance, in Alexis Heraclides, “The Kosovo Conflict and Its Resolution. In Pursuit of Ariadne’s Thread.” Security Dialogue, vol. 28, no. 3 (1997), pp. 317–31.  Back.

Note 90: Perhaps the best report on the events of summer 1998 in Kosovo is International Crisis Group, Kosovo’s Long Hot Summer: Briefing on Military, Humanitarian and Political Developments in Kosovo. http://www.crisis.org/projects/sbalkans/reports/kosrep05.htm.  Back.

Note 91: This conclusion is shared and detailed by Hugh Miall, “Kosovo in Crisis: Conflict Prevention and Intervention in the Southern Balkans.” Peace and Security (Vienna), vol. 30, no. 2 (1998), pp. 4–13.  Back.

Note 92: See Michael Ignatieff, “The Dream of Albanians.” The New Yorker, January 11 (1999), pp. 34–39.  Back.

Note 93: “Wir sind kein Papiertiger.” Der Spiegel, no. 41 (1998), pp. 196–98.  Back.

Note 94: Miall op.cit. 1998, pp. 7–9. See also Clément op.cit. 1997.  Back.

Note 95: Tim Judah, “Impasse in Kosovo.” New York Review of Books, vol. 45, no. 15 (1998), pp. 4–6.  Back.

Note 96: Roy Gutman, “Tragedy of Errors.” The New Republic, October 26 (1998), pp. 15–19.  Back.

Note 97: See Steven Erlanger, “Milosevic Advantage: In Talking Peace He Can Win Big.” The New York Times, February 2 (1999), p. A7 and Timothy Garton Ash, “Cry, the Dismembered Country.” The New York Review of Books, vol. 46, no. 1 (1999), pp. 29–35.  Back.

Note 98: David Carment & Dane Rowlands, “Three’s Company. Evaluating Third-Party Intervention in Intrastate Conflict.” Journal of Conflict Resolution, vol. 42, no. 5 (1998), pp. 572–99.  Back.

Note 99: Alexander George & Jane Holl, “The Warning-Response Problem and Missed Opportunities in Preventive Diplomacy.”A Report to the Carnegie Commission on Preventing Deadly Conflict. Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Corporation of New York.  Back.