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We
can prevent war
By
Jonathan
Power
October 17, 2003
LONDON - Is our aim to prevent war or to pre-empt
apparent threats? There is an important difference; not
just in the semantics. In Bush-speak pre-emption may mean
taking military action in order to avoid some presumed
catastrophe looming over the political horizon.
Preventing war means taking some bold, resolute action,
short of war, to try and remove the probable cause of
belligerency. Actually the U.S. can and does do both,
despite the presumption by critics that it is obsessed
with the second to the exclusion of the first. In
Liberia, where it has just withdrawn its forces, the
U.S., by putting some ships with marines off shore and a
mere 200 peacekeepers on the ground, shored up the
morale- and expertise- of a West African peace keeping
force that so far has done a remarkable job in quieting
the country and forestalling a likely new round of
internecine strife.
The U.S., it may be forgotten, did the same thing in
Macedonia in ex Yugoslavia in 1992. Whilst war was
boiling in Bosnia, Croatia and Serbia the U.S sent troops
into still peaceful Macedonia and, working under the UN
flag, reminded the local antagonists that they were being
watched and at the same time bolstered those politicians
inclined to compromise with the knowledge that the world
was on their side.
The problems we now face are legion. Few pretend that
rooting out Al Qaeda, putting Iraq on its feet or
de-fanging Iran and North Korea are easy tasks. On the
other hand if we cast our eye back to the way the world
has changed since 1945- decolonization, the emergence of
new regional powers, the rapid spread of highly
sophisticated military technology and the collapse of the
Soviet empire, it is striking how many of these
developments, all of which could have triggered major
wars, progressed to a peaceful conclusion. A great amount
of radical change has been negotiated and parlayed into a
peaceful transition- and a good part of that through the
UN and other international institutions.
One good example is when the Baltic states finally
broke away from the Soviet Union. Unsurprisingly they
tried to refuse citizenship to the large numbers of
native Russians that over the years had settled there.
Moscow was highly angered and threatened to stop the
withdrawals of Russian forces. Many on both sides talked
of war. The multilateral East-West body, the Organization
for Security and Cooperation in Europe, led by Sweden,
sent in high powered teams of negotiators and although
the questions of troop withdrawals and citizenship for
Russians living in the Baltic states were never formally
linked a deal was arranged, not least because the western
allies, infused with their own principles on the rights
of minorities, could see the point of the Russian
argument.
Good leadership can anticipate crises building up a
military head of steam not only by the deft use of
peacekeepers or international mediation but by taking a
dispute to the World Court. Nigeria and Cameroon recently
did this, avoiding a border dispute that risked seriously
destabilizing the oil rich region of the Gulf of Guinea
which provides a sizeable 15% of U.S. crude oil imports.
There had been military skirmishes between the two
neighbors and, as the Nigerian president, Olusegun
Obasanjo, told me in a recent interview, he faced strong
pressure from his minister of defense to go to war.
Obasanjo overruled the military and insisted that the
dispute be taken to the International Court of Justice in
The Hague. Last October the Court upheld the Cameroonian
claim. There was much champing at the bit in Nigeria, but
Obasanjo faced his critics down and a year later the
issue is mute.
What has now become undeniably clear in retrospect-
although many informed and sober people have been making
the point for years-is that the preventive work the UN
arms inspectors did after the 1991 Gulf War was so
successful it should have avoided, in a normal, more
self-disciplined, political atmosphere, the need for this
year's war. If it hadn't been for September 11th it is
highly doubtful that the U.S. and British governments
would have ever convinced themselves (for sure, their
intelligence services would not have bent so much with
the political wind) that war was necessary.
Prevention has a lot more going for it than
pre-emption. We don't have to choose between intervention
and inaction. Why should we be forced to choose between
two types of failure when there is a good alternative?
"The problem" as Pierre Sane, a former secretary general
of Amnesty International once said, "is not lack of early
warning, but lack of early action".
Many diplomats, aid workers and human rights activists
with an ear to the ground know where the problems are
building up to seismic proportions. Since 1945 the world
has developed many tools for dealing with them. Contrary
to the defeatist spirit of our current malaise there have
been plenty of successes which should inspire us to face
down the clarion calls for pre-emptive war and instead
encourage us to step up the pace of preventive
action.
I can be reached by phone +44
7785 351172 and e-mail: JonatPower@aol.com
Copyright © 2003 By
JONATHAN POWER
Follow this
link to read about - and order - Jonathan Power's book
written for the
40th Anniversary of
Amnesty International
"Like
Water on Stone - The Story of Amnesty
International"
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