August 18, 2006
From the desk of Jane Galt:"Peace" keepers
Kevin Drum identifies Jacques Chirac as the wanker of the day:
Please. Chirac didn't realize before today that Hezbollah was unlikely to disarm voluntarily and might present a danger to troops that tried to force its hand?Let's summarize: Chirac personally rammed through the ceasefire resolution; insisted that it call for a UN force; did everything he could to imply that France would contribute several thousand combat troops; but in the end is only willing to stand up a 200-man military engineering company. Because Hezbollah might shoot back. And yet he still wants France to command the overall force.
Give. Me. A. Break.
I'm having trouble wrapping my mind around the fact that apparently the most important criteria for deploying French troops, or for that matter UN peacekeepers in general, is that there cannot be any shooting involved, or even threatened. It seems the only place safe enough for either army these days is downtown Santa Monica in the tourist season. Perhaps they could be deployed in traditional national folk-dancing garb and carry little souvenir baskets of regional cheeses instead of rifles. For that matter, why call it an army? Wouldn't "Hospitality Squadron" be more in keeping with their modern mission?
Regardless of what you think of the French, or military interventions in the Middle East, this is actually a symptom of a much broader problem, which is that UN peacekeepers are pretty much completely useless, good only for dressing up a peace that both sides are already committed to. If and when the shooting starts, the blue berets refuse to get involved, because they don't want to get shot at. In the case of the Middle East, right-wing bloggers have interpreted their refusal to fire on terrorist groups as a symptom of anti-semitism, but in fact as I understand it the UN forces are equal opportunity equivocators, refusing to confront groups of any colour, creed, or historical enemy if they believe that doing so will put their troops in danger. See Rwanda for details.
They're peacekeepers, said an acquaintance indignantly, when I pointed this out. (Her hubby works for the UN) Well, yes, and so are the NYPD. Part of keeping the peace involves shooting, or threatening to shoot, people who refuse to be peacable. Driving around in trucks with your weapons held in a menacing manner is not sufficient. If we are not goint to make make a credible effort to maintain the peace by the strategic application of military force, then we should withdraw the troops and send the cheese baskets instead. Militia members can always use a good source of protein.
Posted by Jane Galt at August 18, 2006 12:49 PM | TrackBack | Technorati inbound linksWell, there's an exception to that.
Any former French colony can get a solely-French force deployed rapidly, and doing possible shooting, to further French interests and keep France looking good.
Posted by: Sigivald on August 18, 2006 01:05 PMUNIFORS, the peacekeepers assigned to the Israeli-Lebanese border watched silently while Hezbollah erected observation posts next door to the UN OPs; they kept their peace when Hezbollah dug their miles of underground armories and firing positions and they kept their peace when Hezbollah fired rockets from positions abutting the UN OPs. UNIFORS is good at peace keeping.
Chirac's goal was to impress on the world that France (under Chirac) is the only country that can restrain the US giant thus turning France into a Major Power. French pre-eminence comes from the carefully guarded, highly nuanced French Language which besides diplomacy is principally used to disguise nooners as something else.
It was an Englishman (Wotton 1602) who wrote "An ambassador is a person sent to lie abroad for his country." Chirac is an able ambassador for France.
Posted by: sol vason on August 18, 2006 01:40 PMOne possible interpretation of this is that France is waiting for the US to fall prostrate in begging them for help.
Posted by: Klug on August 18, 2006 01:44 PMthe trouble with international peacekeepers is that when none of the contributors have a dog in the fight, they're not going to take action that will put their own soldiers at risk simply because they're largely indifferent to the outcome.
see also: srbrenica.
does anyone know if the deployment of peacekeepers has ever actually been more of a Good Thing than a reflection of moral vanity?
Posted by: will on August 18, 2006 01:45 PMThe other problem is, even if you got together a "peacekeeping" army of a decent size and firepower, they would still lose to both Hezbollah or the IDF in an open fight.
So what's the point of this whole farce?
Posted by: Brian Moore on August 18, 2006 01:50 PMSo, let me get this straight. The UN refuses to label anything a genocide, because that means it has to take action. It refuses to let its peacekeepers do anything more than amble about some region in turmoil. And it refuses to enforce any of its resolutions.
Why exactly are we keeping the UN around? Oh yeah, to give bureaucrats a place to wax intellectual about the problems of the unwashed masses.
Posted by: Christina on August 18, 2006 01:59 PMWhy should the French, indeed why should any country agree to do what the IDF could not?
Posted by: Aaron Adams on August 18, 2006 02:06 PM> It refuses to let its peacekeepers do anything more than amble about some region in turmoil.
Not always. It occasionally refuses to let its peacekeepers amble about. (The Hezbollah shields were ordered to stay on their bases.)
>And it refuses to enforce any of its resolutions.
With what army?
Posted by: Andy Freeman on August 18, 2006 02:21 PMAaron, the IDF could not disarm Hezbollah due to political considerations, not military. Presumably the peacekeeping force would have the political cover to disarm Hezbollah. Clearly that's not going to happen.
Posted by: Eric J on August 18, 2006 02:26 PMThe UN is very often very useless. But its better than nothing. Its absurd to think that the UN can solve all the world's problems, but it is good at exposing trouble makers.
For example, consider that what the UN accomplished in this crisis was to develop the cover needed for the Lebanese army to deploy south of the Litani. The world is watching - and it will judge Hezbollah harshly if it attempts to interfere.
Posted by: Randy on August 18, 2006 03:02 PMAaron said: "Why should the French ... agree to do what the IDF could not?"
Because they said they would?
Posted by: Mike on August 18, 2006 03:56 PMYou make it sound as if Santa Monica during tourist season is safe, or something. :-)
Posted by: Paul Snively on August 18, 2006 05:33 PMI think it's a good thing that the UN is not a force to be reckoned with. Don't we have enough trouble stopping our own government from taking our rights? Why add to it with an international government? The quicker we abandon the UN, the better. Isn't the whole idea of a UN the equivalent idiocy of "rules of warfare"?
Posted by: Jack Wayne on August 18, 2006 05:42 PM"world is watching - and it will judge Hezbollah harshly"
Oh what a wonderful statement. I hope Hezbollah is worried about being judged harshly by the world and the UN. The world and the UN will continue to do nothing as terroists routinely target civilians and then use their own countrymen as shields when the Isrealis and the US strikes back. You can hate bush all you want, but please don't equivocate Hezbollah and their ilk with Isreal or the US when we accidently kill civilians vs. their intentionally targetting civilians and then putting their own countrymen it harms way when we retailiate.
Don't you get it yet? Hezbollah does not care how it is judged. They never have and never will. The only way to stop these guys is to make their "line of work" look unappealing to new converts and kill the ones who won't give up.
Posted by: harshly on August 18, 2006 07:25 PMI may be the only American waiting for the 'Rules of Engagement;' maybe I'm just a romantic. The behavior of the French at the UN does seem to be passing strange. After they threatened to nuke Iran though, I wondered if they were going to try to set limits short on the grandiose threateners who expand their narcissism w/o them. Hopefully they are trying to maneuver for an ability to exert control vis-a-vis Hezbollah's armed force, an extension of Iran's.
Posted by: michael on August 19, 2006 12:35 AMExcellent summary of my thinking regarding France by Matt Yglesias (h/t Brad Delong):
It Is Called "Diplomacy"It is called "diplomacy." Matthew Yglesias explains why Jacques Chirac is a real president:
The Fakeout | TPMCafe: It seems to me that French diplomacy over the past couple of weeks has been fairly brilliant.
The war in Lebanon, as wars so often are, was the result of a serious double miscalculation. First, Hezbollah clearly failed to anticipate how Israel would respond to their cross-border raid. In turn, Israel clearly failed to anticipate how difficult it would be to mount a major anti-Hezbollah operation in Lebanon. And, indeed, the miscalculations were surely interlinked. Hezbollah correctly assessed how difficult it would be for Israel to mount a massive retaliation and therefore banked on Israel not retaliating massively.
The resulting war was a disaster for both sides. Israel really was significantly hurting Hezbollah. But it was doing so at a massive cost to itself in terms of lives lost and money spent. Hezbollah was bound to start running low on rockets and Israel running low on things to bomb. The situation was heading in the direction of grinding, endless guerilla conflict that would have been exceedingly costly and essentially hopeless from the Israeli perspective while also imperiling everything Hezbollah's built itself into in southern Lebanon.
Each side had reason to regret the conflict's existence. Both sides would have been made better off by calling "do over" and returning to the status quo ante. But neither side wanted to back down. Nor would it have been easy for either side to do so since the coalition Hezbollah/Syria/Iran team won't negotiate with the Israel/USA coalition and vice versa.
Enter France.
In essence, through two consecutive bait-and-switches -- first over the wording of a UN resolution, and second over the deployment of French troops to Lebanon -- France managed to get both parties to agree to a return to the status quo ante, which is better for both sides (that's why the tricks worked), but that neither side could admit to wanting. That's a pretty good result, especially considering that Chirac spent essentially none of France's resources achieving it.
Now, yes, it's true that it would be nice for some gigantic crew of foreigners to come into Lebanon, disarm Hezbollah, police the border, and create a giant, happy, stable democracy at peace with its neighbors. But nobody really knows how to pull this off. The internal political balance in Lebanon is extremely delicate. Nobody -- not Israel, not France, not the United States, not even Hezbollah's patrons -- was or is in a position to actually destroy or disarm Hezbollah absent a wider reform of all of Lebanon. The two most recent revisions to the Lebanese domestic scene -- the Taif Accords and the Cedar Revolution -- both deliberately involved wink-wink acceptance of Hezbollah's militia in exchange for Shiites not demanding the level of political power in Beirut that demographic realities would suggest. And -- with good reason -- nobody wants to open up the pandora's box of Lebanese consociationalism for further revisions.
The resulting situation -- which is the same as the pre-war situation -- is totally unsatisfactory and sub-optimal for all kinds of reasons. But it's the best resolution anyone really knows how to arrange for a very complicated situation that could (and, in the past, has) swiftly degenerated into horrifying bloodshed and anarchy.
Posted by Brad DeLong on August 19, 2006 at 05:31 AM
http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2006/08/it_is_called_di.html Posted by: Aaron Adams on August 19, 2006 01:13 PM
I read a while ago on NRO:The Corner a statement that really explained the UN to: it is not, contrary to its claims, a diplomatic body. It is a trade association for governments. Much of what it does makes sense from that perspective.
Posted by: Kristian on August 19, 2006 04:44 PMRandy,
Au contraire, the UN is worse than nothing, as it allows too many to think they've accomplished something by siccing the UN on the bad guys; think, or masquerade--not everyone means well, after all!
Posted by: Kirk Parker on August 19, 2006 06:35 PM> For example, consider that what the UN accomplished in this crisis was to develop the cover needed for the Lebanese army to deploy south of the Litani.
Hezbollah was never an obstacle to the Lebanese Army deploying anywhere, so that's not an accomplishment.
Hezbollah will happily use the Lebanese Army as a shield, just as it used the UN bluehats and civilians.
Surely you don't believe that the deployment of the Lebanese Army affects Hezbollah's arms.
Posted by: Andy Freeman on August 19, 2006 07:22 PMI'm not normally one to shirk at a large word, but "consociationalism" has got to be one of the most ungainly I'm seen in a while.
Posted by: Neal on August 20, 2006 12:23 PMThe Australian-spearheaded UN deployment to East Timor (99) had "robust" rules of engagement that allowed peacekeepers to engage for reasons other than self-defense. It was also one of the most successful deployments (only succesful deployment?) of the last two decades or so. Success was not solely due to the RoE but it was believed to play a very large part.
Posted by: daniel on August 20, 2006 10:30 PMMilitia members can always use a good source of protein.
I think they'd be happy to drink the blood of the "Zionist pigdog Jews."
Posted by: Kent G. Budge on August 21, 2006 11:45 AMCould this have been a clever bit of diplomatic ju-jitsu on the US's part?
If, as Brad DeLong says above, your plan is to stop the war and return to an unsteady cease fire, AND you want to make a country look ridiculous and impotent on a grand scale, then this was all cleverly negotiated.
No, I don't think so. The US and the world as a whole gave Israel ample cover to go in and take out Hezballah. Olmert lost his nerve. The only way to clean up the mess was to stop the whole thing and clumsily back out. Chirac just screwed up by writing a check with his mouth that his ass couldn't cash, earning him the "Euro-wanker of the Day" title for the next two months.
The fact is that all of Europe knows that Hezballah can whip any European force that deploys there. No European country by itself has the capability to project a force in the tens of thousands to Lebanon and support it logistically (not to mention politically). A multinational force would be even weaker. They don't have tough enough troops, they don't have the training, they don't have the equipment, they don't have air cover for them and they don't have the air transport to supply them with the basics. It was never going to work.
Posted by: Rob on August 21, 2006 12:35 PMI tend to agree that in some cases the UN can be worse than useless by causing people to think that something useful is being done to address a problem that is just getting worse and worse. See especially-the NPT.
Posted by: Sebastian Holsclaw on August 21, 2006 03:01 PMIf no one but the United States wants to enforce these U.N. resolutions, why do the others vote for them?
Still, I'd rather not take Europe out of all this. I think the solution is for the U.S. administration to pick a few major problems, like Lebanon and Iran, and tell Europe again and again, "They're your responsibility, not ours. We're busy."
Until then, Europe will never gear up to accept any of the risks they assume the Americans will accept.
Posted by: Frank Warner on August 21, 2006 09:57 PMRob,
(In my opinion) The IDF could have whipped Hezbollah but at a terrible cost. The "kill ratio" between Israeli troops and Hezbollah was much lower than that the IDF normally sees, about 4 to 1 compared to 10 to 1. Hezbollah seemed quite willing to die, as long as they could take an Israeli soldier with them.
I'm not sure that Olmert losr her nerve...I don't think he was ever willing to write a check payable with hundreds of Israeli soldier deaths.
Furthermore, the number of Lebanese civilian deaths was far more than can be excused as collateral damage. Hezbollah are murderous scum. That doesn't mean Israel's actions can be ignored.
Posted by: Michigander on August 21, 2006 10:10 PMIf the international community was serious about peacekeeping they would hire a Private Military Company.
Posted by: MEL on August 22, 2006 07:53 PMFor example, consider that what the UN accomplished in this crisis was to develop the cover needed for the Lebanese army to deploy south of the Litani. The world is watching - and it will judge Hezbollah harshly if it attempts to interfere.
If by "judge harshly" you mean "use harsh language to criticize" then I suppose it *might* happen. But if you mean "actually do something to punish Hezbollah" then there's no chance in hell of anyone but Israel judging Hezbollah harshly.
Of course, the fact that the murder of Israeli children isn't worthy of harsh judgement, but violation of a UN declaration might be, says a lot about the quality of world opinion.
Posted by: Dan on August 22, 2006 09:27 PMThat's a good point Dan. Judging harshly generally means only that nothing will be done to help those who are so judged. The world didn't do anything to stop Israel from bombing Lebanon. Nor did it do anything to stop the US from invading Iraq. Oh yes, lots of nasty things were said - but nothing was done.
Posted by: Randy on August 23, 2006 12:59 PMRandy,
Nice one. But that proves the point. If no one else will act, we must. I have no problem with that as long they don't get in the way and start complaining.
People seem to hate the idea of the US as the world's policeman, but when it comes time for the world to step it up, they aren't willing to do anything except talk as long as their is some ambiguity. The only way the french or their ilk will consider action is if Iran declares war on Isreal and launches an invasion (which isn't possible).
But Iran can just continue to wage an undeclared war by supported terrorism proxy and its ok right?
Posted by: nice on August 23, 2006 01:11 PMJudging harshly generally means only that nothing will be done to help those who are so judged. The world didn't do anything to stop Israel from bombing Lebanon.
Um... yes, it did. Did you miss the worldwide diplomatic push to get Israel to agree to this ridiculous cease-fire?
In any case, under your definition of "judge harshly", Hezbollah has no chance of being judged harshly -- because that would mean Israel being given free reign to wipe them out, which is simply not going to happen. Hezbollah has already given Israel legitimate cause for war under international law hundreds of times over, and Israel and Lebannon themselves are still technically in a state of war from years earlier -- yet Israel is still harshly criticized whenever it actually attacks Hezbollah or Lebannon.
Posted by: Dan on August 23, 2006 06:27 PMI hear you Dan, but by "do" I mean taking concrete action, not just criticizing. Things like economic sanctions, mobilization of forces, and possibly even direct application of force - the kinds of things we are eventually have to "do" in order to stop Iran. But no one actually "did" anything to stop Israel. And this is something I've noticed about our action in Iraq as well. No one "did" anything to stop us either. Why? For the same reason in both cases; the world has an interest in allowing both actions. They put on an anti-war show for political purposes, while allowing the desired actions to proceed. The Democrats are playing the same game - talking one way and voting another.
Posted by: Randy on August 24, 2006 03:42 PM