Actually, this post isn't about willingness at all. It's about the saying above as literal truth: no new blood left. When we look at the U.S. military and its commitments in Iraq, current peacekeeping missions, and Korean contingency forces - they're more than fully booked right now (Hat Tip: One Hand Clapping, who also has a great quote).
So, what are the implications for the Congo? We'll start by defining "fully booked"...
"Therefore, aside from one brigade of the 82nd airborne, and two brigades of the 10th mountain, the regular army's manpower is essentially ALL either in use in Iraq, in use in Afghanistan, in use for peacekeeping, or needed for Korea contingencies..."Bottom line: downsizing the military has had real consequences. When it comes to troops, you can't do more with less - you can only do less with less. At its current size the U.S. military is already stretching its reserve forces just to stay current, using many of them on extended commitments that may have them absent from their civilian jobs for over a year. They cannot take on new commitments without a full national wartime mobilization. Britain is in a similar situation, and in fairness Germany is pretty busy too.
This shouldn't be surprising. Even a hyperpower can't do it all, especially in an era where the old colonial approach of small imperial forces plus large local levies and utterly ruthless tactics are not an option. If something is to be done about the slaughter in the Congo, therefore, other nations will need to place significant combat formations on the ground.
Sierra Leone showed that it's possible to fix African chaos with small forces, as long as they're quality troops willing to aggressively kill those involved in and organizing the violence. That's how 800 British soldiers succeeded where 8,000 U.N. "peacekeepers" had been routed. That said, Sierra Leone is about 1/30 the size of the Congo, a country with almost 5 times as much land area as Iraq.
The present group of 1,000 or so peacekeepers, uselessly present since 1998, is a PR joke and a moral evasion, not a solution. When "peacekeeping" troops are asking to be allowed to use their weapons to protect endangered civilians, one quickly sees how deep the farce goes. The genocide in Rwanda was no accident, it was a predictable consequence that happened with Kofi Annan's direct and connivance. Srebrenica was no accident. Another 3 million+ dead in Congo is no accident, either - it is a direct consequence of the choices the U.N. and its Security Council have made to date.
If this is going to be done to international standards for protecting civilians, etc., I'd say even a no holds barred force that's serious about bringing the death toll to a halt will need to be 20,000-50,000 strong, with on-call air support, helicopter and medium transport planes, armor (armored cars or LAVs will do), and artillery. They'll also have to be prepared to shoot first, take no guff, and impose peace.
This is where we find out if terms like "the international community" and "multilateral" have any actual meaning and effect. Or any moral significance, for that matter. Everyone wishing for the USA to be less dominant - you just got your wish. I'm deeply curious to see what other countries like France, China, Egypt, India, Italy, Indonesia, Turkey et. al. with large militaries, significant wealth, or both, do with this situation.
If anything.
Bosnia/Kosovo was a turning point for many liberals, the genesis of a new generation of liberal hawks whose attitudes played an important role post-9/11. Read the liberal blogosphere, and you can see similar memes at work again. I'm glad to see it, and I sense another turning point on the way - but something tells me this one will owe more to the aftermath of tragedy than the afterglow of triumph.
--- UPDATES ---
· I've got a major follow-up piece that offers more local background and history on how this conflict developed, looks at the vast gulf between what 's required and the 20th-century transnationalist mindset, and analyzes this turning point concept in more detail.
· Michael Totten has a very good piece called "The Globalization of Chaos." Solid commentary from a center-liberal perspective, and even some thoughts on what we might do. As he notes:
"The defining feature of the 21st Century is the globalization of chaos. We have no system to handle all this, and we cannot ignore it much longer."More confirmation in my mind that this is another turning point for many liberals... maybe more of a turning point than they think.
· Flit says Canada is fully booked as well. He's right, but our capabilities are so meager I thought that fact hardly worth mentioning.
· Does ChicagoBoyz have the answer? No, but this is fantastic satire.
· Newsrack has some good links, and reminds us not to forget Zimbabwe, either, and includes action links & addresses. Strong non-military options still have a chance to make a difference there - though I think the only way to really solve that problem is ultimately assassination, an uprising trained, led, and supplied via Western Special Forces, or invasion.
Joe, I'd say Sierra Leone produced mixed results when it came to the effectiveness of ECOWAS and other African forces. That said, one military force that was HIGHLY effective in Sierra Leone was the option that dare not speak its name -- PMCs, or private military companies.
During their time in Sierra Leone, the PMC Executive Outcomes (EO) peformed a vital stabilizing role which protected several diamond mines in the Kono district from repeated RUF attacks. But like ECOWAS itself, EO bent to outside (UN/US/South African) pressure and abandoned its operations in Sierra Leone. Facing restrictions placed upon them by the South African government, the Pretoria-based EO eventually disbanded in the late 1990s. But other companies like Sandline are still around.
The idea of employing "mercenary" units leaves a bad taste in the mouth of idealists, but it seems to me that a well-trained, well-equipped PMC authorized to, as you put it, "aggressively kill those involved in and organizing the violence," could make a world of difference in the Congo and elsewhere in Africa.
The more I think about this, the more I wonder if Democratic colonization isn't such a bad idea. Honestly, isn't that what Iraq's rebuilding is all about?
A few months back I read Samantha Powers' A Problem from Hell on the US and genocide and it left a weird taste, metaphorically, in my mouth.
I was left with the feeling that while Powers felt genocide was bad, she believed that intervention by the US would have been, well, worse. Thus her solution was wanting us to stop supporting dictators (although the genocides of the 90s were done by governments that the US did not support--Serbia, Rwanda, etc.), to feel bad about genocide when it happens, but not really do anything to stop it. ( I need to re-read the book.)
Matthew, good points. As the UN becomes obviously useless even to liberals during this crisis, we might see some interesting ideas floated around as necessity births some new approaches.
Private companies like EO are one, but this will make many governments (and statists) nervous as hell. A related option that builds on your idea is Foreign Legions, built on the French model, staffed mostly by Third World citizens with "good enough" equipment, for use in just these kinds of conflicts. Citizenship at the end is the prize, and given Europe's demographic reality it may be an attractive option that wins support left (moral intervention, immigration) and right (military boost, acculturation).
As I say, interesting on so many levels. A moral crisis, revealing the failure of the UN (who said "never again" after Rwanda, and hardly waited a decade), graphically pointing to the limits of sovereignty and requiring intervention that can only be described as "colonial." Lots of cracks coming in the edifices of peoples' ideologies.
They don't have to use Third World citizens, though I'm sure that would be preferable, they could just use their unemployed.
Mercenary companies are not an option. Mind you, I agree they SHOULD be an option, and I think a reasonable system for policing them could be set up, but, sadly, there's a HUGE hurdle to their implementation:
Mercenaries are not protected by the Geneva Conventions - They are, in fact, specifically EXEMPTED from getting either legal combatant or POW status.
Without the removal of this bit of bizarro-world thinking, it would be unthinkable to send mercenaries into any combat.
Because you know, if we sent regular troops in there against the tribal bands who've murdered 3 million of their countrymen, we know they'd be fully protected by the existence of the Geneva Conventions if captured...?
Robert, you're normally clearer-thinking than this.
Lancer, that's not the feeling I got from Power's book at all. I thought her point was more that we would repeat over and over "never again" while turning a blind eye to what was going on most of the time... not wanting to see it until it was a foregone conclusion. Her analysis was that there are many tools that can be used (diplomatic as well as force) in these situations, and the U.S. rarely opened the lid to the toolbox.
The case of Rwanda is classic that it probably would not have taken much in the way of force... but the force that is there has to be determined instead of only for show.
Joe, you're absolutely right that the typical bands of murderers wouldn't obey the Geneva Conventions for any group. I wasn't clear as to why I think the particular exemption of mercenaries is a problem, so I'll try to do better. Don't know if I can.
It's not just the treatment of captured mercenaries that's at issue, but also the ACTIONS of mercenaries. It's a reasonable position to say that since the GC doesn't protect mercenaries, they are not bound by it.
I have confidence that (real) GC violations by US forces are aberrations, and that the US armed forces work hard to find and punish violators. If the US hired a mercenary force to take part in peace-keeping actions, so long as there's no incentive for the mercenaries to obey the GC, I don't have the same confidence that they will.
Ahh, now I understand. That makes sense. Though it might be churlish of me to point out that the same problem would apply in spades to, say, Indonesian or Chinese troops in theatre.
Also, Joe, remember the likelihood of ICC or other third party prosecution of any troops involved in ugly counter-insurgency work of the type that would undoubtedly be common in Africa.
Having a bunch of "francs-tireurs" not subject to the GC or its legal protections would produce a field day for the kind of forces that are now trying to indict Gen. Franks.
"Though it might be churlish of me to point out that the same problem would apply in spades to, say, Indonesian or Chinese troops in theatre."
Not churlish at all. But even if they're there at the UN request, they're not there on my dime.
They're in there on your 2.3 cents. The US provides 23% of the UN budget. Where do you think the money comes from?
Those peacekeeping forces don't get provided for free by the nations they come from; they're being rented by the UN.
When we send forces to be part of a UN peacekeeping mission, we pay the bill. But when someone like Indonesia or Pakistan sends such troops, they're paid to do so.
The issue of mercenaries vs regular troops can be dealt with as it has been dealt with by the British and French armies for two centuries. You just make the mercenaries part of regular regiments in the army, just as the Gurkas are in the British Army or the French Foreign Legion (they are "etrangers" because they are non citizen mercenaries, n'est ce pas?) in the French Army. The usual objection to purely mercenary armies is similar to issuance of martime letters of marque in the post Napoleonic period, if you want to pay for the results you need to have these forces within your military command structure. That way if they create murder and mayhem as well as killing your enemies, the murder and mayhem is on your head, and you shouldn't be able to say "they are privateers or mercenaries and we don't really control their specific actions..."
Actually, the Highland regiments for the Brits started out this way also, but later came to be recognized as fully British after London recovered from the Jacobite scare. So there is a long history of shades of gray in this area.
Saving the Sum of Things for Pay: Executive Outcomes in Sierra Leone
by Michael van Maanen
Here's an interesting analysis of Executive Outcomes' work in Sierra Leone, their connections with the mining industry and what this means for the future of using mercenary units to stabilize governments. The information is somewhat dated, and I can't vouch for the source, but an interesting read nonetheless. Also has an interesting overview of other PMCs and their capabilities.
From the article:
"The attractiveness of private militaries is also enhanced by the fact that the UN and key western states such as the United Kingdom, France and the United States have essentially declared themselves to be out of the business of military intervention in Africa. The disasters of Bosnia, Somalia, Rwanda and Angola have thrown the political, military and financial costs of such interventions into sharp relief. With the end of the Cold War, Africa has lost almost all of its strategic significance. Against this backdrop, senior western policy makers are increasingly unable to justify potentially costly military involvement in Africa's 'dirty wars'. This is a view supported by a senior United States diplomat who acknowledged that "Africa is a sideshow as far as [the Clinton] administration is concerned…Ever since [the end of the Cold War] Africa has barely made it onto our radar screen"."
There's plenty of unemployed military manpower around. What's lacking is leadership. For example, there are the armed forces of New Zealand, Ireland, Belgium, the Netherlands, Canada and Japan. Japan has the second largest military budget in the world, after the USA and is not, nor has ever been doing anything in particular since the end of World War 2.
What is required is the establishment of regional commands the equivalent of CENTCOM, SOUTHCOM, PACOM etc, which consists of non-UN professionals who will serve as a command and intelligence element for peacekeeping operations to which these national forces can be chopped for purposes agreed.
Africa in particular is crying out for a general staff that will gather intelligence, study deployments, build scenarios -- all the things a headquarters does. Right now the French are going over the old Dragon Blanche files to see how they can deploy to Bunia. But is that any way to run a railroad?
If we build it, they will come.
The use of PMCs is a matter of trade-offs. Yes, I'm sure that any mercenary company commander is aware of the limits of Geneva convention protections when it comes to his troops, but find me one rebel group in Africa which actually follows the convention's guidelines. (Answer = none.) But there's a bigger problem with PMCs and that's the charge laid at Executive Outcome's feet during the Sierra Leone campaign, namely, that EO was exploiting local resources in areas it came to control. This, and the fear that mercenaries might be used to overthrow established governments (if employed by rebels or foreign powers) is a reason why African countries (and Western diplomats) are leery about PMCs.
That said, because the attitude has always been that PMCs are somehow "illegitimate" and must be regulated out of existence, a potentially valuable force for peace missions on the continent of Africa has been retarded. Rather than eliminate PMCs as a viable force, a better path for the international community would be to set up an accreditation system whereby PMCs would be allowed to engage in peacemaking/peacekeeping operations on behalf of the UN or member-states, with assurances that the mercenaries not work against the interests of peace and security by destabilizing local governments.
The UN's inability to act:
What it boils down to is that there are too many chiefs and NO indians. Each chief only looks out for his tribe, and doesn't care about any others, unless there is something in it for them.
At one time (not sure when) Poland was ruled by an assembly of a couple of hundred princes, each representing a small locality. The problem was, the assembly had to agree unanimously to get anything done. How much was done?? Next to nothing.
The UN is in virtually the same boat. Until that changes, nothing of import can be accomplished- except by individual nations that decide to act on their own, or in concert with a few other like-minded states. (GW II)
My suggestion?? Pick one good man- give him complete authority for what actions to take, and the responsibiity for the results. If more than one person is responsible, then in actuality, no one is responsible.
wretchard,
I can't speak for Japan or New Zealand, but I know that between its commitments in Afghanistan, Bosnia, and a couple of smaller overseas postings, Canada really doesn't have troops standing around with nothing to do at the moment.
http://www.snappingturtle.net/jmc/flit/2003_05_01_archive.html#94943654
Counting other countries' armed forces is like counting other people's money: unless you are damn sure of all your facts, don't.
One of the problems that the UN faces in dealing with genocide lies in how it defines 'genocide'. According to the official UN deffinition, an act cannot be called genocide if it's against a political or socio-economic group. If that's not loophole saying "tyrants slaughter the masses here" then I don't know what is.