FEATURES:
We Aren't the World

By Charles M. Lichenstein

An Exit Strategy from U.N. Peacekeeping.
SIDEBAR: The High Cost of U.N. Membership.
SIDEBAR: The U.N.'s Waste, Fraud, and Abuse.

J ust the other day, it seems, the national debate about the U.S. role in the United Nations turned for the most part on the issue of money--on U.S. contributions and U.N. waste, and how reducing the former might diminish the latter. That issue remains. In 1994, the U.S. spent no less than $3.5 billion on a largely dysfunctional U.N. system-- with scant returns as measured by U.S. national interests. (See sidebar.)

But the debate has a scary new dimension. The U.N. is reinventing what used to be called "peacekeeping." In the last several years, that do-good concept has been stretched to encompass a range of U.N. operations that typically involve the use of force, even the waging of war. Moreover, President Clinton's U.N. representatives are willing collaborators in developing a one-size-fits-all justification for multilateral interventions that bear only the most attenuated relation to U.S. interests--if any at all.

And that, along with peacekeeping's mounting bills, adds up to serious business indeed.

It is now the business of the 104th Congress. As a component of its Contract with America, the House of Representatives already has passed the National Security Revitalization Act, which reins in the wild proliferation of U.N. peacekeeping, limits U.S. participation in these operations, and imposes some controls on U.S. contributions to the U.N. generally. The next orders of business are to fend off efforts in the Senate to weaken these provisions--which constitute only a minimal package--and then to be vigilant about implementation. The question still to be answered is what the U.N. is worth to us-- whether, that is to say, the U.S. gets back in national priorities anything commensurate with its $3.5 billion annual investment.

Ten years ago, there was a consensus in the United States that radical surgery was called for. Numerous studies and investigations, many of them instigated by the U.N. itself, had revealed a pattern of waste, mismanagement, and duplication (see sidebar, page 66). The U.N.'s socioeconomic agenda called for the redistribution of wealth from the industrialized democracies to the less-developed countries of the Third World. On the political side, national-liberation movements (good) and colonialism (bad) were the buzzwords of choice.

As a result, a Democratic-controlled Congress in 1984 overwhelmingly approved the Kassebaum-Solomon Amendment to the authorization of the U.S.'s 25 percent share of the U.N.'s administrative budget. The terms of the amendment seemed unambiguous: Shape up, impose fiscal discipline on yourself, and move toward some form of weighted voting on the U.N. budget in the General Assembly, with "bonus" votes for big contributors in rough proportion to their contributions, or else suffer an annual 20 percent withholding of the U.S. payment.

Now, let the record show that Senator Nancy Kassebaum (R-KS) and Representative Gerald Solomon (R-NY) had the right idea then--that the U.N. had to be reformed if ever it were to become a useful agent of world order--and it is the right idea still. But for the most part, Kassebaum-Solomon failed. Congress is now back at work on the problems of a dysfunctional U.N., using the power of the purse as one lever of reform. The problems have deepened, however, both in complexity and in their deadly import. The U.N. has recently engaged in the promiscuous use of force under the authority of resolutions that may violate its own charter, and the Clinton administration has been willing, even eager, to plunge into the resulting swamp.

The Peacekeeping Trap

Kassebaum-Solomon redux is embodied in the new House act; and, in the Senate, a companion bill covers some of the same ground. Both are reasonable first cuts at shaping a long-term policy. U.S. costs and U.N. waste are still at issue. But these bills focus on U.N. peacekeeping--which is itself a misnomer, and a dangerously misleading one.

The U.N. peacekeeping budget and its expansive peacekeeping agenda are escalating out of control. In 1994, the U.S. was assessed almost $1.2 billion for what the U.N. calls peacekeeping operations. (The U.S. share is supposed to be fixed at 30.4 percent, but in fact has crept up to 31.7 percent.) On top of that, the U.S. volunteered in- kind operational support services--ranging from air- and sealift to armored personnel carriers to state-of-the-art communications and intelligence assets--that are valued in the House bill's "findings" at $1.7 billion in 1994. (Sources within the national-security establishment set their value at close to $2 billion. The administration claims that a major part has been reimbursed, but exactly how much is unclear.) These costs were skimmed off U.S. defense appropriations that were never intended for peacekeeping or any other U.N. program.

This has contributed to a state of unreadiness in the U.S. military. Appearing before a House appropriations subcommittee on January 25th, General John Shalikashvili, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, and Defense Secretary William Perry conceded as much. They attributed about half of a $2.6 billion defense supplemental request to "unanticipated" U.N. peacekeeping costs: $600 million for Haiti alone, another $312 million for Bosnia, and lesser amounts for other operations.

As recently as 1990 or 1991, U.N. peacekeeping was pretty much just that: the assignment of ad hoc U.N. forces to monitor truces, police cease-fires, and provide buffers between contending parties. These forces prided themselves on scrupulous neutrality, and were deployed with the agreement of the parties. The models were Kashmir, Cyprus, Lebanon, or the Sinai (where it all began in the 1950s). These were the renowned Blue Helmets, drawn from the armed forces of smaller countries (such as Fiji, Ghana, Ireland, and Norway); they collectively and deservedly received two Nobel Peace prizes. The U.N. peacekeeping budget was appropriately modest and generally predictable from year to year. A decade ago, the entire U.S. contribution to the U.N. for all programs was less than the U.S. assessment for peacekeeping alone in 1994 (excluding the "free" support services).

But now U.N. peacekeeping means almost anything--feeding the hungry, responding to "911 calls" (Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali's favorite formulation), holding elections, building national infrastructure--that the U.N. wants it to mean. And this is a U.N. that is avidly seeking "new" missions in the post-Cold War world.

In Cambodia, peacekeeping meant preparing for "free and fair" elections in what essentially remains a war zone. Yet the Vietnam-controlled regime that lost the elections is still effectively in power. Cost: in excess of $2 billion.

In Somalia, peacekeeping meant pacifying warring tribal factions, then feeding the war's innocent victims, then (unsuccessfully) running the principal warlord to ground. Now the warring factions are back at it. Cost: $1.5 billion and counting, plus 30 Americans and scores of other troops dead. In Haiti, peacekeeping meant invading a sovereign country (without opposition or casualties, fortunately) to restore a deposed president. With operational control now passing from the U.S. to the U.N., there are disquieting signs that violence could resume. Cost: as much as $1 billion so far, and no telling how much more for how much longer (one estimate is about $180 million for the next six months).

In Bosnia and Croatia, peacekeeping has become surreal. A force of almost 25,000 keeps open supply lines to civilian populations--whenever the Serbs choose to let the convoys through. The U.N. command has demarcated various "safe havens," which the attacking Serbs have violated with impunity. Retaliatory NATO airstrikes, which require U.N. concurrence, have been too little, too late. This U.N. peacekeeping force cost more than $1 billion in 1994. A "peace-enforcement" operation of open-ended duration, with peace nowhere in sight, may require at least 50,000 troops at an annual cost of $3 billion. The recently retired U.N. commander in Bosnia, Lieutenant General Sir Michael Rose of the United Kingdom, may have said more than he intended in a BBC documentary: "We are not here to protect or defend anything other than ourselves or our convoys."

The point is not that these U.N. operations are all without merit. But all of them were set in motion under Chapters VI and VII of the U.N. Charter as responses to "threats to peace and international security"--and, except for Bosnia, where even the U.N. claims only a "humanitarian" mission, not one of them meets that rigorous standard. They are of questionable legitimacy, and the U.S. picks up 31.7 percent of the tab.

Besides paying the biggest share of the bills, the U.S. has acceded to all of these operations as one of the Security Council's permanent five. In Haiti and Somalia, the U.S. committed armed forces as well. Right now, anywhere from 50,000 to 70,000 U.S. military personnel are assigned to U.N. peacekeeping operations. (Exactly how many is in dispute. The House puts the number at 70,000; Perry testified to "just under 50,000" as of late January.) Some are serving in war-zones, some are off-shore or in aerial surveillance and interdiction missions, some are in support roles. But all are serving under the authority only of U.N. Security Council resolutions as implemented by the U.S. commander-in-chief.

What Can Be Done?

This is the range of problems that Congress now confronts. The bills pending in Congress address the issue of U.S. contributions to an open-ended U.N. entitlement program in the guise of peacekeeping. But they also raise a genuine constitutional issue: the commitment of U.S. armed forces--arguably, the ultimate exercise of public authority--without the explicit consent, or even involvement, of Congress.

There is more. The House act makes it very difficult indeed to fund any expansive U.N. peacekeeping operations at all, especially new ones. Effective October 1, 1995, there is to be a 25 percent cap on the U.S. share of U.N. peacekeeping--period. Moreover, no defense appropriations can be used for any U.S. contributions to U.N. peacekeeping, whether assessed or voluntary: All contributions have to be funded explicitly, from earmarked appropriations. Finally, the president is required to present an annual accounting of the "fair market" value of all voluntary in-kind contributions provided to the U.N. in the prior year and, unless reimbursement is received, offset the total "incremental" cost of these contributions against the U.S. assessment for the year ahead.

The loophole opened here, and it's a huge one, is the definition of "incremental." Presumably the base pay of U.S. military personnel would be the same whether or not they served in a U.N. peacekeeping operation. But what about tanks and jeeps and aircraft, or air- and sealift? How in such cases are add-ons computed, as against the "base" cost of the U.S. military establishment's sophisticated hardware? And how are costs assigned to wear and tear on the U.S. forces as well as to providing necessary downtime and retraining? The proof of this effort to restrain peacekeeping costs will depend on the rigor with which the test is applied. Chairman Benjamin Gilman (R-NY) of the House Committee on International Relations estimates that the offset will be in the range of $300 million to $400 million, rather than the $1.7 billion for total voluntary contributions in 1994.

In his first address to the U.N. General Assembly, in September 1993, President Clinton said that he favored a 25 percent cap on U.S. peacekeeping assessments and that the U.N.--and he might have added, the U.S. representatives there--would simply have to learn to say "no" to all but the most urgent requests for "peace" operations. The bills now in Congress take him at his word.

How Not to Reform the U.N.

It is instructive to recall the lessons of the Kassebaum-Solomon experience. No sooner had the amendment taken effect than the ranks of the U.N.'s leadership were filled with born-again reformers. The fewer the U.S. dollars, the greater their zeal. The then- Secretary General, Javier Perez de Cuellar, appointed a select experts' committee that very nearly--the Soviets said "no" at the last minute--recommended a major U.N. restructuring that would have satisfied about 99 percent of the amendment's intent. The experts' committee was able to enact the requirement that the administrative budget could move from committee to the General Assembly plenary only by consensus. This consensus procedure amounted to a U.S. veto on the U.N. budget.

But a veto is only as good as the will to use it. Budget growth in the following two years was held to zero, but not a finger was laid on the waste, duplication, and overlap, nor on the obsolete programs that beset the U.N. then, and still do. On the basis of that two-year record, the president--Ronald Reagan himself--certified to Congress that the "spirit" of Kassebaum-Solomon had been satisfied, and full U.S. funding resumed.

The U.N. paid no price at all for the endemic inefficiencies and uncontrolled spending that gave rise to the congressional reforms in the first place. The dollars that were withheld are now being paid up. These are the very "arrearages," in fact, that have fueled charges that the most generous contributor to the U.N. is the world's number one deadbeat.

There are some obvious lessons to be drawn from this experience. First, merely focusing on the process by which the administrative budget is adopted is not enough. The loophole of "going along" is too big, and offers too easy a way out. Second, the budget itself is not quite the issue: the programs funded by the budget, and the priorities among them, have to be scrutinized year after year. Finally, for any U.N. reforms to take firm hold--which calls for a persistent effort by the U.S., leading a coalition of the like- minded within the U.N.--the president and Congress have to be reading off the same page. Most of the job, in fact, has to be done by presidential appointees and the permanent bureaucracy responsible to them. Congress can (and should) establish the benchmarks; but, in the absence of determined executive action, nothing much will be accomplished.

Tightening the Screws

This time around, Congress is considering sterner measures: a stronger version of last year's Pressler amendment. Senator Larry Pressler (R-SD) tied full U.S. funding of U.N. operations to the president's certification that an independent U.N. Office of Inspector General was up and running. This, in turn, was a follow-up to the key recommendation of the Thornburgh Report, in 1992-93, that an inspector general with clout was essential to jump-start meaningful U.N. reform. The House act requires the withholding of 50 percent of the U.S. peacekeeping assessment and all voluntary contributions every year, as well as 20 percent of the regular assessment, pending the president's annual certification that an independent U.N. inspections office is in operation and that the inspector general has been chosen on the basis of professional credentials, has subpoena power over U.N. personnel and records, issues annual and unexpurgated public reports, and that the inspector general's recommendations are being implemented.

Congress, for its part, has to be prepared not to take "yes" for an answer. The best way for the U.S. to save money is for the U.N. not to waste it--and that means probing behind the numbers to the U.N. programs that ought to be trimmed back, or zeroed out, or rejected in the first place. Congress must be on the right track, because administration witnesses are already warning of the imminent collapse of the West--maybe even of U.N. peacekeeping as we now know it--if this total legislative package is enacted. And that, of course, is the point.

I would add two modest proposals to the package. First, the U.N. ought to overhaul the present scales of assessments. Congress should require the president to open negotiations at once to revise both the administrative and peacekeeping assessment scales within one year. Capping the peacekeeping assessment at 25 percent is only a start: all of the allocations, which are supposed to correspond to the GNPs of the U.N. members, are hopelessly out-of-date. Russia, for example, pegged at 10 percent for the administrative budget and 11.5 percent for peacekeeping, pays too much. China, on the other hand, which claims a GNP in excess of $2 trillion, pays less than 1 percent on both scales. The spread overall is from 25 and 30.4 percent for the U.S. (for the administrative budget and peacekeeping, respectively) to one-hundredth of 1 percent for 85 countries--close to a majority of the U.N.'s total membership of 185. Saudi Arabia and Brunei are ranked equally with Benin and Bangladesh.

A second proposal refers to the sidebar on "The High Cost of U.N. Membership": What in fact do we spend on the U.N., on all of its various parts, including also the value of the in-kind voluntary services that the U.S. routinely contributes? No one, as best I've been able to determine, keeps an authoritative ledger; someone ought to. Congress should require that the president submit an annual, comprehensive U.S./U.N. budget request. That way, we might better be able to answer the question with which we began.

What Is the U.N. Worth to Us?

On balance, I believe the answer has to be "not much." Even if the U.N. were to be substantially reformed--which in my judgment is very unlikely--the answer would be only slightly more upbeat.

The U.N. is what we made it. There is little evidence that, in the late spring of 1945, the U.N.'s founders had any inkling of the proliferation of mini-states that would result from the breakup of the colonial empires in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Simply gathering together all the countries in the world into one grand and ill-assorted institution did not then, and does not, now constitute a "community" at all, and certainly not a community of like-minded liberal democracies with a consensus on how to design and maintain the framework of a tolerable world order. Yet that is the fundamental premise built into the U.N. Charter--which today is essentially a fraud.

At least half, and as many as two-thirds, of the U.N.'s 185 members should, on the Charter's own principles, either be expelled or suspended. Yet they comprise a working majority of the U.N. General Assembly. They adopt the budget, allocate resources, and permit a significant part of these resources to be wasted. Much of the waste, as noted already, is on redundant socioeconomic programs that they perceive to be beneficial to themselves; the rest pays for plum jobs in the Secretariat for their own elites. The fact that these programs do more harm than good, by confirming them in their bias toward statism, cuts little ice. The U.N. is their organization. Not surprisingly, they use it in their own interests.

Now, it will be objected that all this is beside the point, that the General Assembly itself is beside the point: simply a shadow-play, in which the mini-states debate toothless (if often mischievous) resolutions that nobody heeds. Subsidizing this exercise is, so the argument goes, the price we pay for maintaining a functioning U.N. when we need it.

"When we need it": This always is the mantra of last resort. It apparently refers to those "threats to peace and international security" to which only the U.N. Security Council can respond with force or the threat of its use. Thus Warren Christopher argued, in vigorously opposing the limits on U.S. participation in U.N. peacekeeping, that their effect would be to force the U.S. to "go it alone." It's either the U.N., such as it is, or isolation. But "going it alone" looks not so bad, if it means standing aside from, even vetoing, ill-defined, open-ended "peace" operations that arguably exceed the U.N.'s authority and certainly exceed its capabilities or demonstrated competence. Secretary Christopher may make unapologetic isolationists of us all.

In some circumstances, our government's own judgment of the national interest may coincide with U.N. Security Council resolutions mandating forceful responses to "threats to peace." North Korea's invasion of the South was one such circumstance, Iraq's aggression against Kuwait another. But in both cases, it was the prior U.S. judgment, and its firm commitment to resist aggression, that carried the day in the Security Council. The U.S. and its like-minded allies would have taken the actions they deemed necessary, with or without the cover of U.N. resolutions. It may well be, in fact, that the U.N. served more to inhibit than to unleash the resulting "peace-enforcement" operations, and limited their effectiveness as a consequence.

Looking back over these last 50 years of U.S. national security policies, what is most striking is the almost total absence of the U.N. from the historical record. When something does matter, whether it is an alliance to deter aggression (NATO) or carrying out an effective foreign assistance program (the Marshall Plan) or negotiating the rules of free and fair international trade (GATT), the United States invariably has entered into multinational engagements with the genuinely like-minded. This should come as no surprise. It is the mark of a serious country, seriously pursuing its national interests.

Most of the U.N.'s success stories have in fact been those of the results-oriented specialized agencies--as, for example, the virtual eradication of smallpox (WHO), the care and feeding of refugees (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees), and the green revolution in South Asia (several agencies involved). Many of these agencies predate the U.N. itself. And the most successful have been those most careful to insulate themselves from the "political" U.N. in New York.

For now, it is probably enough just to cut back on the U.S. commitment to the U.N., to be discriminating in acceding to the use of force in U.N. "peace" operations, and to prevent as much costly mischief as possible. The approach being taken by Congress seems about right--but no less will do.

The threat to withhold consensus on the administrative budget, vigorously applied, could squeeze a useful amount of fat from the Secretariat. Insisting on an independent inspector general is not about to produce a lean and mean U.N. bureaucracy overnight, but every little bit helps. In the specialized agencies, picking and choosing among programs worth supporting--as we do in UNESCO, even as a non-member-- makes a lot of sense. A runaway Security Council calls for particular vigilance, and an ever-ready veto, which the total package of congressional limitations should satisfy--yes, Mr. Secretary, even at the risk of "going it alone."

I fear that putting the U.N. out of its misery altogether would incur unacceptable costs. The predictable firestorm among our allies would weaken relationships that are far more important to us than the U.N. itself. It may be cowardice, or it may simply reflect the enormous effort involved in fundamental U.N. reform for a rather modest payoff. But I would settle for putting the U.N. back in its box and keeping our eye on it. A wary eye, and a parsimonious one.