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United Nations Peacekeeping, Past and Present, Is Focus of New Book by Barnard Professor Kimberly Zisk Marten
 It used to be that UN peacekeeping efforts around the world involved just this: keeping the peace after both sides agreed to end a war. Now, with more complex military operations and humanitarian responsibilities in places like Kosovo, Haiti, Afghanistan and East Timor, new peace operations have a lot in common with the 20 th century imperialism of liberal democracies, according to Kimberly Zisk Marten, associate professor of political science at Barnard.
In her new book, Enforcing the Peace: Learning from the Imperial Past (scheduled for release in November 2004 by Columbia University Press), Marten draws lessons from that comparison. She argues that attempts by outsiders to control political developments in foreign societies are pipe dreams, and that the more sensible goal of outside intervention should be focused on providing basic security in unstable regions.
Asked whether the difficult situation in Iraq could possibly be helped if a UN peacekeeping force could be assembled, she said this goal might be possible if the United States was willing to persuade other countries to join such an effort. However, with escalating violence and U.S. soldiers under mounting attacks, this scenario seems remote, although not altogether impossible, she said.
The book focuses on specific international operations in the mid- to late 1990s and compares these cases to the colonial activities of liberal democracies such as Great Britain, France, and the United States at the turn of the 20 th century. By blending case examples with interviews she conducted with military officers and other peacekeeping officials at the UN, NATO, and elsewhere, Marten explores the differences between the two eras. She notes especially the need for multilateral approval through the UN Security Council to provide legitimacy, and the fact that while imperialism was about stealing resources, peacekeeping is not.
But, she adds, "By the early 20 th century, imperialism wasn't primarily about profit. Instead it was about security and access to raw materials and ocean shipping routes in the colonies, in case they faced warfare in the future. Now peace operations aren't competitive that way but we see that the powerful western states are only willing to lead peace operations today when their own self-interests are at stake."
Marten cites the 1994 genocide of 800,000 Rwandans as a recent example of a crisis in which no country intervened, and cites the situation of Darfur in the Sudan as a current example. "That lack of will to get involved, even in the face of huge human suffering, was completely predictable, and will undoubtedly happen in the future."
In fact, she suggests that current events reflect a troubling gap between good intentions and hasty actions, but that well trained and well supervised militaries can do police operations when appropriate.
"We're seeing in Iraq just how bad the consequences can be when peacekeeping isn't done well--when there aren't enough troops on the ground, when those troops are told not to do police work, and when (as in the Abu Ghraib prison scandal) we don't care enough to train those troops well," Marten says. "Peace operations have to become a priority, for the sake of our future security. We need to stop making people hate us."
Marten begins a five-city book tour next month that begins in New York and includes Washington DC, Chicago, Minneapolis, and San Francisco
Marten's previous books include Engaging the Enemy: Organization Theory and Soviet Military Innovation , (winner of the Marshall Shulman Prize) and Weapons, Culture, and Self-Interest: Soviet Defense Managers in the New Russia.
- Jo Kadlecek
Marten's book was recently reviewed in the Asia Times. Click here to read the review.
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