The United Nations And the European Union - Essay Example

THE UNITED NATIONS AND THE EUROPEAN UNION (Question 4: Compare how UN peacekeeping and EU foreign policy have developed since the end of the Cold War and suggest which most influential common pressures on this development are) by Student’s Name Code+ course name Name of the Professor Name of the University City Date Introduction Seventy years ago the United Nations was founded in response to the sufferings caused by the World War II. The primary motto of the Organization, as mentioned in its Charter, was to protect upcoming generations from the misery of war. It anticipated to reform major flaws of the League of Nations, and succeeded to survive since the mid-1940s, almost thrice as long as the League of Nations (Latif 2000, p. 24). Similarly, the foundation of the European Union was laid in form of European Economic Community (EEC) in the late 1950s with an objective of unifying the European states and establishing harmony in the European community (Briney 2015). Unlike the United Nations, the primary objectives of economic and political stability and security structure were limited in interests of European Union member states rather than global community (Hopi 2012, p. 2). However, the attacks of 9/11 and the Charlie Hebdo attack in France in 2015 exposed the vulnerability of European and other leading global powers to terrorism and the deficiencies in the peacekeeping policies of the UN and foreign policies of the EU (Charlie Hebdo attack 2015; Comras et al. 2010). There are various common factors such as, the end of cold war, emergence of multipolar global power system, globalizations, and the global issues of energy security and terrorism have forced the UN and EU to reform their structure and policies. The purpose of this paper is to compare the development of UN peacekeeping and EU foreign policy since the end of the Cold War and highlight influential common factors that are responsible for these organizations’ reformation. Furthermore, based on the research and available data, the paper evaluates effectiveness and efficiency of the UN and EU for maintaining collective security and stability on a global level and raises the question over the effectiveness of the UN’s peacekeeping programs and EU’s foreign policies. The United Nations and Its peacekeeping Operations The United States, the U.S.S.R., the United Kingdom, France, and China founded the United Nations in order to maintain the peace and security on a global level after the end of the World War II, on 24 October, 1945. These nations created the Security Council and established themselves as permanent members with the unique power of veto resolutions. In addition to these five permanent members, there are ten non-permanent members in the Security Council which are changed every two years and elected on an impartial geographic basis. There are currently 192 Member States of the United Nations (The UN Security Council 2012). The idea behind the formation of the UN was to avoid violent conflicts between countries and it is the fundamental aim that has been the base of the Security Council (UN falls victim 1992). Over the years, the UN peacekeeping operations have consisted deployments into comparably low-risk circumstances like, truce inspecting. The UN peacekeeping operations were few during the organization’s initial 50 years, and operations were hardly sanctioned with the expectation of the implementation of forceful means (Schaefer 2007). However, since the end of the Cold War era, the UN peacekeeping tasks have become more regular and most of the time, they consist of heavier deployments with higher risk to the peacekeepers because the chances of receiving support from local governments or local activists are mostly rare, and such operations have ended up with mixed results. Recent UN peace operations have extended from low-intensity military deployments to protect the flow of humanitarian aid to the reinforcement of cease-fires and, when required, authoritative support in the reformation of war-prone regions or failed states (Schaefer 2007). Since the end of the Cold War, the Security Council of UN has authorized over 45 new peacekeeping operations (Schaefer 2007).The UN peacekeeping operations after the end of Cold War are mainly categorized between first, second, and third generation operations. First generation operations in the early 1990s were limited in monitoring tasks. For example, after the Iraq War, the UN was involved in monitoring the demilitarized zones between Kuwait and Iraq (Brahm 2005). On the other hand, second and third generation operations have been largely involved range of tasks including, monitoring ceasefires, ensuring safe flow of humanitarian aid, and assistance in rebuilding conflict states, training judicial and security entities, establishing democracy, conducting elections and even taking temporarily control of the administration of the state to ensure long lasting peace and stability in region (Brahm 2005). The UN had only 10000 troops during the first generation operations. The number dramatically increased over 85000 by the end of 1993. These troops were mainly involved in second generation operations. The UN Transition Assistance in Namibia, the UN Transitional Authority in Cambodia, and the UN Monitory Mission in El Salvador are some of the examples of second generation operations (Osmancavusoglu 2000, p. 2-3). UN Transitions Missions in failed states like, Haiti, Angola, Nicaragua, Rwanda, Mozambique, Sierra Leone, UN Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo, and UN Mission in Eritrea, Ethiopia, and East Timor are some of the examples of third generation operations (Brahm 2005; Paris 1997, p. 54-55). Since the post-Cold War era, the UN has been challenged by new serious issues such as, terrorism, poverty, infectious new diseases, and growing threat of proliferation of nuclear and other mass destructive weapons (The UN in the 21st Century 2014). Besides, the second and third generation operations of the UN reflect the characteristic changes in violent conflicts from interstate conflicts between countries to intrastate conflicts within countries (Schaefer 2007). The global community after the early 1990s has increasingly become prone to civil conflicts as all of 30 major violent conflicts occurred since 1995 are intrastate conflicts (Paris 1997, p. 54-56). The end of the Cold War triggered ethnic conflicts and aggressive nationalism, mainly in the regions formerly under communist and authoritarian rulings. It is closely associated with the sudden departure of the East-West rivalry that had frozen long-lasting internal and regional disputes. The collapse of Soviet Union and emergence of globalization resulted in growing competition for global recognition and self-determination, triggering new generation of civil turmoil in former Soviet states such as Georgia, Yugoslavia, Azerbaijan, and Armenia. Similarly, a new course of “failed states” in Africa rapidly rose in global politics in consequences of more than 20 years of financial decay, deficient state politics, natural disasters, corruption, and violent civil conflicts, leading the collapse of poor countries like, Somalia, Zaire, Sudan, and Rwanda (Latif 2000, p. 38-39). Such failed states in Africa and Asia have promptly emerged as ‘hidden shelters’ and ‘recruiting hubs’ for international terrorist organizations like, Al Qaeda and ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) (Berman, 2014). In other words, complex cycle of intrastate conflicts, growing inequality, failed states, poverty, and terrorism, and growing competition between developing states for acquiring nuclear weapons and lethal arms proliferation are considered as major pressures responsible for the developments of UN peacekeeping operations since the end of the Cold War. Critical Evaluation: Effectiveness of the UN Policies and Its Peacekeeping Measures Since the foundation of the UN, it has achieved success in various fields in order to maintain peace and stability in the world. The first and preeminent success of the UN is in prevention of the occurrence of any further world wars. It played a remarkable role in nuclear non-proliferation. The total extinction of colonialism and imperialism from the world is another remarkable success of the UN. Agencies of the UN like UNICEF (United Nations Childrens Rights and Emergency Relief Organization), UNESCO (The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization), and WHO (World Health Organization) have actively participated to improve the social, economic and health sector across the world. The UN has successfully negotiated 172 peaceful settlements since 1945, which have ended regional conflicts (Dilipchandra 2013). Despite these successes, the UN has failed to establish itself as the universal working organization. It has failed to solve the conflicts between Israel-Palestine, and India- Pakistan (Dilipchandra 2013). Since 1945, there were so many drastic changes happened in the world. The world got a new face with the fall of the Berlin Wall, the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the rising of new economical powers such as, Germany and Japan due to globalization. But ironically, the Security Council still represents the geopolitical realities of 1945 and not of today. There were 51 Member States in the UN in 1945 which are now increased by nearly four times the original number, i.e. 192. However, there are only 15 members in the Security Council, which means fewer than 8 percent of the total members are on the Security Council body. Also, Asia represents more than half of the world’s population with 53 Member States in the UN. Despite its significant growth, Asia is currently led in the Security Council by a number equivalent to only one-fifth of the Member States, i.e. China and two non-permanent members (Japan and the United Nations 2011). There are massive drawbacks in fundamental structure of the UN, which need to reform. The UN is not often cautious in the protection of its employees. New challenges continue to present for the organization, which include challenges of technology, fundamentalism, preservation of human rights, and various allegations in diplomacy (Kirby 1995). The effectiveness of peacekeeping operations of the United Nations has always been dubious. Especially, the third generation peacekeeping operations of the UN in countries like, Rwanda, Bosnia and Somalia significantly failed due to the UN’s overextension of its management capacity, its political influence, and its resources. Some UN members can deny financial and military assistance to the UN’s peacekeeping operations if such operations threaten the political or economic interests of member states. It can lead to the shortage of funds for implementation of effective operation (Osmancavusoglu 2000, p. 2-4). The reluctance of Russia to intervene in Syrian peacekeeping operations is a great example of it. Russia has openly supported Syrian government of Basher Al Assad as Syria is a long term customer of Russian weapons and military equipments (Bayramov 2014). Due to the insufficient funds and lack of support, the UN drastically failed to prevent civil conflicts in Libya and mass killings of opposition members by Syrian regime (Vale 2012). The failure of UN in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Somalia caused massive drop in the number of UN troops from 85000 in 1993 to mere 15000 by the late 1990s. In 2010, developed countries like, Canada, New Zealand, Australia had supplied less than 10 troops for the UN operations. Even the US deployed only 13 troops including 56 police for the UN peacekeeping operations. The budget for peacekeeping operations had increased from $1.6 billion in 2000 to $7.50 billion for 2011 (Pugh 2011 p. 397-398). However, the UN members have regularly reduced their allocated funds for the UN operations. For instance, the US reduced its contribution of 32% of total UN budget in 1993 to almost 20% in 2008. Consequently, the UN peacekeeping budget in 2010 was almost $ 4 billion short in contribution, affecting the effectiveness of UN in maintaining global peace and security (Pugh 2011 p. 397-399). The fact that the UN peacekeeping missions are heavily dependent on the assistance of its permanent members, especially the United States, has significantly weakened the UN. It is seen that the UN peacekeeping operations have achieved success only when the US has supported operations (Vale 2012). Due to the over-dependency of the UN on Western powers, Muslim and other developing nations have always seen it through suspicious eyes. Consequently, the organizations like, the Arab League, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the Islamic Conference, and the Organization of African Unity (OAU) have played minor or no role in the UN peacekeeping operations (Paris 1997, p. 62) In response to 9/11 terror attacks, the UN Security Council implemented Resolution 1373, which enforced enormous legal constraints of UN members to follow the measures designated to cut terrorist recruitment, financing, supply, and travel (Comras et al. 2010). However, the UN’s counter-terrorism measures proved to be ineffective due to basic flaws in UN’s funding mechanism and inability of developing universal definition of terrorism and measures against terrorism. For instance, the global economy is mainly governed by the World Bank, the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs (GATT), and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), 3 major institutions which have emerged in a parallel multilateral system and practically taken over as the financial counterpart of the UN Security Council on an international level. Due to the lack of coordination between the UN’s ECOSOC (Economic and Social Council) and these major financial institutions, economic aid or funding allocated through these organizations to failed states or poor countries for peacekeeping and rebuilding purposes are highly misused or support terrorist organizations (UN falls victim 1992). Furthermore, the major cause of failure of majority of recent peacekeeping operations of the UN lies in its deficient policy of promoting liberal internationalism in conflict states through democracy and capitalism. It is true that democratic states usually don’t go to war against each other, and it is considered as a sensible solution for establishing political stability in conflict-prone states. Also, the economic security can be achieved through promotion of capitalism and free trade policies in such countries. However, the paradox of democracy and capitalism is that both eventually trigger political and economic unrest through growing competition among various political parties for acquiring power and growing economic inequality through capitalism (Paris 1997, p. 73-78). The failure of peace-building operations of the UN in Angola, Namibia, Bosnia, Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Mozambique are great example of it (Paris 1997, p. 64-72). The UN’s recent peace missions are proved to be ineffective mainly due to the UN’s inability to reform these fundamental flaws in its “post-peacekeeping operations” for establishing political and economic stability and order in conflict affected states. The European Union and Its Foreign Policies Compare to the United Nations (UN), the European Union (EU) is relatively newcomer in the field of peace-building operations. Even though the EU member states have long been involved in the UN peacekeeping operations by participating in a variety of duties either under UN’s administration or through multilateral peace forces led by the Security Council and constituting almost 42% of the UN’s overall budget for peacekeeping missions, they had never perform such peacekeeping operations under the EU until recent years (Missiroli 2003, p. 493-494). Basically, the EU is a politico-economic organization of 28 European member states. The EU functions through a mechanism of supranational institutions such as, the European Commission, the European Council, the Council of the European Union, the European Central Bank, European Parliament, and the Court of Justice of the European Union and the members states’ collectively negotiated policies and decisions (Briney 2015). Similar to the United Nations, the EU went through radical reformation in its foreign policies and approach towards peace-building operations after the end of the Cold War. The end of the Cold War led dramatic changes in global issues. Transformation of Eastern Europe into Westernized capitalist system, growing threat of global terrorism, and intrastate conflicts like, Yugoslavian crisis forced the EU to reform its conventional political structure and foreign policies. Here it can be noted that, similar to the UN, intrastate conflicts, terrorism, and changing nature of global politics in terms of multipolarity, globalization, and energy security can be characterized as common pressures for the recent developments of EU policies (Hopi 2012, p. 7-8). Basically, the end of the Cold War triggered breakdown of the European security structure. The concepts of West, East, communism, and liberalism in international politics were replaced by American superpower, emerging developing powers like, India, China, and Russia, and growing capitalism in combination of rising financial inequality, political unrests, and intrastate ethnic conflicts. Such threats encouraged the danger to collective security and global peace in the form of radical Islamic terrorism, nuclear weapons proliferation, and the failed regions like Balkans, Kosovo, and Bosnia and Herzegovina (Hopi 2012, p. 6-8). In the last century, the EU’s foreign policies were mainly limited to the European states. However, in recent years, it covers vast aspects like, promoting democracy, protecting human rights laws, the protection of the environment, encouraging nuclear disarmament, and combat against global terrorism (Hopi 2012, p. 9-10). Similar to the UN, after the 9/11 attacks and recent terrorist attacks in Madrid, the EU has emphasized on the increased cooperation against terrorism among the member states and with international organizations like, the UN. Currently, the EU is actively involved in counter-terrorism programs like, training Iraqi and Pakistani security forces, maintain the peace in the Afghanistan, the Balkans, and confict-prone regions of Africa. Also, the EU is leading in nuclear disarmament programs and persuading countries like, Iran not to develop nuclear weapons. The EU is also highly concern about failed states such as, Congo, Sudan, and Somalia, and keeping watchful eye on current politico-economic scenarios in such countries. In recent, the EU is mainly concern over situations in failed states in Africa and western Asia due to growing threats to Europe from radical Islamic terrorist organizations from these regions (Keohane 2005, p. 5-6). The EU has also used economic and political sanctions as effective weapons against countries violating international laws and order and causing threat to the global security. Till the date, the EU has used various types of political and economic sanctions for more than 33 times to address various issues, including recent sanctions against Russia for crisis in Ukraine, and sanctions against Syria and Iraq for threatening global security (Esfandiary 2013, p. 1-2). After the end of Cold War and collapse of Soviet Union, the EU gained a revived self-confidence in developing its relations with Eastern European states to secure own political and economic interests. In order to develop relations with Eastern neighbors, the EU launched European Neighborhood Policy (ENP) in 2003. Through the process of Europeanization, the EU extended its member states further in northern and Eastern Europe (Purkovic 2012, p. 2-3). Through the process of Europeanization, the EU successfully promoted western model of Europe in terms of open trade market and democratic political institutions. The major cause of EU’s ENP is associated with its energy needs. The EU is heavily dependent on Russia for the natural gas as almost 55% of its total gas imports come from the Russian Federation. With growing tensions between the EU and Russia over Latvia and Ukrainian Crisis, Russia has threatened to cut-off gas supply to Europe (Westphal 2014, p. 2-5). In order to prevent potential energy crisis securing alternative energy sources has become essential for the EU. The integration of central Asian states like, Armenia, Azerbaijan (which possess petroleum reserves), and other neighbouring countries like, Algeria, Belarus, Ukraine, Georgia, Israel, Lebanon, Moldova, Jordan, Libya, Morocco, Syria, Egypt, and Tunisia in its ENP highlights the strategic reformation of EU’s foreign policies in order to secure own interests (Purkovic 2012, p. 4-6). Critical Evaluation: Effectiveness of the EU’s Foreign Policies Even though the EU peacekeeping operations have increased since the end of the Cold War, it is also important to see that EU missions still remain very limited in scope compare to the UN and US peace-building operations. It is mainly due to the fact that particular member states are not always keen on investing their capabilities and national resources within the EU operations. The approach of the Great Britain and France to act autonomously in peacekeeping operations in Sierra Leone and Ivory Coast instead of through the EU integration reflects the limitation of EU’s peacekeeping operations. in other words, the lack of own military and supply sources have significantly lowered the possibility of emergence of the EU as a leading global peacekeeping actor. Also, the ineffectiveness of the EU as a peacekeeping institution has further highlighted in its failure to prevent Russian military intervention in Georgia in 2008 and in Ukraine in 2014 (Missiroli 2003, p. 500-502). Besides major disputes among member states regarding ‘burden sharing’ for peacekeeping operations, the deficient political structure of the EU in which executive authorities possess excessive powers while state parliaments remain weaker has further damaged the EU’s ability to conduct effective peacekeeping operations. (Miller & Lunn 2014, p. 18-20). Also, recent economic crisis in Greece and democratic deficiency in the structure of EU, and growing concern over transparency and legitimacy of EU has lowered the support to EU among its citizens and triggered growing skeptic attitude among them towards EU’s policies. Besides, the efficiency of EU’s counter-terrorism operations is also highly questionable. Generally, the EU doesn’t support the US concept of a ‘war on terror’ and tends to criticize the US approach as highly military driven and overactive. The EU has adopted soft approach of sanctions and political pressure (Keohane 2005, p. 7-8). The European governments are highly worried about the consequence of their anti-terrorism policies on their Muslim population which constitutes around 16 to 21 million of overall EU’s population (Keohane 2005, p. 8-9). The EU members posses their own intelligence system, legislations against terrorism, investigation process, and emergency response, which are often seen contradictory with one another. For instance, Netherlands, Belgium, and Germany have weak terrorism laws which make it difficult for suspects to keep in jail for long period. In the UK, where terrorism laws are strict, it is the federal secret agencies that control the state’s antiterrorism operations, while in Spain and France, a special anti-terrorism judges investigate and prosecute terrorists (Keohane 2005, p. 5-6). In a way, due to the lack of consistency and universality in anti-terrorist programs of the member states, it becomes difficult to integrate local systems on the European level, affecting the effectiveness and responsiveness of anti-terrorist operations of the EU. Conclusion In conclusion, both the UN and EU have played a crucial role in peacekeeping operations on a global and regional level. The end of cold war is marked as the transformation period for both the organizations in terms of their peacekeeping operations and foreign policies. The emergence of global terrorism, growing intrastate conflicts, rising nuclear proliferation, transformation of global political system from unipolarity to multipolarity in recent years, globalization, and growing economic inequality are some of the major common pressures which triggered developments in both the institutions. Despite radical reformation, the UN and EU possess significant deficiencies in their structure and flaws in their policies. The effectiveness of their peacekeeping operations is rather limited. In order to preserve collective security and global peace, it is necessary for both these crucial organizations to reform their policies and adopt effective measures to conquer present flaws in their functional framework. 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