In light of the apparently successful recent operations legitimized through the United Nations, major efforts have emerged to include multilateral efforts under the general rubric of peacekeeping as it has evolved under U.N. auspices. The backdrop of this interest is the emergence of ethno-religious and nationalist conflicts in the former socialist world that roil the tranquillity of the post-cold war peace. Secretary Boutros-Ghali distinguishes three kinds of actions that might be undertaken in the future. The first is preventive diplomacy, defined as "action to prevent disputes from arising between parties, to prevent existing disputes from escalating into conflicts and to limit the spread of the latter when they occur.' 37 Preventive diplomacy, in other words, occurs before conflicting parties come to blows and seeks to avoid military conflict. His second category is peacemaking , [38] by which he means "action to bring hostile parties to agreement, essentially through peaceful means such as those foreseen in Chapter VI" of the U.N. Charter. These activities, which presumably occur while fighting is ongoing, include the ability to investigate and to make suggestions. Mediation, such as that conducted by former U.S. Secretary of State Cyrus Vance in Yugoslavia, is an example of peacemaking so defined. This definition is too restrictive. First, it only deals with the lowest end of possible actions that can be taken to deal with warring combatants and to create peace. Second, states of war, and especially internal wars fought over control of government, are often not amenable to negotiated settlement. Unless a situation is so deadlocked that both sides realize continuation is futile, peacemaking so defined is unlikely to succeed. Third, the prospect of failure is especially great in highly intractable, bloody and visible situations such as Bosnia and Herzegovina, where international public opinion (if such exists in a literal sense) demands alleviation of suffering. Moreover, the prospects for situations akin to Bosnia are great in the future, and this form of peacemaking, or what might alternatively be called diplomatic peacemaking, is unlikely to be sufficiently robust to treat situations effectively (make peace). For the truly desperate, intractable conflicts attendant to the process of national self-determination currently occurring in the former socialist (second) world and potentially in the Third World as well, peace-enforcement as previously described (the employment of military forces to create a cease-fire between warring parties) is the more relevant concept and the one of interest to the American (and other) military establishments. This form, which might be designated as military peacemaking, is synonymous with the American concept of peace-enforcement and is clearly more difficult, if more relevant. The problems with peace-enforcement are difficult for at least four obvious and preliminary reasons, each of which interact to make entrance into peace-enforcement an adventure to be undertaken only with extreme caution. At this point, these difficulties are introduced to illustrate the problems. The differences between peacekeeping and peace-enforcement are expanded in the next section. First, there is the nature of the situations for which military peacemaking may be deemed relevant. Normally, they will reflect deep-seated animosities with historical, ethnic, religious and other hatreds that layer upon one another as countries are torn apart and regenerated. The problems that underlay the violence that is to be suppressed are political and ultimately solvable only through political agreements that cannot be imposed by outsiders. Imposed cease-fires may be the precondition to negotiate political settlements; since the absence of ability or interest in negotiating is why fighting is occurring, it is hard to know where effectively to enter and break the vicious circle. Second, the fact that peacemakers are needed suggests that one or more opponents to conflict do not desire peace more than the continuation of war. What this means is that the peacemakers are likely to be unwelcome by some or all of those on whom they seek to enforce peace. This certainly will make the peace enforcer's job more difficult. Both (or all) of the combatants may be attacking the peacemakers as well as one another; the analogy to a policeman intervening in a domestic dispute may be appropriate. It is not clear, for instance, that an international peacemaking force sent to create a cease-fire in Bosnia and Herzegovina would be greeted with anything but a hail of Serbian bullets. Third, peacemaking may require troops with some specialized capabilities beyond those of peacekeepers, such as considerably more offensive capability and more political sophistication to recognize potential unintended effects of their actions. These forces will presumably have to fight their way into the combat zone and, in some cases, use force physically to separate the combatants. As such, they will be called upon to engage in offensive actions where mistaken action can worsen the situation. Moreover, they will likely inflict and suffer casualties, possibly making them less welcome and undercutting domestic support back home for their activities. The requirements of the Weinberger Doctrine [39] -- to the degree its precepts remain relevant-could well be challenged as operations unfold. Quite obviously, these forces will have to be equipped and trained differently, and they will have to be considerably larger and more capable than conventional peacekeepers. To provide competent peace enforcers will require special skills for the troops (for instance, negotiating and foreign language competence), and provision of adequate firepower and defensive capability to protect themselves from hostile action by those they seek to help. Given these factors, they must also be prepared for a level of ingratitude from the target population of which the Vietnam experience is only a faint reflection. Moreover, peace-enforcement will be much more costly than peacekeeping or diplomatic peacemaking. Certainly U.N. resources are inadequate for such actions, which may explain why the Secretary General adopts a much more modest and inexpensive conception of peacemaking. Diplomatic peacemaking, in other words, may be all the U.N. can undertake realistically. It will thus fall to the participating peace enforcer nations to pick up the tab: Out of whose budgets will the money come? Fourth, peace-enforcement will not solve the underlying problems in most areas of potential application. It may have been possible in 1992 to impose a peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina through the insertion of adequate force, but a cease-fire so imposed would not address the underlying animosities. Since the peace enforcers will eventually leave, the problems may simply revert after their departure. Peace enforcers, in other words, had better be prepared for disappointments after their part of the operation is concluded. They may be able to create conditions favorable for follow-on peacekeepers in some instances; in other situations, they may not. [40] Put another way, a short-term objective-convoying food in Somalia-may be easily achievable. The long-term objective-a stable authority in that country-may not be. Boutros-Ghali adds peacekeeping, which he defines as "the deployment of a United Nations presence in the field, hitherto with the consent of all the parties concerned, involving United Nations military and/or police personnel and frequently civilians as well. Peace-keeping is a technique that expands the possibility for both the prevention of conflict and the making of peace." [41] This definition expands the concept in a dangerous way. Traditional peacekeeping was feasible because two conditions adhered before peacekeepers were inserted: fighting had ceased, and both or all parties preferred the presence of the peacekeepers to their absence (the peacekeepers are invited guests). Under those circumstances, the prototypical peacekeeper arose: the lightly armed, defensively oriented observer force that physically separated former combatants and observed their adherence to the cease-fire while negotiations for peace occurred. [42] The danger is in thinking peacekeeping forces can be inserted into peace-enforcement situations; that somehow the situations represent a lineal extension of one another. Peace-enforcement requires, as argued, very different forces qualitatively and quantitatively than does peacekeeping. The result of confusing roles and forces has been most evident in the placing of the UNPROFOR peacekeepers in a war zone in Sarajevo, where the peacekeepers were placed in a peace-enforcement situation and have provenunsurprisingly-not to be up to a task for which they are unprepared. An Agenda for Peace adds the need to engage in peace building, defined as "action to identify and support structures which will tend to strengthen and solidify peace in order to avoid a relapse into conflict." [43] While this is certainly a noncontroversial idea, in the context of Bosnia and Herzegovina-like situations, finding such structures is likely to be very difficult and, given that situations arise in places suffering from some level of economic misery, expensive as well.  It is possible to rearrange these concepts and to array them as tools applicable to various stages of conflict, as is done in Table 1. Table 1. Stages of Conflict and Tools Available Conflict Stages Tools Pre-War Preventive Diplomacy Wartime Diplomatic Peacemaking Peace-Enforcement/Military Peacemaking Post-War Peacekeeping Peace Building What is important about this array is understanding which tool is appropriate at what stage of conflict. The critical threshold is between peace-enforcement and peacekeeping. It is crucial to the evolution of multilateral efforts that the proper distinctions and their implications for forces, situations, and the like be understood. Two critical variables are involved in these distinctions. The first is the existence of peace (the lack of military hostilities) and acceptance of these conditions by the antagonists as desirable. When those conditions hold, then peacekeeping and peace building may be possible at reasonable cost. When peace is present but the desire for peace is questionable, then preventive diplomacy or U.N.-defined peace-enforcement are the applicable tools. When peace does not exist, then the more arduous form of peace-enforcement is relevant. The second variable is the nature of the tool, military or political, that can be effective. In simple Clausewitzian terms, of course, all military or potentially military situations are political in nature and the Liddell-Hart "better state of the peace is only achievable through political processes. In this circumstance, military force is relevant as a condition to facilitate political processes, not as a substitute for them. Military force can act as a precondition for enduring peace (short-term objective); it cannot create such a peace (long-term objective). Of the sequential activities, the polar ends are the most overtly political: preventive diplomacy, diplomatic peacemaking, and peace building. To repeat, both of these presuppose that either war has not broken out or that it has been terminated. To be effective, negotiated peace must be seen as preferable to war. Peace-enforcement, on the other hand, occurs when combat is ongoing and either or both sides prefers its continuation. The insertion of forces to stop combat may be effective in making the continuation of violence impossible; it cannot, in and of itself, create the conditions for lasting peace, which involve the political embrace of peace as more attractive than war. The insertion of outside force may break the cycle of violence and convince the combatants that resistance to the peace enforcers is more painful than compliance to an imposed peace. Since these conflicts are normal very deeply rooted and desperate, the shock effect of outside force may prove to be no more than a respite between rounds of fighting. Back to Table of Contents Peacekeeping, Peacemaking, and Peace-Enforcement: The US Role in the New International Order Back to SSI List of Issues Back to MagWeb Magazine List © Copyright 1993 by US Army War College. This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other articles from military history and related magazines are available at http://www.magweb.com