Peacekeeping

United Nations peacekeeping is a frustrating exercise.Getting the forces together is messy and sometimes ill-coordinated. Finding the funds to pay for the deployment and maintenance of the troops is even more trying. The generous, like Canada, get hit harder.Military officers themselves are often very ambivalent about peacekeeping because it is akin to police duty rather than to regular combat duty for which armies are trained. Peacekeeping is therefore sometimes regarded as a distortion of the primary military role.

Iris Straitt had some sage parting words for her son. "Enjoy those cookies, darling," she said with a wave, as Richard Straitt, a National Guardsman based in Dundalk, walked to a bus Thursday morning, the first steps of his yearlong deployment to Egypt's Sinai Peninsula. "I love ya," she added softly, the words almost lost in the bustle outside the Jerome M. Grollman Armory, where 85 members of the Maryland Army National Guard's 1st Battalion, 175th Infantry Regiment, had just been given a send-off by Gov. Martin O'Malley and a group of Army brass.

Washington. -- Peacekeeping continues to be the centerpiece of the debate on foreign policy between the Clinton administration and its Republican critics because it is the centerpiece of the administration's ''Defense Revolution.''That ''revolution'' features new conceptions of American national security and national interests, and new ideas about the appropriate use of U.S. military forces. According to those conceptions, U.S. national security is threatened by any conflict anywhere, so ''peacekeeping'' is always appropriate in situations short of real war.A number of those new conceptions are authoritatively described in a handbook called ''Peace Operations'' released by the Department of the Army last December.

What has happened to democracies at war? Democratic nations used to avoid wars - but when they did engage, as in the two world wars and the Cold War, they usually emerged victorious. Now, however, democracies are mixed up in wars everywhere, and they will win few of them. Democracy is the problem, and the problem is getting worse. Historically, when democracies decided to fight, they would bring more allies and larger economies. Thus, they fought fewer wars but won more often.

Geneva, Switzerland. -- Item 1: In August, 1993, the Italians accuse the Americans of behaving like Rambos in Somalia.Item 2: In 1947, the United Nations' Military Staff Committee prepared a proposal which the Big Five -- the U.S., China, the Soviet Union, France and Britain -- all agreed to, on the strength and size of a U.N. Force: Air Force: 750 bombers, 500 fighters, 250 others. Naval Force: 3 battleships, 6 carriers, 12 cruisers, 33 destroyers, 64 frigates, 24 minesweepers and 14 submarines.

COLLEGE PARK -- Waging war has always been a harrowing business. But some social scientists studying the Army say that keeping the peace can be nearly as stressful as combat for American soldiers -- and also for their spouses and children.U.S. peacekeepers are dispatched on short notice with little instruction about local languages and culture.Trained for combat, the soldiers serve as heavily armed police. Motivated by patriotism, they can risk their lives in regional squabbles where U.S. interests aren't clearly at stake.

WASHINGTON -- It should be clear by now that a major flaw in peacekeeping operations has been the failure to plan for and invest in the peace that must follow a military intervention. Haiti, Somalia, Rwanda, Bosnia, Kosovo, East Timor, Sierra Leone -- the list goes on. U.S. interventions in this new era, with their ongoing political, economic, and humanitarian ramifications, pose new problems for Americans. When the United States has reluctantly deployed its forces, as in Bosnia or Kosovo, there has been early and heavy emphasis on "exit strategy."

Washington. -- About the same time the Clinton administration announced its decision to commit U.S. troops to a U.N. peacekeeping force in Bosnia to implement any peace agreement, administration officials also indicated that some American forces will be left behind in Somalia to join U.N. peacekeeping forces in that country, after the bulk of U.S. forces have withdrawn in April.These are important decisions; not only because they engage the United States more deeply in the conflicts of the former Yugoslavia and Somalia but also because the Clinton administration joins an accelerating worldwide trend to multinational peacekeeping under U.N. auspices and command.

Ryan E. Dunham of Eldersburg recently returned from a six-month deployment with the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU).He embarked aboard a ship of the USS Kearsage Amphibious Ready Group from Camp Lejeune, N.C.With fellow Marines from the MEU's other ships, he participated in an amphibious landing at Litohoro, Greece, to deliver the first American troops in support of a NATO/United Nations peacekeeping force in Kosovo and assisted in humanitarian efforts...

UNITED NATIONS -- The Security Council authorized yesterday an extensive United Nations peacekeeping operation in Darfur aimed at protecting civilians and aid workers in the violence-racked region of Sudan. The council voted 15-0 to begin sending a joint U.N.-African Union force of up to 26,000 troops and police to Darfur before the end of the year to quell the violence that has killed more than 200,000 people and displaced more than 2 million in the past four years. It will take a year to muster the full force, and the cost will be about $2 billion, said peacekeeping chief Jean-Marie Guehenno, who added that a substantial number of troops will arrive in Darfur before year's end. Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon called the resolution "historic and unprecedented," and said it would help "improve the lives of the people of the region and close this tragic chapter in Sudan's history."

MIAMI BEACH, Fla. - At a recent forum of the New America Foundation, scholar Walter Russell Mead reminded the audience that Israelis - and by extension all Jews - and Palestinians are the two peoples most betrayed by the history of the 20th century, albeit in vastly different scales. The U.S. response thus far to Israel's military operations in the Gaza Strip suggests that this double dose of human betrayal will be every bit the geopolitical phenomenon in the 21st century as it was in the 20th.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti -- Girls as young as 13 were having sex with U.N. peacekeepers for as little as $1. Five young Haitian women who followed soldiers back to Sri Lanka were forced into brothels or polygamous households. They have been rescued and brought home to warn others of the dangers of foreign liaisons. The young mother of a peacekeeper's child had to send the toddler to live with relatives in the countryside after other children and parents taunted him with the nickname "Little Minustah," the French acronym for the United Nations mission here.

NAIROBI, Kenya -- Armed men killed at least 10 African Union soldiers and seriously wounded seven in the deadliest strike against peacekeeping troops in the troubled Darfur region since they were deployed in 2004. A rebel faction in Darfur was thought to have carried out the assault, which began shortly after dark Saturday. Rebel groups had been fighting Sudanese government troops in the area in recent days. African Union officials said they could not comment on the suspected identity of the gunmen until an investigation is complete.

UNITED NATIONS -- The Security Council authorized yesterday an extensive United Nations peacekeeping operation in Darfur aimed at protecting civilians and aid workers in the violence-racked region of Sudan. The council voted 15-0 to begin sending a joint U.N.-African Union force of up to 26,000 troops and police to Darfur before the end of the year to quell the violence that has killed more than 200,000 people and displaced more than 2 million in the past four years. It will take a year to muster the full force, and the cost will be about $2 billion, said peacekeeping chief Jean-Marie Guehenno, who added that a substantial number of troops will arrive in Darfur before year's end. Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon called the resolution "historic and unprecedented," and said it would help "improve the lives of the people of the region and close this tragic chapter in Sudan's history."

UNITED NATIONS -- Sudan accepted a combined United Nations and African Union peacekeeping force yesterday of up to 23,000 troops and police to stabilize the war-torn Darfur region. But U.N. diplomats, cautious after months of waffling by the Sudanese government, were not ready to celebrate. The agreement came days before a Security Council mission to Khartoum to press for an end to the conflict in Darfur. At the end of a two-day summit of Sudanese, U.N. and African Union officials in Ethiopia, Sudan also agreed on the need for an immediate cease-fire and talks with rebel groups to end four years of fighting.

BRUSSELS, Belgium -- After a week of confusion and missteps, Europe pledged to add up to 6,900 troops to the U.N. peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon, officials said at an emergency meeting of European Union foreign ministers here yesterday. But the officials cautioned that the force would not be used to disarm Hezbollah. That job, if it is done at all, will be left to the Lebanese government and army. The international force, joined by Lebanese national soldiers, is the solution that world powers agreed to after a month of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, an Islamist militia that dominates southern Lebanon.

WASHINGTON -- President Clinton, bowing to opposition from conservatives, has decided to drop the controversial nomination Morton H. Halperin as assistant secretary of defense for peacekeeping, officials here say.The White House was expected to announce today that Mr. Halperin, 55, a former National Security Council staffer and civil libertarian, has asked that his name be withdrawn from consideration.Administration officials said the Pentagon also will eliminate the new peacekeeping post, which had been created by outgoing Defense Secretary Les Aspin when officials expected heavy U.S. participation in such operations.

When United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan meets with European leaders, as he is expected to do today, he must secure commitments for enough troops to field the promised peacekeeping force in south Lebanon and empower it to do the job. The force can't be robust in name only. The duration of the cease-fire between Israel and Hezbollah militia fighters depends on a strong, credible force. And freeing Lebanon from Israel's air and sea blockade won't occur without those peacekeepers on the ground.