Peacekeeping Forces in the State

When considering foreign peacekeepers in regards to the state, one must understand the motivations of both the state(s) providing peacekeepers and the state(s) in need of peacekeepers. These motivations can be analyzed through each major IR perspective – Realism, Liberalism, Radicalism, and Constructivism.

 Through a liberal view, the state is a process, made up of competing and fluid government and societal interests. Liberals would argue that a state should send peacekeepers into another state primarily because of the moral repercussions of not providing aid. Society plays a significant role in this process, often engaging in protests and rallies in order to raise awareness, in hopes that the government will respond and provide aid. This process can be observed with the genocide in Darfur, as the public has engaged in protests, fundraising endeavors, and movies – all in hopes to dictate U.S. foreign policy.

Constructivists see the state in a similar lens – as having been shaped by society and ideas, constantly in flux. This view, which is similar to liberalism, would likely also draw open morals in order to justify sending peacekeepers into another nation.

Realists oppose these two perspectives, believing each state to be a sovereign actor, motivated by a single national interest. This national interest seeks primarily to ensure security for the state. For this reason, a realist would argue that a state only sends peacekeepers into chaotic regions when it is in their best interests – quelling violence and creating stability in another state ensures that the security of the more powerful state won’t be threatened.

 The Radical view of the state is that the state is merely a pawn for the larger goals of the bourgeoisie in that particular state and for the international capitalist structure. Radicals would believe that a state’s entry into peacekeeping would be motivated by the societal elite and its collective desire to obtain a financial benefit – the general will of the public wouldn’t play a role. For example, if a country in the Middle East, rich in oil, were to erupt in chaos, the United States would likely send peacekeepers into the state in order to ensure stability. Radicals would see this action as being motivated by the United States’ desire to reap the benefits of a stable, oil-rich nation, not as a moral act or as an attempt to ensure its own security.

Additionally, when one is analyzing peacekeeping forces in the state, it is necessary to approach the effects of such forces on the state receiving aid, rather than  simply the one giving it. To realists, a state’s acceptance of another’s military occupation is an affirmation of that particular state’s weakness; in other words, the state receiving peacekeepers acknowledges its weakness and by default allies itself with the nation lending its peacekeeping forces. The receiving nation does so in an attempt to gain stability and security from the stronger state, with sacrifices of its own international power in return.

In the liberal perspective, receiving states are those with civil unrest beyond governmental control. These situations would arise from contention between individual groups, which hold powerful sway over the policies of the state. Such cases most likely involve decisions made outside the realm of the receiving state, but by other states collaborating in international organizations. This encroachment on a state’s soveignty holds legitimacy under the premise that governments of receiving states are destabilized/biased beyond rational/responsible decision-making. The decision to deploy troops into Sudan, as an [overused-- sorry!] example, was by no means made by the leader of the Sudanese government, Omar-al-Bashir. It was instead legislated by the UN, which determined that the Sudanese government was too involved with those committing crimes against humanity to be in a position to allow or not to allow peacekeeping forces into the Darfurian region.  

Radicals, like Realists, would simply state that a state receiving peacekeepers would be defined by that act– its receipt of troops would affirm its position in the periphery stratum. Receiving states are thus the individuals exploited by the donating states.

Lastly, constructivist thought would be more concerned with the effects of peacekeeping forces. A body of people from one state would, in most cases, hold different traditions/cultures/ideals than those of the state that they are occupying. In this manner, the people of receiving states would more likely face new ideological forces that could work with, against, or transform completely their identities. Such reactions would obviously depend on extenuating circumstances, such as the duration of the peacekeepers’ stay, the differences in culture/ideas, the extent of the civil unrest within the receiving state, et cetera. Constructivists would say that the westernization of Japan is largely (almost completely) attributable to its occupation by US peacekeeping forces after World War II.

Peacekeeping Forces in the International System

The role of foreign peacekeepers in the international system changes with respect to each major IR theory– Realism, Liberalism, and Radicalism. The demand for peacekeeping forces as a moral imperative in certain circumstances has also become a norm of the international system.

Realists, seeing the world as inherently anarchic, would view peacekeepers as a tool to strengthen power, both politically and militarily. Because of the anarchic nature of the world, nations are inherently insecure and constantly in search of security. This insecurity would be increased further if other nations began to suffer from internal strife and chaos, in the form of protests, uprisings or revolutions. A powerful nation might feel even more threatened because of the possibility that another nation’s political and/or social systems could collapse. It is in the best interests of a powerful nation to send peacekeepers into nations plagued by violence, in order to ensure its own safety, but doing so also ensures a more stable international system.

Instead of seeing the world as anarchic, liberals focus on cooperation and view the international system as a process, not a structure. Much like realists, liberals are also concerned with security, but they also recognize the social and economic issues associated with the international system. Thus, liberals would view peacekeepers as an effective means to achieve improvement in social and economic spheres of nations struggling with violence. Liberals would also rely heavily upon a variety of actors, not just individual states. Peacekeepers would be deployed from international organizations, nongovernmental organizations and other actors that realists generally don’t recognize.

 The radical view on the international system is based on stratification: the core, the periphery, and the semi-periphery. Within this stratification, there exists a disparity of possession of natural resources, military power, and economic strength mainly between the core (developed states) and the periphery (developing states), in which the core is always at the advantagous end of the spectrum. Accordingly, radicals would see the role of peacekeeping forces in foreign states as a means for the core to gain more advantages over the periphery. For example, many countries such as Somalia and Nigeria possess a wealth of natural resources, but, being developing states (periphery), they lack the infrastructure and political stability to use them to the advantage of the entire state. When looking at Somalia in particular, the country has oil deposits that could prove lucrative for the state if it were politically capable. Ethiopia has employed a military “peacekeeping” force in Somalia. Though by no means considered a “core” state, Ethiopia has more political stability and infrastructure than Somalia, but not the resources. It is thus in the position to take advantage of Somalias political situation in order to gain access to its natural oil stores and increase the security of its own borders, if not extend them unofficially.

Lastly, the tragedy of the holocaust during World War II sparked an international moral imperative for developed states to intervene during the occurrence of genocide or other large-scale human rights violations. This moral imperative leads to the demand for multi-lateral initiatives, the majority of which involve peacekeeping forces. International institutions like the United Nations and the African Union have been pressured, for example, to intervene in the Rwandan Genocide, the civil war in the DRC, the civil war in Somalia, and most recently, the Darfurian Genocide. Despite their efforts, however, peacekeeping forces overall have had little effect since the push for their implementation came to be established as a norm in the international system. In most cases, forces are either deployed too late in a crisis situation, or not enough forces are deployed to produce a substantial effect. It thus comes as a surprise that such lack of real success has not deterred their demand. The most recent push has culminated in the proposal of the largest peacekeeping force documented to be sent to stabilize the Darfurian genocide– a military body to number 26,000 troops. Whether or not such a force will be effective is in question, but it seems to suffice for the constituents of the international society to know that international institutions are making an effort.

IR Theory Applied to the Role of Peacekeepers

In the realist perspective, a peacekeeper would have an additional meaning: that of the occupying soldier, which would stand as his or her primary role. Realists would see the involvement of foreign peacekeepers as mostly a tacticul move to increase one nation’s power over the nation in which peacekeepers were deployed and others, considering that the occupying nation would have the added power of the nation it would be occupying. The role of a peacekeeper solely as a peacekeeper would always be secondary, because national security is of utmost priority. Realists would see employing peacekeepers not as a means of gaining military advantage but also political advantage. If a nation accepts that it needs another nation’s help, it psychologically is placing itself in an inferior position to that nation. In realist terms, this means the world– the peacekeeping nation has the comparative advantage, which is all that matters. In such terms, the UN move to send a force of 26,000 troops to Sudan by the end of 2008 is a strategic maneuver on the part of Great Britain, for example, who is sending 5,000 of those troops.  Omar al Bashir would have good reason to worry about neo-colonialist sentiments.

Liberals would see employing peacekeepers as an exemplification of the power of international organizations, whereas realists would only pay attention to the fact that only specific nations would be deploying the troops. Conversely, the role of the peacekeeper would actually be to keep the peace in an unstable nation, and it would be at the benefit of the organization of stable, powerful nations. These nations would collaborate to deploy peacekeepers because they feel it a necessary act to protect human rights; not to gain power. Thus applied, the UN force in DRC, numbering over 17,000, is a move to calm the tensions in the eastern mining region. Liberals would hail triumph at the recent peace treaties signed by rogue militia and the government of the DRC, saying it was a product of the diplomacy of international organizations and stability brought by their troops.

As an example of idealists’ thought, Marxists would see the deployment of peacekeepers as a tactical move to not necessarily increase power but to increase wealth– a masked imperialistic occupancy of an unstable nation that can easily be taken advantage of by a more powerful, capitalistic one. Peacekeeping is just another method in which the higher class– the modern-day bourgeoisie– would manipulate the proletariat to insure more capital gain.

 Lastly, a constructivist would view the deployment of peacekeepers as a decision influenced by several things at once. The countries contributing to the peacekeeping force would be reacting from pressure on the sides of their allies and their people to do the morally correct thing by helping to stabilize a nation. They could also be reacting to indirect pressure from enemies to exert an image of strength and control.