Limitations of the UN

I've been discussing elements surrounding the US military budget for more than a week now on SomethingAwful. It is a frustrating topic, and difficult to render into blog format for the most part. But I did write a bit on the limitations of the UN that I wanted to share:


(This was in response to the statement, "This is a bigger problem, but I can't think of many situations where you wouldn't be able to convince the UN to intervene, but should intervene yourself.")

I think that the genocide in Darfur was a clear example of a time where there was a mandate for international intervention. However, due to the lack of public support for the wars in the Middle East, the US waited for UN leadership that never materialized. Sudan is a symbol of the limitations of the UN system.

That analysis is based on several things: a historical perspective on the elements of past successful UN missions, the similar relationship between US involvement in Somalia and its lack of action in Rwanda, and a good understanding of the political events surrounding the tragedy in Darfur.

Successful UN missions (whether they be interventionary or merely health initiatives) have always relied upon strong leadership by one of the members of the Security Council. This is part of the system, primarily because attempting action without support of any of the world powers is a fool's errand. However, this limits the initiative of the body itself, and difficult decisions quickly become deadlocked without unilateral impetus by a first-world nation - often the US.

You could see this same situation play out in Rwanda in 1994. A growing crisis generated international outcry, but no UN action. The US had adopted an isolationist policy after Somalia, and no other nation was willing to take a leadership role in creating a coalition. The result was a confused and timid UN response to a genocide that ended only when the rebels drove off the murdering regime.

The response to the Darfur crisis was the same situation: the US has grown isolationist due to the lack of public support in the Iraq war, and limited its response to the political arena. Other nations deemed the situation too risky, and China / Russia actually gave arms to the Sudanese government that is decimating the population. Nothing happened, and the conflict has now escalated into the surrounding regions.

More generally, Sudan has seen civil war and genocide for the last 20 years, and the UN has done little more than ship in US-supplied food aid. Legal confusion, double-dealing and complicity, and cowardly support from the world community systematically mar UN missions. You can recognize the US' hesitation in putting more of its resources under UN control. The US has been pushing for UN managerial reform for years now, and its nonpayment of assays is part of that (despite which the US still shoulders the largest part of the UN's costs). Until those reforms go through, it will remain likely that tragedies like Rwanda and Sudan will continue.