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If
War Is Not the Answer, What Is?
The
Peaceful Prevention of Deadly Conflict
 PDF
In the fall of 2002, the Bush
Administration enshrined in U.S. policy a unilateral right
to take military action against "emerging threats before
they are fully formed." 1 Months later, in March 2003, against widespread global protest
and without United Nations Security Council authorization,
the Administration put its new policy of "preemptive" war
into practice by invading and occupying Iraq. The costs
of the war, the path of fractured alliances left in its
wake, the ongoing crisis with North Korea, and the growing
realization that the war may have fueled the very threats
it was intended to thwart, have demonstrated that the Bush Doctrine
is far from a complete success in forging peace and security.
In fact, military force and unilateralism are tragically
ineffective instruments against the current threats facing
the U.S. and the global community. But, if war is not the
answer, then what is? |
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BUSH'S
"PREEMPTIVE"WAR DOCTRINE
Article
51 of the UN Charter reserves to states the right of self-defense
against military attack. Preemptive war may be justified
under the Charter if the military threat is so imminent,
substantive (combining capability and intention), and
substantial that an attack is virtually certain. However,
the Bush Doctrine, as presented in the September 2002
National Security Strategy and implemented in the March
2003 invasion of Iraq, upends the concept of self-defense.
All this Administration needs is a U.S. unilateral determination
that at some undefined
future time, using means that might
be acquired or developed, another country possibly
could constitute a challenge to U.S. national interests.
Because these conditions do not meet the prerequisites
for preemptive self defense under international law, the
word "preemptive" will be placed in quotation marks throughout
this booklet.
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A
More Effective Path to Lasting Security
The Bush Administration's focus on earlier response to emerging
threats is an important and necessary step in U.S. policy. For
too long, the world has responded too late to escalating conflicts,
genocide, gross human rights abuses, failing states, the threat
of terrorism, and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.
Since the early 1990s, the international community has been
facing up to and striving to overcome this "culture of reaction"
by moving toward a "culture of prevention." Unfortunately, the
administration's emphasis on U.S. military and economic dominance
and the use of force as its main instrument of foreign policy
diverges drastically from the international community's deepened
understanding of how to effectively reduce conflict and prevent
war.
A growing body of research is contributing to a global movement
for the peaceful prevention of deadly conflict. The publishing
of the report of the Carnegie Commission on Preventing Deadly
Conflict in1998 2, followed three
years later by the release of the Secretary-General's Report
on the Prevention of Armed Conflict 3
and the report Responsibility to Protect by the International
Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty 4
marked important steps in the world community's effort to better
understand, predict, and prevent the outbreak of violent conflict.
In 2001, Secretary-General Kofi Annan called for the development
of new capacities within national governments, multilateral
regional organizations, civil society, and the UN to undertake
genuinely preventive actions in all stages of conflict--from
latent tensions to hot wars to post-conflict peacebuilding.
Such actions include developing early warning systems and enhanced
preventive diplomacy capacities, strengthening international
law and good governance, reducing the proliferation of weapons
and protecting human rights, supporting sustainable development
and the fair distribution of resources, ending poverty, tackling
HIV/AIDS and other public health crises, reducing ethnic tensions,
building strong institutions of global civil society, and ensuring
basic human security for all the world's people.
Many in the international community are already making progress
to develop and implement policies of peaceful prevention. The
European Union, African Union, and other multilateral organizations
are working to develop new mechanisms for regional conflict
prevention. Sweden has created a national policy for the prevention
of violent conflict. The UN Development Program, World Bank,
and national development agencies including the U.S. Agency
for International Development (USAID) are exploring methods
of integrating conflict prevention into their program work in
countries worldwide. Non-governmental agencies across the globe
working in humanitarian assistance, development, and peacebuilding
have formed the Global Partnership for the Prevention of Armed
Conflict, and are planning a conference to be held at the UN
in 2005 that will help strengthen the role of civil society
in conflict prevention.
A new agenda for the peaceful prevention of armed conflict
originally grew out of the recognized failure of the international
community in the post-Cold War world to adequately prevent mass
humanitarian crises, including the Rwandan genocide and mass
slaughter in Srebrenica. The international community, including
the U.S., was growing tired of reacting too little, too late
to humanitarian crises, ethnic conflicts, and state failures
that might have been prevented. A paradigm shift away from 11th
hour response to a model of early prevention was needed. In
the summer of 2001, the UN Security Council, with the Bush Administration
representing the U.S., passed a resolution pledging to "enhance
the effectiveness of the United Nations in addressing conflict
at all stages, from prevention to settlement to post-conflict
peacebuilding." Secretary-General Kofi Annan urged the global
community "to make prevention the cornerstone of collective
security in the twenty-first century." 5
In July 2003 the UN General Assembly adopted a landmark resolution
in which Member States, including the U.S., committed to working
towards the prevention of armed conflict, and laid out the roles
of states, UN agencies, civil society and the private sector
in preventing armed conflict. 6
The attacks of September 11, 2001 and ongoing threats of terrorism
have highlighted the importance of implementing a security agenda
that can better predict emerging threats, prevent their outbreak
into violence, diffuse current disputes, and address the root
causes of violent conflict. Rather than applying the lessons
of peaceful prevention that the international community has
been gathering, however, the U.S. has reverted to the outdated
tools of unilateralism and overwhelming military force--instruments
which promise to fuel the threats of weapons of mass destruction
and terrorist attacks. Military action may stamp out some elements
of a threat, but it cannot remove the roots of conflict and
may instead deepen their reach.
A
New Security Strategy
A more effective, less costly path to national and global
security is available.
Some years ago, the New York City fire department made
a fundamental paradigm shift away from fire emergency
response toward fire prevention. The department changed
the way it approached its job and turned more energy and
resources into public education, early detection systems,
better building codes, and addressing some of the most
persistent causes of fire. They saved lives and, over
a few short years, began fighting fewer and less devastating
fires. A similar shift in approach to conflict could save
lives and reduce the occasion of war.
The U.S. can help lead this shift. The threats of weapons
of mass destruction, terrorist networks, oppressive regimes,
ethnic conflict, failed states, and devastating poverty
and disease can be diminished through policies and programs
designed to peacefully prevent the outbreak of violence
and address the root causes of conflict. As U.S. Senator
Joseph Biden (DE) proposed in late July 2003, "Instead
of a preemption doctrine, what we need is a prevention
doctrine which diffuses problems long before they explode
in our face." Such a U.S. policy framework would build
on the efforts already underway within some U.S. government
agencies, at the UN, among European allies, in regional
organizations, and among civil society groups to develop
stronger capacities for early warning, early response,
and addressing root causes. It would replace the policy
of "preemptive" war with one of war prevention.
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If War Is Not the Answer, What Is?
Conflict
Resolution & International Grassroots Networking
Great
Lakes Region, Central Africa, 1995- present
"The exceptionally creative thing about an AVP workshop
is that a new community is forged during the intense,
intimate time that people spend together, laughing, playing,
thinking, no matter whether the participant be an old
Buddhist farmer, a young Baptist university professor,
a middle-aged atheist biker...or a politically radical
ex-felon. Or a Hutu or a Tutsi."
-
Elaine Klaasen,"Alternatives to Violence Project Goes
to Africa," July 2002
After
the devastation of Rwanda's 1994 genocide, communities
of Quakers in Uganda began searching for ways to promote
conflict resolution and reconciliation in the societies
of their region. Uganda Yearly Meeting reached out to
the Alternatives to Violence Project, a conflict resolution
program designed by Quakers and NY prison inmates in the
mid 70s. AVP's workshops are designed to be highly adaptable,
and had already been conducted in diverse communities
across the globe by the mid 90s. Since 1995, AVP facilitators
have conducted hundreds of workshops in Rwanda, Burundi
and Uganda, and have trained over 100 local facilitators
who continue grassroots resolution and reconciliation
work. In 2002, President Paul Kagame of Rwanda announced
a plan to process genocide suspects through a renewed
version of the traditional, community-based gacaca court
system. Rwandan Quakers met with the secretary general
of the gacaca commission in the summer of 2002, and are
planning to conduct AVP workshops with thousands of genocide
suspects, as well as the judges who will be deciding their
cases. The Quaker Prevention Network links these and other
efforts of Quaker organizations and individuals working
to break long cycles of violence and prevent future conflicts
around the world.
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Endnotes
1 The National Security
Strategy is a document published by every Administration, sometimes
annually, and required by Congress. It outlines the basic policy
framework for U.S. security policy under the authoring Administration.
The 2002 National Security Strategy has received considerable
criticism in the U.S. and abroad for its emphasis on U.S. global
military dominance and declaration of a unilateral right to
take "preemptive" action against emerging threats. The document
text and analysis from FCNL is available at http://www.fcnl.org/issues/mil/sup/national_security-strategy.htm
2 In 1998, the Carnegie
Commission on the Prevention of Violent Conflict published a
hallmark report that helped create the language and theoretical
framework of peaceful prevention. The report described preventive
activity in terms of operational
(late-term preventive actions that address the proximate causes
of conflict as it is unfolding; examples include mediation,
arms embargoes, and peacekeeping operations) and structural
(early preventive actions that address the
underlying structural causes of conflict; examples include preventive
development programs, interreligious or interethnic peacebuilding,
and democratic institution building). Following its 1998 report,
the commission published a series of other studies on revention,
all available at http://wwics.si.edu/subsites/ccpdc/index.htm
3 In June 2001, at the request
of the UN Security Council, the Secretary-General published
a Report on the Prevention of Armed Conflict.
The report outlines actions, roles, and recommendations for
the international community in the prevention of armed conflict.
The report was well-received by UN Member States, and the theme
of conflict prevention was anticipated to be a major topic in
the opening speeches of the 56th General Assembly. However,
the attacks of September 11, 2001, coming just before the UN
session opening, eclipsed other topics and became the central
focus. Work to implement the recommendations of the report at
the UN level, among regional organizations, at the country level,
and among civil society groups has continued. The report is
available at http://www.un.org/Docs/sc/reports/2001/sgrep01.htm
4 The International Commission
on Intervention and State Sovereignty was established by the
Canadian government to lead an international consultation process
on the issue of international intervention in interstate conflict
or humanitarian crises. Rather than focusing on the international
community's right to intervene, the report emphasized the responsibility
of every state to protect its people and prevent violent conflict.
The report is available at http://www.dfait-maeci.gc.ca/iciss-ciise/menu-en.asp
5 See UN Security Council
Resolution 1366, available at http://www.un.org/Docs/scres/2001/sc2001.htm
6 See UN General Assembly Resolution A/Res/57/337,
available at http://www.un.org/Depts/dhl/resguide/r57.htm
Reviewed
09/07/2005
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