Issues

sign up to loose agreements or sets of principles for fear that they might be
used to legitimize coercive intervention. Recent interventions provide a good
illustration of the trade-off between short-term effectiveness and a long-term
erosion of legitimacy
The dilemmas grow sharper still when we consider the relationship between
aspirations towards human rights and democracy and the reality of inter-
national political structures within which those aspirations are embedded.
There are certainly powerful arguments why sovereignty should be made
t, conditional on the ability and willingness of a state to protect the rights and
welfare of its citizens and for the development of a responsibility to protect.
The difficulty is that this responsibility has not devolved to a politically
and normative coherent set of institutions but rather to an 'international
The idea of collective security and the drive to increase the collective element
community' whose actions continue to depend on the power, interest, and
in the management of violence and insecurity have long been fundamental
preferences of its most powerful members. In those cases where humanitarian
elements of the liberal solidarist conception of international society. It was
needs are most acute, interests have pointed, and will often continue to point,
around the expansion of the role of the UN in the field of intemational
towards inaction (as in Dafur). In other cases actions are marked by a denial
security and the emergence of the 'new interventionism' of the 1990s that
of human rights, by selectivity and by cross-cutting security and economic
strong claims were advanced about the erosion of 'Westphalian sovereignty'.
goals.
Many saw a clear advance of solidarism in the increased role of the UN,
Scepticism, however, does not result solely from the practical difficulties
in emerging practices of humanitarian intervention, in the potential for
of implementation; nor from the existence of cross-cutting pressures and
the international community to act against the illegal use of force, and in
the inevitability of tensions and trade-offs. Both of these are not only to
the acceptance and legitimacy of coercive intervention to promote a much
be expected but are inherent in any likely form of imaginable politics and
broader interpretation of threats to international peace and security and to
perhaps even in most realistic utopias. The most serious challenge comes from
uphold important rules and prohibitions in the field of arms control. Central
the extent to which, despite the universalization of agreements and of the
to such thinking is the hope that the power of the intemational community
language and idiom of human rights, internalization remains both shallow
can be harnessed for a common social purpose. The incentives pressing states
and all too easily reversible. The essence of international society is embodied
towards more collective and institutionalized forms of security management
in the idea of actors being bound by shared ~ l e and s cooperating in the
have been partly practical and instrumental. But they have also been driven
operation of shared institutions. This core idea has been challenged in many
by power of the Kantian moral imperative that 'there shall be no war' in a
ways by the resurgence of terrorism and by the responses of government to
century in which around 160 million human beings died in war and other
it. Terrorism itself clearly involves both a violation of the rights of the victims
forms of violent c0ntlict.l
and a challenge to the core norms of international society. From the side of
The urgency of debates about collective security comes, on the one side,
those responding to terrorism, the problem is not merely the specific violation
from the many different forms of war, violence, and insecurity. But it also
of human rights that have occurred in the course of the so-called war against
comes from the continued rationality of war and of the utility of coercive
terrorism-the sanctioning of torture, the arbitrary arrests, the active support
force. In the case of states, war remains a central instrument of government
of dubious allies. It is rather the erosion of the very idea of there being a shared
policy. Indeed, there is an important sense in which the end of the Cold
framework of rules to which all are committed, in all times, and in all places.
War and the reduction in the dangers of nuclear confrontation increased
the acceptability of war and broadened the range of goals for which military
power could legally and legitimatelybe used. This has been especially the case
for the United States and the United Kingdom. In addition to the traditional
objective of hard security, coercive force has come to play an important role
Even during the much acclaimed 'long peace' of the Cold War, there were around 120
wars in which over 25 miltion people were killed and 75 miltion seriously injured.
Issues War, violence, and collective security

in dealing with non-traditional security threats (such as terrorism) and as securityproblems and still more of hegemonic or imperial answers depends on
a means of promoting liberal goals (as with humanitarian intenrention). In belief--often simply asserted or assumed-that a 'better' multilateral alterna-
addition to the on-going importance of coercive diplomacy, contemporary tive can exist. A very great deal therefore depends on the recumng dilemmas
security challenges have provided new justifications for the use of force and of collective security and on the way in which the changing security agenda
for new forms of interventionism. The character of war has continued to may have eased, or worsened, those dilemmas.
change, as have the forms in which militaries are organized and deployed and The chapter addresses three questions:
their relationship to society. But if by 'Clausewitzian' we mean the controlled
1. What do we mean by collective security and what has been the place of
and rational use of coercive force designed to achieve political goals, it is
collective security in international society?
abundantly clear that we continue to live in a 'Clausewitzian' age.'
At the level of international society, war was viewed within the pluralist 2. How have changes in the agenda of international security complicated
conception as a means for the self-enforcement of basic rights, above all the the challenges facing international society?
right of self-defence; for the safeguarding of the balance of power; and for 3. What are the principal dilemmas that arise in relation to the practice of
effecting change in the structure of the system when the pressure for change collective security in contemporary collective security?
could no longer be contained nor achieved via peaceful means (such as the co-
option or appeasement of rising powers). lt was in this sense that war could be
said to constitute an 'institution' of international society. As liberal solidarist The meaning of collective security
hopes grew in the wake of the end of the Cold War, so did the neo-G~otian
belief that war could be legitimately and effectivelyused to further the shared If any concept has an important conceptual history, then it is that of collective
purposes of the 'international community' and to promote common value^.^ security. The phrase itself only seems to have come into general use in the
The collective enforcement of the decisions of the UNSC became a central 1930s, but the key ideas which underpin it have a much older history and can
element of coercive soldarism. be found in many of the proposals for the reduction or abolition of war that
t Finally, for many non-state groups, violence has been a rational means
have been elaborated since the sixteenth century. Five questions recur.
of achieving their objectives. This was true of the use of force by non-state First, what kind of security is embodied in the phrase 'collective sec~rity'?~
political actors in the struggle for decolonization and the creation of new As it developed in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, collective
states and national homelands (from the African National Congress to the security was conceived as a response to the dangers of formal inter-state vio-
Zionist movement), and it remains true of many contemporary nationalist lence and, in particular, to the problem of the aggressive use of force by states.
movements and many terrorist groups. In addition, in cases where the state is At its heart was the idea that states should either proscribe the aggressive use of
unable to protect property rights, to enforce contracts, and to provide security, force by states (or at least severely curtail the right to use armed force) and that
private groups often emerge to perform these functions for a profit-hence, they should take collective measures to enforce that proscription. The desire
the provision of private contract enforcement by mafias, the economic logics for conquest and expansion might not be easily eradicated, but, faced with
to many civil wars, and the expansion of privately provided ~ecurity.~ the united opposition of the international community, states would come
This chapter approaches the problem of violence and conflict from the to accept that aggression simply could not pay. Yet it is important to realize
perspective of collective security. There is sometimes a strangely detached that such a view of security has never exhausted the range of possibilities.
quality to writing on collective security. Of course the failings of collective Early proposals for collective action to maintain peace sought to counter both
security are well recognized, and the many weaknesses of the UN are sagely interstate violence and domestic disorder. Saint-Pierre's Project for Settling an
and sadly acknowledged. But most of the criticism of pluralist answers to Everlasting Peace in Europe of 1713 sought to protect sovereigns both against
secessionist movements and 'against the ambition of irresponsible and iniqui-
For a discussion of the end of the 'Clausewitzian age', see Martin van Creveld, The tous Pretenders and the revolts of rebellious subjects.I6 Equally,one strand of
T r a n s ~ t i o of
n Wm (Basingstoke, UK: Maanillan, 1991).
On the evolution of the concept of the international community, see Andreas Paulus, Die For two cl&icd discussions, see Inis L. Claude, Power and Intemaibnal Relations (New
internationale Gemeinschaft im Wlkerrecht (Munich:Beck, 2001). York: Random House, 1962), esp. ch. 4; and Maurice Bourquin (ed.), Collective Security: A
On the former, see Diego Gambetta, The SiciIim Mafia: The Business of PrivatP Protection Record of the Seventh and Eighth International Studies C a f e m e , Paris 1934Londat 1935 (Paris:
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993); on the latter, see Mats Berdal and David International Institute of Intellectual Cooperation, 1936).
M. Malone (eds.), Greed and Griwance: Economic Ag& and Civil Wars (Boulder, CO: Lynne Quoted in F. H. Hinsley, Pwer and the Pursuit of Pence (Cambridge:Cambridge University
Rienner, 2000). On private security firms, see fn.5 below. Press, 1980), 53.
Issues War, violence, and collective security

criticism of the League of Nations stressed the insufficient attention that had dominant one in the recent past, collective security is understood as a means
been given to the non-military aspects of security. And, as we shall see, central of enforcing order between independent political communities, and of achiev-
to debates in the post-Cold War period has been the argument that collective ing a degree of centralization that does not radically threaten the indepen-
action must be developed around a much broader definition of security. dence and autonomy of states. Despite some of the language in the UN
Second, security for whom? It follows from the above that the domi- Charter and some expectationsto the contrary, the UN system was essentially
nant conception of collective security in the twentieth century had been a limited organization that was built around state and state sovereignty and
intended to strengthen the rights of states to independence and to reinforce a frank acceptance of hierarchical power. It was a mixture of idealism and
an internationallegal order built around the concepts of sovereignty and non- realism. An alternative, and historically deep-rooted, conception has viewed
intervention. According to the WidsoNan view, one of its chief attractions moves towards the collective management of armed force as part of a broader
was that it guaranteed the independence of all states, including small and process of reorganizing the political system. Many early peace proposals were
weak states. Yet the stress on reinforcing the rights of states and the sanc- aimed not solely, or even principally, at peace but rather at the reconstruction
tity of established borders against forcible change gave rise to two enduring of a single political structure. Equally, much discussion of collective security
dilemmas: first, how to accommodate change and how to avoid a collective in the twentieth century was closely bound up with proposals for federalism,
security organization becoming an instrument for maintaining the status quo; either within Europe or on a wider scale.
and second, how to deal with the many sources of instability whose origin lies And finally, what forms of collective action are envisaged in a collective
within the borders of states. security system? Collective security involves a shared understanding of what
Third, which collectivity is involved in 'collective security'? There have kinds of force have been proscribed and also a shared acceptance that a
always been strong arguments for the broadest possible membership of a threat to the peace threatens the interests of all states. It also involves a
collective security system-partly to ensure that the power of the collectivity shared willingness to act effectively to enforce the law and to protect those
is sufficient to deter aggression and, if necessary, to enforce its decisions; interests. Enforcement has very often been seen as critical, but not always.
and partly to reduce the danger that collective security will merely provide Much nineteenth-century liberal thought, for example, believed fervently in
a framework within which power-political competition and alliance politics international law but did not see enforcement as the key. What was needed
are played out under a different guise. Rousseau could see all too clearly was a clear elaboration of the law and mechanisms for the fair and efficient
that, whilst leagues and federations of states might create peace between adjudication of disputes. Rationality and understanding of one's true interests
their members, they might also serve to reinforce and to exacerbate broader would ensure compliance. In his Plan for a Universal and Perpetual Peace in
patterns of conflict. Indeed, the misuse of the term to describe alliance politics 1789, Bentham stressed that 'between the interests of nations there is nowhere
has been a recurring feature of the debate.' On the other hand, there have also any real conklict, if they appear repugnant anywhere it is only in proportion
been repeated arguments that an effective collective security system requires as they are rnisunder~tood.'~ Or, if rationality was not quite enough, gov-
leadership and that the collectivity that matters will consist of a smaller group ernments would be pressed by enlightened public o p i ~ o n The . arguments
of like-minded states with the effective (as opposed to theoretical) power to for effective enforcement, whether by economic sanctions or armed coercion,
enforce its decisions. Similarly, it is often argued that the notion of a global were given greater force by the First World War. As Wilson put it: 'In the last
community of states will always remain an illusory goal and that regionally analysis the peace of society is obtained by force.. .If you say "We shall not
based collective security systems are most likely to prove effective: because have any war", you have to have the force to make that "shall" bite.'9 At the
such groupings have a greater understanding of the causes and nature of same time, however, these older liberal views (or illusions) never entirely fade
security problems affecting the region; because the incentives for managing and there remains the hope that the paradox of war for peace can be avoided.
conflict are likely to be higher; and because there will be a greater degree of Indeed, one of the recurring problems facing collective security has been
consensus over basic values. that its most natural supporters are those least willing to make timely and
Fourth, what form of collectivity? It is important to disentangle two credible threats to uphold the purposes and values of the collective security
approaches to thinking about collective security systems. On one view, the system.

' See e.g. the comments of Aldous H d e y in 1937: 'In the actual circumstances of the
Jeremy Bentham, A P h for a Universal md Perpetual Peace (London: Grotius Society
present day, "coUective security" means a system of military alliances opposed to another
system of military alliances.' Ends m d Means (London: Chatto & Widus, 1937), 1x1109. The Publications, 1927), proposition XIV.
same could be said of the way in which the term was used d u ~ much
g of the Cold War. Quoted in Claude (1962: 95).
Issues War. violence, and collective security

That the Cold War bears a heavy responsibility for the failure of the UN to the international community. Thus, the UN proved to be, at best, of only
to function as it was envisaged by its creators is beyond doubt. The UN was marginal importance in any actual use or threat of force that occurred in the
by no means a 'pure' collective security system, particularly in relation to the backyards of the superpowers (Hungary,Czechoslovakia, Afghanistan, Central
existence of the veto and the special role accorded to the five permanent mem- America, and the Caribbean). Similarly, its role in the major crises of the Cold
bers of the Security Council. But there were powerful elements of collective War was either limited (e.g. the thst Berlin crisis or the Cuban missile crisis,
security in the Charter, in terms of the clear prohibition of aggressive force in and Afghanistan) or negligible (e.g. the second Berlin crisis, Suez, or the war
Article 2,4 and in the far-reaching responsibility of the Security Council for the in
maintenance of international peace and security, including the authorization It is true that resolutions were adopted under Chapter VII. But with the
of mandatory sanctions and military action. Whilst the phrase 'collective single exception of the Korean War, these either entailed no enforcement
security' carrieatoo many gloomy overtones of the failures of the 1930s, there measures (the 1948 demand for ceasefire in Palestine, the call for Argentina
was, as Michael Howard points out, a clear invocation of collective security to withdraw from the FalMandslMalvinas, the call for a ceasefire in the Iran-
as a basic objective of the organization in the call 'to unite our strength to Iraq War), or enforcement was strictly limited to the imposition of economic
maintain internationalpeace and se~urity'.'~ sanctions (mandatory sanctions against Rhodesia, sanctions on weapons sales
The Cold War undermined this objective in numerous ways that have been to South Africa). Because of this, the thrust of UN activity in the field of
well documented. The intensity of the confrontation between the United international security was concentrated on activities that were either not
States and the Soviet Union undermined a system that was premised on the considered as fundamental by the drafters or not considered at all: on concil-
existence of Great Power consensus as to the nature of unacceptable aggres- iation (supervising troop withdrawal, direct/indirect mediation); on preven-
sion and on Great Power cooperation in enforcing the peace. This premise tative action (keeping sides apart); or on encouragement of peaceful change
was visible, above all, in the veto given to the five permanent members. This (decolonization,South Africa).
was made necessary not solely because of the Cold War itself but because It is important not to exaggerate the extent to which all the problems facing
of the concentration of military power (and especially nuclear weapons) in the UN were simply a product of the Cold War itself. Take, for example, the
the hands of superpowers. In such a situation, collective action could only changing patterns of conflict. The model of collective security assumes that
be threatened against either of them at the risk of provoking a devastating there can be a clear consensus as to what precisely the unlawful use of force
conflict. Thus, in contrast to the neat assumptions of the collective security means and what constitutes an unlawful act of aggression. For the founding
model, there were states that simply could not be coerced even by the united fathers at San Francisco, the kind of conflict to be proscribed, deterred, and, if
will and power of the rest of the international community. The veto high- necessary, collectively opposed was quite naturally a reflection of experience:
lighted, then, the clear and shared recognition that the collective security clear breaches of the peace between dearly recognizable armies crossing clear
system could not deal with threats to peace emanating from the superpowers and internationally accepted frontiers. Yet in the post-1945 period most vio-
or affecting their vital interests. Contingencies in that domain would have to lent conflict took place on the temtory of one state with the international
be dealt with by the traditional right of individual and collective self-defence dimension being most frequently a matter of covert intervention, proxy wars,
as reiterated in Article 51. or externally supported insurgencies. In many of these cases there was a great
The system of Cold War alliances meant that idea of an isolated aggressor deal of scope for debate as to whether an act of aggression or a breach of
was also illusory. The globalization of the Cold War, particularly after the international peace and. security had occurred and who was to blame. This
outbreak of the Korean War, and the density of the Cold War alliance systems difliculty was compounded by the heterogeneity of the international system:
meant that the majority of the most serious conflicts and crises came to certainly by the ideological confrontation between East and West but also by
involve the interests of one or other of the superpowers or its allies. On the the divide between North and South, where the struggle for decolonization
one hand, this meant that there would a friendly superpower willing to use its was played out in what the colonial powers considered to be their internal
veto to block UN action. On the other, the intensity of the Cold War meant aff- and where consensus over what constituted aggression and justified
that loyalty to the Cold War alliance would tend to predominate over loyalty force was strained-at times to near breaking point.
The end of the Cold War seemed to many to presage a neo-Grotian moment
'O Michael Howard, 'The United Nations and international Security', in Adam Roberts and
Benedict Kingsbury (eds.), United Nations, Divided World,2nd edn. (Oxford: Oxford University in which increased agreement amongst the major powers, the systemic dom-
Press, 1993), 64-5; and Paul Kennedy, The P d i m n s l t of Man: 'Ihe United Nations and the Qrcest inance of the ~ a t e @ ~ s t aand
t e s its liberal democratic allies, and the increased
@ World Government (London: Allen Lane, 2006). salience of a new range of security challenges would open the door both to a
Issues War. violence, and collective security

renaissance of the UN and to a broader increase in the collective element in and geopolitical ambition, but rather from state weakness and the absence of
the management of security. Events such as the 1993 Vienna Human Rights political legitimacy, from the failure of states to provide minimal conditionsof
Conference and Gorbachev's 1988 speech to the General Assembly on Global public order within their borders, from the way in which domestic instability
Human Values seemed to open up a new era of consensus. The number of and internal violence can spill into the international arena, and from the
Security Council resolutions had averaged 15per year during the Cold War but incapacity of weak states to form viable building blocks of a stable regional
increased to an average of around 60 per year through the 1990sin the period order and to contribute towards the resolution of broader common purposes.
from 1946 to 1987 only 13 resolutions had been adopted under Chapter VII; One feature of these arguments concerns the obsolescence of the 'old' '
in the period from 1988 to 1997 this increased to 112. By the end of the agenda.lz The centrality of power politics and of an inescapable and
1990s, the UN had established 42 peacekeeping operations, the great majority ineluctable security dilemma driven by unequal power amongst states is dif-
taking place in the post-Cold War period and involving internal conflicts ficult to reconcile with many features of contemporary international society.
and civil wars (as in Angola, Cambodia, El Salvador, Mozambique, Rwanda, In the first place, despite the urgings of neo-realist theorists, emerging 'Great
Somalia, the former Yugoslavia, and Haiti). Peacekeeping evolved in novel Powers' such as Germany and Japan do not seem very keen to take on the
and significant ways, away from classic peacekeeping characterized by host military trappings of their traditional forebears. In both cases, the balance
state consent, the non-use of force, and impartiality, and towards so-called between welfare and security goals has shifted and both see all sorts of other
wider peacekeeping and robust peacekeeping as well as an increasing range ways to promote their interests and objectives. Profound domestic changes
of peace support and peace s t a b i t i o n operations. The scope, the scale, and altered external circumstances have led to very different definitions of
and the range of tasks undertaken under Chapter VI operations increased interest and, more fundamentally of identity. A second argument in this
dramatically.The 1990s saw the imposition by the UN of numerous economic direction suggests that major war has itself become obsolete. On this view,
sanctions, of both a general and more limited and targeted kind. The UN military capacity is unnecessary given the d e c l i i g role of territorial control
authorized the use of force by states and regional bodies, including in the and conquest in the definition of state power. It is irrelevant to the success
cases of Iraq-Kuwait, Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, Sierra Leone, and Liberia. Finally, and prosperity of individual states and to the management of the economic,
in a number of cases (Eastern Slavonia, Kosovo, East Timor, and Afghanistan), social, and e n v i r o ~ e n t a problems
l that are characteristic of globalization.
the UN established international administrations which involved the effective For some this is due to the nuclear revolution and the increased totality of
suspension of sovereignty and the day-to-day administration of all aspects of total war which have undermined the rationality and controllability of force
political and economic life in the territory concerned.l1 that was central to the pluralist world. On this view, the unthinkability of
major modem conflict means that war must be seen as the breakdown of
policy and politics, rather than as its servant. The costs of major conflict and
political tolerance of those costs have increased exponentially-because of
A changing security agenda the high levels of economic interdependence and the impact of globalization,
because of the rise in Third World nationalism and social mobilization, which
The period since the end of the Cold War has seen an enormous literature has rendered old-style imperial or neo-imperial control unviable, and, finally,
on the changing character of security and the changing dynamics of the because of the increasingly accepted illegality and illegitimacy of the use of
global security landscape: the fading into the background of the old agenda
force and the increased unwilXngness on the part of citizens in developed
of major power rivalry and conflict; the emergence of a wide range of new
countries to bear the economic and human costs of war.
security challenges connected with civil wars, domestic social conflict, ethnic
On the one hand, then, the classical imperatives, whether of material gain,
strife, refugee crises, and humanitarian disasters; ,intensified concern over
of security and fear, or of doctrine and ideology, that produced the major wars
weapons of mass destruction and over the adequacy of existing multilateral
of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and the need for military power
constraints on nuclear proliferation; and, of course, the way in which new
appear to have receded. Mercantilist impulses may well persist but these are
weapons technologies and the infrastructure of globalization have interacted
not readily susceptible to the use of military power, nor do they obviously
with both new and on-going forms of non-state terrorism. In many cases,
these new security threats derive not from state strength, military power,
Id Particularly useful overviews are Robert Jervis, 'Theories of War in an Era of Leading-
'I The case of Bosnia-Hercegovinacan be added although its authority stems from the Power Peace', American Political Science Review, 9611 (March 2002), 1-14;and Azar Gat, War in
Dayton Accords. H u m Civilization (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), ch. 16.
Issues War, violence, and collective security

threaten to create military conflict. On the other, modem developed societies Even discounting the alleged inevitability of geopolitical rivalry in East Asia,
are supposed to have learnt that major war is 'rationally unthinl~ab1e"~-a inequalities of power and status remain all too visible. Finally, military force
view that draws on the deep-rooted liberal belief that '... physical force is a has remained as relevant to many very traditional categories of conflict:
constantly diminishing factor in human affairs', as Norman Angel1 put it in border confiicts (e.g. PerufEcuador), securing economic advantage (e.g. the
1910.14 wars against Iraq or China and Sprately Islands), the promotion of ideological
More convincingly, the force of these changes is acknowledged but placed values whether religious (as in Iran) or secular (as with Western attempts to
within their regional context. In a number of regions (Western Europe, promote human rights and democracy), securing regime change (e.g. Angola
Scandinavia, North America, and parts of South America), international in the Central African Republic, or the United States in Haiti or Iraq), or,
relations have been characterized as a reasonably well-established security finally, in the widespread use of military power to reinforce diplomacy. Of
community-a group of states in which 'there is real assurance that the the traditional drivers for conflict, it is around resources (oil and water most
members of that community will not fight each other physically, but will notably) that much future concern is likely to revolve.
settle their disputes in some other way.'15 Within such a community, there If the 'old' agenda of war and peace has receded, academic and policy
are dependable expectations of peaceful change, with military force gradually debates over the past ten years have been dominated by arguments con-
disappearing as a conceivable instrument of statecraft. Inequality of power cerning the emergence of a new security agenda. According to this view, our
takes on a very differentcharacter. Security communities may be built around understanding of security needs to be broadened and expanded away from
a powerful core to which outside states no longer respond by balancing behav- the traditionalist emphasis on military power and national security-security
iour, but rather view as a zone of peace and security in which membership is understood fundamentally in terms of external military threats to the state.
valued,l6 Expansionists make three core arguments.18 In the first place, that the critical
Even within and amongst these zones of relative regional pacification, question 'whose security?' can no longer be adequately answered exclusively
liberal optimism has led to an exaggerated sense of ease that forgets its in terms of the state-in other words the referent object of security should
own precariousness, for example regarding the potential political impact of include, below the state, individuals and other collectivities (minorities, eth-
severe economic dislocation; the crises of identity provoked by globalization nic groups, and indigeqous peoples) and, above the state, humanity at large
and interdependence; and the coexistence of inter-state peace with domestic (people in general and not just the citkens of a particular state) and also the
violence or civil war. Indeed the often close juxtaposition of high levels of biosphere on which human survival depends. Second, that any meaningful
economic prosperity and successful democratic consolidation with civil war, analysis of security must consider the importance of a much wider range
terrorist violence, marginality, and human rights abuses strains the view that of 'existential' threats, including those whose origin lies in environmental
the post-Cold War world could be neatly divided into zones of peace and destruction, economic vulnerability, and the breakdown of social cohesion.
connict.17 And third, that responsibility for the provision of security rests not just
In many other regions, however, a much more traditional picture persists, on the state but on international institutions, on NGOs and civil society
made worse by the weaknesses and instabilitiesof many of the statesinvolved. operating within an increasingly active transnational ad society, and on an
In South Asia and the Middle East, power and the dynamics of unequal increasingly influential range of -privateactors.
power continue to play a powerful role in regional security-for example Just as there is a wide-ranging debate on the meaning of security, so there
between India and Pakistan, Iran and its neighbours, or Israel and Syria. is also extensive debate over the cllaim that the 'new' wars of the post-Cold
War era represent a qualitatively new phenomenon.19 On this view, wars are
l3 John Mueller, Retreat porn Doomdby: The Obsolescence of Major Wm (New York: Basic
new in terms of their goals (with the far greater importance of identity politics
Books, 1990). in contrast with the geopolitical or ideological goals of earlier wars); in terms
l4 NO- Angell, The Giwt lllurim A Study of the &I& of Military Power in Nations to methods of warfare (whereas old wars attempted to capture temtory by
dhe Ecormomoic and &&I Advantage ((London:Heinemann, 1910), 129.
l5 Karl W. Deutsch, Sidney A. Burren, and Robert A. Kann, Political Cormmmity in the Nor&
Athtic Area (FTinceton, NJ:Princeton University Press, 1957), 5. For three influential examples, see Richard H.Ullrnan, 'Rede6ningSecurity', International
l6 For a contemporary application of Deutsch's arguments, see Emanuel Adler and Michael Secwity, 8 (Summer 1983), 129-53; Jessica Tuchman Matthews, 'Redefining Security', Foreign
Bamett (eds.), Governing Anarchy: Security Communities in T h e q , History and Comparison Affairs, 68 (Spring 1989). 162-77; and Rothxhild (Summer 1995).
(Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, 1998). l9 See e.g. Mary Kaldor, New and Old Wars: Organized Violence in a Global Era (Cambridge:
l7 Max Singer and Aaron Wildavsky, The Real World Order: Zones of Pewe/Zones of Rmnoil Polity Press, 2002); see '&so Michael Clarke, 'War in the New International Order', International
(Chatham,NJ,1993). Affairs, 7713 (2001), 663-71.

175
Issues War, violence, and collective security

military means, new wars tend to avoid battles and aim to control territory Whatever the precise answers to these questions, there are a number of
through the political control of the population, with violence being directed important implications which both feed into the overarching themes of this
primarily against non-combatants), and in terms of methods of financing book and which complicate attempts at collective security.
(whilst old war economies were centralized, totalizing, and autarchic, new In the first place, the management of many forms of contemporary inse-
war economies are decentralized and heavily dependent on external resources, curity is highly likely to require deep intrusion and often persistent and
often involving diasporas and illegal transnational networks). Rogers makes continuing intervention. In common with many other aspects of contem-
a distinction between 'epilogue wars' which allegedly flow from past trends porary global governance, security is dearly a 'beyond the border' issue.
(as with wars of decolonization and liberation) and 'prologue wars' which Given the embeddedness of norms relating to non-intervention and to self-
are increasingly taking the form of anti-elite rebellions in the context of determination, it is hardly surprising that this both creates significant prob-
migratory pressures, resource scarcity, and a growing divide between rich and lems of legitimacy and generates nationalist resistance.
poor.20 Especially in the context of terrorism, still others have stressed the Second, a great deal of contemporary insecurity is characterized by inherent
role of new forms of communications and connectivity in facilitating new complexity and by a multiplicity of different forms of violence which overlap
forms of political and military mobilization and new forms of networked and are superimposed on one another. These forms of violence shift from
violence. place to place and from one period to another. It is common to distinguish
These claims for novelty are contested by those who argue that, quan- between political violence on the one hand (that is violence that is planned,
titatively, there has been no clear increase in the number of internal or deliberate, carried out by organized groups of society against other groups)
non-traditional wars or that the crucial s h i i occurred in the 19605, not in and individual violence on the other (purposeless, random, and individual
1989;21 and by those who deny that qualitative shift has occurred. Civil violence).23 Yet such a dichotomy misses out far too much and we clearly
wars are not a unique feature of the post-Cold War world; the distinction need further categories and distinqtions, for example between political violence
between public and private violence was a feature of much historical conflict, (civil wars and struggles between civilian and military groups, armed insur-
particularly that associated with the process of state-formation;and diasporas rection and revolutionary movements, and terrorism), entrepreneurial violence
and networks have been important in previous conflicts both ideologically (criminal organizations whose key characteristic is the capacity to supply
(as in the Spanish Civil War) and in decolonization struggles. What is new private protection or to use violence for profit), community violence (responses
is the salience of many internal conflicts, rather than any qualitative shift2' to lack of effective state power by communities to enforce social norms, most
Nor is it the case that globalization makes certain sorts of violence 'naturally' notably in the growth of vigilantism),religiously sanctioned or religiously inspired
more internationalized. It is the invisibility and political unimportance of violence, and everyday individual-level criminal violence. Particular conceptualiza-
many v&yviolent conflicts that is often most striking. Nor is there any simple tions of violence can have a great impact on how v i o l ~ c is e understood and
relationship between globalization and the role of state. Indeed, many 'new on the policy responses that are called for. Equally dearly, there is nothing
wars' have led many to reconsider the importance of state strength and to see neutral in these dassilications. How a particular incidence of violence is
solutions in very old-fashioned terms: how to reconstruct and remake viable understood depends on one's political perspective. For example, one of the
nation-states as the building blocks of local or regional order. And, of course, most important policy issues facing governments is whether to legitimize an
other conflicts have seen a reassertion of state capacity (militarily and in terms outbreak of social violence by treating it as a political act and attempting to
of the control of borders and citizens) and of traditional ideas of national draw its leaders into open political dialogue. Terrorism has added a new and
interest and national sovereignty. politically divisive twist to these long-standing dilemmas. The complexity of
many new threats means that even those who share common interests and
Paul F. Rogers, 'Politics in the Next 50 Years: The Changing Nature of International common values will often and quite legitimately differ as to the precise nature
Conflid, October 2000, http:llwww.brad.ac.Wpeace/pubslpspll.pd of threat, the most adequate response, or the role of use of force in that
21 Wallensteen and Sollenberg contest the claim that the end of the Cold War saw an response. If old style military threats pressed alliances together, new threats
increase in the number of armed conflicts and, commenting on the period 1989-99, argue
that of the 27 major armed conflicts active in 1999, at least 17 dated back to the period before
1989. Peter Wallensteen and MargaMa Sollenberg, 'Armed Conflict, 1989-99', Journal ofpeace
Resenrch, 3715 (2000), 638 and 640.
" Mats Berdal, 'How "New"Are "New Wars"?', Global Govcmaru, 914 (2003),477-502; see For an overview, see Keane (1996). For the most thorough recent analysis of collective
violence, see Stathii N. Kalyvas, The Logic of Cfwlence in Civil War (Cambridge: Cambridge
also Stathis N. Kalyvas, ' "New"and "Old"Civil Wars: A Valid Distinction', World Politics, 54
(2001), 99-118. University Press,2006), esp. 1 6 31.
Issues War, violence, and collective security

are inherently more likely to divide than to unite. And it is entirely natural that a state can unilaterally decide to use force against a long-term and remote
that national positions will reflect fundamentally different perspectives. threat represents a fundamental challenge to accepted legal understandings.
A third implication concerns the range of actors involved. In addition to However, the need to engage in such rethinking has been acknowledged
the roles that NGOs have come to play in many conflict zones, there has been both in the security strategies of other states and in the UN's 2004 High
a sigmficant increase in the use of coercive force on the part of private actors. Level Report. The problem is therefore a real one even if the US 'solution'
The declining capacity of the state to enforce legitimate order has led in many is rejected. Equally, the struggle against terrorism has involved both waging
parts of the world to the privatization of violence as diverse social groups are war and pursuing criminals and a great deal of political contestation has
increasingly able to mobilize armed force, and to the privatization of security resulted from differences in the balance to be accorded to the two strategies
as individuals seek to protect themselves, whether through the growth of and from the tensions between them.= Again, the particular policies adopted
vigilantism, the formation of paramilitary groups, or the purchase of security by the United States, especially in relation to the treatment of detainees,have
within an expanding commercial marketplace. The move to the market and been the subject of much well-deserved criticism. But it is important to
the increased role of private security fmns is especially important: because of note that the structural characteristics of the struggle against terrorism make
the substantive importance of PMCs in many conflict zones; because of the increased tensions amongst different bodies of law inevitable. These are
serious regulatory deficits that are emerging; and because of their implications tensions that the current international legal order is singularly ill-equipped
for the legal categories that have played such an important role within inter- to deal with.
national society (the notion of 'war' as a distinct social and legal category, Fifth, there is the important and relatively neglected role of i n e q ~ a l i t yFor
.~~
the distinction between public and private violence, and the decline in the most developing countries and states elites, the security threats that matter
monopolization of legitimate coercion on the part of the state).z4 A war most are internal and are rooted in their Iack of development and the uncer-
involves violence by organized groups (whether states or of other kinds) for tain and often conflictual processqs of state building. Inequality enters here as
political purposes. It is a clash between agents of political groups. This is one part of the broader problems of underdevelopment. Inequality also needs to
of the ways in which public war was to be distinguished from private violence be seen much more directly as a central cause of many forms of social violence,
against which there was a common purpose-hence the characterization of ethnic conflict, and civil wars. Poverty and immiseration, overpopulation,
the pirate and the terrorist as the enemies of all humankind, hostis humani resource scarcity, and environmental degradation foster social conflict and
generi. Speaking in terms of a war therefore legitimizes a particular conflict are thereby deeply implicated in discussions of collapsing states, the gener-
as having a political character and as involving political actors. Given the ation of refugee flows, and the background conditions which influence the
weakness of many states, the distinctions between public and private war degree of support for terrorist movements. Inequality (especially understood
and the state's monopoly over legitimateviolence-both of which marked the in terms of aggregate levels of deprivation) does not cause conflict in any
emergence of the classical state system-have been eroded with the empow- straightforward sense. Social conflict can take many forms and cannot be
ering of other war-making groups and the widespread privatization of both reduced to any simple set of causal explanations. There is little academic con-
violence and security. sensus on exactly how inequality is related to social vi~lence.~' Nevertheless,
Fourth, and following from the above, the changing character of the most conflict studies have viewed inequality as a potentially important factor,
security agenda has led to a blurring of the legal categories around which the especially when taken together with the destabilizing effects of globalization
use of force has been legally, politically, and morally structured. For example, on state strength and the increased openness of societies and communities to
the specific challenges posed by terrorism and weapons of mass destruction external forces.
(and by the threat of their coming together) have led to calls for a rethinking
of the categories of pre-emptive and preventive self-defence. The US attempt t5 For further detaiIs, see Andrew Hurrell, ' "Thereare no rules" (George W. Bush): Interna-
to enunciate such a doctrine has been the focus of a great deal of criticism, tional Order after September ll', IntemalionalBelafim, 1612 (2002), 186-93.
26 For a powerfully argued view of how the already strong link between inequality and
and for good reason. As with unsanctioned humanitariy intervention, the insecurity is likely to be exacerbated by on-going environmental change, see Paul Hist, War
dangers of predation and abuse appear to be unacceptably high, and the idea and Power in the Zlst Century (Cambridge: Poliv Press, 2001).
27 For reviews, see March Irving Lichbach, 'An Evaluation of "Does Economic Inequality
Breed Political Contlict?" Studies', World Politics, 4114 (July 1989), 431-70; and Jenk W.
" See Deborah Avant, The Market for Face (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005); Houweling, 'Destabilizing Consequences of Sequential Development', in Luc van de Goor,
Kumar Rupesinghe, and Paul Sciarone (eds.), Between Development and Destruction: An Enquiry
Peter Singer, Corporate Wmrion (Cornell, NY: Cornell University Press,2003); and Sarah Percy,
Regulating the Private Senaity Indusby, Adelphi Paper 384 (London: IISS, 2007). into the Causes o f Conflict in Post-Colonial States (Basingstoke, UK: Macmillan. 1996), 143-69.

778
Issues War, violence, and collective security

Inequality and the environment interact in potentially destabilizing ways. power and diversity of values. To understand what is meant by 'new security
Homer-Dixon, for example, has highlighted the role of environmental scarcity challenges' we have to 'open up the politics of security: understanding the
in driving the poverty, refugee flows, ethnic tensions, and weak state institu- political process by which issues come to be defined in terms of threats,
tions that are implicated in so much social conflict in the developing identifying the actors that are involved in the process of securitization, and
Indeed inequality is more central than Homer-Dixon himself allows given being alert to whose interests are being served by treating issues as security
that his rather natural-sounding category of 'environmental scarcity' contlates issues.30An issue becomes a security issue because a particular group (whether
resource scarcity, population growth, and the unequal social disbibution of a state, an international organization, an NGO, a terrorist group, or the media)
resources. Inequality is also central to critical and feminist critiques which has successfully forced it onto the security agenda, not because it is in some
view traditional, approaches to security as having ignored the security of objective sense important or threatening. The process of threat creation (the
women, the marginal, the poor, and the voiceless. The security of these groups 'how') is therefore a central part of the explanation (the 'why'). There is no
has been marginalized because of the narrowness and ethnocentrism of the need to adopt an extreme constructivist position and to deny that certain
definition of what constitutes ~ecurity.'~ sorts of security threats pose very broad dangers (as with a potential nuclear
Finally, and most importantly, the changing nature of the global security conflict in East or South Asia); nor to deny that there can be a strong and
agenda underscores the essential contestability of security. Whose security is broadly shared interest in combating particular dangers (as with many forms
to be protected and promoted? Against what kinds of threats? And through of terrorist violenh). There also remains a great deal of truth in the pluralist
the use of what sorts of instruments? Some seek to answer these questions argument that a stable structure of relations amongst major powers pro-
in objective and material terns, assessing the material dangers involved, vides the necessary political structure within which other forms of insecurity
evaluating the numbers killed or threatened, and measuring the negative can be managed, including by multilateral institutions. Nevertheless, critical
security externalities caused by differing forms of interdependence. In the theorists and constructivists correctly alert us to the political and contested
1990s, many aspects of the new security agenda were seen as important character of security and to the crucial role of unequal power in explaining
to 'international security', but only where drugs, social upheaval, political whose security counts.
violence, or environmental destruction directly affected outsiders or had the Others seek to answer these questions in moral terms. For advocates of
potential to do so. Globalization, mass communications, and the liberaliza- human security, morality dictates that security is fundamentally about the
tion of economic exchanges are problematic for the new security agenda promotion of human security in the face of all kinds of existential threats.
because of the way in which they facilitate illicit flows of drugs, weapons, Human security should include safety from hunger and disease as well as
or mass migration. Seen in this way, terrorism is becoming objectively more from all forms of vi01ence.~' For nationalists and communitarians, the answer
important because of the rise of religious terrorism which increases the will- is equally simple but very different. From this perspective there is no such
ingness to bear costs and to reject legal and moral constraints, because the thing as intemational security any more than there exists an international
number and lethality of terrorist attacks have increased, and because glob- community. The only security that matters is the security of one's own state
alization and technological change has provided groups with new forms of or community. Limited costs may be incurred to safeguard the security of
global reach, new means of recruitment and propaganda, and new forms of other groups or to promote a more benign intemational environment. But
financing. such efforts must be subject to a test of national interest not merely because
And yet there is no uncontested and objective way of deciding what mat- of the legitimate political imperatives faced by the leaders of states but also
ters or is 'really' important. Although embodied in institutions and material because of a particular view of what morality requires.
forces that take on a high degree of concreteness and reality, security and A great deal of the divisivenessover when it is legitimate to use force in the
securitization are intersubjective processes that are socially constructed, not interest of security follows inevitably from the essentially contested character
objectively given, and, as such, inevitably reflect both inequalities in social of the concept of security and from the intensely and unavoidably political
character of contemporary processes of securitization. It is this which explains
For example, Thomas Homer-Dixon, 'Environmental Scarcities and Violent Conflict: why an organization such as the UN will always be susceptible to the charge
Evidence from Cases', International Senuity,1911 (1994)' 5-40.See also Chapter 9, fn 8.
Keith Krause and Michael Williams (eds.), Critical Security Studies (Minneapolis, MN: See Barry Buzan, Ole Waever, and Jaap de Wilde, Security: A Nav Frmnavork for Analysis
University of Minnesota Press, 1998); J. Ann Tickner, 'Re-visioning Security', in Ken Booth (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1998).
and Steve Smith (eds.), International Political Theory Today (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1995), 31 See S. Neil MacFarlane and Yuen Foong Khong, Human Security and the UN:A Critical
History (Bloomington,MN: Indiana University Press, 2006).
Issues War, violence, and collective security

disarmament and arms control measures.33 As has been widely noted, the
of turning 'collective security' into 'selective security'. There is nothing self- practice of the UNSC has been to define threats to international peace and
evident about the statement that the 'greatest threat to peace and security security in novel and far broader ways--although we should also note that the
comes from international terrorism. Indeed, from a variety of contexts, moral language of resolutions has often been cautious, balancing new goals (such as
positions, and analytical perspectives, such a statement is manifestly wrong. humanitarianism and democracy) with more traditional concerns (such as the
loss of effetive government control or the international impact of internal
conflicts), and stressing the unique circumstances of the particular case.
The recurring dilemmas of collective security Second, such measures were to be enforced rather than undertaken with the
consent of the parties concerned (as with traditional peacekeeping but also in
Building on the earlier discussion, it is helpful to distinguish between strong line with a great deal of traditional international legal practice). The erosion
and weak understandings of collective security. On a strong view, every state of consent has been most obviously apparent in direct enforcement actions
accepts that the security of one is the concern of all and agrees to join in a involving economic sanctions or military operations and in the establishment
collective response to threats to international peace and security. The focus of international administrations. But it could also be seen in the far-reaching
is on the system as a whole and on the collective and organized efforts by forms of interventionism embodied in many Chapter VI operations which
states to reduce insecurity by punishing members that violate the norms of ranged from demilitarization to the provision of law and order, to electoral
the system." On the weaker view, states commit themselves to developing assistance and democracy;34in the peacekeeping operations that fell in the
and enforcing generally accepted rules, norms, and principles in the area of grey area between Chapters VI and VII; and in cases such as East Timor where
international peace and security, and doing so through action that has been 'consent' was effectively coerced. And third, these moves increasingly came,
authorized by international institutions. Both versions, however, have faced both implicitly and explicitly, to be built around an understanding of human
four recurring dilemmas. security-the idea that human beings represent the morally fundamental
referent object of security and that the sovereignty of states is, at least to
some degree, contingent upon the ful6lment by their governments of their
The dilemma of stabilizing core norms responsibilities to their citizens to refrain from at least the most serious
violations of the rights of their citizens. This normative shift can be traced
One of the most important roles of the UN (and to a lesser extent other non- both in the language and negotiation of resolutions and in the broader set of
global and regional institutions)is as a site for the negotiation, evolution, and practices involved in multilateral operations and in the various UN reports,
implementationof norms related to security and as a focal point for normative statements, and proposals.35
expectations. Central to the Charter System was, of course, the return of the However, the emergence and embeddedness of these new norms does not
old notion of jus ad bellurn and the view that the use of force was only to end contestation. As I suggested jn Chapter 1, it is not helpful to juxtapose
be justified in case of self-defence or as authorized by the UN. In the post- power and interests on the one side and law and norms on the other. Norms
Cold War period there has been a great deal of normative development in the are important because of their role in shaping the ends and goals of policy
areas of human security, humanitarian intervention, and the responsibility to and the means to secure those ends, rather than in establishing a clear set
protect. These developments can be analysed under three headings. of regulatory rules that dictate what states should do. New norms open up
First of all, the UN became increasingly involved not simply in cases of new questions. How far, for example, did UN Charter law in relation to the
interstate aggression (as with Iraq-Kuwait in 1990) but also in a increas- use of force replace established custom? What are the circumstances that
ingly broad range of internal matters: the protection of human rights and
countering large-scale humanitarian emergencies, threats to civilians and 33 Terrorism has led to a further expansion, involving attempts at controlling transnational
NGOs by armed groups, dealing with refugee issues, restoring democracy, Bows of terrorist financing and the assertion of far more direct authority over individuals.
the policing of safe areas and protection zones, and the implementation of " See Michael Doyle, Ian Johnstone, and Robert Orr (eds.), Keeping the Peace: Multidime-
nimd lJN Operatim in Carnhiia and EI Salvador (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1997).
32 It is noteworthy that the UN High Level Panel spoke explicitly of the need for a collective 35 See MacFarlane and Khong (2006: chs. 5 and 6); ICISS (2001); A More Secure World. OUJ
security system, despite all of the problems associated with the concept and despite failing SharedResponsibility. Report of the htaq-General's High k e l Panel on Threats, Challenges
to address those problems. See especially Part II(D): Elements of a credible collective security and Change. United Nations (December U)04), especially para. 199-203; references to the
system. A More Secure Wd& Our Shared Responsibility. Report of the Secretary-General'sHigh literature on h~ar&uian intervention are given in Chapter 6.
Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change. United Nations (December 2004).
Issues War, violence, and collective security

problematic, international humanitarian law has not been abandoned or

constitute legitimate self-defence, especially in the context of recent debates
overthrown. Indeed, its importance has been consistently stressed in UNSC
on antiapatory self-defence? Moreover, many core issues remain beyond
resolutions. In addition, all recent peacekeeping operations have protection
agreement. There is no agreed definition of 'aggression', just as there has
mandates and human rights mandates. There are, nevertheless, two ways
been movement but no closure in reaching an agreed definition of terrorism.
in which the theory and practice of collective security works to expand the
Equally, norms related to human security and to humanitarian intervention
scope of international action and involvement. The first concerns justice
open up many further questions (what precisely is to count as the trigger for
and punishment. In its classic forms collective security understands war in
humanitarian intervention?);they also have to be applied to the facts of often
terms of an aggressor who can be identified and punished. In addition, the
very murky cases; and the reasons have to be debated and argued over (the so-
expansion in the 1990s of the range of threats to intemational peace and
called jurying function of the UN). As is dearly the case with humanitarian
security came to involve many activitiesof an international criminal character
intervention, there is no settled consensus on what to do in the event -that
(genocide, crimes against humanity, and transitional justice). Moving in this
agreement within the Security Council cannot be reached. Finally, although
way towards the so-called 'domestic analogy' raises very difficult questions-
normative debate may be narrowed, the essentially contested character of
about the balance between the political and the legal in the operation of
security discussed in the previous section remains, especially given the return
the Security Council, about how just punishment is to be related to the
of much harder and more traditional understandings of securityin the context
impartiality required of traditional peacekeeping, and about the relation of
of the post-september 11world.
justice to the often crude political deal-making around which many conflicts
have traditionally been resolved. But the general move has been dearly in
The dilemma of containment a politically and legally expansionist direction. The second trend towards
expansion is related to the perceived necessity to engage in state-building
The second issue in the debate about collective security concerns the question and post-conflict reconstruction in order to secure longer-term solutions. For
of the restraints on the scope and extent of conflict. The nitics of collec- all the talk in the 1990 of moving beyond Westphalia, most intemational
tive security have long argued that enforcement action could actually make responses to insecurity have been conducted in a rather traditional manner:
conflict more divisive and harder to manage because of the way in which it progress is to be achieved by reconstructing countries as viable nation-states,
undermines both geographical limits on the scope of conflict (above all in the even in the most unpromising of circumstances, and maintaining the borders
concept of neutrality) and legal limits on the kinds of military force that could of existing states, even in cases where state breakdown and regional conflict
be employed (international humanitarian law). In the model of collective have been inten~e.~'
security, all states must be prepared to act against any state that commits a
breach of the peace. In Rousseau's terms, the general will of the community
must prevail over sectional interests. The moral and political imperative for The dilemma of preponderant power
the just side to win would tempt it to use whatever force was necessary to
In theory collective security offers the purest soIution to the dilemma of
achieve that goal--irrespective of whether such force undercut internationaily
preponderance. Inequality is not to be feared, opposed, or balanced against,
agreed constraints based on mutual interest and the fact that they applied
but is, instead, to be harnessed to the legitimate collective purposes of interna-
equally to both sides. Collective security would also lead naturally to crusad-
tional society. In practice the situation is more complex. First, the veto reflects
ing and to couching conflicts in terms of a struggle between good and evil and
the reality of a power distribution in which attempts to coerce the major
this would, in turn, undermine the constraints on the form of conflict and
,powers of the system could only be achieved at great risk and high, and in
erode the effectiveness of diplomatic and political accommodation. For Carl
Schmitt: 'The Geneva League of Nations does not eliminate the possibility of 37 During the 1990s some commentators suggested that the comb'iation of extreme
war, just as it does not abolish states. It introduces new possibilities for wars, internal state weakness or even collapse, serious sub-regional conflicts, and the emergence
permits wars to take place, sanctions coalition war, and by legitimizing and of new conceptions of sovereignty created the need to demonstrate that there was 'at
least some Buidity in the state system', to propose regional solutions 'without regard to
sanctioning certain kinds of wars, it sweeps away many obstacles to war.'36 country boundaries', to accept the possibility of recognizing new sovereign states, and even
The notion that collective security works in a straightforward fash- to 'decerti@failed states'. Herbst (Winter 1996-7: 120-44). Yet, although different forms of
ion against restraint is too simple. Although its implementation is often interventionismhave certainly inaeased in number and scope, there has been very little sign
of any such 'less dogmatic approach to sovereignty'in the sense of permitting or encouraging
the reconstitution of states. See also Chapter 4 on national self-determination.
Issues War, violence, and collective security

an era of nuclear weapons, potentially disastrous, costs. For all the illogicality to act effectively and not dominated by any single power, is unlikely in most
of the present composition of the P5 (the permanent members of the UNSC), imaginable situations. But the particular &stribution of power in the post-
this remains a basic feature of the system, which reform is unlikely to alter. Cold War world and the military predominance of the United States have
Second, unable to command substantialmilitary forces in the ways envisaged made this problem far more acute.
by the Charter, UN enforcement action has operated by means of authorizing The effectiveness of collective action has therefore continued to depend on
the use of force by member-states (as with US-led coalitions as in Iraq-Kuwait restricting decision-making and action to a small number of powerful states
in 1990, Somalia in 1992, Haiti in 1994, or NATO in Bosnia in 1995).38UN that have both capability and willingness to act. On the one side, this leads
authorization of limited use of force has also become the common method of naturally to the risk of selectivity in terms of which security issues are to
enforcing sanctions, air exclusion zones, and other restrictions on particular be addressed and to the all-too-evident danger that the collective will of the
states and their activities. This situation is always likely to create problems 'intemational community' will be contaminated by the special interests and
of effective delegation and But these have been made worse when preferences of particular states. In addition, since the mid-1980s more and
resolutions of the UNSC have laid out objectives to be achieved and values more business has been conducted in informal yet structured negotiations
to be protected but have failed to specify or provide for the means by which and consultations amongst the P5.* The Security Council thus appears as an
these are to be achieved.40 instrument in the hands of the most powerful. On the other, major states,
Third, dealing with even relatively small-scale threats to peace and security and especially but by no means only the United States, remain resistant to
requires military capacities and economic resources of a kind possessed by having their hands tied by a multilateral body. The Security Council is an
a relatively small group of states. It may well be the case that the rapid unwelcome constraint that stands in the way of both national interest and
deployment of a small but effective 'international police force' could make the actions necessary to safeguard international security. It is partly because of
a &fference in particular situations (as perhaps in Rwanda in 1994). However, these divergent pulls that the proliferation of formal multilateral institutions
situations such as the Iraq-Kuwait war and in former Yugoslavia demonstrated has been accompanied by the continuing importance of informal groupings of
the need for the sorts of coercive power that can only be deployed by major states-contact groups, core groups, groups of friends-that act in and around
states and the military alliances in which they act. Equally, both the relatively formal bodies.43
successful cases of post-conflict stabilization and state-building (Namibia,
Cambodia, Mozambique, El Salvador, and T i o r ) and the failures (as in
Rwanda, Angola, Liberia, and Somalia) suggest that multidimensional peace-
building cannot be achieved without a major commitment of resources.41 A The dilemma of common interest
collectively drawn force in a balanced way from a wide variety of states, able The final issue concerns the relationship between law and principle on the one
hand and state interest on the other. The model of collective security assumes
38 The high-flown language of global governance always needs to be set against the
that each member of international society be prepared to see an aggression
extremely limited administrative, bureaucmtic, and financial resounes of those bodies pw- anywhere as a threat to the peace and to view an attack on one as an attack
porting to govern the globe. on ail. Peace, in other words, must be seen as indivisible. In addition, the
39 See Danesh Sarooshi, The United Nations and the Deveiopmslt of Collective Senaity: The
Ddegatim by the UN Serurity Camcil of16 Chapter VilPowm (Oxford:Oxford University Press, model assumes that states be prepared to act decisively on this recognition
1999). even if such qction is costly and goes against their more immediate short-
The space between wiUed ends and provided-fur means was characteristic of the bomb- term interests. For the self-styled realist critics of the 1940s, these assumptions
ing of Iraq in December 1998 and of the NATO air attacks in March 1999. The United States were simply fallacious and inherently flawed. It might be that a state's political
and the United Kingdom sought legal justification for the use of force against Iraq in March
2003 on the basis that previous (JNSCresolutions provided 'continuing authority'. Whilst interests coincided with opposition to a particular aggression. But this could
there are very good legal reasons for disputing such claims, the general point remains valid. never be an absolute or automatic conclusion. Whether a state responded to a
If international sodety is capable only of such actions in the field of intemational security
built around the authorization of individual states or groups of states to act on its behalf, particular act of aggression would be determined by the overall pattern of its
what sense does it make to deny those states the autonomy to cany through the agreed foreign policy interests. As Morgenthau put it:
goals? See Adam Roberts, 'Willing the End but not the Means', The World T w (May 1999),
8-12; and 'Legal Controversies in the War on Terror', keynote address, US Pacific Command,
InternationalMilitary Owrations and Law Conference, Singapate, 2 1 4 March 2005,4-5.
Michael Doyle Ad-~icholasSambanis, .'.lnternati~n~&cebuildin~: A Theoretical and
" See especially David Malone, The InternationalStruggle over Iraq: Politics in Ule UN Senaiv
Council, 1980-2005 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006).
Quantitative Analysis', American Political Science R e v i , 9414 (2000), 778-801. 43 See Prantl(2005: 559-92).
Issues War, violence, and collective security

The only question collective security is allowed to ask is: 'Who has committed aggres- the conditions under which the limits and constraints bite most deeply.
sion?' Foreign policy cannot help asking: 'What interest do I have in opposing this In the first place, neither interests nor identities are fixed for all time.
particular aggressor and what power with which to oppose him?44 Hence, the defenders of the logic of collective security in the UN High
Level Panel Report argue that state interests are changing, and will con-
In an anarchical world of conflict and power competition, the responsibility tinue to change, because of increasing interconnectivity, mutual vulnera-
of the statesman was to his own community and to the national interests of bility, and the impossibility of unilateral defence; and that these changes
that community. In such a world, no overarching moral imperative to oppose will increase the incentives for c ~ o p e r a t i o n .A~s we have already noted,
unjust aggression and to defend all states against such aggression could be international institutions have helped to embed new legal understandings
allowed to prevail over a state's own national interest. Why not? Partly of human security and the responsibility to protect in ways which do not
because the moral responsibility of the statesman was necessarily and justi- determine state policy but which shape how state interests are understood
fiably to his national community, and partly because the logic of collective and how the costs and benefits of different policy choices are debated and sold
security rested on an erroneous understanding of the nature of intemational politically.
order. Collective security envisaged order in terms of law and intemational Second, there are many instances of insecurity in which some practical or
legal structures. For the realists, such precarious order as obtained in intema- moral interest is engaged, but of a limited character. In such cases, the realist
tional life was a function not of law but of power. It rested on the inequality critique that to act collectively is necessarily to put core national interests
of states, on the balance of power between states, and the manipulation and at risk is overblown. In these cases, the burden-sharing and the legitimacy
management of that balance by skilled diplomatists. Moreover, the problem benefits provided by multilateralism are considerable and help explain why
was not simply that collective security did not work; it was that the illusion of in 2004 there were some 60,000 troops from 96 states participating in UN
trying to make collective security work would undermine the functioning of operations, in addition to the roles of the EU in Macedonia and Eastern
more limited but more realistic means to promote both national interest and Congo; NATO in Kosovo; Afghanistan and Bosnia; and Economic Community
at least a degree of international order. This was the real failing of the League of West African States (ECOWAS) in Liberia. But even on matters of major
in the 1930s. importance, the incentives pressing states towards engagement with multi-
The events that led from September 11 to the resort to war in 2003 against lateral institutions remain considerable, above all because of the problems of
Iraq without the authorization of the Security Council saw a resurgence of legitimacy. These problems have been increased by the changing character
many of these old arguments. For many they reinforced the obvious truth of security challenges, particularly in terms of their non-state, intrastate, and
of the Schimittian position, namely that, in times of war, it is for the state transnational chhacters which inevitably raise politically diicult questions
to decide for itself when exceptional measures have to be taken, irrespective of selectivity, moral contestability, and unavoidably deep intrusion into the
of what intemational law or institutions might say. More broadly, they rein- organization of domestic society. For all of the failures associated with the UN,
forced the belief that attempts to subject the use of force to the rule of law its defenders argue powerfully, and correctly, that interest and institutional
were doomed to fail and, if law is to enter the picture at all, it can only be by engagement can coincide even for the strong: partly because of the burden-
staying close to the realities of power. During the Cold War attempts to subject sharing opportunities created by effective multilateralism, partly because the
the use of force to the rule of law had been undermined by the intensity of the multilateralism has a rather better record in the immensely difficult task of
bipolar confrontation between the superpowers. In the postxold War world, state and nation-building, but most especially, because of the unique role
they are undermined by the scale and extent of US power.45 of the UN as the source of collective legitimation for the use of force and
The black and white view of both the traditional realist critics and the the forum within the norms surrounding the use of force are maintained,
more recent doubters overstates the nature of the choice and fails to specify developed, and inte~preted.~' The importance of mobilization, justification,

Hans J. Morgenthau, Politics m n g Nations, 5th edn. (New York: ALfred A. Knopf, 1978), 46 The idea that there is a shared interest in a peaceful and stable world has often been
420; see also Henry Kissinger, D i p l o m q (London:S i n and Schuster, 1994), 249; andJohnJ. linked to the powth of interdependence. As Plaunt put it in 1934: 'The idea of
Mearsheimer, 'The False Promise of International Institutions', International Institutions, 1913 collective security springs out of the economic and scientific interdependence of the modem
(Wmter 1994-5), 5-49. world', in Maurice Bourquin, CollectiveSecurity: A Record of the Seventh and Eighth Intolational
45 See e.g. MichaelJ. Glennon, 'Why the Security Council Failed', Foreign Affairs 82/3(May- Studies Confsence, Pa* 1934--London 1935 (Paris: Intemational Institute of Intellectual
June 2003), 16-35. Compare with Hans Morgenthau's famous article of 1940, 'Positivism, ~ooperatioh,1936), 133.
Functionalism and International Law'. American foumal of International Lmv, 34 (1940), 261- 47 The classic statement is from Inis Claude, 'Collective Legitimation as a Political Function
of the United Nations', Intemationnl Organization, XX/3 (1966), 367-79; see, more recently,
Issues War, violence, and collective security

and legitimation in the context of the so-called 'long war against global their interests and accords with their sort of game; to another group it may
terror' has been evident, as have the high costs of unilateral action that was seem the very incarnation of wrong?50
both widely perceived as illegitimate and which made the subsequent task of
burden-sharing and on-going cooperation much harder.
And yet, although the collective element in security management has
Conclusion
increased, we remain as far away as ever from anything approaching a
functioning system of collective security. Peace is not indivisible, and states
In terms of security-as with so many of the other issues discussed in this
and their citizens remain unwilling to bear the costs of collective action
book-our understandingof what it is legitimate, indeed perhaps necessary, to
in complex and dangerous conflicts in which their direct interests are only
expect from the international political system has grown enormously. These
weakly engaged. It may well be that the horrors of the Rwanda genocide
prompted increased normative momentum in the areas of human security
expectations lead inevitably away from a pluralist security order built around ,
minimalist norms of coexistence and in which the balance of power played a
and the responsibility to protect. But the continued failure of outside states to
central role, and towards a security order that both seeks much tighter control
undertake effective action in Dafur highlights the continuity of the problem.
over the use of force and reaches deep into the ways in which domestic
The problem is not just one of initial unwillingness to act; just as serious is the
societies are organized. The normative ambitions of international society in
reluctance of member-states to follow up on their post-conflict peace-building
relation to security have therefore come to include: progressively tighter limits
(even in cases such as Afghanistan where substantial national interests would
on legitimate justifications for the use of force by states, more effective control
appear to be at stake). The UN is a site for interstate diplomatic activity, as *
over the deveIopment and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and
well as a stage for important forms of political theatre and symbolic increased concern for the security of an expanded range of social groups ,
But it is also a dustbin into which leaders seek to throw problems that they
against an expanded range of threats.
cannot solve and the capacity of the organization to 'act' remains extremely
This greatly increased normative ambition has been driven in part by moral
limited. Its many failures are overwhelmingly the failures of individual states
concerns. However uneven and inconsistent such concerns may be, major
rather than of the organization.
states have been unable to define their interests solely in narrow instrumental
Nor is it the case that the problem of collective security can be understood
or power-political terms. But it has also been driven by this pragmatic pres-
simply as a problem of capturing a well-understood common interest and
sures which have increasingly linked the security of the rich with the inse-
being able to overcome the well-known problems of defection and freerid-
curity of the poor. For those affected by state breakdown or large-scale social
ing.49 Although defection and freeriding are certainly severe problems, this
violence, security and the provision of public order remains a precondition
is a hopelessly over-optimistic way of characterizing the problem. Circum-
for sustained and equitable development. For those in the devebped world,
stances, contexts, and values mean that there can be no easily shared answer
the dangers of diffusion and spillover remain very real. However difficult it
to the question of whose security or against which threats that security is to ''
may be to measure and assess particular linkages, it is highly implausible to
be promoted. International order is not an easily agreed commodity in which
believe that, over the medium term, those living in the richest parts of the
everyone has an equal stake. States are unlikely to defend the status quo unless
world will be able to insulate themselves from the instability and insecurity of
they are convinced that it embodies their own interests, their own values, and
the rest. Nor can the countries of the North do without the political support
their own conceptions of social justice. Northedge's comment on the 1930s
of major developing countries if collective and cooperative solutions are to be
remains all too relevant: 'Seen through the eyes of different states, the world
found to global problems.
may seem to one group a familiar and perhaps acceptable place, which suits
Clearly, many contemporary security problems, including not only ter-
rorism but also threats reIated to civil violence, migration, and environ-
mental degradation are not readily susceptible to military responses, or to
Mats Berdal, 'The UN Security Council: Ineffective but Indispensable', Survival, 4512 (20031,
7-30. military responses alone. There is a widely shared sense that new security
48 See what continues to be one of the best books on the UN, Conor Cruise O'Brien, The
issues need to be tackled within the context of economic and political
United Nations: Sacred Drama (London:Hutchinson, 1968).
i See e.g. George W. Downs (ed), Collective Security Beyad the Cold War (Ann Arbor, MI:
9 F. S. Northedge, The League of Natim (Leicester, UK: Leicester University Press, 1986),
University of Michigan Press, 1994), especially part I. 289.
 Issues War, violence, and collective security

development because of the resistance of new security challenges to res- centrality of nuclear weapons suggests that deterrence will continue to play a
olution via traditional security instnunents. The interpenetration of secu- major role in global security. The renewed importance of nuclear power and
rity and development issues is illustrated by the way in which regional nuclear weapons reflects many factors but has resulted in the erosion of an
and international financial institutions have increasingly had to grapple important element of collective management of security, namely the Nuclear
with political and security issues, adding 'peace conditionalities' to the Non-Proliferation Treaty. If such trends continue, they will lead to a further
ever-growing list of non-economic factors that influence their lending diffusion of effective power, something that cannot but weaken the prospects
policies.51 It is also the case that responsibility for the provision of security for collective security in the future.
? has shifted away from the state to include groups within civil society, private This chapter has sought to trace the role of collective security in contempo-
military companies and international organizations. Yet it is states and states rary international society and the recurring dilemmas to which it gives rise.
alone that command the legitimate military power to promote both individ- It has also sought to highlight and explain the vast gulf that continues to
ual state interest and the common goals (such as collective security or human- exist between the normative ambitions of international society in the field of
itarian intervention) that require coercive capacity and socialized power. security and the power-political structures on which effective responses have
To a much greater extent than realists acknowledge, states need multilateral depended; and between the increased demands for security from a growing
security institutions both to share the material and political burdens of secu- range of subjects against a growing range of threats and the very modest
rity management and to gain the authority and legitimacy that the possession degree of protection that is all too often available.
of crude power can never on its own secure. If we think of the architecture
of global security, different forms of collective security have come to bear
a modestly greater weight, whilst the evolving legal rules in relation to the
use of force and the broader security-related norms of the UN have come to
influence both the construction and functioning of many other parts of the
building. However, major aspects of the structure continue to have little or
nothing to do with formal institutions, still less with the idea of collective
security. They remain firmly rooted in the pluralist world.
During the Cold War, the central elements of the global security architecture
were built (often dangerously and precariously) around nuclear deterrence,
the alliance systems developed around the two superpowers, and a set of
loose pluralist institutions (involving norms and practices of crisis manage-
ment, arms control, and spheres of influence). In the post-Cold War world,
many aspects of the system have continued to play a decisive role, most
notably in the US-led alliance systems that reach across the Atlantic and
Pacific. Although major power relations are in a state of flux as unipolarity
fades, the balance of military power and the character of security relations
amongst the major powers continue to play their traditional role as important
determinants of the overall structure. Equally in many regions the security
order is structured around balanced or hierarchical power. This may be sup-
plemented by a range of institutions, but, with the exception Europe, these
are institutions whose scope and impact remains limited. Finally, the renewed

51 This chapter has concentrated on the UN's roles in relation to peace and security. There
are many complex issues relating to the UN 'system' more generally, to the problems of many
agencies, and to the way in which they relate, or not, to each other. For an overview of
the UN's roles, see Roberts and Kingsbury (1993: ch. 1). For a critical view, see Rosemary
Richter, Utopia Lost. The United N a t i m and World Order (New York: Twentieth Century Fund,
1995).