PERSPECTIVE ON SOMALIA : When America Talks, Thugs Listen : Getting relief supplies to the starving countryside will take military force, which is beyond the scope of the U.N.

Somali strongman Gen. Mohammed Farrah Aidid and Interim President Ali Mahdi Mohamed have just taught the international community an important lesson. Will it be learned?

Three months ago, the United Nations proposed sending 3,500 peacekeeping troops to Somalia to secure the relief effort. Aidid threatened to send them home in body bags. Only 500 Pakistani soldiers have been dispatched to date and, thanks to Aidid, they are under siege at Mogadishu’s airport.

Hundreds of Somalis a day continue to die of starvation and diseases induced by malnutrition. Barely 20% of international food relief is reaching the needy, the rest being lost to armed thugs.

Last week, the United States offered to commit up to 30,000 U.S. troops to Somalia as part of a U.N.-authorized multinational force. Aidid welcomed the American initiative and promised support. Mahdi followed suit.

The lesson is clear: Where anarchy prevails, as in Somalia, only the threat of superior force can restore a semblance of order. What is not yet clear is whether international relief agencies and the United Nations fully appreciate the implications of the lesson. Both have expressed initial reluctance to embrace the U.S. offer, for perverse reasons.

International relief agencies fear retribution against their representatives in Somalia, who number about 400, if U.S.-led coalition forces engage Somali gangs. These agencies thereby put the safety of the hundreds of their workers ahead of the thousands of Somalis who face death. This might carry weight if they were successful in delivering food, medical and other assistance to more than a fraction of the population. But they are not.

Even worse, the major source of hard currency for the armed factions in Somalia is the food and medicine they plunder and the funds they extort from these agencies. And a major use of this currency is to import yet more arms from abroad. Under present circumstances, therefore, international relief agencies in Somalia are part of the problem, not the solution. Accordingly, they should be the first to welcome effective armed intervention.

Reluctance by the United Nations stems from fear that its authority and prestige would be diminished by ceding operational control of a multinational force to the United States, as the Pentagon insists. But the United Nations lacks the ability to field large-scale fighting forces. And despite pleas by U.N. Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali, governments have shown no signs of granting the United Nations such powers. Hence, this is a phantom loss, in return for a real gain.

The longer-term implication of the Somali warlords’ acquiescence is that a clearer division of labor should be established between multinational forces and the United Nations in responding to humanitarian crises.

Where large-scale troop deployments are required, there is no substitute for national forces, combined in multinational coalitions. They should be requested and sanctioned by the Security Council. But it is asking too much now to place them under an integrated multinational command, as many U.N. officials and supporters urge. In all of modern history, there is only one successful instance of large-scale standing forces organized in this manner: NATO. Mutual affinity and trust in global politics may have improved in the past few years, but they are not yet of the same order as in the Atlantic alliance during the Cold War. Even the European Community has barely begun to move in this direction via a planned Franco-German army corps.

Other than to authorize multinational forces and thereby endow them with collective legitimacy, the U.N. should focus on its peacekeeping and peacemaking roles. History shows that the world body derives its strength from its impartiality, the interpositionary character of peacekeeping forces and their provision of support services to peoples under stress. In recent years, these missions have expanded to include human-rights monitoring, administering public agencies, providing police contingents and supervising electoral politics. All will be required in Somalia. But all would be risked by U.N. insistence to field fighting forces.