NEWS ANALYSIS : Heady Prospects for Global Role Turning Into a U.N. Migraine : Security: The plagued Somalia and Bosnia experiences are reflected in new catchwords. Experts speak of ‘a time of testing’ and ‘uncharted waters.’

WASHINGTON —  All the heady, trendy optimism about the aggressive role of the United Nations in a post-Cold War world is deflating under the weight of recent events in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Somalia.

Only a year or so ago, the writings and sound bites of U.N. officials, diplomats and think tank analysts described a new era in which the United Nations, no longer paralyzed by the bitter enmity between the United States and the Soviet Union, could act swiftly and decisively to put an end to cruel aggression and senseless civil wars before they got out of hand.

That vision is still a hope for many. But the catchwords are different now. The experts talk about “a time of testing” and “uncharted waters” as the United Nations tries to work out a new role for itself. No one is as sure of success as he once was.

“There is a real danger that the Security Council will become irrelevant,” says Brian Urquhart, a Ford Foundation scholar who is a former U.N. undersecretary general in charge of peacekeeping. “There is a danger of the Wizard of Oz syndrome--that you’re pulling all the wheels and pushing out smoke but not doing anything.”

Edward C. Luck, president of the United Nations Assn., a private group of U.N. supporters, points to a major political problem that was largely ignored in all the optimistic talk about the future of the United Nations. “It’s easier to get a decision in the Security Council now,” he says. “But, without the Cold War, no one is quite sure why they are doing these things.”

There is no national interest that Italy or Spain can cite to justify the death of its soldiers in Somalia and Bosnia. The result is confusion and hesitation about a government’s commitment to U.N. operations.

The Clinton Administration has ordered the State Department, the Pentagon and other agencies in Washington to prepare a joint study on U.S. peacekeeping policy. Meanwhile, Congress rejected a White House request for $175 million for a special peacekeeping contingency fund in 1994. In all, the United States now owes the United Nations more than $800 million in both regular dues and peacekeeping assessments.

The United States is the largest debtor, but there are many others, including Russia, Brazil, Ukraine and South Africa. “The message,” says Luck, “is very clear: The members (of the United Nations) are not serious.”

Although the United Nations can herald a good number of peacekeeping operations, including those in Cambodia and El Salvador, as seemingly successful for now, the future of peacekeeping obviously rests on how well the United Nations does in Somalia and how much it can salvage in Bosnia.

The Somali operation has provoked bitter controversy in the last few weeks because of the killing of more than 40 peacekeepers and of four news photographers, the bungled hunt for Somali warlord Mohammed Farah Aidid and the slaying of a large but disputed number of Somalis in the process.

The most vociferous opposition has come from Italian officials and soldiers who blame Jonathan Howe, the retired American admiral who heads the U.N. operations in Somalia, for turning a relief mission into a military campaign against Aidid.

In turn, Undersecretary General Kofi Annan, the Ghanaian who heads U.N. peacekeeping operations worldwide, ordered the Italians to remove Gen. Bruno Loi as commander of the Italian contingent in Somalia. The Italians refused to remove Loi but finally agreed to post their troops somewhere else in Somalia.

In their anger, the Italians, the former colonial rulers in most of what is now Somalia, appear to have forgotten that the U.N. operation was clearly designed as peace enforcement, not passive peacekeeping.

“It’s a bit disingenuous for the Italians to complain,” says William J. Durch, who heads a peacekeeping study for the Henry L. Stimson Center in Washington. “So where have they been for the last six months?”

As peace enforcers, almost all analysts agree, the U.N. forces had little choice but to hunt down Aidid after his followers ambushed U.N. soldiers from Pakistan, taking the lives of 24. And, though the hunt has still not succeeded, the United Nations cannot stop now.

“You just have to see it through,” says Luck. “As soon as you run into a nasty guy like Aidid, you have casualties, you have journalists as sacrificial lambs. Suddenly, everyone says, ‘Oh, my God.’ But if you are going to run away, the U.N. will have no credibility.”

Some U.N. officials blame what they regard as shortcomings of the U.S. Marine intervention in Somalia for most of their troubles now. In December, 1992, under the umbrella of a Security Council resolution, former President George Bush sent 28,000 Marines to the Horn of Africa nation.

Although the resolution ordered the troops to create “a secure environment” in Somalia, American officials ignored Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali’s demand that the Marines disarm the warlords. Americans, insisting that their job was only to deliver food, declared victory for themselves and withdrew in May, giving way to the U.N. force.

Many analysts, especially at the United Nations, believe that Aidid would not have challenged an American attempt to disarm him. In this view, the United States left the most significant, messy part of the assignment to U.N. troops replacing the Americans.

The job, officials insist, will take time. Meeting with reporters in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, several weeks ago, Howe predicted that Somalia will be rid of its warlords and armed bandits by May, 1995, the target date for U.N. withdrawal.

While critics like the Italians believe that the United Nations is attempting too much in Somalia, the complaints in Bosnia are that the United Nations is doing too little. In fact, U.N. officials have been the most vociferous in their opposition to the Clinton Administration’s proposal to bomb Serbian positions. Some analysts believe the United Nations will never give its approval to any request by NATO to bomb the Serbs.

“The reputation of the U.N. is probably in more danger in Bosnia,” says Durch. “The people trying to do a job with a bad mandate are doing the best job they can do.”

The Security Council--led by the United States and its European allies--has passed several resounding resolutions in the last year that promised to halt Serbian aggression through one means or another, but they languished without enforcement.

All analysts agree that the failure in Bosnia has far more to do with the lack of will on the part of the United States and its allies than with any lack of efficiency and commitment on the part of U.N. officials and peacekeepers.

U.N. officials are obviously hoping that the United Nations can salvage some of its honor if a peace settlement is ironed out between the three warring factions at the Geneva conference. But if the war should end with a wholesale slaughter of Muslims, the horror would surely darken the name of the United Nations for years.

The issue of whether the United Nations should be doing more or less underlies the present debate over peacekeeping. Urquhart has provoked a good deal of discussion in the last few weeks with a proposal that the United Nations create a small, highly trained all-volunteer army that the Security Council could use to squelch conflicts quickly. “It would have made a difference in Bosnia,” he says.

Many countries are suspicious of a U.N. army in the hands of the secretary general and the Security Council. They fear it would serve the whims of the big powers.

“Sooner or later, the U.N. has to come to terms with these situations, or it becomes irrelevant,” Urquhart says. “You can’t have it both ways.”