Giving the U.N. Teeth That Won’t Bite Back : U.S. troops under international command? It’s a possibility

The State Department confirms that the Administration is conducting a fundamental policy review with an eye toward placing U.S. troops under foreign command as part of U.N.-authorized military operations. While there is said to be cautious and conditional support in the Defense and State departments for the change, dissent from Congress has been swift. Sen. Malcolm Wallop (R-Wyo.) calls it a “nutty idea.” A number of his more restrained colleagues on both sides of the aisle urge that Congress be consulted before any decisions are made. Certainly that should be done, for a lot of questions ought to be both asked and debated before any troop commitments are undertaken.

U.S. troops already are serving under overall foreign command in several U.N. operations. In Macedonia, in the former Yugoslavia, they are part of a larger peacekeeping force. In Somalia several thousand are involved in providing logistic support, although--significantly--the U.S. quick-reaction combat troops there remain under U.S. command. U.S. military personnel have long been assigned as individuals to take part in U.N. peacekeeping operations, sometimes at great peril. Marine Lt. Col. William R. Higgins was serving in the U.N. observer force in Lebanon in 1988 when he was kidnaped and murdered by pro-Iranian Shiite extremists.

U.S. troops have, of course, served under foreign commanders in both world wars and in both Europe and Asia. But in each of those instances the United States was closely if not always congenially involved in alliances with countries--France and Britain--that had similar political values and, at least while the conflicts raged, identical political objectives. The same has pretty much been true with NATO. But the much greater diversity of the United Nations and still unanswered questions about how a U.N. command structure would function make these earlier experiences largely irrelevant. Committing U.S. troops to U.N. operations on a regular basis would be a new thing, demanding a detailed understanding of exactly what’s involved.

Just what troops might be assigned to U.N. operations, for example? The United States might be able to provide specialists--say in communications or transportation--that other countries don’t have. But virtually every other country does have infantry units, so there might be no need for such U.S. troops. Would the President, as commander in chief, retain ultimate authority over American forces? Congress--and no doubt the Pentagon--could be expected to insist upon it. Would the United States be free to opt out of any operation that it believed was counter to its own political or security interests? That too would have to be understood in advance.

Saying this, the fact remains that it is a primary U.S. national interest to have a stable world where aggression is discouraged. Working for stability cannot effectively be a unilateral undertaking; it is, properly, an international responsibility in which the United States, as the United Nations’ most important member, must share.

What remains to be worked out--and the Administration would be foolish indeed if it fails to involve Congress in the process--are the rules and safeguards governing American participation in any U.N. military operation.