Commentary : Unilateralism Must Give Way to Internationalism : Intervention: To avoid future Kosovos and East Timors, the United Nations must be empowered to do its job.

The tragedies in Kosovo and East Timor were due in large measure to a relative dearth of knowledge, sensitivity and understanding of the objective realities in those areas. The level of sophisticated technology available to the U.S. and the West in general is wrongly considered sufficient to offset indifference and even ignorance of the realities on the ground. The rampage by the Serbian army in Kosovo and the devastation wrought by the Indonesian-sponsored militias in East Timor are only the most recent examples of the humanitarian crises that can ensue when raw power is insulated from such crucial knowledge. Hence the urgent need for mechanisms of prevention and early warning.

Why have these vital instruments of conflict avoidance not yet been installed, despite the proliferation of conflicts? Why is there a reluctance on the part of the international community to provide the U.N. with the resources to fashion a coherent response to the diverse human tragedies and political dislocations that have surfaced since the end of the Cold War?

The answer is that there are two claimants for global conflict management, the U.N. and the United States. Intervention when a humanitarian disaster occurs is the U.N.’s raison d’etre. But the U.N. lacks resources. What the world expects from the U.N. is simply unmatched by its members’ commitment.

On the other hand, the U.S. has an overwhelming capability for crisis management, including enforcement, whether alone or as head of a coalition. But the U.S. is selective on when, under what circumstances and to what extent to intervene. The U.S. insists on being the world’s leader but at the same time eschews the role of global policeman. The rest of the international community has to guess when and why the U.S. will act. This creates the appearance of double standards and inconsistency. Moreover, U.S. interventions are always cast in terms of American national interests, which raises questions of motive and purpose.

We are thus confronted with a dilemma that can be solved only with a redefinition of the U.S.-U.N. relationship. The relationship is especially difficult given the interplay of domestic U.S. politics with policymaking. This has been glaringly evident when the U.S. vetoed former Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali’s reelection, when it deliberately bypassed the U.N. and its relevant resolutions on the Arab-Israeli conflict and when it defied the international consensus and unilaterally interpreted U.N. resolutions to establish no-fly zones in Iraq.

The post-Cold War world demands a correction to this dichotomy. On the one side is the U.S. proclivity to exercise hegemony and even control over the world community’s behavior. Equally obstructive is the prevailing understanding of sovereignty as a shield for systematic human rights violations and even genocidal practices.

To solve the situation, the U.N., through its specialized policy and decision-making agencies, should be empowered to cope with the tasks of peace-building in post-conflict situations as well as peacekeeping and preventive diplomacy, as both Boutros-Ghali and Secretary-General Kofi Annan have advocated.

If so empowered and judiciously managed, a complementary and mutually reinforcing relationship can develop between the U.N. and its most powerful member, the U.S., instead of the existing tensions and unwarranted suspicions.