Part III Neighbourhood Quarrels

Transcription

1 Part III Neighbourhood Quarrels

2 Introduction: Calming the Neighbourhood A neighbourhood has a character which is intermediate between that of a back yard or a clubhouse on the one hand and a high street or a crossroads on the other. It lacks the air of privacy which attends the first two locations, and also the very public associations of the second pair. Yet to some degree it enjoys the nature of both. It is an area for which the residents are chiefly responsible, but it may attract the attention of outsiders, for several reasons. They may take an initiative regarding a neighbourhood out of a sense of public spirit or obligation; or because its affairs are impinging somewhat awkwardly on their own; or they may just respond to a request for help. In practice, of course, external activity directed towards a neighbourhood may not emerge in as clear-cut a fashion as these remarks suggest. But there is a perceptible distinction between the kind of concern which a neighbourhood elicits and the behaviour which is typical in respect of the more proprietarial and open contexts which were referred to above. In international politics, neighbourhood quarrels have not given rise to as much peacekeeping activity as the problems which have occurred in other metaphorical locations. For that the reason is not hard to find. It does not lie in a paucity of disputes between those who are geographically contiguous, nor in the peculiar belligerency of such disputants. It is due rather to the connectedness ofinternational matters. Thus when neighbours quarrel they may immediately arouse the interest of others on account of both of them being located within the same back yard, or club. Alternatively, international activity may ensue because one of the parties is causing some of its associates serious embarrassment. Or the quarrel may present a threat to the general international peace of such proportions as to give it the nature of a dangerous crossroads. In any of these events the 'neighbourhoodness' of the issue is, as it were, overridden by the more compelling character of its wider political context. This is just another way of saying that life internationally, as elsewhere, and probably more so, is lived at more than one level. In this book's political analysis, the allocation ofa dispute to one category rather than another has been determined by what is conceived to be the 140

3 Introduction 141 level which most influences its outcome. As pairs of states are nowadays rarely able to get on with a quarrel entirely on their own, it is not surprising that the number of disputes which fall to be considered in Part III is fewer than in Parts I, II, IV and V. Moreover, when states do quarrel without the attentions of concerned outsiders, it is not over-likely that one or both of them will eventually see virtue in recourse to international peacekeeping. Such measures are generally seen as only the lesser of two evils, and in fact are often accepted chiefly in consequence of external pressure. Even in respect of the eight cases which are discussed in Part III (which could also be seen as arising out of no more than five quarrels or issues), third-party pressures were by no means absent. For, as has been indicated, outsiders may take an interest in a neighbourhood quarrel out of a sense of duty. This is not usually the most imperative of international motives. But if it is unlikely to involve onerous consequences, as in the case of a call for peacekeeping or for behaviour which might point in that direction, it may sometimes be indulged. The great powers, more particularly, may be responsive to the idea that they have an overall responsibility for the maintenance of peace. And the UN was based on this very assumption. The unreality of this scheme - so far as the joint enforcement of peace was concerned - was soon manifest. But the general idea was in the international air, and circumstances provided some early opportunities for trying to act on its basis - but in a manner which was far less dramatic and costly than had been originally intended. To put it differently, what would later be called peacekeeping made two small appearances on the international stage. First, however, came a non-event, in the shape of a high-minded proposal that the UN should solve the competition for Jerusalem by placing it under international administration (Section B). It soon proved, however, that the city was not available for placement. But then, following sharp calls by the Security Council for some temporary ends to the Arab-Israeli fighting, UN truce and armistice observers were despatched to the field in 1948 and 1949 (Section C). The organization which was thus begun is still in existence. But the conflict in question was before long to assume the aspect of something much more threatening than a neighbourhood quarrel, so that the UN's peacekeeping activity in relation to it since 1967 is discussed elsewhere (Part V, Section F below). At more or less the same time and in much the same way, another UN observer mission was begun, which is also still in existence. It arose

4 142 Neighbourhood Quarrels out of the war between the two new states of India and Pakistan over Kashmir {Section D). Like the Middle Eastern quarrel (at that time), this was a dispute which was not entangled in the emerging Cold War. Accordingly, the Security Council was in a position to call for a cessation of fighting, and it supplied military observers to help in the stabilization of the situation. A decade and a half later, another war between the same two states, over the same issue, was dealt with in much the same way (Section E). But then the major powers acted less out of a sense of responsibility than because their own relationships were being complicated by the war. In respect of neither of these issues were peacekeeping operations mounted out of a feeling of great anxiety or immediate concern. The parties were nudged and helped by and large because it was the appropriate thing to do. Had they chosen to go on fighting, and provided that no very dramatic outcomes were in sight, third parties would probably not have lost much sleep. In the case of the Iran-Iraq War which began in 1980, even nudges were lacking. The rest of the international society, and the great powers in particular, were quite content to see these two neighbours setting about each other in a vigorous but not very consequential way. One humanitarian gesture was made in an effort to limit civilian casualties (Section F). But apart from that third parties only really got moving late in the day. And when in 1988 the war was called off, it was chiefly because of the weariness of one of the parties. An observer mission was then established to help the quarrelsome neighbours live in peace (Section G). In a rather similar manner, a territorial dispute between Colombia and Peru in the early 1930s was allowed to take its course (Section A). Even the United States was content more or less to stand on the sidelines - not because the war's continuation suited her but because she was in a rare self-denying period so far as intervention in her back yard was concerned. However, when domestic developments in one of the parties opened the way to a settlement, the European-oriented League of Nations, no less, stepped in to resolve the issue by engaging in a miniscule piece of international administration. Naval peacekeeping has not so far been fully experienced. But its discussion was stimulated by the overflow of the Iran-Iraq War into the waters of the Gulf, and the argument for it is superficially enticing. For if a neighbourhood quarrel adversely affects the interests of third parties in an area where they are fully entitled to be - on the high seas - the question arises as to why the seas should not be policed to ensure the safety of neutral shipping. However, even law and order operations

5 Introduction 143 on land are very tricky for peacekeepers. The degree of strength which is available may be insufficient, which may be another way of saying that the situation is unsuitable for peacekeeping. Or, if it is sufficient, it may all too easily be used in a manner which oversteps the peacekeeping mark. At sea, the first problem is perhaps unlikely to occur, but the second is by no means improbable. If, therefore, 'peacekeepers' do make their appearance on the high seas, it may well be found that the enterprise on which they are embarked is different from that which has been advertised (Section H). To say that is by no means necessarily to downplay the importance of what is being done. But it may have to be distinguished from peacekeeping.