SPEAKERS CONTENTS INSERTS
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43–141 CC
1997
DOES U.N. PEACEKEEPING SERVE U.S. INTERESTS?
HEARING
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON
INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED FIFTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
APRIL 9, 1997
Printed for the use of the Committee on International Relations
COMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
BENJAMIN A. GILMAN, New York, Chairman
WILLIAM GOODLING, Pennsylvania
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JAMES A. LEACH, Iowa
HENRY J. HYDE, Illinois
DOUG BEREUTER, Nebraska
CHRISTOPHER SMITH, New Jersey
DAN BURTON, Indiana
ELTON GALLEGLY, California
ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida
CASS BALLENGER, North Carolina
DANA ROHRABACHER, California
DONALD A. MANZULLO, Illinois
EDWARD R. ROYCE, California
PETER T. KING, New York
JAY KIM, California
STEVEN J. CHABOT, Ohio
MARSHALL ''MARK'' SANFORD, South Carolina
MATT SALMON, Arizona
AMO HOUGHTON, New York
TOM CAMPBELL, California
JON FOX, Pennsylvania
JOHN McHUGH, New York
LINDSEY GRAHAM, South Carolina
ROY BLUNT, Missouri
JERRY MORAN, Kansas
KEVIN BRADY, Texas
LEE HAMILTON, Indiana
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SAM GEJDENSON, Connecticut
TOM LANTOS, California
HOWARD BERMAN, California
GARY ACKERMAN, New York
ENI F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA, American Samoa
MATTHEW G. MARTINEZ, California
DONALD M. PAYNE, New Jersey
ROBERT ANDREWS, New Jersey
ROBERT MENENDEZ, New Jersey
SHERROD BROWN, Ohio
CYNTHIA A. McKINNEY, Georgia
ALCEE L. HASTINGS, Florida
PAT DANNER, Missouri
EARL HILLIARD, Alabama
WALTER CAPPS, California
BRAD SHERMAN, California
ROBERT WEXLER, Florida
STEVE ROTHMAN, New Jersey
BOB CLEMENT, Tennessee
BILL LUTHER, Minnesota
RICHARD J. GARON, Chief of Staff
MICHAEL H. VAN DUSEN, Democratic Chief of Staff
FRANK RECORD, Senior Professional Staff Member
ALLISON K. KIERNAN, Staff Associate
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C O N T E N T S
WITNESSES
Mr. Harold Johnson, Associate Director, International Relations and Trade Issues, General Accounting Office
Mr. John Hillen, Defense and Foreign Policy Analyst, Heritage Foundation
Mr. John Bolton, Senior Vice-President, American Enterprise Institute
APPENDIX
Opening statement of Chairman Benjamin A. Gilman
Statement of Mr. Harold Johnson
Statement of Mr. John Hillen
Statement of Mr. John Bolton
GAO Report on the United Nations, ''Limitations in Leading Missions Requiring Force to Restore Peace''
GAO Report on U.N. Peacekeeping, ''Status of Long-standing Operations and U.S. Interests in Supporting Them''
GAO Report on Peace Operations, ''U.S. Costs in Support of Haiti, Former Yugoslavia, Somalia, and Rwanda''
Article by John Hillen, ''Blue Helmets: The Strategy of U.N. Military Operations''
DOES U.N. PEACEKEEPING SERVE U.S. INTERESTS?
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 9, 1997
House of Representatives,
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Committee on International Relations,
Washington, DC.
The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:14 a.m., in room 2172, Washington, DC, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Benjamin A. Gilman (chairman of the Committee), presiding.
Chairman GILMAN. The Committee will come to order. I would like to welcome all of our distinguished witnesses today, including former Assistant Secretary John Bolton, to our hearing this morning on the extent to which our U.N. peacekeeping serves our nation's interests, as well as other nation's interests.
And I would like to welcome today before the Committee this morning two distinguished visitors from Canada, Senator Jerry Grafstein from Ontario, and Mr. Joe Comuzzi, a member of the House of Commons from Thunder Bay, Ontario. Last year they served as co-chairs of the Canadian delegation to the 37th meeting of the Canadian/United States Inter-Parliamentary Group. I understand they are part of a delegation of the visiting Canadian Prime Minister, and are beginning to plan for next year's meeting in cooperation with our colleague, Amo Houghton from New York, who has been named as co-chair to this important parliamentary group.
Welcome, gentlemen, if you would be kind enough to stand and be recognized, and we understand you are accompanied by Richard Rumas, who is here as the principal staff person for the parliamentary group. We always welcome our distinguished visitors from other nations, and particularly from good neighbors in Canada.
I would also like to take this opportunity to welcome our new Members, and I turn to our Ranking Minority Member, Mr. Lee Hamilton.
Mr. HAMILTON. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I join you, of course, in welcoming the witnesses. We look forward to their testimony, and I also want to welcome our friends from Canada. We are delighted to have them in the Committee room. And I am pleased to introduce Bill Luther of Minnesota, who is in his second term. He joined the Committee recently, and I have no doubt at all that he will be a tremendously effective and conscientious Member.
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Bill, we are delighted to have you with us.
Chairman GILMAN. Congressman Luther, I join with our Ranking Minority Member, Mr. Hamilton, in welcoming you to our committee. I am sure you will enjoy the camaraderie we have. Sometimes a little opposition, but upon the whole we have a great committee, and I am sure you will enjoy working, and we look forward to working with you.
Mr. LUTHER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman GILMAN. Today, while we are very disappointed that the Administration earlier this week decided not to provide any witnesses for this hearing, I am pleased that we have an excellent panel of witnesses who have written exclusively on peacekeeping and peacemaking and who are well versed as well on U.N. finance and reform issues.
I would like to note for the record that the State Department has previously offered to send the principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for International Organization Affairs to this hearing. However, the Administration subsequently insisted that Assistant Secretary Princeton Lyman would be the only witness that they would provide, but that his schedule would require us to change our hearing date.
In light of the pending markups of our subcommittee and full committee in the next few days, it was impossible to change the date of this hearing, and we are therefore required to proceed without the benefit of an Administration witness. This is especially unfortunate in view of the fact that the State Department is also withdrawing the witness it had proposed for a hearing tomorrow on U.S. policy toward Egypt. I urge the Department to do its utmost to accommodate future requests by our committee. Our committee takes its responsibility for conducting these important hearings very seriously, and we would hope that the State Department in the future would make our job easier, not more difficult.
I do intend to hold a second hearing on this same topic as soon as the State Department lets us know when Assistant Secretary Lyman will be available to testify. At that time we will, of course, ensure that the Department of Defense is represented at the witness table at the appropriate level.
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The hearing today, I believe, is particularly important as a source of valuable testimony in the ongoing leadership-led effort to produce a bipartisan agreement on the U.N. reform and on the payment of our nation's arrearages to that world body insofar as I am strongly supportive of these efforts, particularly as they concern U.N. peacekeeping and peacemaking operations.
It is particularly timely that we have the benefit of testimony today from the Associate Director of the General Accounting Office, Mr. Harold Johnson. His testimony will describe the most recent GAO reports on U.N. peacekeeping issued over the past several weeks at the request of our committee.
To a large degree, they validate legislative efforts of this committee over the past several years to oppose large and costly U.N. peacekeeping operations in Somalia and in Bosnia. In short, the March 27 report on the ''Limitations in Leading Missions Requiring Force to Restore Peace'' clearly indicates that the U.N.'s own organizational limits increase a risk of operations that call for the use of force, such as those in Somalia back in 1992, and Bosnia in 1993.
The GAO noted, however, that these limitations on the ability of the United Nations to conduct peacemaking operations have largely been overcome when a coalition of nations with sufficient and credible military forces took the lead in a U.N.-authorized operation. The message is clear and simple. The permanent members of the U.N. Security Council should ensure that the United Nations conducts only peacekeeping and not peacemaking operations, and that they be done on a cost-efficient basis fully consistent with their mandate.
The second GAO reported entitled ''Status of Long-standing Operations and U.S. Interest in Supporting Them'' was released just yesterday. It makes some equally compelling observations on the need of our Administration to more closely review the open-ended commitments and the lack of clear exit criteria now prevailing in a number of longstanding U.N. operations.
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These two reports, together with many earlier works of the GAO on U.N. peacekeeping, should assist our upcoming legislative efforts to implement a number of reforms at the United Nations, and they would include:
First, U.N. peacekeeping reforms, including a policy of reimbursement for all items budgeted for all future peacekeeping operations; second, tight caps on our future assessments to the United Nations and its specialized agencies; and, third, strict limits on the U.N. staffing level and its overall budget.
In closing, I would bring to the attention of our colleagues the publication last week of a peacekeeping options paper by the Congressional Research Service. That paper explores tools available to policymakers as alternatives to the U.N. model for responding to threats of international security.
At this time I would like to ask if any of our colleagues have any opening remarks.
Mr. Hamilton? Any other Member?
Ms. DANNER. Mr. Chairman, I just want to ask one question for a point of clarification. The Administration failure to participate was because they were unable to schedule people to testify on this date?
Chairman GILMAN. Yes, and they indicated that their members were unavailable, and we asked them to be available at a later date, but they had been given sufficient notice that we had anticipated that if there would be an unavailability, that they would provide another alternative member of the Administration.
I think it is most helpful to us to have Administration people at these hearings, and that is why we are going to adjourn to allow them to produce an Administration witness at a later date.
Ms. DANNER. Thank you very much.
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Chairman GILMAN. Thank you for the inquiry.
Any other opening statements by any Member? If not, I would like to welcome our distinguished witnesses once again. From the General Accounting Office, Associate Director for International Relations and Trade Issues, Harold Johnson, before our committee. Mr. Johnson is a graduate of the National War College; has been a recipient of numerous awards throughout his career.
Mr. Johnson, you may summarize your statement or put the whole statement into the record, whichever you prefer. Mr. Johnson.
STATEMENT OF HAROLD J. JOHNSON, ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR, INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS AND TRADE ISSUES, GENERAL ACCOUNTING OFFICE
Mr. JOHNSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to submit my entire statement for the record.
Chairman GILMAN. Without objection.
Mr. JOHNSON. But I do have a summary statement that I would like to present.
The statement that I am presenting today is based on a large body of work that we have conducted over a number of years. However, as you mentioned, I will discuss two recent reports that we issued, one covering the U.N.'s limitations in conducting peace operations that require the use of force; the second report dealing with longstanding peacekeeping missions that are from 6 to nearly 50 years old. I also want to speak briefly about the extent to which the United States has provided voluntary support to U.N.-sanctioned operations; and, finally, I want to speak briefly about the U.N.'s efforts to reform the management of peacekeeping operations.
Over the years, the United Nations has had some degree of success in carrying out peacekeeping missions where the use of force was not required. However, as the cold war came to a close and the United Nations was called on to lead larger complex missions that required use of force to restore peace and security, their success rate declined rather dramatically.
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There are several reasons for this: including insufficient resources, lack of sufficient will on the part of the international community, an inadequate operational structure for carrying out these missions, as well as the differences in geopolitical situations that would affect each mission.
However, as we analyzed the situation—we looked at seven operations that called for the use of force, either directly under Chapter VII or implied by the wording of the mandate—we came to the conclusion that the reasons are more fundamental than lack of resources or inadequate operating structure. We concluded that there were limitations in the organizational structure of the United Nations itself that put the missions at risk when the United Nations was called on to lead.
Specifically, unlike a sovereign nation, the United Nations cannot conscript troops or obtain other resources, but it must rely on members to voluntarily provide them. Furthermore, the United Nations has no real assurance that national troop contingencies will follow orders, and there have been a number of examples of this.
Moreover, the United Nations seeks consent of the warring parties to carry out its mandate even when force is required. These organizational limitations were particularly evident in Bosnia, Somalia, and Rwanda.
Because of these limitations, we concluded that the United Nations may not be the appropriate vehicle for leading such missions. But, the United Nations can authorize a nation, a sovereign nation, or a coalition of nations, as it did in the case of Haiti and, of course, the Persian Gulf, that has the sufficient military capability and commitment to lead the operations.
This view has become increasingly accepted by experts on peacekeeping and by U.N. officials, and is now reflected in the current U.S. policy and recent actions of the United States and the U.N. Security Council in ensuring acceptable leadership to support operations, as I mentioned, in Haiti and also in Eastern Slavonia.
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In response to the problems encountered in some of these operations, as well as the inability to bring closure to several longstanding missions, U.S. and U.N. policy has become more focused. There is now general agreement that the main objective of peacekeeping is to reduce tension and provide a limited period of time, to quote Secretary Albright, ''to provide a window of opportunity for diplomatic efforts to find a solution to the underlying conflict.''
Thus, peacekeeping missions are not intended to be open-ended, and U.S. policy attempts to ensure their effectiveness by seeing that they (1) deploy in support of peacemaking efforts—in other words, diplomatic efforts, (2) have clear realistic objectives and (3) have end points and exit strategies. These guidelines are articulated in a May 1994 public summary of the Presidential Decision Directive 25, PDD–25, which is the Administration's policy on peace operations. PDD–25 also directs the U.S. officials to consider voting against the renewal of longstanding missions that are not achieving their mandate.
Despite the success that the U.S. peacekeeping missions have had in some situations over the years, some situations have just proven to be intractable. As you mentioned, you requested that we analyze the longstanding peacekeeping missions. We look at those between India and Pakistan, Cyprus, and Angola, the mission that separates Kuwait and Iraq, the mission in the Western Sahara, and three in the Middle East. All of these are more than 6 years old, and as I mentioned, some nearly 50.
We focused specifically on whether these older missions are fulfilling their mandate, and if not, why the executive branch continues to support them. We found that essentially three missions—the ones in Lebanon, the Western Sahara and the India/Pakistan mission—were not achieving their stated mandates. According to U.N. reports, the missions contributed only marginally to a more secure and stable environment.
Three others, including the U.N. troop supervision organization headquartered in Jerusalem, and the missions in Angola and Cyprus were partially achieving their mandates, and had made some positive contributions to stability.
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The mission in the Golan Heights and between Iraq and Kuwait were successfully carrying out their mandates and contributing to stability in their areas of operations.
But I think it is important to note that six of the missions were not linked to settlement agreements as called for by the current policy, and diplomatic efforts to solve these conflicts had essentially stalled. None of the missions that I mention had clear end points or exit strategies. That has resulted in all of these eight missions becoming essentially open-ended commitments.
The United States officially supports continuing them because the official view is that the missions help stabilize and prevent the recurrence of conflict in the areas of vital interest to the United States.
We have recommended that the United States take the lead in working with other members of the Security Council to identify specific exit strategies for these missions. This should be done in a manner that is consistent with PDD–25, balancing the need to bring closure to these operations with other U.S. interests such as stabilizing conflicts. We are not suggesting by our recommendation that the missions be terminated immediately. There needs to be study. There needs to be agreement, and there needs to be a balance between carrying out the mandate as well as other U.S. foreign policy interests.
Let me turn just briefly to the issue of U.S. financial support for U.N.-sanctioned missions. As you know, current legislation limits U.S. assessment to 25 percent, although the United Nations still calculates the assessment at 31 percent and carries the remainder in an arrears account. But in addition to paying the assessed contribution for U.N. peacekeeping operations, the United States often provides additional support to U.N.-sanctioned missions for which it does not seek reimbursement.
In March last year, we reported that for fiscal years 1992 through 1995, the United States paid about $1.3 billion in assessed contribution for missions in Haiti, the former Yugoslavia, Rwanda and Somalia. But, in addition, the United States undertook actions in support of these operations that cost an additional $5.3 billion. This included about $3.4 billion in incremental costs by the Department of Defense and about $1.9 billion incurred for humanitarian and other assistance by other U.S. agencies.
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For example, in Haiti, the United States spent about $953 million to remove the military dictatorship from Haiti, provide training and equipment to countries to prepare them for participating in the subsequent U.N. operation, and establish civic order so that the U.N. mission could function.
Similarly, since the humanitarian crisis was overwhelming peacekeeping in Rwanda, U.S. agencies spent an additional $463 million to provide emergency food, water, sanitation and other humanitarian aid for the war-affected population, as well as about 2,000 troops to help with this humanitarian effort.
Similarly, in the former Yugoslavia, DOD incurred about $784 million in incremental costs for humanitarian air drops, relief supplies into Sarajevo and for enforcing the ''no fly'' zone.
Now, let me just finally comment briefly on the management reforms that the United Nations has undertaken to improve its operational effectiveness.
In 1992 and 1993, we undertook a review of the Cambodia and Somalia peacekeeping operations, and we found in looking at those operations that the United Nations at that time was very ill-prepared to plan, to logistically support or deploy personnel for these large complex missions. The Department of Peacekeeping Operations in New York had a very small staff. Planning was not integrated. The organizational structure obstructed efficient operations and communication between headquarters and the field was sometimes impossible, always difficult.
Since then the United Nations, with U.S. and other member support, has made progress in strengthening its operations. It has reorganized and expanded the Department of Peacekeeping Operations, established a 24-hour situation center, revised its procurement and logistics procedures, and established a logistical base in Brindisi in Italy. While we have not specifically evaluated all of these reform measures that the United Nations has undertaken, we do believe, based on work that we have done at the United Nations, that they are headed in the right direction.
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While these steps have been taken to improve management, as one would expect, peacekeeping operations are still not without problems. Reports by the U.N.'s Office of Internal Oversight Services, its inspector general, which was created largely at the urging of the United States and this Congress as an important reform measure, have continued to identify problems with U.N. peacekeeping operations.
For example, they recently reported that due to poor procurement planning almost 900 generators costing $6 million were purchased for operations but were not needed. Bids for supplying fresh food rations were manipulated to favor one bidder. There was lack of internal controls that caused fraudulent claims to be paid for vehicle spares and repairs, and staff members falsely claimed that they were in Haiti, so they could receive benefits to which they were not entitled.
I would like to mention that at the request of Senator Helms and Senator Rod Gram we are now looking at the effectiveness of OIOS. Hopefully, we will have a report by mid summer on that study.
That concludes my summary remarks.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Johnson appears in the appendix.]
Chairman GILMAN. Thank you, Mr. Johnson.
Our next witness is John Hillen. Mr. Hillen is a Defense and Foreign Policy Analyst with the Heritage Foundation. He soon will be leaving that position to begin a fellowship at the Council on Foreign Relations. And Mr. Hillen is a veteran of the Persian Gulf War, and also the author of ''Blue Helmets: The Strategy of U.N. Military Operations,'' an analysis of U.N. operations spanning the past 50 years.
Mr. Hillen, we welcome you, and you may either summarize or present your full testimony, however you may deem appropriate.
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STATEMENT OF JOHN HILLEN, DEFENSE AND FOREIGN POLICY ANALYST, HERITAGE FOUNDATION
Mr. HILLEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I do have testimony I would like to enter into the record.
Chairman GILMAN. Without objection.
Mr. HILLEN. And I will briefly summarize it here.
I would also like to state that I found the recent GAO report on the United Nations and its limitations and leading missions requiring the use of force to be a first-rate document. And, indeed, my book, which analyzes 38 different military missions conducted by the United Nations since its inception, reaches very similar conclusions. Put simply, the United Nations is an organization that may have a strong international legitimacy and moral authority, but these qualities do not translate into making it an effective institution through which to manage military operations.
In light of the very poor results achieved by U.N. missions to the former Yugoslavia and Somalia, it appears that both this Administration and the United Nations itself have taken this truism to heart. In fact, a high-ranking U.N. peacekeeping official recently told me that he was happy that peacekeeping conducted by the United Nations was in a bear market.
I believe that he came to this realization because, as Harvey Sichermann, the President of Foreign Policy Research Institute has written, ''the assertive multilateralists of 1992—1993 placed more weight upon the United Nations than it could bear.'' And I think this is a critical point because it raises the notion that the United Nations, like any other political organization, has a capacity for military management that is limited. And once those limits are exceeded, the system is discredited and could even collapse. I think those limits are becoming more apparent to policymakers today and the GAO report makes an important contribution to that understanding.
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In 1990, the United Nations was managing some 10,000 blue helmets in eight simply observation and traditional peacekeeping missions, most of which consisted of no more than a few hundred military observers or a few thousand lightly armed peacekeepers who were sent to monitor a previously concluded peace settlement. These operations cost a few hundred million dollars, of which the United States was assessed almost a third of the cost.
By 1993, the United Nations was managing some 80,000 troops in 18 different missions, some of which were large, heavily armed, military complex, and ambitious endeavors that sought to use coercive force to accomplish some of their goals. The costs had risen some 500 percent, to over $3.5 billion with the United States still picking up one-third tab and providing another few billion dollars, as we have heard, of military support to these operations—services for which the United Nations was not charged.
This explosion in peacekeeping over the course of a very few years happened for several reasons. First, many observers thought that since the post-cold war U.N. Security Council was freed from the tensions of the cold war, the United Nations could now act more frequently and more decisively in issues of international security. Former Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali was a well-known proponent of this view and laid out his blueprint for a more active U.N. security role in his 1992 manifesto ''An Agenda for Peace.''
Second, the experience of the Gulf War, and the unprecedented cooperation show on the Security Council in that conflict, appeared to presage a new period of consensus in the international area, and one that many thought should be managed through the United Nations.
Third, the Administration in 1993 promoted a policy of assertive multilateral aid that supported a more active military role for the United Nations. Indeed, while the United States has been quick to blame the United Nations for the disasters in Bosnia, the United States, as a member of the Security Council, voted in favor of some 80-plus resolutions in the former Yugoslavia that gave the U.N. mission there an impossible set of tasks.
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Moreover, as Ambassador Robert Oakley's memoirs from Somalia reveal, the Administration pushed a reluctant United Nations into taking responsibility for the Somalia mission in May 1993, something that Boutros-Ghali had wisely resisted before the Security Council laid Somalia in the U.N.'s lap. In the aftermath of the tragic Mogadishu street battles of October 1993 in which 18 American soldiers lost their lives, the Administration adopted a more cautious approach to U.N. peacekeeping, PDD–25, and one I believe to be eminently more sensible.
As it turns out, the qualities of the United Nations that kept its ventures into the military arena so limited during the cold war were not just the result of superpower tensions on the Security Council. The limitations of the United Nations that the GAO identified are deeply ingrained in the U.N.'s institutional nature. One former Assistant Secretary-General of the United Nations has written that these limitations are ''embedded in the very nature of intergovernmental organizations, and no amount of upgrading, expansion, or revamping of U.N. powers can correct those flaws.''
Cold war or not cold war, the United Nations has an institutional character it cannot outrun. Its immutable and enduring feature is that it is a 185-member organization that relies on the voluntary cooperation of States to succeed. Moreover, in Article II of the U.N. Charter, it recognizes these very nation-states as the primary building blocks of international society. Therefore, it becomes self-defeating for the United Nations to try and assume the sovereign powers of a State when it comes to tasks like recruiting, forming, organizing, deploying, commanding, and leading military operations in missions requiring the use of force.
The United Nations can do some things well militarily. If a particularly thorny problem of international relations requires military observers to monitor a previously concluded peace settlement, then the United Nations is often the best candidate for the job. In these cases, the strengths of the United Nations—its perceived impartiality and its ability to mobilize international consensus—are more important to the mission than its functional weaknesses in acting as a manger of military forces.
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In addition, these missions are usually quite small, have very innocuous and humble military operations, are generally staffed by the so-called ''neutral'' countries, such as Canada, Sweden, Ireland, Austria, and are permitted to use force in self-defense only.
The United Nations can manage these quasi-military ventures fairly well. However, it must be said that these sorts of operations are not known for producing rapid results. As we have heard U.N. peacekeepers have been deployed on these types of missions for 49 continuous years in Palestine, 48 years in the Kashmir, 33 years in Cyprus, 23 years in the Golan Heights, and almost 20 years in Southern Lebanon.
Thirty-eight different U.N. military missions over the past 50 years have given us a lot of evidence for what the United Nations does best and also where it should not be in the military business. In general, I believe the United States should consider supporting small U.N. observation and traditional peacekeeping missions where there is a previously concluded peace settlement, where the mission has a chance for success, and where the mission advances U.S. interests and international security.
I believe this is the case in missions like the U.N. operation to the Golan Heights, where I would rather see U.N. peacekeepers than U.S. troops as some have proposed.
In contrast, the United States should not support U.N. operations that involve the organization in trying to manage tens of thousands of combat troops in environments like those in Bosnia or Somalia. These are disasters in waiting. If the United States has a compelling national security interest in a peace enforcement operation, America should participate not through a U.N.-managed affair, but through a credible military alliance such as NATO, or through a U.S.-led multinational coalition such as we organized in the Persian Gulf or in Haiti.
Mr. Chairman, in addition to questions about the United Nations, you expressed some interest in the effect of extending peacekeeping deployments on U.S. combat readiness. This is a copy on which I have worked with your colleagues in the National Security Committee, and indeed today the chairman of that committee released a very fine report about this issue. I hope we can delve into some of these issues during the question period.
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In general, I would have to say that my conclusions match closely with those of Congressman Ike Skelton who has said that ''peacekeeping commitments may so degrade the armed forces' war-fighting capability that it will be impossible to carry out the national military strategy.'' With U.S. forces currently engaged around the world at their most frenetic pace since the Vietnam War, I believe that this problem will get worse, and not better in the future.
Having the U.S. military heavily engaged in peacekeeping, whether it is with the United Nations, NATO, or on our own, does not come without a price. On the financial front, as you are well aware, in the next few weeks Congress will have to consider a supplemental addition to the DOD budget for over $2 billion of unanticipated operating costs in Bosnia—a mission that will have cost over $6 billion by the end of this year.
Even with this additional money, procurement funds are dangerously low, new equipment has been canceled or pushed back in the pipeline, training has been cut back, and the services are having to decrease their rotations through their war-fighting centers, where both the Army and the Air Force have seen a drop in performance over the past few years. Strategically, our forces are overstretched and strained, operating above their optimum tempos and incurring a number of problems as a result, many of which were highlighted in a GAO report last year that stated almost 30 percent of America's frequently deployed units are not combat ready by the military's standards.
Military historians argue that in our nation's history we have only fought one war for which we truly have been prepared—the Gulf War. And in that conflict, we were fortunate enough to have the cold war force intact before demobilization began. But between cuts in our armed forces and the numerous peacekeeping missions on which we have been deployed over the past several years, I fear we will be unprepared for the next conflict—even if nobody can say with confidence where or against whom it might be. Along with all the standard issues about readiness, I am concerned about our operational and psychological preparation for conflict, a preparation that acts as a deterrence to conflict in the first place.
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If I may, I would like to quote from a fax I received from an Army officer in Bosnia—one of our finest who commands an Apache attack helicopter squadron there. He writes that for a soldier, ''Peacekeeping is an unnatural act. Aggressiveness, ingenuity, and initiative are quickly punished while apathy, timidity and bureaucracy are well rewarded. My best men have become disenchanted about the service.''
And for those who suggest that we specifically train U.S. soldiers for peacekeeping, I would remind them of the experience of the Dutch peacekeepers who were defending the U.N. safe area of Srebrenica in 1995. A journalist who witnessed their performance there wrote that the Dutch company, ''trained for peacekeeping, sat like a rabbit transfixed, unable to flex the muscle it didn't have,'' and as such did nothing to stop the massacre that followed. In military training, like in all other fields, you get what you pay for.
The United States, as the world's only superpower has security duties in military capabilities that are unique. These apply mainly to the ability to conduct a combat operation along the lines of Desert Storm, or to deter other military threats as we did last spring in the Straits of Taiwan. An excessive involvement in peacekeeping on the part of a greatly shrunken U.S. military will undoubtedly detract from America's ability to carry out these other missions successfully.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Hillen appears in the appendix.]
Chairman GILMAN. Thank you, Mr. Hillen.
Our final witness this morning is John Bolton. Mr. Bolton is the Senior Vice President of the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research. Before accepting this post in January of this year, Mr. Bolton has had a distinguished career serving our government as Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs in the Bush Administration, as well as Assistant Attorney General, General Counsel, of USAID, both during the Reagan Administration. Mr. Bolton has authored numerous articles on international relations.
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It is our pleasure to have him with us today, and I would also like to note that Mr. Bolton is serving on a pro bono basis as advisor to our former Secretary of State, Jim Baker, who is presently serving as a special representative to the Secretary General of the United Nations for their operations in the Western Sahara.
Mr. Bolton, you may put in your full testimony or summarize it.
STATEMENT OF JOHN BOLTON, SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE
Mr. BOLTON. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. It is a pleasure to be here again today. And I have a statement I would like to submit for the record. I will try and summarize.
Chairman GILMAN. Without objection.
Mr. BOLTON. I wanted today to talk mostly about the question of financing both the peacekeeping and other U.N. operations. But before I do that I just want to make two points about peacekeeping.
I think where peacekeeping has run into difficulty in recent years, it has been for two reasons, principally. The first reason occurs when U.N. operations have varied from the standard rules that have governed successful peacekeeping operations in the past. Those have been operations where the consent of the parties to the dispute has been obtained before the United Nations has been deployed, where the United Nations has operated in a neutral fashion, and where the United Nations has been willing to resort to the use of force only in self-defense.
It has been when the Security Council has given the U.N. missions that do not involve the consent of the parties, that have varied from U.N. neutrality, or where force has been a more viable option that peacekeeping has run into trouble.
The second area has been where peacekeeping has gone beyond, in my view, the real area of competence and jurisdiction of the Security Council, that is to say, the maintenance of, or dealing with threats to breaches of, international peace and security. Frequently in recent years the Security Council has called for U.N. peacekeeping in what are essentially internal domestic disputes, and I think those are the sorts of areas where the United Nations is not well suited, where it is beyond the scope of the Charter in any event, and where major difficulties have arisen.
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I would be happy to talk about that more specifically in response to any questions the Committee may have.
But as I say, I wanted to focus on finances today, and present my conclusion, based on research I have done to date and my own experience, that the United States has no binding legal obligation to pay assessed contributions to the United Nations for peacekeeping or for other purposes. I want to stress that this is an analysis of the so-called ''legal'' obligation. One may certainly argue, or at least it is a subject for debate, whether there are political obligations, whether these are diplomatic obligations, whether in fact one might say they are moral obligations.
What I conclude unequivocally is that one cannot say they are legal obligations, and I have four points on that subject which I would like to address in turn.
My first point is that treaties have no special or higher status than other legislative acts or the U.S. Constitution. I have been struck in conversations over the years with the way that relatively straightforward proposition is not clearly understood, even by relatively sophisticated foreign policy analysts. I think the legislative history of the drafting of the supremacy clause demonstrates very clearly that what the drafters of the Constitution had in mind was to make it clear that State law, contrary to national treaties, was subordinate to those treaties. Under the Articles of Confederation, we had had difficulty with that, and the Supremacy Clause reference to treaties was principally designed to correct it.
Now, there have been, particularly in the decision in Missouri vs. Holland, dicta that seemed to imply that treaties operate outside the scope of the Constitution, and it may well be that that is where the source of confusion has arisen.
But the Supreme Court in the case of Reid vs. Covert in a very well-written opinion by Mr. Justice Black, I think laid that question to rest, and I think defined once and for all that the treaties do not operate independently of constitutional constraints.
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In this opinion in Reid vs. Covert, after quoting the Supremacy Clause, Justice Black said, and I quote, ''There is nothing in this language which intimates that treaties and laws enacted pursuant to them do not have to comply with the provisions of the Constitution . . . It would be manifestly contrary to the objectives of those who created the Constitution, as well as to those who were responsible for the Bill of Rights—let alone alien to our entire constitutional history and tradition—to construe Article VI as permitting the United States to exercise power under an international agreement without observing constitutional prohibitions. In effect, such construction would permit amendment of that document in a manner not sanctioned by Article V,'' which refers to amendment.
Justice Black then went on to say, ''This Court has regularly and uniformly recognized the supremacy of the Constitution over a treaty.''
That is, in layman's language, treaties do not exist apart from or outside the body of American law, or in a position superior to or superseding the Constitution or any of its requirements or prohibitions.
Now, within that framework I think it is necessary to understand my second proposition, that treaties are law only for U.S. domestic purposes. In their international operation, treaties are political and not legally binding.
And once again there the Supreme Court has expressly addressed this question in Edye vs. Robertson, frequently referred to as the Head Money Cases. The Court said, and again I am quoting, ''A treaty is primarily a compact between independent nations. It depends for the enforcement of its provisions on the interest and the honor of the governments which are parties to it. If these fail, its infraction becomes the subject of international negotiations and reclamations, so far as the injured party chooses to seek redress, which may in the end be enforced by actual war.''
The Court then turned to what the real domestic impact of a treaty was and said, ''. . . a treaty may also contain provisions conferring certain rights upon the citizen or subjects of one of the nations residing in the territorial limits of the other, which partake of the nature of municipal law, and which are capable of enforcement as between private parties in the courts of the country.''
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And it explained further, ''A treaty then is a law of the land as an Act of Congress is, whenever its provisions prescribe a rule by which the rights of the private citizen or subject may be determined.''
And that is distinguished from the international character of a treaty which is ''The Federalist Number 75'' said: treaties ''are not rules prescribed by the sovereign to the subject, but agreements between sovereign and sovereign.''
And the Supreme Court has recognized further that in their fundamentally political nature, treaty obligations are not fixed in the legal sense of the word. The Supreme Court has said, ''. . . but that circumstances may arise which would not only justify the Government in disregarding a treaty's stipulations, but demand in the interest of the country that it should do, there can be no question. Unexpected events may call for a change in the policy of the country. Neglect or violation of stipulations on the part of the other contracting party may require corresponding action on our part. When a reciprocal engagement is not carried out by one of the contracting parties, the other may also decline to keep the corresponding engagement.''
And, in fact, much of what one can say about the debate about the management and conduct of affairs in the United Nations now goes precisely to the point whether the other member governments are fully complying with their obligations under the Charter.
The Supreme Court noted that, I quote here again, ''whilst it would always be a matter of the utmost gravity and delicacy to refuse to execute a treaty, the power to do so is prerogative, of which no nation could be deprived without deeply affecting its independence.''
Now, consistent with that reasoning, my third point, which has been upheld by repeated decisions of the Supreme Court, is that treaty obligations can be unilaterally modified or terminated by congressional action. And I address this point to the argument that is frequently made: that somehow Congress is bound by a treaty obligation to appropriate annually an amount equal to the bill presented to it by the United Nations and the specialized agencies; that is, in some sense Congress is legally obligated to do that.
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That is not correct, and there is not only a long history of Supreme Court precedent on that, but congressional action as well dating back to 1796 and the congressional consideration of legislation necessary to implement Jay's Treaty of that year, where Congressman James Madison and Congressman Albert Gallatin, among others, led an opposition to the idea that Congress had an obligation to appropriate money in response to Jay's Treaty.
That opposition has been validated throughout congressional history, and in fact in language shortly thereafter that, in 1798, when Congress adopted a resolution repudiating treaties with France in that case, it said that, and I quote: ''Whereas, the treaties concluded between the United States and France have been repeatedly violated on the part of the French Government, and the just claims of the United States for reparation of the injuries so committed have been refused, and their attempts to negotiate an amicable adjustment of all complaints have been repelled with indignity,'' and then so on, and the congressional resolution revoked the treaties.
I must say I often felt in dealing with the United Nations that the U.S. arguments were ''repelled with indignity'' as the Court said back then.
I think that this is important in understanding what Congress's role is in authorizing and appropriating money, and this is where the Supreme Court has been just about as explicit as it can be, that subsequent legislation can unilaterally modify a treaty. The Court has said, for example, ''A treaty, it is true, is in its nature a contract between nations, and is often merely promissory in its character, requiring legislation to carry its stipulation into effect. Such legislation will be open to future repeal or amendment.
''If the treaty operates by its own force, and relates to a subject within the power of Congress, it can be deemed in that particularly only the equivalent of a legislative Act, to be repealed or modified at the pleasure of Congress. In either case the last expression of the sovereign will must control.''
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And the Court said further, as if that were not clear enough, and again I am quoting from the Court, ''it is wholly immaterial to inquire whether it has, by the statute complained of, departed from the treaty or not; or, if it has, whether such departure was accidental or designed; and if the latter, whether the reasons therefor were good or bad.''
Each year, when Congress looks at the appropriations that are presented in the Administration's appropriation request, in effect, it is being asked to pass legislation that can modify whatever one deems to be the requirements of the charter. In fact, Congress has done this very recently with the full support, as I understand it, of the Administration in prescribing by statute that the United States will not pay for peacekeeping above an assessed rate of 25 percent. That is exactly the kind of legitimate legislative act that the Supreme Court was referring to.
And that leads, Mr. Chairman, to my fourth and final point, that it is clear from all of this that American constitutional requirements override whatever may be said about international law. Once again, the Supreme Court has said there, ''the powers of Government are delegated in trust to the United States, and are incapable of transfer to any other party. They cannot be abandoned or surrendered.''
It really highlights the principal point that I am trying to make, that the obligations, however you want to characterize them under the U.N. Charter, are principally political, and that the Charter itself is really an agreement to agree in the future. When the United States, because of its displeasure with the management of the United Nations, chooses not to authorize or appropriate the full amount of a peacekeeping assessment or any other assessment, that is a political matter that can be negotiated among the parties. And if others dislike it, then we can negotiate about what to do about it.
But it is simply wrong in any sense that we understand the word to say that the United States is ''legally bound'' to pay the assessed amount. And, in fact, one of the leading authorities on the U.N. Charter itself has said, and I quote from Bruno Simma, ''In principal, a right to refuse payment of assessed contributions should be recognized within certain limits.'' So even those who are the strongest supporters of the Charter have acknowledged that.
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I think that is a very clear example of why the whole notion of assessments and the idea that somehow we are legally bound to pay has gotten people into a misperception of the role of the United Nations. In fact, I think the insistence on this idea that there is some legal obligation to pay shows the fundamental weakness of the arguments of those advocating the full payment.
If there are political or diplomatic arguments why the United States should pay its full assessment, by all means make the arguments, and have the debate. But to say that there is a legal obligation and that is the end of the debate right there, is a weak argument indeed.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Bolton appears in the appendix.]
Chairman GILMAN. Thank you, Mr. Bolton. I want to thank our panelists for your excellent testimony today.
Let me open it up addressing this to all of our panelists. What has been the trend of cost to our U.S. taxpayers for U.N. peacekeeping operations over the past several years? How much role does our U.S. military play in these missions? And what new missions have been created over the past few years, and have they been limited in duration, linked to concrete political solutions and have exit criteria that has been identified as end points for U.N. involvement as recommended by the April GAO report on U.N. peacekeeping? And has the Administration been effective in reforming and cutting costs in existing peacekeeping missions?
I know that is a mouthful, but if you could just sort of summarize those, and I will open it up to any of the panelists.
Mr. Johnson.
Mr. JOHNSON. Yes, let me make a comment about the trend and funding. Obviously, the trend has gone up since 1993 when it was about a half billion dollars. In 1994, it increased some, and by 1995, I believe it hit a peak of about $1 billion, and has declined now to the neighborhood of about $350 million.
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But I would like to point out that that is only a part of what we contribute to peace operations. I heard a number here earlier about how much we will contribute to Bosnia by the end of the year, of about $6 billion, and I think that is about the figure that we have come up with. But the figure will be larger than that over the approximately 2 1/2 years that IFOR and SFOR will be in operation. We estimate that the cost to the United States will be about $7.7 billion.
So in some way that needs to be taken into account, not necessarily as part of the assessment, but it needs to be considered when the assessment rates are negotiated and established.
You ask about whether or not PDD–25 is being implemented. To a large degree, I would have to say yes, they have made considerable progress in implementing the policy guidance that is laid out in PDD–25 when new missions are started. I believe there have been eight or nine since PDD–25 guidance was established. We will have to see as these missions progress, however, whether or not the end points that have been established will stay firm.
There has been a tendency to continue to renew missions as they near expiration. So some of the factors, in terms of end points and exit strategies, I think, have not completely played out. But other reform measures that were called for by PDD–25 at the United Nations and within the Administration are being implemented.
Chairman GILMAN. OK. Mr. Hillen or Mr. Bolton, want to comment on the question?
Mr. HILLEN. Mr. Chairman, as we have heard, costs really come in three different tiers. There is the assessed cost, the services we provide for support to U.N. operations; and the costs, I think, everybody is going to start to focus on now, which are really the hidden cost, and I think the hidden costs are well laid out in the report released today by Chairman Spencer over at the National Security Commission.
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Just to give you an example, there is a C130 squadron based in Germany, an American squadron, flying in and out of Bosnia as they have been for the past several years. The air frames are an average of about 26 years old, and they are flying it over twice the recommended use rate. In addition, the money that we spent on many of these missions, which is mounting steadily as we have heard, much of that money might have gone into procurement budget to procure new aircraft which are now not going to come on line until 2005 or 2006.
So you can see there is sort of a snowballing effect to the sheer pace with which we are conducting operations, and much of that is driven by involvement in peacekeeping missions that seem to go on without end.
There have been successful new U.N. peacekeeping missions, I would note, particularly in Nambia and Mozambique, and El Salvador, and some other places. But the reason they are successful is because they are more complex than traditional peacekeeping, but not in the military sense. They have election components, human rights components, civil affairs components, policing components, and they focus much more on the civil side of solving these crises than the military side. And so they are not too expensive and they have an end state, which is usually the elections. The United Nations has managed these well because they are not militarily complex.
And the only word I would say on PDD–25, I think it is a good policy, and I think the Administration should stick to it rigorously.
Chairman GILMAN. Thank you.
Mr. Bolton, would you care to comment?
Mr. BOLTON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, just very quickly. You know, one of the issues that has been much debated recently is the cost to the United States of services provided in aid of U.N. peacekeeping missions which are not credited against our assessed contribution. And this first came up in contemporary times in the case of Nambia where the United Nations urgently asked us to airlift the Finnish battalion to Oambo Land in Northern Nambia in 1989, when it looked like the cease-fire would break down.
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At the time, we said basically we would be happy to provide for the Finnish battalion, but we would like the cost of the airlift credited against our assessment. The United Nations said fine, and away we went. The battalion was airlifted in, and the crisis was overcome.
Then we presented the bill, and I think there was collective heart failure in New York at how much it cost to get the battalion from Finland to Nambia. And after that, the United Nations became very reluctant to ask the United States for in-kind contributions, if you will, because the cost was too high.
What happened toward the end of the Bush Administration in Bosnia as a case in point was that the Administration from time to time agreed to provide U.S. military services, but in effect not ask the United Nations to credit that against our assessment.
Now, that may be a wise decision or an unwise decision, but it was a decision made that we would bear the cost because in our judgment of our national interests it was worthwhile.
The real question I think the Committee has examined and should examine is how often the United States ought to do that. That is to say, how often the United States ought voluntarily to incur costs in aid of U.N. peacekeeping missions without being credited for it, and whether that really is in our interest. I think that is really one of the principal areas of confusion that would merit the Committee's attention.
Chairman GILMAN. Thank you.
Mr. Hamilton.
Mr. HAMILTON. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
I want to thank each of you for your analysis and thoughts on this whole business of peacekeeping. It is obvious to me you have given a lot of thought to it and I appreciate it very much.
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Now, I think all of us agree that peacekeeping is going to be a necessary function into the future for some time, and probably peace enforcement as well. It is still a dangerous world, and the United States has very unique capabilities. It seems to me every time an alarm bell rings the United States is expected to answer the call one way or the other, and be involved. So we are going to have in the future many, many requests for participation in peacekeeping operations one way or the other.
And my question, I guess, is this: As you look at the problem, we recognize that the United Nations has done some things right, as you have pointed out, and yet they have plenty of weaknesses. From a U.S. policy standpoint, it seems to me there are probably many, but at least two, questions.
First, what kinds of changes ought we to push in the United Nations to strengthen its legitimate peacekeeping functions?
I think you said, Mr. Johnson, that you concluded that there the organizational structure of the United Nations was at fault. We all agree that there are peacekeeping functions that should legitimately be carried out by the United Nations, that is the body to go to, and you have identified some of the conditions for that.
OK, what kinds of changes do you need today in the United Nations in order to make that work well?
Second, you have also suggested pretty strongly that there are a lot of peacekeeping operations, maybe more likely peace enforcement actions, which you just do not think the United Nations can handle. Period. And, Mr. Hillen, you talked about going to credible military alliances to pick it up, and you mentioned the Gulf War and the Haiti operation.
So the second part of my question, then, is what do we need to do in the U.S. Government to prepare for these contingencies for peacekeeping or peace enforcement where we think the United Nations cannot handle it, somebody else has got to handle it? How do we deal with that problem as a government?
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Mr. Bolton, you are ready to go.
Mr. BOLTON. OK.
Mr. HAMILTON. Fire away.
Mr. BOLTON. In response to your first question, Mr. Hamilton, I do not believe that there are operational or logistical reforms in the United Nations that would materially alter its peacekeeping ability. Certainly, there are a lot of things in the U.N. Secretariat that can be improved. I would be the first to agree to that.
But I think the difficulty that the United Nations has encountered in peacekeeping or even in operations beyond peacekeeping has not come so much from its inefficiency or lack of organizational structures, but because the Security Council and its principal members, and let us be frank, have not necessarily known politically what outcome they want, how they want to achieve it, what they are willing to do to get it, and how long they are willing to take to accomplish it. And it has been the lack of clear political direction, lack of complete understanding of what the mission is and that sort of thing that has caused the bulk of the problems.
I think that is certainly the case in Somalia. I think it has been the case in a number of other peacekeeping operations as well.
I think that the question about what is the alternative to the U.N——
Mr. HAMILTON. Hold on just a minute, if I may interrupt.
So what do you conclude from that? We have over 15 peacekeeping operations going now; some doing better; some doing worse, I guess. You would not just——
Mr. BOLTON. I think——
Mr. HAMILTON. You would continue those, I presume?
Mr. BOLTON. Well, I would look at them as the Secretary General is doing, on a case-by-case basis on whether they ought to be continued. From the American point of view, I think the question we have to ask ourselves when confronted with each possible new operation, or in reviewing the ongoing operations, is whether we think our interests are best served by continuing involvement through the Security Council or not.
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Mr. HAMILTON. And in the future, then, you would be much more cautious or restrained with regard to the U.S. Government approving a U.N. peacekeeping operation?
Mr. BOLTON. I would want to look to see whether the basic criteria established by prior successful peacekeeping operations exist; specifically, consent of the parties, the U.N.'s role neutral, and limited use of force.
Mr. HAMILTON. I think your comment about the lack of political will and political direction is right on target. I think that has been right at the heart of a lot of the problem.
Mr. BOLTON. Could I just add one very brief comment on your second question, what do you do if we conclude the United Nations is not the vehicle?
Mr. HAMILTON. Yes.
Mr. BOLTON. There I think, although it has been said by many people, I think it is worth saying again, something has to be done with the regional organizations to make them more effective dispute resolution mechanisms in their respective regions.
One of the problems the United Nations has had, I think, has been peacekeeping overload. Many people, and I saw it in the Bush Administration, this is not a partisan comment at all, people look around, say, ''I can't handle this. I don't know what to do about it. Why don't we give it to the Security Council and let them figure it out?''
Mr. HAMILTON. That is right.
Mr. BOLTON. And I think that is a mistake.
Mr. HILLEN. I would like to agree with everything Mr. Bolton said, and add a few things.
There were quite a lot of structural changes in terms of reenforcing the United Nations that took place in the timeframe 1992 to 1994, created the Department of Peacekeeping Operations and an Under Secretary General for that slot. The staffing went from about 40 people to 400. The United States donated a management information system. They created a 24-hour situation center. All these things were an attempt to help it manage the new challenges of these new operations.
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But I think the best way in which to get the United Nations to stick to those things that many of us have said it is best at, is the U.S. role through the Security Council, and to just not approve poor missions. But as we have seen, the impetus and the policy temptation, and a line I use in my book, I say, ''Many of the problems came to the United Nations under the 'Let's ask Mikey. He'll try anything' sort of doctrine.''
So trying to solve a problem like a Bosnia through the United Nations does not represent policy. It represents an absence of policy.
And so I think the United States which is absolutely the most powerful and influential member of the Security Council, needs to really rigorously enforce the situations it puts the United Nations into, to start with. And I would include that very much in your comments about peace enforcement. I would agree regional organizations, especially military alliances that have rehearsed, incredible practice systems and resources, should take on those missions before we go to an organization like the United Nations.
Mr. HAMILTON. No, I agree many of those are——
Mr. HILLEN. No, unfortunately not. But I am seeing progress in things like the situation in Albania. I thought it was very encouraging to see, after we said, well, this is not really a superpower role to organize and send thousands of police officers to Albania——
Mr. HAMILTON. Do you think the Albanian situation is a kind of a model that we might look to?
Mr. HILLEN. I hope it is in the future because Italy is a G–7 nation and is partners in this operation of G–7 nations. If they are going to take advantage of being some of the most powerful economic nations in the world, and yet at the same time not have the military wherewithal to deploy a few thousand peacekeepers to Albania, then I think we have got to disconnect. And I was encouraged to see that they decided to take charge of that mission, and I think we should encourage our European allies, the wealthy and prosperous democratic allies to have the wherewithal to do these smaller missions with U.S. support, so we are in a support role as opposed to a leading role.
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Mr. JOHNSON. Yes, I would just like to agree with Mr. Bolton and Mr. Hillen insofar as the structural changes that have already taken place at the United Nations. When we did our initial work back in 1992 and 1993, as Mr. Hillen indicated, the structure for the Department of Peacekeeping was very inadequate. Since that time they have made substantial improvements.
So, insofar as their ability to carry out peacekeeping operations do not recognize the use of force, it seems to me that, while there are still some deficiencies, they have come a long way.
We have not specifically looked at the regional organizations as part of our analysis to come to any conclusion as to their capability to take on some of these operations. But in looking at organizations like the OAU, even the OAS, I would be at this point somewhat reluctant to charge them with the responsibility of undertaking a peace operation. It seems to me that before one would want to do that——
Mr. HAMILTON. That is put very diplomatically, Mr. Johnson.
Mr. JOHNSON. Before one would want to do ask a regional organization to take on those kinds of roles and responsibilities is to develop the kind of capability that the United Nations now has developed.
A couple of years ago we looked at the operation of the MFO in the Sinai, and came to the conclusion that it was quite an efficient organization, and was doing a good job in undertaking the mandate that it was given. We did find that there were some problems in Rome that you are well aware of, but in terms of the ability of that organization to carry out its mandate, it was doing quite a good job. But, again, that is not a regional organization. That was created specifically for that purpose.
Mr. HAMILTON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. LEACH. Well, thank you, Mr. Hamilton.
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Let me just say as I listen to this, and it is hard not to agree with virtually everything that has been said. By the same token, one has to bring perspective, and I am not totally convinced the whole perspective has been brought to this discussion.
The dilemma the U.S. Congress is confronted with is a series of engagements based upon charter agreements of the United States based upon United States support and leadership within the U.N. system; most particularly, the Security Council.
Then we have a lack of resolve to pay and to fulfill commitments. Whether in Mr. Bolton's term those commitments are precisely legally binding, there are a lot of subtleties about. No one would deny that any treaty that we arrive at does not come under the constitutional rubric of the United States. This is a constitutional society.
But one of the things that is at issue here is leadership of the world. And when the United States of America puts its word down and then does not fulfill its word, it is no accident in the big picture, of which this discussion has to be framed, that the United States is in the process today of abdicating leadership of multilateral diplomacy in a global sense.
And I say this word ''abdication'' with very great care. There is no international organization today for which the United States is not coming, and I want to come back a little bit—NATO is an exception, there are exceptions—which the United States is not coming under increasing, not only criticism, but lack of respect, and it stems from penny ante concerns. Cents, a few cents, actually it is about a dollar for the American people per year for basic U.N. dues. It comes to a couple more dollars when it comes to certain peacekeeping operations per citizen per year.
And so even though Mr. Bolton is entirely correct in his factual base, it partially misses the big picture. Mr. Bolton has presented a presentation that invites the U.S. Congress to break the word of the United States of America. I find that astonishing. And that is not to say that the words that have been presented are not framed correctly. But for people to come to this body and not say you should—it takes a great, great umbrage for the United States not to fulfill its commitment.
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Now, one can say there are strategic reasons that maybe we ought to have doubts here or there or whatever. But the burden should be on the Congress not to fulfill the word of the United States, and I would like your comment on this.
Mr. BOLTON. Well, Mr. Leach, let me say a couple things.
First, the ''word'' of the United States that is committed through a treaty is to what the treaty says, and cannot go beyond the Constitution. And anybody who understands the constitutional system knows that consequences flowing from the treaty that require legislative action are subject to shifting opinions in Congress. So, if somebody is deceived by what a treaty obligation means, in part, I think, that can be laid at their doorstep for not understanding our constitutional system.
It is a very different system from any other government in the world. And it was written that way with a purpose. So, I take the U.S.' word to be a series of collective acts; one of which is what Congress decides to do on appropriations.
Now, let me say, since you specifically disagreed with what I said, during the——
Mr. LEACH. Oh, I did not disagree.
Mr. BOLTON. You agree there is no legal obligation?
Mr. LEACH. I agreed with most of your analysis, but the point I am making is one of fact versus perspective. It is like—I.F. Stone once commented on this issue if one were to run into someone running out of a bank carrying a satchel full of money, and waving a gun, and were to ask the person ''What are you doing?'' He says he's waiting for a car. He would be giving the right fact, but he would not be giving the full perspective.
And it is my view that the full perspective is not being presented here, and the full perspective is I think this Congress ought to be admonished, recognizing that it does not have to fulfill every commitment made within certain environments, it should give the benefit of the doubt wherever possible.
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And then if you come to the cost issue, because even on each individual circumstance you may have costs that are higher than this Congress might like, there are times when these things—institutions are needed.
For example, the Gulf War did not cost the United States a dime. In fact, there is some evidence we made money, which is an extraordinary phenomenon. If we did not have the U.N. system, it is not at all inconceivable we would not have had a little different kind of rubric to operate a war under, and that the cost would not have held up much greater than the cost of all these dozens of other things that have worked a little bit imperfectly and which certain risks were taken.
And so what is being invited here is a lot of after-the-fact selective criticism, which I think we as a Congress, as the former chairman, Mr. Hamilton, very wisely notes, should be looking at the United Nations to try to take a little more restrained approach. We have learned a lot of lessons, but I think also as we look at the United Nations one of the lessons we ought to learn is, is to keep the word of the United States, and the word of the United States is a very important thing in international relations. And when we commit ourselves with our votes in the Security Council to do certain things, and then we do not back them up, we as a country are injured dramatically, and our leadership role diminishes.
Mr. BOLTON. That may well be true, and in fact in most circumstances I think it is. But what you are addressing in this case is, let us say an Administration's decision to take a certain vote in the Security Council, and then not be able to persuade the majority of Congress to go along with it on the question of funding.
You know, in the Bush Administration we faced a lot of these questions, and the President's position was to pay our full assessment and repay the arrearages, and we were. So I do not want any question, sir, about what our credentials were on that score. We were more than fulfilling our obligations. We were making up for ones that had not been paid in the past.
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The question I am trying to get people to focus on is whether there is a legal obligation, and I take it that you agree with that. I said at the beginning, if you want to argue there is a moral obligation to pay the full assessments, feel free to argue it, but it is not a legal obligation.
Mr. LEACH. Well there are subtleties to what you say, and you have presented a brief. It is a brief that in my judgment is largely correct. But there are obligations that are treaty obligations. In more than a few instances treaties in the United States hold the force of law. And so there are aspects that from time to time one comes under general definitions of legal obligations.
Mr. BOLTON. And I say that in the testimony.
Mr. LEACH. Yes, you do.
Mr. BOLTON. That is certainly the case.
Mr. LEACH. That is the case.
I want to be very careful of accepting your description back to me as my words, which they are not precisely, and I would not exactly define it in the words that you just related to me.
Is there anyone else that wants to comment on this circumstance? And in particular, I mean, the reference—when we all would like to have anyone else take accountability, particularly certain regional organizations, but we also have to recognize regional organizations mean a lack of particular role for the United States, which means the United States—that has pluses in certain ways. It also means less U.S. leadership.
Mr. JOHNSON. I would just like to make one comment, and not about the question of whether we should pay or not pay whatever our arrears are. I think that is a policy question GAO should not respond to.
Mr. LEACH. Sure.
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Mr. JOHNSON. But I would like to explain and put in some context the work that we have done looking at how much the United States contributes outside of its arrears in support of these operations that are sponsored or sanctioned by the United Nations; sometimes sponsored, sometimes sanctioned.
Our view has been that there is going to be some debate about what level of contribution we should pay. The executive branch has an obligation to negotiate those rates within the context of whatever organization, in this case the United Nations. We believe that this information ought to be used in some manner to present the U.S. case and show the world we are not deadbeats. We are paying a lot of money to support and contribute to the peace and security of the United States. So please let us take that into account——
Mr. LEACH. Fair enough.
Mr. JOHNSON [continuing]. as we negotiate a rate.
Mr. LEACH. That is a good point. My problem is I have taken more time than my colleagues would like to bear.
Let me turn to Mr. Luther.
Mr. LUTHER. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I appreciate also, like the other Members, the time and attention you are spending on this issue, a very important one.
First, just to clarify the exact factual information on the assessments. If we are just looking at the assessments, as I understand it from the testimony they peak in the years 1994 or 1995, and they actually have been reducing since that time. And, in fact, in the current, I think, budget request, if we take out the arrearages component, we are looking at something like 250, in that area, which is actually, in terms of assessments, to look at that component, a considerable reduction from where we had been.
If we then move into the actual military personnel, what are we looking at? What is the trend there, current numbers, and what has the trend been over the past few years, Mr. Johnson?
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Mr. JOHNSON. I think right now we have about 740 U.S. troops assigned to peacekeeping missions, and that trend also is down.
Mr. LUTHER. OK.
Mr. JOHNSON. I do not recall what the high number was, but I know it was considerably more than that in previous years. So that trend is also down. And the trend overall in terms of international troops is also down commensurate with the dollar amounts.
Mr. LUTHER. OK. And as I understand it, the breakdown on that is something like 500-plus for military and say 230, something like that, for the civilian police side. Is that about right, ballpark?
Mr. JOHNSON. I believe so. Yes, something like that.
Mr. LUTHER. And of the military, I believe, are nearly all of those associated with the Bosnia operations?
Mr. JOHNSON. Yes, the former Republic of Macedonia.
Mr. LUTHER. Right.
Mr. JOHNSON. Right.
Mr. LUTHER. Well, one question I have, and I appreciate Mr. Leach's comments here, and I just want to follow up a little bit on the same tack. That as I listen to the testimony one thing that came to my mind is I can understand how going back and looking at the success or failure of previous operations, how that would be part of the analysis of our engagements today.
But to what extent is it fair to completely judge current operations or future operations by the success or failure of previous operations when we are in fact in a different environment today? We are in a post-cold war era. We have different types of engagements today.
I throw that question out to each of you to just get your feel on that, because it seems to me there is another part of this issue that we do not look at if we only analyze things in terms of looking at eight previous engagements.
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Mr. Johnson, or either?
Mr. JOHNSON. I think you make a good point. Of course, all we have to look at in our analysis is what has happened in the past. And we do recognize that the political environment differs in each case. But what we try to do from that analysis is provide some lessons that can be taken into account in going into future operations.
I do not think that we suggest at all that the United Nations should not be involved in operations that require the use of force. But if they are going to be involved, go into it with your eyes open, understand what the limitations and risks are, and try to structure the operation in such a way, similar to what they did in Eastern Slavonia, where there is credibility to back up what the peacekeeping mission is mandated to do.
In Eastern Slavonia you have not only NATO providing credible support, you also have SFOR right across the border that could be called upon if need be to help enforce the operation. Furthermore, they put a Belgian headquarters unit, and they have mechanized units to provide support.
So even though that is a blue helmet mission, it is structured in a way to try and mitigate the risks that those kinds of missions have encountered in the past, and hopefully our analysis will help provide some of those lessons.
Mr. HILLEN. Mr. Luther, I was concerned with precisely that phenomenon when I undertook my research about 3 years ago, so I decided to study all 38 U.N. military operations over the course of 50 years, which ranged from two unarmed observers in the Dominican Republic in the 1960's, on up to an almost 40,000-troop operation in Bosnia, which had all the accruements of a combat heavy force, including air and naval support, mechanized armor, artillery, all those things.
And what I found is that cold war, post-cold war did not make so much of a difference in the dynamics of whether operations succeed or not as the environment on the ground. For instance, some people, some historians say the United Nations should have already learned the lesson that we are talking about today in the 1960's because it did indeed initiate an ambitious combat-heavy mission to the Congo, 1960 to 1964, where it recruited and sent in 20,000 heavily armed troops in the Congo, there was not a previously concluded peace settlement, and the troops were given active rules of engagement in order to try and make peace there. And it was a disaster. It is still the costliest U.N. peacekeeping mission to date in terms of the number killed in action, and indeed even the Secretary General Dag Hammarskjold at the time could be considered a casualty of that operation. His plane was lost over the Congo.
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But somehow between 1964, when that ended, and the United Nations pulled back from those sorts of ambitious operations, in 1993, when a lot of people said things have changed so much we can try again, that lesson got lost in the wash. And I think we merely re-learned that these limitations the United Nations has are enduring, and cold war, post-cold war, it is always going to be the sort of organization that is not going to be able to manifest the means that an organization must have to competently manage the ambitious military operations taking place in dangerous environments.
Mr. LUTHER. Thank you, Mr. Leach.
Mr. LEACH. Mr. Payne.
Mr. PAYNE. Thank you very much.
First of all, I agree that if the United States wants to maintain its premiership as the No. 1 nation in the world, as we are, and we certainly will, I do think that we are abdicating our responsibility by the arrears at the United Nations.
I listened very carefully to the discussion on treaties and evidently you are a lawyer and there is a lot of legalistic business there which is very interesting and you did bring out some very interesting points. It is really well done.
But, you know, you concluded that we do not have to bother with any of it because a treaty really does not have to be honored. And that kind of disturbs me. You know, it is almost like saying France should take back Louisiana Purchase. You know, I mean, it was a treaty. What the hell, France ought to contest it, or maybe Russia could even come and get Alaska. We really got them both for a steal, or maybe the Indians with Manhattan, it was only $23.00. What is a treaty? As a matter of fact, we have violated most of the treaties with the Native Americans.
But you know, when I was a kid, we had a little boy scout troop in my area, inner-city Newark, but we were able to scrap up a boy scout troop. And the first guy, I remember, said, ''On my honor I will do,'' and, you know, I know you all were boy scouts.
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So we signed a treaty. But today we say, ''Well, you know what, it is not worth the paper it is put on because,'' and we go through a lot of legalistic stuff. So therefore we should not even feel bad about our arrears. We are not deadbeat dads. We are deadbeat dads. You know the deadbeat dad is the doctor that lives in Miami who is making $400,000 a year and does not send support back to the family; not necessarily the guy who is unemployed and not doing his responsibility. There is a difference between the deadbeat dads. We are the deadbeats.
You know, we have reduced our contributions to the United Nations from 50 percent when we first started, down to where it is today. There has been a gradual reduction of our responsibility, first of all. Of course, we know today Americans do not like taxes, and I do not either. But there is a certain kind of responsibility.
I even looked at the GAO report, and I was kind of shocked—and I have had a lot of respect for that organization. It does some very good work. But to go on to simply say that we—in Haiti, for example, we spent $953 million simply to remove a dictator. Well, you know, what did we do about Hitler? I mean, how much did we spent on World War II? We did not even lose a life in Haiti. But when I read your report it is a characterization, now why did we spend that much money? Forget that people were coming over in little rafts, being eaten by sharks, the brutality of the Sadge Raush regime.
But you start very cavalierly that, for example, we spent $953 million to remove a dictator. I thought that is what this country was all about; getting rid of bad guys, getting rid of dictators. The reason we sent those two people down to the Dominican Republic at that time was because we were concerned. The reason we sent people up to Oambo Land, you know, was because of Swapo and that whole thing. That was real well done in Nambia. I spent a lot of time over there. We do not spend the money anymore like we used to.
And so, you know, when I listen to what is going on, one thing there is a difference too, we do have a military that feels it should not inflict any casualties, and no one was ever anxious for casualties. But today it is almost the law that if you get a casualty, that is really a disgrace.
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I just wonder, you know, as a country, and maybe you gentlemen can help me with it, a number of these situations—you know, many of these decisions that are made, first of all, nothing happens in the United Nations generally without the U.S.'s approval. I mean, it is very rarely that the U.N. Security Council or the General Assembly will do anything that the United States is basically opposed to, so it is primarily an organization that has served the needs of the United States, in my opinion, because the United States might have been involved in a number of these situations that have occurred. And if you take Cyprus, if it was not for what we did there, you would have Greeks, and Turks, and half of the old Ottoman Empire involved in conflict probably.
So I guess that what I am saying is that, in my opinion, an organization like the United Nations today is very important. It is an organization that we should continue to support—even if you take Western Sahara, that U.N. mission is being manipulated. Why is it manipulated? It is manipulated because King Hussein wants to go into the Western Sahara. There is no question about it.
Why do we allow it to happen? Because Morocco has always been our supporter. When we wanted to prop up Mobutu in the sixties, there were Moroccan soldiers that we flew down there. You know, when we wanted to have the Persian Gulf and needed some northern African countries to break the Arab leagues, that they have this bond together, it was Morocco that said we will join and then others broke, Syria and the rest came on in.
So there is no question that the United Nation serves the U.S.'s world goals. The United States did not want to get involved in Rwanda, and we prevented the United Nations from getting any involvement in Rwanda. When genocide was going on, we would not even mention the word, and the State Department said no one use that word for 4 months, 5 months. One hundred thousand people were killed but we would not use the word ''genocide.'' Not one single United States official of our government used the word because there are genocide treaties. If genocide, the world has responsibility.
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So, you know, we cannot use something, and then decide that we do not really want to pay it because by treaty we really do not have to do it. We do not have to deal with the GATT Treaty either. We do not have to deal with that. We can pull out of anything. But like I said, you know, years ago, especially being an American, you know, we lead the world. Our word is our bond, our honor, our pride. When we talk about just being derelict in our responsibility, I am just kind of confused as to what we want America to be for our grandchildren.
I hear all this talk about we have got to really balance the budget so that our grandchildren will have——
Chairman GILMAN. The gentleman's time is expiring. If he could wind up his question.
Mr. PAYNE.
Mr. PAYNE. OK, I did not even know you got back. I was waiting for you to come back.
Chairman GILMAN. Thank you. That is very kind of you.
Mr. PAYNE. And so if we do not have a world that is controlled by someone other than us, because I do not think that either we have the manpower and the troops that we should be all over the world, but we do have the support, in my opinion, an organization that is doing that for us.
My time has expired. If the Chairman will let you respond if you want to. If not, it is OK.
Chairman GILMAN. If you would be brief. We have another Member waiting to inquire.
Mr. BOLTON. Right. Just very briefly, because I think Congressman Payne has raised an important question on what the ''word'' of the United States is. And I just want to read a sentence from Article XVII of the U.N. Charter, which is the operative provision that talks about financial responsibilities. It says, and I quote, ''The expenses of the organization shall be borne by the members as apportioned by the General Assembly.'' Now, that is what we agreed to in ratifying the U.N. Charter.
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And let me ask you this: Currently, the U.N. General Assembly assesses the United States at the rate of 25 percent for regular operations, 31 percent-plus for peacekeeping. If the General Assembly voted that the American assessment was 99 percent, would you feel obligated to pay it?
Mr. PAYNE. I doubt that I would feel that there would be an obligation to pay an assessment that went up to 99 percent.
Mr. BOLTON. And it would not violate our word to tell them we were not going to pay it either. I believe it would not violate our word because part of this, Congressman, goes, as I am sure you know from your experience in Nambia—I remember when you were on our delegation observing the election there—that there is a reciprocity of obligation here. Reciprocity of obligation by the other member governments to take seriously things like management, budget, direction, and organization.
I do not blame this on the United Nations. I blame it principally on the other member governments who have not taken it as seriously as we do. And I think it is important to understand that our work and our obligation are not unilateral; that there is a need for reciprocity and mutuality. And, unfortunately, that does not exist to the extent it should.
Mr. PAYNE. Well, my time has expired, so I will let it go.
Chairman GILMAN. Mr. Sherman.
Mr. SHERMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I believe that reciprocity is something we ought to look at. Japan, for example, has not to my knowledge sent a single soldier to Bosnia. Yet Tokyo is closer to Bosnia than is my district in California. China is assessed less than one-twenty-fifth the amount of dues to the United Nations as the United States, and yet insists on exercising almost as much power in the organization as we do.
I think Mr. Leach pointed to an important problem when he said that slowly the United States is abdicating the leadership of world organizations. Frankly, I think that slowly we will abdicate world leadership in general. But the fault is not that of the American people if that ever comes to pass. The fault is that of the foreign policy establishment which has failed to even think of how American working families might benefit from our world leadership, and instead has insisted upon a foreign policy that I have described as we would like the honor of defending the interests of other rich countries for free, and in return for that honor we would like to make major trade concessions to them.
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I would like to comment a bit about what our forces should be equipped to do in this strain of peacekeeping, because I think all-out war is unlikely in the future. We all recognize that. Preventing a Hitler, a Stalin or even Breshnev from trying to conquer parts of the world is not the mission of the future.
The future missions for the United States in or out of the United Nations, or with or without the United Nations will resemble a Haiti or Desert Storm, and I do not know which of those two types of missions will turn out to be more important. But if we are going to have a military that costs us a quarter of a trillion dollars, it is those types of missions that we ought to regard as their main purpose, and we ought to train our forces to be able to handle them.
There has been some discussion as to what it costs us to be involved in the U.N.'s peacekeeping efforts, and here I do not think we can draw a line between a U.N.-sanctioned effort on the one hand, and keeping world peace and stability on the other. The fact that the U.N.'s flag flies in South Korea is a fact of little immediate military or economic significance; of some political significance.
I would put forth the argument that we spent roughly a quarter of a trillion dollars a year on U.N.-type peacekeeping because our military budget is not designed to defend the borders of the United States. It is designed to defend peace, stability, and territorial integrity, and trade routes around the world, and wherever possible, to promote democracy and human rights.
Well, what would be the mission statement of the United Nations except peace, stability, territorial integrity, and where possible, human rights and democracy?
So whether it is under a U.N. flag or under a U.S. flag, we spend a quarter of a trillion dollars trying to achieve what the United Nations would describe as its mission.
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Now, Mr. Leach argued that we made money on the Gulf War, and through that kind of accounting you could argue that we are under-committed to the United Nations. That is very faulty accounting. We have joint relationships among the fire departments of the various cities in my district. Imagine if Calabasas came to put out a fire in Agoura Hills and said, ''The only thing we will charge you is the cost of the overtime we pay our fire fighters.'' The cost of putting out a fire is the cost of maintaining the fire department 365 days a year, and the cost of world peace is the cost of deterring Sadam Hussein today, the cost of being prepared to fight him tomorrow. That is a quarter trillion dollar cost. Those who say we made a profit on the Gulf War would say the overtime that we paid our soldiers. That cost does not even include the ordnance that we spent on the Gulf War because we paid for it in a prior fiscal year.
It is time that we give America and American taxpayers credit for all we do in the world instead of trying to find some fancy accounting mechanisms to minimize what we spend and focus only on the marginal costs.
Mr. Bolton, I think you are quite helpful in pointing out the constitutional role of treaties. Right now we are under the gun from various unfair trade practices, and we are told that we cannot legally respond because there are treaties. And you have pointed out that we can respond by statute, if I understand your testimony correctly, and that our failure to respond should be blamed on today's political leaders, not on the founding fathers.
Do I correctly interpret your testimony that we have the statutory and constitutional right to pass statutes to provide for immediate responses under U.S. law and immediate tariffs under U.S. law to respond to unfair trade practices in other countries?
Mr. BOLTON. To the extent you have the authority already delegated by the Constitution, the answer is correct.
Mr. SHERMAN. Thank you.
Chairman GILMAN. The gentleman's time has expired.
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I want to thank our panelists for being with us throughout the morning, and I would like to ask our witnesses to respond in writing to several additional questions on U.N. peacekeeping operations which we will submit to the panelists following the hearing.
[At press time no answers had been submitted.]
Accordingly, the hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 11:59 a.m., the Committee was adjourned.]