Peacekeeping promotes violence

[--Pete]

Hi,

I think you are intentionally misunderstanding this admittedly open to interpretation quote. There is no peace to keep because there is no central authority to report to. There is no agency/government that can provide the control or to hand the control over to.

It was the phrasing of the statement I have trouble with, not the underlying concept. In my opinion, the concept of external (UN, EU, AU, USA) peace-keeping forces is an oxymoron. If there is peace then the internal forces are doing the job, and no external forces are needed. If there is no peace, then how can any forces, internal or external, 'keep' it? Calling them by the diplomatic, politically correct, weasel worded, 'peace-keeping force' name is the problem. I can't think of anyplace they've been deployed where they merely had to 'keep' the peace. In every case I can think of, they had to establish a peace to keep.

You send in troops to there and you are now the government with dozens of factions that are still fighting. As you say later you'd have to pick a warlord and then prop him up or kill everyone else. Essentially you would end up sending in a force that is meant to be more of a high powered police force (that's what the UN Peacekeepers are supposed to do) and turn them into an invasionary force. Which in this case would pretty much escalate the violence.

You would have to go in with enough power to dominate *all* the warlords. You would have to establish a government based on fear that controlled the country (like Tito did ages ago in the Balkans). And you would have to stay there long enough to allow the people to eventually take up the responsibility of governing themselves (three generations, at least, in my estimate from historical precedence). Since I don't see anyone with the political will to do this, to commit to this, and to follow through, then I think it is best not to interfere internally at all.

The best solution looks to be to prop up a warlord. We did that in Afghanistan decades ago, how did that turn out for us again?

Actually, we supported the mujahideen during the invasion of Afghanistan by the USSR. And that worked out very well for us in the long run. Then, when Afghanistan was of no further use to us, we pretty much ignored it, losing both the support of its people and the political coin we'd garnered there. Then we 'invaded' in the aftermath of 9/11 and have since propped up warlords. And it has not been too successful, except perhaps to the junkies and their supply of heroin. repeating our mistakes may not be the best foreign policy;)

But again you need the troops you are sending into there to have a goal or you'll never get anyone to go.

Right. A well defined, measurable goal and a realistic exit strategy. Or a very long term commitment.

The UN goes in now they are committing to generations unless we can find a way to jump start a more stable government. . . . I'd be much happier if there were a more promising potential end.

Realistically, there is no short term solution.

Really I think I'm a dick enough to say, let them keep killing each other. Provide refugees a place to flee too and say screw it.

Not that there are many places for refugees in Equatorial Eastern Africa.

After giving the people a way to get the hell out then you can say that we'll kill any pirates on sight.

Not sure how the two are related. Not all the people who chose to stay will be pirates.

Any attacks on people fleeing will be met with harsh resistance. That limits the engagement.

Historically, this has not worked too well. You need to operate within the country to enforce this. Say you pick a distance (five miles, for example) into the country as a safe zone for refugees. The people attacking the refugees then move their operations just outside this zone. So you either have the same problem, only five miles further in, or you expand the safe zone. Ultimately you either give up, or the whole country becomes a safe zone and you've got the same 'peace keeping' problem which is insolvable now.

The reality is that most that we can do will make the situation worse. What needs to be done (education, mostly) we can't even seem to do for ourselves.

--Pete