UNITED NATIONS: U.N. Aims for 87,000-Strong Standby Force

By Thalif Deen Reprint | | Print |

Thalif Deen

UNITED NATIONS, May 20 1997 (IPS) - The United Nations is quietly building up an 87,000-strong standby military force ready to be rushed to the world’s major trouble spots at short notice.

“I think it would be ideal if the United Nations can have a standing army. But since the membership is not ready for it, we are encouraging governments to participate in our standby forces arrangement,” says Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

Italy became the sixth country last week to sign a memorandum of understanding pledging troops to the U.N. standby force.

Until then, five countries — Jordan, Denmark, Ghana, Malaysia and Austria — had committed soldiers to the proposed U.N. force. Singapore and Bolivia are expected to sign similar pledges before the end of the month.

Annan said about 65 governments, including Britain, the United States, France and Russia, have expressed their willingness to eventually participate in the U.N.’s latest military exercise.

When fully deployed, the standby force will have a total troop strength of about 87,000 personnel, including infantry, headquarters support, engineers, and logistical support, along with air and health services.

Annan singled out Denmark as one of the countries which has created an international brigade of about 5,000 troops.

“What we understand is that if they were to decide to participate in a U.N. operation, the headquarters element could be deployed within 48 hours and (the) formed units within a month,” he said.

Annan pointed out that if the United Nations can get 12 to 20 governments to go the same route, the lead time it now takes to deploy troops would be substantially reduced.

“Today, it takes three to four months to put U.N. troops in the field. If we can reduce that to six weeks to two months, or preferably to a month, it will make quite a lot of difference,” he added.

The concept of a standby force was created back in 1994 to fill the three-to-six month gap between the Security Council’s authorisation of a peacekeeping mission and full deployment.

The force was originally proposed by former Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali in his 1992 ‘Agenda for Peace,’ a blueprint for preventive diplomacy and peacekeeping.

Under article 43 of the U.N. Charter, the Secretary-General has the authority to ask the 185 member states to designate military units to be deployed in the event of a crisis in order “to maintain international peace and security.”

Boutros-Ghali complained last year that one of his biggest problems was the long delay in raising troops for peacekeeping operations.

The delay is mostly on the part of member states whose troops may be ready, but whose logistical capacities make timely deployment of those troops impossible.

Major-General Maurice Baril, U.N. military adviser for peacekeeping operations, noted that the variety of types of equipment different national armies bring to a peacekeeping exercise adds to the logistical challenges. The proposed standby force, he said, will have standardized equipment and will be specifically trained for peacekeeping.

The United Nations is also hoping to set up a regional centre for training peacekeepers. Denmark has already volunteered to take a lead role.

Both Boutros-Ghali and Annan have expressed support for a U.N. standing army. But the longstanding proposal was abandoned last year primarily due to strong opposition from the United States.

“I don’t think we can have a standing U.N. army,” Annan said, “The membership is not ready for it.”

The United States has said a U.N. army would give the world body too much political and military power. Washington is also opposed to U.S. troops being brought under U.N. command.

Last year Senator Jesse Helms, chairman of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, accused the world body of trying to establish a standing army commanded by the Secretary-General.

But the United Nations dismissed the charge, noting that sending troops for peacekeeping under U.N. command is not designed to challenge the sovereignty of any country.

“No country commits soldiers to a peacekeeping operation if they don’t want to, and the U.S. can veto any peacekeeping operation. Even if it votes for the operation, it doesn’t have to send soldiers to fight in it,” a U.N. spokesman said.