Preventive diplomacy is used to prevent the conflict from moving into the armed stage. It includes activities related to the “restoration of trust” between the conflicting parties; the work of civilian observers’ missions to establish the facts of the breach of the peace; exchange of information, etc.
Preservation of peace involves procedures related to the organization of the negotiation process and the implementation of mediation efforts by a third party to find mutually acceptable solutions. The result of activities to preserve peace is not always the resolution of contradictions. The parties are sometimes forced to sign agreements, understanding that the continuation of the conflict at this stage becomes impossible. In this case, one or the other party may not very much strive to fulfill them.
The development of the UN system and regional inter-state associations led to a relative legitimation of certain types of international community’s actions in conflicts. These actions were collectively called peacekeeping operations.
Since its inception, the United Nations has been actively involved in the maintenance of peace and international security. This activity, only on a broader scale, remains to this day. Thus, in 2006, 72,000 “blue helmets” and 15,000 civilian personnel participated in 18 peacekeeping operations carried out by the UN. The largest contingents sent to the peacekeeping force were Bangladesh (10288), Pakistan (9431), India (9057), Jordan (3648 people), Nepal (3523 people) [1].
Under international conflicts most often imply, first of all, wars in their traditional understanding. The war is treated as a critical stage in the implementation of contradictions between political actors (primarily states and unions of states) in the form of violent armed struggle. However, the last century has brought about significant changes in the understanding of conflicts and wars in the world community. If, in a strict legal sense, to divide conflicts into international and non-international conflicts (occurring within states and nations), then we can state a tendency towards an increasing predominance of non-international conflicts.
At the same time, according to globalization of social processes, more and more conflicts of interethnic, social, and economic nature, including within states, get an international dimension: they affect the stability / instability of the international environment, evoke reaction from other subjects of international relations, and are also subject to interference by international organizations. As the systemic nature and activity of the international community grows more and more in the course of the globalization of world social relations, the practice of international intervention in conflicts between states (as well as conflicts between different forces within states) is increasingly developing with the aim of preventing, mitigating, resolving, and eliminating their consequences [2].
Such interference can be of a diverse nature. Both methodologically and from the point of view of practical politics, it is very difficult to draw a line between interference in the conflicts of external forces (states, coalitions, international associations) for the sake of realizing their own interests as new parties to the conflict, on the one hand, and relatively impartial interference for the restoration of international stability and peace, on the other.
The emergence of the UN system and regional inter-state associations in the period after the Second World War led to a relative legitimization of certain types of actions by the international community in conflicts - actions that received the collective name of peacekeeping activities.
The overwhelming majority of the world’s publications on conflict and peacekeeping issues are editions in English. And although the Russian language is also the official language of the United Nations, English remains the working language of almost all peacekeeping operations under the aegis of the UN, it includes the originals of political documents, instructions, orders, and contingents of different countries. It seems important to clarify some of the semantic differences between the Russian-speaking and English- speaking conceptual and terminological apparatus used in describing and studying conflicts and peacekeeping activities.
In the practice of the United Nations, the notion of “peace making” was widely used as a designation for an independent type of operation. It is sometimes interpreted as “peacebuilding,” but is more often literally translated as “building the world.”
In connection with the UN operation in Afghanistan, the term “post- conflict reconstruction” or “post-conflict peace-making” became widely used. At the same time, the term “post-conflict peacekeeping” makes it possible to correlate it with “pre-conflict peacekeeping”, which includes preventive and preventive actions [3].
The concept of “peacekeeping operations” unites various types and forms of multilateral peacekeeping actions of the international community both at the latent and actual stages of the conflict, as well as in the post- conflict period.
At the same time, it is incorrect to believe that the two most common types of peacekeeping operations - peacekeeping and peacekeeping operations - correspond only to the middle stage of the actual development of the conflict. Some types of coercive actions in the composition of peace operations (sanctions, preventive deployment of troops, demonstration of force, etc.) are applied at the pre-conflict stage.
A peacekeeping operation in its classical sense begins only after the conclusion of a ceasefire agreement. That is, it occurs at the stage of “freezing” the conflict, a truce, and, under a favorable coincidence, gradually and naturally turns into actions to recreate the infrastructure of peaceful management and liquidation of the consequences of the conflict.
According to the characterization of the former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan (who before the election to the post of the Secretary-General was the deputy on issues of peacekeeping), “peacekeeping” was used for:
- investigation of the situation in unstable regions;
- monitoring the observance of ceasefire and cease-fire;
- verification of the implementation of agreements;
- establishing buffer zones between hostile armies;
- assistance in creating the conditions necessary for implementing complex agreements and providing humanitarian assistance to the local population suffering from the unfolding
Existing definitions of the peacekeeping activities can be systematized into four main groups:
- legal (international law);
- functional (political, diplomatic, conflict logical, );
- military (military-operational, military-technical);
- ideological [4].
Classical international legal approaches refer to the concept of the peacekeeping activity of international organizations exclusively to the actions of the United Nations. Directly in the United Nations, peacekeeping activities are defined as “activities involving civilian and military personnel but without the authority to carry out coercive actions undertaken by the United Nations to assist in maintaining or restoring international peace and security in the conflict region” [5].
It is possible to define peacekeeping operations and as a form of politics, more precisely, as a special political process, a kind of coordinated policy of states and international organizations regarding the conflict. In such a process, political, diplomatic, military and other interests and means of influencing the conflict of states and international organizations intertwine and interact with the interests and actions of the conflicting forces themselves. However, peacekeeping is not all power politics in a conflict region. This is a specially structured and coordinated policy that includes actions of a strictly limited range of subjects, and is limited by certain principles and rules.
An “uneasy” definition of peacekeeping operations can be given through the concept of “intervention”. In fact, virtually all peacekeeping operations are a violation of the sovereignty of the government in whose territory the conflict is taking place, constitute interference in the conflict of external political and military forces. However, the notion of “interference” has a very pronounced negative connotation, which can be partially removed only in the notion of “legitimate intervention,” that is, intervention at the request (or with documented consent) of the legitimate political power of the country in whose territory the conflict is unfolding. At the same time, the question of the legitimacy of interference in the internal affairs of the country turns out to be connected with the question of the legitimacy of the person who applied for international assistance of the political regime.
Legitimization of intervention can also be carried out on the basis of the decision to intervene in the form of a peacekeeping operation by a legitimate international organization (the UN or a regional international organization, in the case of peacekeeping operations without elements of coercive actions). Thus, peacekeeping and peacekeeping operations are “multifaceted”: in different ways they simultaneously act as a political process (that is, as a process of coordination and interaction of interests of political actors), as diplomatic activity, as a form of intervention by the international community in the affairs of individual states; a number of cases, as a form of military action, forms of armed struggle [6].
Peacekeeping operations are reactive, reacting to a potential conflict, only flaring up, or a conflict that has already become actual. At the same time, the agent of the operation can not be the party to the conflict. The “classical” role of the subject of a peacekeeping operation is the role of a “third force”, neutral, directly disinterested in the victory of one of the parties to the conflict of the actor.At the same time, it should be noted that in political practice absolute neutrality is unattainable. Therefore, the requirement of neutrality of the peacekeeping entity is analytically inevitably replaced by a more “soft” one: the subject of peacekeeping operations must be a force external to the conflict, for which the settlement, termination of the conflict itself is more important than achieving any political goals of either side within the conflict.
Peacekeeping is a collective concept. It covers different types of actions, related only to two general characteristics: all of them, first, are due to conflicts (which, in turn, are diverse) and, secondly, are a systematized external influence aimed at resolving or reducing the intensity conflict. In this sense, the simplest solution is to link the classification of operations with the typology of conflicts.
The identification of internal (interstate), interstate, regional and world conflicts allow us to divide peacekeeping operations on two grounds:
First, it is possible to single out “classical” peacekeeping operations in interstate conflicts and distinguish them from more modern “nonclassical” peacekeeping operations in non-international (intra-state conflicts);
Secondly, it would seem logical to single out internal (intra-state) peacekeeping operations (and this type can indeed be illustratedon the example of an operation to resolve the conflict between North Ossetia and Ingushetia in 1992), regional peacekeeping operations and peacekeeping operations in world conflicts [7].
Classification of intensity conflicts (from positional hostility to armed confrontation) or stages of deployment (from latent to actual) can become the basis for grouping different specific types of peacekeeping operations (mediation, observation missions, preventive deployment, etc.) into groups of pre-conflict preventive), conflict and post-conflict.
There are four main types of operations: 1) traditional peacekeeping missions; 2) multilateral (multidimensional) peace operations; 3) intervention to prevent a humanitarian catastrophe; 4) operations for the forcible establishment of peace.
The definition of the first type is traditional, but the specifics of the second type (multidimensional peace operations) can be seen precisely in the fact that these were the operations of intervention in the internal conflicts of states that entered into practice after the end of the Cold War. At the same time, such operations have a significant non-military, civilian component, since they solve the tasks of political settlement, restoration (or primary development) of democratic institutions, elections, etc.The definition of the third type of operation causes the greatest debate. If, after Kosovo (1999- 2000), “humanitarian intervention” was widely spoken of as a type of operation that prevents ethnic genocide, a humanitarian catastrophe, it should be specially noted that until the late 90s this type was treated differently.
As examples of “humanitarian intervention”, operations in Somalia (1992- 1995), Bosnia-Herzegovina (since 1992) and the NorthernIraq (1991) [8].
A characteristic feature of this type is the lack of consent of the parties and the inevitable violent violation of the sovereignty of the state authority in whose territory the operation is being conducted. The justification of such interference is the UN-defined and recognized risk, a threat to international peace and security, which comes from the further development of the conflict. A specific feature of this type of operation is the orientation on protecting primarily the civilian population of the region, with force (disengagement, encirclement, disarmament, forced demobilization) in relation to the conflicting parties in the region. It is recognized that “neutrality” in such operations is unattainable, some parties to the conflict can be recognized as “enemies” of the international community, and they can be subjected to selective force.
The fourth type - operations for the forcible establishment of peace - is not very convincingly regarded as a direct continuation of humanitarian intervention in case the parties continue their resistance, and the UN decides to use a significant armed force to “extinguish” the conflict. An example of a different type of operation of the same type is called UN actions in areas with a destroyed vertical power infrastructure, a civil war of “all against all” (Rwanda). Finally, the same type refers to the operation in Haiti, where the former regime was removed by military means and democratic elections conducted under international control to end systematic violations of human rights as a result of external interference. All related to the latter type of situation is related by one common feature: the lack of agreement of the government, the political power of the region on international interference. Strictly speaking, it would be more logical to classify the operations of the third type (“humanitarian interventions”) in the same operations to force the establishment of peace (or order), contrary to the sovereignty of the authorities. The legal nature of these two types is the same. Only the “ideological” justification for intervention varies.
The United Nations has traditionally been seen in recent decades as the only legitimate and universal representative of the world community. However, a number of large and powerful powers have repeatedly challenged the legitimacy of the UN’s actions. The Soviet Union has repeatedly criticized the decision of the General Assembly taken without its participation in carrying out operations under the UN flag in Korea. The United States spent almost all of the decade of the 1980s in a kind of “quarrel” with the UN, did not contribute membership fees, criticized the UN for its inefficiency, and took forceful actions, bypassing and outside the UN mechanism. It is also widely known that when, under the UN mandate in 1991, a military operation was carried out to force Iraq out of Kuwait and pursue Iraqi forces on their own territory, a broad ideological campaign of sharp criticism of the United Nations was launched in Iraq and a number of other Islamic states, during which “ blue helmets “were declared” aggressors “. The same thing happened when, after an operation in Iraq in 2003, the UN tried to deploy its headquarters there for a post-conflict settlement. Thus, the recognition of the “a priori” legitimacy of the UN as a subject of peacekeeping operations is not universal, situational, and has been repeatedly questioned and criticized by member states [9].
Strictly speaking, the recognition of the world community in the person of the United Nations as a real integral subject of international relations is possible only within the framework of the so-called “modernist” methodology of international relations, which, along with the state, as a traditional “unit” of international relations, recognizes the existence and justification of the existence of other, non-state actors of peacekeeping operations - suprastate associations, unions, transnational actors. While exaggerating somewhat, one can say that the recognition of the United Nations as a real integral subject of international relations is possible only on the basis of those methodological approaches that are ready to recognize as a real subject of international relations and SMM (the network of global satellite television).
The regional organizations have even less legitimizing power, although many of them, including the CIS, have been reported to have conducted and conduct their own peacekeeping operations.At the UN, there is no established procedure for the recognition of an international organization or agreement by the relevant Chapter VIII of the UN Charter. Accordingly, disputes over whether a number of regional organizations (CIS, CSTO, NATO, etc.) are controversial, whether they are in line with the criteria of Chapter VIII and, therefore, whether they receive the right to make independent decisions on peacekeeping operations (without elements of coercive actions, since the latter unequivocally require the mandate of the UN Security Council) [10].
A significant problem with many regional agreements is that they do not cover all countries in the region. Consequently, such organizations can not claim that they adequately and fully express the political interests of the entire region as a whole. That is why, for example, NATO, covering only a part of European countries, refuses to consider itself a regional agreement in the sense of the VIII chapter of the UN Charter. As for the OSCE, the opposite question arises: in covering 55 countries of the Eurasian region, the OSCE, for historical reasons, also includes participants in addition to the United States and Canada. Their presence and participation in the development of the decisions of this European organization in essence regarding peacekeeping operations in Europe somewhat distorts the balanced representation of the interests of the region.
Thus, the concept of a “just war” turns out to be of little use to the practice of peacekeeping and, in a transformed form, appears not as a problem of abstract value-based justice, but as an international legal problem of legitimizing operations.
At the same time, the degree of recognition of the legitimacy, “fairness” of the peacekeeping of international organizations as a whole is higher, the wider the recognition of the globalization of the modern world and international relations. It can be argued that the proliferation and development of peacekeeping operations is one of the manifestations, forms of globalization of international relations. In a globalizing world, confidence in the actions of the world community is growing, collective actions of states are recognized as more justified and meaningful than the individual position of individual countries. Peacekeeping operations are a form of domination of the collective will of the world community over the political will of certain state and domestic actors of the political process. In this regard, the growth in the number of regional and coalition operations in the 1990s and the first five-year period of the 21st century can be seen as a symptom of a certain slowdown, a “stalling” of globalization trends, a reaction to the counter-trend in the sovereignization of states.
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