AUTHOR: RICHARD PERLE

TITLE: Is the UN the Only Institution That Can Legitimize Force?

SOURCE: New Perspectives Quarterly 20 no1 69-70 Wint 2003

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WASHINGTON -- As the United States contemplates the use of force to remove Saddam
Hussein from power, it is a critical moment to address the doubts of America's allies,
particularly in Europe, about the legitimacy of such a move.
It is an article of faith in Europe that the use of force can only be a last resort and must be
legitimized by the United Nations. While such alternatives to the use of force as diplomacy
and economic pressure are often preferable, this obvious point easily slides into the cliche that
force must always be a last resort. In the case of Europe, resort to force is often not even the
last resort because the Europeans have so little capacity to use force that it is practically
excluded as a means of influencing events or effecting change.
Given the inadequate military capabilities of the Europeans, the inability to use force
morphs easily into an abhorrence of the use of force.
With greater military capability, we Americans are rather more likely to consider action
when our security is threatened.
The idea of force as only a last resort deserves some examination. What exactly do we mean
by a "last resort"? Do we mean that force can only be used after we have applied political and
economic measures, like the sanctions we once applied to the combatants in the former
Yugoslavia? Presumably, the reluctance to use force is somehow connected to a desire to save
lives. Did we save lives (or improve the security of those whose lives were threatened) by
imposing sanctions in the case of Bosnia? Those sanctions, applied to aggressor and victim
alike, prevented Muslim victims from defending themselves. Those sanctions had the effect of
concentrating lethal weaponry in the hands of the aggressors -- and tens of thousands of
defenseless Muslims died as a result.
Have we improved the world's security or dealt effectively with Saddam Hussein by
imposing sanctions that have in many ways strengthened Saddam within his own country?
The question of the appropriate time and circumstances to use force has to be approached
with greater sophistication.
Easy disparagement of the use of force should tempered by the real world in which we're
living. There are sometimes situations that can only be dealt with effectively by the use of
force. And if that can be reasonably anticipated at the outset, it is foolish, dangerous and
costly to indulge in a prolonged period of ineffective political and economic measures, only to
turn to military power after the situation has deteriorated and the military and human costs
are so much greater.
Today, we also hear the mantra "We must work through the UN" But is the United Nations
the sole legitimizing institution when it comes to the use of force? Why the UN? Is the UN
better able to confer legitimacy than, say, a coalition of liberal democracies? Does the addition
of members of the UN -- like China, for example, or Syria -- add legitimacy to what otherwise
might be the collective policy of countries that share our values? After all, when you go beyond
the democracies at the UN, you are adding only dictatorships and totalitarian states -- lots of
them.
It is a dangerous trend to consider that the UN, a weak institution at best, an institution
that includes a large number of nasty regimes, is somehow better able to confer legitimacy
than institutions like the European Union or NATO.
America's allies and the past American administration have argued for containment and
deterrence as the heart of a sound security policy. To be sure, there are situations in which
containment is an entirely appropriate policy. And we all wish there was a rule book that was
adhered to by everyone. But there are those who break the rules, and containment is not
always effective.
Had we settled for containment of the Soviet Union, it might still be in business today. Are
we -- and millions of former Soviet citizens -- not better off because the US went beyond mere
containment and challenged the legitimacy of a totalitarian Soviet Union? The ideological and
moral challenge to the Soviet Union that was mounted by the Reagan administration took us
well beyond containment. If containment means that a country such as Iraq, that is capable of
doing great damage, is left unhindered to prepare to do that damage, then we run
unnecessary, foolish and imprudent risks.
UNILATERALISM AND IRAQ | Clearly the most difficult issue straining the relationship
between the United States and much of the world has to do with the American attitude toward
Iraq. And the charge is that if we were to act militarily, we would be acting in a unilateral
manner. But everyone recognizes the right of self-defense. The question then is: Is the danger
from Saddam Hussein to the US of such imminence that we are justified in invoking the
concept of self-defense with respect to any military action that we might take?
When does a threat become imminent? When is it timely to act in self-defense? When is it
appropriate to take action? Do you have to wait until the threat announces itself with an
actual attack, possibly on a massive scale?
In this respect, I don't think Europe really understands the impact of 9/11 on the US. One of
the lessons of Sept. 11 was that it is possible to wait too long. We waited too long to deal with
Osama Bin Laden. We knew what was going on in Afghanistan. We observed the training
camps with overhead photography; we listened to conversations among the terrorists;
through various other means we were well aware that Osama bin Laden was planning attacks
on the US. He had already carried out a number of them on our embassies, garrisons and
warships, to which, by the way, the feeble American response was almost certainly an
incitement to further attacks, culminating in 9/11.
We don't want to make the mistake of waiting too long again. That is what the world
observes in American thinking about Iraq.
ADDED MATERIAL
RICHARD PERLE IS CHAIRMAN OF THE DEFENSE POLICY BOARD, A KEY ADVISORY
BOARD ON INTERNATIONAL SECURITY TO THE PENTAGON.