5

From Operation "Maritime Monitor" to "Allied Force":

Reflections on Relations Between NATO and the United Nations
in the 1990s

Mats Berdal

Introduction

In June 1992, NATO formally committed itself to support international

peacekeeping by making its resources available "on a case-by-case basis" at
the specific request, not ofthe UN, but ofthe then CSCE. 1 Yet, within little
more than a year of that decision, NATO assets were employed in several
parallel missions in support of UN forces deployed in the former Yugosla-
via. These support activities soon came to include the enforcement of a
maritime embargo in the Adriatic and a "no-fly-zone" over Bosnia-Herze-
govina, as well as the provision of "protective airpower" for the United Na-
tions Protection Force (UNPROFOR) in Bosnia. 2 For two organisations that
throughout the Cold War hardly had had anything to do with one another,
the speed with which relations between NATO and the UN developed in the
period between 1992-1995 was striking indeed. Still, relations between the
two organisations were far from trouble-free, and in 1995, during the so-
called Dayton peace process, the UN's role in the region was significantly
reduced as NATO assumed the chief burden of implementing the Bosnian
peace settlement.
The gradual marginalisation of the UN from the affairs of the region
over the next years culminated in March 1999 when NATO, without ex-
plicit authorisation from the UN Security Council and for the first time in
its fifty years' history, launched major combat operations against a sover-
eign state, the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY). 3 The express purpose
of that operation was, in the words of NATO's Secretary General, Javier
Solana, uttered on the eve of the bombing campaign, to "halt the violence

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G. Schmidt (ed.), A History of NATO — The First Fifty Years
© Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited 2001
58 Relations Between NATO and the UN

and brin§ an end to the humanitarian catastrophe now unfolding in

Kosovo". With the end of operation "Allied Force" in June 1999, relations
between NATO and the UN appeared, at least on the surface, again to have
become closer. Under Security Council Resolution 1244, passed by theSe-
curity Council on 10 June 1999, the UN Secretary General was authorised
to establish "an international civil presence in Kosovo in order to provide
an interim administration for Kosovo under which the people of Kosovo
can enjoy substantial autonomy within the Federal Republic of Yugosla-
via".5 In the war-tom, bombed-out and devastated province of Kosovo,
however, the NATO-led Kosovo implementation force (KFOR) is very
much the senior partner vis-a-vis the UN in Kosovo (UNMIK). It is also
clear that the Alliance is likely to remain in Kosovo in a quasi-administra-
tive role for an indefinite period of time. The chief reason for this being that
the political status of the province remains unresolved also after NATO's
military campaign.
It is evident from this brief overview that the scale and scope of NATO's
involvement in the Balkans has undergone a profound change in the course
of the decade: from a supporting actor of the UN peacekeeping in 1992-95
and enforcer of a peace settlement in Bosnia since 1995, to the initiator of a
"humanitarian war" and the de facto administrator of a protectorate in
Kosovo since the summer of 1999. This chapter explores some of the major
issues raised by this transformation ofNATO's role in the Balkans, focus-
ing in particular on the early and formative experience, for better and
worse, of working alongside the UN in Bosnia. The period between 1992
and 1995 was not only one of increasingly close co-operation, but its decid-
edly mixed legacy also defined the scope (at least until the present) of sub-
sequent NATO-UN co-operation. The chapter addresses three sets of ques-
tions:

1) Why did NATO and the UN develop closer ties in the early post-Cold
War period?
2) What were the principal sources of tension in relations between
NATO and the UN in the period 1992-1995, and to what extent have
the experiences of those years shaped NATO policy in the Balkan
since?
3) What general lessons can be drawn from the experience ofNATO-UN
relations in the former Yugoslavia and where, in particular, does the
recent experience ofNATO involvement in Kosovo leave the future of
the Alliance?