Abstract
Can and should peace operations be an integral part of the U.S.-Japan alliance and Asian security cooperation writ large? On the one hand the answer seems obvious. Between 1990 and 2001, Asia was beset by more civil wars and ethnic conflicts than any other region in the world, including Africa. Prospects for large-scale internal violence are rife in several Asian countries.1 Peace operations have saved lives and contributed to stability in Asia; against extreme difficulties the UNPKO in Cambodia helped bring to an end a war that had killed millions of people, and the prompt intervention in East Timor, led by Australia and supported by the United States, New Zealand, Philippines, and others, saved tens of thousands of lives.2 Important American officials, including Admiral Dennis Blair, commander-in-chief of the U.S. PACOM, cite communal violence and humanitarian disasters as threats to Asian security and advocate regional training and participation in UN peacekeeping and humanitarian relief operations as a key step toward an Asian regional security complex.3 In April-May 2001, combined military exercises between the United States and various Asian nations simulated UNPKO during regional disputes; Japanese SDF officers attended as observers.
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Notes
For a survey of potential ethnic problems within Asian states, see Michael E. Brown and Sumit Ganguly, eds., Government Policies and Ethnic Relations in Asia and the Pacific (Cambridge: M.I.T. Press, 1997).
For a comprehensive evaluations of the UN experience in Cambodia see Trevor Findley, The United Nations in Cambodia (New York: Oxford University Press and SIPRI, 1995);
Michael Doyle, UN Peacekeeping in Cambodia: UNTAC’s Civil Mandate (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1995) and
Steven Ratner, The New UN Peacekeeping (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1995). For an overview of the Australian-led mission to East Timor, INTERFET, see
Alan Ryan, “Primary Responsibilities and Primary Risks,” Land Warfare Study Center, Duntroon, Australia, November 2000.
Dennis C. Blair and John T. Hanley, Jr., “From Wheels to Webs: Reconstructing Asia-Pacific Security Arrangements,” The Washington Quarterly, Vol. 24, No. 1 (Winter 2001), pp. 7–17.
The workshop produced an edited book: Selig S. Harrison and Masashi Nishihara, UN Peacekeeping: Japanese and American Perspectives (Washington DC: Carnegie Endowment, 1995).
Report of the Panel on United Nations Peace Operations, United Nations Document A/55/305-S/2000/809, August 21, 2000. The Report is known colloquially as the Brahimi Report, named after the Chairman of the Committee, Lakhdar Brahimi. For an analysis of the Report and its critics, see Stephen John Stedman, “Brahimi and Its Discontents: The Future of United Nations Peace Operations,” in A Global Agenda: Issues Before the United Nations, 2001–2002 (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield and the United Nations Association of the United States; 2001), pp. 1–7.
Margareta Sollenberg, States in Armed Conflict 1998 (Uppsala, Sweden: Department of Peace and Conflict Research, 1999).
Overviews of the genesis of UN peacekeeping can be found in Paul Diehl, International Peacekeeping (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993) and
William J. Durch, ed., The Evolution of UN Peacekeeping (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1993).
Stephen John Stedman, Peacemaking in Civil War (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1991), p. 15. The fullest exposition of the security dilemma and its implications for civil war termination is Barbara Walter, “The Critical Barrier to Civil War Settlement,” International Organization, Vol. 51 (Summer 1997).
See also Barbara Walter and Jack Snyder, eds., Civil War, Insecurity and Intervention (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999).
Donald C.F. Daniel, “Is there a Middle Option in Peace Support Operations?” in Managing Arms in Peace Processes: The Issues (Geneva: United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research, 1996).
The best work to date on American views of international organizations is Edward C. Luck, Mixed Messages: American Politics and International Organizations, 1919–1999 (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 1999).
Michael G. MacKinnon, The Evolution of U.S. Peacekeeping Policy Under Clinton: A Fairweather Friend? (London: Frank Cass, 2000).
For overviews of Japanese participation in peacekeeping, see L. William Heinrich, Jr., Akiko Shibata, and Yoshihide Soeya, United Nations Peacekeeping Operations: A Guide to Japanese Policies (Tokyo: United Nations Press, 1999).
Stephen John Stedman, “Implementing Peace Agreements in Civil Wars: Lessons and Recommendations for Policymakers,” New York, May 2001, IPA Policy Paper Series on Peace Implementation.
The complete findings of the project will appear as Stephen John Stedman, Donald Rothchild, and Elizabeth Cousens, eds., Ending Civil Wars: The Implementation of Peace Agreements (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 2002).
See, e.g., Takashi Inoguchi, “Japan’s United Nations Peacekeeping and Other Operations,” International Journal, Vol. L, No. 2 (Spring 1995), p. 336.
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© 2003 G. John Ikenberry and Takashi Inoguchi
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Stedman, S.J. (2003). Peacekeeping and the U.S.-Japan Alliance. In: Ikenberry, G.J., Inoguchi, T. (eds) Reinventing the Alliance: U.S.-Japan Security Partnership in an Era of Change. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781403980199_10
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781403980199_10
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