POST COLD WAR
INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS: THE CHANGED ROLES OF ARMED FORCES AS INSTRUMENTS OF
STATE POLICY
By
Olufemi Adelusi (PhD)
ABSTRACT
The chapter attempts an examination of the
concept of International Relations. It
locates the concept in the context of the Post Cold War World. The perceived change in the role of Armed
Forces as instruments of State policy in the post cold war international
relations was examined.
The chapter’s
central hypothesis is that international relations since the end of the Second
World War were dominated by the struggle between laissez-faire economic system
(Capitalist – Democratic System) and centralized planned
(Communist-Authoritarian System) and that the ‘triumph’ of Capitalist –
Democratic System over its rival in later part of 1989 heralded a wave of
laissez faire economic system which is touching all continents.
The chapter posits that the championing of
the Capitalist-Democratic system vision of the World has also propelled the
changed roles of Armed Forces as instruments of State policy whether for
developmental or organisational purposes in the domestic or in the foreign
affairs of States.
INTRODUCTION
International Relations have gone through many developments since the end
of the Second World War in 1945. The
period 1945-1989 created a specific bipolar international Relations System of
Communist – centrally planned economy States and Capitalist – Laissez faire –
open economy States with its attendant influence on the cultural and military
systems of Nations.
The ‘Cold War’ ideological confrontation of the Post 1945 period brought
in its wake the arms race – high defence expenditure. There came also the deployment of troops in
military alliances of N.A.T.O and Warsaw Pact in the Developed World. Coincidentally, the period too, notably 1960s
to 1980s saw the rise in military dictatorships as forms of government in
Developing Countries.
The advent of ‘Post Cold War’
International Relations, in the tail end of 1989, now poses new challenges for
shaping the nascent ‘Post Cold War’ international system. The changing role of Armed Forces as
instruments of State Policy has become one of these challenges. Military alliance systems have paled into
insignificance with the death of Warsaw Pact.
Military rule in developing countries is no longer fashionable or
prodded by developed countries. In its
place come troop deployments in the service of peace keeping under the U. N
flag.
It is our intention in this chapter to examine these challenges posed by
the new ‘Post Cold War’ international relations and in particular the aspect
that demonstrates the perceived changed roles of armed forces as instruments of
State policy. For convenience, the
chapter has been divided into four parts, namely; the introduction, secondly, a
look at the changing concept of international relations from ‘cold war’ to
‘post cold war’ dimensions; thirdly, the role of armed forces as instruments of
State policy in the ‘cold war’ world as opposed to the changed roles reserved
for them in the ‘post cold war’ dispensation.
The conclusion brings up the rear.
II- FROM COLD WAR TO POST COLD WAR: THE CHANGING CONCEPT OF INTERNATIONAL
RELATIONS.
For a comprehensive understanding of the changing concept of
international relations, a brief reminder of the interpretations offered for
some key ad joint concepts to that of international relations would be
appropriate. Such concepts are
International Politics and Foreign Policy.
Others are ‘cold war’ and ‘post cold war’.
Foreign Policy considers the analysis of the actions of a State toward
external environment and the conditions – usually domestic under which those
actions are formulated (Hosti.J.K, 1988:17)
International politics takes off
from the consideration of those same actions as only one aspect of a pattern of
actions by one State and re-actions or responses by others (Hosti.J.K, 1988:17)
The distinction between international
politics and international relations is very thin, it has been observed for
instance that “realists, in the tradition of Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger,
see international politics occurring among sovereign States balancing each
others power”(Nye.J.S; 1992 :84). while “Woodrow Wilson and Jimmy
Carter look at relations among peoples as well as States”( Nye.J.S; 1992 :84).
Concerning the ‘cold war’ and ‘post
cold war’ concepts of international relations, the ‘cold war’ concept applied
to the international politics and relations in the era or period covering 1945
to 1989. While the concept, ‘post cold
war’ applies to the current dispensation from 1989 till date.
The ‘cold war’ concept is traceable
to the events that followed the end of hostilities of the Second World War in
which the allies comprising notably the United States, Great Britain and the U.
S. S. R could not agree on the division of the spoils of war. These spoils comprise essentially the
defeated Germany and the spineless countries of Eastern Europe which were
liberated from the clutches of Germany.
The disagreement between the Allies
was traced to the different war motivations they had. While the objective was shared in common - the defeat of the aggressor Germany; the U.
S. S. R lacked confidence in her war allies, especially in their ability to
tolerate and encourage the young revolutionary option of government being
pursued by her. Hence she went on the
offensive. She coerced the liberated
countries of Eastern Europe sharing borders with the defeated Germany (Germany
herself had been divided into two) into towing her ideological option of
government.
This
action taken by the Soviet Union did not go down well with the Americans, who
had earlier put the idea across to her war allies, the necessity for the
liberated countries to be given the opportunity to constitute themselves into
‘democracies’. The Americans went ahead
to encourage what later became the Western Germany to create a democracy. The outcome of these divergent visions of
these two countries was the rivalry for supremacy between the two ideological
options to political economy of States championed by them. The resultant “art of influencing,
manipulating or controlling major groups in the world so as to advance the
purpose of some against the opposition of others”(Niebuhr.R;1959:267) was
dubbed the ‘cold war’.
In essence, ‘cold war’ had been
described as “a perpetual tension between the two blocs of nations, communist
and anti-communist, of such intensity…
Yet it is regarded as ‘cold’ not ‘hot’ because there are no overt hostilities
on a large scale” (Wright .Q. 1978:29) The ‘cold war’ international politics
and relations was beset with an array of issues namely, (a)
ideology (b) military alliances (c) Détente
(d) Arms control (e) the German
problem (f) Super powers’ perspectives on international order (g) North-South conflict (h) imperialism, colonialism and
neo-colonialism (i) racism and apartheid
(j) regional surrogates wars and
(k) the non-alignment.
The above pre-occupying issues of
‘cold war’ era necessitated the employment of the Armed forces, overtly, or
covertly as instruments of State policy.
In fact, a cursory look at each will demonstrate the shadowy or threat
of the use of force if necessary in the resolution of the engaging issues. The most important and pervasive of all the
issues, the ideological polarisations, encouraged the build up of war machines
ready to defend the canvassed points of each sustained ideological vision of
the world. This led to the development
of parallel military alliance systems in the Atlantic, namely, the North
Atlantic Treaty Organisation and the Warsaw Pact. The N. A. T. O comprises of United States,
Canada and her Western European allies while the Warsaw Pact which is now
defunct was made up of the Soviet Union and her Eastern European allies.
The alliance system generated, in the
period, 1945 to 1989 a lot of other military/ defence related issues and major
security concerns. Mention need be made
of Arms control talks engaged in between the two ideological divides, the
efforts made to secure a state of détente and in some cases the waging of
surrogate wars in the developing countries.
One observable factor is that the employment of or the threat of the use
of force became implicit in the attempts made at resolving some of these
issues. The ‘national security’ syndrome
was prevalent in major countries of the alliance blocs.
Military power became employed, among
other things to threaten war, to deter war and to conduct war. Furthermore, in its other role, armed forces
were being used during the period to influence the behaviour of and/ or to
alter or preserve the status quo by the military fear of defence or
attack. The ‘cold war’ in Europe has
been described as a result of military in politics among the super-powers of the
time without even thinking of the nuclear deterrence (Ker, B. N. 1981:5) It has also been observed that the United
States of America had used power 215 times in her political roles from 1946
to1975 (Ibid)
Force as an instrument of State
policy must be seen in two perspectives namely, in terms of intrinsic and face
values. By face value, it means that
every nation is known to have a force; while by intrinsic value, which is often
regarded as the more important of the two, it connotes how effective such a
force could coerce other States. From
1949 to 1989, attempts were made to operationalize and in fact reduce the
relations between States to this view of the role of the Armed Forces. It albeit seemed to have succeeded in holding
the two alliance systems in check. The
absence of any major war in Europe between these blocs gave credence to this
fact. Post cold war world throws a big
challenge to the big actors on the international system.
The peacetime dividend of the cold
war is highly awaited by the citizens of the major countries implicated in the
40 years arms race and national security complex. The high defence expenditure and the
resultant budget deficit crave for urgent and drastic attention and action. Given the high expectations of the citizenry
on peace dividend referred to above, what role could the Armed forces be called
upon to occupy in order to remain relevant as instruments of State policy in
post cold war international system?
III- THE
CHANGED ROLE OF ARMED FORCES AS INSTRUMENTS OF STATE POLICY IN POST COLD WAR
INTERNATIONAL SYSTEM
Beyond the peace dividend being
expected, the role of Armed Forces as instruments of state policy has got to
change with the mutations in the post cold war international system. New democracies spring up and old democracies
clamour for new roles for their over bloated forces in the face of economic
recession.
Germany since her reunification in 1990
has been reported to be searching for new political role for herself and her
armed forces (BBC Radio Programme of 22 Feb1993). Certainly the United Federal Germany’s
constitution would have to be modified to take account of this new
dispensation.
Most developing countries
are in the throes of evolution towards a democratic culture and
government. The Heads of government and
State in some of the countries on the African continent are still reluctant to
relinquish their seats for democratic order in their States. Most of them fail to comprehend the fact that
“the hierarchic command system of the military is economically inefficient
outside of warfare as well as inappropriate for civilian life in a free society”
(Meyerson.A.1991:2-3) .
They employ the armed
forces under their firm control to disrupt the on-going democratic process and
wished of their people. The armed are
made to be seen as being above the democratic movements prevalent in those
countries. The forces are called out to
disrupt each stage or step made towards transitional arrangement which seek to
end the dictatorship and replace it with an elected government. The message of this incessant and irritant
behaviour of the uniformed men is that there is the search for a new role. A new role conforming with the reduced visibility
for the armed forces, with the consequent reduction in their size and budget to
gave way to more socially inclined expenditure.
It is this perceived trend of change that has made the uniformed men
wary of the necessity to subsume themselves under the civil authority expected
to assume the mantle of leadership.
In the United States of America, in
particular and in other developed countries of the world, the need to redefine
the role of their defence forces for the 21st century and the Post
cold war peace dividends expected by their citizens preoccupy their policy
considerations.
The end of the cold war imposes the
imperative cuts in the Defence expenditure and programmes, on the one hand, and
the reduction in soldiers under arms on the other hand. This is expected to release trapped funds for
social and welfare programmes and by implication help in solving the Budget
deficit problem confronting the economy.
Towards this end, it has been
reported that the year 1992 alone has witnessed the cutting of the size of the
military be 200,000 men, ( Cheney.D.
1992:13)“the army is loosing one-third of it’s active divisions to bring it
down to just 12 – that’s the smallest in the last 42 years, the navy has cut
over 70 ships, the Air force has removed more than 1000 aircrafts from its
active force and with smaller force, we are shutting down or reducing
operations at over 800 facilities and installations worldwide” (Ibid).
The era of a fixed enemy country or
ideology is over. The evil empire
syndrome is also dead and no viable or veritable replacement is envisaged or
necessary in the immediate. On the
contrary, the competition that ensues is that of economic/trade/commercial
between the industrialised economies who are themselves democracies. There is that dictum that democracies rarely
go to war with themselves. The threat of
military force has therefore receded.
With the eclipse of national security
bogey in most of the industrialised countries and the wave of democratic
movements enveloping developing countries which has thrown off the lid over
ethnic/nationalist questions; All around the globe, ethnic/nationalist feelings
calling for self determination and democratic rights with the attendant civil
unrests and conflagration have set the agenda for peace keeping.
Peace-keeping has been described as
not being an end in itself. Rather it is
a technique whose function is either to create conditions for the peace-makers
to do their work or to help implement settlements which the peace-makers have negotiated
(BOUTROS-GHALI,B 1992:7) The
United Nations as an umbrella organisation for countries of the world has
rekindled her efforts towards peace observation, keeping and making in the
trouble regions of the world.
In essence, as the aftermath of the
Cold and gulf wars suggests, new demands for maintaining international peace
and security require that peace keeping be more readily available. It has been observed that, many wars are
caused by liberation movements and insurgencies that spill over international
borders; thus necessitating an international cooperative effort.
The U. N operations and missions have
widened since its first peace observation role of the 1960’s to peace-keeping
missions in more than seven troubled spots namely, Cambodia, Yugoslavia,
Iraq/Kuwait, Western Sahara, Angola, El Salvador, Mozambique; to ensuring security
of relief operations in Somalia and Bosnia/Herzegovina. These operations as well intentioned as they
seem have raised a lot of questions, some of which are related to the troop
deployment and finance. Answering these
questions shifts the focus on the changed role for the Armed Forces as
instruments of State Policy.
A recall of “astounding sums of money
that were spent to ‘win’ the cold war – in the 1980s global expenditures on
arms which approached One Trillion Dollars per year, or Two Million Dollars per
minute” (Ibid) will certainly bring to mind the comparative cost of committing
troops and finance to peace-keeping missions to help maintain stability in the
post cold war era. Most member countries
of the U. N are committed to its peace keeping role. What preoccupies the minds of both the U. N
Secretariat as well as the U. N Security Council members are the methods of
making the U. N role in this regard a very successful and effective
venture. Prominent among these methods
problematique is the need for troop contributions, logistical equipment and
rapid deployment mechanisms. Suggestions
on solutions on these questions are not lacking.
Such include creation of a U. N
standing force (Indar Jit Rikhye1991:3) This contribution was
premised on the fact that “for the international, multilateral system to fulfil
its potential, stand by forces must be established” (Ibid: 3)
Furthermore, “doing so would clearly express UN commitment to the principle of
peace keeping” (Ibid) as well as “strengthen and expand the options
available to peacekeepers, negotiators, and peace makers” (Ibid)
Another suggestion while recognising
the impracticability of a permanent, standby peacekeeping force, argues that
provision should be made for developing a peacekeeping reserve in national armed
forces” (BARATA,J.P 1986).
The finance of the U. N operations in this regard may way heavily on
which of the two options are eventually adopted, as reports affirm that “the
annual cost of U. N peacekeeping operations has more than tripled, from about
$750 million in 1991 to more than $2.7 billion this year (1992), and member
nations are currently behind in their peacekeeping payments to the tune of $602
million” (Zimmermann.T. And R. Z. Chesnoff, 1992)
While the search for a suitable method of financing the operations
continue, a suggestion has also been made in this regard, and it is that “U. N
peace keeping operations should be funded with assessments based on all member
States’ military budgets” ( The Guardian (Lagos), Feb 25,
1993:6)
This position is based on a reasoned argument
that “U. N peacekeeping operations were an investment in security for all
members of the world body” (Ibid)
CONCLUSION
In this chapter, attempts have been
made to place in proper perspectives the challenges of the post cold war
international relations. The enduring
legacies of the cold war era which has altered the roles of the Armed forces
from arms race to peace keeping among warring parties over boundary disputes,
unjust internal domestic political arrangements and insurgencies.
Peacekeeping has taken up the
traditional roles of the Armed forces.
Most influential and ‘regional powers’ as well as most countries of the
U. N have been heeding the call of the international body to help maintain
stability and humanitarianism in the face disintegrating forces in other member
States.
Debates on the various aspects of the
peacekeeping operations such as the organisation, logistic, troop contribution
and finance were also examined. The need
to fine-tune the present efforts at peacekeeping is not subject to
controversy. Indeed the nature, the
direction of and the importance placed on the fine-tuning exercise is being
expected to contribute further to the perceived changed roles of Armed Forces
as instruments of State policy in the emerging post cold war international
relations.
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