The United Nations Marine Corps Feasibility Study Program: - a Standing Force for the United Nations
Brief Background Notes
Over the years there have been numerous proposals for an independent dedicated UN controlled military force, principally arising from domestic political considerations of the member nations, manifesting itself in a reluctance to become involved in sensitive or long duration peacekeeping operations. This has been further compounded in recent years by concerns over casualties in the forces traditionally supplied for such operations. It has been suggested that an entirely volunteer force of some 5,000 internationally recruited personnel forming a UN Rapid Reaction Force and operating under unique rules of engagement, with its members having renounced their nationality in favour of UN status, would deflect responsibility from any one nation or group of nations to the collective, while any casualties arising from active service would not be directly ascribed to or focused upon member states. These factors alone would considerably relieve the political pressure that has often tragically delayed the decision to deploy UN forces. For example the six month gap between the adoption of Resolution 918 in 1994 concerning the genicide in Rwanda, and the eventual deployment of the UN forces, in which time half a million civilian fatalities occured. Also such a force would unlike those nationally raised, not have their rules of engagement defined by a need to maintain a low casualty rate, which means they would be more able to take overt action in such situations, again unlike those assigned to Rwanda. See these two books "We Did Nothing: Why the Truth Doesn't Always Come Out When the UN Goes In" by Linda Polman, and "Peacekeeper: The Road to Sarajevo" by Canadian Major-General Lewis MacKenzie.During the early phase of this genicide the then Secretary-General of the UN, Boutros Boutros-Ghali, had in desperation at one point contacted a South African private military company (PMC) called Executive Outcomes to possibly interceed. The company estimated the cost at circa $100 million per annum, for a force of 1,500 personnel. Due to concerns about the ethics in using private military companies, principly by US representatives, the contract was not signed. The company later estimated that they could have saved some 200,000 lives if it had been hired.
In 1995 EO demonstrated their potential when the government of Sierra Leone hired their services to quell an internal rebellion. The then government were facing an on-going rebel threat from the Revolutionary United Front of Sierra Leone, more often simply known as the "RUF", who had a strangle hold upon the countries economy by occupying the rich diamond and oil producing Kono region. The government employed EO to take the area back and to restore law and order to the country at large. With a force of no more than 300 troops, EO successfully pacified the country at a cost estimated at $20 million per year (1995-7). However in 1997 the UN placed pressure upon the government of Sierra Leone, as the UN had taken the position that the use of a PMC, was considered at odds with the people's right to self-determination. Within six months of the termination of their contract, and the arrival of almost 18,000 conventional UN peacekeepers, at a cost of $604 million a year, the situation had reverted to its former state, with the additional loss of around 10,000 civilians lives. EO ceased trading on January 1st 1999.
Ironically in 1993 following the incident in Mogadishu, Somalia, the UN had already aproached a small private military company, called Executive Resources based in the UK (not related to EO), to evaluate a US proposal. This was for a UN controlled, trained and recruited military unit, drawn from non-governmental sources, to provide the UN Security Council with flexibility in its decision making. That same year, the United Nations Standby Arrangement Systems (UNSAS) was set up by Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali as a stop-gap, while in 1994, a permanent UN logistics base (UNLB) was established in Brindisi, Italy, supporting UN operations worldwide, plus operating as the UN's principle communications centre. By the middle of 1996 ER, was providing limited support for a specialised "big five" program called CONTACT, which by the middle of 1999, had been fully intergrated with the initial operational elements that form part of the United Nations Marine Corps Feasibility Study Program. Several "commands" were suggested (see below), but to date only the Star Gate Command element was ever established. Of the remainder only the Rapid Reaction Force, continues to be the prime candidate for serious consideration. For a fuller look at the UN's public thinking upon this topic see the article appended below the links: "Enhancing the Rapid Reaction Capability of the United Nations: Exploring the Options" by Tim Pippard & Veronica Lie of the UNA(UK).
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