A year ago, the new Clinton administration said international peacekeeping would be a cornerstone of its foreign policy. Now, after learning hard lessons in Bosnia, Somalia and Haiti, the administration has lost its enthusiasm for policing the world's trouble spots: A still classified document that President Clinton could approve as early as next week will sharply limit the use of American troops in U.N. peacekeeping operations.
Restrictions. U.S. News has learned that despite opposition in Congress and the Pentagon, the Presidential Decision Directive (PDD) will permit U.S. military personnel to serve under non- American United Nations commanders -- but only on a case-by-case, highly restricted basis. Among the 30-page document's criteria for accepting non-U.S. command: the extent of U.S. interests in a trouble spot, the size of the proposed force, the potential risk to troops, the duration of the deployment and the rules of combat engagement. "The greater the risk and the larger the U.S. participation," says a senior administration official, "the more likely we will insist on a U.S. commander." The administration also opposes the creation of a standing U.N. army and will not specifically designate any U.S. military units for peacekeeping operations.
The document "has gone through very substantial change," says Democratic Rep. Lee Hamilton of Indiana, from a more general draft that was drawn up nearly a year ago. The new policy calls for the State Department to fund most traditional police-action peacekeeping operations and for the Defense Department to shoulder the cost of Somalia-type peace enforcement deployments, where combat is more likely.
The more cautious policy sends a clear message to countries that are seeking international help -- and to potential aggressors: Don't count on the U.N., which since 1989 has overextended itself with 17 new peacekeeping operations.
Administration officials acknowledge that without U.S. military muscle and know-how, even existing peacekeeping efforts may quickly come unglued. An early test will come in Somalia, where all U.S. troops are scheduled to withdraw by the end of March, leaving a force made up mostly of troops from developing nations.
Today, there are just 318 U.S. combat troops among the 70,000 peacekeepers under U.N. command worldwide, a contingent serving in Macedonia to try to prevent the war in the other former Yugoslav republics from spreading. So far, their only fighting has been a late-January brawl with local police in which no one was hurt. Judging by the administration's new tone on peacekeeping, that may be all the action they see.
