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Anarchy makes it easy for terrorists to
set up shop. Yet the international community has been reluctant
to commit the necessary resources to peacekeeping -- with
devastating results locally and around the globe. This daring
new work argues that modern peacekeeping operations and
military occupations bear a surprising resemblance to the
imperialism practiced by liberal states a century ago. Motivated
by a similar combination of self-interested and humanitarian
goals, liberal democracies in both eras have wanted to maintain
a presence on foreign territory in order to make themselves
more secure, while sharing the benefits of their own cultures
and societies. Yet both forms of intervention have inevitably
been undercut by weak political will, inconsistent policy
choices, and their status as a low priority on the agenda
of military organizations. In more recent times, these problems
are compounded by the need for multilateral cooperation
-- something even NATO finds difficult to achieve but is
now necessary for legitimacy.
Drawing lessons from this provocative comparison,
Kimberley Zisk Marten argues that the West's attempts to
remake foreign societies in their own image -- even with
the best of intentions -- invariably fail. Focusing on operations
in Haiti, Bosnia, Kosovo, and East Timor in the mid- to
late 1990s, while touching on both post-war Afghanistan
and the occupation of Iraq, Enforcing the Peace compares
these cases to the colonial activities of Great Britain,
France, and the United States at the turn of the twentieth
century. The book weaves together examples from these cases,
using interviews Marten conducted with military officers
and other peacekeeping officials at the UN, NATO, and elsewhere.
Rather than trying to control political developments abroad,
Marten proposes, amore sensible goal of foreign intervention
is to restore basic security to unstable regions threatened
by anarchy. The colonial experience shows that military
organizations police effectively if political leaders prioritize
the task, and the time has come to raise the importance
of peacekeeping on the international agenda.
Kimberley Zisk Marten is an associate
professor of political science at Barnard College, Columbia
University. Her previous books include Engaging the
Enemy: Organization Theory and Soviet Military Innovation
(1993), which won the Marshall Shulman Prize, and Weapons,
Culture, and Self-Interest: Soviet Defense Managers in the
New Russia (Columbia).
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