The Clinton Administration's Policy For UN Peacekeeping

In the aftermath of the Cold War, there was a significant rise of UN peacekeeping operations around the globe to tackle the growing number of world conflicts. As the sole superpower and one of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, the U.S. contributed directly to the ups and downs of UN peacekeeping. Through a careful study of the evolution of the U.S. peacekeeping policy and Clinton administration抯 policy in particular, I reached several conclusions:First, the U.S. uses the UN peacekeeping as an instrument to advance its own foreign policy objectives. The Clinton administration gradually took a more selected and relatively restrained approach to the use of UN peacekeeping operation. Second, U.S. national interests are presently perceived in a broad sense as maintaining U.S. leadership and building a unipolar world order. Third, the deciding point of 揾umanitarian intervention?is U.S. national interests. The concept of humanitarian relief is a means to carry out U.S. foreign policy goals rather than the ultimate purpose of U.S. military intervention. The decision to intervene is based on U.S. strategic interests rather than humanitarian purpose alone.In chapter one, the thesis follows the historical evolution of U.S. peacekeeping policy. During the Cold War, the United Nations could resort to multilateral peace operations only in the few cases in which the interests of the Soviet Union and the West did not clash. The end of the Cold War brought historic opportunities but also historic challenges to the international community. The rising conflicts around the world pose great challenges to the United Nations for help in putting an end to the fighting. In the aftermath of the Gulf War, the Bush administration sought increasing UN peacekeeping operations to face the challenges of ethnic and religious conflicts around the world. The United Nations was going to play an important role in peacekeeping in President Bush抯 New World Order. As a result, the number of the UN peacekeeping operations exploded. U.S. participation in peacekeeping missions also reached all time high. One of the legacies of the Somalia operation was that the U.S. became very reluctant in sending large-scale ground troops to interventions inVThe Clinton Administrations Policy for Peacekeepingworld conflicts. That does not mean the U.S. has restrained from actively intervening in places of strategic importance to the U.S. Fresh from the scares of Somali debacle, the U.S. chose air strikes instead of ground troops in the event of Kosovo.In chapter two, I stress on the development of Clinton administration抯 peacekeeping policy. The Presidential Decision Directive25 (PDD25), issued in May 1994 was the first comprehensive statement ever on U.S. policy toward the Imultilateral peace operations. This thesis tries to examine how U.S. domestic and 5 international realities helped shape U.S. policy toward UN peacekeeping operations.After fierce congressional criticism on multilateralism regarding UN peacekeeping, I the Clinton administration finally gave up its attempts to strengthen UN peace operations and turned to regional organizations, such as NATO. The U.S. responses to 5 crisis in Somalia, Sierra Leone, Kosovo, and East Timor are perfect case studies that reflect the change of U.S. strategic thinking of its peacekeeping policy. IIn chapter three, I start with the theoretical background of Clinton 1 administration抯 peacekeeping policy. President Clinton抯 foreign policy can be called pragmatic-Wilsonianism. To have a clear understanding of President Clinton抯 foreign I policy, different schools of thought (internationalism versus isolationism and multilateralism versus unilateralism) are examined. The fundamental issues in the S policy debate were U.S. national interests and U.S. leadership. The debate over peacekeeping policy helped the Clinton administration to make clear the sense of its U mission---攖o be the world抯 single democratic leader? The U.S. woul...