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DECISIONS ON INTERNATIONAL POLICING ARE BEST NOT TAKEN BY ONE COUNTRY ALONE
The opening of the 48th United Nations General Assembly finds the great and good, who regularly mark these occasions with grand speeches, in sombre mood. In its first flush of post-cold-war peacekeeping, the Security Council dispatched blue helmets on missions impossible. These revealed the hypocrisy of council members no less than the pot-luck nature of the operations themselves; peacekeepers were told to achieve miracles and given pennies to do so. "The reach of the international community at this time", writes the secretary-general sourly in his annual report, "exceeds its grasp." The danger is that by attempting too much, too cavalierly, council members will discredit the flag they find it so convenient to use.
Exacerbating the problem is the pain of big powers as they try to convert themselves to multilateralism. The resources needed for freewheeling intervention have made it impossible for the council's permanent members to exclude themselves. While their contribution is essential, it brings problems. Countries accustomed to throwing their diplomatic and military weight around are finding it troublesome to accept restrictions. The Clinton administration, which is devising a set of rules for the absorption of American forces within a UN framework, speaks of "assertive multilateralism". But...