Revitalizing the United Nations Military Staff Committee: Enhancing Global Security through Active Peacekeeping, Arms Control, and Crisis Communications
By Lieutenant Commander Nathan Sawyer, U.S. Navy
Introduction
The Allied Powers established the United Nations (UN) Military Staff Committee (MSC) to play a crucial role in maintaining international peace and security. However, the MSC has struggled to fulfill its intended purpose over the years, and many scholars have questioned the Committee's relevance in the modern world. Despite these challenges, this paper argues that the MSC still has an important role to play in global security affairs. Specifically, by taking on a more active role in peacekeeping operations and arms control, and serving as a stable venue for military crisis communications, the MSC could become a more effective body and contribute to the UN’s mission of promoting peaceful coexistence between nations.
History and Original Intent
The Allied Powers founded the UN in the wake of the devastating events of the Second World War (WWII). With victory in Europe finally achieved but combat in the Pacific still raging, 26 states came together to establish an international body intending to “save succeeding generations from the scourge of war.”[i] The framers intended this organization to foster cooperation between nations and address economic, social, and humanitarian issues. However, with millions dead, preventing future aggressive wars was clearly the most pressing matter. To understand the current role of the MSC, one must understand its origins and how it was originally intended to operate. Further, historical context is required to understand the limitations of the MSC and why this paper does not recommend more drastic reforms.
In August of 1944, representatives from the United States (U.S.), Great Britain, China, and the Soviet Union held the Dumbarton Oaks Conference in Washington, DC. The conference's primary purpose was to produce a draft charter establishing a post-WWII international organization to promote global peace and security. To this end, the UN Charter established a Security Council (SC) to be primarily responsible for the continued maintenance of international peace. The SC consists of permanent members (P5), who were the leading powers following the war's conclusion and still hold veto power over SC resolutions, and non-permanent members elected by the General Assembly (GA).
A major point of discussion among the attendees was to ensure that the new SC would have more extraordinary military enforcement measures than the failed League of Nations.[ii] While most of the discussion at the conference focused on the makeup of a standing UN force, there was severe disparity about its purpose. The Americans saw it as a force capable of "rapid intervention anywhere in the world using large American-provided naval and air contingents."[iii] Meanwhile, the Soviets wanted to ensure that the forces would not be used to threaten the security of socialist governments or popular revolutions in the developing world.[iv] The resulting opinion of the conference was that forces needed to be available to the SC, but it did not explain how large the forces might be, what they might be used for, or who would command them.[v]
To help address some of these unanswered questions and assist with expected military operations, Article 47 created the only subsidiary body named explicitly in the Charter. The Military Staff Committee was established to: “advise and assist the Security Council on all questions relating to the Security Council’s military requirements for the maintenance of international peace and security, the employment and command of forces placed at its disposal, and the regulation of armaments, and possible disarmament.”[vi]
The MSC was originally a British idea, intended to be a continuation of the American-British Combined Chiefs of Staff, which was so successful during WWII. The MSC consists of “the Chiefs of Staff of the permanent members of the Security Council or their representatives.”[vii] China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom (UK), and the U.S. all contribute a representative from "each of their three Armed Services" (air, sea, and land) as well as a Head of Delegation.[viii] The Head of Delegation then serves as the Chairman of the MSC on a monthly rotating basis in English alphabetical order of the names of their countries. According to its adopted rules, the MSC may meet anytime the Chairman calls but must meet at least every fourteen days. They may hold an Extraordinary Session at the request of the SC. Additionally, the Secretary-General (SG) or the Undersecretary of the Department of Special Political Affairs (which split into the Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO) and the Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs (DPPA) in 2002) may attend meetings. Section IV of the statute allows the MSC to invite “representatives of any member of the United Nations not permanently represented…for the efficient discharge of its responsibilities.”[ix]
The role of the MSC envisioned at Dumbarton Oaks never came to fruition. Cold War politics soon paralyzed the Security Council. Not only did the veto provision in the Charter make sanctioned force against any of the great powers impossible, but the Soviet Union also quickly started using this power to prevent resolutions intended to intercede in any conflict counter to its geopolitical interests. In fact, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (U.S.SR) cast twelve vetoes in 1946 alone, tallying 79 before its collapse in 1991. Whereas the U.S. did not cast its first veto until 1970, it became much more prevalent as America became more involved in the Middle East. A defining moment for the MSC was when it was bypassed entirely concerning intervention in Korea in June 1950. The U.S. feared that the Soviets would use the Committee to restrain or derail operations on the peninsula. Taking advantage of a U.S.SR boycott of the SC due to a conflict over Chinese UN membership, the remaining members of the SC passed Resolution 84, which placed military forces under U.S. command, designating General Douglas MacArthur as UN commander. After this instance, the MSC fell into a state of active irrelevance—given no responsibility but to meet its obligation to convene biweekly.
Soon after its establishment, the SC faced a series of crises in Palestine, Indonesia, the Balkans, and Greece. However, the MSC was gridlocked in the same politics affecting the Council. As divisions among the P5 grew, the members of the MSC began to see a threat from within. One significant issue with the Committee was that its members were not unbiased military experts obligated to provide impartial recommendations to a global governing body. Instead, they were individuals from various national militaries who may have had conflicting interests and relied on guidance from their respective political leaders. As a result, they may have been inclined to offer confidential advice to their own representative rather than provide objective guidance to the Committee. "None of them was prepared to reveal to his colleagues, considered as potential enemies, the military preparations of his government."[x] Consequently, the SC could not seek advice or implement security-focused decisions from the MSC and had to rely more and more on the UN Secretariat. With the MSC failing to act on its intended responsibilities, the Secretariat began to take over the functions of advising, planning, strategizing, and gathering intelligence.
In 1956, the UN began its first peacekeeping operation. A political decision taken by the Egyptian government to nationalize the Suez Canal, which a joint Anglo-French company previously controlled, sparked the Suez Crisis. The ensuing conflict involved military action by Israel, France, and the UK (two members of the P5). Due to French and British vetoes, the SC was unable to act. Concluding that the situation was a political issue rather than a military one, the General Assembly took steps to authorize a UN Emergency Force (UNEF I) under Article 22 of the Charter. Its primary objective was supervising the ceasefire and withdrawal of foreign forces from Egypt. As a subsidiary of the SC, the MSC was cut out of the operation entirely. Rather than confer with the Committee, the SG designated one of his Under-Secretaries without Department to be responsible for direct supervision, organization, and operation of the mission and coordinating administrative actions.
However, the UN still had not overcome the essential stumbling block to building a standing force: "All nations (including the United States) would strongly resist even a limited compromise of their right to unilateral control over their own military.”[xi] Due to this, the SG had to negotiate "special arrangements" with various member states to elicit troop contributions.[xii] Military advice and expertise were non-existent within the Secretariat at the time, so the SG was forced to rely on a few military observers already on the ground and on military personnel provided by contributing states, who may have had different political goals than the GA.
Following UNEF I, in recognition of the lack of military expertise, the GA proposed to integrate the MSC into the Secretariat. The U.S. and U.S.SR opposed it. For the U.S., the concern was about losing the fundamental relationship between the SC and the MSC prescribed in Article 47 of the Charter. The Soviets, on the other hand, did not consider the GA competent to deal with military matters. Regardless of these objections, the GA passed Resolution 1235 (XII), relocating specific billets assigned to the Committee to other units of the Secretariat "with arrangements being made to provide the Committee with necessary services from central sources."[xiii] The arrangement clarified that "should the Military Staff Committee become more active and be required to fulfill the functions assigned under the Charter, the Secretary-General would be prepared to provide it with the necessary expert staff."[xiv] With the MSC in a proverbial penalty-box, and conflict brewing in the Congo, the SG and GA passed a series of proposals establishing an Office of the Military Advisor to the Secretary-General, which assumed all of the original functions of the MSC.
Peacekeeping
After a series of re-organizations, the Department of Peace Operations (DPO) now leads worldwide peacekeeping. Today, the MSC sometimes works with the Office of Military Affairs (OMA), a subsidiary of the DPO responsible for ensuring an appropriate military component is provided for operations. According to their annual reports, the MSC meets with the OMA at about monthly intervals, which may improve the coherence of advice provided to the SC.[xv] Additionally, the MSC reported that of their 28 meetings in 2022, they met with “the Department of Peace Operations on 20 topics, the Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs on nine topics, the Department of Operational Support on three topics and the Department of Management Strategy, Policy and Compliance on one topic. All the Heads of Peacekeeping Military Components were also invited to brief the Committee.”[xvi] There also appears to be an effort to bring first-hand opinions of operations to the SC. In 2022 they planned to conduct two field missions: one to the UN Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and a mission to both the UN Interim Security Force for Abyaei and the UN Mission in South Sudan but “conducted [them] in another format owing to the absence of some members.”[xvii] Looking back at 2021, the Committee’s attempt to visit the UN Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali was also derailed due to “visa issues for the Committee Members concerning the Russian Delegation.”[xviii]