Institutions and Security

I would like to complement Sean Kay on his piece “Neoliberalism: Insitutions at War” and expand upon it. “Neoliberal theory posits that formal international institutions can make international cooperation easier to attain than in their absence” (Kay). The problem is that some compromises can kill. “First do no harm” is a physician’s motto, as addressed by Richard Betts, which should be adopted by peacemakers. With regard to Kosovo, Charles Krauthammer points out that while President Clinton, in his speech at the end of the campaign, cited one of NATO’s goals as “enabling the Kosovar people to return to their homes,” people were expelled from their homes after NATO began bombing. NATO’s requirement of consensus caused the institution to sacrifice strategy.

Objective, offensive, mass, economy of force, maneuver, unity of command, security, , surprise, simplicity – these are the nine principles of war. Institutions make some of these quite difficult. For example… Mass – concentrating the effects of combat power at the decisive place and time – is more than a bit difficult when one is not permitted to fly below 15,000 feet as was the case in Kosovo. Security - never permitting the enemy to acquire an unexpected advantage. It is a bit difficult to provide security for people (Kosovars) without any ground troops in place. Surprise – striking the enemy forces at a time or place or in a manner for which they are unprepared… This is more difficult to achieve with information sharing.

While there are benefits of international institutions, with regard to security it is possible that they are not as beneficial as one may wish and they may even do more harm than good. In war, transition time is crucial and political constraints make it difficult for an institution such as NATO to react quickly. As Kay states in his closing, “NATO increasingly appears politically unmanageable, militarily dysfunctional, and strategically irrelevant to the new threats of the day, particularly international terrorism.”