Professor Paul Rogers on 'The UN and the Future of War'
Erskine Childers Lecture, Friends House, London.
Tuesday 12th June 2001.

Beginning with a look at current trends Professor Paul Rogers said that many people were dismayed at the rhetoric emerging (for example, from the new American administration) but he believed that this would have the effect of bringing long-term issues out earlier. He explained the Western security paradigm which meant trying to retain control. He described the attitude of the Western powers as 'Liddism', keeping control by capping the problems rather than using the services of the United Nations.

He believed that this was 'barking up the wrong tree' when the UN should be at the centre of things. Looking back over the last 50 years there had been over 120 conflicts, killing more than 100 million. The effects of war were becoming 'civilianised'. "the young men do the fighting, civilians do the dying". The cold war was a misnomer because there were many proxy wars, involving an enormous waste of human and physical resources. Around the end of the cold war worldwide annual military expenditure had peaked at a thousand billion dollars. Although we had been labeled 'doomwatchers' in the 1980's the world had come very close to international conflict many times. To explain the slow response to the ending of the cold war he used the example of a tanker which takes twelve miles to turn from port to starboard.

Two significant themes emerging from US military thinking are the need to address challenges to American hegemony and the potential threat from China. There were areas of special interest such as the Persian Gulf, which produced a gamut of threats during the 1990's. According to an official US study by James Wolsey, head of the C.I.A, it was facing "...a swirling pot of poison'. It had slain the dragon and was now in a forest of poisonous snakes", (a reference, no doubt to the 'rogue states' indicated by the US and other governments). In Europe there had been a phasing-down of forces but during this period there has been a tremendous range of developments in military technology and training, above all in the United States, but also in France and Britain. They include planes which were able to fly from America to Serbia and back without touching down elsewhere - a truly global reach.

A new emphasis on counter-insurgency training is designed to support the world's elites. Overall, he noted a scaling up of forces designed to keep "the violent peace" of the post cold-war world, and to maintain security as seen by the West.

There was an implicit belief in the US, following the decline of the Soviet Union, that there was only one way of doing business, a globalised liberal economy. This belief denied that there could be a third way. If there are threats, the US administration says, "we have the means to deal with them".Paul Rogers said "This mindset is unstable. we are facing a global system in which an elite is growing rapidly, the gap is widening". There was a global elite of about one billion people, represented in many countries. And there was a form of economic apartheid within and across borders. The gap had grown steadily for the past 25 years and was now accelerating. He believed that now there were about 1 1/2 billion "held right down at the bottom". On the other hand there had been remarkable effects in many countries of the south, an increase in literacy, and in the transmission of information, which was leading to a revolution of unfulfilled expectations.

Paul Rogers said that in the 80's climate changes began to appear with ozone depletion. The United Nations had taken the initiative in dealing with it. The strongest effects were on the tropical population where most people live and there were likely to be immense effects in the next 20-30 years. A key issue in the coming period would be how people responded when the majority was marginalised. The 'Zapatista' rebellion in the Southern Mexican province of Chiapas in 1994, named after the leader of the 1910-1917 rebellion, had been described in a report by a British army officer. He had shown how people reacted when pushed to the margin.

Turning to the problem of refugees Professor Rogers said that there were people in their fourth or fifth generation still in Palestinian refugee camps. This was one of the core issues being ignored by the strategy of Liddism.

A recent trend had been attacks on United States' bases overseas and the response of the American government. 240 marines had been killed in an attack on a base in Beirut. Following this a large base had been constructed in the Saudi Arabian desert where 400 troops were solely employed in security. There had also been an attack on an American warship in Aden, using a crude bomb. Now the American Navy is being described by some as the 'Flying Dutchman' navy because it only enters friendly ports on its routine journeys.

Paul Rogers cited the effect of the IRA bombs in London. this was an important influence on John Major's government and arguably led to negotiations with the Major government to seek a peaceful solution in Northern Ireland. In the United States itself there had been two attacks, one on the World Trade Center in New York, which could have caused many casualties, and the Oklahoma bomb where many had been killed.

The role of the United Nations, he believed, was to deal with widening poverty, to control arms and move towards disarmament. There was a need for a greater campaign on developing countries' debt. There should be a wholesale reform of the world trading system. On the environment he said that Kyoto was only a modest start in dealing with the issue. We had to work towards environmental stability. In the United Nations there were already structures available to deal with the problems. The United Nations was essential as a pan-global organization in the next 20-30 years. The problems (of security and the environment) could not be addressed by a self-selected group of states. "The UN must be able to think globally and not think Western".

He said that criticism of American government actions and recent military proposals should not be construed as anti-American. But there was strong opposition to the proposal to abandon the Anti Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABM) between America and Russia and also a Biological weapons agreement. The reaction to this and to the US 'national missile defense' had been much stronger than the new government had expected. Higher awareness would help to develop alternative proposals. He concluded with an exhortation to push the incoming British government in every possible way. We should hold the British government and the European Union to act on all their positive positions. It is up to ordinary people to change agendas, above all through the United Nations. The next five to ten years will probably define the world for the next 50 years or so. We may perpetuate the massive inequalities buttressed by force, threatened by desperate people - or we can make a start for justice; the right choices have to be made.