Examine the effectiveness of international responses to threats to

global security.

International organisations such as NATO and the UN have always

been criticised for their arguably late and/or wrong decisions which
have been made during a time of crisis. There has not been peace at
any one time around the world since World War II but there has
also never been a third world war. Therefore the effectiveness of
international responses is very controversial.

A criticism that could be made about international responses to

threats to global security is that a decision made to tackle any
threat is taken into action too late. In 2011, the UN Security
Council passed UNSCR1973 in March authorising “all necessary
measures” protect civilians in Libya from pro-Gaddafi forces. It
allows for a no-fly zone and all measures short of deploying
international ground forces to achieve the safety of Libyan civilians.
However, this was criticised as being “too little, too late” as
countless civilians had already been killed as a result of the UN
Security Council taking weeks to come to an agreement. This is
primarily due to the five permanent members having the ability to
veto any resolution – in this case Russia and China were prepared to
veto as they nearly always oppose to UN intervention in “internal
disputes”. Therefore, this shows that the power to veto can be a
recipe for paralysis which furthermore suggests that the response
of the UN to threats to global security is not very effective.
Another criticism that could be made about international responses
to threats to global security is that the decisions made to tackle
such threats are incorrect and should be dealt with differently, e.g.
At Srebrenica in 1995 a UN force abandoned close to 10,000
civilians who it had committed itself to protect as part of the “safe
havens” policy. This was because of UN soldiers being ordered not
to open fire unless their own lives were in danger. This clearly
suggests ineffectiveness. Moreover, in 2001 America and a
“coalition of the willing” attacked Afghanistan due to its
government, the Taliban, refusing to hand over Osama Bin Laden and
other Al-Qaeda terrorists. Since 9/11, America has increasingly had
the desire to act unilaterally through “coalition of the willing”. At
the time, this emphasised the ineffectiveness of the UN as America
ignored their disapproval of the invasion, and emphasised the
uselessness of NATO as America rejected their initiation of Article
5 – an attack on one being an attack an all. However, now under the
presidency of Barrack Obama, America believes in multilateralism
i.e. working with the approval of the UN. He made this clear with
Libya – even though a resolution took time to be passed, the air
strikes that were used helped save thousands of civilians. This
clearly shows that their response was effective.

Overall, although America now believe in multilateralism and there is

no cause for worry about the UN or NATO being ignored, the fact
remains that there are still five permanent members who have the
power to stop any decision from being made instantaneously . The
power to veto has and will continue to show just how ineffective
international responses are to threats to global security.

Tamer Cosgun