Sources of Instability: A Sampling from the United Nations Secretariat

摘要

This analysis is a supplement to a broader project sponsored by the Joint Warfare Analysis Center (JWAC). This portion of the project, funded by the United States Air Force Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), addresses the sources of instability in today's security environment as viewed by staff personnel in the United Nations (UN). The authors traveled to New York on 29 May 1997, with COL Alan Stolberg, USA, to brief members of the UN Secretariat and the United States Permanent Mission to the United Nations on the preliminary results of the JWAC project and to solicit their reactions. Following the briefing to UN personnel, the authors conducted a 61-question poll of the participants using electronic voting boxes. Their goal was to see if UN personnel had a different view of complex emergencies (and their sources) than participants in three workshops conducted as part of the JWAC project. The briefing at the United Nations was held in the Situation Center conference room and was attended by nine people representing various departments and divisions of the Secretariat. Given the small sampling size of the group, the authors contend that it would be misleading to draw too many conclusions from the voting results or their subsequent analysis. Unexpected outcomes could well be anomalies that would disappear were a different and/or larger group sampled. Nevertheless, their analysis suggests that the UN is aware of its limitations, prefers diplomacy to coercion, and is increasingly pragmatic in its approach to maintaining international peace and security. Based on the results, the military, including the U.S. military, will continue to respond to complex emergencies largely in the context of UN Security Council authorization and should therefore prepare itself for those eventualities. The survey questions and raw scores are appended.