David N. Gibbs

Secrecy and International Relations

This article analyzes the question of information control and how it influences the conduct and the study of international relations. Three theories are advanced as possible explanations for secrecy: The first, the External Threat explanation, suggests that government secrecy is designed to protect sensitive information from external enemies. The second explanation, the Bureaucratic Politics explanation, views secrecy as a relatively unsystematic process that results from the (collectively) irrational features in any government bureaucracy. The third explanation, the Internal Threat approach, argues that government officials use secrecy to mislead the populations of their own countries. These three explanations are applied to a case study of US information policy with regard to the Congo Crisis of 1960-1. The article concludes that the Congo case tends to support the Internal Threat explanation of secrecy.

The United Nations, international peacekeeping and the question of 'impartiality': Revisiting the Congo operation of 1960

This paper analyses peacekeeping impartiality , i.e. the extent to which peacekeepers act in the interests of international peace and security, rather than the interests of specific states or other external actors. It reevaluates the question of impartiality through an analysis of the Congo operation of July–September 1960. This case study was selected because it was by far the most important instance of peacekeeping during the Cold War. Based upon primary source materials from US, British, and UN archives, as well as memoirs and secondary sources, it finds that the Congo peacekeeping force intervened to a considerable extent in the internal politics of the Congo; in doing so, the peacekeepers collaborated with US policymakers and, to some extent, advanced their strategic objectives. A comparison between the Congo operation and recent cases of peacekeeping in post-Cold War Africa indicates that impartiality is likely to remain an elusive goal.

Is peacekeeping a new form of imperialism

Phyllis Bennis, Calling the Shots: How Washington Dominates Todays U.N., New York: Olive Branch Press, 1996. Pp.272. US

Realpolitik and humanitarian intervention: The case of Somalia

17.95. ISBN 1–56656–206–6.

Dag Hammarskjöld, the United Nations, and the Congo Crisis of 1960–1: a Reinterpretation

This article examines factors that motivate major powers to participate in humanitarian interventions, with a case study of US intervention in Somalia during the period 1992-93. Two potential explanations are assessed: First, the ar ticle considers the conventional perspective that the Un i ted States interven ti on was guided by hu m a n i t a rian con s i dera ti on s , particularly a desire to attenuate effects of famine,war, and political disorder in Somalia. Second,US intervention may have reflected realpolitik considerations, e.g. maintaining control over traditional spheres of influence for re a s ons of n a ti onal power and pre s ti ge , as well as gaining access to potential oil supplies. While altruistic concerns may have had some influence on US conduct, this study finds that humanitarianism was (at best) mixed with considerations of national interest. Introduction With the termination of the Cold War, it is often asserted that international relati ons no lon ger have a basic logic or com m on thre ad . A con tra ry vi ew holds that m a ny analys t s’ con f u s i on abo ut world po l i tics stems from the irrel eva n ce of re a l i s t p a rad i gm s . In deed , Ch a rles Kegl ey ’s 1993 Pre s i den tial Ad d ress to the In tern a ti on a l Studies Association raised the possibility of realism’s obsolescence for the current era. Kegley argued that recent events could herald a return to Wilsonian idealism.2 The view that we have entered a “neo-Wilsonian” era is widespread. One manifestation of this neo-Wilsonianism is the rise of humanitarian interventi on . It appe a rs that the po s t Cold War era has finally inaugura ted a world order where great powers use their military force not as an expression of realpolitik, as was true earlier, but as a technique to restore democratic governance, overcome famine, or pro tect minori ti e s . Even Jack Don n elly, a skepti c , ack n owl ed ges that “hu m a n rights and issues of humanitarian politics more generally, have achieved an international prominence at least as great as at any other time in modern history.”3 Hu m a n i t a rian interven ti on also has tra n s form ed the ideo l ogical ch a racter of deb a te on intern a ti onal rel a ti on s . L i beral activi s t s , of ten of feminist and/or pac i f i s t orientation, and hostile to foreign intervention, have in recent years become enthusia s tic su pporters of the con cept , provi ded that interven ti on is of the hu m a n i t a ri a n variety. Indeed, in the debate over intervention in Bosnia-Hercegovina and Kosovo, many of the strongest advocates of force had previously been staunch opponents of US intervention in Vietnam or Central America during the Cold War.4 This article In tern a tional Pol i ti cs 3 7: 4 1 5 5 , Ma rch 2000

Pretexts and US foreign policy: the war on terrorism in historical perspective

The Congo constituted the largest peace-keeping operation in the history of the United Nations, at least until recently, being only exceeded in scale by current actions in Yugoslavia, Cambodia, and Somalia. It included, during 1960–4, not only civilian advisers who helped run the central regime in Leopoldiville, but also an army which, at full strength, comprised 19,000 troops. They intervened extensively in the politics of the country, thereby not conforming to the popular image of a passive ‘peace-keeping’ force.

Reassessing Soviet motives for invading Afghanistan: A declassified history

This article analyzes the way that US foreign policy élites have used pretexts to manage public opinion. Policymakers, it is argued, often seize upon threatening external events, and use these events to create a favorable political climate in which to “sell” policies of militarization and external expansion to the public. The article argues that the Bush administration has used the threat of terrorism as a pretext to implement a wide range of policies that had been decided upon in advance of the 9/11 attacks. It also argues that the recent uses of pretexts by the Bush administration have strong historical precedents: extended case studies of pretexts are presented for the events surrounding the Korea crisis of 1950 and the Afghanistan crisis of 1979–1980, as well as the more recent War on Terrorism.

Sigmund Freud as a theorist of government secrecy

Abstract This article reassesses Soviet motives for invading Afghanistan in 1979, based on newly available archival materials, especially from the former USSR. The article argues that these Soviet documents show that the 1979 invasion reflected defensive rather than offensive objectives. Specifically, the USSR sought to restrain extremist elements of the Afghan communist party, who were undermining stability on the southern Soviet frontier. The findings of this article are at odds with with long-standing views that the invasion of Afghanistan was part of a larger Soviet strategy aimed at threatening the Persian Gulf and other western interests.

International commercial rivalries & the zai'rian copper nationalisation of 1967

This chapter argues that the psychological theories of Sigmund Freud provide a useful methodology for the study of government secrecy. The chapter makes two specific points. First, Freud viewed the human mind as a highly complex censoring device, which systematically censors certain types of information that embarrasses the patient, while it makes available without impediment more innocuous types of information that flatter the patients image. It is argued that governmental bureaucracies work like this too, as they systematically censor information that is embarrassing to the state and state officials, while they make available information that flatters the state. Secondly, Freuds theories provide insight into how researchers can cut through systematic censorship and gain access to hidden information. Specifically, Freud shows that patients periodically slip and release censored information to the psychoanalyst. Similarly, state officials too will slip and will accidentally release information to historical researchers who study public policies.

The military-industrial complex in a globalized context

Research on the international relations of the African continent has generally eschewed the phenomenon of rivalry among the advanced capitalist powers for commercial and political influence south of the Sahara. Most studies of Africas international relations, especially from a critical perspective, have tended to emphasize the unity of the northern, capitalist powers in opposing challenges from third world countries. During the 1970s, research emphasized the efforts of multinational corporations and their home governments to prevent or undermine efforts at economic nationalism in third world countries. While such studies did recognize the potential for somewhat varied responses to rationalistic ‘threats’, there was a widespread assumption that the rich nations would exhibit a significant degree of unity in preserving international property rights and the free flow of capital. More recently, critical studies have emphasized the salience of the international financial community and the International Monetary Fund in reestablishing political and economic hegemony over peripheral areas, including Africa (Mohan & Zack‐Williams, 1995). Such approaches tend to overlook the phenomenon of conflict and competition among these powers. This article will examine the historical basis of international rivalries in Zaire, focusing on the rise of General Mobutus regime, primarily during the late 1960s. During this period, the United States was seeking to expand its commercial and political influence in Zaire, generally at the expense of established European interests. The principal protagonist of the US was the former colonial power, Belgium. In essence, it will be argued, inter‐capitalist rivalries in Zaire were an inevitable outgrowth of decolonization. The European powers had always used colonialism as a method to maintain exclusive or quasi‐exclusive trading and investment opportunities for home country interests and to exclude potential interlopers ‐ such as the United States. During the 1960s, the US viewed the circumstances of decolonization as an opportunity for political and commercial expansion, sometimes at the expense of European interests. European‐US conflicts, some of which continue to the present day, were the result. Historical conflicts such as these are highly relevant to understanding present‐day international relations in Central Africa when once again, rivalries among the western powers ‐ this time between the US and France ‐ are apparent.