Reinventing Collective Security after the Cold War and Gulf Conflict

For the third time in this century and the fourth since 1815, the end of a great-power conflict has caused policy makers and scholars to take collective security seriously. World War I led to the League of Nations, but this organization foundered on resentments from the war, national expansionism, and inadequate institutional mechanisms. The United Nations grew out of the lessons of World War II but fell short of early hopes due to the emerging cold war. Now, the end of the cold war raises the question of whether conditions for collective security are more favorable now than in 1815, 1919, or 1945. Yet despite UN success in the 1990-1991 Gulf conflict, there is a widespread sense that a new world order requires new institutional mechanisms to replace those made obsolescent by the end of the cold war. The criteria for collective security are very demanding, and the UN coalition's success in the Gulf owed much to unusual circumstances: clear aggression; a sharply perceived threat to regional and global security; and American deftness, motivation, and persistence. The messier internal denouement in Iraq and civil war in Yugoslavia might be more typical of future conflicts. Three schools of thought in international relations theory- Realism, Liberalism, and Institutionalism -help to clarify the requisites of collective security.