The UN Military Staff Committee

Recreating a Missing Capacity

Alexandra Novosseloff

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9781138042209
• eBook ISBN: 9781351702096
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politica e relazioni internazionali
• Subtopic: Relazioni internazionali

The UN Military Staff Committee is a misunderstood organ, and never really worked as it was initially envisaged. This book charts its historic development as a means to explain the continuous debate about the reactivation of the Military Staff Committee and, more generally, the unsatisfied need for the Security Council to have a military advisory body so that it does not only depend on the Secretariat to make its decisions on military and security affairs.

The author takes a clear stand for the establishment of a military committee with real weight in the decision-making process of the Security Council related to peace operations. The Security Council remains the only international body making decisions in peace and security, authorizing military deployment without advice from a collective body of military experts and advisers. Recreating such a body is the missing part of all UN reform structures undertaken in past years.

As the number of UN troops deployed increases, this book will be an important read for all students and scholars of international organisations, security studies and international relations.

1 History of the improbable creation of the UN Military Staff Committee

• Milestones in the creation of a military organ within the UN

• The setting up, role, and features of the UN Military Staff Committee

• Failure of the negotiations of the special agreements to put armed forces at the disposal of the Security Council

• The adjournment of debates around the Military Staff Committee

• Conclusion

The idea of creating a subsidiary military organ alongside the main decision-making body of an international organization was already on the table during the planning work that led to the creation of the League of Nations. In 1919, Léon Bourgeois – once said to be the “father of the League of Nations” by Lord Balfour – suggested that a “permanent joint staff service” be established to make available to the Council of the League reliable information that would allow military contingency planning to be submitted thereafter to the approval of the member states.¹

According to Léon Bourgeois and to the report of Captain René Petit (also a member of the “Commission interministérielle d’études pour la Société des Nations,” the “Interministerial Commission for the Study of the League of Nations”),² this “permanent joint staff service” was meant to be “dealing, under the control of the international organ, with every matter related to the organization of common forces and to the conduct of possible military operations.” It would also be “responsible for inspecting international forces and armaments in agreement with the military authorities of each State and proposing improvements which it considers necessary, both in the international military organization and in the constitution, composition, and recruitment of the staff of each State.”³

Indeed, for Léon Bourgeois, it seemed “necessary to establish an agreement between the military authorities of the various associated countries so that the League of Nations would be ready to use the national contingents in a rapid manner in the event of a sudden attack by one of the partners or an unrelated power.”⁴ He was recommending what today would be known as interoperability between contingents in order to conduct efficient international military interventions. He was not in favor of a standing international force, but for member states to provide a dedicated number of their armed forces when needed. He suggested the establishment of a “permanent organ” in charge of military affairs that would not command forces during peacetime, but prepare and plan for their deployment during a conflict.⁵ These ideas initially went no further than the negotiation of Article 9 of the Covenant of the League of Nations (“A permanent Commission shall be constituted to advise the Council on the execution of the provisions of Articles 1 and 8 [maintenance of peace], and on military, naval, and air questions generally”), but then reappeared after 1939 in the thinking of the Allies as they planned the establishment of a new international organization. More than 20 years after they first floated them, the ideas of Léon Bourgeois and René Petit were adopted by the drafters of the UN Charter.

The UN Charter is a product of its strategic context. The alliance and the consensus reached between the great powers during World War II resulted in their control of the process of establishing the new international organization. Moreover, the context of the war impressed its mark on the aims assigned to the new organization. The war which had not ended and which had cost a great deal of human life (especially on the Soviet side) led the great powers to emphasize the security, prevention, and repression of all future aggressions. Everything in the construction of the United Nations has been oriented toward the maintenance of peace and security. The drafters wanted to build a new international organization that would be fundamentally different from the League of Nations, that would “have teeth.” The provisions of Chapter VII of the UN Charter were the result of that will. At the same time, the drafters also built a political organization.

The discussions around the provisions related to the military expertise and the setting up of a military committee to manage armed forces put at the disposal of the organization are a reflection of that context, as well as of the tensions between the political and the military provisions of the Charter. Did the drafters build a political organization that relies on the military to enforce its decisions, or simply a political organization in which the military has only a marginal role? Did the drafters “armed” the organization so that it could face the turbulence of the world after the war? The negotiations around the design of the MSC and on the special arrangements for armed forces put at the disposal of the Council are a summary of those tensions. This chapter looks at this “act of creation” during the war,⁶ before detailing the role and features of the MSC that quickly stopped working as designed soon after the signature of the Charter.

Box 1.1 Chronology of the work of substance of the Military Staff Committee since 1946

25 January 1946	Resolution 1 (adopted unanimously): “The Security Council directs the Military Staff Committee, as its first task, to draw up proposals for its organization and procedure, and to submit these proposals to the Security Council.”
4 February 1946	First meeting of the MSC.
16 February 1946	Resolution of the Security Council requesting the Military Staff Committee to examine, from a military point of view, the provisions of Article 43.
27 March 1946	The MSC establishes a sub-committee to formulate recommendations on basic principles related to Article 43.
5 June 1946	The MSC appoints a sub-committee to consider outlines for standard forms of agreement.
27 August 1946	The Sub-committee on Standard Forms of Agreement submits a draft to the MSC, based on US proposals but incorporating the views of the other four members. The MSC took no action on the draft, pending agreement on basic principles.
14 December 1946	Resolution of the General Assembly recommending accelerated discussions.
13 February 1947	Security Council Resolution 18, creating the Commission on Conventional Armaments, calls on the MSC to submit its recommendations on Article 43 “as soon as possible and as a matter of urgency.” Resolution adoption with abstention from the USSR.
30 April 1947	The MSC submits its report on general principles (S/336).
15 May 1947	Creation by the MSC of a Sub-committee on “Overall Strength.”
4 June–15 July 1947	11 meetings of the Security Council to discuss the report of the MSC.
15 December 1947	The Sub-committee on “Overall Strength” submits its results to the MSC.
18 June 1948	The MSC completes consideration of the report of the Sub-committee on “Overall Strength.”
2 July 1948	The chairman of the MSC informs the Security Council that the MSC is not in a position to undertake a final review of the question of overall strength until the Security Council resolves the divergent views on basic principles.
6 August 1948	The British, Chinese, French, and US MSC delegations inform the Security Council by letter that the MSC is unable to continue its work.
16 August 1948	The Soviet Union writes to the Security Council disagreeing with the position of the four other delegations that the MSC cannot continue its work.
1948–1997	The MSC continues to meet fortnightly with no work of substance.
1949–1950	On 19 January 1950, the delegation of the USSR withdrew from the 120th meeting of the MSC when that Committee, by a majority vote, decided that an USSR proposal challenging the right representation of the Chinese delegation on the MSC could not be discussed by that Committee since the matter fell within the competence of the Security Council. The delegation of the USSR resumed its participation in the work of the MSC starting with the Committee’s 140th meeting, held on 26 October 1950.
1998–1999	The Committee informally reviewed the future of the Information and Research Unit of the DPKO but did not proceed with examining further the option of assimilating the Unit within the substructure of the MSC. The Committee heard statements from members following the bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade.
1999–2000	Outside of its formal meetings, the MSC maintained regular contact with the Military Adviser, and received briefings from a representative of the Department for Disarmament Affairs.
2000–2001	The MSC took note of the decision of the Security Council to consider the possibility of using the Committee as one of the means of enhancing the UN peacekeeping capacity as outlined in Resolution 1327 (2000) but took no action.
2001–2005	The MSC remained prepared to carry out the functions assigned to it under the terms of Article 47 of the Charter.
2005–2010	In accordance with the request to the Security Council made by the General Assembly in paragraph 178 of the 2005 World Summit Outcome (resolution 60/1), the MSC has considered its composition, mandate and working methods.
2011–onward	Informal reactivation of the MSC.

Sources: Inspired by Jane Boulden, “Prometheus Unbound: The History of the Military Staff Committee,” Aurora Papers no. 19 (Ottawa, Canada: Canadian Centre for Global Security, August 1993), 37–39; Reports of the Security Council to the General Assembly, 1946 to 2016.

Milestones in the creation of a military organ within the UN

During 1943–1945, the reflection around the creation of a purely military organ was directly linked to the nature of a new world organization whose core objective was to ensure the maintenance of international peace and security, and to the experience during World War II of the successful “Combined Chiefs of Staff” structure between the Allies. As it was later envisaged for the MSC, the “Combined Chiefs of Staff” for the Allies was in charge of the strategic direction of armed forces and had an advisory role to the national political leaders. As explained by Larry L. Fabian,

in practice the Combined Chiefs had two jurisdictions. One was executive. The chiefs exercised what was then called ‘grand strategic direction’ over all combat theaters in which British and American troops were located. Operational strategy and command in each area fell to either country or, in some cases, to both jointly. The chiefs’ other function was to provide continuing military advice to their political superiors in Washington and London.⁷

According to Monique Guillaume, the war showed that “not only was it possible, but that it was effective in bringing closer together the military leaders of the forces belonging to different countries to develop and implement the plans necessary for the conduct of operations.”⁸ While the idea was of an American origin,⁹ and was based on the direct and personal close relationship between the British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and the American President Franklin D. Roosevelt, it also derived from a real concern that the structure of the future international organization should be shaped by the way ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of illustrations
• Acknowledgments
• Abbreviations
• Introduction
• 1. History of the improbable creation of the UN Military Staff Committee
• 2. The consequences of the paralysis of the Military Staff Committee
• 3. Recurrent attempts at reform and reactivation of the Military Staff Committee since 1948
• 4. Current developments and looking into the future
• Conclusion
• Bibliography
• Index