The UN should staff its Rapid Reaction Force with Gurkhas
Summarised from a story by Jonah Blank, entitled 'Want peacemakers with spine? Hire the world's fiercest mercenaries' in US News and World Report (Dec 30th '96) monitored for the Institute by Roger Knights.
Gurkhas, the famously well-disciplined and courageous Nepalese warriors who fought for the British during World War Two, would be the best people, Johan Blank argues, to staff a United Nations Rapid Reaction Force. Had such a force been deployed promptly during a recent emergency like Rwanda, says Blank, the much larger catastrophe which did ensue could have been averted with relatively little force.
'In Rwanda, a force of 2,500 crack troops could have stopped the genocide'
Blank sees two factors as having stymied UN peacekeeping operations in the past: the reluctance of Western governments, particularly the US, to deploy their own professional soldiers, and the poor training of more willing forces from developing countries. This combination of over-caution and under-training has often drawn out imbroglios which decisive early action could have nipped in the bud. Blank cites Canadian General Romeo Dallaire, who commanded UN troops in Rwanda. Dallaire maintains that a force of 2,500 crack troops could have stopped the genocide, had they been deployed quickly enough.
'Their long warrior traditions mean they are both very well-trained, and the army is a very attractive option in the impoverished Nepalese mountains'
A Rapid Reaction Force of Gurkhas could provide the solution to both of these problems. Their long warrior traditions mean they are both very well-trained, and - since the army is a very attractive option in the impoverished Nepalese mountains - ready and suited to the job. A force of Gurkhas would ensure peacekeeping operations were efficiently conducted. Since Western governments would be much readier to commit foreign soldiers, they would also be able to intervene before conflicts escalated out of control.
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