Over the past weeks we have watched in horror as the KLA murdered Serb policemen in an area that Kosovo Albanians see as their ethnic homeland, but which Serbs view as the very heart of their nation.

We have seen Serbian violence against innocent Kosovo Albanians and we have witnessed NATO's hi-tech violence against Serbia.

The general reaction ebbs and flows with the latest atrocity. We railed against Milosevic and the Serbs when we saw video evidence of the murder of dozens of Kosovo Albanian men by Serbian forces; and we carped at NATO when we saw them destroy an interior ministry building just 300 metres from a Serbian hospital. When our reaction settles, we question what is happening and we ask: "What are we doing to stem the violence?"

The Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Andrews, captured our dilemma when he stated that we are "between a rock and a hard place". He is correct. Ireland can be positive and offer a welcome to our share of the refugees, but other than that we cannot influence events in the Balkans.

The institutions and forums where our voices can be heard are either involved in the situation, but beyond our influence, or else they are powerless. NATO is outside our sphere of influence because we are not members. Nor are we members of Partnership for Peace (PfP), the bilateral mechanism by which states which are not members of NATO can consult and co-operate with the alliance in areas such as peace support humanitarian operations and conflict resolution. This leaves us on the sidelines.

Ireland is, however, a member-state of the EU. Eleven of our partners are NATO members and it is possible for us to bring our influence to bear on them through the EU.

How useful an intervention by Ireland might be with partners who are immersed in the NATO action is questionable. Within the EU, of course, we could form a pressure block with fellow neutrals Sweden, Finland and Austria to strengthen our case.

Austria has already shown its independence within the EU by refusing over-flight facilities to NATO. It had, of course, no other option as constitutionally it could not support NATO action without a Security Council mandate. There were early noises that we should deny NATO over-flights of Irish territory and facilities at Shannon, but such calls ignore certain realities.

NATO aircraft do not require any facilities at Shannon and the Air Corps has no aircraft capable of policing the State's air space at medium or high level.

What Ireland does have in relation to Kosovo is a number of Defence Forces personnel who, before the NATO strikes, were working in the province on behalf of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) to establish the Kosovo Verification Mission.

This multinational force was tasked with supervising the demilitarisation of Kosovo and overseeing a peaceful transition to democracy; but its mission was overtaken by events. International observers were withdrawn as the situation deteriorated into war, but Defence Forces observers are still waiting in the wings to be re-deployed in the province.

Ireland has also made a contribution to solving the refugee crisis in the area. Home-based NGOs are working on the ground with Kosovo Albanian refugees and the Government has indicated that Ireland is ready to accept 1,000 refugees. It has also pledged £2 million in aid for the refugees. Hence, Ireland is playing a very real part in helping to ease the crisis.

One might ask, however, where the United Nations is in all of this. Ireland has a long association with UN peacekeeping, but that should not blind us to the very evident weakness of the voice of the international community as is highlighted by the events in Kosovo.

When the UN was founded in 1945, as the second World War was coming to an end, peace and security were the central concerns of the new organisation. What was proposed, therefore, was a system of collective security controlled by a Security Council which would plan for and instigate "peace operations" when required.

However, the idea of enforcing international law through force was shelved because of the Cold War and the use of the veto by the five permanent members of the Security Council.

Peacekeeping filled the resulting vacuum and allowed the UN to deploy observers and forces to oversee cease-fires, truces and agreements in peripheral areas of conflict. This avoided such conflicts spilling into the Cold War arena and threatening world security. The operations were manned mainly by troops from neutral states and were controlled directly by the UN from New York.

Since the end of the Cold War there has been a huge increase in UN peace support operations, and major developments have taken place in the area of what could be called "heavy duty" peace operations - such as those undertaken during the Gulf War in 1991 and with the deployment of IFOR into Bosnia in 1996.

Both operations were subcontracted by the Security Council - to a confederation of the willing in the case of the Gulf and to NATO in the case of IFOR. These events have led to a UN philosophy of peace-support operations called "An Agenda for Peace". This agenda includes options ranging from classical peacekeeping to major operations subcontracted to lead nations or regional organisations.

In between is a variety of options such as preventative deployments and humanitarian operations. The lower-level operations are capable of being pursued by troops raised and controlled directly by United Nations HQ in New York. Things become more complex when major field headquarters are necessary and significant military assets are required.

This is where subcontracting becomes necessary, and it is difficult to see any such operation being undertaken without calling on an organisation like NATO, and the subsequent involvement of the United States. The current situation is exacerbated by the fact that if the Security Council were to propose the mandating of NATO in Serbia, the veto would be used by Russia and probably China. This leaves the UN powerless.

In these circumstances, NATO has decided to press ahead rather than appease Slobodan Milosevic. We in Ireland are left in a situation where we have no influence with NATO but can probably voice our concerns within the EU to NATO members. We can raise the issue with the UN, but it is powerless to act.

In the circumstances, our best option is to throw our energies into the humanitarian operation on behalf of the Kosovo Albanian refugees and indicate that we will play our part in policing any agreement which is reached. In the meantime we must watch and pray that the intervention of a third party can bring the cycle of violence to an end and get the warring parties back to the negotiating table.

Lt Gen Gerry McMahon is a retired Chief of Staff of the Defence Forces.