Despite the deployment of troops to Chad, Ireland remains hugely reluctant to address the global foreign policy challenges evident since the 9/11 attacks on America, writes Rory Miller.
THE DEPLOYMENT to Chad of a 50-strong contingent of Irish troops tasked with protecting Darfuri refugees and locals as part of an EU (EUfor) force provides a timely opportunity to address a more general, though no less significant, issue, namely what role do we envisage for our military in these most challenging of times?
This is all the more pertinent because we are committed, in the words of the Department of Defence, to play our part "in a range of trouble spots across the world under the auspices of the United Nations".
The Government was also one of the original parties to support the establishment of an EU force that was not only intended to engage quickly in humanitarian and rescue tasks or even peacekeeping but also in crisis management situations and peace enforcement operations.
The Chad mission ticks all these boxes.
It also has a UN mandate which means that it adheres to the so-called triple lock mechanism, which requires all Irish overseas military intervention to have the approval of the UN Security Council as well as the Dáil and Government.
This unprecedented requirement gives a veto to the UN Security Council on the use of our military abroad. It means that China, which openly admits to having an amoral foreign policy, or Russian president Vladimir Putin's increasingly dictatorial rule can dictate where we send our troops by merely raising a hand at a conference table at UN headquarters in New York.
Given the absurdity of this, it is no surprise that no other European nation (not even neutral ones) has looked to follow in our footsteps.
As such, we need to start asking ourselves whether our unwillingness to act outside a UN mandate has any relevance in the world we inhabit.
During the cold war this policy made a certain amount of sense as the bipolar nature of the international system provided an opportunity for UN peacekeeping to reflect the central ideals embodied in the UN Charter.
However, since the end of the Soviet Union, and especially the upheaval in the international arena following 9/11, the UN has been increasingly unsuited to taking the lead in responding to the real military challenges facing the international community.
The UN's dismal record in saving lives and in organising effective humanitarian and peacekeeping operations in Bosnia, Kosovo and Rwanda, not to mention the ongoing genocide in Darfur, western Sudan (which has directly led to the Chad mission) has damaged, perhaps irretrievably so, its moral authority, political credibility and practical relevance.
This is no longer solely the view of deluded conspiracy theorists who for years have been convinced that the UN is at the head of a plot to take over the world. It is also increasingly the public position of apolitical NGOs and the private view of government officials from numerous nations.
Thus, while we can be justifiably proud of our contribution to UN-mandated peacekeeping over the last half-century from Congo to Cyprus and from Lebanon to Liberia, the 9/11 attacks and events since that fateful day have sharply refocused foreign policy thinking across the globe.
So far we have shown ourselves to be hugely lacking in our willingness to address seriously what this means for our future commitment of men and money to the world's trouble spots.
Take the case of Afghanistan. For much of the last seven years, the Government has been vocal in its support for a "new beginning" for this war-torn country and has repeatedly called for an "international effort" to assist in establishing "a broad-based and multi-ethnic government".
However, despite several UN Security Council resolutions endorsing the military role of the coalition in Afghanistan, our own practical contribution to this project has been tiny and there remains almost no Irish willingness to make a contribution to the multinational force's hugely difficult task of rebuilding the ravaged country.
The same is true of the reconstruction of Iraq. Whether one views the US invasion as necessary and legitimate or illegal and immoral, few can doubt that the military operation has now been transformed into a massive peacekeeping and nation-building project on a scale that is likely to alter the nature of overseas intervention forever.
The Government has repeatedly pledged verbal support for the move towards democracy and stability. Yet this enthusiasm for progress on the ground has not been backed up by anything more than token gestures of support, with the Government only going so far as to say that it might consider sending troops to Iraq on individual missions when the situation was "much more stabilised".
One's immediate response to this is, sorry, that's too late, they won't be needed then.
But what if the situation in Iraq does become "more stabilised"?
The success of the Sunni "awakening" and the US military "surge" make this a real possibility. Will we then start contributing to a "more stabilised" Iraq along the lines set out by the Government?
Or will we leave it to the 31 nations, including 11 of our EU partners and those powerhouses of international peacekeeping, Mongolia, Moldova, El Salvador, Tonga and Kazakhstan, to assist the US in what is now the most crucial peacekeeping and nation-building effort of the era?
Recent events in Chad, as well as ongoing challenges in Afghanistan and Iraq, remind us that Irish troops face great peril when deployed abroad. But if the Government is looking to send our soldiers to the world's trouble spots only when the trouble is over, then what's the point?
Dr Rory Miller is a senior lecturer at King's College London.