U.S. FORCE: SMALL CONFLICTS CAN'T BECOME FULL-SCALE WARS

Paul Simon is a U.S. senator from Illinois.

When should U.S. force be used to maintain stability around the world?

Congress and the White House wrestle with that question, knowing that if force is used, American lives may be lost but also knowing that failure to take action also can cost loss of lives, and ultimately much greater loss of American and other lives if the resort to violence by one nation spreads to others.

One of the difficulties is that resolutions in Congress authorizing or suggesting the use of force are general.

The other day, for example, we adopted a resolution calling on the President to get action from the Security Council of the United Nations authorizing the use of force, if necessary, to get relief supplies to surrounded Bosnian cities.

But the resolution did not specify how much U.S. force would eventually be used, and the resolution did not authorize it yet.

I voted for it. I favor using air power to help relieve the tragic situation in Bosnia. I oppose the use of U.S. ground troops. The Serbian government's call for "ethnic cleansing" has a Hitleresque ring to it, and its clear-cut aggression against the people of Bosnia should be resisted.

The community of nations has to do more than mouth pleasant pieties denouncing the Serbian government. We are providing a limited economic boycott and there is a small United Nations presence in Sarajevo, but the response has been anemic.

An even more tragic situation is in Somalia, where there is a clear-cut civil war. Many times the numbers of civilians being killed in Bosnia are dying of starvation in Somalia. The UN has authorized 500 troops to bring food to the starving nation.

How can the United States exert leadership, yet not have situations develop into a Desert Storm in which the United Nations action became overwhelmingly a United States action? (539,000 U.S. troops were in Kuwait.)

Complicating all of this is that when Congress authorizes the use of force, whether in Vietnam or Kuwait, we simply give the President the authority to use force. We do not stipulate how much force. Whether it is 1,000 troops or 500,000, we leave it to the President.

Senator Joseph Biden and I are discussing the possibility of a measure authorizing the President to use up to a specified number perhaps 2,000 armed forces personnel who could be used by the President if the United Nations Security Council calls for action.

Under our proposal, these would be volunteers from our armed forces, who would be made available at the discretion of the President to help get food into Somalia, or provide air cover for food and medicine going into Bosnia or whatever situation is serious enough to warrant United Nations Security Council action.

UN Security Council measures cannot be passed if any one of five nations including the United States vetoes it. UN actions have not been frequent.

The Biden-Simon proposal would permit the United States to participate with a limited use of force without further authorization from Congress.

My guess is that occasional, small uses of international force will be necessary in the coming decade.

History suggests that when an empire shrinks or collapses, small wars and difficulties sometimes follow. When the British left the Indian subcontinent, it broke into two nations with significant loss of life. When the United States left the Philippines, a mini-civil war eventually erupted. And when both the Soviet and Yugoslav empires collapsed, there has been some chaos, and more can be expected.

We must strive to see that small conflicts do not grow into large wars.

The United States and other nations should assist in that, and the authorization of a limited use of force by our President, when he approves, and if requested by the United Nations, seems the best way to achieve that.