OPERATION UNIFIED PROTECTOR: COLLECTIVE SECURITY OR COLLECTIVE DEFENSE (Published)
A fundamental precept of Collective Security is unanimity of decision by the Security Council. This was apparently not the case in Operation Unified Protector because of major abstentions in the passage of Resolution 1973 which was eventually used to declare war on Libya. In the passage of the resolution, five countries namely Brazil, Russia, India, China and Germany abstained. The Arab League and the African Union also expressed great reservations when NATO started its bombardment of Libya. The thrust of this article is that Operation Unified Protector by NATO was apparently a manipulation of Collective Security, to achieve coalition goals inherent in Collective Defense. Collective Security is designed not entangle itself with local politics or regime change but international conflicts that affects two or more sovereign states. The crisis in Libya was more of an internal civil disturbance which a sovereign state should control without undue external interference as was the case in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, Qatar and Syria. The article recommends that powerful countries or coalition of countries should refrain from manipulating the good intentions of Collective Security for their own Collective Defense and other ulterior goals at the expense of genuine peace in the international system
Keywords: Collective Defense, Collective Security, Unified Protector