When diplomacy demands insecurity: Rethinking sovereignty, self-defence and collective security in the 21st Century

Diplomacy exists to prevent conflict, preserve peace and strengthen international security. That is the promise upon which the post-1945 international order was built. The United Nations Charter sought to replace the law of force with the force of law, creating a system in which collective security would protect states from aggression and reduce the need for unilateral military action. ALSO READ: Sanctions, sovereignty, and Rwanda: A small nation in the crosscurrents of global power More than 80 years later, that promise deserves renewed examination. Around the world, governments continue to confront terrorism, cross-border insurgencies, organised crime, cyber-attacks and armed non-state actors operating beyond the effective control of national authorities. These threats rarely respect international borders, yet the institutions designed to address them often move more slowly than the dangers themselves. ALSO READ: Selective outrage and transactional diplomacy in eastern DR Congo This has created a growing paradox in international diplomacy I am a student of. A state identifies a serious threat to its national security. The international community acknowledges that the threat exists. Reports are commissioned. Security Council resolutions are adopted. Peacekeeping missions are deployed. Sanctions regimes are established. Special envoys are appointed in great numbers each country wishing its own Special Envoys. Regional initiatives are launched. ALSO READ: The systematic blinders of western media in the DR Congo-Rwanda narrative Months become years. Years become decades. The threat frequently survives. When the affected state strengthens its own defensive posture or adopts measures it considers necessary to protect its citizens, diplomatic attention often shifts away from the threat itself and towards the response of the state confronting it. The conversation changes. Instead of asking why the threat has endured, the debate increasingly asks whether the defensive measures are acceptable. ALSO READ: Restoring chaos? How Western policies fuel DR Congo’s collapse It is a legitimate question. But it is not the only question. There is another that deserves equal attention. If collective security mechanisms have not removed a recognised threat, upon what basis can they ask sovereign states to assume greater risks while awaiting solutions that remain uncertain? This question is neither ideological nor uniquely African. It concerns the fundamental relationship between sovereignty and collective security. The United Nations Charter recognises that every state possesses an inherent right of self-defence. That principle was never intended as an exception reluctantly tolerated by international law. It was recognised because the founders of the United Nations understood an enduring reality: governments bear the primary responsibility for protecting their populations. Collective security was designed to reinforce that responsibility, not replace it. Indeed, the legitimacy of the international system depends upon maintaining that balance. When collective mechanisms function effectively, they reduce the need for unilateral defensive action. When they do not, governments inevitably face difficult choices. No responsible state can permanently subordinate the safety of its citizens to processes whose outcomes remain uncertain. History offers numerous examples. Following the attacks of September 11, 2001, the United States fundamentally redefined its national security doctrine. Israel has consistently argued that geography and persistent security threats require rapid defensive responses. Türkiye has repeatedly undertaken military operations beyond its borders against organisations it considers terrorist threats. European countries have dramatically strengthened their defence policies following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. ALSO READ: The Responsibility to Protect was born in Rwanda. It is dying in DR Congo These cases differ significantly in law, politics and circumstance. They should not be conflated. Yet they share one underlying principle. Governments maintain that protecting their populations is their first constitutional and moral obligation. This principle should not become geographically selective. African states confront security challenges no less complex than those faced elsewhere. Terrorist organisations, cross-border insurgencies, organised criminal networks, illicit trafficking and armed movements continue to undermine stability across several regions of the continent. Their citizens deserve the same expectation of security as citizens anywhere else. The issue therefore is not whether international law should constrain the use of force. It must. The issue is whether international diplomacy applies identical principles with equal consistency. Consistency is not simply a moral aspiration. It is the foundation of legal legitimacy. When similar situations receive markedly different diplomatic treatment depending upon the country involved, confidence in international institutions inevitably weakens. Selective application of principles risks transforming international law from a universally respected framework into a system perceived through the lens of political influence. The consequences extend beyond legal theory. They affect public confidence in diplomacy itself. Increasingly, citizens ask difficult questions. If recognised threats remain active for decades despite repeated international initiatives, what confidence should governments place in assurances that those threats will eventually disappear? If defensive measures are discouraged, what practical security guarantees replace them? Who assumes responsibility should preventable violence occur? These are uncomfortable questions. Yet diplomacy exists precisely to address uncomfortable questions before they become tragedies. I need no further proof for that since 1994 to date. The experience of the twenty-first century demonstrates that insecurity rarely disappears through declarations alone. Peace agreements require implementation. Sanctions require enforcement. Peacekeeping missions require clear mandates, political support and measurable outcomes. Resolutions acquire authority not because they are adopted, but because they are carried out. The international community should therefore be careful not to confuse diplomatic activity with diplomatic success. Meetings are not outcomes. Communiqués are not security. Declarations are not peace. The measure of diplomacy lies in whether ordinary people become safer because of it. This is particularly important for societies whose historical experience has taught painful lessons about the consequences of delayed international action. Where collective protection has previously failed, governments naturally place greater emphasis upon ensuring that such failures are never repeated. That is not an abandonment of multilateralism. It is an expression of the first responsibility of the state. None of this argues against diplomacy. Nor does it diminish the importance of sovereignty, dialogue, restraint or peaceful settlement of disputes. On the contrary, effective diplomacy remains humanity’s best alternative to conflict. But diplomacy cannot ask governments to become less secure without offering protection that is equally credible. Nor should sanctions become substitutes for solving the security problems that gave rise to defensive measures in the first place. The objective of international diplomacy should never be to compel states to choose between protecting their citizens and preserving international approval. Its purpose should be to create conditions in which those objectives reinforce one another. Perhaps this is the defining challenge of our era. Can the international community restore confidence that collective security is sufficiently reliable to justify restraint when restraint carries genuine risks? If the answer is yes, then collective institutions must demonstrate that they can prevent threats rather than merely describe them. If the answer is no, then diplomacy must honestly confront the growing gap between its aspirations and its implementation. The future credibility of the international system will depend not upon the number of resolutions it adopts, nor the conferences it convenes, nor the statements it issues. It will depend upon whether sovereign states, regardless of their size or geopolitical influence, can reasonably believe that the international order protects their security as faithfully as it asks them to protect international peace. That is the true promise of the United Nations Charter. And that remains the unfinished business of twenty-first-century diplomacy. The writer is a political and diplomatic analyst specialising on Africa and countries of the Great Lakes Region.

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When diplomacy demands insecurity: Rethinking sovereignty, self-defence and collective security in the 21st Century