There is a complex relationship here. The UN charter called for the development of a military staff command of real operational resources for the UN that never came to pass, so whenever the UN authorizes an operation it is relying on states to respond either through some kind of a coalition or through an alliance.
In the Libya campaign it was very interesting. In the first 10 days, it was not a NATO operation; it was a U.K.-U.S.-French operation. Interestingly, what I have heard, and this tells you a lot about the politics of these sorts of situations, is that the French and the U.K., who were very much out front in the beginning—and it's often said the U.S. led from behind in Libya—were very concerned about the optics of a French-British intervention in the Middle East. I heard the word “Suez” many times, so for them NATO was the solution for the legitimacy of what they wanted to do.
This will be the case for NATO; it will be seen as a good instrument for the states that comprise it. That also means, if we are to take on board this belief in the legitimacy of Security Council authorization, that NATO will often be operating as the arm or the operational agent for the UN. This isn't new; it's done it through peacekeeping before, but there are robust mechanisms for accountability with respect to peacekeeping—well, I should say there are mechanisms. Are they always as robust as they could be? However, for civilian protection operations that are different from peacekeeping....
This was not a consensual peacekeeping operation. The Security Council authorized the use of force without the consent of the Libyan state. This was a big deal. For those kinds of operations, currently we don't have those kinds of accountability mechanisms; they can be developed, but we need to start thinking about how that will happen.
I would be a little worried on the flip—