Dec
15
A Will To Intervene
Filed Under Uncategorized
I’ve wanted to write about this topic for quite a while. The primary factor hindering my will to write up a post on the issue is the humbling amount of academic material on the issue, and the developing consensus that humanitarian intervention is both a morally and politically sound form of military action. Given the recent appointments to the next U.S administration, one gets the impression that military intervention in Darfur and other areas of the world home to genocidal activity will receive increased attention and prescription by the world’s leading military power. Susan Rice, a veteran of the National Security Council under the Clinton administration and the newly appointed Ambassador to the United Nation under the upcoming Obama administration, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 2007 that the failure of the international community to act in light of the occuring genocide in Darfur was a “collective shame.” She then proposed the invocation of Chapter VII of the U.N Charter, which authorizes the security council to take military and non-military action (read: military) in order to secure and maintain international peace.
The developing consensus I referred to earlier is both evident in the amount of material available on the subject of humanitarian intervention today (I just read two reviews of books on the subject in this weekend’s edition of the Herald Tribune), but also the increasing amount of U.N resolutions that have tied gross human rights violations specifically to the threat of international peace, allowing for the invocation of Chapter VII. From the conclusion of a paper by a professor of mine, Fred Grunfeld:
My point may seem rather academic, since all of today’s conflicts are caused by gross violations of human rights; in the words of the UN High Commissioner on Human Rights: “today’s human rights violations are the causes of tomorrow’s conflicts.” Conversely, all conflicts have produced gross and mass violations of human rights. This is correct and in that sense, the two principal objectives are inextricably linked. This does not detract from the fact that development described in this contribution reveals an upgrading of the protection of human rights by the international community. The upgrading is expressed by the use of enforcement measures under Chapter VII.
Grünfeld, F. (1998). Human rights violations : a threat to international peace and security. In: M. Castermans, F.v. Hoof, J. Smith (Eds.), The role of the nation-state in the 21 century, Kluwer Law International, The Hague, pp. 427-441.
Rather than repeating the well-reported pros and cons of humanitarian intervention, I’d rather discuss the importance of the will to intervene. There is a renewed sense of hope that under an Obama administration, the cause of humanitarian intervention will finally receive a U.S administration willing to assert its power, in concert with the international community, to intervene in occurring genocides and perhaps even to prevent those for which the early warning signals are strong. From a recent article in Newsweek by Jonathen Tepperman:
Meanwhile, much of the international opposition to U.S. military action is specific to George W. Bush and will dissolve come January. That’s especially true for interventions to stop mass killings, which have grown much more palatable to the international community since Kosovo, Rwanda and Darfur. The United Nations recently unanimously approved the “Responsibility to Protect” doctrine that gives such missions international imprimatur. And as Ivo Daalder, another prominent Obama adviser, and Robert Kagan have pointed out, between 1989 and 2001 America dispatched significant military force to foreign hot spots so often—once every 18 months—that intervention became something of a standard weapon of U.S. foreign policy, and one with bipartisan support. Kagan argues that this new tradition has been reinforced by 9/11, which showed both policymakers and the public that troubles abroad can come back to hurt the United States. Today’s public is thus “remarkably willing to support overseas action” for the right cause, Kagan says.
Still, only one thing will ultimately determine whether the United States intervenes when crisis strikes: “political will,” as Albright puts it. Kagan is more specific: “At the end of the day, the only person who will be able to answer these difficult questions is the president. It’s all about what this guy wants to do.” Where exactly Obama stands on humanitarian intervention remains something of a mystery. Though he made supportive comments in the campaign—”when genocide is happening … that diminishes us” he said during the second presidential debate—no one seems to know what Obama will do when faced with a real live crisis. The answer may depend on whether he’s an idealist who favors do-gooder missions, as some experts argue, or a hardheaded realist who’d avoid them.
My suspicion is that Obama will fall somewhere in between these two personality types. John Stoessinger wrote in his book “Why Nations Go To War” about two personality types of American presidents: the crusader and the pragmatist. The chapter is titled ‘New Wars for a New Century’, and predictably analyzes the personality of George W. Bush (you can guess which end of the spectrum Stoessinger saw W. leaning toward). The crusader tends to make decisions based on a preconceived idea rather than on the basis of experience, yet also exhibits a “missionary zeal to make the world better.” The pragmatist, by contrast, is “guided by the facts and his experience in a given situation.” While its certainly too early to tell which end of the spectrum Obama will fall toward, based on his presidential campaign and his appointees to top foreign policy positions I would project that the next president will adopt the role of the pragmatist, keeping more idealist influences around him to inject a humanitarian tinge to his policies.
Needless to say, it will be both interesting and exciting to see how the next administration reacts to the crises in the Congo and Darfur and others exhibiting the gross violations of human rights, and whether the responsibility to act will be met with a will equally as strong.
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