Irresponsibility to protect
Just to note that, when you think of what's gone on in Libya and Cote d'Ivoire, the logical consequence of the combination of:
1) There are situations which would warrant our intervention everywhere
and
2) Of course we cannot intervene everywhere
is
3) We can do whatever we like.
In other words, the Libyans who are now complaining about our not doing enough for them, like the Iraqi Shia post 1991, have more of a point than one would care to admit. We're moving dangerously in the direction of a new world order of "intervention at whim".
Edit: This is why I keep clutching at the straw of the UNSC; not because it's a pearl of great price in terms of a decision-making body, but because it's the only remote prospect I can think of for anything approaching an objective criterion for deciding where and how to intervene. The alternative is complete discretion, which in practice means caprice.
Well, yes. I imagine the R2P types will be happy about that, although they really shouldn't be. It could work well in their favour, but I can't imagine any situation that would see R2P binned at light speed more than a series of disastrous interventions, undertaken on the grounds that "We did Libya; This is worse than Libya ergo, bombs away".
ReplyDeleteAnd when I was burbling about South Ossetia before, I was only half-kidding. There are parallels, and I'd fully expect quite a few other nations to cite Libya as a precedent for less-than disinterested military jaunts in future.
Some may be fine with that when it's the French, although I'm generally not. Western intervention enthusiasts probably aren't going to like it so much if it's the Chinese or the Russians following their example, which will be ironic, since any such adventure could well be partly their fault.
The trouble in my mind is that we get the situation:
ReplyDeleteRUPERT: "We must intervene! The Libyans cry out for a no-fly zone!"
SUNNY: "Of course I am against a land invasion! Why do you keep poisoning the debate, Beavis?"
THE PLAIN PEOPLE OF LIBYA: "All things considered, our gratitude is less than total".
[time passes]
AARO: "Recall how the pernicious so called 'anti imperialist' left abandoned Libya in its hour of need! Let me tell you about Douglas Hurd, this one time, get this, like Bob Dole was a pilot who was injured in World War 2 and he said like ..." [fade]
Now you mention it, yes: there's a combination of policy statements there that sounds reasonable but actually amounts to the largest claim conceivable with respect to discretionary power.
ReplyDeleteWe do in fact, in the UK, have standing commitments to uphold this and that treaty everywhere. Even the maintenance of a standing military amounts to actual influence / intervention. It all costs, of course. If 'we can't intervene everywhere' amounts to rolling back those commitments, selectively, then (at least in principle) there's more in the piggy bank for selective intervention elsewhere.
"This is why I keep clutching at the straw of the UNSC; not because it's a pearl of great price in terms of a decision-making body, but because it's the only remote prospect I can think of for anything approaching an objective criterion for deciding where and how to intervene. The alternative is complete discretion, which in practice means caprice"
ReplyDeleteBut UNSC is not Lady Justice. It means complete discretion.
The real alternative is to decide such criterion (which can't ever be "objective") for yourself using careful moral principles you hold dear.
Decisions about the morality of war-making can't be farmed off into a technocracy, much less a fundamentally political grouping like the UNSC that you want to pose as a technocracy.
Did you see Noah Millman's recent post http://theamericanscene.com/2011/04/04/a-handful-of-thoughts-on-libya? I feel like it complements the point you're making very well.
ReplyDeleteBy the way is anyone reading the War Nerd?
ReplyDeleteHe is a bastard and I read him every day.
ovaut - he mentioned medieval Icelandic law halfway down so I tuned out. I've never known anything good come of references to medieval Icelandic law (and I've known plenty bad).
ReplyDeleteFWIW, last was me.
ReplyDeleteIcelandic law?
ReplyDeleteD*v*d Fr**dm*n.
ReplyDeleteResponsibility = duty = protecting people in all circumstances. Which isn't possible so the R2P concept takes us no further forward in any debate about what is legitimate.
ReplyDeleteI've warned humanitarians that they risk getting the blame if a so-called humanitarian intervention is a real disaster.
Guano
Libertarianism. Gotcha.
ReplyDelete