Amara Rojo
October 22nd, 2015
International Relations 170
On Humanitarian Intervention
In the case of whether or not
to act in Syria, the popular consensus is that the United States and other
Western nations should have acted. However, the reality is that in retrospect,
anyone can say that more action should have been implemented, but only because
of the current problems that escalated from not acting, such as ISIS and the
migrant crisis. Because there is rarely any other motivator outside of the self
interest of the state, most if not all humanitarian intervention is not for
that purpose by definition per se; instead it is to mask and to hide the true
intentions of the state offering aid.
The reaction of hindsight intervention is typical of any situation
that becomes more of a problem than anticipated. Barriers of national
sovereignty and the excuse of “there is a lack of evidence” allow countries
that could intervene effectively to use this time to avoid the ongoing human
rights violations. It is only once the violations have reached monumental
public condemnation that a nation is even remotely inclined to resort to
action. More than likely--unfortunately for the afflicted country--the real
motivation behind a humanitarian intervention is not for the atrocities being
committed, but rather for the interest of the country which is offering it's support.
This can be for either economical interests, as was the case that is widely
accepted for the US invasion into Iraq-- oil was the main incentive. There are
security interests that can be attributed to certain cases as well, such as the
way Arab nations are motivated to contain and destroy ISIS as its presence is a
threat to more than just the local populations.
Thus, a humanitarian intervention is hardly ever meant to do just
that. If this were the case there would be more instances of active intervention
early on. As we saw in Rwanda, the lack of economical interest in the country
lead to the deprecating circumstances continuing for a longer period of time
than otherwise would have occurred if there had been active interest in what
the country had to offer. Given that there was little international coverage of
the genocide, what the public did see did not move them enough to promote an
active movement or response to garner their nations to aid in Rwanda's dire
situation. However, although there was considerable coverage of the Syrian
civil war, there were no true calls to action by many states. Furthermore, more
countries were in favor of backing militants to resolve the issue rather than
send in troops or other forms of intervention. This was a direct result of a
poor execution of "humanitarian intervention" in Iraq. Now was a
result of the international community avoiding early intervention, the result
is undoubtably worse than what it could have been if nations had acted more
directly.
Another skeptic...
ReplyDeleteIs it a bad thing that states only follow their own interests? Ben has a post up arguing that by following their own interests states are more likely to succeed when they intervene. Do you buy this? If not, you should press him on it on his post...
I don't necessarily buy the argument that states are more likely to succeed when they intervene on their own interests. With the mask of "nation building" any country can advance their agenda in a malicious fashion, either intentionally or not. We saw this especially with Iraq, with the United States coming in to bring in a new era of democracy and ending up with the disaster that it has become.
DeleteHi Amara!
ReplyDeleteGood job on your blog post. Although I agree with many of the points you make, I don’t think that I fully agree on everything. For example, I don’t believe that a humanitarian intervention always happens just so the super power can reap the benefits. As I mentioned in a previous comment on another blog post about humanitarian intervention, countries do sometimes intervene to protect the human rights of the people who are being oppressed. For example, I believe this was the case when the United States intervened during World War II/The Holocaust. There was no economic interest, and no oil for incentive. I believe the United States intervened so we could stop the atrocities occurring. What do you think of this?
Good job!
Alex
Thank you!
DeleteI would disagree with your statement on the fact that there was no economic incentive for the US to intervene in World War II. The reason being it was our involvement that got us out of the Great Depression. While I can see how it would have been honorable for the US to get involved to stop these atrocities, at the end of the day, economics rather than morals played a dominant role.
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ReplyDeleteInteresting blog Amara! You and Ben had fairly similar posts, but made a couple different points. I agree with you that there was "poor execution of humanitarian intervention in Iraq". In my blog, I talked about the importance of having a goal when intervening in another country. In regards to Professor Shirk's comment about whether or not it is a bad thing that states follow their own interests, I would say yes and no. Yes it is bad because I would hope that a state would not be so self centered that they only care what they get out of it. Of course, this is the optimist in me speaking. The world is becoming more and more globally minded with the emphasis on countries working together. If all states only helped another when it could benefit itself, the world would shatter. Self interest is not bad in the way like Ben said, that they are more likely to succeed. As long as they do succeed and help the citizens that were oppressed in someway, this could be good.
ReplyDeleteI would say that we share the optimist view deep down, but for practical reasons I can only see states acting in a way that will ultimately benefit them. In the cases that it succeeds I would deem that fine, but it's hard to maintain that viewpoint when more often than not it is not the case.
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