Humanitarian Hazard: Revisiting Doctrines of Intervention
2004; Harvard International Relations Council; Volume: 26; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
0739-1854
Autores Tópico(s)Global Peace and Security Dynamics
ResumoNo foreign policy seems more inherently benign than humanitarian military It is rooted in altruistic desire to protect innocents from violent death. It appears feasible, given military superiority of Western forces over those in developing countries where most violent conflict occurs. And only obvious costs are a modest financial commitment and occasional casualty. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] For these reasons, in wake of world's failure to prevent violence in Balkans and Rwanda, US President Bill Clinton declared in June 1999 doctrine that bears his name: If world community has power to stop it, we ought to stop genocide and ethnic cleansing. In December 2001, a distinguished international panel went a step further and declared existence of a Responsibility to Protect--suggesting that failure to intervene by those capable of doing so might even breach international law. But a more sophisticated analysis calls into question value of humanitarian military intervention, even when judged by its own explicit standard of saving lives. For two reasons benefits of such intervention are much smaller, and costs much greater, than commonly recognized. First, most violence is perpetrated faster than interveners can realistically arrive to stop it. Second, as economists could have predicted, but few humanitarians have acknowledged, intervention regime actually exacerbates some conflicts through what I have labeled the moral hazard of humanitarian intervention. In light of these two dynamics, an increase in intervention does not save as many lives as commonly claimed. Unless West adopts a number of reforms outlined at end of this article, more intervention might actually lead to a net increase in killing. Killers are Quicker than Interveners In high-profile conflicts of 1990s, most violence was perpetrated far more quickly than commonly realized. In Bosnia, although conflict dragged on for more than three years, majority of ethnic cleansing was perpetrated in spring of 1992. By time Western media arrived on scene later that summer, Serb forces already occupied two-thirds of republic and had displaced more than one million residents. In Rwanda, at least half of eventual half-million Tutsi victims were killed in first three weeks of genocide. When Croatia's army broke a three-year cease-fire in August 1995, it ethnically cleansed virtually all of more than 100,000 Serbs from Krajina region in less than a week. In Kosovo, when Serbian forces switched from a policy of counter-insurgency to ethnic cleansing in March 1999, in response to NATO's decision to bomb, most of their cleansing occurred in first two weeks, and they managed to cleanse 850,000 Albanians, half province's total. In East Timor, following a 1999 vote for independence, Indonesian-backed militias damaged majority of province's infrastructure and displaced most of population in little more than a week. Even less well recognized is fact that logistical obstacles impose significant delays on military intervention, humanitarian or otherwise, even where a strong political will exists. For example, after Iraqi President Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in August 1990, and US President George Bush ordered an immediate deployment to defend Saudi Arabia (Operation Desert Shield), it took nine days for first unit of 2,300 US troops to reach area of conflict. Another week was required before unit was sufficiently prepared to venture beyond its makeshift base. Thus, even with vital national security interest of oil at stake, it took United States more than two weeks to deploy and begin operations of a relatively tiny force. The reasons are numerous, but stem mainly from three factors: modern militaries cannot operate without their equipment, their equipment is extremely heavy, and there are limits to rate at which such equipment can be airlifted to remote countries. …
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