The state of play in Russo-Chinese relations shows the two behemoths moving closer together on a couple of key fronts. One is economic. The other is diplomatic.
In economic matters it is clear that the two are close to a pricing agreement on the sale of thirty billion cubic meters of natural gas annually starting in 2015. The deal is good for both. There is no doubt but China needs the energy and Russia would very much like to diversify its hydrocarbon market--and pocket a good deal of cash in the process.
While the natural gas agreement is important, it must take a backseat to the increasing harmony between Moscow and Beijing in international matters. It is clear that both are using the Libyan adventure of NATO (and, at least indirectly, the US) as the catalyst for what the Russians have termed "tight cooperation" on such key questions as the UN, R2P and interventions generally.
Both states have guarded the rights of states to be free of UN interference for decades. Since the end of the Cold War, the stance of both in this area has become, if anything, more and more hardline. Both countries have more than a bit of self-interest at stake in their guarding of national sovereignty as each faces recurrent political unrest. While both signed the convention on responsibility to protect there is no doubt but each saw the document as being one of those feel-good productions like the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which everybody signs but not everyone takes seriously.
The doubts held by the Lads in the Kremlin and the Trolls of Beijing regarding the interventionary ambitions of the US and the West were given a shot of growth hormone by the passage of the Security Council resolution authorizing the no-fly zone in Libya and further calling upon member states to take actions such as to protect the civilian population of that country. While delicately (and misleadingly) worded so as to avoid a veto, the resolution was troubling to Russia and China as well as other countries such as India and Brazil because its loose wording could be generously interpreted by Western states.
That a generous interpretation was intended from the beginning was obvious in the statements of assorted leaders including President Obama which declared goals far more expansive than simply assuring the safety and humanitarian relief of endangered civilians. As the bombs fell in ever widening patterns, the Russians took the lead in stentorian denunciations of the NATO effort. In the past few days they have been joined in the chorus by China.
When Chinese president Hu goes to St Petersburg on 16 June to attend the "Russian Davos," it is highly probable that the opportunity will be used to further orchestrate joint Sino-Russian opposition to an extension of the no-fly mandate as well as any introduction of NATO ground forces under any guise. The fear is the US and its NATO partners, France and England, will arm twist Secretary General Ban into requesting NATO protection for UN humanitarian operations with the result the troops will land in regime changing force.
While there is a whiff of the conspiratorial in this Russian (and Chinese) apprehension, it is not baseless. The air campaign is not only obviously biased in favor of the rebels, it is also not working rapidly or all that well. Despite the attrition inflicted on loyalist arsenals, the pro-Gaddafi forces still have a robust combat power, effective tactics, and political will. Even if the rebels are no longer losing dramatically, neither are they winning in any meaningful sense of the word.
To the Russian and Chinese observer, it seems only natural that the West would seek to retrieve victory nearly lost by the introduction of ground forces. Should this move occur before the mid-June sidebar summit, one can anticipate very vigorous resistance from both states. They will be joined by others. Brazil, India, South Africa, various Central Asian republics--and the members of the Arab League.
The Arab League has repented of its early enthusiasm for internationalization of the Libyan internal conflict. This is seen by the monolithic opposition from both the AL and the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) to any robust action being taken against Syria. The AL, having tossed one Arab leader off the troika, is now covering itself with self-protecting protection of Bashir al-Assad. To circle the Arab and Muslim wagons under the protective banner of two Great Powers is comforting to the Arabs and the OIC alike.
It will be comforting as well to the African Union (AU), which has been consigned by events to the further shores of irrelevance not only in Libya but deep in the heart of the continent with the way in which the UN and France dealt with events in the Ivory Coast. This has allowed the Russian and Chinese diplomats to pull out and play the fear of neo-colonialism card with effect. To many in Africa as in the Arab and Muslim majority states, the specter of Western neo-colonial acts has risen from the grave (if indeed it was ever really buried, which is debatable at best).
All of this implies that push-comes-to-shove time is arriving rapidly in Libya. Unless the NATO/rebel combine can pull a rabbit (or better yet, a dead Gaddafi) out of their collective hat, there will be very rough diplomatic waters ahead. Renewing the no-fly zone mandate (due by 24 June) or the use of ground forces will produce a diplomatic contretemps at Turtle Bay of major proportions. Even absent that, the opposition to future application of R2P by China and Russia backed by an impressive number of lesser states will be massive and monolithic.
Even though the current administration has been staying deep in the shadows, the US still has a bull in the herd. Our declaratory policy is still one of Gaddafi must go. We are still more or less committed to R2P--at least when it is convenient and doable. We are still trying to sort out just what direction we will take with the fast and sharp changes in Egyptian foreign relations.
All of this implies the US must carve out a defensible and credible stance vis a vis both Russia and China in their current mood of totally distrusting NATO and the force they perceive to be motivating the alliance--the US. This may mean concessions to the Russians on the ABM basing issue as well as current plans to base US aircraft in former Warsaw Pact states. It may mean backing down a bit in Asia to mollify Chinese fears.
Both of these would be quite negative for American national and strategic interests. Yet the temptation to offer appeasing gestures of some substance may prove all too appealing to members of the Obama administration who would like to see foreign policy concerns recede to the back burner. After all they have an election to win in only slightly less than eighteen months, an election which will hinge far more on economic issues than foreign policy concerns.
Or, of course, Mr Obama might want to see if Boat Six can take a whack at Brother Leader.
Showing posts with label Responsibility to Protect. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Responsibility to Protect. Show all posts
Monday, May 9, 2011
Thursday, April 7, 2011
Form Up The Battalions!
The French are not only punching above their weight in the tough arena of coercive diplomacy, the go-out-and-get-them approach of President Nicholas Sarkozy has taken France from the doldrums of diplomatic irrelevance where it languished as recently as February to the position of calling the West's diplomatic tune. Not a bad record even for an inveterate gambler, addicted to high-risk, high-payoff ways of playing politics with enough personal energy to (if focused) replace the lost Japanese nuclear reactors.
Sarko currently has French forces deployed in six actual or nearly actual shooting wars--Ivory Coast, Libya, Afghanistan, Mali, Burkina Faso, and Somalia. As one French observer noted recently, in comparison George W. Bush was a blooming pacifist. While the French public has exhibited a fair degree of disenchantment with the Afghan operation, the other "overseas contingency operations" have not met with significant disapprobation.
More than a little ink--both physical and virtual--has been expended on the possible motives for the new French assertiveness. To many onlookers, the prime reason has been assigned to Sarkozy's political ambitions coupled with his low standing in the polls, strong opposition, and poor showing in recent municipal elections. While there is some measure of truth in this interpretation, it is doubtful it is the whole story.
Another input to the Sarko decision making process in recent weeks has been the embarrassment caused by France having botched policy during the "Jasmine" and "Lotus" revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt. Make no mistake about it, the French policy debacle was an embarrassment to Sarkozy, his party, and, most importantly, the French public. Simply sending an inept--or merely unfortunate--foreign minister to the scaffold was not enough to repair the damage to both reputation and influence.
Another input may well have been a strong desire on the part of Sarkozy to step out from the shadow cast by Germany and its chancellor in the Eurozone. Germany and France have not been good yokemates, to say the least, with respect to the economic challenges which have beset the EU the past several months. But, foreign policy gave France--and Sarkozy personally--the chance to shine, shine much brighter than the timid Germans with their fear of all things military and love of all things financial.
Not to be dismissed without consideration is the gentlemanly pushing and shoving between Sarkozy and David Cameron regarding leadership in the newly emerging military relationship. A robust policy backed by military force gave the French a leg up by demonstrating just which country had the real muscle now.
Nor is it possible to overlook the role played by the US. Or, somewhat more accurately, the failure of the US to act in its traditional Great Power role. Whether this deficiency was attributed to the cover story of American overextension and budgetary limitations or the weak kneed nature of the American president, the vacuum existed at the top. And, Sarkozy well understands that international politics like nature abhors a vacuum.
Then, of course, one might take Sarkozy at his word. France does have a set of norms, values, and customs by which right is parsed from wrong. Acting quickly and robustly to protect unarmed civilians from mortal harm at the hands of a regime which had announced its intentions to inflict bloody repression was in complete tandem with French norms and values. Bombing tanks in Libya or mortar positions in Ivory Coast were exercises meeting the highest tests of French morality regarding governmental conduct.
M. Sarkozy's motives were, as psychiatrists would put it, "overdetermined." They were the expectable mix of the cynical and the principled, the transient and the eternal, the personal and the disinterested. The issues which matter most are not those of motivation or intent but rather those of outcome and precedent.
Both Libya and the Ivory Coast constitute situations in which the outcome is not clear. Should, as seems quite likely at the present, the war in Libya bog down into a protracted stalemate with a de facto partition of the place, the cheers which met Sarko's actions initially are highly likely to turn into jeers of disillusionment. In the Ivory Coast should it prove out that the supporters of the internationally recognized incoming president, Ouattara, have been responsible for atrocities on a large scale (again as currently appears to have been the case) the applause within France will be replaced by shrugs of disengagement and sneers of disapproval.
In either case the presumption of failed overreach will go a long way to assuring that M. Sarkozy is a one term president. High-risk, high-payoff gambles are like that. And, as Clausewitz pointedly noted, "no plan survives first contact with the enemy".
Win, lose, or draw, the precipitous action of the French government has gone a far piece toward reinforcing the notion of R2P as an overarching responsibility of civilized states. Arguably, R2P, as the Russians and Chinese have maintained, constitutes an unwarranted increase of UN authority. It is ironic, but France's exercise in sovereign decision making particularly as regards two former colonial possessions and particularly the Ivory Coast intervention, transforms R2P into just what its opponents claim it to be--colonialism under a different and nicer term.
The reality is that most of the world's governments and publics accept the nation-state as the basic unit of global political organization. This runs against the world view of the Western elites which hold the nation-state to be a relic of the past--and a very dangerous one at that. The Western elites have embraced the supra-national organization with a lust which boggles the imagination. The underlying proposition in the mind of the collective Western elite is that the planet is too small and common problems too large to allow nation-states the unfettered sovereignty which they have enjoyed for the past five hundred years. The size and scope of problems coupled with the lethality of contemporary technologies of war fighting and the power of ideological conviction demand that power reside with international organizations alone.
The historical record of the past half century is littered with examples of governments run amok, of mounds of bodies piled up at the command of governments or non-state actors both fueled by racial, religious, or ideological hatreds. The ability with which governments can and have killed their own people, generated refugees in the millions, inflicted fear along with physical casualties and destruction has been demonstrated with nausea producing regularity.
It is small wonder that the R2P doctrine was formulated and formally approved by an overwhelming majority of the UN membership. It is equally of no surprise that the precursors of R2P all the way back to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights were similarly passed by universal acclamation. In the waves of disgust and enthusiasm for having created a "better way" on paper, the assembled diplomats lost sight of what might occur when some country and some future time took the strictures seriously and demanded effective enforcement.
The inevitable result of such a demand would be the bringing into sharp conflict of the basic principle of sovereignty and the ideal of international duty. The always realistic men in the Kremlin and Forbidden City have always held a firm line against the international community intervening in the internal affairs of a sovereign state. Both have always relied upon their Security Council veto to protect against excesses of Western enthusiasm for intervention of this sort.
For reasons of short-term diplomatic interest both abstained on the Libyan no-fly/civilian protection resolution. Both are probably regretting having done so as by not going the "No!" route, they have allowed for a crack of precedent to be formed. How quickly the crack could be widened was seen by the UN peace keeping force in the Ivory Coast ordering four Ukrainian gunships into action against forces loyal to outgoing president Gbagbo. This attack constituted a significant change in UN peacekeeping operational practice.
The French have pushed a precedent which seems good at the present moment but is fraught with problems for the future. Chief among these are where will the line be drawn At what level of international nausea will the civilized states or one of them seek R2P authorization? What will happen if and when the Security Council does not give its blessings? Or can the UN be bypassed, with reliance upon one regional organization or another acting in its place? What happens if the UN says, "yes," but the regional entity decrees "no?"
There are other problems as well. Some have been outlined in Libya. Who is responsible for executing any specific R2P operation? What about the internal mechanisms of any state for approving such expeditions? This is particularly relevant with regard to the US while totally lacking relevance for the French whose president has royal level prerogative to employ armed force for reasons of state.
Nicholas Sarkozy has well and truly kicked the fire ant hill when it comes to looking ahead. Without any intention to do so, he has created a precedent with more problems than solutions, more difficulties for tomorrow than certainties. It may even prove that more civilians in the future will die at the hands of their governments than otherwise would have been the case as an unintended consequence of M. Sarkozy's motives and consequent action.
Who ever said that irony is not a major feature of history?
Sarko currently has French forces deployed in six actual or nearly actual shooting wars--Ivory Coast, Libya, Afghanistan, Mali, Burkina Faso, and Somalia. As one French observer noted recently, in comparison George W. Bush was a blooming pacifist. While the French public has exhibited a fair degree of disenchantment with the Afghan operation, the other "overseas contingency operations" have not met with significant disapprobation.
More than a little ink--both physical and virtual--has been expended on the possible motives for the new French assertiveness. To many onlookers, the prime reason has been assigned to Sarkozy's political ambitions coupled with his low standing in the polls, strong opposition, and poor showing in recent municipal elections. While there is some measure of truth in this interpretation, it is doubtful it is the whole story.
Another input to the Sarko decision making process in recent weeks has been the embarrassment caused by France having botched policy during the "Jasmine" and "Lotus" revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt. Make no mistake about it, the French policy debacle was an embarrassment to Sarkozy, his party, and, most importantly, the French public. Simply sending an inept--or merely unfortunate--foreign minister to the scaffold was not enough to repair the damage to both reputation and influence.
Another input may well have been a strong desire on the part of Sarkozy to step out from the shadow cast by Germany and its chancellor in the Eurozone. Germany and France have not been good yokemates, to say the least, with respect to the economic challenges which have beset the EU the past several months. But, foreign policy gave France--and Sarkozy personally--the chance to shine, shine much brighter than the timid Germans with their fear of all things military and love of all things financial.
Not to be dismissed without consideration is the gentlemanly pushing and shoving between Sarkozy and David Cameron regarding leadership in the newly emerging military relationship. A robust policy backed by military force gave the French a leg up by demonstrating just which country had the real muscle now.
Nor is it possible to overlook the role played by the US. Or, somewhat more accurately, the failure of the US to act in its traditional Great Power role. Whether this deficiency was attributed to the cover story of American overextension and budgetary limitations or the weak kneed nature of the American president, the vacuum existed at the top. And, Sarkozy well understands that international politics like nature abhors a vacuum.
Then, of course, one might take Sarkozy at his word. France does have a set of norms, values, and customs by which right is parsed from wrong. Acting quickly and robustly to protect unarmed civilians from mortal harm at the hands of a regime which had announced its intentions to inflict bloody repression was in complete tandem with French norms and values. Bombing tanks in Libya or mortar positions in Ivory Coast were exercises meeting the highest tests of French morality regarding governmental conduct.
M. Sarkozy's motives were, as psychiatrists would put it, "overdetermined." They were the expectable mix of the cynical and the principled, the transient and the eternal, the personal and the disinterested. The issues which matter most are not those of motivation or intent but rather those of outcome and precedent.
Both Libya and the Ivory Coast constitute situations in which the outcome is not clear. Should, as seems quite likely at the present, the war in Libya bog down into a protracted stalemate with a de facto partition of the place, the cheers which met Sarko's actions initially are highly likely to turn into jeers of disillusionment. In the Ivory Coast should it prove out that the supporters of the internationally recognized incoming president, Ouattara, have been responsible for atrocities on a large scale (again as currently appears to have been the case) the applause within France will be replaced by shrugs of disengagement and sneers of disapproval.
In either case the presumption of failed overreach will go a long way to assuring that M. Sarkozy is a one term president. High-risk, high-payoff gambles are like that. And, as Clausewitz pointedly noted, "no plan survives first contact with the enemy".
Win, lose, or draw, the precipitous action of the French government has gone a far piece toward reinforcing the notion of R2P as an overarching responsibility of civilized states. Arguably, R2P, as the Russians and Chinese have maintained, constitutes an unwarranted increase of UN authority. It is ironic, but France's exercise in sovereign decision making particularly as regards two former colonial possessions and particularly the Ivory Coast intervention, transforms R2P into just what its opponents claim it to be--colonialism under a different and nicer term.
The reality is that most of the world's governments and publics accept the nation-state as the basic unit of global political organization. This runs against the world view of the Western elites which hold the nation-state to be a relic of the past--and a very dangerous one at that. The Western elites have embraced the supra-national organization with a lust which boggles the imagination. The underlying proposition in the mind of the collective Western elite is that the planet is too small and common problems too large to allow nation-states the unfettered sovereignty which they have enjoyed for the past five hundred years. The size and scope of problems coupled with the lethality of contemporary technologies of war fighting and the power of ideological conviction demand that power reside with international organizations alone.
The historical record of the past half century is littered with examples of governments run amok, of mounds of bodies piled up at the command of governments or non-state actors both fueled by racial, religious, or ideological hatreds. The ability with which governments can and have killed their own people, generated refugees in the millions, inflicted fear along with physical casualties and destruction has been demonstrated with nausea producing regularity.
It is small wonder that the R2P doctrine was formulated and formally approved by an overwhelming majority of the UN membership. It is equally of no surprise that the precursors of R2P all the way back to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights were similarly passed by universal acclamation. In the waves of disgust and enthusiasm for having created a "better way" on paper, the assembled diplomats lost sight of what might occur when some country and some future time took the strictures seriously and demanded effective enforcement.
The inevitable result of such a demand would be the bringing into sharp conflict of the basic principle of sovereignty and the ideal of international duty. The always realistic men in the Kremlin and Forbidden City have always held a firm line against the international community intervening in the internal affairs of a sovereign state. Both have always relied upon their Security Council veto to protect against excesses of Western enthusiasm for intervention of this sort.
For reasons of short-term diplomatic interest both abstained on the Libyan no-fly/civilian protection resolution. Both are probably regretting having done so as by not going the "No!" route, they have allowed for a crack of precedent to be formed. How quickly the crack could be widened was seen by the UN peace keeping force in the Ivory Coast ordering four Ukrainian gunships into action against forces loyal to outgoing president Gbagbo. This attack constituted a significant change in UN peacekeeping operational practice.
The French have pushed a precedent which seems good at the present moment but is fraught with problems for the future. Chief among these are where will the line be drawn At what level of international nausea will the civilized states or one of them seek R2P authorization? What will happen if and when the Security Council does not give its blessings? Or can the UN be bypassed, with reliance upon one regional organization or another acting in its place? What happens if the UN says, "yes," but the regional entity decrees "no?"
There are other problems as well. Some have been outlined in Libya. Who is responsible for executing any specific R2P operation? What about the internal mechanisms of any state for approving such expeditions? This is particularly relevant with regard to the US while totally lacking relevance for the French whose president has royal level prerogative to employ armed force for reasons of state.
Nicholas Sarkozy has well and truly kicked the fire ant hill when it comes to looking ahead. Without any intention to do so, he has created a precedent with more problems than solutions, more difficulties for tomorrow than certainties. It may even prove that more civilians in the future will die at the hands of their governments than otherwise would have been the case as an unintended consequence of M. Sarkozy's motives and consequent action.
Who ever said that irony is not a major feature of history?
Saturday, March 26, 2011
The Irony Of R2P And The Ivory Coast
You all remember Rwanda, don't you? It did make the news back about the time Whitewater was the lead story. The butchery in Rwanda, the killing of Hutus by Tutsis and Tutsis by Hutus put enough bodies in local streams to cause impromptu dams and flooding. The imagery was shockingly brutal enough--even in the pre-YouTube days of network censorship--to cause waves of revulsion throughout the US, Europe, and elsewhere.
There were mouthfuls of "deplore" and "unacceptable." There were repeated calls for "restraint" and "moderation." World leader after world leader denounced the ongoing slaughter. But, no state did anything to impose a moratorium on mass murder. The "international community" assembled on the banks of the Hudson was long on words and very, very short on deeds.
It was only a decade or so later that the "international community" and its great organization, the UN, did something other than talk. Boosted by "concern" and even "alarm" over religiously motivated industrial strength killing in Bosnia, the member states of the UN finally did something in response to Rwanda. The 192 members unanimously approved an "outcome document" which enshrined the Responsibility to Protect (R2P.)
The diplomats assembled in the General Assembly executed the will of their respective governments and declared that when a government failed to protect its citizens from genocide or war crimes or crimes against humanity or ethnic cleansing, then the "international community" had the responsibility to extend protection to those in danger and need. It was a feel-good move. Some of the governments, particularly the legatees of the long Western movement by fits and starts to lessen the damage of war and enhance the rights of citizens against arbitrary government, might actually have intended that R2P would have real effect in the real world of real evil deeds.
Other states, no doubt, had no intent of ever honoring any obligation under the R2P formulation. None would oppose it openly as such would be even more politically incorrect and liable to bring international disapproval than being against clean air and drinkable water. International disapprobation brings with it a loss of influence and no state wishes that for itself. So every country marched along with a light heart and a merry tune on its lips into a brave, bright future of greater safety for all.
Even the many governments which were authoritarian on a good day and brutally suppressive most of the time joined up. Libya linked arms with Norway, Syria with Sweden, Iran with Denmark; Russia wrapped its arms around Canada while China did the same with the US. It was such a sweet moment! There was Zimbabwe; there was Sudan; there was the Ivory Coast. All singing the R2P jive.
The R2P outcome document was long, almost infinitely long, on high minded and lofty sentiments. It was short to the point of nonexistence on those pesky details such as what would trigger R2P or who would make the trigger decision or who would actually do the dirty work of protecting some group somewhere against some dire threat. There were no mechanisms, no procedures, no substance which would serve to speedily and uniformly transform the fine sounding words of R2P to the dirty realities of imposing its requirements on a recalcitrant (or nonexistent) government.
All except the most starry-eyed and vapid minded of folks knew that the realities of international politics assured that R2P would have the impact of an ant's fart on a hurricane. True, but with an important, indeed critical caveat, unless one or more major powers determined that national or strategic interest demanded the application of R2P in a particular venue--and worked with determination and purpose to gain sufficient support from states having coinciding national or strategic interests.
This is why the bombs have been falling in Libya and not Yemen or Bahrain. Consistency is nice but not either necessary nor sufficient in the formulation and execution of foreign policy.
For reasons endemic to the domestic political cultures of both France and the UK, Libya loomed large. Facilitating the task of gaining sufficient consensus internationally was Colonel Gaddafi's record of global mischief making and domestic suppression.
The US could have sat out this particular dance. The Americans had no direct dog in the fight even if there existed a longer term threat of a resurgent Gaddafi reverting to his pre-2003 type should he prevail domestically. But, the Obama administration had taken lumps almost beyond count for its lack of a firm stance during the "Jasmine" and "Lotus" revolutions. And, it should never be forgotten there were three potent members of the senior level personnel who had either been badly traumatized by Rwanda (Powers and Rice) or were abundantly proud of the American led intervention in Bosnia (Clinton).
Now comes the irony.
Of all the countries around the world currently undergoing internal political convulsions, there is one in which the impact of governmental sins of both omission and, more importantly, commission merit the immediate invocation of R2P. That country is not Bahrain, despite the contentions of those who abhor inconsistency. Nor is it Yemen even though that country has seen a respectable body count. It is not even Syria, authoritarian as that country might be. It is not even Libya even though the fighting is in full swing under the kindly eyes of US and other country's pilots.
The country is the Ivory Coast.
By all the metrics and standards customarily employed to measure such things, the Ivory Coast is in the throes of internal war in which one of the contestants is the internationally condemned incumbent president, Laurent Gbagbo, and the other is the internationally recognized winner of the presidential election, Alassane Outtara. Each claimant to the throne is backed by armed supporters, but Gbagbo has the army as well as less formal militias in his corner.
The weeks and months since the election have seen an escalation in violence which has taken a very obvious ramp up in the past few days. There are, according to the UN, which has the typically ineffectual "peace keeping" force in country, currently as many as one million internally displaced persons, most of whom are fleeing the murder squads in Abidjan.
Fears of an increased body count have grown since Gbagbo now has one--that's right, one--attack helicopter at his disposal as well as some brand new multiple rocket launchers. These fears have not resulted in any significant action by the UN or the "international community" or even the African Union. There have been no economic sanctions imposed on Gbagbo or his intimates. Nor have there been any travel bans. None of the instant moves employed against Gaddafi in the earliest days of the popular uprising.
The UN Human Rights Counsel has taken time out from condemning Israel so that it might send a commission of inquiry to the Ivory Coast. Apparently this bastion of concern over the wellbeing of all people everywhere cannot rely on media reports and must ascertain for itself as to whether or not there have been human rights abuses committed by Gbagbo and his forces. In the same resolution, the Watchdog of Humanity called upon the state radio in Ivory Coast to "refrain" from inciting violence.
Wow! That must have them shaking in their boots all around the presidential palace. The boys had best be careful with their knee knocking, they might drop one of those dread rockets and hurt themselves.
The US has taken a firm, even hard, line on the Ivory Coast Question. In a video message to the folks down there Ivory Coast way, President Obama has termed the election "fair and free" and has said that he recognizes Outtara as the real deal president. He called for Gbagbo to hand over the keys to the presidential latrine.
Well, if that doesn't get Gbagbo's attention what good would sanctions or travel bans or no-fly zones do? Right now it is impossible to say how many people have died since the 28 November 10 election. But, given the impressive number who were killed in the crossfire during the last round of internal war as well as the more conservative reports out of Africa, the number must equal at the least the eight thousand or so killed in Libya prior to the establishment of the no-fly and no-go zones.
Considering that Susan Rice was reportedly shaken to her very core when she went to Rwanda shortly after the machetes stopped swinging and Samantha Powers has made her bones as an academic by studying genocide, it is of some interest that the US is seemingly indifferent to the looming massacres in the Ivory Coast. Even if Ms Rice and Ms Powers are loath to see white American wings over a Black African country, they should be plumping for the symbolic sanctions and travel bans. Admittedly, the Ivory Coast is a prime source of high quality chocolate and Americans are fond of eating this particular comestible, but even our collective sweet tooth should not be allowed to prevent action intended to halt killings.
By the appearance of indifference to African deaths at the hands of Africans, the US and Europe run the real risk of being accused once more of racism. This happened, you might recall, during the Nineties with the contrast between Rwanda and Bosnia. The French alone have taken some sort of lead at least in the UNHRC. Perhaps Sarkozy is sensitive to sentiments arising in Africa.
The Geek has written this post not because he favors an intervention in the Ivory Coast. He does not. Rather the purpose of this exercise has been to demonstrate not simply the intellectual bankruptcy of the Obama administrations approach to foreign affairs but, more importantly, the failure, an inevitable and built in failure of the R2P and similar lofty minded moves by the "international community."
When night falls, like it or not, foreign policy is directed, even dictated, by a combination of domestic political imperatives and national interest, not abstract principle. The only form of hypocrisy which matters is that of pretending otherwise.
There were mouthfuls of "deplore" and "unacceptable." There were repeated calls for "restraint" and "moderation." World leader after world leader denounced the ongoing slaughter. But, no state did anything to impose a moratorium on mass murder. The "international community" assembled on the banks of the Hudson was long on words and very, very short on deeds.
It was only a decade or so later that the "international community" and its great organization, the UN, did something other than talk. Boosted by "concern" and even "alarm" over religiously motivated industrial strength killing in Bosnia, the member states of the UN finally did something in response to Rwanda. The 192 members unanimously approved an "outcome document" which enshrined the Responsibility to Protect (R2P.)
The diplomats assembled in the General Assembly executed the will of their respective governments and declared that when a government failed to protect its citizens from genocide or war crimes or crimes against humanity or ethnic cleansing, then the "international community" had the responsibility to extend protection to those in danger and need. It was a feel-good move. Some of the governments, particularly the legatees of the long Western movement by fits and starts to lessen the damage of war and enhance the rights of citizens against arbitrary government, might actually have intended that R2P would have real effect in the real world of real evil deeds.
Other states, no doubt, had no intent of ever honoring any obligation under the R2P formulation. None would oppose it openly as such would be even more politically incorrect and liable to bring international disapproval than being against clean air and drinkable water. International disapprobation brings with it a loss of influence and no state wishes that for itself. So every country marched along with a light heart and a merry tune on its lips into a brave, bright future of greater safety for all.
Even the many governments which were authoritarian on a good day and brutally suppressive most of the time joined up. Libya linked arms with Norway, Syria with Sweden, Iran with Denmark; Russia wrapped its arms around Canada while China did the same with the US. It was such a sweet moment! There was Zimbabwe; there was Sudan; there was the Ivory Coast. All singing the R2P jive.
The R2P outcome document was long, almost infinitely long, on high minded and lofty sentiments. It was short to the point of nonexistence on those pesky details such as what would trigger R2P or who would make the trigger decision or who would actually do the dirty work of protecting some group somewhere against some dire threat. There were no mechanisms, no procedures, no substance which would serve to speedily and uniformly transform the fine sounding words of R2P to the dirty realities of imposing its requirements on a recalcitrant (or nonexistent) government.
All except the most starry-eyed and vapid minded of folks knew that the realities of international politics assured that R2P would have the impact of an ant's fart on a hurricane. True, but with an important, indeed critical caveat, unless one or more major powers determined that national or strategic interest demanded the application of R2P in a particular venue--and worked with determination and purpose to gain sufficient support from states having coinciding national or strategic interests.
This is why the bombs have been falling in Libya and not Yemen or Bahrain. Consistency is nice but not either necessary nor sufficient in the formulation and execution of foreign policy.
For reasons endemic to the domestic political cultures of both France and the UK, Libya loomed large. Facilitating the task of gaining sufficient consensus internationally was Colonel Gaddafi's record of global mischief making and domestic suppression.
The US could have sat out this particular dance. The Americans had no direct dog in the fight even if there existed a longer term threat of a resurgent Gaddafi reverting to his pre-2003 type should he prevail domestically. But, the Obama administration had taken lumps almost beyond count for its lack of a firm stance during the "Jasmine" and "Lotus" revolutions. And, it should never be forgotten there were three potent members of the senior level personnel who had either been badly traumatized by Rwanda (Powers and Rice) or were abundantly proud of the American led intervention in Bosnia (Clinton).
Now comes the irony.
Of all the countries around the world currently undergoing internal political convulsions, there is one in which the impact of governmental sins of both omission and, more importantly, commission merit the immediate invocation of R2P. That country is not Bahrain, despite the contentions of those who abhor inconsistency. Nor is it Yemen even though that country has seen a respectable body count. It is not even Syria, authoritarian as that country might be. It is not even Libya even though the fighting is in full swing under the kindly eyes of US and other country's pilots.
The country is the Ivory Coast.
By all the metrics and standards customarily employed to measure such things, the Ivory Coast is in the throes of internal war in which one of the contestants is the internationally condemned incumbent president, Laurent Gbagbo, and the other is the internationally recognized winner of the presidential election, Alassane Outtara. Each claimant to the throne is backed by armed supporters, but Gbagbo has the army as well as less formal militias in his corner.
The weeks and months since the election have seen an escalation in violence which has taken a very obvious ramp up in the past few days. There are, according to the UN, which has the typically ineffectual "peace keeping" force in country, currently as many as one million internally displaced persons, most of whom are fleeing the murder squads in Abidjan.
Fears of an increased body count have grown since Gbagbo now has one--that's right, one--attack helicopter at his disposal as well as some brand new multiple rocket launchers. These fears have not resulted in any significant action by the UN or the "international community" or even the African Union. There have been no economic sanctions imposed on Gbagbo or his intimates. Nor have there been any travel bans. None of the instant moves employed against Gaddafi in the earliest days of the popular uprising.
The UN Human Rights Counsel has taken time out from condemning Israel so that it might send a commission of inquiry to the Ivory Coast. Apparently this bastion of concern over the wellbeing of all people everywhere cannot rely on media reports and must ascertain for itself as to whether or not there have been human rights abuses committed by Gbagbo and his forces. In the same resolution, the Watchdog of Humanity called upon the state radio in Ivory Coast to "refrain" from inciting violence.
Wow! That must have them shaking in their boots all around the presidential palace. The boys had best be careful with their knee knocking, they might drop one of those dread rockets and hurt themselves.
The US has taken a firm, even hard, line on the Ivory Coast Question. In a video message to the folks down there Ivory Coast way, President Obama has termed the election "fair and free" and has said that he recognizes Outtara as the real deal president. He called for Gbagbo to hand over the keys to the presidential latrine.
Well, if that doesn't get Gbagbo's attention what good would sanctions or travel bans or no-fly zones do? Right now it is impossible to say how many people have died since the 28 November 10 election. But, given the impressive number who were killed in the crossfire during the last round of internal war as well as the more conservative reports out of Africa, the number must equal at the least the eight thousand or so killed in Libya prior to the establishment of the no-fly and no-go zones.
Considering that Susan Rice was reportedly shaken to her very core when she went to Rwanda shortly after the machetes stopped swinging and Samantha Powers has made her bones as an academic by studying genocide, it is of some interest that the US is seemingly indifferent to the looming massacres in the Ivory Coast. Even if Ms Rice and Ms Powers are loath to see white American wings over a Black African country, they should be plumping for the symbolic sanctions and travel bans. Admittedly, the Ivory Coast is a prime source of high quality chocolate and Americans are fond of eating this particular comestible, but even our collective sweet tooth should not be allowed to prevent action intended to halt killings.
By the appearance of indifference to African deaths at the hands of Africans, the US and Europe run the real risk of being accused once more of racism. This happened, you might recall, during the Nineties with the contrast between Rwanda and Bosnia. The French alone have taken some sort of lead at least in the UNHRC. Perhaps Sarkozy is sensitive to sentiments arising in Africa.
The Geek has written this post not because he favors an intervention in the Ivory Coast. He does not. Rather the purpose of this exercise has been to demonstrate not simply the intellectual bankruptcy of the Obama administrations approach to foreign affairs but, more importantly, the failure, an inevitable and built in failure of the R2P and similar lofty minded moves by the "international community."
When night falls, like it or not, foreign policy is directed, even dictated, by a combination of domestic political imperatives and national interest, not abstract principle. The only form of hypocrisy which matters is that of pretending otherwise.
Friday, March 25, 2011
Idiocy Epitomized: Libya And R2P--And Why It Is A Western Artifact
The ultimate justification for the current inchoate effort by France, the UK, and others including the less than eager US is The Responsibility to Protect (R2P) which doctrine derives from a 2005 outcome document concerning the massacres in Rwanda and Bosnia which was adopted unanimously by the UN General Assembly. This action can be seen best as a collective catharsis of collective guilt by an "international community" awestruck by what it had "allowed" to occur.
The heart of R2P is the notion that should a state fail to protect its citizens from "genocide, ethnic cleansing, war crimes, or crimes against humanity," the international community has the obligation to undertake the protective task. The doctrine as adopted by the UN is an outgrowth of the earlier concept holding that the UN could call upon member states to intervene should internal political disruption produce a potentially destabilizing refugee stream. Both artifacts of the General Assembly fall far outside the mandate of the UN as conceived.
(It is worth noting in this context, the framework of R2P, that the three people in the senior ranks of the Obama administration who pushed hardest for the Libyan intervention are connected in one way or another with both the doctrine and the two slaughter ridden venues from which it emerged. Former Harvard professor and current National Security Council heavyweight Samantha Power is a specialist in genocide, our Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice has long been an advocate of robust intervention to prevent any repetition of Rwanda, and SecState Hilary Clinton has been proud of her presidential husband's brave move in mounting out the air and later ground intervention in Bosnia.)
The foundation of both R2P and its precursor can be found in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and companion international agreements or conventions including those falling under the general term "Geneva Convention." Despite the grandiose title of the Human Rights document and regardless of the expansive goals of the others, the Geneva Convention and all the rest, are not consensus documents representing any global set of norms and values. They are creations of the West, of Europe and the US along with other, Western leaning societies and cultures such as those of South and Central America.
The adoption of the several conventions and declarations by all members of the UN in no way obviates the basic reality that the ideas, the norms and values to which official assent has been given, are Made in the West and are the unique outcome of Western history. This ground truth can be inferred from the assorted reservations which have garlanded the official acceptances on file. Many of these reservations, such as those entered by various Muslim majority states, demonstrate a rejection of Western norms, values, and ideas regarding both "universal" rights and limitations on acceptable means of waging war.
Don't get your knickers in a knot over the use of the word "Muslim" in the preceding paragraph. The uniquely Western nature of the norms and values embodied in the referenced documents owes little to religion per se. Back down, Christians or Jews, this is not a slam on the ideals contained in your sacred writings. The core of all religions is universally in favor of peace, love, flower power, and urge the eschewing of war other than those of the "just" kind. Of course there have been wars fought over the meaning of the word "just."
The Western origin of the norms, values, and ideals embodied in the referenced conventions emerge not from religion and sacred sentiments but rather from a more base emotion: disgust. Over the centuries Europeans fought wars of a uniquely bloody nature. They also fought wars with nauseating regularity. And, Europeans, particularly the English and, later, the Americans, fought wars with a single minded absolutism which came to the highest fruition with the hectatomb of World War II.
From the Thirty Years War to the wars of the French Revolution and Napoleon to World Wars I and II, the Western Way of War provided object lesson after object lesson in the need to somehow regulate and modulate war so as to ensure the lowest cost of lives, particularly the lives of non-combatants, and the least possible damage to non-military targets. As a result there was a development of norms which were far more often honored in the breech than in the observance.
The attempts to regulate both war and governmental treatment of civilian populations which proved most likely to fail were those predicated upon religious strictures. The Catholic Church made numerous moves to limit and control war. All failed. Far more efficacious were limitations on war were those based on national self-interest. The long centuries of very limited (and quite inconclusive) war which spanned the period between the Thirty Years War and the conflicts of Napoleon were the result of self-interest pricked by the recognition that unlimited, absolute war was as destructive of the victor as the vanquished.
In a companion way the limits that governments increasingly imposed upon themselves in the suppression of internal unrest or mere interpersonal violence were the consequence of a growing recognition that social and political good order and stability required polite and restrained behavior. The code of the gentleman which emerged in England and was copied faithfully in the US was the result of this recognition. The growth in fits and starts of representative and increasingly democratic government was likewise the consequence of a blossoming realization that inclusion was far more beneficial than suppression.
After the suppression of the Paris Commune and the ending of the American War Between the States, the internal good order was more and more facilitated by a concern on the part of the government for the rights, dignities, and status of the civilian population. During the same period the first stumbling efforts to codify the off and on practices of limiting inter-state conflict were made as well.
But it took the massive, unprecedented industrialized mass murder of the two World Wars to prod the West, or at least those states in the West left standing when the Second World War ended, to make a concerted effort to impose their collective internal and international values, norms, and ideals in a set of international conventions. It is from this soil of blood and guts that the plant of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as well as the expanded Geneva Convention grew. The UDHR was adopted quickly with the formal inauguration of the UN. The conventions, like the UN itself, were the product of Western experiences over centuries and the expression of norms, values, and ideals were forged in the fires of war.
This, then, is the background of the current idiocy in Libya.
The question which must be addressed is simply this: How relevant is this Made in the West artifact to the situation in Libya (and Syria, Yemen, Bahrain, or others yet to be born?)
In plain point of fact R2P is a doctrine to be applied on an ad hoc basis only. This means that there is no end to the implied hypocrisy of any specific application. Is it not hypocritical to bomb one's way to peace, stability, and civilian safety in Libya but not the Ivory Coast? Or, Yemen? Or, should the body count cross some mythical line yet to be determined. Bahrain? Syria?
Then there is the necessary corollary of hypocrisy--base opportunism. The existence of R2P allows cover for opportunism, for the disguised pursuit of national interest. It is this rather than any legitimate apprehension of feeling the military wrath of the "international community" which propels the solid opposition of Russia and China to any UN interference in the internal affairs of a state. Other countries, such as India, which have had experience with internal unrest and a concomitant bloodstained suppression, may view R2P and its precursor with a jaundiced eye.
The experiences of intervention under one name or guise or another also predisposes African and Latin American states against R2P and its companions. The pervasive fear of intervention which can be seen throughout Africa, Latin America, Asia, and the Mideast is totally legitimate, every bit as legitimate and history based as the Western expression of "universal" norms and values. The two are fundamentally antipodal and will remain that way into the future as far as one can see.
The uncertainties regarding the relevance of R2P as well as the potential narratives of "hypocrisy" and "opportunism" are in play with respect to the divisions which have become so evident in Europe. The sharp distinctions between the Western created conventions and the culturally and historically determined "reservations" put in place by Arab and Muslim states have become every bit as high profile. It is, for example, not naivete but a difference in perceptions of norms and values which provoked the expressions of shock and dismay from the Arab League over the reality that imposition of a no-fly zone required that bombs be dropped and missiles fired.
In short, the Libyan Affair has again demonstrated a long standing historical truism. The best guide to foreign relations is self-determined national and strategic interest. While principles can and have played a constructive role in determining both national interest and foreign policy, basing a war (for that is what it is, regardless of euphemism) on the "universal" principles embodied in R2P and its foundation conventions is not wise. Nor is it likely to be productive in the longer term regardless of the specifics occurring in the shorter run.
In sum, President Obama was misguided in the extreme when he succumbed to the importuning and arguments of three special pleaders, Powers, Rice, and Clinton. Grabbing the coattails of Sarkozy and his personal view of R2P was not a mistake: it was, as Talleyrand famously put it, "a blunder."
The heart of R2P is the notion that should a state fail to protect its citizens from "genocide, ethnic cleansing, war crimes, or crimes against humanity," the international community has the obligation to undertake the protective task. The doctrine as adopted by the UN is an outgrowth of the earlier concept holding that the UN could call upon member states to intervene should internal political disruption produce a potentially destabilizing refugee stream. Both artifacts of the General Assembly fall far outside the mandate of the UN as conceived.
(It is worth noting in this context, the framework of R2P, that the three people in the senior ranks of the Obama administration who pushed hardest for the Libyan intervention are connected in one way or another with both the doctrine and the two slaughter ridden venues from which it emerged. Former Harvard professor and current National Security Council heavyweight Samantha Power is a specialist in genocide, our Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice has long been an advocate of robust intervention to prevent any repetition of Rwanda, and SecState Hilary Clinton has been proud of her presidential husband's brave move in mounting out the air and later ground intervention in Bosnia.)
The foundation of both R2P and its precursor can be found in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and companion international agreements or conventions including those falling under the general term "Geneva Convention." Despite the grandiose title of the Human Rights document and regardless of the expansive goals of the others, the Geneva Convention and all the rest, are not consensus documents representing any global set of norms and values. They are creations of the West, of Europe and the US along with other, Western leaning societies and cultures such as those of South and Central America.
The adoption of the several conventions and declarations by all members of the UN in no way obviates the basic reality that the ideas, the norms and values to which official assent has been given, are Made in the West and are the unique outcome of Western history. This ground truth can be inferred from the assorted reservations which have garlanded the official acceptances on file. Many of these reservations, such as those entered by various Muslim majority states, demonstrate a rejection of Western norms, values, and ideas regarding both "universal" rights and limitations on acceptable means of waging war.
Don't get your knickers in a knot over the use of the word "Muslim" in the preceding paragraph. The uniquely Western nature of the norms and values embodied in the referenced documents owes little to religion per se. Back down, Christians or Jews, this is not a slam on the ideals contained in your sacred writings. The core of all religions is universally in favor of peace, love, flower power, and urge the eschewing of war other than those of the "just" kind. Of course there have been wars fought over the meaning of the word "just."
The Western origin of the norms, values, and ideals embodied in the referenced conventions emerge not from religion and sacred sentiments but rather from a more base emotion: disgust. Over the centuries Europeans fought wars of a uniquely bloody nature. They also fought wars with nauseating regularity. And, Europeans, particularly the English and, later, the Americans, fought wars with a single minded absolutism which came to the highest fruition with the hectatomb of World War II.
From the Thirty Years War to the wars of the French Revolution and Napoleon to World Wars I and II, the Western Way of War provided object lesson after object lesson in the need to somehow regulate and modulate war so as to ensure the lowest cost of lives, particularly the lives of non-combatants, and the least possible damage to non-military targets. As a result there was a development of norms which were far more often honored in the breech than in the observance.
The attempts to regulate both war and governmental treatment of civilian populations which proved most likely to fail were those predicated upon religious strictures. The Catholic Church made numerous moves to limit and control war. All failed. Far more efficacious were limitations on war were those based on national self-interest. The long centuries of very limited (and quite inconclusive) war which spanned the period between the Thirty Years War and the conflicts of Napoleon were the result of self-interest pricked by the recognition that unlimited, absolute war was as destructive of the victor as the vanquished.
In a companion way the limits that governments increasingly imposed upon themselves in the suppression of internal unrest or mere interpersonal violence were the consequence of a growing recognition that social and political good order and stability required polite and restrained behavior. The code of the gentleman which emerged in England and was copied faithfully in the US was the result of this recognition. The growth in fits and starts of representative and increasingly democratic government was likewise the consequence of a blossoming realization that inclusion was far more beneficial than suppression.
After the suppression of the Paris Commune and the ending of the American War Between the States, the internal good order was more and more facilitated by a concern on the part of the government for the rights, dignities, and status of the civilian population. During the same period the first stumbling efforts to codify the off and on practices of limiting inter-state conflict were made as well.
But it took the massive, unprecedented industrialized mass murder of the two World Wars to prod the West, or at least those states in the West left standing when the Second World War ended, to make a concerted effort to impose their collective internal and international values, norms, and ideals in a set of international conventions. It is from this soil of blood and guts that the plant of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as well as the expanded Geneva Convention grew. The UDHR was adopted quickly with the formal inauguration of the UN. The conventions, like the UN itself, were the product of Western experiences over centuries and the expression of norms, values, and ideals were forged in the fires of war.
This, then, is the background of the current idiocy in Libya.
The question which must be addressed is simply this: How relevant is this Made in the West artifact to the situation in Libya (and Syria, Yemen, Bahrain, or others yet to be born?)
In plain point of fact R2P is a doctrine to be applied on an ad hoc basis only. This means that there is no end to the implied hypocrisy of any specific application. Is it not hypocritical to bomb one's way to peace, stability, and civilian safety in Libya but not the Ivory Coast? Or, Yemen? Or, should the body count cross some mythical line yet to be determined. Bahrain? Syria?
Then there is the necessary corollary of hypocrisy--base opportunism. The existence of R2P allows cover for opportunism, for the disguised pursuit of national interest. It is this rather than any legitimate apprehension of feeling the military wrath of the "international community" which propels the solid opposition of Russia and China to any UN interference in the internal affairs of a state. Other countries, such as India, which have had experience with internal unrest and a concomitant bloodstained suppression, may view R2P and its precursor with a jaundiced eye.
The experiences of intervention under one name or guise or another also predisposes African and Latin American states against R2P and its companions. The pervasive fear of intervention which can be seen throughout Africa, Latin America, Asia, and the Mideast is totally legitimate, every bit as legitimate and history based as the Western expression of "universal" norms and values. The two are fundamentally antipodal and will remain that way into the future as far as one can see.
The uncertainties regarding the relevance of R2P as well as the potential narratives of "hypocrisy" and "opportunism" are in play with respect to the divisions which have become so evident in Europe. The sharp distinctions between the Western created conventions and the culturally and historically determined "reservations" put in place by Arab and Muslim states have become every bit as high profile. It is, for example, not naivete but a difference in perceptions of norms and values which provoked the expressions of shock and dismay from the Arab League over the reality that imposition of a no-fly zone required that bombs be dropped and missiles fired.
In short, the Libyan Affair has again demonstrated a long standing historical truism. The best guide to foreign relations is self-determined national and strategic interest. While principles can and have played a constructive role in determining both national interest and foreign policy, basing a war (for that is what it is, regardless of euphemism) on the "universal" principles embodied in R2P and its foundation conventions is not wise. Nor is it likely to be productive in the longer term regardless of the specifics occurring in the shorter run.
In sum, President Obama was misguided in the extreme when he succumbed to the importuning and arguments of three special pleaders, Powers, Rice, and Clinton. Grabbing the coattails of Sarkozy and his personal view of R2P was not a mistake: it was, as Talleyrand famously put it, "a blunder."
Friday, July 24, 2009
R2P Or Not R2P
At one time the United Nations had a simple, straightforward major mission. Protect the international peace. That was the one issue focused upon by the architects of the UN during the bloody years of World War II as it had been on the part of Woodrow Wilson and other visionaries during an earlier hectatomb.
The prevention or, at worst, the punishment of aggressive war waged in the face of international disapproval was the centerpiece at the launching of the UN in San Francisco more than a half century ago. While there were other items on the UN's plate--including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights--these were seen as clearly secondary. They were conceived of as means of limiting the excuses used by nations to go to war.
That simple, unitary focus became increasingly fuzzy in the waning days of the Cold War particularly after President Jimmy Carter elevated the concept of "human rights" to the top priority of American foreign policy. While there is no doubt that President Carter was both sincere and somewhat pragmatically minded in his dedication to human rights, the Law of Unintended Consequences stood by ready to invoke itself.
The UN pushed its camel's nose into an entirely new area a few years ago when the congeries of diplomats meeting on the banks of the Hudson determined that a potential threat to international peace and stability was posed automatically when a government's policies or weakness resulted in refugee streams crossing international borders. The existence of a flow of refugees became de facto proof that some sort of international intervention was required not only to meet "humanitarian" needs but also to stave off any potential breach of the international peace.
This diplomatic artifice constructed a very steep slope paved with glare ice. It allowed, no, encouraged, the Security Council to determine when and if an internal matter had reached such a pitch of refugee generation (and high visibility flowing of blood and gore) that international intervention was required. If the five Permanent Members could agree on the necessity or desirability of invoking the presumed UN mandate to protect the citizens of the target county, the Boys in Blue Helmets could be deployed.
If and when (as was far from atypical) the Security Council could not agree on intervention, the fall back position was the invocation of a similar "responsibility to protect" (called in diplomatic and journalistic shorthand, "R2P") on the part of the UN or regional organisations. The European Union, the Organisation of American States, the African Union, even NATO, could determine that they had a "responsibility to protect" within their geographic bailiwicks.
Stripped to its essentials the "responsibility to protect" means that some external entity, a state, a regional organisation, the UN, determines on some basis or another that a country has reached such a sorry state of internal depravity and wretchedness that intervention is the necessary course of action. Since the intervention is not sought nor welcomed by the target country or its government, this means the incoming forces are armed and ready to use force to impose their will on the target.
In short, the "responsibility to protect" means making war.
Ironically, the UN, an entity created to keep the international peace, can invoke the "responsibility to protect" in order to wage war. Normally the use of the "R2P" is either by or at the behest of a Great Power against some country which is not a client of another Great Power.
Back in 2005 the "international community" visited the subject of "R2P" at some length. At the end of the visit some 150 world leaders endorsed the concept. Now, four years later, the UN General Assembly is back in the trenches of "R2P."
The NYT suggests that getting the member nations to agree on how and when to intervene so as to stop genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and ethnic cleansing should not "be much of a stretch." The mere fact that the weight of historical experience underscores the difficulty with agreeing on anything beyond muttering platitudes, the gaining of widespread agreement on the necessity of invading a country due to its internal difficulties is nearly impossible.
Not surprisingly the panjandrums of the UN bureaucracy are overwhelmingly in favor of an "R2P" protocol with real bite. The High Commissioner For Human Rights, Navi Pillay, has called for a "credible capacity for rapid responses." Madam Pillay, like UN SecGen Ban Ki-moon, referenced the massacres in Rwanda during which the world stood by and watched horrified as at least 800,000 were slaughtered.
There is an old cliche in jurisprudence, "Hard cases make bad law." In international politics there is (or should be) a similar saying, "Extreme examples make bad precedent."
To put it simply, there is no firebreak in mere numbers. Nor is there a bright and shining line contained in the swiftness of the slaughter. Once the precedent is enshrined there can be no meaningful distinctions between the fast mass murder of a Rwanda and the slow killing fields of a Zimbabwe or a Somalia. There can be no proper, policy related distinctions drawn between massive and bloody efforts at ethnic cleansing as in former Yugoslavia and the slow-motion ejection of Christians from Iraq.
Regardless of speed, efficiency, or numbers each is an example of abuse of human rights on a large scale. Each occurred because of either government action or government inaction. Each generated refugees. Each outraged (or should have) global sensibilities. Each was (or is) a candidate for "R2P."
The same may be said (and has been) regarding Chinese actions in Tibet or, more recently, in Xianjiang. The same may be said (and has been) regarding Israeli actions in the Gaza Strip and West Bank.
The same was said in (partial) justification of the American invasion of Iraq in 2003. Saddam Hussein's regime did engage in internal actions which resulted in massive death, dislocation, and refugee generation. Silent at the time Saddam's men used toxic gas against civilian Kurds, the US waved the bloody shirt of human rights violations nearly two decades later. ("Well," the administration might have said, "better late than never.")
The question of when--if ever--external actors have a "right" or a "responsibility" to intervene at bayonet point to "protect" civilian populations from harm at the hands of their own government or from non-governmental bodies not inhibited by the government is neither easy to parse nor simple to judge. This is the point behind the recent objections to "R2P" raised by General Assembly President Miguel d'Escoto and others including the renowned left-leaning American linguistic and general purpose critic, Noam Chomsky.
D'Escoto circulated a "Concept Note" in which he characterised the "R2P" idea as just one more form of neocolonialism. He has been joined in this position by Dr Chomsky who (correctly) pointed out that "R2P" has been used by Western advanced nations to impose their vision on countries in the non-Western world.
There is an uncomfortable degree of truth in these arguments, much as the Geek personally dislikes finding himself in agreement with d'Escoto, let alone Chomsky. The Great Powers have the influence, resources, and agendas necessary to support interventions under an appropriate color. The most appropriate cover in today's Era of Sensitivity is the protection of one or another of the numerous "lesser breeds without the law" (in Kipling's phrase.) "R2P" is in keeping with a long standing American tradition of couching armed interventions in lofty, humanitarian terms such as Wilson's famed idea of "teaching Mexicans to elect good men."
Another, less publicised danger of using "R2P" as a justification for military operations is the potential for frankly cynical abuse. Russia draped "R2P" over its tanks and jets during the incursion and occupation of disputed territory then under Georgian sovereignty. The Kremlin claimed with a straight face and in the most solemn terms that their army was simply protecting the human rights of the locals faced with genocide at the hands of the aggressive Georgian government.
The Chinese have made similar statements regarding their suppression of demonstrations in Tibet and Xianjiang. The army and police were simply protecting the human rights of the Han Chinese from abuse at the hands of ethnic minorities.
And, so it has gone. As it will continue to go. "Human rights" and the closely linked "R2P" will be exploited by governments to cover naked land grabs and regime maintenance actions.
At the same time governments will continue to be very, very cautious, reluctant really, to involve their forces in the vast majority of situations which might fall legitimately under the rubric, "R2P." That overarching reality is in high evidence today.
Somalia is and has been for years the very definition of human depravity and consequent misery. Ban Ki-moon has once more called upon the "international community" for "armed support" for the tottering artifact created by the same international community, the Transitional Federal Government. The African Union peace keeping force is so undermanned, so poorly equipped, and so lacking in motivation that its troops can barely protect their own base, let alone the TFG.
The members of the African Union show little stomach for further involvement in the Somali cesspit. There are very real reasons given for this. Lack of money. Deficient logistics. No transport. There are also other, equally valid and more compelling unstated reasons.
Chief among these silent justifications is this: What is in it for us? What national interest is served by seeing our troops killed in Somalia?
Abstracts are very poor reasons for getting killed. And, let's be honest about it. Human rights is an abstract. Each and every point referenced in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is itself an abstract. They are the creations of a particular historical and philosophical tradition--Western Christianity and its precursors in Greece and Ancient Israel.
They are not real, organic, and emotive concepts in other traditions. They are not good reasons for a government, particularly one faced by its own problems at home to send off men to kill and die. Not even when the blood filled cesspit is right next door and the refugees are flooding your country.
Kenya is a major non-participant in Somalia. Similarly South Africa set back and watched Mugabe's thugs create a swamp of violence, death, poverty, and disease in Zimbabwe. The governments of these nations were not blind to what was happening. Nor were they morally indifferent.
There was simply no compelling national interest at stake. Lacking that, there was no justification for bearing the expenses in lives, treasure, and potential internal complications exercising some sort of abstract "R2P."
The weight of both history and practical realities is against "R2P." This may bother the high minded such as our UN Ambassador, Susan Rice, and the assorted capos of the UN. It may bother the editors of the NYT as the tone of their coverage makes clear.
But, it is a fact. A brute ground truth.
We the People may like to forget or overlook this truth. Just as we like to overlook the reality that when faced by a man with a gun we, each and every one of us, has the "human right" of life only if we can shoot faster and straighter than the other guy.
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