Deciding Humanitarian Intervention

Jonathan Moore Deciding Humanitarian Intervention “ h u m a n i t a r i a n i n t e r v e n t i o n ” m e a n s a c t i o n b y i n t e r n a t i o n a l actors across national boundaries including the use of m ilitary force, taken w ith the objective o f relieving severe and widespread hum an suffering and violation of hum an rights w ithin states w here local authorities are unw illing or unable to do so. This essay will attem pt better to understand decisions about hum anitarian intervention from the narrow perspective of looking at the proxim ate considerations attendant to the intervention itself, particularly focusing on the prior­ ity of ground-level im plem entation and the recognition of the integral relationship betw een m ilitary action and reconstruction. Since w hat is confronted on the ground will be determ inative, it is im portant to see if the decisions from above can be better connected to the reali­ ties below. The inherent complexity of the subject will be confirmed here using selected cases w ith which the author has experience in the field; concepts and constructs identified that have been developed in attem pts to frame the problem; constraints faced by the policymakers indicated; and m oral aspects of the enterprise considered. It should be painfully obvious that the prospect of hum anitarian intervention engages all sorts of com peting factors, principles, inter­ ests, and motivations, and the trade-offs am ong them. Choices on inter­ vention are made in a morass, essentially in chaotic circumstances, with infernal variables and unpredictables; they involve potentially irrecon­ cilable confrontation between macro geopolitical forces and the more localized interests to be discussed later. There is a plethora of disparate social research Vol 74 : No 1 : Spring 2007 169 actors jockeying to find com m on ground and motivated by more selfish goals, attended by hypocritical rhetoric, w ith the result determ ined by a winnowing down of power and pragmatism. The purpose here is to identify some weaknesses, both in the range of factors applied in decisions on hum anitarian intervention and in the criteria and models th at are available for guidance, in order to suggest their possible strengthening. At the same tim e there will be an attem pt to measure the adequacy of m oral consciousness in the process and, finally, speculation as to whether, given the huge external, strate­ gic forces at work, such refinem ent would make any difference. A review of some specific hum anitarian interventions that have taken place should begin w ith m ention of two interventions from the past and one from the present that fit our description: Tanzania’s inva­ sion of Uganda, Vietnam’s o f Cambodia, and America’s of Iraq. All three: were unilateral (the United States, leading the charge, managed to recruit some others in accompaniment); were aimed at regime or at least dictator change (Idi Amin, Pol Pot, and Saddam Hussein); and all claimed hum ani­ tarian purpose embedded in other, more national interests (ofthe three, Tanzania might be said to be the purest). Looking at what has happened since, both backward and forward, should give cause for caution; but then it is hard to know how m uch better or worse it would be w ithout the interventions, and depending upon who is making the judgment. The brief sketches, highly selective, of some recent interventions included here—Somalia (1992), Rwanda (1994), Haiti (1994), Kosovo (1999), and Afghanistan (2001)—illustrate why m aking decisions to initiate them were so knotty; they will also reacquaint us w ith the consequences and begin to lay a base for perceiving how such decisions m ight be better made in the future. Not m uch better, since the size and array of problems and the capacities and motivation to address them do not match, but perhaps some improvement. Somalia It’s difficult to rem em ber th at the original intent of the US interven­ tion in Somalia was successful in th at approxim...