The Perils and Promise of Global Transparency: Why the Information Revolution May Not Lead to Security, Democracy, or Peace

4. Transparency and Conflict Intervention

Chapter 4 ____________________________ Transparency and Conflict Intervention “The whole world will be watching.” —Western diplomat to the Tutsi FPR major general Paul Kagame after the 1993 Arusha Accords1 “In Darfur, my camera was not nearly enough.” —Cease-fire monitor Brian Steidle2 The trend toward greater transparency should facilitate earlier and more frequent intervention by third parties who wish to stop violent conflicts in other parts of the world, according to conventional wisdom. Governments have access to more information about foreign disputes, which should help them to identify trouble spots and to intervene before conflicts get out of hand.3 Such intervention requires political will, which greater transparency can facilitate in two ways. First, information about the human toll of conflict and the threat conflicts pose to nations not directly involved in the fighting can lead nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) to pressure governments or international organizations to intervene. Second, greater transparency lets citizens around the world learn both about foreign conflicts and about their governments’ response. When they see human suffering on their television screens, they may pressure their governments to act.5 Greater transparency may also help to deter the outbreak of future conflicts if potential combatants see that acts of violence will be stopped and punished. After all, greater transparency makes intervention evident not just to conflict participants and citizens around the world, but also to parties engaged in other foreign disputes. If perpetrators see that violence 69 is not rewarded, the incentive to fight declines and the credibility of future third-party threats to intervene increases. Of course, this view assumes that most perpetrators of violence are rational and weigh the likely costs and benefits of violence before employing it, and studies indicate that perpetrators are indeed rational more often than not.6 Nonetheless, greater transparency will not always facilitate conflict intervention by third parties. Despite greater transparency, information about foreign conflicts remains imperfect and media coverage of foreign conflicts, a key source of transparency, is spotty. More importantly , even if information about conflict zones is available and accurate , that information will not necessarily foster the political will necessary to intervene. Many of today’s conflicts break out in locations where powerful countries have few national interests at stake and, when conflicts do not threaten the physical security of citizens, energy sources, markets, or transportation routes and the destabilizing effects of conflict are unlikely to reach those with the power to intervene, governments and international organizations may choose to stay out, even when death tolls are high. Leaders of governments and international organizations may hear pleas from NGOs but not act upon them. Publics may see footage of human suffering in the media but not pressure their governments to react. Greater transparency may sometimes lead to earlier and more frequent conflict intervention but we cannot assume that will be the case. In fact, if greater transparency shows that foreign conflicts will be dangerous and difficult to exit, transparency may have the opposite effect, with citizens pressuring leaders to stay out of conflicts even if those leaders wish to intervene. In ongoing interventions, images of soldiers being killed may lead citizens to pressure leaders to exit countries where the costs appear to exceed the benefits. Greater transparency also may not illuminate information that will deter future conflicts. Though greater transparency can reveal information that strengthens the credibility of threats to intervene, transparency also makes past idle threats or short-lived interventions widely known. Even if threats are credible, the promise of intervention may only lead perpetrators of violence to speed up their killing to avoid interruption. For all of these reasons, claims that greater transparency will facilitate intervention to prevent or to end deadly conflict are optimistic, to say the least. During the 1994 Rwandan genocide, numerous powerful governments were aware of the extensive violence but did nothing to stop it. Media coverage and the actions of NGOs did little to change minds until the genocide ended and a massive refugee crisis ensued. 70 The Perils and Promise of Global Transparency Governments simply lacked the political will to intervene and deliberately chose to stay out. Information did not lead to action. Transparency and Conflict Intervention: From the Outside Looking In Protecting civilians from deadly conflict remains a challenge for the international community. Armed conflicts in the 1990s killed 3.6 million people, approximately 90 percent of whom were noncombatants.7 The threat to noncombatants is particularly high in...