Humanitarian Intervention - Or, Can I Bring Myself to Agree with John Bolton

[French troops patrol in Rwanda as part of Operation Turquoise - Photo from AFP / Getty Images]

I'm no fan of the Bush Administration, but sometimes I think we overlook the man's sense of humor.  Exhibit A - his decision in 2005 to name as US Ambassador to the UN a man who once said "The Secretariat building in New York has 38 stories. If it lost ten stories, it wouldn't make a bit of difference."

Yes, the one and only John Bolton, he of the fiery temperament and a rather impressive walrus mustache.

Bolton recently wrote a provocative article in the Globe and Mail, arguing against the concept of humanitarian intervention and the underlying responsibility to protect (R2P):

"The central problem with the case for humanitarian intervention is that the arguments advanced in its favour are largely incoherent...in the end, the principle of the responsibility to protect remains fundamentally aspirational.  And aspirations do not make a foreign policy."

As overheated as the rhetoric, he does raise an interesting question - how do you translate the responsibility to protect into  actual policy when confronted with Darfur, or Burma after Cyclone Nargis?

The most perceptive response to this question comes from Alex de Waal in his Harvard International Review article No Such Thing as Humanitarian Intervention.  As de Waal points out, "humanitarian intervention" is actually a euphemism:

"There is no such thing as humanitarian military intervention distinct from war or counterinsurgency.  Intervention and occupation should not be confused with classic peacekeeping, which is difficult enough even with a ceasefire agreement and the consent of the parties.  If we want an intervention to overthrow a tyranny, protect citizens from their own government, or deliver humanitarian aid during an ongoing conflict, we should be honest with ourselves - we are arguing for a just war.  And if we wish to make this case, let us be clear...that it will entail bloodshed including the killing of innocent people."

Granted, there are steps that can be taken far short of military action, everything from public pressure to targeted sanctions, etc.

Yet often when people speak about humanitarian intervention in places like Darfur, it seems they have images of UN - or often western - forces appearing to create order out of the chaos.  A lesson which is difficult to square with our experiences in Iraq, or Somalia in 1993.

De Waal goes on to point out that even in Rwanda it's not clear that a military intervention would have improved the situation:

"[H]umanitarians called for an intervention to stop both the massacres and the war.  Had this gone ahead, the UN Security Council would certainly have insisted on a ceasefire and made protecting civilians contingent on this precondition.  Given that the advance of the rebel Rwandese Patriotic Front was stopping the massacres, such an intervention could easily have had the perverse effect of prolonging the killing."

In fact, for all the calls to intervene in Burma following Cyclone Nargis, some aid workers argued that even actions as seemingly innocuous as air drops posed massive difficulties.

As Conor Foley wrote in The Guardian a few weeks ago, "the call for military action was basically a distraction from the real task of getting the government's permission to allow aid workers into the country" - an effort which was largely successful.

That's not to say that interventions are always doomed to failure - de Waal lists successful examples including NATO's intervention in Bosnia and Kosovo, the Nigerian intervention in Liberia, and the British in Sierra Leone.

Yet he's wary of deriving a broader doctrine of humanitarian intervention: "Any principle of intervention can readily be abused - as by the French in central Africa - or become a charter for imperial occupation."

Bolton, for his part, never quite plumbs these depths.  Instead, his article seems primarily an excuse to attack the UN, and less an in-depth examination of some of the problems underlying any doctrine of humanitarian intervention.

So, in summary - whereas Bolton scoffs at the very idea of humanitarian intervention, de Waal takes the time to show what it actually entails.

(N.B. In all fairness, I'm biased, insofar as I casually loathe Mr. Bolton.  Cue memories of the Florida recount.)