Realists v Liberals: Humanitarian Intervention Flashcards
analyse why humanitarian interventions since 2000 have divided realists and liberals
disagree over whether humanitarian intervention should be undertaken to defend humans rights or not
disagree over whether humanitarian intervention is likely to be successful and worthwhile or not
disagree over whether humanitarian intervention should be undertaken to defend humans rights or not
Humanitarian interventions since 2000 have divided realists and liberals because they disagree over whether humanitarian intervention should be undertaken to defend humans rights or not. Liberals tend to adhere to and support the doctrine of Responsibility to Protect (R2P), arguing that with state sovereignty comes responsibility and if a state cannot uphold its own citizens human rights, then the responsibility to do so falls on the international community. This therefore legitimises humanitarian intervention because human beings should stand idle while other human beings are being killed. During the Kosovo War, Tony Blair made this moral case for humanitarian intervention when he gave the Chicago Speech. The liberal impulse has thus been used to justify humanitarian interventions in Sierra Leone, Libya and the Ivory Coast. In all of these cases, there was the potential for an enormous loss of life as domestic violence engulfed these nation states and so this was used to justify foreign involvement. Interventions in both Afghanistan and Iraq have also, at least partially, been justified according to the liberal belief that the international community should not allow tyrannical rulers to abuse their own people.
However, realists disagree and instead believe that state sovereignty should not be encroached by external forces, especially since the state is the most important global actor and sovereignty is what brings stability to the international system. This draws a parallel with conservatism, which prizes stability above all else and believes that any challenges to the status quo leads to instability, which was a criticism made by Edmund Burke of the French Revolution. Some realists argue that it is a state’s choice how they choose to uphold human rights and intervention cannot be justified on these grounds, so when intervention is undertaken it often leads to instability. For example, the action taken by NATO in Libya, such as establishing ‘no fly zones’ and providing air support to rebel forces, successfully secured the overthrow of Gaddafi but following this overthrow, NATO failed to engage in the necessary nation-building and peace-building and, as a result, Libya is now in a state of anarchy with rival militias and ethnic groups violently divided. As was the case with NATO intervention in Afghanistan, ISIL is now operating within Libya. Arguably, instead of reducing the threat of terrorism and fostering peace across the globe, NATO action in Libya and Afghanistan has had the opposite effect, instead leading to a rise in terrorism as the overthrow of regimes has led to instability, thus allowing organisations like ISIL to extend its influence. Examples like this, in which intervention caused the country to descend into anarchy, seems to further illustrate the realist scepticism towards humanitarian intervention.
disagree over whether humanitarian intervention is likely to be successful and worthwhile or not
Furthermore, realists and liberals are also sharply divided over whether humanitarian interventions have been worthwhile or effective. Realists believe that the world system is one of international anarchy in which there is no universal sovereign or worldwide government that has more power than the state. The international system is therefore like conservative thinker Thomas Hobbes’ state of nature in which states can act with impunity as there are no rules and nobody in any position to enforce them. This is why many humanitarian interventions have been largely ineffective and even damaging, as states cannot be forced to act in any certain way or punished for infringing rights. Realists would point to the numerous failed UN peacekeeping missions and humanitarian interventions as evidence of this. For example, the UN failed to prevent the 1994 Rwandan genocide that left up to one million people dead. This illustrates the realist view that humanitarian intervention is ineffective.
However, liberals believe that humanitarian interventions since 2000 have been successful overall. For example, the UN force in Sierra Leone from 1999 to 2005 is widely hailed as a success. The UN disarmed more than 75 000 ex-fighters, destroyed more than 42,000 weapons and 1.2 million rounds of ammunition, all of which helped implement a peace agreement after the country’s civil war. This demonstrates that cooperation and harmony are very possible and made possible by humanitarian intervention, which realists disagree with. Similarly, NATO has had many successful missions too. For instance, NATO’s role in ending the fighting in the Balkans and subsequently maintaining peace has been very positive and highly effective. It launched large-scale air operations and deployed approximately 60,000 soldiers under Operation Joint Endeavour. NATO, by its bombing of the Bosnian Serb positions in 1995, led to the signing of the Dayton Peace Accords that ended the fighting in Bosnia.
