The Case for Decoupled Armed Interventions
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1758-5899.2011.00154.x |
| Date | 01 February 2012 |
| Published date | 01 February 2012 |
The Case for Decoupled Armed
Interventions
Amitai Etzioni
The George Washington University
Abstract
This article suggests that if the humanitarian goals of armed interventions are decoupled from coerced regime change
and nation building, they can be carried out effectively and at rather low costs. In addition, the standard for justifying
a humanitarian intervention must be set at a high level (to be specified below). We shall see that this high level is
justified by strong normative reasons and not merely prudential ones. The thesis for narrowly crafted armed
humanitarian interventions is supported in the following pages by showing that a mixture of idealism and hubris
drives the West to assume that it can achieve much more, and that its repeated failure to accomplish these expansive
goals is leading to calls to avoid armed humanitarian interventions—including those missions whose normative
standing is strong and which can be carried out effectively. The observation that nations can employ non lethal
(normative and economic) means to promote human rights and democracy further supports the thesis that the use of
force should be reserved to large scale saving of life and not to be allowed to morph into coerced regime change,
not to mention futile attempts at nation building.
There is growing opposition, both in the US and among
its allies, to armed interventions in the internal affairs of
other nations, unless vital core national interests are at
stake. Even when governments engage in massive abuse
of their citizens, for instance in Syria and before that in
Iran, the nations of the world are increasingly reluctant
to act. Indeed, the normative baseline, the default posi-
tion for the international order, continues to be the
Westphalian norm, strongly supported by China and Rus-
sia, and large parts of the third world. The high level of
casualties and mounting costs of the longest war the US
has ever been engaged in, in Afghanistan, as well as the
lack of certainty that the results will ultimately vindicate
this intervention, further reinforce the argument against
armed interventions. True, the Libyan campaign has
been deemed a success, but those involved are quick to
stress that it does not set a precedent for such interven-
tions in the future. The economic austerity regimes that
the US and many of its allies are facing, as they seek to
draw down their debt and reinvigorate their economies,
further agitate against the expenditures involved in such
interventions. As President Obama put it in the middle
of 2011:
‘America, it is time to focus on nation building
here at home’ (Obama, 2011).
This article suggests that if the humanitarian goals of
armed interventions—stopping genocides, ethnic cleans-
ing, and other massive abuse of civilian populations by
their own government—are decoupled from coerced
regime change and from nation building, these interven-
tions can be carried out effectively and at rather low
costs. Hence, they need not be avoided in the future. In
addition to decoupling, the standard for justifying a
humanitarian intervention must be set at a high level (to
be specified below). We shall see that this high level is
justified by strong normative reasons and not merely
prudential ones.
The thesis for narrowly crafted armed humanitarian
intervention is supported in the following pages by
showing that a mixture of idealism and hubris has driven
the West to assume that it can achieve much more than
stopping massive abuse of a people by their govern-
ment, and that the West’s repeated failure to accomplish
these expansive goals is a root cause for calls to avoid
armed interventions altogether—including those mis-
sions whose normative standing is strong and which can
be carried out effectively. (The following examination
focuses on the US, because it played a leading role in
the matters at hand; however, the points made also
apply to other NATO members, as well as other democ-
racies such as Australia, South Korea, and Japan.)
The idealism, right and left
Several armed interventions in the recent past sought
much more than the Responsibility to Protect calls for
—or interpreted it in a very expansive way. They often
started with relatively narrowly crafted goals, but soon
Global Policy Volume 3 . Issue 1 . February 2012
Global Policy (2012) 3:1 doi: 10.1111/j.1758-5899.2011.00154.x ª2012 London School of Economics and Political Science and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
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