Stopping genocide

Yglesias has a good, balanced take on this. I admit, I'm struggling on this issue. Larison has me stumped. Every time humanitarian intervention comes up it sounds quite good, but then the logistics of it--the history of the conflict, the regional realities, etc.--makes the problem quite baffling.

But non-interventionism vs interventionism seems to leave other options off the table.

In any case, here's a sample:

The basic way the conversation goes is basically that whenever humanitarian emergencies break out, we do nothing to stop them. And sometimes we invade Iraq. But then whenever anyone suggests that the U.S. commit itself to following international law and not using non-defensive military force absent a UN Security Council authorization, people show up insisting that we need to maintain the right to unilateral non-defensive war in order to stop genocide. Then whenever humanitarian emergencies break out, we do nothing to stop them. But the larger cause of unilateral militarism lives to fight another day. Or something....

...The flipside of these considerations is that when skeptics of far-flung war-fighting hear that someone or other wants to do more to prevent mass killings of civilians abroad, they shouldn’t just assume that what the person has in mind is starting a lot of new wars. That is what Robert Kagan and Max Boot have in mind. And it’s what some Democrats have in mind, too. But other people — usually the people with a real interest in humanitarian issues and the crisis-afflicted regions, rather then generic Very Serious People — are talking about actually finding ways to prevent people from being killed, not finding new pretexts for killing people.

Exactly.

And so the question becomes: can America or the UN or any organization really, truly stop genocide? It seemed to work in Eastern Europe in the 90's, but then again, did we merely postpone a war that was meant to be had? Would it break out now if our troops left the region? Tensions there are still remarkably high. Nationalism doesn't simply fade when the fighting stops.

It's an emotionally driven issue, and rightly so. Images from Rwanda or Darfur or the Congo, or the countless other African crisis zones are heart-rending, appalling, and make even the most dovish among us wish for some good, swift military intervention.

It's simply not as easy as all that. I'd offer up Somalia as a vision of sorts for the trouble with what appears to be a rather simple humanitarian mission. The best laid plans, as they say...

the Congo...

Larison explains, rather well, why intervention in the Congo may sound a whole lot better than it would actually be in practice.

Congo stands out as a country that has numerous deep, intractable problems. Its government in the west exercises limited control over much of the country, its army is ineffective in suppressing militias and foreign forces in its territory, and it is ringed by neighbors that have no scruples against fishing in its troubled waters. Kagame winks and nods at Nkunda’s rebels, but claims to have no control over them, while the government in Kinshasha has not done much, partly because it cannot do much, to strike at the surviving genocidaires. What will outside intervention do that is going to change this dynamic in a fundamental way? Even if Western states were willing and able to establish some buffer force to keep Nkunda in line, what would prevent that force from being pulled into a multi-sided conflict as the Nigerians were in Liberia? At what point would such a mission be deemed too costly or futile to continue? What would keep such a mission from becoming a near-permanent deployment? Obviously, at no point in his column does Gerson answer any of these questions, nor does he explain why the problems of central Africa should not be primarily the responsibility of the states involved and of the African Union.

Typically it is these "deep, intractable problems" that make intervention such a messy business. Think of the sectarian divides in Iraq. If Iraq had been a less divided country, certainly our intervention there would have been much simpler. The fact is, however, it is a country and region despairingly divided. We did not take history into account when we invaded that country. Would we be exhibiting the same short-sightedness should we intervene in the Congo?

Should Europe (and by extension America) simply wash its hands of the post-colonial fall-out it largely helped create? Does meddling only make matters worse?

I don't know if either school of thought has the right answer--indeed, I believe that each situation as it arises needs to be taken into account. Darfur is not the same crisis as the Congo. Each must be judged on its own set of circumstances.

Or does the credo "mind your own damn business" deserve more merit on the international stage?

Over-stretched

Alex Massie responds to Michael Gerson's latest from the Congo:

I'm more sympathetic than some to humanitarian intervention, but where does Gerson actually think these troops will come from? Even if there was any great political or popular desire in Britain for intervening in the Congo - and there is, rather emphatically, none whatsoever - there simply aren't the troops to do it. The same might be said of the United States. We're over-stretched as it is. Gerson knows this, I assume, making his column more a matter of moral, concerned ostentation than any practical response to a ghastly situation.

We are running thin on troops, as are our only really formidable allies in Europe. This is the cost of foolish interventionist wars like Iraq. I believe that if we have the established political capital and military strength to intervene in Africa and elsewhere than we should, if it means protecting millions of innocents from genocide. We don't, however, thanks to the clumsiness of the Iraq war.

At this point, until our economy strengthens and until we finally pull out of Iraq and Afghanistan, we will not be able to pursue humanitarian intervention.

Lately I have steered further and further into the Realist school of thought with that one caveat: there are times when we as a civilization must rise up above our national interest to protect those who cannot protect themselves. Again, this is not an ideological matter, but rather one that questions our duty as human beings to one another. We cannot be world police, but at times there are reasons compelling enough for us to use our force to bring about stability.

As the world becomes more globalized this becomes more necessary, sadly. In the long run, such intervention will increase American national security. But we must not attempt nation building, nor can we continue the pipe-dream that is democracy spreading. Democracy is an organic thing, and it must grow on its own. In some places it may never grow, that's true. Then again, in some places it is perhaps best that it doesn't. (Gaza, anyone?) Security, on the other hand, is implemented. We can do that when absolutely necessary and still keep American first...

No help for the Congo

Newsweek reports:

While the world wrings its hands over the fate of an estimated quarter million people caught up in the roiling conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo, it seems likely that little will actually be done about the long-running African civil war. The best bet for stopping the violence, the United Nations' 17,000-strong multilateral peacekeeping force, known as MONUC, is spread thin and considered ineffective; it will take months to increase its presence in the country. The European Union is reluctant to deploy a crack force, and southern African leaders have committed only to sending in a "technical team." The world's response, in the words of Henri Boshoff, a military expert for the Institute for Security Studies in Pretoria, is likely to be "too little too late."

And herein lies my frustration with the Iraq war. I won't even begin to describe what I think about the feckless, ineffective, shameless United Nations--but the US should not be tied down either in foolish wars or in the foolish exercise of protecting ungrateful allies from threats they denounce as false...