R2P and Pragmatic Liberal Interventionism: Values in the Service of Interests

Abstract

Supporters of the humanitarian intervention component of the "Responsibility to Protect" (R2P) have been guided by what the article refers to as pragmatic liberal interventionism. In the name of viability they propose legalization of a regime in which the United States and its allies exert a disproportionate influence and are guided by a mix of values and interests. This article confronts this perspective through scrutiny of the underlying premises. Through a close review of US military-security policies and their detrimental impact on past US-led interventions, this article demonstrates the perils of an R2P-enabled regime of humanitarian intervention. Besides being poorly suited for genuine mitigation of human rights atrocities, such a skewed regime will buttress a persistently aggressive US militarism and reinforce structural inequalities. This article concludes by sketching an alternative framework of moral responsibility and global solidarity, one that links human rights advocacy to resistance to the dominant order, not accommodation.

The Responsibility to Protect in a world of already existing intervention

“…The view that despite being based on national interests, interventions might make a positive contribution to humanitarian outcomes is based on a misjudgement of the extent to which the bad international citizenship of actors plays out in practices of intervention. As Graubart (2013: 78) argues, it treats national interests as ‘relatively innocuous’ — as preserving stability and stemming the tide of refugees. When we bring already existing intervention back in, however, we see that these interests are far from innocuous.…”

“…Relatedly, with reference to arms sales to post-war Libya and Iraq, UK Junior Minister Robert Howarth said in a speech to Conservative Party conference (cited in BBC, 2011): ‘we liberated the Iraqis from a tyrant, we liberated Libya from a tyrant, frankly, I want to see UK business benefit from the liberation we give to their people’. These stated interests have been furthered through action: the renewal of arms sales to an unstable Libya mere months after the ‘end’ of civil war, and a massive US military projection that includes ‘expanding US military bases’ across the world and ‘setting up regional command facilities for each part of the world’ (Graubart, 2013: 78).…”

“…Such conduct cannot be explained with reference to humanitarian protection. If we instead think of the mission as giving a renewed mandate to NATO and, as per the statement of US interests in the aforementioned Pentagon report, extending global economic integration along market-friendly lines, the war starts to make sense (Graubart, 2013). Indeed, John Norris (2005: xxiii), a prominent State Department official at the time, suggested that ‘it was Yugoslavia’s resistance to the broader trends of political and economic reform — not the plight of Kosovar Albanians — that best explains NATO’s wars’.…”

Cosmopolitanism, Responsibility to Protect and the Libya Intervention: A Reassessment

“…The global quest for world citizenship resulted in an inevitable situation, where the international community is left with no choice other than to save humanity from war crimes, ethnic cleansing, genocide and crimes against humanity. Hence, the Libya intervention met the threshold of a just cause, particularly in the wake of the plan of the retake of Benghazi from rebels by the brutal Ghaddaffi forces (Graubart, 2013; Pape, 2012). Specifically, in specific terms, Jonathan Graubart states that ₹Ghaddaffi’s aggressive language did he “no favours”, and the Obama administration forcefully argued that the potential atrocities would stain the conscience of the world’ (2013, p. 85).…”

Wielding the spiritual sword again: Some considerations on neo-medievalism in modern international order

“…This is probably the closest that the universal humanity gets to a concrete embodiment. But even then, this embodiment is more often known for being a playground of particular, rather than universal, interests (see, among many others, Binder and Heupel, 2014; Bourantonis, 2005; Fassbender, 2011; Graubart, 2013; Roberts and Zaum, 2008). Definitely, the sacerdotium was never pure either and there have been numerous counts of secular rulers having substantial influence even on the election of the pope.…”