The idea of reform intervention, or toppling a tyrannical regime, is one that has often been a contentious one, and is also very topical thanks to the most recent situation involving Osama Bin Laden (more of a breach of sovereignty than invasion however) and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq (which was per se veiled more as a pre-emptive attack than a reform intervention, but that has been the aim of it more recently). The issue, from a theoretical standpoint as well as from any other, is a thorny one. It raises many questions regarding the theory of Just War, a nation's right to self determination and sovereignty, amongst others.
Obviously, intervention is justified in cases of regimes that violate human rights, or commit genocide, principles that are “superfluous in a society of well ordered, democratic peoples” (Rawls, 1993: 47) and do not merit conversation, but the issue addresses when, if ever it is justifiable to go to invade another country to topple a tyrant, or in the case of the most recent incident, breaching sovereignty to catch a terrorist. The right of a state to self-defence is one that is enshrined in international law, but the issue raises questions on when this right is invoked, when it becomes justifiable to defend yourself as a state, and when a state, for one reason or another, does not have this right.
Obviously, intervention is justified in cases of regimes that violate human rights, or commit genocide, principles that are “superfluous in a society of well ordered, democratic peoples” (Rawls, 1993: 47) and do not merit conversation, but the issue addresses when, if ever it is justifiable to go to invade another country to topple a tyrant, or in the case of the most recent incident, breaching sovereignty to catch a terrorist. The right of a state to self-defence is one that is enshrined in international law, but the issue raises questions on when this right is invoked, when it becomes justifiable to defend yourself as a state, and when a state, for one reason or another, does not have this right.
There must be a clear distinction in terminology, the difference between exculpation and justification is a large ideological gap to be bridged. As the famous Machiavellian statement so often mistaken should read, the end excuses the means, it does not justify them. I think that most people would rightly agree that toppling Saddam Hussein as a tyrant who committed acts of genocide, repression, torture and so on is a good thing, without question, but has the almost unilateral approach of the United States upset a very delicate world balance? What Nussbaum points out in her essay “Patriotism and Cosmopolitanism” is that “Americans have frequently supported the principle of Bande Mataram [Hail Motherland], giving the fact of being American a special salience in moral and political deliberation, and...special power among the motivations in political action” (Nussbaum in Cohen, 1996: 3), and this is a dangerous position to adopt.
Which leads me nicely to my next point, an interesting point I feel, that is not addressed too much in the literature, is the idea of changing citizenship. The end goal of national-defence is to protect citizens, but citizens are no longer bound to a solely national definition of the term “citizen”. Nussbaum, in the same essay, urges us to “give our first allegiance to what is morally good – and that which being good, I can commend as such to all human beings” (Nussbaum in Cohen, 1996: 5). Although Michael Walzer rebuffs this idea of “world citizenship” in a reply to Nussbaum's essay, saying that “my allegiances, like my relationships, start at the centre” (Walzer in Cohen 1996: 126), I think he has rather ignored the idea of Nussbaum's which seems most plausible: that our citizenship is not with the world in a global institutional sense, for as he says we have no global passport or common celebrations and so on, but our citizenship lies with humankind, in a social sense. This is a point, along with the others I have listed, that must be addressed rather briefly, as the proper expression and development of it goes far beyond the scope of this post.
The discussion in “A Few Words on Non-Intervention” by John Stuart Mill deals with the issue rather well, defending the position that a reform intervention simply for the sake of regime change is unacceptable: “It is as little justifiable to force our ideas on other people, as to compel them to submit to our will in any other respect” (Mill in Himmelfarb, 1962: 376). He also points out that in general, foreign policy is the business of states and not the individuals that are citizens of that state for “reasons connected only with internal politics” (Mill in Himmelfarb, 1962: 375). Walzer gives a nice summary of the basic principle behind the argument: “A state is self determining even if its citizens struggle and fail to establish free institutions but it has been deprived of self-determination if such institutions are established by an intrusive neighbour” (Walzer, 2006: 87). Mill has taken the position that states have rights the same as individuals do, in a collective sense, or in other words the legalist paradigm. It is here where Mill's argument shows its first flaw. This approach is flawed in several ways, mainly in that it does not and cannot supply an ample enough grounds for defence in war, as many acts that are common to warfare are strictly forbidden in the datum of self-defence. For example, as Rodin points out, “if national-defense were nothing but an act en masse of self-defense, this would seem to give rise to a general requirement to appease national aggression” (Rodin, 2002: 128).
Both Mill and Rawls take a view that states that are not democracies are not subject to the exact same laws as themselves, but rather some more basic and less stringent ones. Rawls also notes that “in hierarchical societies persons are not regarded as free and equal citizens as they are in liberal societies, they are seen as responsible members of society who can recognise their moral duties and obligations and play their part in social life” (Rawls, 1993: 51). This division is not supported by Walzer, who, in a foot note, remarks that: “International society can no longer be divided into civilized and barbarian halves, any line drawn on developmental principles leaves barbarians on both sides” (Walzer, 2006: 90).
Finally, Mill sees civil uprising as the only way that a people can gain liberty, a most important part of self determination. A community must have “sufficient love of liberty to be able to wrest it from merely domestic oppressors, the liberty which is bestowed upon them by other hands than their own will have nothing real, nothing permanent” (Mill in Himmelfarb, 1963: 381). But as Rodin rightly points out, the world of today is much different from the world of Mill, and an internal conflict rests not on the sheer will of the people but on the ability and control of methods of coercion and force, which the state legitimately wields by default. Mill himself also contradicts this argument later on in his argument for non-intervention by saying “a despotic government only exists by its military power” (Mill in Hummelfarb: 1963: 378). Finlay also takes issue with this point, noting that it should be possible “to defend military intervention in terms of self-determination where it acts as a counterweight against the effects of domestic military forces, thus permitting properly political forces to determine the outcome” (Finlay, 2007: 4) as would be the proper intention of Mill and Walzer, a sign that the choice was made by the people, rather than forced upon them.
Walzer opens the fourth edition of his book Just and Unjust Wars with a consideration on the current war in Iraq, and how this, because its specific aim was explicitly regime change, is a significant expansion of jus ad bellum, and is unjustifiable by that self same paradigm. He adopts the legalist paradigm and domestic analogy, grounding the rights of states in the base of the individual's right to self-defence, a reductive approach. Although there is a valid reason behind Walzer's point that rights “require political institutions for definition and protection, and since there exist no global political institutions to fulfil this role, the state is the only real context within which such rights are likely to be realized” (Finlay, 2007: 8), the different natures of these two sets of rights cannot be grounded in one another, as I have shown with my analysis of Mill. Walzer also argues that there is a “fit” between state and community, based on an idea of Mill's that “citizens get the government they deserve, or at least , the government for which they are 'fit'” (Walzer, 2006: 88) and that when the two no longer fit, the best political association will rise to the top. Mill states outright in his “Considerations on Representative Government” that “no one believes that every people is capable of working every sort of institution” (Mill in Gray, 1991: 206).
What Walzer and Mill overlook here, is the power of a despot to control the country through military force. What Mill calls “merely domestic oppressors” (Mill in Hummelfarb, 1963: 381) are also underestimated in Walzer, where he argues that use of domestic force cannot “prevail unless it were reinforced from the outside, over a people ready 'to brave labour and danger'” (Walzer, 2006: 88). These are clearly two accounts written in a liberal state where the freedom of speech and of demonstration are rights taken for granted, where as had Walzer written his account from a tyrannous regime, he may have found his opinion quite different on the matter of non-intervention. Finlay rightly points out that “ the image of protesters facing domestic Chinese tanks in Tienanmin Square has driven the point home: if a government retains the support of a sufficient proportion of the army, it can resist even the most capable and determined movement for free government” (Finlay, 2007: 21). Finlay also quotes Arendt: “In a contest of violence against violence the superiority of government has always been absolute” (Arendt in Finlay, 2007: 22) an idea of import to this discussion. Walzer argues that this is part of the process of self determination, but “he has retreated from a straightforwardly political conception of collective self-determination as consisting in the exercise of democratic rights” (Rodin, 2002: 158).
Another disputable point that Walzer puts forward in his most recent introduction to his book Just and Unjust Wars is this: “an authoritarian regime that is capable of mass murder but not engaged in mass murder is not liable to military attack” (Walzer, 2006: x). I should think most people find this point debatable to say the least. Walzer says that “the real subject of my argument is not the state at all but the political community that underlies it” (Walzer, 1980: 210), but if this were true, the imminent threat under which they appear to be, if the authoritarian regime is quite clearly capable of mass murder, must surely be grounds for intervention. The actual committing of the murder must be stopped before it is given a chance to occur, for, as Rodin points out, “the state can survive the destruction of a large number (though clearly not all) of its citizens” (Rodin, 2002: 124).
Rodin critically analyses the reductive approach to state's rights that both Mill and Walzer use, outlining the right to self defence in terms of subject, means, and end, both broadly and narrowly. If the end of national-defence is, as in individual rights, the protection of lives (in this case citizens) then if state B attacks state A, and state C intervenes, with the end of protecting the lives of the citizens of A, “then it should make no difference to the morality of C's action whether the citizens of A are threatened by their own state or a third party”. This highlights the “potential tension between national-defense and the protection of endangered citizens” (Rodin, 2002: 131), and the question must be asked as to where on the dividing line America's recent actions fall. The saving of lives was an end goal of the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan, at least nominally. The recent incursion into Pakistan can be seen in a different light, given it was not a full scale invasion in terms of a war, yet was a breach of sovereignty. The end result is that the organization which the army has been attempting to combat have immediately retaliated killing approximately 70 people (Crilly, 2011), yet the evidence found suggests many more lives have been saved as a result of the execution of bin Laden (Gardham & Swaine, 2011).
Focusing away from the United States and Pakistan and approaching it more broadly, there are acts Rodin argues, that pose no imminent threat to citizens' lives yet still invoke the right to national defence, acts he calls “bloodless invasions” such as invading national airspace. Therefore one must consider the difference between conditional and imminent threats. The idea of conditional threats that Walzer identifies is based on the Lockean approach which assumes that “I have no reason to suppose that he who would take away my Liberty, would not when he had me in his Power, take away everything else” (Rodin, 2002: 135). However, Rodin points out that if a man comes up to you in the street demanding a dollar, you do not act justly by killing him, and he is likely to keep his word for several reasons, firstly because the practice of making threats would soon become obsolete if his word was not kept, and also that there is a significant threat on his own liberty if he does indeed kill you. Unlike national-defence, conditional threats in self-defence offer a way out, and the “right to respond is in some way proportional to the value of what is being extorted” (Rodin, 2002: 134).
The idea that Walzer extols is that communities are similarly capable of shaping themselves as individuals are and that the political association that protects the “common life” is, like the Hobbesian perspective, based on a social contract. In this account argues Rodin, Hobbes values any political association over anarchy, and when an invasion is performed, it is not normally to return them to a state of nature, but rather replace one association with another form of association. However this is obviously too minimal a definition, and one must attach a degree of subjectivity on the part of those whose common life we discuss, we must give “a moral reason not simply to defend order, but to defend a particular form of order; to defend our order” (Rodin, 2002: 149). The common life is interwoven with who the citizens are, but we must draw a line on where to make value judgements, we must deal with communities that are “unashamedly aggressive and interventionist”, they cannot be left to go unchecked on the basis that as the relativist thesis states, they must not be restrained “on the basis of norms external to that culture” (Rodin, 2002: 154). This proves that the end of protecting the common life of a particular political association cannot justify national-defence. In other words, the rhetoric of democratic wars, or fighting for freedom and spreading democracy is not an end in an of itself which can excuse the means. In reality, and as Walter Mignolo makes clear in his 2005 work The Idea of Latin America, that rhetoric has changed little since the 15th century, and the colonial expansion on the basis of civilising the barbarians and non-Christians of the “New World”. This, as we now know, was little more than a cover for accumulation of riches and natural resources which would push the colonial nations to the forefront.
The main & recurring problem with the non-intervention theories is that they all make assumptions, “implausible assumptions” as Rodin calls them, about one thing or another - Mill about reciprocity and civil war, Walzer about the force a state is willing to use on its own people, and Mill regarding the amount of force a population or significant portion there of can muster within a state when under such oppression and threat of violence. Also there is the similar problem that they are all written in liberal societies where the true extent of a tyrannical regime's oppression is not felt. Rodin's argument is clear, concise and most importantly focuses on the generation of theories based on that which is empirical fact. This topic has been pushed to the forefront because of the Iraq war, can that intervention be justifiable? Walzer says that the states against the war and in favour of containment of Saddam's regime (highlighting the danger of it, past, present and future) did not support said containment in any real sense, and left the US to bear the cost of it themselves. This cannot be done, the “force-short-of-war” must be multilateral. America had supported the preventative force and avoided war for as long as they unilaterally could, before unilateral action was taken, and the world scolded them instead of itself. Was imposing democracy wrong? More than likely, no. As Churchill said: “It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried” (thinkexist.com). However the question which will be asked by historians is whether that was the only reason behind the invasion. After all, democracy is currently as infallible as Christianity was in 1492, but no one still believes that it was a purely Christianising mission undertaken by Spain and Portugal. That however, is an issue for another, probably much longer, article. The catching and killing of Osama bin Laden however, is for the large part in my opinion, an ostensibly justifiable act. The breach of sovereignty which was necessary to infiltrate the strong hold eliminated the need for any confrontation with Pakistan, or the opportunity of escape for the target, allowed the United States the advantage of surprise, yet it breached invternational law and convention. There continues to be no place in society for the aims or means of the Al-Qaeda movement, but if, in order to combat it the rules go out the window then we are left in a situation where it becomes difficult to defend the system or order for which we stand. The question then is one which is centuries old, from the sixteenth century to be precise: do the ends excuse the means?
Bibliography
- Clarry, S, 2002, “Iraq Oil-For-Food Program – UN and Gol roles”, Iraqi Kurdistan: Ten Years of Self-rule and Future Prospects, Available: http://old.krg.org/986/clarrysf-DENMARK-CONFERENCE.pdf
- Crilly, R., 2011, “Osama bin Laden dead: Britain condemns 'cowardly' Pakistan revenge attack”, The Telegraph, London, Available: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/al-qaeda/8511503/Osama-bin-Laden-dead-Britain-condemns-cowardly-Pakistan-revenge-attack.html [14/05/2011]
- Finlay, C, 2007, “Reform Intervention and Democratic Revolution”, European Journal of International Relations, Vol. 13.
- Gardham, D., & Swaine, J., 2011, “Osama bin Laden was plotting attacks on Britain”, The Telegraph, London, Available: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/al-qaeda/8510822/Osama-bin-Laden-was-plotting-attacks-on-Britain.html [14/05/2011]
- Gill, E. R., 1987, “Walzer's Complex Equality: Constraints and the Right to be Wrong”, Polity, Vol. 20, Number 1.
- Mignolo, W, 2005, The Idea of Latin America, Blackwell Publishing, Massachusetts
- Mill, J. S., “A Few Words on Non-Intervention” in Himmelfarb, G, 1963, Essays on Politics and Culture, Doubleday & Company Inc. Massachusetts.
- Mill, J. S., Edited by Gray, J, 1991, On Liberty and Other Essays, Oxfoed University Press, Oxford.
- Nussbaum, M. C., “Patriotism and Cosmopolitanism”, in Cohen, J, 1996, For Love of Country -Debating the Limits of Patriotism, Beacon Press, Massachusetts.
- Rawls, J, 1993, “The Law of Peoples”, Critical Inquiry, Vol. 20, Number 1.
- Rodin, D, 2002, War and Defense of Persons, Clarendon Press, Oxford.
- Thinkexist.com, Available: http://thinkexist.com/quotation/it_has_been_said_that_democracy_is_the_worst_form/15815.html [28-04-2007]
- Walzer, M, 1980, “The Moral Standing of States: A Response to Four Critics”, Philosophy and Public Affairs, Vol. 9 Number 3
- Walzer, M, “Spheres of Affection”, in Cohen, J, 1996, For Love of Country -Debating the Limits of Patriotism, Beacon Press, Massachusetts
- Walzer, M, 2006, Just and Unjust Wars: A Moral Argument with Historical Illustrations, Perseus Books Group, New York.
Post a Comment