Re-Enacting the Past? Contemporary Intervention in Historical Perspective

• By GuestContributor
• 1 March, 2012
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by Ben Boulton, PhD Candidate in Politics

the National Library in Sarajevo (post-shelling)

DESPITE its conclusion amidst bloodshed and internecine strife, the recent intervention in Libya has been hailed by its perpetrators as the dawning of a new age in international relations, the point at which state relations admit of humanitarian considerations to an unprecedented degree. Yet the somewhat chaotic modus operandi which characterised the engagement appears oddly reminiscent of previous interventions and instead renders the opposed conclusion – that the more external intervention changes, the more it stays the same (plus ça change). This is also true to the extent that other aspects of the recent intervention resonate across time and suggest a broader thematic continuity.

We are strangely unmoved by the range of neologisms and simplifications which resonate in appeals to new world orders, largely due to the ubiquity and dubious legacy of Humanitarian Intervention (HI), R2P’s intellectual and political precursor. Globalisation, the assisting midwife in the delivery of HI, has – largely on account of its similarly imprecise and grandiose distortions – further reinforced this predisposition to greet invocations of brave new worlds with appropriate scepticism.

In its self-conscious desire to differentiate itself from its predecessor, R2P attenuates its personal idiosyncrasies – in this manner it flutters its eyelashes at world opinion and openly flaunts its attachment to state sovereignty. HI, at least in its 1990s variant, never troubled itself in this respect and conversely took to barking non-negotiable demands in a shrill and self-aggrandising tone. Its practical manifestations were similarly antagonistic – thus, it provocatively brandished Kosovo as its concrete manifestation. Unsurprisingly, despite its grandiose pretensions, HI never ingratiated itself with world opinion (i).

In happy contrast, R2P has formally integrated itself as a broadly accepted international norm. This is at least partially a reflection of the fact that it has aroused considerably less opposition within the post-colonial/developing world, largely due to its relative detachment from influential actors within the international system (or at least in the stages of its formulation). Equally propitiously, although R2P retains forcible intervention as a last resort, it remains less enamoured by the overt militarism which characterised HI (ii) (ICISS, 2001).

Yet while R2P can, in this limited sense, be understood as a distinct improvement, it is less apparent whether it approximates to progress in real terms. For instance, one of the most resonant critiques of HI invoked its inherent predisposition towards selective implementation – thus states could not be relied upon to consistently uphold humanitarian norms because self-interest is an a priori condition of agency within the international system. Attempts to overcome this restriction, most notably exemplified in Tony Blair’s (characteristically) feeble attempt to extrapolate the notion of ‘enlightened self-interest’(Blair, 1999) appeared abortive and poorly attuned to the unwritten rules (!) of international relations.

Understood in its own terms, R2P overcomes this danger through its adherence to preparatory criteria which necessarily precedes intervention. This happy outcome is nonetheless vulnerable by virtue of the fact that it rests upon an insufficiently robust compromise. This claim has been given further weight by the broad range of developments which have been (facilely) bracketed as the ‘Arab Spring’. As such, it has become transparently obvious that there has been no clear engagement with, much less consensus upon, key issues (iii). These include, inter alia, the state’s right to use force in the face of armed rebellion; the circumstances under which a right of rebellion might be justifiably invoked; and the level of evidence which should precede intervention. External actors have therefore effectively clouded the issue of intervention by invoking a responsibility to protect without adequately justifying it.

HI had successfully sidestepped such debates, largely by virtue of the fact that it (ostensibly) only sought to justify intervention in the most limited of instances (genocide, extreme violations of human rights). This meant that HI’s lack of political sophistication (iiii) (or, to put it more crudely, its elevation of the heart over the head) could be reconstituted as a positive trait (conceived with reference to a wildly divergent context, its bloody-minded moralism recalls Harold Wilson’s claim that the ‘Labour Party is a moral crusade or it is nothing’). R2P conversely envisages a broader range of applications/justifications and, for this reason, is considerably more vulnerable to the charge that it has not established a sufficiently robust apparatus of key concepts, definitions and operational modes (v).

In the continued absence of this anticipating framework, the actual act of intervention should not be simplistically equated with broad agreement (or incipient consensus) upon the above issues. Similar claims were advanced both during and after Kosovo (see Keohane, 2003; Wheeler, 1999, Cooper; 2004), and proved to be equally premature. Indeed, it is entirely plausible to argue that the practical implementation of intervention may shatter a fragile consensus and, as such, approximate to a substantive regression.

Kosovo also appeals to retrospective continuities in another respect – thus, it was accompanied by the astonishing assertion that intervention testified to the irresistible onward march of HI. In reality, such conclusions testified more to a myopic refusal to acknowledge broader concerns and objections. It said more about the individual celebrants’ slavish adherence to the prerogatives of power (as opposed to the existence of a mythical norm) that an international consensus could be said to exist in the face of sustained opposition from two members of the UN Security Council and substantial pockets of international opinion (see Ayoob, 2004). In a similar manner, recent allusions to the consolidation of the ‘will of the international community’ (in Libya) managed to overlook the objections of the African Union.

A more realistic appraisal of Kosovo would indicate that, far from representing a qualitative shift or the incipient consolidation of an emerging norm, it actually testified to the weaknesses or inadequacies of HI. In instrumental terms, it approximated more closely to an ad hoc compromise which was largely detached from solidarist moorings. To a considerable extent, the Libyan intervention can be said to derive from similarly opportunistic origins.

a Street in Misrata after the Recent Civil War in Libya (from Odd Andersen/AFP/Getty Images)

Broad continuities therefore attest that the Libyan intervention does not appear to clearly depart from the opportunistic template which characterised previous instances of interventions (Somalia, Bosnia and Kosovo) (vi). This is apparent if we consider: a) escalation of the level of killing (in an intervention justified upon the basis it would save lives); b) swift degeneration into a bloody impasse (as in Kosovo, where it quickly became apparent that NATO’s strategy did not effectively align political and military objectives); c) the enactment of egregious proxy agent practices (which had initially provided the rationale for intervention in the first place) (Milne, 2011). Each of these weaknesses meant that the intervention was forced to fall back upon the kind of moral consequentialism which had previously sustained interventions in Bosnia, Kosovo and, to a lesser extent (for obvious reasons), Iraq. While we might therefore concur that intervention produced an inherently limited solution, we would search in vain for the broader process of learning and adaptation which R2P had supposedly inaugurated.

In the absence of such an analysis, external intervention cannot progress beyond the restraints which, at present, both limit and sustain it – this apparently contradictory statement therefore suggests that the absence of a clear generic strategy (reinforced by appropriate ‘lessons’) both restrains and enables contemporary practices of intervention. In the first instance, it will be seen that intervention is restricted in the ideal sense – thus, the limitations of simplistic analyses anticipate the practices which have been excoriated above. Conversely, however, attenuated understanding can be invoked as a condition of possibility for these very same practices.

‘Simplistic analyses’ therefore stem from the essential failure to differentiate intra-state conflict, in which causes of conflict vary broadly, from state violence – in which – at least theoretically, the centralisation of destructive power necessitates engagement at the nexus which binds state-level executives and military agents. This basic distinction, and its implicit suggestion that the state does not always foreshadow or ‘contain’ societal dynamics, is frequently lost or obfuscated in contemporary engagements with intra-state conflict. The proliferation of top-down simplifications (see Bellamy, 2004; 27) can be at least partially attributed to HI and R2P, both of which asserted state violence against its own citizens as the definitive security challenge of the contemporary age.

While developments in the Middle East and Maghreb suggest the continued relevance of explanations which centre upon the state’s role in perpetuating violence (whether conceived in terms of inefficient governance; insufficiently development of state-societal relations or brutal/ inefficient mechanisms of social control), the stubborn persistence of wider conflicts suggests that this narrow predisposition may be of limited utility in understanding and engaging broader instances of intra-state violence (vii). A more nuanced and sophisticated approach would therefore emphasise that this a priori focus (upon the actions of the state) diverts attention from the range of dynamics – both internal and external – which are equally deserving of sustained engagement. Ultimately, the reluctance to acknowledge these broader influences (or to acknowledge the inherent complexity of contemporary conflict) reinforces the tendency for intervention to refract through the lens of power politics (viii).

Almost all instances in which violent conflict is reduced to state predation therefore involve, to a greater or lesser extent, a necessary degree of simplification. Yet such ‘objective’ deficiencies, as noted earlier, should not be critiqued purely upon the basis of their analytical shortcomings; conversely, such distortions can also be valued for their inherent instrumentality – to this extent, the almost artful depiction of individual/collective degeneracy/deviation anticipates the subtext of externally imposed amelioration (see Zanotti, 2006). In its essentials, this distorted dynamic recalls prevalent practices of the Cold War, when it was de rigueur to arbitrarily ascribe ‘objective’ class labels across international borders (viiii).

As this interplay resonated, subaltern actors increasingly adapted to the rules of the game. For this reason, intervention is no longer a one-way process in which powerful external actors project themselves onto the subaltern; rather, the latter consistently manipulates Western governments and publics through the stylised mimicry of Westernised shibboleths (adherence to democracy, civil liberties, opposition to arbitrary authority etc). Distortion is therefore co-constitutive – and sustained by the externalised tendency to conceive of intervention as an article of faith (simultaneous submissions to the dispassionate authority of standardised criteria appear, at least in this context, inherently contradictory). Despite its reccurrence in the contemporary context the enactment of this dynamic remains insufficiently acknowledged.

Western intervention in Kosovo, and its accompanying rationales, conscientiously subscribed to the path delineated above – detached observers were consequently ‘treated’ to the dubious merits of a simplistic morality play whose essential purpose appeared to be the creative adaptation or refusal of underlying realities (x). Although the KLA (with its inconvenient penchants for drugs smuggling, arms trafficking and alleged organ harvesting) could not be credibly reframed as a group of cuddly freedom fighters (even the US government’s capacity for creative adaptation admits of some limitations), the organisation’s contribution to the onset and perpetuation of violence was nonetheless comprehensively obfuscated and denied (xi) (xii).

This superficial detachment from the origins of violent conflict appears to resonate as a broader dynamic, in resolute defiance of the almost ritual invocation (usually under the guises of the comprehensive approach) of the ‘root causes’ of violence. In contrast, the bloody and messy immediacy of war intrudes into the equation and distorts understanding (xiii). In this manner, media-driven hysteria and elite political agency effectively coalesce as a vicious circle – a dynamic which regurgitates simplistic and moralistic narratives and renders effective engagement increasingly inconceivable. The sweat expounded in the course of this political labour – the attempt to slot square conflicts into the circles of glib narratives – testifies only to its inherent futility.

That R2P is an improvement upon its predecessor clearly recommends it to some extent. Yet its implementation reveals that the doctrine is insufficiently divorced both from HI and the vagaries of power politics. In the first sense, it retains its predecessor’s attachment to superficial ‘solutions’ (xiiii); in the second, it reinforces existing power relations within the international system. As with Kosovo, it appears that the Libyan intervention exposes the limitations, as opposed to the inherent possibilities, of a nascent doctrine.

Ben Boulton is a PhD candidate and GTA (graduate teaching assistant) in the Department of Politics at Exeter University. His current research area is post-conflict peacebuilding, an engagement which reflects a more general interest in the politics of intervention.

Notes

(i) A meeting of non-aligned movement foreign ministers therefore registered opposition in the strongest possible terms. A joint statement reiterated ‘{the group’s} firm condemnation of all military activity without the proper authorisation from the UN Security Council. Furthermore, ‘{the group rejected} the so-called right of intervention {and affirmed it} has no legal basis in the UN Charter or in the general principles of international law’ (cited in Wheeler, 2004).

(ii) Chandler (2002; 111) invokes Stammers to considerable effect – ‘the imperative of action to defend human rights ironically entails a realpolitik which is highly state-centric and, in fact, not only reflects but reinforces the highly uneven balance of existing power relations. Naderveen Pieterse concurs that while ‘on the one hand HI inaugurates a new kind of citizenship, the citizenship of humanity, {on} the other it treads in the footsteps of conventional inter-state wisdom (1997; 72).

(iii)Bellamy (2005; 617)observes that even supporters of R2P acknowledge that ‘the principle which emerged from the 2005 world summit was inadequate because it did not provide guidance about the circumstances in which military interventions might be justified or about the appropriate decision-making process in situations where the security council is deadlocked’.

(iiii) Mamdani (2010; 54) affirms that the language of HI is ‘profoundly apolitical and sometimes even anti-political’. See also Chandler’s (2002; 63) claim that HI operates ‘beyond politics’.

(v) Bellamy (2005; 617)observes that even supporters of R2P acknowledge that ‘the principle which emerged from the 2005 world summit was inadequate because it did not provide guidance about the circumstances in which military interventions might be justified or about the appropriate decision-making process in situations where the security council is deadlocked’.

(vi) In both instances, NATO’s intervention was predicated upon a conviction that humanitarian catastrophe was imminent. In the case of Kosovo, it is still disputed whether ‘Operation Horseshoe’ – an alleged plan to ethnically cleanse large parts of the province – actually existed. In Libya, the justification that Ghadafi loyalists were ‘about to commit a Srebrenica-style massacre’ (Milne, 2011) was somewhat mitigated by the fact that the NTC were later accused of similar crimes (although to a lesser extent). NATO’s justification for its ultimate intervention in Bosnia was similarly impulsive and nebulous (a 1995 Sarajevo marketplace shelling and the Srebrenica massacre were loosely cited as justifications).

(vii) To this extent, the legal and moral immunity which was initially bestowed upon Paul Kagame after the 1994 genocide has had grave consequences for regional stability, most notably with regard to violence in Eastern DRC (Democratic Republic of Congo).

(viii) The cynical manner in which the Bush administration co-opted the Darfur conflict further reinforces this point.

(viiii) See Kalyvas (2001) and Berdal (2003).

(x) It is insufficiently acknowledged that the bulk of ethnic cleansing began after NATO’s bombing campaign commenced.

(xi) Alan Kuperman observes that the KLA deliberately escalated the conflict in the expectation that external action would ensue (see Bellamy, 2005; 631). Alija Izetbegovic, the former Bosnian President, had similarly pursued Bosnian independence in the expectation that external intervention would ensue should violence break out.

(xii) BBC (2009) ‘Horrors of KLA Prison Camps Revealed’, BBC News Online {online}, 10 April Available from http;//news.bbc.c.o.uk/1/hi/world/Europe/7990984.stm (Accessed 11/02/12): . AND ‘The Kosovan Disappeared’ 2009, Short Video Clip, British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), London, Thursday 9 –:Available from http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/7992240.stm (Accessed 11/02/12

(xiii) Such narratives, in focusing almost exclusively upon the conduct of warring parties, therefore emphasise the consequences of violence at the expense of the causes.

(xiiii) We the Peoples), a UN Millennium Report, therefore previously issued a call for ‘strategies of intervention {which} address the root causes of violence rather than their symptoms’ (2000, 44-45).

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