International legitimacy does matter
Chris Preble highlighted yesterday an op-ed by Ivo Daalder and Robert Kagan that appeared in Monday’s Washington Post. I actually had somewhat of a different reaction to the piece. Chris wrote that Kagan and Daalder, “celebrate the broad bipartisan consensus among the Washington policy elites and the major party candidates in favor of military intervention.” When I read the piece I felt that the focus of the article was more on the importance of “international legitimacy” whenever the U.S. considers military action. For many years polls have shown that Americans are much more comfortable with the use of force if it has broad international support, often in the form of UN Security Council resolutions. The Bush administration recognized this and, even after UN rejection, hailed its “Coalition of the Willing” that had been, in many cases (with the exceptions Australia and Britain), basically strong armed and bribed into token participation.
I agree with Daalder and Kagan that the US will undoubtedly find itself in situations in the future of deciding whether to use force. I feel that if we can create a bipartisan consensus around the need for international legitimacy for military action, then indeed that is a good thing and a far cry from where we have been for the past 7 years. Remember, even John Kerry defended himself against Republican attacks in the 2004 presidential elections, saying that he wouldn’t need a “UN permission slip” to act against threats. If our leaders, both Democrats and Republicans, can actually admit publicly that international support matters and not portray this as a weakness, then we are headed in the right direction, I believe.
Now for the issue of the “Concert of Democracies”. I wrote on this back in September when the Princeton Project on National Security released its report, Forging a World of Liberty Under Law, US National Security in the 21st Century. Like Daalder and Kagan the report proposed the formation of a “Concert of Democracies” that would play a legitimizing (or delegitimizing) role when the US or other democracies proposed using force. Although I feel that the Concert of Democracies idea has merit, I felt that in this most recent op-ed, that Daalder and Kagan too quickly dismissed the UN. They write, “The traditional answer, the U.N. Security Council, no longer suffices, if it ever did.” Although it certainly has been difficult to get the P-5 to agee to take action, it has happened. In the first Gulf War, for example, the Security Council did conclude the force should be used to remove Saddam Hussein from Kuwait. Although, many would argue that it was the very fragility of the international consensus that prevented us from finishing the job, it seems that, considering our current debacle, limitations on the intervention certainly were warranted.
Had we relied in 2003 on the approval of the UN (or even a broad coalition of democratic countries), we probably wouldn’t find ourselves in the mess we are in today. Yes, while messy, the limitations that are inherent in the UN system can actually be a good thing. This is not to say that we must always be limited solely to the approval of the Security Council. In some situations force must be taken when there is an imminent threat. The question, of course, is always what constitutes an imminent threat. I would argue that there should be an inverse relationship between the immediacy of the threat and the requirement of UN approval. As the threat is further off in the future, there should be a much higher reliance on UN approval. For a more immediate threat, there would be less need for such approval.
Of course, there are other situations where military force might be warranted and such validation might be appropriate for this “Concert of Democracies”. In particular, I think of Rwanda and Darfur. In both of these situations, the UN has been unable to act to stop genocide. Although the UN has finally agreed to dispatch peacekeepers to Darfur with the acceptance of the Sudanese government, the years of waiting have meant that thousand more have died.
Frequently, interventions to stop such atrocities as genocide are slowed down or stopped in the Security Council by nondemocratic states such as Russia and China. Democracies place a higher value on human rights and other such ideals than do authoritarian states. Moreover, authoritarian states are reluctant to support a precedent of intervention based on anything other than self defense for fear that it will come back to haunt them vis a vis their own actions. I would argue, therefore, that particularly in cases such as genocide, the “Concert of Democracies” may be a necessary fallback option to the UN Security Council. Of course, maximum effort should be made to get UN approval of such actions. The UN always should be the first stop for international legitimacy. However, as a last resort when all efforts targeted towards the UN have failed, the authority from a “Concert of Democracies” might be appropriate.
I would argue, however, that the threshold in terms of the number supporting democratic countries should be quite high so as to avoid the “coalition of the willing” mistakes of the Iraq invasion. As I wrote in my previous blog post, the key factor will be the breadth of membership of the “Concert of Democracies” that will provide the international legitimacy of intervention.
Brian and I do disagree over both the general significance and the specific substance of the Daalder-Kagan op ed.
To those who celebrate bipartisanship as the key to climbing out of our numerous foreign policy crises, I say that it is bipartsanship that got us here. Bipartisan support for war with Iraq. Bipartisan support for confrontation with Iran. Bipartisan support for NATO expansion and other policies that are pushing us towards another Cold War with Russia. And, above all, bipartisan support — among policy elites, but not the public at large — for a continuation of American hegemony.
My full response, co-authored with David Rieff, appears in The National Interest online.
http://www.nationalinterest.org/Article.aspx?id=15128
On the specific point of legitimacy, and the role that might be played by a Community of Democracies to bestow — ex post facto, if necessary — the legitimacy stamp of approval upon those military interventions not related to defending vital U.S. national interests, and not to deal with an imminent threat to U.S. security, Brian (echoing Daalder and Kagan) writes:
“interventions to stop such atrocities as genocide are slowed down or stopped in the Security Council by nondemocratic states such as Russia and China. Democracies place a higher value on human rights and other such ideals than do authoritarian states. Moreover, authoritarian states are reluctant to support a precedent of intervention based on anything other than self defense for fear that it will come back to haunt them vis a vis their own actions.”
The first point, that democracies invariably place a higher value on human rights might generally be true, but there are certainly exceptions. Democracies tend to be quite concerned about the rights of their own citizens, but no more or less concerned than authoritarian states about the rights of others, particularly during periods of perceived threat.
The latter point does not, and cannot, account for the stance of the largest democratic state on the planet, India, which opposed BOTH the Iraq War AND the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia out of concern for the precedent that such interventions set.
So, what then? When our own national security is not at stake, when we seek to intervene on behalf of others, what if some states disagree with our assessment of what can and should be done? We can expect that future policymakers, Democrats and Republicans, who are bent on military intervention will accept the support of any states willing to give it, and they will ignore the warnings and objections of those opposed. That is what Bill Clinton did in 1999. That is what George Bush did in 2003. And I am confident, so long as the interventionist consensus remains dominant within the foreign policy community, that the next president will do the same.
Comment on August 10, 2007 @ 4:55 am
Chris, thanks for your response. You raise some good points. I’d respond to a few.
You write, “The first point, that democracies invariably place a higher value on human rights might generally be true, but there are certainly exceptions. Democracies tend to be quite concerned about the rights of their own citizens, but no more or less concerned than authoritarian states about the rights of others, particularly during periods of perceived threat.”
Granted, in general states’ uppermost concern is that of their own preservation and livelihoods. I don’t deny this. However, with that said, there are certainly instances of democracies making foreign policy decisions that also take into account other factors such as human rights and humanitarian concerns. I’m not aware of authoritarian states giving much weight to these concerns. Therefore, I argue that in general democracies are more concerned with these issues globally and more apt to include those concerns in their foreign policy decisions. This does not deny that self interest is also quite important.
You write, “The latter point does not, and cannot, account for the stance of the largest democratic state on the planet, India, which opposed BOTH the Iraq War AND the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia out of concern for the precedent that such interventions set. ”
In terms of India’s position on Iraq there was widespread public opposition in the country to the invasion and also to sending troops after the invasion. Perhaps the Indian public simply saw the invasion as unjustified and this was reflected in the foreign policy stances of its leaders. If you feel that Iraq was a mistake, wouldn’t this be an argument for including other countries in the such decisions. If India (and other democracies) had been listened to, we might not be where we are now. In a “Concert of Democracies” I would expect that the largest democracy in the world would certainly have a seat at the table.
You write, “We can expect that future policymakers, Democrats and Republicans, who are bent on military intervention will accept the support of any states willing to give it, and they will ignore the warnings and objections of those opposed.”
Isn’t this precisely the reason to create a more formal mechanism to provide legitimacy so that we don’t simply end up with Democrats and Republicans simply accepting the support of those countries that agree and ignoring dissenters.
Thanks again for your comments!
Comment on August 10, 2007 @ 10:01 am