On Humanitarian Interventions

Humanitarian arguments were discussed as early as 1917, when USA entered WWI. But during the 1990’s and up until today, the issue of humanitarian interventions has been widely discussed; mainly because international interventions has become easier to discuss after the cold war due to the changes in the international interaction between countries (Lindholm Shultz, Helena, Krig I Vår Tid, 2002:137). Human rights issues have become increasingly important during recent years, and the principle of sovereignty is often questioned, while an increasing amount of people supports humanitarian intervention because they believe it is U.N.’s responsibility to protect exposed civilians. But while many requests for international humanitarian interventions remain unheard, it is somewhat obvious that these interventions are not simply based on humanitarian interests, but on strategic and political interests as well. There are different argumentations regarding the ethics in international relations and politics. Some people are against humanitarian interventions because they argue if it really is correct to try to achieve peace with wars? Some people say that humanitarian interventions will lead to grain drain in the countries, and some people argue that humanitarian interventions should be similar to those after the Tsunami catastrophe, which only consisted of pure help to the people in need. Some of the different argumentations that exist regarding the ethics in international relations are the skeptics argumentation, the state moralists and the cosmopolitans’ argumentations. Now, from these three different perspectives, the humanitarian interventions in Somalia 1992 will be discussed.
When discussing the ethics in international relations, and whether or not humanitarian interventions would be a correct tool to apply in this situation, skeptics would argue that humanitarian interventions would be needed to apply in this conflict. Morality is not really an issue for the skeptics, because they believe in the principle that “might makes right” (Nye, Joseph, Understanding International Conflicts, 2005:23) and that the only choice one has is to either “kill or be killed” (Nye, 2005:23). Ethics in international relations are for the skeptics overlooked since they believe in the Athenians’ principle that “the strong do what they have the power to do and the weak accept what they have to accept” (Nye, 2005:23). Since this conflict was believed to threaten international peace and security, humanitarian interventions would be necessary to apply in this conflict for the skeptics. And this was the reasons for the U.N. and the USA to intervene in Somalia. So then it can be argued that USA acted as skeptics when they wanted to send troops for the Task Force because the conflict threatened world peace; under the principle “kill or be killed”. But, one can also argue that they acted as skeptics when George Bush made the choice to intervene only because he was resigning from office, and that he pushed this good deed because he wanted to be at good foot with the American people. Because it is known that, for skeptics, humanitarian interventions are applied if they gain something from it themselves. Because, still this country is in need for humanitarian interventions, but since USA does not seem to gain anything from the situation today, they have decided to ignore it. Also, since skeptics pushes the issue of order very hard, one could argue that everything does not have to be either black or white; order or justice. The skeptics often miss the fact that it is possible to compromise between order and justice.
Moreover, according to the state moralists would probably not have accepted humanitarian interventions in Somalia 1992. Because, they believe that it is wrong to intervene in other states businesses, which means that the principles of sovereignty and autonomy is of utter most importance for them, and living by these principle is “the best way to preserve order” (Nye, 2005:26). Here it can then be argued whether or not it was correct by the U.N. to intervene since Somalia at this time was a country without a state. And maybe the state moralists would then think it would be alright to intervene since it was a stateless country. But, Nye claims that for the state moralists “[w]ar is justified to defend a state’s territorial integrity or to defend its sovereignty against external aggression” (Nye, 2005:161). So even if Somalia was stateless, it still wasn’t an external aggression towards the country, so the state moralists would probably not have agreed to humanitarian interventions in this case. But it is important to remember that external aggression is very hard to define, and this is a problem with the state moralists reasoning. Conflicts are often very complicated, which makes it hard to decide when humanitarian interventions are legitimized.
Further, the cosmopolitans would in Somalia’s case argue that humanitarian interventions would be a necessity. They push the issues of justice for the individual and human rights very strong, and they believe that national borders are a pretty immoral invention. Therefore, international politics are very much in focus for them, because they believe that we are a “society of individuals” (Nye, 2005:160). Actually, cosmopolitans begged the U.N. to apply humanitarian interventions in Somalia. They feared starvation, and believed that something had to be done to save the civilians lives. But they are sometimes also very sceptical towards economic interventions in certain countries, when they believe that they will cause grain-drain, and not be of any help. But what cosmopolitans often forgets, is to see the bigger picture. And this is a great danger, because if too much emphasis is put on justice for individuals and human rights, the issue of safety is often overlooked. With that comes a risk of chaos in the world, which I believe, is important to question. That is probably the only downside with the cosmopolitans’ arguments. Also, according to Nye, cosmopolitans believe that “it is permissible to intervene on the side of the good” (Nye, 2005:160), which I also believe is pretty vague. Because, how do one define “good” and how can one define “who” the “good” is.
Last, since peace is still not restored in Somalia, and since over 100 000 Somalis lives in refugee camps in Kenya today, there have been many requests to apply humanitarian interventions after they failed the first time (Lindbom Schultz, 2002:143). More and more people tend to lean towards the cosmopolitan argumentation today, since human rights issues have become increasingly important. A larger amount of people do believe that it is U.N.’s responsibility to protect civilians, but I personally believe that the U.N. can do more than they do in the world today. Also the USA could do more in the world, and not just when it benefits them in some way. Morals and ethics in international relations and politics are extremely hard to agree on, and there are advantages and disadvantages with all three alternative views discussed above. Personally, I would believe I am a cosmopolitan, with a fear of chaos lurking around the corner.

Works Cited

Lindbom Schultz, Helena. Krig I Vår Tid. Studentlitteratur Lund: 2002.
Nye, Joseph S. Understanding International Conflicts: An Introduction to Theory and History. 5th ed. Pearson Education, Inc; 2005.Notes from lectures