Intervention (Post 2

Carlton Klein

                 Intervening in the affairs of another state is one of the most difficult and controversial actions a country can make.  Such actions are justified by their proponents because they protect people from their sovereign in an effort to save lives.  Even if we assume that states are honest about their motives for intervention there are still two big problems with intervention that do not get enough attention.  The first problem involves sovereignty and legitimacy while the second relates to the time span of the goals. 

                When one of more countries decides to conduct a large scale militarily intervention in another country they become the final authority on actions within that region and effectively become the sovereign.    Currently this is justified by the support of regional or international bodies like the Security Council however because these bodies do not represent the people of the state to be intervened in the amount of legitimacy that they can grant is limited. Ultimately it is only the people of a region who have the right to determine who governs them so what right do outside forces have to make that determination for them?  A government that is committing atrocities or allowing them certainly loses legitimacy but can a sense of moral duty really make an outside force more legitimate than a country’s own government? 

                The second problem has to do with the goals of intervention.  It is fine for a state to simply say that it wants to intervene to save lives if one action can save lives in both the short term and the long term but that may not always be the case.  When leaders intervene to save lives they are focused on the short term and either assume that their actions will also save lives in the long term or discount the possibility of future deaths.  Discounting future deaths can be somewhat justified because they are uncertain while the deaths that instigated the intervention are very certain.  On the other hand conflating short term and long term is much harder to justify.  Military interventions tend to take on the strongest group in the country.  This means that a successful intervention will leave a country with weaker groups which may not be capable of managing the country and leads to instability.  Counter intuitively, intervention could also lead to future conflict by cutting the initial conflict short.  If groups within a country felt that they had grievances that were important enough to fight over it is unlikely that a stronger nation coming in and stopping them will automatically make their grievances disappear.  It is entirely possible that by forcing the parties to continue in their original, unstable, situation the intervention could lead to more conflict in the future.  In some cases it might be best to let the parties settle the conflict between themselves rather than imposing a premature peace on them.  Such native solutions are inherently more legitimate than solutions imposed from outside because while both are achieved by force of arms the native solution originates from some of the country’s people. 

                Intervention will always be controversial and every case is unique but it is important that we think about the legitimacy of our actions before intervening as well as their long term consequences.