WEEK 10 READING - Walzer, Doyle, and Richmond

Collective self-determination

Walzer defends non-intervention on the grounds of self-determination → the right of a people to be free by their own efforts if they can, and onnointerventoin is the prinicple that guarentees their success wont be impeded or their failure prevented by the intrusions of an alien power

• the recognition of sovereignty is the only way to create a space where freedom can be fought for and sometimes won

Walzers 3 circumstances for overriding non-intervention

1. National liberation and success → when a distinct political community is struggling for independence

   1. EX: HUNGARY → Hungarian struggle for independence in 1948

2. Counter interventions in civil wars → when freign powers have already intervened in civil wars, therefore upsetting the local balance of power

3. Humanitarian rescue → when states commit acts atht shock the consciousness of mankind against their populations, like systematic massacre. Multilateral authorization is not required, and mixed motives do not ruin the justification but intervention is a last resort

   1. EX: Bangladesh trying to seperate from Pakistan

Self Determination and Self Help - Walzer

• Mill → a politicla community has the right ot determine its own affairs, whether or not it succeeds in establishing free institutions; self-determination and political freedom are NOT the same thing; and freedom imposed form the outside is not genuine freedom; “strong doctrine of self-help”

• Walzer → concludes that nonintervention is the principle that guarantees a communitys self-determination will not be usurped by a foreign force. Even against bloody repression, there is not right to outside protection from the consequences of domestic failure

Walzers 3 circumstances that can permit boundary-crossing

1. when a set of boundaries contains multiple communities, one of which is alr fighting for independence (secession/national liberation)

2. When a foreign power has alr crossed those boundaries (counter-intervention)

3. When a human rights violations are so extremem that talk of self-determination is cynical and irrelevant

• Always act so as to recognize and uphold communal autonomy

National Liberation/Secession Examples - Walzer

The Hungarian Revolution:1848 - 49

• Hungary had a national community fighting for independence form Austrian imperial rule

  • passed “self-help test” by mobilizing, winning belligerent rights, and sustaining the struggle

  • When Russia intervened on Austrias side, Mill argued that Britain should have counter intervened

• Key lesson → counter intervention is morally permissible but not required: an intervention is unjust if it puts third parties at big risks

Civil War

• civil wars are trickier because they involve tangled factions claiming to represent the community

• Walzer → outside powers can hlep an established govt facing internal rebellion, but once rebels acquire belligerent rights, strict neutrality becomes mandatory

Counter-intervention Examples - Walzer

American War in Vietnam

• Rejects American framing of North invading south, but rather that the US was counter-intervening to help the south Vietnamese govt

• 2 reasons

1. South Vietnamese govt never passed the self-help test, it depended entirely on US support and couldn’t rally its own population

2. US excalated war beyoond counter-intervention limits; the goal of counter-intervention is not to win a war, but to restore the local integrity so that they can determine the outcome themselves

• Us turned what could have been the Vietnamese civil war into an American war fought for American purposes

Humanitarian Intervention Examples - Walzer

• genuinely pure humanitarian interventions are rare, but mixed motives don’t disqualify an intervention they just need a closer look

Cuba, 1898

• Spains reconcentracion policy caused civilian suffering, which generated humanitarian outrage in the US

• US intervention failed the hunanitarian test cuz they didn’t want to enter for the Cuban people, they invaded without recognizing the insurgent govt and occupied the island for years

• THIS IS BENEVOLENT IMPERIALISM not humanitarian intervention

Bangladesh, 1971

• Walzers best example of humnitrarian intervention, not cuz India was pure but because its various motives converged on the course of action taht was also right for the Bengalis

• They did it quickly, imposed no political controls on the Bangladesh

• The Pakistani army had committed atrocities amountign to crimes against humanity making their defeat morally necessary → they cannot pas the self-help test before receiving aid

Doyle

• Doyle reconstructs Mill’s account of interventions to highlight the consequential character of his views

Harms of Intervention

• undermines autheticity of self-gvt

• hinders local capacity for freedom

• risks bad outcomes (like oppression)

• involves a lack of understanding of local politics

• entails danger of abuse and imperialism; erodes international rules that protect weak states and reduce violent conflict

Possible good

1. Cases where the principle of nonintervention must be balanced against other values

   1. Self-Defense

   2. removing ongoing menaces after just wars

   3. Mediating an end to protracted civil wars

2. Cases where the rationale for nonintervention no longer applies

   1. national liberation and secession

   2. counter intervention

   3. humanitarian intervention

   4. benign imperialism

• Doyle → possible harms and goods are case by case; and intervention is riskier than Mill thinks

Richmond - why is humanitarian intervention so divisive

Main argument → intervention proved divisive because it highlights key differences in teh views of scholars regarding the source and nature of legitimacy and sovereignty, and the values they ascribe to the international community

• does a scholar prioritize justice and freedom? or fairness and equality/

Basics:

• 1999, NATO used missile and ari strikes agasin the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY) wihtout authoritisation from UNSC, with the aim of protecting Kosovar Albanians from ethnic cleansing

• relates to a broader debate on if there is a internaitonl responsiblity to protect people form mass atrocity, but the issue of potential unilateral use of on-defensive force remains a controversial topic

• Nato intervention had neither consent of FRY neither UNSC which challenges constructivist veiw that emphaises effects of norms and rules on state identity and behaviour

  • also challenges realist ideals cuz NATO members intervened regardless ot the fact that it didn’t serve any national motives