Do Air Raids Protect Civilians?
Air Raids and Civilian Protection: A Critical Analysis
Introduction
By September 2015, over 11 million Syrians were displaced due to war.
The 3,000th air raid against Islamist forces in Iraq and Syria occurred before Easter 2015, with the number projected to reach nearly 5,000 by year's end.
Martti Ahtisaari, former Finnish President and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, suggested that diplomacy could have averted the crisis.
In 2012, Ahtisaari discussed with Russian UN ambassador Vitaly Churkin the possibility of Assad's resignation.
Churkin indicated Russia wouldn't object if Assad resigned with dignity and if the West ceased arming rebels.
Ahtisaari's attempts to convey this opening to other Security Council members were unsuccessful.
Foreign Policy suggests Russia later added conditions, complicating the consensus.
The Debate: Dignified Exit for Assad?
The West, like in Libya with Gaddafi, decided Assad's human rights record didn't warrant a dignified exit.
More than 250,000 conflict fatalities later, the question arises whether diplomacy should have been pursued.
Cosmopolitan Argument (Mary Kaldor)
Atrocities by IS and Assad should be addressed through global humanitarian norms.
Negotiation with perpetrators is unacceptable; they should be captured, tried, and punished.
Cosmopolitan law enforcement is the solution to violence.
Enforcement of norms establishes a global order; negotiation undermines it.
Political-Realist Critique
A normative global order is a fantasy and potentially dangerous.
Four premises for a realistic global humanitarian order:
Common values that can be enforced.
Agreement on implementation.
Legitimate actors for enforcement.
Need for a full normative foundation.
Global Norms and Consensus: Challenges
Do states resist consensus to protect self-serving interactions?
Russia's opposition to anti-Assad intervention in 2014: speculated to protect weapon sales to Assad.
China's potential opposition: immature sense of global governance responsibility (Zoellick).
Those supposedly protected by global norms often resist this protection.
2008 U.S. Defense Department poll in Iraq: only % felt the U.S. contributed to security; % saw the U.S. role as legitimate.
British Ministry of Defence poll: % of Iraqis opposed coalition presence; less than % believed it improved security.
Problems in Afghanistan: Western-trained soldiers turned against trainers.
Unpopularity of the U.S. drone program.
In Syria:
Assad's regime is unpopular, and protection is needed.
Radicalization of anti-Assad resistance and IS appeal are problematic.
Western interpretation of humanitarian norms is not universally accepted.
IS appeal lies in its resistance to the West.
Amitai Etzioni: Dialogue is needed instead of simple enforcement of global norms.
Implementation issues:
Democracy imposed on a national level in Syria, yet military power is exercised undemocratically.
Syrians did not vote for U.S. bombings.
Democracy and freedom are imposed on national institutions but not on the UN or WHO (Etzioni).
Differing interpretations of world politics exist globally.
Legitimate Agency for Enforcement?
Post-9/11 asymmetry: eagerness to promote global principles without building global agency.
Emphasis on global governance without global government (Etzioni).
Democracy's advantage: prevents incompetent/immoral rulers from making unpopular decisions and staying in power.
Democratic rulers must align with their constituencies' interests and morals, sidelining Syrian interests.
Correlational analysis in the Muslim Middle East: U.S. allies are often more autocratic than U.S. adversaries.
Average autocracy score of U.S. allies: (on a scale of to ).
Average autocracy score of U.S. adversaries: .
Transitions to democracy in the Middle East are often punished by the U.S., except in Bahrain in 1973.
Transitions to autocracy have been rewarded more often than punished since World War II.
U.S. opposed democratic processes threatening its energy supplies in the Middle East.
U.S. strategic interests, the war on terror, and protecting Israel are higher priorities than promoting democracy.
Domestic pressures on U.S. foreign policy are driven by nationalism (John Mueller).
Americans overvalue American lives and undervalue foreign lives.
Constituencies prioritize American interests over the interests of those supposedly being protected.
Lack of local ownership and agency in protecting civilians and humanitarian norms.
External insistence on democracy has weakened developing states (e.g., Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, Yemen, Syria).
Successful state formation often contradicts human rights principles applied to mature states.
State formation pacifies interactions and enables democracy and human rights.
Cosmopolitan progress needs inter-civilizational dialogue for consensus and shared ownership of global values.
What If There Is No Consensus?
Mary Kaldor: Cosmopolitan order cannot wait for total global consensus.
Political realists (Henry Kissinger): Sustainable global governance requires order and legitimacy, not just coercion.
Building order without shared legitimacy is unsustainable.
Dreaming of normative crusades before missions are realistic is dangerous.
Sanctions preventing complicity in genocides and humanitarian violations are uncontroversial.
Financial sanctions against elites (freezing assets) have a relatively high success rate (up to % after World War I) when elites are already weakened.
Sanctions punishing entire states are less successful (affect targets in only in cases).
Hostile nations imposing sanctions to promote human rights or democracy: failed totally in % of cases.
Sanctions imposed without consensus are detrimental to humanitarian values.
Karl and John E. Mueller: Economic coercion is a "sanction of mass destruction."
Military force against entire countries often leads to worse rulers.
Syria: Western support of anti-Assad forces is an example.
Western humanitarian interventions tend to escalate conflicts and intensify killing.
Two-thirds of conflict fatalities in Northeast and Southeast Asia after WWII occurred in internal disputes where outsiders imposed solutions.
In such conflicts, % of fatalities occurred after outsiders intervened militarily.
In Syria, direct conflict fatalities tripled after Western air strikes and CIA interference.
Since the end of the Cold War, the willingness to protect people from state power and terrorist violence has increased, leading to "protection wars" or "New International Wars".
Wars in Somalia, Iraq, northern Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Yemen caused % of the world’s conflict fatalities in 2013 and % in 2010.
Enforcement of humanitarian principles in the absence of global consensus has become a major problem.
Figure 1: Fatalities of Enforcement of Global Protective Humanitarian Norms as a Percentage of All Conflict Fatalities
Conclusions
Enforcement of humanitarian norms is resisted when it prioritizes the self-interest of protecting nations.
When global humanitarian governance fails to develop global agency, "protection" can harm civilians.
Enforcement of norms before consensus and global agency is a failure.
Without a genuine interest in developing a global humanitarian regime, effective global governance is impossible.
Norms are disputed, interpretations vary, and enforcement agency is missing.
Simple enforcement of norms is not a substitute for dialogue and negotiation.
"Cosmopolitan protection wars" or "new international wars" reveal that new wars are not apolitical and criminal.
Efforts at neutral policing have led to enforcement of norms that harm those intended to be protected.
Instead of enforcement, focus on dialogue and creating a normative consensus on global humanitarian protection.
Western ambassadors should have negotiated with Russia on Assad's exit.
Cosmopolitan Argument (Mary Kaldor)
Atrocities should be addressed through global humanitarian norms; negotiation with perpetrators is unacceptable; cosmopolitan law enforcement is the solution.
Political-Realist Critique
A normative global order is a fantasy; sustainable global governance requires order and legitimacy, not just coercion.
Global Norms and Consensus Challenges
States resist consensus to protect self-serving interactions; differing interpretations of world politics exist globally.
Legitimate Agency for Enforcement
Post-9/11 asymmetry: eagerness to promote global principles without building global agency; lack of local ownership and agency.
What If There Is No Consensus?
Sustainable global governance requires order and legitimacy; sanctions preventing complicity in genocides are uncontroversial, but hostile nations imposing sanctions to promote human rights have largely failed.