R2P Debate Rising ( Part I.)
….My main observation, however, is that the discussion thus far has been focused more on a “right” to protect than a “responsibility” to do so. The arguments indicate that a state has a responsibility to protect its people but takes for granted that third parties somehow inherit this responsibility when the state cannot fulfill it. There is a missing explanation here. The need to justify such efforts may seem callous, but a nation’s highest moral order is to serve its own citizens first. Such an explanation would certainly be a legitimate demand for a mother that loses a son who volunteered to defend his nation, or for a government entrusted by its people to use their resources to their own benefit. While it is often stated that the international community “should” intervene, explanation of where this imperative comes from is not addressed other than by vague references to modern states being interconnected. But this implies, as previously stated, a right based on the self-interest of states, firmly grounded in realistic security concerns, rather than any inherent humanitarian responsibility to intervene. Instability and potential spillover may very well make it within a nation’s vital interests to intervene in another country and pursuing humanitarian and human rights goals within the borders of another state may well be in a nation’s secondary interests. But if this is the case, the calculus of the political leadership will determine if pursuing this goal is worth the cost/potential costs – as has been done in such cases as North Korea, Iran, Zimbabwe, Tibet and Syria. In either case, the decision is determined by what is in the nation’s interests, a reality that makes R2P not a mandate, but a merely a post hoc justification for interventions that do occur.
Leonidas makes many good points, in my view, but the intellectual fungibility of R2P as a concept, its elastic and ever evolving capacity to serve as a pretext for any situation at hand is the most important, because it is potentially most destabilizing and threatening to other great powers with which the United States has to share the globe. In short, with great responsibilities come greater costs.
In part II. I will lay out a more methodical case on the intellectual phantom that is R2P.
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T. Greer:
February 7th, 2014 at 7:09 am
“Leonidas Musahi” is a great choice. Sometimes I regret having been so eager to blog that I rushed into it without creating a better pen name than a simple abbreviation of my actual name. Missed opportunities.
Lexington Green:
February 7th, 2014 at 4:26 pm
Rights necessarily imply duties. There can be no rights without duties. If I have a right, someone else has a duty to do something or desist from doing something. If people being oppressed somewhere have a “right” to protection, that means someone, somewhere, has a duty to provide that protection. Who? How? Why? What is the source of this purported duty? Who is it imposed on? Why those person or communities and not others? Who decides when this duty arises? Who weighs this duty against other duties that are not currently notional, like national sovereignty? How does a person in Rwanda have a right to the expenditure of money and human lives of American soldiers to invade his country and fight his government to protect him? Does R2P mandate that developed countries spend 2.5% or more of GDP on expeditionary military capabilities to carry out this duty? There is no coherent answer to these questions and there cannot be. R2P is a rhetorical gimmick. It has no substance and it cannot have any — formulated as a “right.” People like to talk in terms of rights, because it takes questions out of politics and creates an aura of legal obligation. The only case that can ever be made for using military force to defend people in a foreign country from anarchy or their own government is one based on prudence and moral judgment, not some completely baseless “right.” If people in some foreign land are being massacred, those foreigners with the capacity and desire to intervene on their behalf weight the costs, risks and benefits — practical and political — of doing so and make a political decision whether or not to act. That is all there is or ever can be to it. Case by case, totality of the circumstances, political and prudential decision-making. None of which has anything to do with any right.
Lynn C. Rees:
February 7th, 2014 at 11:10 pm
To go all Uncle Joe on R2P: “The international community! How many divisions have they got?”
(Though, in fairness to Pius XI, the Roman Catholic Church is an example of an institution that has exercised discernible trans-polity influence even when its own divisions or equivalent military units have been purely nominal.)
larrydunbar:
February 7th, 2014 at 11:18 pm
Is your web site, now, strong enough for this narrative? In other words, have you dragged it though the web enough to get the dingle-berries off and now it’s presentable here on Zenpundit? 🙂
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Are we talking rights of “being” and duties of “doing”? Which kinda divides the conversation into potential and kinetic energy, and, at least structurally wise, R2P may follow some sort of power-law (event/magnitude of events) in its distribution of energy.
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One thought being, it’s slope (if it has one) will be quite different than what either Capitalism or Communism follow, and, by association, it would be as relevant as either of the two, if the two are even relevant in today’s world.
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Politically, and in the context of 4GW, do you know if the insurgency to R2P is coming from a Liberal, Conservative, or both cultures? It is hard for me to imagine the insurgency against R2P is coming from the decentralized network of the Right, as R2P uses a normalizing force to control the friction within the society of bad actors.
larrydunbar:
February 8th, 2014 at 7:29 pm
” R2P: “The international community! How many divisions have they got?””
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Considering neither the structure nor the culture is ever going to match, the answer would have to be the same one the Pope gave Stalin, “as many as you need.”
Nathaniel T. Lauterbach:
February 10th, 2014 at 4:47 pm
Zen-
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Great to see the blog back up!
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Though I detest R2P “doctrine” with a vigor, I do admit that with each passing day I think the threat of R2Pers subsides a little bit. They, as a group, have been generally unsuccessful in gaining the influence that the neoconservatives did, nor do they have the freedom of action that was lent to the neocons by 9/11.
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It’s also difficult to envision such a crisis which would demand action on the scale that R2Pers would like. The types of crisis that R2Pers would like to get involved in tend not to be the type of crises that require immediate action. Rather I think they tend to be plodding crises–like the Bosnian wars of yore or the Syrian civil war. You just can’t generate the sense of urgency required, although these are the kinds of people who don’t like to let crises “go to waste.”
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About the only kinds of actions that the R2Pers can execute would be cutting of diplomatic ties, followed by the renewal of diplomatic ties in the form of “peace talks.” And perhaps some limited cruise missile strikes, maybe a short bombing “campaign”, and maybe–very maybe–some limited boots on the ground wearing blue helmets. That is it.
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So are the R2Pers nuts? Absolutely.
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Are their doctrines crypto-imperialist? Emphatically yes.
Are they mostly harmless? Probably.
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SF
Nate
J.ScottShipman:
February 11th, 2014 at 1:24 am
Nate, I wish there were a “LIKE” button. Concur, sir.
larrydunbar:
February 12th, 2014 at 1:37 am
” They, as a group, have been generally unsuccessful in gaining the influence that the neoconservatives did, nor do they have the freedom of action that was lent to the neocons by 9/11.”
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True enough, but I don’t believe in comparing NeoCons with R2P’ers that R2P’ers are looking to gain the influence that the neoconservatives were able to muster. The NeoCons are mostly a One-Trick-Pony. Enforce conformity in the world and the world will be a better place. could be their model. From what I can gather, this is much different narrative than what the R2P’ers are following. As the S.O.F. has said, “place an x on the map and we can hit it.” I am not sure that is an exact quote, but if the “gap” between Pakistan and India keeps you awake at night, then you can bet that there is a S.O.F somewhere between Pakistan and India. Of course the narrative in the decision making of the R2P’ers depends on many things. For one, is the S.O.F, as the C.I.A., mostly a tool of the POTUS and is the country going to be, once again, taken over by the NeoCons?
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From Scott’s answer, I think there is a very good chance it will. The “tipping” point is very close.
zen:
February 12th, 2014 at 1:53 am
Second – great comment Nate!
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I think in general you are correct. There is a war weariness is the air mixed with a well-justified cynicism about elite competence (or lack thereof). That mitigates against the launching of new crusades.
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The one caveat I will mention is for all their talk, much like the neocons ( and perhaps, moreso) the R2P crowd are a lot less infatuated with democracy at home than abroad. They are a technocratic lot that prefers to outsource war decisions to administrative (at home) and IGO (abroad) bodies to evade democratic accountability to the ordinary citizens or their hapless, partly complicit, legislative representatives. not unlike their comrades in the EU bureaucracy. This is a back door to get us into messes before strategy and questions of interest can be raised in more legitimate forums
Nathaniel T. Lauterbach:
February 12th, 2014 at 3:15 am
Zen-
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Yes, concur on the R2Per less-than-constitutional M.O. At least neocons made honest attempt to feign interest in constitutional procedure and formalities. The R2P technocratic approach is but another aspect of their crypto-imperialism. And we live in an era of the imperial executive. To the left, this is a feature, not a bug. The right has more complicated views on executive power.
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The cure is a combination of congress and the judciary holding the executive accountable. But will that happen? It’s certainly a long shot!
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SF
Nate
larrydunbar:
February 13th, 2014 at 1:48 am
“The right has more complicated views on executive power.”
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Do tell, do tell!!
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Yes, the Right loves execitive power, because it acts a a normalizing force controlling the friction. More normalizing force the more friction the Right is able store as entropy within its distribution. It’s when the Right starts losing execitive power that things get serious. When the Right took execitive power away from Germany in WWll, Germany, along with Japan, structurally destroyed itself.
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Germany recovered much within the EU, Japan was not so fortunate in its relationship with the U.S., considering its failed nuclear power industry.