R2P is the New COIN: Slaughter on Authority and International Law
Thirdly, in terms of “capacity to participate”, the net global capacity for military intervention is overwhelmingly American and the logistical ability to sustain a major military intervention for more than a few weeks is a complete American monopoly. On pragmatic grounds, R2P will never work orchestrated in so lopsided a fashion of “America and some of the West vs. the Rest”. Nor will not be politically tolerated by either the American public or most of the world’s population. Or by Beijing’s steely-eyed rulers, who would have to bankroll this catalogue of expeditions because America no longer can afford to do so. Perhaps we can put “R2P” on our tin cup and get a better interest rate.
Even acting as benignly-intended peacekeepers, the potential scale of R2P vastly exceeds our will, our wallet and our welcome.
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historybuy99q:
September 26th, 2011 at 5:05 am
Mark,
You are to be complimented for continuing to be out in front of this topic. It is too bad that no one in government or Congress has the gonads to confront Dr. Slaughter’s thesis.
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As you note, the United States is currently the only nation capable of a sustained intervention, which has now been derailed by the trifecta of the three W’s, Will, Wallet and Welcome coming home to roost. Given that reality, and the lack of resolve on the part of those "steely-eyed rulers" with the bankroll to upset any regime that contains coveted resources; the only use of a global R2P policy will be to become a tool for the General Assembly to toss diplomatic hand grenades at the US and Israel for using too many resources or just existing.
Cheryl Rofer:
September 26th, 2011 at 12:46 pm
Hi Zen –
Thanks for continuing with this analysis. You’ve got me reading Slaughter’s paper along with you.
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The background on the ICISS is useful.
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My approach to analyzing her paper is from a different direction. I think she has a number of BIG gaps in her logic. In fact, I keep wondering how it got published in a reputable journal.
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Unfortunately, I’m not going to be able to write up my analysis this week. I also have trouble getting through her paper, because I keep hitting assertions or logic that just make me gasp and have to put it down for a day or so.
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But keep going. I’ll join in more substantively one of these days.
david ronfeldt:
September 26th, 2011 at 8:08 pm
i keep wondering about the double interplay going on in r2p theory about: (1) rights on the one hand, responsibilities on the other; and (2) defending oneself, as distinguished from protecting others. r2p theory calls for a shift in emphasis from a right to defend oneself, to a responsibility to protect others.
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not a bad idea. a good one at times and places. it’s also a very old idea in a general sense (current roots are in 1970s interdependence theory, but for all i know, roman emperors and vatican popes laid similar claims at times). but i still don’t see that it works for redefining the concept of sovereignty.
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sovereignty is more about the right to defend oneself than about the “right to control” that slaughter et al. emphasize. a right to control is more about a state’s authority than it’s sovereignty. so, their starting point seems a bit off base.
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equating “new sovereignty” with a responsibility to protect doesn’t quite follow. states may well merit such a responsibility (as a new authority) in some situations. but i just don’t see that sovereignty is the right framing concept. i don’t know what is the right one (authority doesn’t quite work either, in my view). slaughter would like to vest the concept in network theory, but connectivity doesn’t necessarily mean rights and responsibilities tantamount to a new kind of sovereignty for super-empowered multi-agency government networks.
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in some ways, it sounds like a concept that expresses tribal and/or religious concepts, even more than statist concepts. i can think of at least one tribal religious actor that claims both a right to defend and a responsibility to protect: al qaeda, in ways that would be magnified if it ever achieved a caliphate.
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Justin Boland:
September 27th, 2011 at 12:58 am
Do you think it’s fair to say that, within Slaughter’s model, "International Law" is functionally a euphemism for US military power, then?
zen:
September 27th, 2011 at 3:00 am
Hi HG99,
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Much thanks ! You tie into to Justin’s question downstream. While there’s a lot of Americanization in R2P out of the necessity of using US power to accomplish it, that’s the way and the means rather than the end, which involves "harmonization" of national laws under a global governance standard that involves things that I suspect have not a hope in hell of passing in Congress.
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Hi Cheryl
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Good. I’d like to have your input when time is available – there’s a lot to take issue with here, and you are right – breathtaking assertions!
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Hi David,
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I’m not seeing where R2P is needed to accomplish it’s ostensible ends at all. It adds nothing to the capacity to intervene in practice while bringing in all kinds of unaccountable regulatory baggage with the potential to wreck havoc. I am in agreement with you – a supranational elite community with no internal rules except implicit/tacit social ones is an artificial tribe. A dangerous one.
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Hi Justin,
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I think to a point R2P is so heavily reliant on American power to be executed that it will indeed seem that way but my guess from reading between the lines is that it is a stage or phase to establish supranational "global governance" and not American hegemony. Whether it would get there is another question. The first step is R2P gaining acceptance as a legal doctrine.
Ski:
September 29th, 2011 at 10:18 am
I would like to see Dr. Slaughter walk point on a patrol in some sub-Saharan dump; then genuflect on how terrible of a theory R2P actually is. I suspect within 48 hours she would be singing a different tune.
Hassan i Sabbah’s "nothing is true, everything is permitted" is becoming in vogue again. Just because it can be justified (and quite frankly this R2P bilge can’t be) does not mean it should be acted upon.
zen:
September 30th, 2011 at 2:47 am
Hi Ski,
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You are far from alone in your opinion my friend.