"John D. Giorgis" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
The Westphalian Order that has prevailed since at least WWII (and I believe
well before that - but I don't want to get zapped on the date) has placed
the fundamnetal stability of the international system on the basis of
exclusive sovereignty of States. That is, one State cannot intervene in
another State unless attacked or provoked by an act of War.
Absolutely correct. The doctrine was established in 1648. The Iraqi
invasion of Kuwait was the *first* overt, visible violation of the
doctrine since WWII. (All other violations were either covert or
partial or `invited'; they did not violate the letter of the
doctrine.)
Now, I happen to disagree strongly with the principles of the
Westphalian Order -
Me, too.
... but it was nevertheless the prevailing paradigm of the day.
Right. And useful.
(Just to add a little venom to the discussion: you can compare the
Westphalian Order to regulations that control pollution by banning
certain pollutants, rather than by creating an artificial market for
them.
(Clearly, in theory a ban is simpler to administer than a market/price
system, since a government simply has to judge whether a violation
occurred; it is the same with an invasion. But the process is more
complex in practice, because of corruption and measurement issues.
(As an example of measurement issues: do you say that the forest litter
that holds large quantities of carbon is `sufficiently permanent' to
sequester enough carbon dioxide to count in terms of global warming?
Do you say that that a defensive action, such as the US occupation of
Iceland in 1940, is an `invasion'?
(On the other hand, a market is more efficient than a ban, but more
complex to administer. For example, it is better for a society to
spend $100 million to clean up one power plant than to spend $250
million to clean up 4 old plants; you can use the $150 million for
lots of things -- for example, out of that you could spend $50 million
on rich people and $5 million on poor people that other wise would not
be spent on them. But an artificial market is more difficult to set
up. You, as a government, have to decide what to permit and how much.
(The case with interventions against invasions is just that: what do
you permit and what do you oppose?)
The first true radical departue from the Westphalian Order was the
intervention of NATO in Kosovo.
The first true *recent* ....
Think of the first air war against what is now called Iraq. Very
inexpensive for the attacker. Very successful for the attacker. Took
place in the early 1920s. It was, as far as I remember my history, a
departure from the Westphalian Order, although the British, who were
good at this sort of thing, may well have had a suasive
justification. (The British RAF won the war.)
This intervention [in Kosovo] could be characterized as "the
Clinton Doctrine" - The nations of the free world have the right
to intervene in smaller nations to protect basic human rights,
when the nations of the free world decide that they are able.
Yes. I talked with a retired Dutch general in May. He said, `War is
different from what it used to be; and more difficult. In the old
days, you just killed the enemy. Now you are supposed to negotiate
with him.'
We are seeing the establishment of a new set of criteria. I think
this is as important (and as dangerous) as the criteria that nations
were sovereign, which is to say, the doctrine that any dictator could
kill as many people as he wished, without outside interference.
What's more, however, the Clinton Doctrine also required a
departue with that other rock of international stability - the
United Nations. President Bush had established the precedent that
the U.N. was the ultimate arbiter of international intervention ...
Actually, the founders (Pres. Roosevelt and Truman) established that
in the 1940s. Pres. Bush followed the recommendations of Sen. Monihan
(a US Democratic Senator from NY) that the US follow the traditions of
international law since that meant the rhetoric of persuasion would be
easier. The advantage of a UN blessing is that it meant that you
would not get powerful opposition.
Think of the UN as a permanent meeting place for diplomats: what
`getting their blessing' means is that you check out the possible
opposition ahead of time.
In this case, however, the U.N.'s blessing was not available ...
Right.
This was inevitable, however, as the U.N. has grown to include 99%
of the world, and embraces all of them under the principle of the
basic equality of nations.
Yes. This is a problem if your representative institution provides
some with veto power and others with `de jure' power that does not
match their `de facto' power. You talk to their diplomats and they do
not agree with what you want to do.
When the US government established itself among a bunch of otherwise
independent nations, it solved the problem by creating two assemblies,
one with a `one nation, one vote' principle, called the `Senate', the
other based on population (counting slaves proportally less than free
men and women), called `the Congress'. The diplomats are Senators and
Congressmen.
In contrast, the recent agreements in Europe establish a
multi-national government with a single house, but with different
voting quantities for each country. (The US has changed so much since
its founding that we do not think of Senators and Congressmen as
diplomats who represent our `nation'; and in the context of the US,
the word `state' does not mean `country', but `province'. The nations
of the `United Nations' are more or less independent; the states of
the `United States' are not countries as independent as China and
France.)
Instead, Clinton chose NATO as his vehicle for "the nations of the
free world." NATO, after all, is pretty much a democracy club.
With the possible exception of Turkey, all of the NATO members
have a robust democracy, a decent human rights record, and general
capitalist sentiments. More importantly, NATO is a consensus
organization, and can only act with the consent of each and every
one of its members, from the United States to Luxembourg. In my
mind, it is an excellent choice.
This degree of consensus is very good for an alliance; but not so good
for setting up a government. A government needs to be able to act
somewhat against the wishes of a portion of its supporters. (It
cannot act too much against them, lest they revolt; but it cannot
always be prevented from acting, because inaction is not always the
solution.)
... Had the United States gone into Rwanda, there is every
possibility that it would have ended in disaster.
This is very possible. The elder Bush set up the US for a very good
experience in Somalia -- the US had everything going for it. But it
could not deal with the problem. We can blame the US Sec. of Defence
and others for incompetence, but the point is, you need to figure out
policies that work even when ill run.
However, and here is the main point: the US government could have
undertaken actions less than intervention. In particular, it could
have publicized the problems ahead of time, and it could have pressed
for better management of the international force in Rwanda before the
genocide. The latter is a particularly obvious thing to have done,
since good administration is the sort of thing that actually can be
delegated to civil servants.
I think the reason it did not do this is simple: the US government
did not devote many resources to the region; and did not care. It
was, I think, a matter of simple, horrific negligence.
--
Robert J. Chassell [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Rattlesnake Enterprises http://www.rattlesnake.com
