« April 2011 »

by
Guest Writer -- Kuba Wrzesniewski

On the 19th of March, in order to enforce UN Security Council Resolution 1973 mandating the use of force in the protection of civilians against Libyan forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi, the United States began airstrikes against targets in Libya. This marks the sixth major humanitarian intervention carried out by US forces since the end of the cold war. Once considered a distraction from the core mission of the US military -- the protection of America and American interests from rival powers -- humanitarian interventions have become a major and regular component of US security strategy. This development has been a bipartisan affair. Major interventions in Haiti, Bosnia, Kosovo and now Libya were launched by Democratic Presidents, while military force was deployed to Somalia and Iraq by Republicans (though Iraq also suffered airstrikes during the Clinton administration).

Although humanitarian interventions have become an increasingly 'normal' element of US security policy, the conditions that give rise to them tend to be very particular and episodic. Considerations regarding interventions tend to be driven by moral urgency rather than security calculation, with advocates tending to argue from negative cases. Intervention came too late in Bosnia, and didn't come at all in Rwanda, and the result in both cases was genocide. This case was made most eloquently in A Problem from Hell, a study of genocide that propelled it's author, Samantha Power, to the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard and, later, to a post as Special Assistant to President Obama's foreign policy team. A more complete evaluation of the implications of humanitarian interventions should include an examination of all the cases where it was attempted. Such comprehensive study could help inform security thinking about the current Libyan operation.

We cannot offer such a fulsome treatment, here. But we can offer a starting point for the discussion...

Continue reading "Humanitarian Intervention in Libya - Considering the Endgame" »

Readers take note: Berkeley sociologists, and our good friends, Ryan Calder and Brian Lande are displaying their usual intestinal fortitude and zest for adventure in two parts of the world that are both dangerous and incredibly interesting research sites: Libya and Afghanistan, respectively.

Check out Ryan Calder's informative, entertaining, and often breathless accounts of events on the ground in Benghazi and elsewhere in Libya at http://revolutionology.wordpress.com/

Catch sociologist/cop/soldier Brian Lande's phenomenological musings about life on an Afghan forward operating base at http://brianlande.com/

Both blogs bring readers into a world few experience, and offer analysis and explanations of those worlds that virtually no one else (in media or as troops on the ground) can so capably elucidate. Enjoy!