Intervention in Civil Wars

The situation in Syria (and especially kramerfan's posts on it) has me thinking--what should be the conditions met for foreign powers to intervene in civil wars? Or, on principle, should civil wars be left to the locals?

So, big poll incoming (and serious, A Rare Thing for an Anti-poll), with some potential justifications for and against intervention, although I'm certain I'll miss a few. I don't mind if people use the current situation in Syria as an example, but I was hoping we could talk more broadly and generally.

There is no good option for dealing with the Syrian Civil war from the outside. There are only bad options and worse options. As ghastly and inhuman as gas attacks are, other weapons can be just as devastating to the civilians. The primary difference is the international agreement that specifically bans chemicals weapons and allows the international powers to make a strong case for intervention.

So would you agree that generally, a strong international coalition that is formed around some agreement (such the prohibition on the use of chemical weapons) is justified if they choose to intervene in a civil war?

Antilogic said:

So would you agree that generally, a strong international coalition that is formed around some agreement (such the prohibition on the use of chemical weapons) is justified if they choose to intervene in a civil war?

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What I'm saying is they have an agreement that allows them to make the case for intervention. As in they wouldn't be violating their international alliance agreements by going to war to intervene, if they can make a strong enough case for it.

Is war/killing people who aren't attacking your own people or allies ever really justified? I don't know. Does might make right? That's a value judgment call.

I agree in principle with most of the reasons listed as potential reasons to intervene. But there are good reasons not to intervene too, so a decision has to be made on a per situation basis.

The two reasons listed that seem poor are security reasons, because the practice of supporting dictators has humanitarian consequences, and economic interests, because wars are rarely a cost efficient way to do anything.

Could this is sort of argument validate the invasion of Iraq given that Saddam did in fact use chemical weapons against his own people? Didn't John Kerry make the arguments that Saddam didn't attack us on 9/11 therefore we had no legitimate reason to invade when he was debating Bush in 2004?

What a hard question!

I can't even decide whether I'm undecided or not.

Consider Rwanda. Was it even a civil war at all? But given even the least chance of any intervention saving lives wouldn't it have been worthwhile to try?

Or is any intervention just doomed to make things worse?

In general I say no mainly because in many cases you get a situation like Syria where there isnt really a "good" or "bad" side. To me a weak response is fairly pointless, it makes the intervening countries feel good but its not exactly such a spanking that a psychotic despots who is willing to do it wouldnt keep doing it. If you respond strongly though and turn the balance of the war you become responsible for the atrocities the winning side commits.

Because lets be honest, does anyone think if Assad loses there wont be a blood bath against Alawites?

Syria is a massive exception to what I voted, being such a complex war, with no real moral high ground to defend. That said, the use of chemical weapons is nothing less than an atrocity, and should be punished by strikes against military targets to dissuade Assad from using them again. Basically, I completely agree with the American and French position.

However, better examples are simpler wars like the ones in Libya and Mali. In both cases, NATO powers intervened to side against undesirable sorts, and both were extremely successful.

Yea I feel like I let the Syrian Civil War bias my answers to the question. Overall the Civil War of the moment would probably shift my answers about.

Has there ever been an instance of a genocide in progress that was stopped by active military intervention? I know I voted yes to doing so, but I admit I have no idea how such a scenario would play out, or if it was even possible in the first place. Would they have to fire upon the perpetrators? Can a rapid deployment force be placed quickly enough and would they have the necessary materiel to perform their task?

Voted yes for humanitarian concerns, security interests and to end the war quicker, no because war costs money. I believe these things need to be judged on a case-by-case basis. Security concerns must always trump morality in international politics; after all, the highest morality a head-of-state can aspire to is to keep his people secure and prosperous. Only if the potential security risks are outweighed by the benefits should such an intervention occur.

Morally, we should intervene to prevent humanitarian disasters and to keep people from dying, but pragmatically such things are not always possible. Syria is the obvious example, but during the OAS-Gaullist civil war in France in the late-'50s, France's allies kept their collective noses out of things because the situation was so complex and fluid it was not possible, until near the end of the conflict, to actually determine who was likely to win, and it was probably still not clear which side would have a policy more advantageous to France's allies, since the war was over an issue positively central to French politics. Situations such as that arise from time-to-time, and in those cases states should just keet their damn noses out of things so as to avoid being caught in the crossfire themselves.

The only thing worse than two armies fighting a war is one army fighting a war. The latter is called "genocide". That's pretty much the only condition under which the probabilities seem to favor intervention making things better, rather than worse.

SS-18 ICBM said:

Has there ever been an instance of a genocide in progress that was stopped by active military intervention?

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Allied victory in WWII counts, I believe, even though the genocide was nearly complete, and even though it was by far not the prime motivation for the Allied effort. Rwandan genocide was somewhat disrupted by intervention, too. But that intervention had other effects that may have been bad (encouraging exiles to Congo).

I think having a debate is a good idea for an issue such as this. It would be nice if there was some way to deter dictators from using chemical weapon without having to use force but so far we haven't found it. Maybe a long term resolution by the U.N. security council to ban sales of weapons by member countries to that regime? If any member violates the ban then they are subject to penalties.

Of course, geopolitics will get in the way of that. There are few regimes that are isolated from all five security council members, and the ones that are have already been sanctioned to the moon and back.

Anything that ends a war quicker and with less casualties is the lesser evil. If foreign intervention is required, then so be it.

taillesskangaru said:

Anything that ends a war quicker and with less casualties is the lesser evil. If foreign intervention is required, then so be it.

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Does that not depend on the regime that is placed in power?

The important thing is to end the war, or at least reduce its intensity as far as possible. If a replacement regime continues the war then obviously that's not something that one should aim for.

A bad peace is better than war I'd say.

taillesskangaru said:

The important thing is to end the war, or at least reduce its intensity as far as possible. If a replacement regime continues the war then obviously that's not something that one should aim for.

A bad peace is better than war I'd say.

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That's too simplistic, unfortunately. What if the regime in question is North Korea's? Prolonging the fighting will cause more deaths in the short-term, but ending the fighting in NK more quickly will lead to a lot more long-term hardship.

Lord Baal said:

That's too simplistic, unfortunately. What if the regime in question is North Korea's? Prolonging the fighting will cause more deaths in the short-term, but ending the fighting in NK more quickly will lead to a lot more long-term hardship.

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What's the scenario here. You said so yourself that these things should be looked at case-by-case. Is the DPRK facing an army mutiny? Popular uprising? What's the position of the Kim Regime? Is a negotiated settlement possible? Which side, if any, will the foreign forces be intervening on? Et cetera.

I look at it this way; every day a war - and I'm thinking here of the sort of medium- to high-intensity conflict that's going on currently in Syria, and not, say, low-intensity insurgency punctured by occasional car bombs or skirmishes - drags on not only costs thousands of lives, but massive damage to the economy and infrastructure of the country that will take years to repair, not to mention opportunity cost. It also deepens animosity between the belligerents, making reconstruction and reconciliation that much more difficult. Hence fighting not only causes short-term destruction but long-term as well.