R2P Doctrine, Humanitarian Intervention, and U.S. Foreign Policy

Introduction

Much has been made of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) doctrine that has become the de facto, go-to justification for intervening in other parts of the world, from Iraq to Libya and now Venezuela. It has served as the framework for so much of American foreign policy that the public and some members of Congress — such as Senator Rand Paul — have objected to the egregious use of the doctrine as a screen for imperialistic ambitions. While there are many public policy issues that impact Americans directly — from the opioid epidemic to swelling prison populations to problems in education and the achievement gap to the economic difficulties that have hung over the nation since 2008 — the policy of R2P is one that most Americans do not think much about, and yet it has a tremendous impact on their lives and on the resources of this country.

Many Americans would like to see universal health care in the U.S., yet when it comes to the question of who is to pay for it, they cannot say. No one wants to see taxes raised. Yet what if free health care could be paid for without raising taxes? Everyone would want to know where the money would come from. The answer is straightforward when one looks at the amount of money spent on foreign wars and so-called "humanitarian intervention" that is often conducted to hide an ulterior motive.

In the news, Americans hear about how dangerous Maduro is in Venezuela, just as they once heard about Assad in Syria, Gaddafi in Libya, and Hussein in Iraq. Were it not for social media and alternative news outlets poking holes in the narratives spread by officials and their mainstream media mouthpieces, the U.S. might already have invaded Venezuela and effected regime change there. Regime change conducted under the banner of R2P carries great risks, however, and this paper will describe those risks and discuss three proposed policies to address the issue.

The Problem of R2P: Humanitarian Intervention as a Cover for Regime Change

Though Evans (2008) identifies a continued need and justification for the Responsibility to Protect by citing the existence of mass atrocities around the world, there is a contrary perspective indicating the political and imperial manner in which the R2P doctrine can be used as a cover for hegemonic aims (Gleijeses, 1995). Humanitarian intervention has been used as the excuse of the West in various invasions around the world since 9/11 — but well before that as well — up to the current crisis in Venezuela, over which senior U.S. officials have used social media to promote R2P and justify regime change in the South American country in order to drum up support, both domestically and internationally, for American military action in the southern hemisphere.

Stakeholders and Affected Constituencies

Stakeholders in this issue are all ordinary Americans, as they are the ones who ultimately foot the bill for R2P. They are the constituents who are underserved so that a select group of hawks in the State Department can engage in perpetual war abroad. However, there are also stakeholders abroad: nations such as Russia and China, who find themselves having to intervene after U.S. intervention causes significant instability, leading to millions of displaced people flooding into Europe and the spread of extremist groups.

This public policy issue is faced by both the federal government and state governments, because many states could benefit if the dollars currently spent on war were instead spent on beefing up infrastructure at home, providing universal health care, and increasing equity in education.

The Cost of R2P for Americans

The U.S. has spent nearly $6 trillion on war in the Middle East since 2001 (Macias, 2018). And this is just the cost in dollars on the wars themselves. There are untold costs in lives and human suffering (Kang et al., 2015). There is also a moral cost involved in using R2P as an excuse to invade other countries. Ethical considerations include the very real risk that even when R2P appears justified, "humanitarian intervention has negative consequences which overrule its noble intentions" (Welsch, 2003, p. 8) — a case in point being Libya, which now serves as a failed state following the Western campaign to end the reign of Gaddafi. Would it be possible to reduce these costs by addressing this issue? Of course. Would there be a cost involved in addressing the issue? Almost certainly — there would be tremendous pushback from those who advocate for perpetual engagement in the State Department.

Evans (2015) argues, however, that R2P "was designed for pragmatists rather than purists, with full knowledge of the messy reality of real-world state motivations and behavior" (p. 1). By acknowledging that negative consequences can occur, Evans attempts to justify humanitarian intervention — and the deaths of multitudes, the destruction of infrastructure, and the displacement of populations, as seen in the Syrian conflict — by defining these as collateral damage to be expected. The decidedly idealized concept of protecting people abroad that underscores R2P vanishes quickly in Evans's "pragmatic" view of intervention, which is typically accompanied by aerial bombardment that has little to do with protecting innocent people on the ground.

Evans notes that the UN was quick to adopt the R2P doctrine and that world leaders have since been hesitant to put the doctrine into action. Evans laments this reluctance, but his point is undermined by the Syrian example, which illustrates the major difference between the Western-promoted concept of R2P and the practice of not entering another sovereign country without invitation. By contrast, Russia did not enter Syria until President Assad explicitly requested its assistance. The U.S., on the other hand, entered the region without any such invitation, and its presence in Syria has been contested ever since. Western leaders chose sides against Assad and began supporting Syrian rebel factions, while simultaneously conveying to Western publics that they were fighting those same extremists. Evans (2015) uses Rwanda and other atrocities as justification for intervention, which he terms "protection" to sidestep the fact that the U.S. intervenes in parts of the world without a clear mandate from sovereign countries. Atrocities are commonly cited as the reason for humanitarian intervention, and the West primarily attempts to assert its own virtue by purporting to assist victims of aggression in other countries.

The actual effects of the R2P doctrine are rarely if ever discussed by its proponents: the focus is almost always on the theoretical moral justification for "protecting" those suffering under rogue regimes. Those who do examine the outcomes of R2P's application find, like Thakur (2016), that "illegal invasions and chaotic occupations" are common results of R2P in practice (p. 422).

R2P may have some noble ideals and principles at its foundation, but the outcomes documented by Thakur and the motives examined by Gleijeses indicate that these noble ideals fall prey to the pragmatic sentiment of those who, like Evans, are willing to accept more than a few casualties in the ultimate quest to alleviate the suffering of the innocent overall. There is, at root, a utilitarian philosophical position being employed by the advocates of R2P. Those who oppose it, or view it from the perspective of outcomes, may also employ utilitarian or even deontological reasoning to make their point. Those who focus on the actual outcomes of R2P tend to take the more skeptical position.

Conclusion

The feasibility of the solution is the biggest question. As far back as the 1960s, when an earlier administration wanted to force the lobby to register as a foreign lobby, it encountered serious difficulty. It has not gotten any easier for anyone in government to address the issue. When members of Congress have even simply raised questions about the influence of foreign lobbying, they have been condemned from both the right and the left — a response that reveals how entrenched the resistance to such scrutiny is. It is thus highly questionable whether these policies could ever truly be implemented, but if there is enough support from the people, change is possible. And it appears that public opinion is shifting in favor of change. Similarly, R2P and the endless wars should be brought to an end, and that money invested in something at home such as healthcare, education, or infrastructure — an outcome that would be broadly feasible and popular.