Policy, Politics, and Genocide
Derek Chollet at Democracy Arsenal has an interesting post up looking at some survey data and arguing that more robust American intervention in Darfur would be popular. Perhaps some of my new colleagues at America Abroad can provide more insight on this point than I, but my impression is that political hesitancy about purely humanitarian interventions stems less from concern about unpopularity per se than from risk-assessment.
Roughly speaking, the issue is that nobody believes that a politician will pay a political price for not intervening. Conversely, it's clear that if an intervention winds up going awry for whatever reason, its advocates will suffer in the public eye. Advocates of intervention like to stress that relatively modest measures could accomplish a great deal, but the reality of military actions is that they're unpredictable, and there's always some chance of serious problems rearing their head. Under those circumstances, the odds suggest that politicians should be very forthcoming with professions of deep concern but extremely reluctant to actually do anything about it. Not coincidentally, that's historically been the American response to genocide.
War to remove a toothless tin-pot dictator based on lies and fear-mongering = good.
War to stop a devastating genocide in Africa = bad.
God I hate these Christo-facist thugs.
June 1, 2005 10:01 AM | Reply | Permalink
Maybe it would help to try to appeal to a long-term picture of how the politician in question is likely to be judged by history. For instance, Clinton didn't pay a serious price in popularity back in '94 for failing to stop the Rwanda genocide, but I bet he sees now that that's a bit of a stain on his presidency. Maybe someone could have helped him see that back then. In theory, one would hope that this would be particularly persuasive for 2nd term presidents, who don't have to worry about getting elected any more.
June 1, 2005 10:09 AM | Reply | Permalink
True in theory, but at this point what could W do that would grant him a good reputation in the eyes of history?
It would surely involve some walking on water...
June 1, 2005 10:18 AM | Reply | Permalink
According to John Harris last night (who has a new biography out on Clinton), Clinton was very risk averse in foreign policy in his first term and definitely regrets not intervening in Rwanda. Bush certainly doesn't share any risk aversion, so I agree that a case might be made here, although I'm sure that, unfortunately, his advisors point to Somalia as a counter-point. Even worse, we've apparently been making deals with the Sudanese gov't on intelligence (see April 30 LAT or Kristof's columns in the NYT), so they have an additional reason not to intervene, although I'd like to see the hypocrisy of that pointed out more forcefully by the Dems, who can regain some "moral values" just by sending Biden and perhaps H. Clinton or Kerry on a fact-finding mission to Darfur, which will pressure the administation with very little downside risk to them (too cynical?).
June 1, 2005 10:46 AM | Reply | Permalink
There is an unfortunate tendancy to say things like "something should be done" with regards to problems like the Sudan, but what? What should be done? We should respond militarily? With what extra trooops? We should procede multilaterally? With what unfractured alliances?
June 1, 2005 11:00 AM | Reply | Permalink
"...nobody believes that a politician will pay a political price for not intervening."
That's right. While the Zogby/ICG numbers are promising, the problem is the question getting people to those numbers. Ask the average American voter what the main foreign policy issue is, and nearly none will say Sudan. My guess it's not in people's top five.
The poll results do indicate that people would be supportive of intervention, but only if they're led to that point. That means there are two ways to solve the problem, wait for good leadership or start change people's support from passive to active so that they punish the politicians who don't act.
"Conversely, it's clear that if an intervention winds up going awry for whatever reason, its advocates will suffer in the public eye."
Maybe. It is true if we sell the peacekeeping mission as a cakewalk and aren't honest about our intentions. But if in the preparation for action we are realistic about our assesment of the problem and prepare the American people for the cost of the action, they are more likely to accept problems as they arise.
June 1, 2005 12:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
We should respond multilaterally with the THREAT of military action. At the very least, it should be serious threats and discussion, not idle lip service which is what we're doing now.
June 1, 2005 1:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
Where will the American troops come from? Iraq? Afghanistan? We have no troops to spare. Tragedy on tragedy.
I hate this type size. This will hurt the blog terribly.
June 1, 2005 2:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
nobody believes that a politician will pay a political price for not intervening. Conversely, it's clear that if an intervention winds up going awry for whatever reason, its advocates will suffer in the public eye.
Let's look at this in oversimplified game theoretic terms. You have two moves: intervene or not, and various outcomes beyond your control, but let's call them good and bad.
By Matt's assumption, we have 0 payoff for the good and bad outcome without any intervention. With intervention, we have some other payoffs for good and for bad, and some probabilities associated with it. Without knowing the payoff or the probability, you cannot say anything about either the risk or the expected reward of intervention.
So the mere fact that there is no price for non-intervention is not a compelling argument that the non-intervention option is the one preferred by most politicians. I guess you could argue it is preferred by risk-averse politicians, since intervention has a non-zero probability of negative payoff.
Eh... no major point here. I am just testing if I can post on the new blog, and I have a pet peeve about quantity-dependent arguments that are made without any reference to numbers.
June 1, 2005 4:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
Why assume no cost to non-intervention? Conditions could worsen or the conflict could expand and then there would be critcism of non-intervention. Initial non-intervention in Bosnia and Haiti led to later intervetion as the political costs of non-intervention mounted.
On Sudan, the US and other countries do not wish to jeopardize the settlement in the south reached in Jan. 2005. Proposals for forcible intervention neglect to take into account the reaction of Darfur rebels, potential southern rebel separatists, or the Khartum regime.
Moreover, the logistical difficulties of mounting a no-fly zone in western Sudan are high: Darfur is a remote region and no western fighter jets can operate there from possible bases in Aswan, Djibouti, or Nairobi without in-flight refueling, and most likely refueling over or near the Sudanese border (take a map and a compass and start drawing arcs of roughly 1400 km from cities with sufficient infrastructure to base fighters, and you'll see the problem).
The call is to "stop the genocide" but sadly, genocides are not autonomous events. There is a civil war that led to genocidal practices by the Sudanese government. It is hard to stop the genocide without affecting the course of the civil war, as NATO learned in Kosovo in late 1998 -- Serbia withdrew most of its forces then, and the KLA seized the opening, leading to the Serbian violent explusion of Albanians in 1999 (itself an element of the crime of genocide).
June 1, 2005 6:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
Speaking of genocide, Ben Stein, the ex-game how host and full-time Nixon apologist, has blamed Mark Felt for the Cambodian genocide.
Stein, who wept like a baby when recalling his boss' resignation, attacked Mark Felt and defended Nixon's legacy as a peacemaker. "He was not a lying, conniving drug addict like JFK, a lying, conniving war starter like LBJ, a lying, conniving seducer like Clinton."
For remarks like that, and for blaming the Cambodian genocide not on Nixon's illegal invasion but on his unjustified removal from office, Stein has earned a very warm seat in Dante's Inner Circle.
June 2, 2005 4:53 AM | Reply | Permalink
Seems the US is in a "damned if you do and damned if you don't situation" with regard to any intervention
If we do there will soon be pictures of heavily armed Americans shooting machete-wielding Muslims, and the Ugly American rears his ugly head. A propaganda attack surely follows.
If we don't more innocent people will surely die.
Of all my liberal friends I cannot think of one with a child or grandchild in the military. Leave it to someone else to fight and die I guess.
June 2, 2005 8:46 PM | Reply | Permalink