The Changing Norm of Humanitarian Intervention

by Kelsey King

The norm of humanitarian intervention at present is multilateral, intervention in nations without geostrategic or economic importance; however, the changing concept of humanity, specifically from the 19th century through present day, has shaped the norms of intervention.[1] While the concept of humanitarian intervention has existed for well over a hundred years, humanitarian intervention, as practiced in contemporary society, is a construct of the post-Cold War civil society.

Starting with the Greek War for Independence and ending with the Bulgarian agitation, the norm of intervention in the 19th century defined intervention as necessary when Muslims killed Christians; however, Christian slaughter of Muslims constituted victory rather than a tragedy. [2] Intervention in the 19th century is interesting as the commonalities of intervention on behalf of Christians against the Ottoman Turks show a very clear definition of who was human by Western European standards. European interveners were willing to overlook atrocities committed by Christians against the Turks, however atrocities committed against Christians (either in response to attack or unprovoked) were cause to disregard Ottoman sovereignty and enact humanitarian interventions. [3] This is not to say that the interventions of the 19th century lacked geostrategic importance, however, the geostrategic importance of intervention was not the deciding factor in these humanitarian intervention.

This common norm of intervention on the side of Christianity faltered late in the 19th century as a norm of non-intervention began to emerge. During the majority of the 19th century, religious ties were the common factor in humanitarian intervention; however, with non-intervention in the case of Armenia- no Christian western European nations gave aid or intervened against the Ottoman Turks- the norm of intervention begins to change.[4]

Throughout the majority of the 20th century, humanitarian nonintervention remained the norm, especially during the Cold War. By definition, no humanitarian intervention took place during the Cold War; rather there were political interventions and unilateral actions. Multilateralism in humanitarian intervention is a lasting norm of intervention that grew out of the interventions of the 19th century and has continued today in the post-Soviet era.[5] While humanitarian crises motivated a number of the unilateral actions of the Cold War, the lack of multilateralism in terms of intervention prevented the classification of these conflicts humanitarian interventions.

Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, the norms regarding sovereignty shifted once again as humanitarian intervention returned as a major concern in the international community. The concept of humanity shifted beyond the narrow definition that included only Europeans, Christians, or European-Christians, rather the definition of humanity now included people of all races and religions from all around the world. The expansion of the definition of humanity directly influenced the type of humanitarian interventions that emerged in the late 20th century. Scholars have attributed the shift in the definition of the "human" and "humanity" to the social consciousness movements of the 19th and 20th century. Specifically, the changing definition of humanity was born out of the anti-slavery and the decolonization movements of the 19th and the 20th centuries. The anti-slavery moment showed the emergence of the expansion of the definition of humanity. The expanded definition of humanity legitimized the concerns of people who were previously invisible to the West.

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Terrorism and Democracy

by Timothy Little

Terrorism is not a new phenomenon, but it is the way we address it is. As the U.S. moves forward in combating this threat, a more aggressive foreign policy is needed. Diplomacy alone is not enough to counter this, military force must be utilized. Terrorism is never justifiable and therefore the response of democracies must change. Although the Bush administration has already taken aggressive approach to combat terrorism more of an international effort is required.

The Justification of Terrorist Acts

Terrorist acts are never justifiable.The only means states can communicate this to terrorists is by never capitulating to terrorist demands. World War II taught everyone that appeasement only makes the aggressor more aggressive; the same applies to terrorism. Terrorists that successfully cause a state to change their policy will only become further emboldened. If the United States complied with the demands of al-Qaeda after the events of September 11th, then the U.S. would have faced greater terrorist threats at-home. This doctrine faced a major setback in 2004 with the aftermath of the Madrid bombing. After the attack on the Madrid train system by Islamic extremists, Spain withdrew troops from operations inside Iraq, thus surrendering to terrorist demands. Although Spain has not suffered from acts of terrorism since, their capitulation sent a message to terrorists that unjustifiable actions could yield positive results.

Justifiable implies a moral vindication of an action. Terrorism, by nature, is never justifiable despite any gains it may produce favorable to the terrorists. When states surrender to terrorism, they send a false claim to terrorists that their actions are justifiable. It is human nature that when an action produces a favorable result that the action continues. Therefore, states must stand unified in rejecting terrorist demands. One state cowering to terrorists creates a global setback in the war against terrorism.

The Right of All Democracies

Democratic governments have the right to defend themselves by any means necessary to ensure their continual survival. Since states should never negotiate with terrorists, the inevitable result between states and terrorists is armed conflict.

Military force is a widely accepted means to accomplish the goals of the state. What makes a democracy different in its conduct of war then other states is its propensity for being the least likely form of government to go to war. The means to defend one’s self by any means necessary implies that overwhelming use of force is permissible. However, it should be a last resort. Military force is a vital means for democracies to defend against terrorists. In fighting a war, it is necessary that democracies avoid sacrificing anything of moral value; actions in concert with force ought to follow the principles of just war theory.

Democracies must not only utilize military force, but a moral one as well. It is common understanding that diplomacy, like war, is a tool of statecraft. States have carried out wars and other forms of military interventions since their creation. However, moral credibility is also a vital tool in combating terrorism. Democracies need to win the hearts and minds of people who support terrorists. For this reason, the actions of democracies in conducting military operations require a moral scope. Democracies need to defeat terrorism on the ground while ensuring that it does not reoccur in future generations.

The U.S. and the Global War on Terror

Since the United States declared war on terrorism, the greatest action undertaken by the U.S. has been an offensive course that has brought the war to rogue states supporting terrorism while advancing the spread of democracy. The U.S. could not simply ignore external threats by strengthening its defensive capability in preparation for other attacks. Regime change and nation building is an effective facet of U.S. foreign policy. Actions undertaken in Afghanistan by NATO and Coalition forces in Iraq are examples of an aggressive foreign policy that uses hard power to achieve results.

Initial military successes in Afghanistan and Iraq to oust the ruling regime proved victorious and made the U.S. and other democracies safer from terrorism. However, post-war reconstruction to build stable democracies in those areas has not had such successes and in some instances reversed initial tactical victories.

Democracies are considerably less likely to go to war against one another and more democracies need to exist. However, how to create a democracy is highly debatable. An Islamic democracy within the Middle East would have the greatest affect against terrorism. Actions inside Iraq, despite reasons for invasion in 2003, to build a stable democracy is the most effective action undertaken by the U.S. to combat terrorism.

Despite implementation failings, the policy is a sound one and the U.S. should continue reconstruction in Iraq. It is the duty of all democracies to spread democracy to the world. A free world, sympathetic to American ideology and values is a safer world.

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Renaissance Venice: The Cradle of Modern Diplomacy

by Jackie burns

The Republic of Venice is known to posterity as a great patron of art, music, and literature. Home to one of the most liberal governments during the Renaissance up to the fall of the Republic in 1797, Venice was viewed as a commercial titan with a culture unique unto itself. Its survival was due in part to both geographic and geo-political power balances and how the Venetians were able to adapt. A metropolis built over the waters of the Adriatic, Venice was forced by its natural environment to use the waters as the main source of economic aggrandizement and consequently political security. By the 14th and 15th centuries, Renaissance Venice was channeling her energies into commerce; the Republic was put into direct contact with powers from all over the world.

It is no wonder then, with such an internationally dependent polity, that the government saw it beneficial to establish permanent fixtures in all important seats of power to speak on behalf of Venice. The volume of business transactions consistently transpiring between Venetian merchants and other states, let alone its geo-political position as a main Italian city-state and holder of lands far beyond the lagoon, made it essential that the Venetian government know what was both the political and economic climate from Constantinople to London. The creation of a permanent diplomatic corps abroad is directly related to the geopolitical reality of the day in Venice, as well as the necessity of accurate information on economic issues that made a mercantile state like the Republic successful. It thus must be seen as the precursor for all modern diplomatic organizations of the present era.

The idea of an ambassador is not a concept that Venice invented, as much as a Venetian might protest to the contrary. Rulers often sent official delegations to other important heads of power to communicate political intentions, to create alliances, gather intelligence, or discuss war between two political entities. The use of “envoys and emissaries to convey messages from one ruler to another probably goes back to the beginning of history…in the second letter to the Church of Corinth, the Apostle Paul describes himself as an ambassador.” However, the official international recognition of ambassadors was not codified until the Congress of Vienna in 1815. So where does that leave Venice in the history of diplomatic machinations? In all, Venice refined and systematized the notion of an ambassador to an extent that made it an enviable model for the powers it had relations with. Eventually the example would be replicated in many, if not all other states.

The true birth of the Venetian concept of diplomacy came during the Renaissance. At this point in history, the Italian peninsula was fragmented into territories controlled by various city-states. Each had its own manifestation of government and power, whether a powerful family such as the Medici in Florence or the spiritual and temporal authority the Pope wielded in the Papal States. Venice was neither, but organized as a republic. Because of the way the government was set up, with rotating positions in the government and the checks and balances employed by the nobility upon their rule, it was able to sustain itself. Venice seemed to have acquired a monopoly of that rarest of Renaissance commodities, political stability.” With the problems of power from within relatively calm, the enemies from without were dealt with in a much more organized fashion. Venetians had a sense of civil service, and, “because it did so, Venice developed the first systemized diplomatic service known to history, a network of agents who pursued the interests of the republic with fidelity, with a realistic appraisal of risks, with freedom from sentimentality and illusion.” If the Republic did not have such a stable government, the Venetian system of sending ambassadors would have probably been much more complicated, not to mention laden with career diplomats who could potentially get cozy in one post for too long.

The success of Venice’s ambassadors and the strength they brought to the state was not a phenomenon ignored by other powers. Their systematic diplomacy “…was passed on to the states of central Italy…vulnerable to external threats and consequently [they] put an even greater premium than the Venetians upon accurate information and negotiation.” Venice taught other states that diplomacy meant the ability to better size up your opponents, as well as your allies, and subsequently meant smarter decisions about war and trade. The peninsula itself was an ideal place for the use of diplomacy to spread, for as Phillip Bobbitt explains, “[it] was a perfect laboratory for such a new society: the principal political actors spoke a common language; they were physically proximate; none was so powerful as to make diplomacy irrelevant….” The Venetian model brought much prosperity to the Republic, often in an indirect manner, and through the replication undertaken by other governments, the system was able to grow and spread, much to the benefit and prestige of the Venetians themselves as anyone else employing ambassadors.

Venice used it to foster peace among her surrounding Italian city-states. After the Peace of Lodi in 1454, Venice, Florence, and Milan signed the Treaty of Venice. These northern Italian city-states were each very powerful, and the diplomatic maneuverings achieved in this document created “…a collective security organization designed to make the status quo of relatively diffused power and equality among the major political units a permanent condition of the system” and it served as “the ground rules for conducting inter-state relations during the remainder of the century.” Both Florence and Milan created permanent missions to foreign states that were comparable to the Venetian diplomatic machine, although not nearly as strong. Because each of these states had effective ambassadors and negotiators, they were able to use this Venetian conception to create mutual assurances of peace between the city-states.

Sir Robert Peel the Younger once defined diplomacy in general as “the great engine used by civilized society for the purpose of maintaining peace.” The men that governed the Republic of Venice, and ran the diplomatic core it had seen grow over the centuries as an essential political entity, knew the value of its representatives.
They not only assured the peace, as Peel has stated as their main function, but also provided the way to gage the competitiveness of the surrounding societies in both the political and economic domains. The Republic of Venice was driven by its economic goals and ventures, and needed the information collected by its civil servants abroad to make better business decisions. The model was so successful that other Renaissance powers soon began to pay homage to the idea by copying it, and is still a vital tool that nations wield in international relations on a day-to-day basis.

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