Why R2P Does Not Work

Though Gareth Evans identifies a continued need or justification for the responsibility to protect (R2P) by citing the existence of mass atrocities around the world even to this day,[footnoteRef:2] there is a contrary perspective that indicates the political and imperial manner in which the R2P doctrine can be used as a cover for hegemonic aims.[footnoteRef:3] Humanitarian intervention has been used as the excuse of the West, for instance, in various invasions around the world since 9/11 (but well before that as well) on up to the current crisis in Venezuela, over which the U.S.

Secretary of State Pompeo and Sen. Rubio along with Ambassador Bolton have been using 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.

There are, of course, ethical considerations to be made when considering the R2P doctrine that proponents of the doctrine would rather not be discussed: these include the very real risk that even when R2P appears justified, “humanitarian intervention has negative consequences which overrule its noble intentions”[footnoteRef:4]—case in point being the situation of Libya today now serving as a failed state following the Western campaign to end the reign of Gaddafi.

[2: Gareth Evans, The Responsibility to Protect: Ending Mass Atrocities (Brookings Institute, 2008), 2.] [3: Piero Gleijeses, "Ships in the Night: the CIA, the White House and the Bay of Pigs." Journal of Latin American Studies 27, no.

1 (1995), 3.] [4: Jennifer Welsh, "Taking consequences seriously: Objections to humanitarian intervention." Humanitarian Intervention and International Relations (2003), 8.] Evans 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.”[footnoteRef:5] By acknowledging that negative consequences can occur, Evans attempts to justify humanitarian intervention and the deaths of multitudes, the destruction of infrastructure, and the displaced masses (as seen in the Syrian conflict, with hundreds of thousands of immigrants streaming into Europe and creating a socio-political crisis there as well) by defining this as collateral damage and to be expected.

The decidedly idealized concept of protecting people abroad that underscores R2P vanishes in an instant in Evans’ “pragmatic” view of intervention (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 countries’ leaders since then have been hesitant to put the doctrine into action.[footnoteRef:6] Evans laments this dragging of the feet by certain world leaders, but his point is invalidated by the Syrian conflict example, which further shows the major difference between the Western promoted concept of R2P (created by Evans himself) and the Asian respect for not entering another sovereign country to offer protection until asked.

Russian’s Putin did not enter into Syria until Assad explicitly requested Russia’s services. The U.S. on the other hand invaded the region without being requested and its presence in Syria has been condemned by Assad ever since. Western leaders decidedly chose sides against Assad and began supporting the Syrian rebels (also known as terrorists or ISIS) while at the same time conveying the idea to the Western public that it was engaged in battling ISIS.

ISIS was not defeated, however, until Russian forces working in conjunction with Hezbollah and Iran routed them, destroyed their supply chain networks, and beefed up Syria’s borders by installing a missile shield.

Suddenly, the West could no longer fuel the conflict under the guise of humanitarian intervention and so it had no choice but to declare ISIS defeated, as Trump has done—though the hawks in his government lament his plan to pull out of Syria as misguided and short-sighted: they want to stay, whether the doctrine of R2P can be used as a cover or not.

[5: Gareth Evans, “R2P: The Next Ten Years,” Oxford Handbook on The Responsibility to Protect 2015, 1.] [6: Gareth Evans , "The Responsibility to Protect: Ending Mass Atrocity Crimes Once and for All." Irish Studies in International Affairs 20 (2009), 10.] Evans uses Rwanda and other atrocities as justification for intervention, which he calls “protection” to side-step the fact that the U.S.

is intervening in parts of the world without a clear mandate from sovereign countries for assistance.[footnoteRef:7] Bellamy cites the Fascist aggression of WWII and the Holocaust as justification for R2P (as does Evans).[footnoteRef:8] Atrocities are commonly viewed as the reason for humanitarian intervention, and the West primarily attempts to assert its own virtue (virtue signaling at the state level) by purporting to assist the victims of aggression in other countries.

The R2P doctrine is, in fact, older in spirit than WWII—but the rampant Holocaust memorialization that has transpired since the defeat of Germany has helped to provide the necessary visceral content for promoting the doctrine.

The actual effects of the doctrine are rarely if ever discussed by Evans or the propents of R2P: the focus is always primarily on the theoretical moral justification for the “protecting” those people suffering from rogue regimes who are bent on genocide.[footnoteRef:9] For some reason, these same proponents of R2P always turn a blind eye to the genocide committed by Israel towards the Palestinians on the West Bank and in the Gaza Strip, but perhaps the West, Evans et al.

feel they have a right to be selective in how they apply their humanitarian assistance. Those who take the initiative to examine the other side of the doctrine—i.e., the outcomes of its application—find, like Thakur, that “illegal invasions and chaotic occupations” are common outcomes of R2P in action.[footnoteRef:10] [7: Gareth Evans, “R2P: The Next Ten Years,” Oxford Handbook on The Responsibility to Protect 2015, 4.] [8: Alex J.

Bellamy, “The Responsibility to Protect,” Security Studies, 489.] [9: Justin Morris, "Libya and Syria: R2P and the spectre of the swinging pendulum." International Affairs 89, no.

5 (2013), 1267.] [10: Ramesh Thakur, “The Responsibility to Protect at 15,” International Affairs 92: 2 (2016), 422.] In the final analysis, R2P may have some noble ideals and principles at its foundation, but the outcomes, as shown by Thakur and the motives as shown by Gleijeses, indicate that these noble ideals and principles fall prey to the rather 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.