Humanitarian Intervention: Libya, Syria, and Realism

Introduction: The Arab Spring and the Problem of Intervention

In the spring of 2011 — the Arab Spring — I was living in Cyprus. From the deck outside my bedroom I looked out over the Mediterranean, where the sun was setting, towards the north coast of Africa. Across that water, in Libya, civil war was breaking out. A Libyan fighter pilot flew across the water to Malta, asking for asylum (Hooper & Black, 2011). Libya's leader, Muammar Qaddafi, had ordered pilots to attack protesters in the country, many foreign diplomats resigned, and things only got worse from there.

The international community has long struggled to lay out clear rules for humanitarian intervention. In the 1990s, when humanitarian intervention was utilized on multiple occasions, civil war was the cause on several occasions. One such occasion was during the Rwandan genocide. The UN's response at that time — with peacekeepers, no end of bureaucratic bungling, and other shortcomings — was fairly weak, did not stop the slaughter, and became a black mark for the UN because the international community was seen as having failed. Humanitarian intervention, in principle, does not imply the use of force, but rather the entry into a sovereign state to restore order and begin the rebuilding process.

Kosovo and Rwanda: Historical Precedents

Later in the same decade, Kosovo became another test for the doctrine of humanitarian intervention. The preconditions for intervention were present — crimes against humanity and apparently intractable conflict — but in that case the international community was divided. In particular, the UN Security Council could not reach agreement on intervention, because Russia was a strong supporter of Serbian president Slobodan Milošević. Henkin (1999) points out that the doctrine of humanitarian intervention, as written in law under Article 2(4) of the UN Charter, "prohibits the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state" (p. 824).

Kosovo represents a critical case study because, with the UN unable to intervene due to Russia's veto power, NATO unilaterally entered into conflict with Serbia over Kosovo. This was an unprecedented action. In Rwanda, the UN had failed to prevent genocide, and that failure loomed large in Kosovo, where genocide was also occurring. But there were significant political dimensions to Kosovo as well — Milošević was supported by Russia and reviled in the West. The fall of Yugoslavia had been bloody, and the West saw this conflict as an opportunity to expand its sphere of influence, not just in Europe but in the Muslim world, as Kosovars are Muslim ethnic Albanians.

NATO Intervention in Libya

Libya represented a situation similar to Kosovo in some respects, and Syria also draws certain parallels. A key similarity was that the ruler, Qaddafi, had clearly authorized the use of military force against civilian protesters. In this case, they were not an ethnic minority — all parties involved were Arab — but they were the voice of dissent in a country that had existed under dictatorship for decades. The internal use of force is by no means unknown in the world, and as such Kosovo presents a fairly limited precedent for military action. This was doubtless one of the reasons why there was no consensus in the international community regarding action against Libya. Russia and China specifically opposed intervention. Russia had on several occasions fought battles against its own insurgents, particularly in Chechnya. China, having invaded Tibet and brutally repressed its people, had little interest in setting the precedent that humanitarian intervention could be invoked to defend an oppressed group.

Without the support of the international community, NATO did as it had in Kosovo and acted unilaterally to intervene militarily in Libya (Meo, 2011). As in Kosovo, NATO saw in the Arab Spring an opportunity to extend its sphere of influence, particularly in the Arab world. NATO intervention was only seriously considered in nations that were traditionally antagonistic toward the West — Libya and Syria in particular — while more Western-friendly countries experiencing similar uprisings were never subject to the same saber-rattling (e.g., Bahrain, Tunisia, Egypt). Qaddafi had made more than his share of enemies over the years, especially in the West but also within the Arab League. As such, Qaddafi was particularly vulnerable to NATO intervention, because the Arab League had little interest in defending Libya's sovereignty. The West saw an opportunity not only to depose an enemy and increase its sphere of influence in the region, but also to gain access to oil that had not been made available to many prominent Western companies for years.

As with Kosovo, the political opportunity was simply too great. In the years since 9/11, there has been significant discord between the West and the Muslim world. The West has an interest in promoting its values in the Muslim world, as secularism, democracy, and freedom of thought and speech would serve as a counterbalance to Islamic extremism in these societies. Thus, there was likely a perspective among NATO leaders that by lending support to the overthrow of a brutal dictator, the alliance could fill the resulting power vacuum in its own image. Such thinking would have been naïve, optimistic, or both, because the reality was certainly nothing of the sort. But the underlying logic at the time would have been to support the Arab Spring — or, in a more cynical reading, to leverage it in order to increase the West's influence in the Middle East.

The NATO actions in Libya were limited to air support. They neutralized Libya's air force, which provided opposition forces with a better opportunity to combat the Libyan military. Unlike in Kosovo, NATO did not put the proverbial "boots on the ground," a restraint that may have allowed it to avoid the most pointed accusations of outside interference and to maintain the veneer of humanitarian intervention. However, it is worth remembering that a key tenet of humanitarian intervention is that it is supposed to provide help to ordinary citizens, not to rebel militias. Humanitarian intervention, under the UN Charter, is not about becoming involved in military conflict or about taking sides.

The actions of NATO did not extend to actual humanitarian acts. They did not provide the sort of support for refugees, healthcare, reconstruction, or other elements that would normally fall under the rubric of humanitarian intervention. NATO merely provided a counterbalance to Qaddafi's air power, allowing rebel forces to take over the country. This simply does not meet the criteria of humanitarian intervention. It is intervention — but military intervention — and the fact that NATO limited its actions in Libya does not negate the fact that it made no meaningful contribution to humanitarian efforts in the country.

Conclusion: Strategic Interests Over Humanitarian Ideals

The cases of Libya and Syria, as well as the cases before them, call into question the doctrine of humanitarian intervention. All told, this doctrine has struggled with its definition from the outset, and has in particular been challenged by the realities of its implementation. Intervention may be a doctrine by which a nation can engage another — to the point of interfering in domestic affairs — but this must be understood as strictly a realist affair: the use of force under a humanitarian pretext, for the purpose of extending influence or gaining access to critical resources. In either case, intervention may have nothing to do with humanitarianism, regardless of whatever rhetoric the intervention is couched in.

References

Hooper, J., & Black, I. (2011). Libya defectors: Pilots told to bomb protesters flee to Malta. The Guardian.

Henkin, L. (1999). Editorial comments: NATO's Kosovo intervention. The American Journal of International Law, 93(4), 824–828.

Meo, N. (2011). Libya: NATO warplanes kill 14 rebels. The Telegraph.