Walzer on Intervention: When Is Military Action Justified?

Just War Theory: Historical Foundations

Intervention in the domestic affairs of another state has become a highly contentious issue in international politics. Scholars have attempted to address the problems of international morality that arise from the tension between the principle of non-intervention and a concern for human rights. The principle of non-intervention sustains a state's political sovereignty, self-determination, and rights of self-defense against aggression. It has long been recognized that one state should not intervene in the domestic affairs of another state except for individual or collective defense against aggression. In other words, aggression justifies intervention and war. However, recently intervention in the domestic affairs of another state has been warranted under some more exceptional circumstances.

Michael Walzer, with his contribution to the Just War tradition, offers a powerful account of what constitutes the sovereignty of a state and when it is permissible to intervene in the domestic affairs of another state. Notably, Walzer has been criticized for his view of non-intervention and the rare exceptional cases in which he justifies humanitarian intervention. For many, Walzer is too generous to states, underestimating the power of repressive governments and emphasizing the capacity of the people within the community. Furthermore, Walzer's theory—a strong defense of the non-intervention principle with narrow exceptions in justification of humanitarian intervention—has overstated the importance of community rights at the expense of individual rights.

This essay has five parts. The first briefly discusses the Just War tradition and names a few classical thinkers of Just War theory. The second part explains Walzer's strong position in defense of the non-intervention principle. The third describes the circumstances under which intervention becomes permissible. The fourth examines Walzer's communitarian interpretation of these exceptions. The final part discusses critics of Walzer's theory in defense of the non-intervention principle and addresses the narrow exceptions in which intervention becomes permissible.

Walzer's Defense of Non-Intervention

Walzer's influential book Just and Unjust Wars, published in 1977, has attracted critical commentary for its strong position in defense of non-intervention with only narrow exceptions. It is worth mentioning that this work contains modern discussions of Just War theory, a set of moral principles that guide what constitutes a just war and what constitutes an unjust war. Furthermore, Just War theory deals with justification regarding how and why wars are fought. The debates about the Just War tradition and its foundation "were laid by Greek philosophers, such as Aristotle and Cicero, who discussed the just causes for war and the necessary authority to declare it." It was further developed by Ambrose and Augustine, who argued that wars should be conducted with right intentions and can be morally justified when an appropriate authority declares them based on a just cause—for example, fighting to bring about a condition of peace and avoid evil by promoting the good.

The conditions of Just War theory that are much debated today were formalized by the Dutch philosopher Hugo Grotius. Grotius "incorporated just war theory into international law" and argued that states can enter into war when defending their rights and have the right to "prosecute war in order to punish states that have violated their rights." It is worth noting that Walzer's contribution to the Just War tradition was formed with the work of the early writers mentioned above. He justifies war under certain conditions, such as acts of self-defense against an aggressor. For Walzer, other wars—for economic conquest, territorial expansion, religious crusade, and ethnic hatred—are unjust and should be avoided.

Since 1648 and the Peace of Westphalia, through which the state system came into being, the principle of sovereignty has been widely applied and states were formally recognized as independent. Any violation of this independence legitimizes intervention and war against the violator. According to Walzer, the state is the system that represents the political community, and this community shares experiences of life among themselves and performs their activities in cooperation with one another. He believes that it is necessary to consider the principle of non-intervention in order to ensure the protection of the political community as a fundamental human right. While prescribing intervention, Walzer emphasizes that the state, among other states, has the right to political sovereignty and territorial integrity. In Walzer's legalistic paradigm, aggression of any state on the historical and political community of another is an international crime as it violates the basic rights to which political communities or states are fundamentally entitled.

Permissible Grounds for Intervention

For Walzer, any unwarranted intervention in the internal affairs of another state is a double violation of rights. The first are the rights of people to live unmolested by external bodies in their own political community or state, and the second are the fundamental rights of the state to its political sovereignty and territorial integrity. Intervention is legitimate and justified on the grounds of self-defense by individual or collective action against the aggressor. For example, the Gulf War in 1990, when the American-led military coalition forces removed Iraqi troops from Kuwait, showed that intervention of one state or groups of states—the USA, Britain, France, and Saudi Arabia—in the internal affairs of another state, Iraq, was justified and legitimized. These interventions are supposed to occur in light of the fact that the Charter of the United Nations declares that states have certain fundamental rights, including rights of political sovereignty and territorial integrity. The legitimacy of military intervention on grounds of self-defense is clear when such self-defense is against an armed invasion.

It is important to note that in defense of non-intervention, Walzer builds his thoughts from John Stuart Mill's doctrine of self-help and the right to self-determination, stating that people ruled by an oppressive regime should deal with it locally and without outside intervention. Walzer argues that a citizen of a state has an individual right, and together they have a collective right to oppose and resist an oppressive government through revolutionary movements. What is important for Walzer is that any foreign intervention to overthrow the oppressive regime will violate individual rights. This is because intervention by an outsider is based on that "foreign state's idea of justice and prudence, [and it will be] inconsistent with the right to self-determination of the community." However, Walzer recognized that the position of states with regards to non-intervention could have a few exceptions.

Walzer informs us that there are three cases in which the principle of non-intervention can be overridden. The first is that intervention is permissible when a secessionist or national liberation movement is sufficiently strong and "has progressed so far that the incumbent government can no longer legitimately claim to govern the rebellious nationality." For instance, recent events in Libya, in which the government no longer had the legitimacy to claim to govern the rebellious Libyans while foreign military intervention against the Libyan regime was ongoing, clearly exemplify this case.

The second case is that an intervention has taken place by a foreign power and a counter-intervention is required to restore the balance; it often applies in the context of civil war. The United States counter-intervention against the former Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan during 1978–1988 was acceptable and legitimate on the grounds of creating a balance. According to Walzer, the US invasion of Vietnam during 1960–1970 was unjust. Nevertheless, the United States counter-intervention in South Vietnam was justified to offset the prior intervention of North Vietnam.

The third case arises in the worst situations, such as massacre, genocide, enslavement, or mass deportation of large numbers of people from their community or state to which they belong. For example, the Rwanda genocide in 1994, in which the government slaughtered almost a million Tutsis and deported millions of other Tutsis to neighboring countries, is one of the exceptional cases for which Walzer sees humanitarian intervention as permissible. Genocide and mass deportation are the most serious situations that "shock the moral conscience of mankind," and intervention is permissible to rescue the citizens of that state. In 1971, the Indian military intervention in Pakistan is another example when intervention was permissible on humanitarian grounds. This intervention was a response to protect civilians when the West Pakistani army had indiscriminately slaughtered at least a million unarmed people, raped women, destroyed properties, and caused the deportation of millions of others into India.

The Communitarian Critique

Walzer also justifies intervention when the enemy state displays itself with an act of aggression or a manifest intent to injure. This pre-emptive measure is a form of self-defense according to Just and Unjust Wars, when the victim of aggression defends itself with a first strike. A state does not need to wait until the aggressor state causes damage. Under this circumstance, waiting rather than fighting will greatly increase the risk. Israel's pre-emptive strike in the Six-Day War of 1967 against Egypt clearly exemplifies the case that Walzer justifies intervention. According to Walzer, Israel had sufficient evidence that Egypt and its allies, such as Jordan and Syria, posed sufficient threats against Israel.

With regard to the third case—extreme human rights violations that "shock the moral conscience of mankind"—Walzer's justification of intervention can be interpreted in two different ways: one is the communitarian approach, and the other is a much less communitarian, more cosmopolitan approach. Walzer, with his communitarian stance, argues that the principle of non-intervention applies at all times if there is a fit (mutual association) between the government and the community. For Walzer, the "state is constituted by the union of people and government"—a union that can only exist if there is a certain fit between the government and the community. Furthermore, if there is such a fit, it is not permissible to intervene in the domestic affairs of that state. This is because foreigners lack adequate knowledge about the state's conflicts, history, harmony, and cultural affinities. Similarly, foreigners are not in a good position to judge whether the government and the community are congruent with each other. Under such circumstances, it is necessary that foreigners respect the state's rights to shape its own collective life associated with its own culture, traditions, and religion.

Importantly, such extreme human rights violations that "shock the moral conscience of mankind" mean that there is no fit between the community and the state. Thus, intervention is permissible in the absence of such a fit between the government and community. This is because in the absence of fit, there is no community, no legitimate rule, and quite importantly, the state's own defense may not qualify in terms of moral justification. Moszkowicz explains that Walzer's justification is based on "the moral conscience of mankind," or universal principles such as human rights. Walzer justifies humanitarian intervention based on human values rather than on the existence of a fit between the government and community. In the breach of such values, the state will lose the right to non-intervention. In other words, the principle of non-intervention will be overridden when the situation is so serious—like the Rwanda genocide in 1994—that it shocked "the moral conscience of mankind." In 1994, intervention was permissible on the grounds of humanity, regardless of any fit that may have existed between the government and the majority of Rwanda's people (Hutus). Intervention under such serious circumstances can be called a liberal or cosmopolitan justification of humanitarian intervention.