Obama and "The Just War"

In an article in the October issue of Vanity Fair, Michael Lewis profiles President Obama. It's a good read, but I think a puff piece and targeted at the election -- most of the events concern the intervention in Libya in March 2011 (hence the picture at left), yet the article obviously wasn't published until now, a month and a half before voters go to the polls.

The situation with Libya, though, presents an interesting thought problem about when (and when not) the United States and other "first world" nations should intervene in the affairs of other nations. In the middle of March 2011 Gaddafi's forces were moving towards Benghazi -- the revolution's stronghold -- and, based on Gaddafi's statements, tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands might be massacred in Benghazi after Gaddafi took it. The United States and other "western" powers quavered in the Rwandan crisis and perhaps 500,000 died.  But foreign invasions, such as the Iraq War, are expensive exercises usually resented by most of an indigenous population; they are, typically, hopeless exercises in imposing one society's values on another. Humanitarianism is a weak justification for war. Is there ever a place for the Bellum iustum, "the just war"?

The situation in Libya had several obvious differences from that in Iraq. Libya had an on-going revolution started by the populace and supported by a substantial majority of the population. The revolution was not hopeless, but the revolutionaries were hopelessly outgunned since Gaddafi had a vast of amount of advanced weapons, artillery, and an air force. Iraq did not have an ongoing revolution when it was invaded; there were no revolutionaries. It, like Libya, was ruled by a despot, but the invasion was never credibly justified to protect the population (many of whom may actually have been better off under Saddam Hussein than they are now); the principle justification was the presence of "weapons of mass destruction" -- those supposed weapons would be a threat to other countries, of course, not the indigenous population.

Yet, even to protect a substantial part of the population, military intervention can be destabilizing to the future of the country involved as well as its region. If the situation is not left better off in the long run, intervention cannot be justified. Even a stable regime can be worse; one following strict sharia, for example.

At the heart of the issue of military intervention lies the question of whether intervention can ever be justified on purely humanitarian reasons; if nationalistic concerns are the only justification (if they are a justification at all). If humanitarianism is never a justification for war, then intervention of the United States in the European half of World War II might be questioned (as might the US's pre-war response to Japan's belligerent expansion in Asia). The interests of the United States might have been served by not participating.

The problem with pacifism is that it may leave more dead and worse off (and particularly more non-belligerents dead and worse off) than intervention. Pacifism may not be humanitarian; failure to act in Libya would not have been humanitarian.

Yet military intervention for nationalistic ambitions is precisely what the involved country's population will oppose. And even if initially successful years of occupation (and likely ultimate failure ensues). The invader, meanwhile, loses international credibility; it is difficult to be a military aggressor and a credible advocate for peace.  Acting rarely and then for patently humanitarian reasons, on the other hand, is credibility increasing. Unlike the situation in Iraq, most citizens in Libya seemed grateful for the US's military role.

Obama addressed the argument for a "just war" in his speech accepting the Nobel Peace Prize. It is not a rigorous legal or philosophical argument -- it's a political speech -- and Lewis treats the writing of the speech with a quality of hagiography in his profile. Yet it is quotable (though Lewis doesn't go that far):

We must begin by acknowledging the hard truth that we will not eradicate violent conflict in our lifetimes. There will be times when nations - acting individually or in concert - will find the use of force not only necessary but morally justified.

I make this statement mindful of what Martin Luther King said in this same ceremony years ago - "Violence never brings permanent peace. It solves no social problem: it merely creates new and more complicated ones." As someone who stands here as a direct consequence of Dr. King's life's work, I am living testimony to the moral force of non-violence. I know there is nothing weak -- nothing passive -- nothing naïve -- in the creed and lives of Gandhi and King.

But as a head of state sworn to protect and defend my nation, I cannot be guided by their examples alone. I face the world as it is, and cannot stand idle in the face of threats to the American people. For make no mistake: evil does exist in the world. A non-violent movement could not have halted Hitler's armies. Negotiations cannot convince al Qaeda's leaders to lay down their arms. To say that force is sometimes necessary is not a call to cynicism - it is a recognition of history; the imperfections of man and the limits of reason.

As it happened, the United States succeeding in getting a UN resolution passed to allow military action to prevent attacks on civilians -- a foreign policy coup for the Obama administration. As Lewis reports, this was not initially favored by the President's advisers, most notably the Joint Chiefs of Staff. That is because the situation in Libya was not viewed as affecting the United States's vital interest. As I note above, though, this is precisely the wrong approach: acting only for the US's interest is precisely the type of action likely to fail. The Joint Chief's approach also ignores the fact that acting for humanitarian reasons may be in the US's interest.

In Libya air power was used without ground forces. This prevented the impending atrocity in Benghazi, and ultimately the rebels won the war and democratic elections were held. Yet the country is not yet completely stable, and the length of the war allowed radical Islamic elements to become more entrenched.    (As a side note, when Gaddafi took power in a coup he claimed religious justifications as well as imposing Nassar-style one party socialism; he imposed a form of sharia and made Islam the state religion, and he created a fighting force called the Islamic Legion composed mostly of poor immigrants. Hussein, on the other hand, took power in a coup as a member of the Ba'ath party, which was a secular (and often atheistic) pan-Arabic party. Gaddafi, of course, turned more and more a-religious in practice, while Hussein subsequently later claimed devout religiosity when his position was threatened.)

In my view, we (in theory) waited too long to act in Libya. All of the reasons justifying intervention existed towards the end of February 2011. Moreover, it was apparent that the Gaddafi regime was caught off guard, Gaddafi wavered on abdicating, and some of his military (including some high ranking officers) immediately defected. Quick action I believe would likely have prevented any substantial military conflict. The problem is that it appears that could only have been affected unilaterally. No practical mechanism exists for rapid widely approved multilateral action.

Intervention is warranted when there is an clear and immediate threat to our nation or a clear humanitarian basis for doing so (and if for humanitarian reasons, when intervention has a meaningful chance for success in leaving the indigenous population better off, when a majority of that population as a whole desires our intervention and is actively seeking their own freedom, and when it has multilateral support).