Transcripts For CSPAN2 Book Discussion On The Question Of Intervention 20160313

Affairs of other sovereign states. Particularly over the past decade the u. N. Institutionalization of the concept of the responsibility to protect has established that a sovereign states fail to protect their citizens from genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, ethnic cleansing, and the International Community has a responsibility to intervene. Commodities funds and recurring costs for the u. S. To intervene abroad, the United States is better standards to determine when to intervene and when not to intervene abroad. That is the Michael Doyle has taught us to do in his book, the question of intervention. Building on mills essay, a few words of nonintervention, bill has presented a sophisticated nuance and mouth is what the circumstances in which humanitarian considerations supersede state sovereignty and justify foreign intervention. As well as the responsibility among interveners. We are delighted to welcome professor doyle to present the analysis at cato. To give you some background, Michael Doyleis director of the columbia Global Initiative and University Professor. Hes affiliated with the school of Political Science and law school. Hes the recipient of two cabrera words from the american Political Science association and hes been elected to the American Academy of arts and science is, American Philosophical Society and the American Academy of political and social science. In addition to his academic work, he served as the assistant secretarygenerals special advisor to the United Nations kofi annan and from 2006 to 2013 served as an individual member and chair of the u. N. Democracy fund. Please join me in welcoming her face or doyle. Professor doyle. [applause] thank you very much for those kind remarks and the very sweet introduction. I really want to thank the Cato Institute or inviting me here to speak. Perhaps its no surprise that someone who is rich book on John Stuart Mill would be invited to the Cato Institute, but i will know how much work is involved in putting together an event like this and i truly appreciate it. I would also think annemarie slaughter and Christopher Preble for commenting on the boat. They very busy schedules. Deliberating the look and the fact that they also take the time to come here and comment is a real treat. What a start on the question of nonintervention and when to override nonintervention or disregard intervention, which is the theme of this book, the question of intervention. I want to start by imagining the that we all share three concerns. The first concern is that humanitarian commitment to try to save the lives of people around the world if human dignity. The second is an appreciation of the value of National Communal selfdetermination and collectively people should have the right and opportunity to shape their own lives. Thirdly is the principle of National Security. Be living a dangerous world. Governments its like our own have a duty to their citizens to provide for their safety to the extent possible. You cant rely upon and International Organizations to do it. Those are the three principles i would like to start with. Humanitarian protection, selfdetermination and National Security. I suspect this is not wildly imagined principles for anyone here in this room. I think many of us share that. My question is given those principles, what should we make of intervention and nonintervention. Thats what im starting from. A strategy in the book was to go back to the basics. The most famous though not the first attempt to reconcile them by the great 19th century british liberal philosopher, John Stuart Mills in his landmark essay, a few words on nonintervention which he published in 1859 in frasers magazine in a conveniently republished in the back of the book to help every sunday. I comment on this argument. I dissent them, criticize them, try to find others. He died in 1873. I have found that despite the fact that these are called pages im talking to rereading them time and time again lets me do something new each time i do something. I do four things from this, this afternoon. One is to offer a new interpretation of as long as it does not interfere with the rights of others. The second is representative government. For those decisions that have to be made collectively because they cant be made individually, the interest in voice of the majority is better than the voice of the minority is a way to submit those decisions. The breadandbutter principles of democracy. Maxx on the equal liberty and representative government. This leads me as i mentioned to my first puzzle. One night give the very strong commitment to the value of liberty and the principles of democracy that one might adopt with the u. S. Constitution also adopt switches in article iv something called the guarantee clause. All states in the United States are guaranteed to have comment that is must have a republican form of government. With our 14th amendment, all states have to provide equal protection of the laws for all persons who are in the u. S. Why not do that globally a few really believe in those principles the way that it genuinely does. This is not what mill argues for internationally. It is a general rule, civilized countries. He says it is two very important reasons. The first is that imposing liberty, as good as it is in democracy as good as it is is radically and affection. Unless People Choose it or themselves, what does it mean to say that they are acting democratically, that they are determining collectively. They are a form of government in life. Moreover, theres no universal form of free government. Authentic freedom is the freedom to make up your own version of it. Think of the u. S. And the u. K. Two cardcarrying liberal democracies if you ever had to find two. One of them is a hereditary head of state and have an established religion and the others so far does not. So it is a very different world is equally legitimate. Both of them equivalently strong claims liberty and democratic government. It would be an authentic to attend to oppose liberty and hypocrisy around the world. It is a good thing. He also wants us at trying to so would have bad consequences and that is where it creeps back in. If they are pulled out of the knapsack of an invading army one established by the three likely outcomes that come from that act of imposition. The local liberals, called on knapsack liberals because they lack effective Political Support from below will collapse the same as the interveners leave. The only way you can establish a government is through what he calls arduous struggle. Building support across the communities so they are prepared to participate, risk their lives if necessary in an army or police floors without the government can survive. If you can pull individuals from the knapsack, run up if i can call themselves a Free Independent government, the most likely outcome if they will collapse. The second day he hypothesizes is okay come he brought them liberals who claim to be good liberals. They discovered that support and they discovered the only way to stay in power or keep themselves alive is to act forcibly. So rather than having brought a free government, it brought another atop perceive and experienced all the costs of war or invasion. Thirdly, the interveners who pull out the knapsack liberals and put them into power realize they are so weak they are likely to collapse and say to themselves we cant allow our allies to follow parts of the interveners never leave. It is created no circumstance is an empire. So those are the new civil war, a new hypocrisy and empire are the three likely consequences of trying to an pose a free government on a country thats not been able to limit for itself. I have a political scientist and so i did my Political Science they want the help of a good graduate student named camille strauss kahn. When a professor says he is the hope of a graduate student, and he student, and he fears he is really doing most of the works. Every intervention from 1815 until today we cut 334 of them. They were lifted in the of this book. Only 221 of those intervention or militarily successful. The others were repulsed. Of those 221, 56 led to a new civil war next of the intervention. They are based on the previous regime. 146 represent the 19th century and early 20th century led to a new empire. Only 26 of the once of the ones that look that produced a free and independent rights respect and state. The historians in the room will know that the world is much more complicated. But all of this are motivated searching for freedom interventions just looking for the crossborder use of military forces. You have to pull back somewhat and say these figures are rough and ready. Most are mixed in their motives rather than simply derived. While those reasons, one has to be very careful making this. But i think there is a default that nonintervention is dangerous. It does more harm than good. The second puzzle i will go over very quickly is that given these strong intervention is that we should intervene in two circumstances when nonintervention needs to be overridden for the sake of National Security or humanitarian rescue or has to be disregarded because the assumption that a government is capable of determining its own future through arduous struggle double. That may give you a couple examples of the disregard and over writing before i wrap up at the last remark. Think of a situation of an ethnic conflict within the country where there is a majority that is 80 of the population and a minority just 20 . The normal prescription allows the locals to struggle to determine what should go in that country. If you have a fight between 80 and 20, that doesnt qualify as a fair fight. If a because after the 20 with murderous intent, what you see instead is simply a massacre not a genuine struggle. In those circumstances, it might be legitimate to step in to assist the weaker side not to rule the larger side, but to separate and succeed and have a sound government that it can then determine on it as 80 majority do for themselves. In 1859 of course the separation of the u. S. From the u. K. But he is more directly in mind is a more recent event as congress rebellion of the austrian emperor and he thinks the hungarians have a right to farm their own government and not be dominated to the empire. It wouldve been prudent to do so. This is problematic but it would have been legitimate to develop their own empire. Let me skip. I give a few more examples in the outline that i passed out. You can see others id be happy to addressing the question. To me skip to the most notorious example where he attempts to justify benign imperialism. You get the discussion and india is a lot more capable than mill thought it was though it had many conflicts. Let me skip to the other kind of exception that is over writing with humanitarian concerns or National Security requires that you override the default of nonintervention. Think of the following. What about your citizens who might be being oppressed within the Foreign Government. Some Foreign Government seizes them and threatens their life. Do you have to say if the foreign matter theres nothing we can do about it . There are historical examples in the u. S. And u. K. Some have done well, some poorly. There is one very famous one by the israelis were to intervene to try to free their citizens being printed and they murderous consequences than they did so in a way that would quite surgical. They didnt stay around and overthrow what was they went in and got their citizens out. That is a case of a legitimate overriding of the sovereign borders of uganda. That is one example. Another example is in a situation where youve been fighting a defensive war. Youve been successful by pushing the invaders come at the dressers on his back to the border. Mill says he dont have to stop at the border. Instead you can keep going and sleeping that oppressive regime in place will believe what he calls a standing menace that would come back in the very near future. He is talking about napoleon who was left to close to europe after 1814, came back and had to be fought all over again and then they pass them all the way down to the south atlantic. Around examples are postworld war ii should have stopped the run, should japan have been did . These are the questions hes razing forests. Let me conclude with quick remarks on the humanitarian interpretation. A couple of obscure examples where he talks about a retracted war that is having no result. It is just writing down ordinary people to small farmers, the inhabitants of the towns and at some point he says that the legitimate to step in. And aaron davis raises the question of responsibility is to protect. The doctor announced that it argues for responsibility to step genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. This was an important step forward. Nonetheless it move towards a better doctrine. A license Security Council to act beyond the narrow definition of interNational Security, a leash save only for this particular circumstances should the security get involved. If you would justify the intervention in libya, in 2011. Ive looked into that in some depth though im not a libya specialist. In the end i found it was problematic in a way that anyone would observe. The information was deeply confusing on which the decision was made. We need to do better in the future and i should declare an interest work and have the government on responsibility while protect teen should try to develop better standard to rescue this very important. Dream. If it becomes relevant again come needless to say you have to get the Security Council to agree, it would be better if looking at standards to be employed. Accountability in the middle of the operation commenced various sources of qatar operating outside of the mandate that was given an important money after the war, postbattle of action that unlikely happen in libya, which was a freeforall in late 20112012 with a more concerted effort to help in rebuilding unified government. But i think is necessary. Put that all together and we have a continually relevant standard with the doctrine and intervention. As a lover should learn most important is the default has to be nonintervention if you are a liberal. Second of all they can sometimes be overweight or disregarded in rare as him when thats done you take upon yourself the consequences including the likelihood that many of these operations could go wrong. One has a responsibility to prevent that. Most importantly in that regard, one needs to find ways to make sure that selfdetermination becomes a reality even if it has to be temporarily aggregated for this intervention. I look forward to the comments of my colleagues here. Thank you furby joining us. [applause] thank you, michael appeared we are fortunate to have two excellent discussants here who have read and are prepared to comment on the book. First, annemarie slaughter. Currently president and ceo of new america. Shes also a University Professor emeritus of politics and International Affairs at prince university. From 20092011 she served as director of policy planning at the state department appeared prior to government service, doctors daughter was at the Woodrow Wilson school of International Affairs from 2002 2000 an adjacent Claire Armstrong professor of international compared to the at Harvard Law School from 1994 reporter 2002. We also have chris preble. Here at the cato went to pick in that capacity is currently writing a book entitled a guide to Foreign Policy. His previous books include power pros, how American Military mix of less safe, less prosperous and less free. John f. Kennedy and the missile gap. In addition to his work at cato, preble teaches Foreign Policy at the Washington Center before joining cato in february 2003, he thought history thinkpad university in temple university. He was an officer in the u. S. Navy and serves the board ticonderoga demanded 1993. Now let me turn it over to annemarie slaughter. [applause] thank you. I am delighted to be here. Something you left out of my biography that i would only tell all of you because Michael Doyle is thinner doyle is the youngest grandfather ive ever seen. I emphasize grandfather because he dedicates this book to his grave done. Given that background, i can say another piece of my biography is Michael Doyle taught me a policy task force in 1979 on policy towards zimbabwe when i was an undergraduate and ive been following him around ever since. When i got this invitation, i thought of course i would want to do this because of the subject matter, which i thought a great deal about and am still thinking about in the same way michael is, but also because michaels work has been an enormously important in exactly the way this book is, which is to interrogate issues of enormous practical significance for him and historically important perspective and one informed by political theories, the classics to contemporary. I am very honored to have a chance to talk about the book. I am going to divide my remarks in five categories. Each will be short i assure you. Things i like, things they disagree with, things i questioned, things that i think are missing and what i think is the most important part of the book. Michael, im not going to expect you to respond to all of these, but it should inform our discussion. The most important contribution contribution let me start by saying what i think what i like very much in the book is that at present the current effort to formulate when humanitarian intervention is permissible as both a license and a leash. We just heard michael say that. It points out in the book he goes through the history of how we had a talk turned to intervention, often violated, but nevertheless the cold war of course because whatever we did the soviets did, too. There is a clear reason to adhere to a formal doctrine even if they violated it. Michael then described after the cold war ends in the 1990s, both in his and the International Commission looking into the intervention in kosovo and the International Commission on state sovereignty, both of those documents, which 100 years from now, 200 years from now will be seen as the equivalent to the prehistory of the treaty of westphalia. Both of those documents have much broader reasons for intervention, like gross human rights abuses and indeed in the International Convention of state sovereignty, it goes through a number of grounds. This doctrine is not a kneejerk reaction of people like me. Which is all too often how it is assumed to be and never have i like my last name less. All the way through the book you kept talking about mass slaughter. I thought really . The point is this is a hard question and its a hard question for people who are committed to order and law. It is not about bleeding hearts and its not about a kind of we should be able to use thats a difficult question for people who start out with the presumption of nonintervention as well as people who might start out with a presumption of greater ancient prevention. Thats also very helpful. Greater intervention. Look at the historical record, very much as the work you did on the Democratic Peace i find to be valuable although i will question it. The last thing i do like about the book as it does paint from the beginning all the way to the end of you cannot think about this just as the action. You must think about this in terms of consequences, longerterm consequences. The last chapter is all about what is the duty if youre going to intervene, what is your obligation for postconflict reconstruction. Which can im going to question that but it has to be part of the equation. Otherwise we end up quite disastrous. So those are the number of things i liked about the book. Just a couple of things that i disagree with. One in particular im going to exercise, on page 48, sort of them talking about the value of intervention, how do we assess the value . How do we say it was successful . You say we get sick its democratization. I agree with that. I dont think democratization is the right measure at all because i dont think we should intervene to create democracy. Im squarely on the ground that we should be intervening only for the kind of humanitarian principles that the responsibility to protect lays out. But then you go on talking about ending the killing, and then you say the problem of course is measuring the real concern, shortened lives reliably across history is difficult while also incorporating an assessment of the human cost of an oppressive government. Call me an american but there are things more important than life. I disagree with thinking that the value is just shortened lives. In other words, you could intervene in a way that might have this same numbers of shortened lives than if you had not intervened, and yet the people who died in the consequence would, in fact, have the they are successful successes would have better luck. At least when i read it, it struck me as something i very much disagree with as ive characterized it. You may have meant it in a different way. So than things i question. The first point is you do go back, you say, in the empirical, you go back to 1850. But isnt opposed to 45 record a considerably better . Opposed to 45 record is the record in which we have in many cases have some kind of multilateral authorization. But the successful examples you cite, germany, japan, kosovo, couple others were all post45. I question whether we should say most have been unsuccessful wind energy say a lot of them were colonialists interventions. They were still in the air of empire. So im not quite sure i agree with how you characterize success, whether there isnt a step change after 1945. Another small question, the responsibility to protect, you can intervene where there is genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and what am i leaving out . And ethnic cleansing. Just a question. I thought it was systematic war crimes . It is war crimes, we all think war crimes, many of us have systems of justice to do with it but do we really want to say war crimes . I thought it was narrower than that but if not, shouldnt it be . The last thing i will question for go to what is missing is, so i do, i like the fact that you focus on consequences, and particularly really if youre going to intervene, the obligation to rebuild, but the consequence of too much colin powell, pottery barn rule, we shouldve paid far more attention to it in iraq, he tried. I come over all, except it but i truly question the danger of the doctrine that insists on the clarity and certainty that simply does not obtain in international relations. So i will just say, this is the issue. There is no good response. There are no good choices. That are only bad choices. In 2012 when many of us started calling for intervention there were better choices. There was not isis, the Free Syrian Army our children assisted. Over moderates, lots of things you could have done in february of 2012 that i think arguably what approach and a far better position than you are today. But if the criteria was whats going to happen and how are we going to rebuild syria, you dont ask. So youre building an unbiased for an action that is precisive what this president has in this study because iraq is his benchmark. In less you can tell him exactly whats going to work out, hes not going to move. We dont have a crystal ball. The great decision to intervene in history have actually worked have often been somebody had to say, secretary clinton often since i would rather get caught trying. I would say that in every case, if you lay out very good calculations but when you come down to that setting this is we have no idea, its really bad whichever way we look, i question that you are building in a set of biased towards an action. Things that in this incredible in with what i think is most important. Its a short book and its available as a short book and im currently writing a book based on a set of lectures as well and theres a real value to not include all these things but id like to hear your thoughts. Rules about Regional Intervention first. We are never going to get what we need to go with the Current System industry counts, we just wont. It is too illegitimate for to many parts of the world, and so what is evolving arguably issue most of multilateral authorization can be done by a Regional Organization first and then you go to the Security Council. Thats the kosovo model that it couldve been the libya model in the sense that once the organization of islamic, the islamic conference and the Gulf Cooperation Council approved, youd something. You cannot act unilaterally but could you do it that way. Possibility, the french have talked about in circumstances of profound war crimes, systematic war crimes. I would be willing to say genocide or crimes against humanity. I would limit it further, the theater should be suspended or are you thinking about ways of customary practice, to moderate the Current System which as you point out is still primarily entirely focused on sovereignty with rtp and some state practice changing slowly. The third thing no mention or have you thought about better use of International Justice processes as a form of Early Intervention . Here i have in mind applying the standards of International Justice to individuals, perpetrators, in cases of genocide, crimes against humanity. And is impossible to think about limited intervention in the service of International Justice . Something we talked about in the 1990s, less so now. And, finally, the question of how we given enough thought, or something that is missing but im wondering if you thought about, intervening against the means of perpetrating these crimes. I very much agree with you and fight even after we started intervening in libya i thought it was a real mistake to move to regime change. I wrote a piece about how to intervene in libya to say we should cut a deal with coauthor now because we are flooding the zone with small arms and we know that its going to be bad for whatever happens. We want to stop the atrocities, stop the genocide, stop the crimes against humanity, stop the ethnic cleansing or systematic war crimes. We typically think of doing that by defeating or otherwise attacking the perpetrators. But what if we focus on attacking the means of perpetration . Here in the example of syria, bombing a sides air force, fix or borrowing to stop them from dropping their bombs on his people. And is there a way that we can craft the doctrine to say look, you can win. This is a civil war, its okay for now. We are not going to say you should win but we will tell you, you can only fight in certain ways. We are going to stop you from fighting in manifest illegal ways. In rwanda that wouldve been harder. You could not a bond people with machetes pathetic in a limited limited use of force might have made a difference. Let me conclude talking about what i like, what i dislike and what a question, what is missing. Let me come back to what is most important, and the first thing i will say again is this license and leash framework is just enormously valuable. And should be exactly the way we think about it going forward. I would say thats, that also says its a license for nonforcible parts of intervention which is something rtp proponents have emphasized that we should be putting much more in before conflicts break out early on and conflicts at this license idea is very helpful there. But the leash is equally important. I want to emphasize how much i like that. Begin but let me conclude with something you said early on but dont come back to but i found enormously important. Particularly import into something which is the valley of rtp as oppressive, as a possibility. So yo use it on page 125 youre talking about where, in fact, it has worked and you say kenya and the rights in 2008, new guinea in 2009. These were both cases in which there had been an outbreak of violence, riots and a possible too. You say in both cases these crises reshaped but r2p but implicitly not explicitly. This indeed might be that doctor and strongest claim. It provides an option whose mere existence encourages consensual resolution of crisis. In other words, because government thought we might come in diplomats had far more leverage. This is were i want to end. This is how this debate should be framed. Again it should not be libertarians, i do advocate of institute, versus liberal intervention, which im often caricatured at. That is not the right thing. The right frame is how to minimize conflict and maximize both order and liberty. This question then is windows diplomacy work best . And when by exercising forces judiciously or by standing up to a tirade do we can create a precedent that operates as we did in the domestic system to shape our future bargaining is from the shadow of the past. Its reversal of bargaining in the shadow of the future. It takes place known we would use force if we have to. That is my indictment of this administration right now in syria, ukraine. Weve essentially told russia we will not use force under any circumstance, we will not use force. That to me is a way of describing our diplomacy. Its not that i want to use force all the time to its that without the willingness to do so is actually doing so occasionally we deprive ourselves of the means to actually use nonforcible means more effectively. I urge you to highlight that part of the book. Its very important. It may have gotten, it may have gotten derailed by libya but i will end here Im International lawyer at hard. We think in terms of centuries, certainly decades and centuries. Remember the universal declaration of human rights passed in 1949 to didnt even get a treaty until 1976. It was never mentioned in u. S. Foreign policy into making 76 and were still working that out. That idea that it is part of the arsenal of effective diplomacy is one that may take a long time to prove but it is just as important as its actual individual case. Thank you very much. [applause] thank you. I first want to thank brad for organized this forum and inviting me to speak. Ill confess that invitation compelled me to read a book that i might otherwise have missed. I frequently only read books that im required to read. As i want to thank michael. I want to thank michael for being here obviously after writing this excellent book. Because i learned a lot. It really made me think and it provides a really rich topic for discussion not just here but i think for a long time. The book includes a fulltext of John Stuart Mills essay, a few words on not intervention. I read and reread, all of it. I only read passages before. I know everyone here is going to buy the book. And its in the book but for those of you who are watching online, portions of the essay are not Available Online at libertarianism. Org and the fulltext is available at online library. I want to spend a bit of time today on mill and i will quote a few passages drug. Micrometer referenced a few passages but more paraphrasing. I will admit the few places mill 19th century prose is tough sledding but not as much as you might suspect. He starts the essay with the resumption of disinterest on the part of a country in europe unnamed. He spells out his countrys characteristics. No country apprehends from it any aggressive designs. Any attempt it makes to exert influence over other nations even by persuasion is rather in the service of others, not of itself. Not only does this nation desired no benefit to itself at the expense of others, it desires nine in which all others did not actually participate. Whatever it events of itself, it demands for all mankind. Of course, the country in question was Great Britain, but i was a but this is a lot how the u. S. Foreign policy operates today. Or at least how u. S. Foreign policy makers and elites talk about this countrys Foreign Policy. The same principles. Explained vacations for wind and weather the United States resort to the use of force or as an reset from a threat to use force to back up our policies. And by this conventional wisdom no legitimate can ever describe to an aggressive design. We always act to the service of others. This is the mantra here in washington. Weve all quoted colin powell but i will quote him a couple times. This is what he said, famous line the World Economic forum, the war in iraq is practically imminent. Our record of living our values and letting our values be an inspiration to others i think its clear. Then he said, we have gone forth of our shores repeatedly over the last 100 years and put me and women at risk on many of them have lost their lives and weve asked for nothing except enough ground to bury them in. Ill tell you quickly as oscar party for my remarks i googled this quote saint i seem to remember him saying this, it was after all 13 years ago, and not only did he say this but it has become something of an urban legend about what he said in the context in which he said it. And people who are fans of this principle, all we ask is that we have enough land to bury our dead, love quoting this line. So this is the mantra, the idea. So if you think or if you thought that mill ideas on intervention from the mid19th century are no longer relevant in the 21st of the only logic Great Britain but not the United States Pax Americana, think again. And under Pax Americana as under pax britannica selfinterest is particularly despised. This is what bill said. He takes aim at those. He takes aim at those who come when presented with an argument for foreign intervention would invoke quote this shabby refrain. We do not interfere because the english interests are involved. We ought not to get a word in english interest is concerned. Replaced english with american and the right honorable mr. Mill i be speaking at me for people like me. Of all attitudes, he writes, which a nation can take up on the subject of intervention, the meanest and worst is to profess that it interferes only when it can serve its own objects bias. Now, of course, these same principles of noninterference do not apply when the nations safety or its interests are endangered, but england was to get it help itself to a higher standard and so i submit that most american policymakers. The u. S. Role in the work does not to advance the sake of security of americans but also the interest of well being of proclaim selfinterest should guide the conduct of u. S. Foreign policy would be tantamount to rejecting american exceptionalism or at least how we define it today. But, of course, the United States does not always intervene on behalf of others. And i think that the criteria explaining why we do and when we do our a little murky. And so that is what i think this book and this essay are so important. Lets think about this. To what extent are americas actions come u. S. Foreign policy makers actions, informed by mills thoughts on intervention . Probably subconsciously. And to what extent should they be . Mill much preferred intervention on behalf of those in arms for liberty on behalf of liberty and he thought it unjust to support governments who are actively thwarting of my colleagues referred to as americans dubious partners. This is what mill said. A government which needs for support and forced obedience of its own citizens is one which ought not exist. The assistance given to it by foreigners is hardly ever anything but the sympathy of one despotism over another. I think we can all know what John Stuart Mill wouldve said about the United States support of the rulers of saudi arabia and im guessing that he would be equally skeptical of use of government decision to install the shah of iran in power in 1953. Then you are the cases involving people attending throw off the yoke of indigenous government, a government comprised account of the people of the same country not a foreign occupier. For example, iraq struggling under the oppression of saddam hussein. Was it just . According to mill editing in such cases, he concludes as a general rule, no. This is what he writes. This is a passage i had written forward and you probably heard it before. If the people does not value liberty sufficiently to fight for it and maintain it against any force which can be mustered within the country, it is only a question of if yours is a figure so much that people will be enslaved. Not man become attached to that which they have long fought for and made sacrifices for. In a context in which we have been called on to devote themselves for the country is a school in which they learn to value their country and truths about their own. Mill reiterates the exception to the norm of nonintervention. As always cases of selfdefense. And also intervention on behalf of foreign peoples held in subjugation by another third party. If liberating these People Struggle against a foreign yoke would restore the balance of liberty and favor of another of mill key principles of self intervention. But then he says that this is why well focus the rest of my comments today, intervention to enforce nonintervention is always rightful, always moral. If not always prudent. My emphasis, prudent. Windows prudence apply . The question goes well but all in words of liberation, and we talked about human rights today. We should expand the definition of legitimate rationales to use of force beyond mills 19th century conception to the practice. In the preface, the book, mike reminds us of the consequentialist character of the ethics of both nonintervention and intervention. And later he writes, echoing mill, not every oppressive abuse that justifies a rebellion by locals justifies and intervention by force. Duties are contextual and selfdetermination, constrains humanitarian concerns. Put another way, no one should expect the United States or any other country to gravely endangered its own National Security in the service of humanitarian principles. Such self interested concerned are not, as mill sneered, meanest and worst of all attitudes. Its just common sense. Its not realistic to expect the government is empowered with specific rights and responsibilities to its citizens to endanger the security of its own citizens in the interest of a humanitarian concern that does not engage its own. So i think right away you can stand those set of criteria would narrow the range of interventions. Perhaps quite considerably. I think michael in his comments and most in his book does focus by merely on what is permissible under International Law whether to intervene by force in internal affairs of another state. I think we have to judge interventions. I think this gets to what annmarie said. We do have to try to assess interventions after the fact. Did the actual advance the cause of universal something of human rights . Did it bestow upon some number of people the ability to govern themselves . And if it afforded them that chance but they ultimately failed to do so, isnt the fault of the intervener or of those who intervened on their behalf . Weve talked about this. Michael does a service that mill never could and his research system. Mill didnt have statistical sampling techniques and all the. He reminds us in the book, on the basis of hard evidence very few liberal interventions from less than 15, remaining cases lapse back into civil war. As annemarie. Com what about the case of 9045 . I think its true even among supporters of nation building such as Rand Corporation did a study, more than half since 1945 have said, a majority said, and the successful ones equally important, the successful ones have often entailed considerable costs and risk on the part of the integrator particularly if it included a lengthy post document which under moderate norms must come and again we all quote colin powell, im going to do it again, why did colin powell invoked the pottery barn principle . You know the whole story. They dont even have this principle. He said why was he doing this . He was doing it to try to convince george w. Bush not to attack iraq. He was doing it for exactly the reason annemarie said. If you go into a war with the expectation that the hard part is what happens after the guys killed, then its going to make you less likely to intervene. Thats exactly what he was doing. We know exactly what he was doing and ultimately it fails. Which brings us to the two most recent cases which started in ours after 20 oh but, of course, the precipitating events were exactly the same time in libya or egypt, the start of the Syrian Civil War with 2011. The start of the uprising. So heres what i take issue gently, i hope, with michaels contention in the book that as of late 2012 the record on the libyan intervention was mixed. I disagree. Michael in his remarks today seem to agree. The record is not mixed. Its not mixed to the libyan intervention was a disaster. Dont just take my word for it. Christopher chavez from the Rand Corporation, in my email box this moment was an email with the headline from christopher, use force to forge peace in libya. Views and its allies need to step in to restore libyan sovereignty, five years after the fact to we have it. So its a mess. In fairness the fact that libya is an utter disaster in favor 2016 doesnt necessarily mean that the intervention five years ago was neither permissible nor just. As michael points out its more legal under International Law and it did have you in Libya Congress did not authorize the use of force. I think what happened in libya does validate the concerns, expressed not merely by my colleagues but also likes of joe biden, robert gates, nearly every single note officer at the time that the intervention was unwise to it was unlikely to achieve its stated goals, protect human lives and it was inconsistent with u. S. National security interest. A few ward that the chaos that was likely to ensue after gadhafis ouster would harm u. S. Interests and even threaten u. S. Security. And so what has. Thankfully, libya is unlikely to be the last word, and, therefore, we can be grateful to michael for exploring these questions in such a rich way. I didnt want to rewrite i think of writing this book and for visiting cato. Thanks also to annemarie visiting. Im looking forward to the ensuing discussion. Thank you all for coming. [applause] thank you. Would you like to respond to the discussants if we turn it over to the august . Very briefly because of want to hear from the audience. The comments i was given reflected such a careful reading of the book and such a sympathetic yet critical approach to it that i would be ungrateful if i didnt try to respond to some of the excellent remarks. On annemaries points, you talk about bias, by construction of a bias inaction. Guilty as charged. That is what i am trying to create. Im trying to say have the convention. We need to assume that the interveners have to put some really good arguments forward, that its necessary in this case for sector in recent come for selfdetermination National Security has to be made in the liability make the case is on them rather than those with a not that i would argue we can come up with a lot of reasons in law and history. The argument provides us an Ethical Foundation for the wise. But its not 100 . To our reasons where we will intervene, should intervene and the are a number of them for the sake of again humanitarian protection, National Security or to advance selfdetermination, free of people who condemned by will establish their own society. You went on to make some good points about for things that are missing. On some of them they are missing, first of all because its a short book, that is certainly the case. As i get older my books are getting shorter. Thats maybe a biological shrinking attention span, but its also increasing sympathy for my readers over time. But they have been getting shorter and this one is missing a lot of the good points that you put forward. If i did it all over again i would say more about regional norms in default of Security Council approval. In a previous book that i wrote on preventive war i attempted to deal with a bit of that. Not altogether successfully but had that in mind. It would be foolish for any author to assume that somebody reading the current book is theres no reason why they would have, so it certainly is missing here. On the other measures which i like quite a bit on the role of the use of International Justice as a response to r2p situation, intervening, right on spot very, very useful. I dont address them in any depth here because i was looking at crossborder uses of armed force. Youre talking about measures short of that. Which i think that is almost in all cases should be tried before the troops are center the troops are center so i would disagree both of those. International justice is the viable and valuable. Resolution 1970, the one that preceded the use of force resolution 1973 was unanimous. It was a judicial process that sets out the creating a nofly zone from limiting the means and launching an investigation to see whether gadhafi and his team should be prosecuted. The icc prosecutor sent the team on the ground and he felt that he did have sufficient evidence that prosecutions could go forward against gadhafi for war crimes and crimes against humanity. I went to the nofly zone as the first wave. He we get to libya some of the very good points that chris raised about the libyan mess, which it certainly is today. I was not at the Security Council room when these decisions were made but ive spoken to a number of the ambassadors who supported it and a postit. It was a very hard decision they made. To annemaries point they were acutely conscious of the limitations of the information that was in their hands. U. S. Decisionmakers may have been better informed. Most of the members of the Security Council were not. They were struggling with a revolving situation with great lack of clarity. The reasons why they moved was twofold to a decision. One, they have some evidence coming out of war crimes, crimes against america. Nowhere near the numbers that the rebels themselves claiming the rebels were greatly exaggerating crimes on the ground we as americans would be the first to acknowledge that rebels do that. If you remember the boston massacre that took place, rebels do that. But they knew that. But they did have credible evidence coming through about real crimes being committed in small numbers. They were influenced as well by the looming danger toward benghazi given some rash and violent statements made by members of the gadhafi regime. That had some influence as a get on president obama. The most influential thing for the member Security Council was the defections that were taking place of the government. When you are dealing with the government, ambassador after ambassador is bailing out saying that the regime was a criminal regime, that has a weight on colleagues who are making decisions. So they moved under the review to stop the likely knock on effects of libya on egypt and tunisia and those were, real concern. And what they saw was a living massacre potentially in in gaza. I think it was an honorable decision. In retrospect we look at libya today, unfortunately libya is in a state of chaos. The other parts of the country that could be taken over by the moderate equivalent of ice at all the militias are fighting with each other, a serious problem. But what we look for the blame for that, part is the decision perhaps. I say that i think if i had been a member of the Security Council i wouldve voted the same way that the 10 who devoted to understand the the horrible, grim decision. And uncertain one. But the next steps were it was radically mismanaged. There was no real accountability after a blank check was written to nato and some of its supporters. That have bad consequences for how it was manage. And then in the followup, there was a brief moment when the libyans thought they could form their own government in late 2011, early 2012. It very quickly eroded, partly due to outside forces running and they are searching for contracts, looking for allies, any militia members who could claim himself to be a militia leader had a foreign power willing to back them up with cash, arms, and with a promise of oil and other contracts. Everything goes attempted to keep the country together was facing counter to that a desire to pull all a part for the sake of separate national interest. From africa, the middle east and europe and elsewhere. It made it an Impossible Task and partly for those three reasons, initial uncertainty, the way it was conducted on the ground, and the followup, the lack of a coherent piece building program, the country is what it is today, a very sad example of what mill warned against. I could say more. Theres a lot of rich comments and questions in the comments that were made both by christopher and annemarie to i appreciate your cover reading and ive got as you can see some good dont and it will come back to it. Im very interested in what your comments or questions might have for all of us. Thank you. So before we turned over to the audience i think i would use my privilege as moderator to ask one additional question. And this has to do with timing. I think annemarie touched on this indirectly in her discussion of syria. In your book on page 71 you quote Michael Walter saying intervenors should act only as a last resort after exploring peaceful resolution. But it seems in many cases the efficacy of intervention can depend crucially on how soon you go in. In syria we probably couldve done a lot more good if were gone in 2011 and if we tried to intervene after im just questioning you, what are your thoughts on how to resolve the dilemma . I could give you a Quick Response now because the last resort doesnt mean that you have to try everything in between, as i read it. The doctrine of the last resort is you have to try everything that has a reasonable prospect of success. And so the lesser measures have a reasonable prospect of success, you should go there so but because moving armies across territories can be very dangerous with all the knock on consequences we talked about. So i phrased that in ways that lead one to say that you to try absolutely everything before you take the measures that you think are efficacious. Thats poor drafting on my part. My understanding of the doctrine is that you should try every lesser measure that has a reasonable prospect of achieving the purpose before you go to the larger measures. And in some cases a reasonable look at a crisis will say to you the lesser measures will not work. We need to move towards more substantial actions. And as we just discussed from previous commentators, an argument like that might be made about syria. In retrospect i wish sometimes that we are taking advantage of the chemical weapons violation by taiwan to declare a nofly zone then. It would have been a risky move, i understand, and i like the u. S. Constitution placing the responsibility for war on congress. That was not an accidental decision in 1787, though we have much neglected. But nonetheless president s under certain circumstances also have National Security responsibilities. In retrospect but only with hindsight at the time i didnt have that level of clarity. I wish president obama had taken advantage of manifest violation of chemical weapons i the assad regime to declare a nofly zone. It would have leveled the Playing Field in the way that might, might have advanced the negotiating agenda which is essential for syria. This is not a place where you want anyone to win a war, in my particular view. And that mightve been in russias back but i cant claim to have understood that fully at the time. Okay. We have about 10 minutes for audience questions, so please wait for the microphone before you ask your question for the benefit of those watching online. Please identify yourself by name and affiliation. And since weve only got about nine minutes now left, please take your question as precise as possible so we can get to has been it is possible. Why dont we start with you in the blue shirt . Doug brooks, president emeritus of the National Stability operations which represents contractors to work in public, postconflict and is actually. It seems to me when we talk about success and failure of interventions, it seems more about technique often than is about the actual decision to go in. If youre portrayed as a very simple, clean, surgical, it never happens that way. I would always say security is 90 of the problem, 10 of the solution but its a longterm solution. When we went into bosnia, we are still there. In iraq the assumption was the plan was to be out in six months and, of course, now its ridiculous. That contributed to the disaster. It seems to me that when we make these decisions about beyond just theoretical, like if we are going to do this employment existing do we have to think in terms of decades rather than a few months . A very Quick Response. I couldnt agree more with that comment. I was hoping you would attempt to get the book. Theres a chapter on peace building at one of the people from whom i learned most about these dont as an American Ambassador who lives in the suburbs named bill, supervisor. Antenna book i recommend very strongly the book is written and he develops many of the same themes that youre talking about, how this is a longterm commitment, has to be planned well and plan with the locals, not for them if youre going to succeed. And it takes a Real Investment of time, energy and, unfortunately, sometime lives. How about over here . Joel, retired government. I was a peace corps volunteer in iran from 7072. John stuart mill was appalled by the british intervention in the first afghan war from 3942, the crimean war of 1855, the persian work 1856. How would you view darfur, what happened there given that you mention crisis, or the civil strife in south sudan which has been pretty much ended i guess . I think its a really good question. He was as you say extremely suspect of these interventions in ongoing civil wars with parties on each side, each of whom are claiming legitimacy. He thinks they were likely to get into more harm than good. But he said there are some circumstances when the civil war just grinds on and on, and neither side is likely to win. And instead all that you are seeing is ongoing massacres of ordinary farmers, talisman, men, women and children. Under the circumstances the presupposition against intervention has to be overwritten. He talks about a little obscure case that took place in portugal of all places in 1846. But, frankly, it was a very easy case for him because the mediation was relatively successfully done. They pressured the sides to negotiate. He had not fully come in my view, absorbed the capacities for massacre that modern technology and organization and Communications Even if its only radio and machetes as annemarie mentioned before, and also modern technology can bring to bear. And i think the level of sympathy he does express or extreme circumstances dealing with casualties would want to have some involvement in darfur and in south sudan. In darfur, they key would have been putting some pressure on the Central Government to stop some of those measures. How one would have persuaded the extra number of Security Council to do that is very difficult. It was hard just to get him to agree to a peacekeeping operation. But that would be one way to go to put that kind of pressure on. Whether more would have been required after that is unclear. South sudan is so difficult. Its so disappointed, the hopes of those who tried to midwife its independence for very good reasons. By the split in the factions. At this point i think outsiders, and again i dont have enough depth to say this with confidence, so with a complete lack of confidence let me say that i would urge a nonintervention in south sudan at this time. The sides are so evenly divided that its not clear what you would intervene for. There is grounds to try to continue diplomacy and whatever external pressure as possible, but i would urge outsiders to keep the troops from trying to coerce an outcome in south sudan at this point. I would be happy to be corrected by the look forward to learning more in that particular case. How about up here . Allison with the friends committee. Thank you all so much for this. A few intersecting comments. Quick to point to note which are helpful may be stating the obvious but just to say the r2p does the three pillars were talking about the last part of the third pillar so theres lots of space for conversations on the other aspects. And with intervention as well, that theres a lot of other interventions short of the actual military intervention was exploited i appreciate the emphasis on peace building. I think thats so important special in terms of postbellum responsibly of the intervener but also justice and peace building offers sets of tools that are applicable before, during, and after conflict and we should avail ourselves to the whole range of tools that are available particularly short of military intervention. And then just to save for a lot, for me personally a lot of folks this question of military intervention is like the last worst Case Scenario and folks are put out as the last resort option. Searches trying to do we can short of having to encounter the question which seems to unfortunately, time and time again. And theres a lot of conversation right now about atrocity prevention and how are we looking upstream intent of avoiding the question in its entirety protecting theres a real need to kind of expand the tools and Resources Available in that space. I agree completely with those comments. Thank you very much. For those who might be watching, the pillars you are referring to, the are three pillars with r2p. The first is a National Responsibility to protect ones own citizens from war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide. Thats the National Responsibility. It was a nice step forward if that be fully acknowledged at something that was on the agenda of the Security Council and that was will established within International Human rights law, highlighting these particular crimes and harmed as a First Response to the of the state. The second pillar very, very important is that the International Community promises to provide assistance at the request and with the acceptance of a country to better enable it to fulfill those responsibilities. That allows all of the room for preventative action, atrocity prevention. And thats a strong commitment. That is not to sit on ones hands if the government needs help to prevent escalating conflicts, within his own country. And the third pillar come enforcement pillar, and that has many different arms to me. Some concluded concluded, prosecutions of individual leaders and sanctions but at the end of the process the most extreme is the use of force crossborder win and in rare circumstances miss it. That are important to emphasize the other colors of the r2p doctor thats where great deal more work needs to be done. I want to talk about the last resort. The everything but. Because it does bring us back to syria as an incredibly hard ca case. And chris, you said it start at the same time. So in march of 2011 the libya case was already rife. In other words, thats exactly when the violence had already broken out. Gadhafi as overdoing his forces are already committing crimes although michael is right, they were a smallscale. In march of 2011 the Syrian Opposition started marching peacefully. The initial march was triggered by the torture of 10yearolds. They start marching peacefully for six months. So for six months the Syrian People went into the streets and were shot at by the government, and they did not shoot back. And then in october, november, some start shooting back and do the whole debate than within the Syrian Opposition as to whether that should happen. They start shooting back and the government steps up and really starts, it really starts massacring on a much larger scale. And by february its gone to the Security Council. So in february you are looking at a case where you know that a government is perfectly willing to fire on unarmed people and to call them terrorists and all sorts of things. And has already demonstrated its not going to stop by international pressure. At that moment, and this is what i think when its so hard, i think an early demonstration of a nofly zone, which is what i call for a which says were going to step in to protect these people because you clearly will not, could have avoided a huge amount of later bloodshed and then gets harder and harder. But from the point of view of trying everything else, or not everything else, michael, but even things that might work, no. Penny starr with diplomacy and round and round and then. So to me its a question of what do you take . What factor to take into account in assessing whats likely to happen because as more people get killed it gets harder and harder to stop others from responding and then you end up where we are now. I want to pick up on this because it relates to something you said transit and you repaired remarks. Taking action against the means, like the syrian air force. By 2012 at the makings of a civil war. You have more than one side ultimately shooting to this is a violent conflict. And, therefore, taking action against the means does mean taking a side or pushing a side in the civil war. No . Because the result, denuding the regime of its about to attack its adversaries, ill use about phrasing carefully, diminishes the ability to defend themselves, the regime. You increase the likelihood the regime will be toppled and then the next obvious question is by who or by what . We did know the answer then pick we still dont the answer, although, i think the fact we think the answer isnt a very good one, explains a lot of the reason why we have not intervened. But we are willing to do that on some means. Chemical weapons come immediately absolutely. We will stop you from using them. And you can say the same thing. They needed chemical weapons. Thats how they were winning. And get we say no, you cant fight that way and we will stop you. My proposition, and i take your point that those foreign you dont take out his whole air force because i agree. To do that you are immediately then, but use force in a way that says you keep doing this. You keep dropping their bombs and just think about what that really does. As between a chemical weapon at about their obama im not sure which what i want to die but i think they are equally terrible. We say we understand that it is a civil it is a civil war may be that inept all that we are not in a place where it is but if responsibly to protect means anything, it is about how you fight. You can get the opposition but you may not kill a whole people. Thats genocide. You may not commit crimes against unity. You may not ethically cleanse and you may not commit war crimes. I think you could divide an intervention that wouldve forced them to the table and thats the last thing i will say is that should never be in the absence of a diplomatic process. My plan i completely agree that you are not going to win in syria but you never were militarily. Its how do you combine the credible threat of force and diplomacy to stop the fight . Annemarie, you get the last word because we are out of time. But thank you all for such an interesting discussion. Michael, annemarie, chris. Please join me in thanking our presenters. [applause] i welcome you all to join us for lunch and continuation of this discussion upstairs in the Conference Room on the second floor. Our conference staff will be happy to show you the way. Thank you. [inaudible conversations] when i tune into it on the weekends, usually its authors sharing their new releases. Watching the nonfiction authors on bookt booktv is the t television for serious readers. They can have a longer conversation and dealt into their subjects. Booktv weekends, they bring you offer after offer after offer thats spotlighting the work of fascinating people. I loved booktv and i am a cspan fan. Heres a look at some books that are being published this week. Afternoon. The strategic baddies and its my pleasure to introduce the conversation with mr. Edward lucas talking about his book, cyberphobia. I think it has a great deal of interest and really into different ways for this audience. One is your own personal security of your computer, information and account and also some other things. Second of all, also deals with in the book the National Security issues involved up while you can imagine how cybercan effect nations defend his upcoming utilities, Security Systems of all kinds. Using many examples of that. Mr. Lucass Senior Editor at the