Syria and the "responsibility to protect"

http://www.americaabroad.org/radio/programs/documentaries/?prog=Syria_and_the_Responsibility_to_Protect

After worldwide moral cowardice during the Rwanda genocide, the UN adopted the "responsibility to protect" (RTP) doctrine, which states that global powers have the duty to "take action" when there is evidence of genocide. Two concerns: it leaves it up to the individual nations as to what actions are warranted, and the definition of genocide is pretty hazy. So it's a non-binding statute to say the least.

RTP was used to justify NATO bombing the Serbs over Bosnia, NATO bombing Saddam for gassing the Kurds, and most recently NATO bombing Qaddafi's military (for the record, Qaddafi wasn't really engaging in genocide, unless you consider those rebelling against him as a threatened minority). Of course other genocides have taken place since Rwanda where no one took any action beyond speeches. This inconsistency undermines the credibility of some global powers vis-a-vis RTP.

Last week the Syrian opposition claimed that Assad used chemical weapons on civilians/rebels in a Damascus suburb, and hundreds were sickened and killed. There is a lot of evidence to support that claim. This is the 2nd widely documented chem. attack by Assad in the last 3 months. Earlier in the civil war, Obama threatened that Assad deploying WMDs would cross a "red line" where the US would be forced to act. We did nothing after the first attack, but after this recent attack we have deployed more warships to the area (for possible missile strikes). However, there are several reasons why military intervention (even under the RTP) would be problematic for the specific case of Syria.

Bosnia is the only case on record where military intervention (with no boots on the ground amazingly) actually stopped war crimes. And the NATO bombing stopped it cold; i.e. Serbia rushed to the bargaining table the next day. But the differences with Syria are like night and day, so we can't expect to be that lucky again:

- Assad is locked in an existential internal struggle and major blood feud, while Milosevic was supporting Bosnian Serbs in a proxy war with very little strategic value or reasons to escalate

- There were clear, centralized chains of command in the Balkans, vs. quasi-chaos in Syria

- Bosnia was pretty much the nastiest war in the EU's backyard during a very peaceful period of world history (more attention, outrage, and support for intervention), while Syria is a blip (albeit a very tragic, bloody one) in the protracted War on Terror, failed Arab Spring, and general Mideast unrest that deters foreign powers from decisive action

- Russia and China will really risk a lot to go to bat for Syria, while most of Serbia's "allies" (including Russia) were not that close and easily persuaded to drop support

Then what about Libya? Over 100,000 Syrians have died so far; some in "legitimate" civil strife and others unlawfully. Qaddafi didn't come anywhere close to that (Libya as a nation is only 6M concentrated in a few major cities vs. Syria's 22M). But we helped the rebels topple his ass. Well, the effort was mostly led by the French (who sound more aggressive on Syria as well), so the US could "lead from behind" and not take flak for the consequences. Also we intervened when the Arab Spring momentum was strong and we appeared to be turning a new page in the region. In other words, lots of upside with little cost. Over a year later, we now know there were some major costs: they can't form a coalition gov't, they can't disarm their militias, they can't protect our ambassador, and arms used to oust Qaddafi (some given by the West) are getting funneled to Syria, Yemen, and other hot spots. So even a "no brainer" intervention has its downside.

This puts Obama in a real bad spot, obviously. If we keep talking about war crimes and not doing anything about it, then our credibility sinks even lower than its current abysmal level in the region. Also if we don't respond, innocents will continue to die and the instability/refugee crisis will threaten fragile neighboring nations. If we bomb Assad, then it's possible Hezbollah and other Iranian proxies will attack our forces in the Gulf (and no guarantee it will stop the atrocities). Plus it will further worsen our strategic relations with China and Russia. If we support the rebels (and they win), then Alawites will be persecuted/slaughtered and another Egypt might happen, except this time Al Nusra (overt Al Qaeda affiliates) could lead instead of the "tame" Muslim Brotherhood.

There's no way we put boots on the ground after Obama has campaigned and worked hard for years to pull out of our recent 2 Mideast wars. I believe no-win situations are in fact very rare if parties really give full effort to come to a solution, but Syria could actually be a legit one.

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Oh, forgot to mention... punitive air strikes can really go both ways, though clearly we don't have a big data sampling to study. Bombing worked well in the Bosnia War, but then I guess Milosevic learned and he was a lot less cooperative during the Kosovo War. Whereas we only bombed for a few days in Bosnia, Kosovo required over 70 DAYS of air strikes before the Serbs came to the bargaining table. Good thing too as NATO was running out of military targets, and decided to punish all the people of Serbia by expanding their target list to include irrelevant, peaceful infrastructure like the power grid and chemical plants. Also some accounts suggest that there really wasn't much evidence of atrocities against Kosovar Albanians, and NATO just wanted to teach Slobo a lesson at the time. After the first wave of cruise missiles, sadly the killing of Albanians increased out of retaliation. That's the problem with "long distance war", you have even less influence than conventional chaotic war. And it doesn't help our image, especially considering anger over our cowardly reliance on sometime illegal drone attacks. So even if we effectively and carefully target Assad's weapons (and I'm sure his WMD are carefully protected/hidden), we can't stop his ground forces from slaughtering more dissidents. UN boots on the ground won't guarantee civilian safety either. A recent report slammed the post-bombing UN-NATO peacekeeping mission in Kosovo for failing to protect local ethnic Serbs from revenge attacks by Albanians, and not investigating claims that thousands went "missing." The Alawites know what is coming if their side loses.

We are backing them and Assad into a corner. What is he going to do, capitulate? Slobo was still the popular leader of Serbia, possibly wanted for war crimes, and had something to lose if he didn't bargain to save his neck. Assad knows there is no scenario where he doesn't go to the dock or the morgue, so of course he is not going to respond they way we would like (especially after seeing what happened to other dictators who thought they would be safe by playing ball with America, like Qaddafi). I guess that is why diplomacy is so precious before the streets are full of blood and everyone gets irrational; now we've missed our chance to intervene effectively and are left with only bad options.

But we just can't sit idly by either, refusing to be vigilant after a regime has used WMD on civilians (and likely shot at UN inspectors trying to investigate that). If we stick to our guns, we have to go all-in then. Toppling Assad is the easy part, but we have to make sure to not let Syria become another Egypt, Iraq, or Kosovo. And we have to make sure we can afford to intervene, both financially and politically. Or we hold off and try to bribe Russia/China into permitting a UN mandate, then go in as a coalition and try our best to not F it up again.

Don't believe the hype

1) Cash for clunkers

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091104/ap_on_bi_ge/us_cash_for_clunkers

Of the $3B in federal subsidies for vehicle trade-ins, almost 1/3 went to old truck/SUV to new truck/SUV swaps (that not only guzzle more gas, but also have dirtier emissions than compact cars). There were 677,000 trade-ins in total, and 1/7 of those were for new vehicles getting less than 20 mpg. Preliminary data show that the average trade-in mpg was 16 and the average new vehicle mpg was 25. So there were 137M registered passenger cars in the US in 2005, and let's say the number is the same today. If 677K vehicles were traded in, at an average mpg improvement of 56%, the CARS program improved the American auto fleet's fuel economy by 0.28%.

The most common trade was an older Ford F-150 pickup for a new model (at a whopping 1-3 mpg savings to the planet), which happened 8,200 times. There were even $500M in deals where the new vehicle got the same or WORSE mileage than the traded in "clunker", supposedly in violation of the program rules, but nevertheless still happened. The gov't is currently investigating. But hey, Ford and GM posted improved profits recently, and the recovery underway! On the green side of things, GOP senators on the Environment Committee boycotted discussions on the climate change bill, but Chairwoman Boxer passed it anyway.

2) Bill Clinton honored with statue in Kosovo

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20091102/wl_nm/us_kosovo_clinton_statue_2

The recently independent Kosovar Albanians honored their "savior" and champion Bill Clinton with a bronze statue and boulevard in his name at their capitol. First off, it was highly dubious for the US/EU/UN to grant autonomy and recognize breakaway regions at risk of ethnic cleansing such as Kosovo and East Timor, yet ignore the Ossetians, Chechens, Palestinians, Kurds, and others in similar predicaments elsewhere. But I suppose Indonesia has 17,000 islands, so losing one won't hurt too much (and Timor doesn't have much oil), and we just wanted to punish Serbia for its actions in the 1990s. Secondly, what was the deal with the mostly-forgotten Kosovo war anyway? In 1999, The ethnic-Albanian Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA, freedom fighters or terrorists, depending on who you ask) revolted against the Serb government. Albanians attacked gov't buildings and the Serb minority in Kosovo, and of course the Serb military and paramilitary gangs retaliated harshly (but not much worse than Sherman in Atlanta). Clinton and his defense secretary William Cohen made the media rounds to justify NATO intervention, claiming that "hundreds of thousands" died in genocidal attacks, akin to Rwanda or the Holocaust. Of course than number came out of thin air, and later investigations of human remains in the region uncovered ~2,000 corpses, and not all were Albanian or victims of genocide. But despite some protests, Congress gave the green light. NATO dropped the hammer on Serbia with 78 days of air strikes, including cluster bombs (weapons now rejected by most of the civilized world besides Israel, the US, and Russia), until the Milosevic government finally capitulated (at the behest of Russia). 10 years later and billions of dollars spent, Kosovo is still a dirt-poor near-failed state, there are still 14,000 Smurf peacekeepers there (including 1,000 Americans), organized crime has flourished, and Yugoslavian refugees have flooded Western Europe, so hardly a success story of American nation building. But better than Afghanistan and Iraq I suppose.

But what you may not know, and most mainstream media ignore, is that the NATO bombing campaign also killed hundreds of civilians and barely diminished Serbia's military capabilities. In fact, the bombing angered Serbs and accelerated ethnic cleansing against Albanians in some instances (the NYT estimated 4,600 Albanians killed AFTER the NATO bombing commenced). And after the Serb withdrawal from Kosovo, the "hands off" UN forces were unable to stop the vengeful KLA from brutalizing the Kosovar Serbs. It's quite possible that as many Serbs were killed/raped/displaced in the war as Albanians. But we sided with the Albanians because we didn't like Serbia for causing all those problems in Bosnia some years back, and Milosevic was a grotesque strongman. Serbia was misbehaving and challenging the credibility of the US and NATO in post-Cold War Europe, so we had to respond with violence, even if it upset our wary ally Russia (historically a supporter of Serbs) and destabilized Eastern Europe with a humanitarian crisis. The attached reports from the libertarian Cato Institute (yes I know, consider the source, but at least they had the courage to tackle the subject) give more details.

After the Serb surrender, Clinton said that we "did the right thing in the right way". But now we are indefinitely responsible for Kosovo stability (a gloomy prospect), which gives the people and their leaders little incentive for reconciliation and development for a better, truly autonomous future (the same quandary exists in Iraq). Maybe doing nothing was unacceptable, but war and bombing usually kill all hope of a diplomatic solution and increase hatred, not decrease it. And let's be honest, we bombed because we didn't think the Yugos were worth American blood, but attrition bombing can't stop non-uniformed thugs from killing innocents. If the UN left today, probably nationalistic/ethic violence would resume, so we have really painted ourselves into a corner. So yeah, Clinton was all smiles in Pristina at the statue unveiling, like Bush on the aircraft carrier. Why do they always seem to erect more statues of short-sigted, self-righteous warlords than true peacemakers?

Kosovo independence

Bush praises Kosovo independence, angry Serbs torch US embassy

http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/02/21/europe/kosovo.php

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080219/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_kosovo_2

I'm tired of foreigners just deciding on a political whim when to grant minorities a state and where to draw borders. Yeah on paper it sounds great to give the Kosovar Albanians independence and whatnot. Lord knows they have suffered enough and may do well with their homeland if given a chance. Bush is all for that kind of stuff and making a better world or whatever. But what about the thousands of ethnic Serbs suddenly finding themselves the new Kosovar minority, and militant Albanians haven't exactly been forgiving with them for the horrors of the 1990s. Serbs suffered terribly in the wars too, especially from the NATO bombings/sanctions and reprisal attacks (Albanians killed over 1,500 Serbs after the "ceasefire").

Not every Serb was a war criminal, and their people deserve to express healthy nationalism/pride just like us. It's not right to burn embassies and border crossings in protest, but they deserve to be upset. Their people voted Milosevic out of power and have tried to slowly reform to Western standards, but it is not an easy process after hateful wars. We shouldn't provoke them to regress, or give hardliners ammunition to gain traction with the mainstream. Serbia is a tiny fraction of its former Yugoslavian self, and it's most prosperous regions are now under other flags (plus those new nations don't exactly love Serbia). All they got from the partition were a bunch of tanks and angry young men, and they sure as hell used them. Very little international aid and foreign investment are coming in. They proudly hosted the Winter Olympics in the 1980s, and now some live worse than Ethiopians.

How would we Americans feel if the UN suddenly gave California back to Mexico or the plains back to the Indians? That's partly why white American settlers tried to purge the Latinos and Native Americans from the best lands, so they could become the new majority, claim sovereign rights, and lower the chance of revolt. So are we surprised that Bosnian and Kosovar Serbs attempted similar ethnic cleansing with their minorities? Sure George Custer wasn't as bad as Ratko Mladic, but the US military committed its share of criminal activity.

The UN is already a joke for creating a failed state in East Timor, and Balkanizing the former Yugoslavia with bizarre ethnic borders that make the map look like modern art gone wrong (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Breakup_of_Yugoslavia.gif). Did it help the groups get along any better? How about partitioning the Karen Burmese, Tamils, Basques, Tibetans, Kurds, black Darfurians, or dozens of other groups revolting for solidarity or basic human rights? Who has the right to move people around like they were chess pieces? One stroke of the pen, and thousands (if not millions) of people suddenly have their dreams come true or totally shattered. We can't just partition the entire world on tribal lines – it's not the suburbs where every family gets 0.2 acres and a fence! People can get along and form multiparty representative governments if given the proper opportunity and support (e.g. not like the US in Iraq!). We have to coexist or we will cease to exist.

"Yet for all the hostility in a country seeming to turn inward on itself, Serbian political observers and Balkan experts predicted that the despair over the loss of Kosovo would eventually subside. They said economics would overcome emotions as a majority of Serbs came to realize that mooring Serbia to the European Union was the only way the country could prosper." -NYT

Yeah I guess that's one way for the Serbs to get over it: bribe them into compliance with enticement of EU membership (but Serbia is even more backwards than Turkey). Unemployment is above 20% and the average income is under 6,000 Euros. Though I hope the lessons of Nazi Germany, Rwanda, Israel, Iraq, and many other places show us that even old, supposedly buried anger/resentment may get exploited by extremists and avenged in a sea of blood later on.

There can be no lasting peace without a just settlement.

(paraphrased from MLK)

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Just curious, but can you give us an example of where this worked?

I am coming around to the belief that democracy is just as dangerous as any other form of government when it is forced upon others (i.e. Pakistan, Hamas run Palestine, Freedom Fighters in Africa, etc.). Only nations with developed social-economic structures (i.e. non-third world nations) can survive with this methodology. America believes democracy and capitalism can be brought in and implemented successfully because it did so in war torn countries such as Germany (western) and Japan. However, those nations were booming prior to the war (probably went to war with some notion of gaining natural resources to feed to boom).

What we now see is Western dependence on achieving non-competitive pricing on resources at the price of aiding development of infrastructure and military support. I believe this is called globalisation. I don't see any other natural resource rich country using its resource revenue in building independent economic/social infrastructure. And when they do (such as Russia and Venezuela) we chastise them as being uncooperative in the war against terror.

As true capitalism works, America/West holds a majority of the cards in structuring deals which gives unfair advantages to its companies, whether by military might or technological advancement. However, what I have learned in economics is that the majority buyer/spender gets a better price due to the economies of scale. We buy more, they build more, therefore we get better pricing. Without getting too cynical, which is often the tone of our emails, I figure to offer up this question: Is there a better way to maintain our quality of life (if that is even moral) while helping out resource rich underdeveloped countries that is in every one's (human kind) best interests?

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I'm glad you decided to mention Kosovo; I think the fact that Kosovo is now an independent nation is a big thing especially when considering their relationship to the U.N. I want to hear more of what J thinks about the news regarding Kosovo which emerged this week but my impression (as a Model U.N. nerd) is that "nation building" (or independence, if you prefer) stands a much better chance when done with the cooperation of the international community.

Also, towards the ends of addressing T's question - I do think there is a better way: reshape our consumption to be not only sustainable but conscious of its global impact. You're correct in pointing out our hypocrisy in relations with respect to Russia and Venezuela, though I venture to say we could be much less concerned with their domestic affairs if our fortunes were less intertwined with access to their resources; after all, our relationship with Palastinean leadership is unabashedly two-faced (arguably as a result of a perceived lack of benefit to normalized relations). I think it's also worth considering the case of Brazil and how Brazilian leadership has channeled profits from monetization of resources into a very real energy independence; such efforts lead me to believe our support of the Brazilian economy (through consumption of exports, including energy commodities) is ultimately good for everyone (i.e. in human kind's best interests). While judgment of the morality of our consumption is (in my humble opinion) a community undertaking I know I sleep soundly knowing my footprint (both carbon and otherwise) is not only sustainable but always tending towards a more utopian ideal.

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Thanks for the comments gents. Yes it would be nice of the polsci PhD's could chime in, but I know they are busy trying to figure out how to avoid future wars, poverty, and China's domination! Yes of course I agree that nations with a tradition of functional social institutions and the rule of law are more predisposed to embrace and benefit from democracy and the free market. Germany and Japan were former world powers, so of course they would recover from WWII and embrace reforms better than say, post-Soviet Russia or post-colonial African states. Tribal cultures like Pakistan or Iraq, where in some cases there is very little notion of national identity, make democratic processes and fair nationwide elections into a major headache. But let's not forget that all is not well in the former Axis. West Germany heavily subsidizes East Germany, and Westerners dominate politics and commerce. Easterners are often treated as second-class. We can't really blame communism for that one since it's been over a decade since the wall fell. Minorities and foreigners have very little representation and rights in Japan (if any minorities are left, maybe at the tip of Okinawa?). In order to be a Japanese citizen, you have to have documented proof of some Japanese ancestry. Is that democratic? I guess there is always that tradeoff between freedom and order in Western nations, or any nation really. Order is easier to achieve in more homogeneous societies, which is one of the purposes of ethnic cleansing, a practice that Japan, China, Germany, the US, and other world powers perfected long before the Balkans wars.

H: well, I think the best recent example of multi-ethnic cooperation and bring extremists back into the political mainstream is Northern Ireland. Sirc's brother is the expert on it (and the Balkans conflict too), but from my basic understanding, Sinn Fein/IRA were in all-out war with the English for decades. All those security cameras and other surveillance in London? They were originally installed to protect against Irish terrorists, not Muslims! Thousands of people died or were displaced in the British Isles, one of the most powerful nations on the planet with a long history of civil order. But Tony Blair, a Catholic moderate English PM, was able to bring both sides together and work out a compromise settlement and legit power-sharing government (to be fair, his predecessor John Major was the one to first revive the peace talks). Heh maybe Bono helped too! I'm sure the economic boom in Ireland of the past decade, as well as the success of the EU, have contributed as well. But before peace was achieved, there was a hell of a lot of face-to-face negotiation in good faith. Sure the sides bickered and walked out on each other plenty of times. But there was a sustained dialogue, which is what we DON'T have in Iraq, Yugo, Iran/Cuba with the US, and other places. Blair coined the term "bicycle diplomacy" for dialogue that must keep going forward or it falls over. Even amidst bombings and public protest, you have to press on. That is true leadership and what gets remembered in the history books. If humans fight each other to the death through crazy hardship and long odds (see Thermopylae), why can't we be equally committed to peace? We can't just pause and restart peace talks in between bloodshed, like the Israelis and Palestinians do. "Peace when convenient" is just jerking everyone around. If all sides aren't serious about progress, than they might as well wipe each other out and save the rest of us the worry.

http://www.theage.com.au/news/opinion/peace-in-northern-ireland-may-be-blairs-greatest-legacy/2007/04/08/1175970936469.html

The Bush-Rice "cold shoulder diplomacy coupled with toothless unilateral sanctions" foreign policy strategy is absolutely counter-productive to the reconciliation process. Blair was the first UK leader to receive Sinn Fein officials since the 1920s! No wonder war ravaged on for so long! How can you stop a war if you don't talk? I guess when both sides are committed to absolute victory, it can only end badly for one side or both. If you want real peace, you have to seek a good outcome for everyone, even your enemy. Israel and the US will probably never comprehend this truism. Shared goals and threats are much more desirable than mutually exclusive objectives. Peace/appeasement/compromise is a gamble and a risk, but so are hostility and sustained conflict. I guess your economics background can appreciate that nations and peoples should strive for maximum efficiency and weigh the cost-benefit of their actions. During war, efficiency tanks and there are heavy costs. Peace is the only way to prosper, unless you work for Boeing and Halliburton.

Maybe that's why the poor peoples of the world will never stop fighting against the rich nations as you alluded to. Whether under the flag of nationalism, religion, environment, or whatever – people who are unjustly economically marginalized will not just bend over and accept it. As you said, future resource wars for oil, water, or even the means of production will get nasty. China and India can't sustain double-digit growth forever (nor can the US really sustain 5% growth), so when things slow down people are going to be pissed and desperate. In fact, can the emerging Asian nations even support a US-style middle class? We're already experiencing the global effects of sky-high oil demand and the housing bubble fallout. It's a very UNSUSTAINABLE situation if our wealth is dependent on exploitation and unfair trade with the Third World. So if rich nations could instead tamp down their greed/consumption and couple their welfare to poor nations, I think we can achieve a better balance to globalization. It's not that the rich get richer at the expense of the poor, but the cumulative prosperity of global commerce should be shared and distributed fairly. Yeah I know; I must be smoking something. Globalization is not inherently evil; it's probably totally necessary and beneficial in this era. But how it is regulated and the manner it is conducted leave much to be desired in many cases.

But going back to peace among factions, it's difficult no doubt, and probably there hasn't been an archetypical example of how to do it properly. People are angry, and you have to substitute the fighting in the streets for fighting in the halls of government. Former militant leaders can become civilian leaders. They already have so much grassroots support and public trust; it makes perfect sense. Of course people like Saddam and Pol Pot may be beyond rehabilitation, but there has to be some way to incorporate former fighters into the peaceful political process. This applies for Kosovo as well as Iraq. Yes in principle it is a good idea to have a multi-ethnic representative government, but not one imposed from abroad and stacked with corrupt puppet cronies. If the US provisional coalition government under Bremer actually gave the Sunnis some legit rights and privileges, then maybe the insurgency wouldn't have flown off the handle in 2005. An independent Kosovo can work, but Kosovar Serbs have to be granted at least minimum protections and representation. There also has to be a reasonable relationship with Serbia. This is a cultural and historical necessity. Albanians already have Albania, and now they have Kosovo too? As Condi Rice even said about Western involvement in the Middle East, we sacrificed freedom for stability. We can't sacrifice justice for convenience in the Balkans. The EU doesn't like social unrest and violence on its back porch, and it craves the cheap laborers and untapped markets of Eastern Europe. But as Hen said, let's hope that the future Serb inclusion in the EU isn't just another avenue for exploitation. In general, I think the EU has behaved quite well and is a far cry from the Colonial Era. They have a genuine partnership where all are involved and all share the cost-benefits, and the EU founders do deserve to win a Nobel Peace Prize (the most war-ravaged place on Earth has now maintained 2 decades of peace and prosperity post-Cold War!). What compromise can the EU and Albanians strike to give Serbia some compensation? Economic aid, trade, treaties? It's a start, and much better than the UN just deciding one day to redraw the map.

On a semi-related note, many powerful nations have been totally INEPT at counter-insurgency, dating back to Roman times. But one example where the occupying power totally cleaned house was the communist uprising in former British Malaya after WWII. This link below or Wiki has a good synopsis. Maybe we can discuss it next week? I'm sure Bush doesn't know shit about the history, though our country could really benefit from the lessons.

http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G1-142385701.html