It is characteristic of American foreign policy that it oscillates between internal and external orientation. President George W. Bush was an interventionist; to a lesser extent, so was his successor, Barack Obama. Donald Trump has mostly been a non-interventionist. What can we expect from Joe Biden?
In 1821, John Quincy Adams made the famous statement that America "does not go abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She wants freedom and independence for everyone. It protects and defends only its own". But at the same time, America has a long tradition of interventionism. Even self-proclaimed realists, such as Theodore Roosevelt, believed that in extreme cases of human rights violations, intervention "may be justified and appropriate." John Kennedy urged Americans not only to think about what they can do for their country, but also to ask themselves what they can do for the world.
Since the end of the Cold War, the US has participated in seven wars and military interventions, and none of them were directly related to great power rivalry. The national security strategy, established by George Bush Jr. in 2006, proclaimed the goal of achieving freedom embodied in the global community of democratic countries. Moreover, liberal and humanitarian interventions are not a new or exclusively American temptation. Victorian Britain debated the use of force to end slavery, as well as Belgian atrocities in the Congo and Ottoman repression in the Balkans, long before W. Wilson's decision to enter World War I to make the world safe for democracy. So Biden's problem is not without precedent.
What actions that go beyond their borders should the USA undertake? Since 1945, the UN Charter has limited the legitimate use of force in self-defense, and also in operations authorized by the UN Security Council (in which the US and four other countries have veto power). Realists argue that interventions can be justified if they prevent disruption of the balance of power on which the world order depends. Supporters of liberal and cosmopolitan views consider intervention justified in order to oppose other invaders, to prevent genocide, as well as for other humanitarian reasons.
In practice, these principles are often combined in bizarre ways. Kennedy and L. Johnson claimed that in Vietnam the US was fighting against North Vietnam's intervention in the South. However, the Vietnamese saw themselves as one nation that was artificially divided for real reasons related to maintaining the balance of power during the Cold War. Today, the US has good relations with Vietnam.
During the Persian Gulf War, President George W. Bush used force to drive the Iraqi army out of Kuwait and maintain the balance of power in the region. However, he did so by using the liberal mechanism of UN resolutions on collective security. He considered himself a realist and therefore refused to intervene in order to end the shelling of civilians in Sarajevo. And yet, after showing horrific footage of starving Somalis on American television in December 1992, he sent the army into a humanitarian intervention in Mogadishu. That policy led to a major failure: in October 1993, already at the time of Bush's successor, Bill Clinton, 18 American soldiers died there. After six months, that negative experience blocked American attempts to stop the genocide in Rwanda.
Foreign policy is usually less important than domestic issues, and that is why American society tends toward basic realism. However, the elite tend to be more interventionist than the majority of the public, prompting some critics to argue that the elite is more liberal than its society.
Nevertheless, public opinion polls testify to society's support for international organizations, multilateral actions, human rights, and also humanitarian aid. In the book “Does morality matter? Presidents and Foreign Policy from Roosevelt to Trump", I show that there is no one-size-fits-all scheme. There is no particular reason to expect society to always have one, consistent opinion.
For example, American motives for intervening during the second Persian Gulf War were mixed. International relations experts debate whether the 2003 invasion of Iraq was a realistic or liberal intervention. Some key figures in the administration of George W. Bush, Richard Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, were realists: they were concerned about Saddam Hussein's presence of weapons of mass destruction, and also about maintaining the local balance of power. At the same time, the "neoconservatives" in the administration (who are often former liberals) emphasized the necessity of promoting democracy and maintaining American hegemony.
Outside the administration, some liberals supported that war because of Saddam's horrific human rights abuses, but still spoke out against the actions of Bush, who failed to gain the institutional support of the UN as was the case with his father in the first Persian Gulf War.
In a broad definition, interventions are actions that affect the internal affairs of a sovereign state. These actions can range from television and radio broadcasting, economic aid and support to opposition parties to blockades, cyber attacks, turf strikes and military incursions. From a moral point of view, the level of coercion that limits local rights and freedoms is important.
Moreover, from a practical point of view, military intervention appears to be a risky instrument. It seems easy to use, but it rarely appears that way. A mass of unforeseen consequences emerges, which means that prudent leadership is necessary.
Obama used force in Libya, but he did not do so in Syria. Both Trump and Hillary Clinton said in 2016 that the US had an obligation to prevent mass casualties among Syrian civilians, but neither of them persisted with the idea of military intervention. And in the 2020 election, there was surprisingly little discussion of foreign policy. Some liberals argue that promoting democracy is America's duty. However, there is a huge difference between promoting democracy with or without coercive means. The Voice of America and the National Democratic Fund cross borders in a completely different way than the 82nd Airborne Division.
From the point of view of consequences, the means are often as important as the ends. Where will Biden ultimately agree on the spectrum of interventions intended to promote security, democracy and human rights? We can see encouraging signs, which he has demonstrated before - in sound judgment and contextual intelligence. However, we must remember that sometimes surprises arise and events begin to dictate decision-making.
The author is a professor at Harvard
Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2021.
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