Good Luck On That One
At the very least, those who want to expand the scope of our gunboat generosity ought to be less tiresome. ~James Antle
One can always hope, but it seems to me that demanding an ever-wider scope for interventionism must necessarily be tiresome to people who don’t think it is the task of the U.S. government (or any other government) to solve all the woes of the world. The interventionists will always berate the rest of us for our callous indifference, and we will roll our eyes at their fanatical impulse to meddle in the affairs of other nations. Meddlesome people are naturally going to be tiresome. The key, then, is to get them to stop being so meddlesome.
It seems to me that discussing the possibility of military action in Burma ought to be, if not out of bounds, such a futile exercise that no one would be interested in doing it. The possibility of military action in Burma should be so remote, and seem so bizarre that talking about it would be a bit like speculating about how you would decorate your house on the moon. From my perspective, we might as well talk about military action in Congo or Nepal or perhaps Cabinda (what sort of heartless villains could not be moved by the plight of Cabinda?), because these make as much (and as little) sense as talk of intervention in Burma. Kaplan says that intervention seems like a simple moral decision, but is more complicated, but it doesn’t really seem to be anything of the kind. The Burmese junta is a criminal and brutal regime, and it oppresses and abuses its people. This was true last year when they were smashing protests and has been true for years as they slaughtered the Karen. What is now supposed to make intervention in Burma more compelling is the scale of the regime’s inhumanity, when we have gone along quite satisfactorily until now largely untroubled by the regime’s brutality, and we have very deftly avoided intervening in other states where the death toll has been greater and the ongoing suffering every bit as severe. If there were a moral imperative to intervene on behalf of the Burmese people, it should have moved us to intervene years ago. In fact, there is not such an imperative to intervene. Pragmatic arguments about why an intervention might not “work” or whether it would cost too much miss the heart of the matter, which is that there is neither a duty nor a right to intervene in the affairs of other states.
If you had been in charge over the last 100 years, would you have evey empolyed the military outside the US?
If so, when?
If not, aren’t you every bit as “isolationist” as the “pro-war” types are “pro-war”?
Is this a trick question?
Offhand, aside from retaliating for 9/11 and other terrorist strikes on American bases/ships/embassies, I can’t think of a time in the last 100 years when I would have done so, unless we assume that Japan would have attacked the U.S. regardless of anything leading up to the attack. Obviously, in the event of an attack, I would have deployed the military overseas. Then, assuming that we would have had forces in Korea as we did have, and that we were attacked as we were, I would have deployed forces in that case as well. It’s a strange idea, I know, using the military for the purposes of national defense rather than roving do-goodery, but it seems to make sense.
Not wanting to deploy the military to other parts of the world is not “isolationist.” It’s called maintaining neutrality. One can engage in commerce and diplomacy while being a neutral power. In the event that our interests were threatened or attacked, I can imagine deploying forces overseas, much as Jefferson did in the Tripolitanian war. It is actually possible to defend national interests overseas without abandoning a general stance of non-intervention and neutrality. The idea that refusing to meddle in the affairs of Burma or any other such place somehow means that you will never deploy the military overseas under any circumstances is bizarre, and that strikes me as evidence that interventionism has badly confused how people think about the military and the reason it exists.
I was genuinely curious, thanks.
You do realize how hard you have to work to distinguish your position from “isolationism” though, right?
Not saying you weren’t successful, just sayin’…
PS How can one engage in diplomacy while being a neutral power? Do you have an example of that?
It does take some work to make the distinction, because the term “isolationism” itself is designed to obscure important differences. The thing is that supporters of non-intervention and neutrality have no desire to cut us off from the rest of the world or to cease to have regular exchange with as many friendly nations as possible.
The U.S. was involved in crafting a great many of the early international conventions in the pre-WWI era. President Cleveland was a great champion of arbitration as a means to settle international disputes, and in the wake of his blustering about Venezuela we had a commission help to resolve the outstanding border dispute between Britain and Venezuela. Of course, President Roosevelt acted as an intermediary to settle the Russo-Japanese War. We made many commercial treaties and treaties delineating our boundaries with Canada, as well as resolving outstanding issues with the British in the Webster-Ashburton Treaty. Those are some that spring to mind right away, but I’m sure that we could find more very easily. Neutrality as I am using it here means that we have no alliances, particularly military alliances, and that we do not belong to a bloc of powers. Temporary alliances are, of course, possible and may be desirable in certain circumstances, but non-alignment would be the general rule.
“How can one engage in diplomacy while being a neutral power? Do you have an example of that?”
By engaging in diplomacy as a way of managing bilateral commercial/political relationships, rather than as a pro-forma discussion en route to bombing the hell out of whoever our rulers decide we should be threatening/bombing/invading this week.
Our economic and cultural clout gives us an endless amount of work to be done on the diplomatic front quite separate from any military matters.
So can we ever have a duty or a right vis-a-vis the citizens of other countries (citizens we have not had personal contact with)?
Although I generally agree with you and disagree with rationalist ethical programmes like those of Kant or Mill, for example, I am unsure how to make the distinction you have made.
Another sincere question, do you think there is a basis for diplomacy other than force? If so, what would that be?
I’m also curious as to your response to wheelhouse’s question…
It was odd how the authors in Time and the NYT first proposed this benevolent invasion, and then spent the rest of their time listing reasons why this was a bad idea.