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Politics Foreign Affairs Culture Fellows Program

The “Gratitude Doctrine”

Nikolas Gvosdev assesses the success of the “gratitude doctrine”: The “gratitude doctrine,” in short, is the West’s assumption that providing assistance to those seeking to overthrow a repressive regime — especially in the form of timely military aid to counterbalance the overwhelming advantages enjoyed by the forces of the dictator — will produce a successor […]

Nikolas Gvosdev assesses the success of the “gratitude doctrine”:

The “gratitude doctrine,” in short, is the West’s assumption that providing assistance to those seeking to overthrow a repressive regime — especially in the form of timely military aid to counterbalance the overwhelming advantages enjoyed by the forces of the dictator — will produce a successor government that will be more receptive to U.S. and European influence and more responsive to their interests and concerns. The doctrine’s record in the past has been mixed. NATO intervention in Kosovo, for instance, produced a strongly pro-Western regime in Pristina, but expectations that a post-Saddam Iraq would embrace a variety of U.S. positions, including recognizing Israel, were often not realized. Indeed, China, which opposed the 2003 invasion that deposed Saddam Hussein, has now emerged as one of the major players in the country’s oil industry, leading some to conclude that China has reaped the most benefit from the Iraq war.

What these two examples show is that states that have minimal resources of their own and must rely heavily on the U.S. and its allies for diplomatic and political support are going to show the “appropriate” gratitude for Western intervention. Those that can afford to cut deals with other major powers will do so. In Kosovo’s case, its existence as a recognized independent state depends almost entirely on Western support, and relatively few non-Western and non-allied states have extended recognition to it. Not only is Kosovo still in what has been called the “purgatory of semi-sovereignty,” but it obviously doesn’t have the resources available to Iraq or Libya. States that want good relations with Serbia are not losing very much by refusing to recognize Kosovo, and the governments responsible for partitioning Serbia do not have much to show for their efforts apart from a corrupt government engaged in criminal activities. Yes, Kosovo is pro-Western, but it is a drain on the Western governments that support it. The clearest example of intervention yielding “gratitude” isn’t terribly encouraging.

A future Libyan government might or might not want to show its gratitude. The TNC owes its survival to outside intervention, so it might feel obliged to the intervening governments, but its current members may not be in charge of a future government. The propaganda surrounding the Libyan war makes it easier for a future Libyan government to discount the importance of Western assistance. After all, weren’t all of the intervening governments repeatedly saying that the outcome was in the hands of the Libyan people? A future Libyan government might conclude that it doesn’t owe Western governments very much at all. Then again, I’m not sure that the “gratitude doctrine” fully applies to the Libyan case. It’s not as if the previous regime was still a hostile one, and to some extent it was even cooperative. That makes it less likely that the next Libyan government will be “more receptive to U.S. and European influence and more responsive to their interests and concerns.” At best, Western governments have to hope that they have not just helped install a government that is less receptive to their influence.

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