Can anyone name a successful humanitarian military intervention by a western power in the last 50 years?

By successful, I mean actually benefitted the domestic population. I ask because I think its a hard question. You could [i]maybe [/i]make a case for what the UN did in Yugoslavia. After that, I'm struggling.

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CopperCicada · M

It's sort of a non-question, isn't it? Our language betrays that we're not genuinely interested in "humanitarian military intervention". If our language was at a human scale...human suffering, genocide, population displacement, and so on, then one could argue we're talking about "humanitarian intervention". Rather our language is generally about political boundaries and figures, as well as reactions and responses to events-- which all speaks to proxy wars, national building, imperialism.

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WoodyAq · M

@CopperCicada I would somwhat disagree. "Nation-building" is a humanitarian endeavour; proxy wars and imperialism are not.

One issue is that we often have mixed motivations, so it's interests +. But just because we also have interests doesn't mean we aren't also humanitarians.

I think we don't really do enough pure or mostly humanitarian interventions, probably because a) we don't want to devote the resources; b) we realize we are pretty bad at it.

There is also the problem that it is thankless. It is easy to find fault and hard to demonstrate success.

CopperCicada · M

@WoodyAq It depends on what you call "nation building". Depending upon your definition it's identical to imperialism.

If "national building" is helping construct majorities so that people can self-rule, then, sure, nation building is a humanitarian activity.

To be specific and more precise, what the US primarily does is "state building" which is interventionist. And since it's interventionist and not based on building consensus popular rule, it is generally destabilizing and involves military investment and intervention.

Our language really speaks volumes.

Either the language itself or the timing of the language.

WoodyAq · M

@CopperCicada True. Although in many cases it devolves into building consensus where there is none to be had. And it is easier to blame "imperialism" than it is to say "We can't our act together" or admit "we want a certain system but our neighbors don't agree with us".

CountScrofula · 41-45, M

I'm legitimately interested to see if there are any good answers to this question.

I don't know wtf to do about Syria aside from make sure there's a lot of infrastructure for refugees. A giant missile and pissing off Russia is really, really not the correct response though.

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CountScrofula · 41-45, M

@Burnley123 Yeah. I don't think people get that you don't just bomb the bad guys, and then all the civilians live happily ever after.

Burnley123 · 41-45, M

@CountScrofula Its also a question of understanding the real causes. Don't wanna sound smug but we leftists are very critical of state institutions, the media etc. We also see war as supporting class interests and see international wars are imperialists. Its this understanding which predicts what happens and there is a lot of history to back that up.

Liberals (at least in Britain) tend to see the state as a neutral rational actor aiming for humane and legitimate goals. Apart from old wars, which were bad obviously but this war is a sensible one and we don't need to listen to those dangerous extremist hippies. No sir.

The liberal interventionists are the worst for me. See Chris Hitchens, Nick Cohen, Sam Harris and others. Bomb people to achieve freedom. Pfff.

CountScrofula · 41-45, M

@Burnley123 Right. It's weird how liberalism kind of infects the left and destroys any kind of real analytical thought. Honestly it's a major problem with identity politics right now where they're reducing racism to a personal moral choice rather than a broader social system. That's a tangent but it's the same idea.

Like, even in the first Iraq War, that was really about how he had slipped the leash and was no longer a reliable proxy for western interests in the Middle East. He asked permission to invade Kuwait and took a non-response for a yes.

Northwest · M

I can't think of one, that can be called an unequivocal success. Even in minor interventions, in former colonial lands, intervention was successful, but only to the point of shoring up the former colonialists friendly regimes.

Was kicking Saddam out of Kuwait a good thing? perhaps, but it's not like Kuwait is the model of democracy/human rights. Were interventions in formerly colonial Africa good? Perhaps, but only in the sense that they restored the corrupt/brutal status quo.

Was Somalia a success? Not a chance. Look at the state of Somalia today.

Was Vietnam's intervention in Cambodia OK? To a point, where an incredibly brutal regime, was replaced with a slightly less brutal regime.

Was removing Qaddafi a good thing? No, and it's not similar to Syria at all. The dynamics in Syria are quite different, where you have multiple sects and a minority in charge, while Libya does not have that problem, and is now ruled by gangs.

WoodyAq · M

@Northwest The government had disintegrated in Libya in half of the country prior to our intervention. Qadaffi led mostly by fear. Suddenly, a lot of people were not scared of him any more. Reinstilling fear in a population when small scale arbitrary torture and murder no longer do the trick is a nasty business.

Keep in mind that the Libya situation happened when oil prices were still high, as well.

As for Somalia: 1992s famine was averted by intervention. That has to be a good thing.

WoodyAq · M

- Iraq 1991 (protecting the Kurds)

- Iraq recently (against ISIS)

- Maybe Somalia 1992.

- As a non-western example, maybe Vietnam in Cambodia 1979.

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WoodyAq · M

@beckyromero That's true. I won't say the entire endeavor was successful. But whole endeavor wasn't a humanitarian mission. It was actually a mission to uphold international law.

However, given the chaos created by the first mission, the second mission was humanitarian and successful in its own right.

beckyromero · 36-40, F

@WoodyAq [quote]However, given the chaos created by the first mission, the second mission was humanitarian and successful in its own right.[/quote]

Successful in the same way of rendering aid to the bicyclist you just ran over.

Politicians shouldn't be given credit for responding to a disaster of their own making.

WoodyAq · M

@beckyromero The disaster was Iraq invading Kuwait. Saddam made that. The world intervened to safeguard international law.

The world community (not just the Americans) were naive in dealing with Saddam in the aftermath.

The Americans intervened to correct the world's mistake for humanitarian reasons.

Not the course I would have chosen ... but I didn't make the rules.

Insomniac100

None. All military intervention by the us is propagated on influence and/or natural resources...the us destabilized the entire Middle East with decades of intervention and countless numbers of civilian murders. And that’s not to mention things like the war on drugs in south/Central America and how our government trained and influenced various extremist groups to destroy their own country...honestly, the best way the USA can help the world is to fuck off from all these countries and come back with diplomats