“Not the Way to Intervene”

August 14, 2008 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under International Affairs, Russia 

Paul Saunders, in his article in the Washington Post, critiques Robert Kagan and the neo-conservative stance on Russia:

Ivo Daalder and Robert Kagan are frustrated that the United States has not been able to count on the U.N. Security Council to provide legitimacy for American military action, and they want the world’s democracies to decide when intervention is appropriate [" The Next Intervention," op-ed, Aug. 6]. But the cure they propose is much worse than the disease — and it could undermine not only vital U.S. interests but also American efforts to promote freedom.

First, Daalder and Kagan fail to offer a persuasive answer to what they correctly call the “critical question” in winning international legitimacy for military action: who decides. Their answer — “the world’s democracies” — is shallow. How will the world’s democracies decide to endorse American use of force? Not democratically — that would create a new General Assembly, a U.N. body even less willing to do American bidding than the Security Council.

What they want is for “the United States and its democratic partners in Europe and Asia,” and especially “the world’s great democratic nations,” to decide. But which governments are these? Do they really think that India and Brazil, two great democracies by almost any standard, will energetically back an interventionist American foreign policy, not to mention the active and regular U.S. use of force that Daalder and Kagan advocate? What will be the consequences for America’s perceived international legitimacy if they don’t?

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