John Quiggin says he's
. . . mildly surprised to find myself in partial agreement with Megan McArdle who notes “the wars that don’t happen in the Middle East, or Central Europe, because all the participants know that it would be a foolhardy invitation to US intervention”. The fact is that the (admittedly selective) enforcement of the interantional law against aggressive war, in which the US has taken the leading role, has had a significant effect in securing adherence to that law. But even without any obvious threat of US intervention, a great many states have abandoned the idea of military force as a legitimate instrument of public policy except in the context of (individual or collective) self-defence and UN-authorised peacekeeping and humanitarian operations. In particular, outright invasions of one country by another, with the objective of either annexing the target country or installing a puppet government, have been quite rare in the period since 1945. So the claim that international law is a dead letter is far from obvious.
This is because we don't agree. In fact, since 1945, "international law" has been enforced when some sufficiently powerful state felt strongly enough about it to do something, for various reasons ranging from post-colonial nostalgia to anti-communism, to strategic commodity security. To the extent that border disputes may have been restrained in those regions, they are restrained not because nations think "the fiery sword of UN legal justice will descend upon us" but because people think "the US doesn't like us going to war against our neighbors".
Obviously, all laws are only partially enforced, but at some point, it becomes meaningless to call this the rule of law; a law that is enforced only when the police chief feels that it will personally benefit him or someone he happens to like is not a law, it is an autocracy.
Moreover, I'm certainly no expert on the matter, but it's far from clear to me that if the UN charter were actually operational, such partial peacekeeping would even have happened. To the extent that countries are afraid of US intervention, they're afraid precisely because they know that China and Russia don't hold a veto.
One thing which makes this a little trickier is that the number of countries who are willing to follow international rules may be endogenous to the structure of those rule. It's unlikely that any plausible US policy would convince Russia and China to be bound by decisions of a world organization in the short or medium run (except in the trivial sense that they accept decisions that they can veto). On the other hand, it's quite plausible that over the medium to long run countries like France, Brazil and India might decide that a world regime where the rules seemed arbitrary would give them more motivation to build a stronger military and therefore be less subject to arbitrary rules.
I think that the proper response to this problem is to articulate the US's preferred "rules" clearly and well in advance so that countries unlikely to violate them will understand that they have little to fear. Just because the enforcement mechanism is essentially arbitrary doesn't mean that the rules can't be clear ex ante.
The countries who have given up on military action have largely done so because they feel safe. They feel safe because the US will defend them. Europe is a perfect example. They can't exactly fight wars with each other when we have military bases scattered around the continent.
International "Law" is more of a suggestion or guide. There is no International Police or Government so the Law is not really comparable to the laws within a country. International Law consists of a bunch of things that independent countries have agreed are okay and not okay.
Most countries in the world will insist that they are sovereign. If they are, then there can be no actual International Law.
The UN provides a framework and a forum for countries to negotiate and interact. It also provides a mechanism for supporting international organizations. But neither will function without the cooperation of the member nations. We've seen numerous examples of how the UN can't force anyone to do anything.
I'm glad that the US is the biggest on the block...
EI
All I can say is "Wow!" So the only viable force for stability in the world is America's willingness to unilaterally intervene? The UN is just a toothless organization? You know, an example, just one, might keep you from looking utterly naive.
Of course the UN has no power of itself. it is only what the members make of it. And if the US chooses to subvert the UN's ongoing role in certain affairs, it's pretty much a given that role will fail.
What is shocking, really, is that virtually every event of the past 5 years has proven American unilateral interventionism wrong. North Korea, Iran, Afganistan, Iraq, Isreal and Hezbollah, Darfur for starters. Does this prove that US intervention or the threat of US intervention leads to any kind of success?
What about Desert Storm and Bosnia, does that prove the UN is simply ineffective compared to the policy of the US acting alone and solely for self-interest?
It would be a nice theory to say that the US can only choose to involve itself where it sees an immediate interest and that in doing so winds up causing greater stability as a sort of bonus. a nice theory that has absolutely no basis to support it.
Quiggin says: In particular, outright invasions of one country by another, with the objective of either annexing the target country or installing a puppet government, have been quite rare in the period since 1945.
Quite rare? Compared to what, exactly? I seem to recall two huge international wars after 1945 that essentially began because communist puppet governments tried to engage in military action against their neighbors (one began with a K and one with a V; their names escape me, but perhaps Quiggin can think of the answer now that he has a hint). China invaded Tibet in 1950. The Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. In fact, I seem to recall a few dozen post-1945 puppet governments run by Communists, but maybe Quiggin is hanging everything on a technical meaning of "outright invasions." Then there are the First and Second Congo Wars, which have killed more people than any war since WWII, and which had foreign involvement from Uganda and Rwanda -- but again, there wasn't an "outright" invasion, and besides [sarcasm alert] it was only several million black people that died, so that clearly doesn't equate to the Iraq War.
It's unfortunate that you assert that you disagree, because it's clear that you don't understand/agree with his fairly maintstream, philosophical concept of international law. That international law is enforced by pragmatic interests is obvious to Quiggan - you aren't some genius for figuring it out.
Donald Black, whose writings I am sure are familiar to Quiggan, explains the anthropology of law, explaining how law applies in ways that advance interests of power at expense of the ones who don't, in a variety of context. So yes, weak powers such as African nations tend not to get to the full attention of "the police chief," much the way it works in Anacostia. But the US (and, believe it or not, others!) have protected the turf of others who have violated international norms - including in Serbia, and to a lesser degree, Granada. And military action is not the only way for enforcing international norms - something that must have slipped your mind when you wrote this post.
One of the more maddening things about your writing is your willingness, without any knowledge of the extensive work people have done in a subject, to jump into the subject making strong, sometimes nonsensical "common sense" assertions that are contradicted by established academic theory and/or empirics. It wouldn't hurt if you put a little research into your arguments before assuming that your own limited rationality can match anything found in a dusty ole book.
John Doe, you beat me to the punch. I think that Quiggin assumes a eurocentric premise. outright invasions of one western european country by another do seem to have gone quite a bit.
Nevertheless, I believe the amount of armed conflict is down globally in the last half century, just in less dramatic fashion.
I do think there's another agent at work beyond U.S. military will. It's not the U.N. It's international finance.
Before World War I some theorized that the internationalization of banking would make it impossible, financially, for a modern state to wage war. This turned out to be wrong, of course, but if you consider today's environment in which finance and business is exponentially more global -- and controlled mostly by the West -- I think the theory bears reconsideration.
Let's try this again, Justin. I'm not quite the ignorant dolt you take me for. Yes, international law in theory will have a pragmatic aspect to it, living as we do in a world of imperfect human beings. My point is that international law is not a good description of what drove the post-1945 interventions. I am no IR expert, so I am willing to stand corrected, but it seems to me that the US actions were driven pretty much entirely by a mixture of US norms about moral behaviour for states, combined with various flavours of strategic influence, with a little selective hypocrisy about our friends thrown in. This may have coincided with the dictates of international law, but the international law had little causal role. I can't claim partial credit for last night's glorious victory just because I, like Joe Torre, wanted the team to win.
"US actions were driven pretty much entirely by a mixture of US norms about moral behaviour for states, combined with various flavours of strategic influence, with a little selective hypocrisy about our friends thrown in. This may have coincided with the dictates of international law, but the international law had little causal role."
International law was less the cause than the effect: a lot of those international law dictates were actually determined in large part by U.S. norms about moral behavior for states. We were the ones who were so big on making aggression a crime at Nuremburg, for instance; we had a lot of influence on what the UN charter said.
It's one thing to reject the specific use of force guidelines adopted by the UN; quite another to reject the idea that there is a set of situations when use of force of morally legitimate and when it's not that applies to all states. We don't think it's legitimate for other states to invade whenever "their vital interests are threatened," whatever that means; we don't think it's legitimate for other states to invade in response to threats that aren't imminent and may not even exist. The justification for those things requires a special set of rules for the United States, on grounds that: (1) we're the good guys, so we alone can be trusted with that power, or (2) we're Americans and you're not, so we don't really care so much about your countries and your lives. (1) is manifestly not true. (2) is an accurate description of how states tend to behave, but if we actively embrace it then we've abandoned or betrayed the story this country tells itself & tells the world about its role. We're just another empire.
Megan,
You are exactly the ignorant dolt we think you are. No one who can begin a sentence "I am no IR expert" should even begin to opine on International Relations. Perhaps you should research the vast number of international interventions over the past 60 years.
Let's do a "how stupid is Megan" bet. Did the US supply over 50% UN troops over the past 40 years, Megan?
You know, now that I think about it, we could do a "how stupid is Megan" test on every one of her posts.
OMG, you're a Yankee fan? That explains everything!
;)
The justification for those things requires a special set of rules for the United States, on grounds that: (1) we're the good guys, so we alone can be trusted with that power, or (2) we're Americans and you're not, so we don't really care so much about your countries and your lives. (1) is manifestly not true. (2) is an accurate description of how states tend to behave, but if we actively embrace it then we've abandoned or betrayed the story this country tells itself & tells the world about its role. We're just another empire.
This can't be emphasized enough. Yes, yes, a thousand times yes! Exactamundo! Nail hit on the head!
One of the more maddening things about your writing is your willingness, without any knowledge of the extensive work people have done in a subject, to jump into the subject making strong, sometimes nonsensical "common sense" assertions that are contradicted by established academic theory and/or empirics. It wouldn't hurt if you put a little research into your arguments before assuming that your own limited rationality can match anything found in a dusty ole book.
Posted by Justin | August 23, 2007 1:58 PM
Justin, it is the duty of those who know something to instruct those who don't but express an interest. That is how knowledge increases. If Megan is not an IR expert that doesn't mean she can't have an opinion, no matter how ill-founded, and feel it is right. Save the derision for those who are wrong and blindly refuse to entertain any contrary views. Megan may not be the only one reading this who doesn't know much about the history of international relations; by refusing to help Megan learn you refuse to help them learn as well.
The level of civility and intellect at the Atlantic is far, far below the old AI. MattY and his ilk are part of a movement that is not only rigourously impervious to debate but also to the idea of civil interaction.
It seems that the idiot commenters at the Atlantic believe that "you're so stupid" = "first" common at so many other websites. It's just a goddamn game of Calvinball here, but with words and concepts instead of locations of bases 15-31.
To take it to the IR "experts" - your entire conception of the world and how people act is based on wishful thinking and intellectual masturbation. This is also why you have liberal economics - a belief in ideological constructions of humans and an imperviousness to empirical results. Rather than playing word games, a bit of time studying game theory would do you great benefit, but the math is far too hard. I also love that no one is familiar with the concept of logic or debate, but I will give you a hint: "ad hominem" is not an adjective to describe one's arguments that one should strive for. This is contrary to what you obviously learned at your Critical Mass ride and in the comments of Democrat Underground, but it is useful when attempting to convince people rather than bully a fellow Bolshevik who isn't fully complying with the current party line.
Dear Megan saw you on CSPAN replay this afternoon and you did a pretty good job of dealing with the Left wing loons who literally believe everything they read regardless of how ridiculous it is. My only purpose in writing to you is to clarify an issue that was raised. First there is no-nada-nothing etc information whatsoever about the comparative % of crimes committed by illegal aliens compared to the general population. Considering that an illegal criminal alien can be arrested in almost any major city including New York (my Home town), and no one will report him nor even ask the criminal if he is an illegal. I'm sure you are aware of the 3 murders in N.J. These low life’s were allowed to stay here and kill while the Mayor of Newark defended their reprehensible actions. I'm talking not about the criminals but the Administration in New Jersey. So if no one reports these criminals how then can you obtain valid statistical information on their behavior. The answer is you cannot. Now I'm a peaceable man but if a member my family was killed or injured by a criminal alien and I found out that the police, the prosecutor, the judge and the municipality where this event took place looked the other way so this criminal could be free to commit crimes then I'm going to want to hold somebody personally accountable. Now since these officials maybe immune from prosecution and or liability that means that they will dealt with in biblical sense: an eye for an eye etc etc Now that may sound radical however somebody better start waking up to the reality that you threaten my loved ones and I am goind to hurt you if indeed they are harmed. Otherwise I'm a peaceable man but don't endanger my family.
It's one thing to reject the specific use of force guidelines adopted by the UN; quite another to reject the idea that there is a set of situations when use of force of morally legitimate and when it's not that applies to all states. We don't think it's legitimate for other states to invade whenever "their vital interests are threatened," whatever that means; we don't think it's legitimate for other states to invade in response to threats that aren't imminent and may not even exist.
Except the people you are arguing against (including me) do think its “legitimate” (at least so far as international law is concerned) for other states to invade whenever “their vital interests are threatened” - the entire point is that such “legitimacy” is (largely) irrelevant. The U.S. didn’t oppose Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait because it violated international law (although some probably did use that argument as a rhetorical point), but because the U.S. (and other states) didn’t want Iraq to control Kuwait. The U.S. supported (and other states ignored) Iraq’s invasion of Iran, even though that invasion was as “illegal” as the invasion of Kuwait, because it did want Iran and Iraq to beat up on each other some. France opposed the U.S. invasion of Iraq because it (rightly) thought the results would be bad - not because it would be illegal. France supported the NATO attacks on Serbia, even though the UN did not approve them, because it thought the results would be good.
Your looking for some meta-system by which we can tell good wars from bad by some sort of rulebook instead of by the results - and it doesn’t work that way. So, yes, justifications for U.S. lead wars will always essentially be that our aims are good (and that we would in fact be successful) and opposition to other people’s wars will be their aims are bad. True, other people will disagree and say there aims are good and ours are bad - but then we have that argument - their isn’t a higher principle which resolves the argument.
Caveat. The above is the strong version of my argument. I would qualify it by agreeing that international law (specifically the UN Charter’s prohibition of war) does have some coercive/persuasive power; therefore it is not irrelevant, its just not nearly as relevant/binding as domestic law. My point is that it does not have nearly the same force (coercive, persuasive, normative, moral or whatnot) as domestic law. When people say that a foreign policy action should not be taken because it would be “illegal” they are pretending that the two do have the same force - and thats essentially stealing a base. I do not accept, nor is it commonly accepted by people generally, that actions illegal with respect to the UN Charter are wrong in anything like the sense which actions against domestic law are wrong, and its silly to start your argument from an assumption that is neither shared nor commonly held.
In sum, Kosovo was a good war even though fought in violation of the UN Charter. The U.S. can intervene with force when it considers it sufficiently important and worthwhile to do so (and it will sometimes be wrong about this), and so can everyone else (although that doesn’t mean we can’t oppose them when they do). People should probably take into account the costs of weakening the UN law norm when deciding if a non UN unapproved war is worth it, but, unlike illegality under domestic law, the “illegality” of an action with respect to the UN Charter is not generally an overwhelming cost.
Megan,
You're still grossly missing the point, which has to do with the definition of international law, not the application. You're treating international law as some sort of "come-from-the-heavans" ideals, rather than long-standing, pragmatic application of norms made by diplomats and political leaders (through both treaty and custom), who are substantially aware of their own self interests. Rather than admit you don't know that much about international legal PHILOSOPHY, and then continue to plunge on, the more wise choice would be to spend a few hours researching the subject, no?
You could always email someone like Brian Leiter, Larry Solum, or Jeremy Waldron to give you a starting point, but if you need to rely on me, here are a few authors *I'd* consider reading:
Teson
Kratochwil
Mieville
liberalrob,
There's no way I can teach an entry-level philosophy of international law class on the comment section of a blog, even if I was qualified. But my problem was more concrete - it wasn't that she just has an opinion, but that she rejects or discounts the opinions of others (even as to basic or fundamental issues, such as Quiggan's quite accurate statement that the US's (pragmatic) policy of taking political action (which may or may not be military) in a range of wars of aggression against the aggressor is a central enforcer of interntational norms. It's one thing if she can explain, using things she actually knows about, why that's irrelevant - or she could even try to read up on those who might disagree with Quiggan to poke holes in her argument.
But if all she's doing is spouting an opinion, and that opinion is wildly uninformed, what use is it to readers? It's one thing to say everyone has the right to an opinion, no matter how informed, but the assumption that what she has to say is worth reading has at least to be somewhat based on the idea that she knows what she's talking about.
Megan,
You can have 10 times the credit for the Yankees win that you're currently giving yourself if you are enough a SABR type to have opinions about what the Yankees have been doing right (like Cashman's roster decisions over the last few weeks) and wrong (like Giambi's lack of playing time).
Still, that 10 times zero feels bigger than just plain zero -- just like our tendency to think we're making a difference in international politics by doing meta-political analysis. At times I wonder how well we really understand what goes on behind closed doors in dealings with non-democratic states. For example, what is Russia asking for as a quid pro quo for allowing Kosovo to be independent or for not continuing to violate Georgia's airspace?
tydanosaurus- (Blue toilet water lizard? -- or is this simply 'another' leftist wannabe hardcase trying to imply "fierceness" through his 'blogname'-- in the "comments" section)!
Tee-hee!
Let's do a "how stupid is Megan" bet. Did the US supply over 50% UN troops over the past 40 years, Megan?
Of course not, you frickin' pathetic moron!
(Was I Right?)
Here's my quiz for Danny!- the totally bad-ass blue toilet lizard
Has the US (with less than 5% of the world's population) paid more than any other country for supporting those "UN" troops? ('hint'... we will also be counting all the US troops stationed in Germany and Korea for the last 60 years.)
Also, please feel free to compare the US "contribution" over the last 50 years (remember... less than 5% of world population!)- in both "troops" and "money" - with any other country not residing in the Community-Based Reality.
But if all she's doing is spouting an opinion, and that opinion is wildly uninformed, what use is it to readers?
The same as it is in IR 101- it gets it out there. Those who are knowledgable can point out the flaws. The more that happens, the more chance that someone whose only contact with those ideas comes through blogs might run across the thread and actually learn something. How many people came to this thread because they read Sadly, No?
You're arguing against the utility of blogs, using the same arguments as old-media MSMer's use: we're all in our underwear in Mom's basement, we're all just partisan fanatics, shrill and coarse and full of sound and fury signifying nothing. Maybe so; but at least we're talking!
To the extent that border disputes may have been restrained in those regions, they are restrained not because nations think "the fiery sword of UN legal justice will descend upon us" but because people think "the US doesn't like us going to war against our neighbors".
Well then, the last two years and the next three to five years should make an interesting test case. The US currently has no significant ability to intervene in major border disputes outside of the Middle East. Our resources are entirely tied up in Afghanistan, Iraq and the Persian Gulf. So we should check to see whether, say, Germany invades the Netherlands. Or, at a minimum, whether Kazakhstan reaches over to grab those Turkmen oil fields. Right?
Or perhaps there are actually other considerations mitigating against countries launching aggressive wars? Perhaps other powers besides the US would intervene? Perhaps most countries just realize that getting yourself involved in invasions is usually, at this point in world history, a miserable shitstorm of cash-sucking death, and thus they don't really think invasions are such a good idea?
Of course, the consensus against unilateral invasion was even stronger back in the '90s, when the US used to embrace it. Indeed, it seemed for quite a while that the "New World Order" described by George H.W. Bush was working out pretty well. From Iraq to the Australian police action in East Timor, nations increasingly sought international approval for military interventions, and intervened largely to quell chaos set off by state failure or the violation of international norms. The invasion and UN mandate for Afghanistan followed the same model.
And then the US decided to invade Iraq.
Except the people you are arguing against (including me) do think its “legitimate” (at least so far as international law is concerned) for other states to invade whenever “their vital interests are threatened”
"It would be wrong for China to invade Taiwan if Taiwan declares independence from China." Discuss.
"It was wrong for Nazi Germany to invade Poland." Discuss.
I'm not arguing against blogs - Eugene Volokh's group blog is great. But its a bunch of law professors writing about the law. That's what makes it great - people who know what they're talking about.
The problem with the media is not that they know what they're talking about. And, not sure why I have to say this, but here goes: People who don't know what they're talking about are less informative than people who know what they're talking about, and it *doesn't matter* what medium they use to talk.
Brooks, as to the first, that presents a lot tougher of a case, because according to China, Taiwan *is* part of China. Hence, they aren't invading anything, any more than the North invaded the South during the civil war.
Brooks, as to the first, that presents a lot tougher of a case, because according to China, Taiwan *is* part of China.
And, according to Hitler, Poland was historically part of Germany. And according to Saddam, Kuwait was historically part of Iraq.
I believe one could continue ad nauseum.
France opposed the invastion of Iraq because the result would be bad for FRANCE. They were making a lot of money on the status quo and were culpable in violating the sanctions against Iraq. Our invasion ended their deals and revealed their involvement.
I will not that Russia seems to be rattling it's saber a bit more now that the US is tied up. Keep in mind, though, that our ground forces are tied up, we still have the ability to make air/missile strikes around the world, both conventional and nuclear, if we need to.
EI
"It would be wrong for China to invade Taiwan if Taiwan declares independence from China." Discuss.
"It was wrong for Nazi Germany to invade Poland." Discuss.
Easy.
It would be wrong for China to invade Taiwan, because China is an authoritarian regime and Taiwan is democratic. Note, my objection has nothing to do with the UN Charter. In fact according to that law the invasion is probably legal - the UN and most of its member states recognize China's sovereignty over China. Also, according to the vital interests principle its legitimate for the US to intervene to protect Tawain as well.
It was wrong for Nazi Germany to invade Poland because the Nazi regime was evil. It would be wrong even if Nazi Germany had causus beli (say they caught Poland supporting an attempt to assesinate Hitler or a Polish spy boat violating German territorial waters).
This is because the whole point of the argument is not that its per se good to invade to protect vital interests. Instead the argument is its not per se bad to fight a war in violation of the UN Charter's prohibition.
So for a better example - Because it was "illegal" it was wrong for NATO to bomb Serbia in the Kosovo campaign.
liberalrob-
This can't be emphasized enough. Yes, yes, a thousand times yes! Exactamundo! Nail hit on the head!
Apply those two statements to "Gov't imposed health insurance"...
1) we're the Democrats, so we alone can be trusted with that power,
2) we're "progressives"-- and you're not, so we don't really care so much about you...
Exactamundo!
brooksfoe-
Our resources are entirely tied up in Afghanistan, Iraq and the Persian Gulf.
You can't possibly be that dumb!
Our total military is over 2 million people... of whom maybe 500K(w/ support) are currently "engaged" in the Middle-East...
Please tell me what our Air Force can currently do- easily!- to any possible combination of countries presently inhabiting planet Earth?
Then, we can discuss the most powerful naval force in the entire history of history...