Syria has raised several questions that pertain to morality, legality, and strategy in international relations. Discussed extensively on the Duck, Opinio Juris, The Monkey Cage, and elsewhere the situation in Syria has sparked a valuable debate on critical issues,...
A majority of Americans support a no-fly zone in Syria. I expect that "no-fly zone" comes across as a relatively anodyne, costless policy to the US public. And, indeed, most of the policies that...
That's the takeaway from a new working paper by Brian Haggerty, a doctoral student at MIT. His conclusion:The United States and its NATO allies no doubt possess the capabilities required to achieve...
Dan Drezner asks "Dear realists: please explain Russia":I raise all of this because a few days ago Charles Clover in the Financial Times wrote an interesting story about Russia's foreign policy in...
Madeline Albright's op-ed in the NYT yesterday bemoans the fact thatthe concept of national sovereignty as an inviolable and overriding principle of global law is once again gaining ground.I think she doth protest too much, as the claims of sovereignty's demise seem to have been slightly exaggerated.Albright, of course is thinking back to the heady days when she was Secretary of State, when the international community would recognize a responsibility to override sovereignty in emergency situations — to prevent ethnic cleansing or genocide, arrest war criminals, restore democracy or provide...
Can you tell the difference between the views expressed by a human rights activist who worries mostly about humanitarian emergencies in Asia and those stated by a prominent neorealist American academic? 1: Realist thinking versus liberal talk:A. "...oil and strategic interests are what dictate Western policies, not their professed liberal values. All the talk of humanism or humanitarianism is just for public relations." B. "...public discourse about foreign policy in the United States is usually couched in the language of liberalism. Hence the pronouncements of the policy elites are heavily...
From USA Today: “Darfur Benefit Party Brings Celebs Out in Force” While Forest Whitaker chatted with a refugee, his wife, Keisha, worked a table selling her line of lip gloss, with money going to the IRC. Her top seller: the shade she named Forest. Whitaker, who arrived directly from the Toronto set of Repossession Mambo, said issue-oriented films remain high on his agenda. In March, he'll shoot Hurricane Katrina-related The Patriots, to be directed by Tim Story (Fantastic Four). Shopping for jeans and dresses, Heather Graham said she was disappointed "that our country isn't doing more for...
It is a time of political transition in Europe. While Tony Blair is not leaving his post as the UK's PM until next month, Jacques Chirac has already been replaced as French President by Nicolas Sarkozy.A few weeks ago, Sarkozy'z UMP party of the center-right beat Socialist candidate Ségolène Royal 53% to 47%. However, Sarkozy has just named Socialist Bernard Kouchner as his Foreign Minister. What will this mean for French foreign policy -- and perhaps US-French relations?The former is perhaps easier to predict. Kouchner is best known as a founder (1971) of Medecins sans Frontieres (Doctors...
Ethiopia launched an invasion of Somalia yesterday:Ethiopia officially plunged into war with Somalia’s Islamist forces on Sunday, bombing targets inside Somalia and pushing ground troops deep into Somali territory in a major escalation that could turn Somalia’s internal crisis into a violent religious conflict that engulfs the entire Horn of Africa.The coordinated assault was the first open admission by Ethiopia’s Christian-led government of its military operations inside Somalia, where — with tacit American support — it has been helping a weak interim government threatened by forces loyal...
Film #15: "Hotel Rwanda" (2004). We viewed it Tuesday.Reading for Thursday: Gareth Evans, “The Responsibility to Protect: Rethinking Humanitarian Intervention,” Address to The American Society of International Law, 98th Annual Meeting, Panel on “Rethinking Collective Action”, Washington DC, 1 April 2004. The class returned to the question of humanitarian intervention (HI) in this final week of the semester. Back in week #5, we viewed "Black Hawk Down," which was the story of a military mission in Somalia gone horribly wrong. The Battle of Mogadishu featured in the movie actually followed a...
Film #5 "Black Hawk Down" (2001). We viewed in Tuesday.Readings for Thursday: Stephen J.Solarz and Michael O'Hanlon, "Humanitarian Intervention: When is Force Justified?" 20 Washington Quarterly, 1997, pp. 3-14.Stephen John Stedman, "The New Interventionists," 72 Foreign Affairs, 1993, pp. 1-16.Almost everyone has seen this blockbuster film, which addresses UN/American humanitarian intervention in Somalia, 1993. It is set on October 3 of that year, after thousands of lives have been saved in the mission to deliver food to the hungry. On that day, a group of Army Rangers and Delta Force were...
I have been quite busy this week hosting Fiona Terry, author of Condemned to Repeat? The Paradox of Humanitarian Action, and 2006 winner of the Grawemeyer Award for Ideas Improving World Order. She's been a great guest and the book is truly worth your time. Terry, by the way, has a PhD in Political Science and International Relations from Australian National University -- and has been a humanitarian field worker for about 15 years. At the time she published the book, she was research director for the French section of the Nobel-winning group, Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without...