On Monday, April 23, President Obama announced the creation of the Atrocities Prevention Board and an effort to develop government-wide strategies for finding ways to intervene before mass killings take place. The Presidential Study Directive (PSD-10) and the executive order on which these actions are based rightly note that the U.S. government has never had a comprehensive strategy for preventing mass atrocities despite having promised “never again” several times since World War II.
It is very difficult to criticize any presidential efforts to put pressure on human-rights abusers, especially at this point in history when so many publics are challenging autocratic governments over their futures. It is also difficult to contest the general logic of Obama’s finding that the United States and its allies have been ill-prepared to prevent mass atrocities. What is less difficult, however, is to worry about where we might wind up if the United States finally puts its money where its mouth is and creates an infrastructure for intervention.
Obama’s policy review identified several themes behind the failure to respond to mass atrocities, all of which can be traced back to the fact that there has been no single agency or group in the U.S. government responsible for monitoring and engaging situations that might lead to such acts. And without such a system, by the time the government realizes there is a problem it could be too late to coordinate an effective U.S. response, much less help coordinate an international response. The proposed cure, therefore, makes perfect sense—if the goal is to intervene much more frequently around the world.
There are at least three reasons to worry about the Atrocities Prevention Board. First, if it works as its creators hope, it will lead to many more interventions in the future. It will create a stronger lobby for interventions within the government, it creates tools that make intervention easier to manage and potentially by raises expectations of aid from endangered people around the world. As PSD-10 states: "Preventing mass atrocities and genocide is a core national security interest and a core moral responsibility of the United States."
Again, no one wants more mass atrocities, but many do question the extent to which preventing them is actually a core national-security interest or moral responsibility of the United States. What Obama is calling for will make the default presumption one of U.S. involvement, rather than the opposite.
Now, instead of needing good reasons to intervene, the president will need good reasons not to intervene. This, in turn, leads to a debate that the current executive order does not answer: Which mass killings are we responsible for? All of them? What counts as a mass killing? Why is nine thousand in Syria almost enough to get the United States involved but several million in the Congo was not? Without a clearer articulation of the conditions under which the United States will act to prevent mass killings, this effort starts to look more like political theater and less like sound policy.
Second, a bigger intervention tool kit raises the chances of the United States engaging in conflicts more deeply than planned. Obama argues that without an infrastructure like the one he’s building, U.S. options are limited to full-scale intervention or no intervention at all. At one level, he is correct. But at another level, the notion of partial intervention is a myth. Preventing mass atrocities is difficult, dangerous and time consuming. Very few conflicts that involve mass killings are the kind where the nudge of sanctions or vague threats of criminal prosecution are going to get the job done. Yes, there are cases where a relatively small investment of attention and action would have paid huge dividends—Rwanda comes to mind. But for every Rwanda, there are many that look more like Bosnia, Syria, Somalia or Sudan, where problems cannot be fixed without getting deeply involved in resolving multilateral civil conflicts and nation building. In those cases, getting involved at all risks getting involved all the way and, in turn, risks being involved for a very long time at great cost. Given our track record in those sorts of conflicts, I am not sure improving our infrastructure for intervention is a good idea.
Comments
The official rationale given for this initiative is a sham, just as will be its execution. All that's happened is that those who want us involved in perpetuity fighting the arabs and moslems in the Mideast have realized the growing understanding in the U.S. that none of it was or is in our interest and indeed is contrary to same. Thus, there was a desperate need on their part to find some alleged genuine U.S. interest to keep us there and now they've ginned one up, as simple as that, under the pathetic guise of "anti-atrocitism" or etc. being one of our core interests and it being universal. But if you can find any fool with money who is willing to bet that the new policy this announces is going to be applied with any consistency at all, put all the money you can on the contrary because from day one its nature as a sham will be obvious for all to see. The pocketbooks of the people of the United States and the lives of its military forces are being ruthlessly used by special interests both foreign and domestic.
Solidarity & justice with the most oppressed one, is the key to be the leader & walk with victory while to appease the "brutal forces" to help kill the innocent civilians results, in the long run, the turning of "brutal forces " to be monsters to injure the whole world. For check & balance, there must be established an independent world platform or board with the authority to prevent and intervene to stop the ongoing genocide and massacre of the minorities by brutal dictatorial Powers within a State. The most burning point on the face of the earth, to-day, is the Pakistani occupied Balochistan where Balochs are being killed on daily bases. The world community should come forward and save the lives of Balochs who are desparately yearing for freedom since 1948 when Pakistani Military occupied Baloch`s land in the same manner as Mr. Saddam of Iraq had occupied Kuwait, or Soviets occupied Afghanistan or Nazi Germany`s Herr Hitler had occupied Polend and other European countries or Japan had occupied some parts of China. Balochistan should not be ignored as Rawanda because it`s the naval of international geostratagic & geopolitics. Only "Free Balochistan" shall be the defeat of the fascist fundamental regimes, a blow to Talibani/al-quidi doctrines and shall herald to a new world order of peace, prosperity,freedom and friendship among the nations of the globe.