USF professor ’skeptical’ about military force in humanitarian interventions
February 10, 2009 at 12:31 pm by Michelle StarkBy Michelle Stark
CL Intern
The U.S. military is characteristically unsuccessful at humanitarian interventions because it likes to fight “clean wars” that focus on the protection of our soldiers and not protecting civilians in the nations where we intervene, a USF professor said in Pinellas Park this weekend.
“The American people support intervention, but not if it turns messy,” said Thomas W. Smith, an associate professor of government and international affairs at USF – St. Petersburg.
“The use of military force for humanitarian ends” is one of the most challenging topics in international relations today, Smith told members of the League of Women Voters on Saturday.
Smith talked about specific crises such as the 1994 genocide in Rwanda and said that humanitarian interventions in such countries have contributed to a decline in those nations’ sovereignty.
“The idea has emerged that if governments fail to protect their people,” Smith said, “they give up their sovereign rights and give way to intervention.” But Smith said he doesn’t want “to make the case for intervention too vigorously” because he is “pretty skeptical with how things are being handled now.”
He said some of his doubts come from the fact that humanitarian crises often require more than military aid to resolve. He talked about how the ongoing conflict in the Congo has resulted in the collapse of that country’s medical system.
“Doctors and nurses should have invaded, not the military,” Smith said.
As for U.S. policy on humanitarian intervention, Smith said he doesn’t think our tendency to fight “clean wars” will change much with the new administration.
“President Obama faces unique limits to what he can do in international conflicts” because his focus needs to be on the two major wars, Iraq and Afghanistan, that he inherited, he said.
Smith said, however, he hopes that Obama will put more pressure on the conviction of war criminals. “Obama’s campaign rhetoric indicated he is more supportive of the International Criminal Court” than previous presidents have been, he said.
