CHAPTER 4: THE PURSUIT OF STRATEGIC RESOURCES THROUGH THE COVER OF HUMANITARIAN
4.6 Conclusion
This chapter dealt with the actual tangible interests of Major Powers that define their military interventions in weaker developing states. These interests were grouped into three categories namely economic interests, protection of geo-strategic zones and regions, and protection of the balance of power and diffusion of the rise of antagonistic regional and international powers that will challenge the hegemony of the dominant powers internationally or regionally. These three group of interests have a greater influence on the decision by Major Powers in undertaking HMIs.
Under economic interests, it emerged that, Major Powers undertake humanitarian military intervention to protect strategic resources that are important for their survival. These resources include petroleum and minerals. Regions that have these vast resources and have been subject to great power competition for control include the Middle East, North Africa and Central Africa, while West Africa is also rising as an influential producer of oil. Other economic interests may be based on the preservation of traditional areas of influence for marketing and extraction of raw material. This may explain the asserted gentleman’s agreement among former colonial powers and dominant western Major Powers that have seen a former colonial powers undertaking HMIs in its former colonies, while the USA leads in the HMIs in South America and the Middle East. In this regard, as noted in the chapter, France leads in HMIs in the former francophone African region which includes Ivory Coast and Central African Republic (CAR) while Britain
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leads in former Anglophone Africa which includes countries like Sierra Leone and Zimbabwe. In some cases, where stakes had been high, Major Powers have come together to undertake HMIs specifically to secure economic concessions, as was the case in the 2011 Libyan intervention by NATO (Stratfor Global Intelligence, 2011: 6-12).
Under geo-strategic interests, it has been argued that different powers have different regions that they consider to be of vital interests to their nations. The accordance of such importance is determined by economic and defence needs of the Major Powers. The major geo-strategic regions in the world have been the Panama Canal for the USA and the Middle East for USA, Russia and Britain, while the Caucasus Region is considered a geo-strategic region for Russia. The importance of geo-strategic regions is noted in the actions of Major Powers where they either ignore all moral rules, or use humanitarian military intervention as a façade to intervene to either maintain stranglehold on the region, to get control of it or deny another Major Power or regional power exclusive dominance of the region.
Russian purported interventions in the Ottoman Empire in the 19th Century were influenced by the need to gain accesses to the Mediterranean Sea and have total control of the Black Sea. However, in a geo- strategic counter move, Britain, France and Austria joined the humanitarian military adventure not because of the need to protect civilians but to counter Russian advances into the Mediterranean Sea.
In the cold war era, USA declared the Middle East a region of vital interest. This saw the USA curving its own sphere of influence that it has jealously guarded against any encroachment, either from external powers or from internal regional powers like Iraq and Iran. This dominance was challenged by Russia in Syria. The Syrian crisis can be seen as a geo political war by proxy between USA and Russia in general but also including regional powers like Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Qatar and Iran. In this regard, contending powers have disregarded the need to protect Syrian humanitarian concerns as they have continued to militarily sponsor their sides, (the government being supported by Russia and Iran, and the armed insurgence being supported by the West, Qatar, Turkey and Saudi Arabia) with arms that are used to attack civilians. (BBC, 2015) (http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-23849587). The crisis has led to the creation of the greatest humanitarian catastrophe and migration crisis which the international community has only condemned in public but stalked covertly.
The final cluster which the chapter noted is that of the need to preserve the balance of power and deter ambitious weaker states from becoming major regional or international powers. It has been noted that
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while it takes relatively a longer period of time for a state to rise from being a weaker state to become a hegemonic global power, it is relatively easier for states to rise and be regional powers. Regional powers have the potential to scuttle the interest of Major Powers in their areas of influence. Hence international Major Powers continue to monitor the rise of less powerful states especially those known to be nonaligned to such Major Powers. It could be because of this competition of interest between a Major Power and a regional power that the USA has had a turbulent relationship with Iran in the Middle East.
The rise of Iran, which is antagonistic to USA interest and the interests of USA allies like Saudi Arabia and Israel in the Middle East has seen the creation of a conflict which has also manifested itself in the Syrian proxy war, while Saddam Hussein was toppled because he exhibited hegemonic tendencies against a USA ally and sought to influence the change of the global petro dollar to a petro euro.
What can be generally deduced from the foregoing discussion in relation to the contending theories upon which the research is based, is the dominance of the presumptions of the realist paradigm against that of the international society paradigm. The argument by realists that the basic principle of states’
interaction is survival and pursuit of interests was proven in the arguments. The drivers and conduct of colonialism was devoid of morality and this is specifically proven by the fact that the arguments that Africans and American Indians were barbaric and needed redemption was not less heinous to genocide, slavery and resource expropriation which the European powers did to the colonized world. Equally, the argument that states like Iran and other non-nuclear states cannot have nuclear arms capabilities whilst powerful countries like the USA, Britain, France, Russia, China, India and Pakistan can have the capabilities only proves the gross moral void of international politics and the triumphant of interest driven politics. The argument by the Realists, therefore seems to have been carrying the day. As noted by Morgenthau (2005: 5) that:
Political realism refuses to identify the moral aspirations of a particular nation with the moral laws that govern the universe. As it distinguishes between truth and opinion, so it distinguishes between truth and idolatry. All nations are tempted – and few have been able to resist the temptation for long – to clothe their own particular aspirations and actions in the moral purposes of the universe.
The morality of the International Society theory seems to have been just a theory. It has been very difficult to find an HMI mission that can be seen to have been in the confines of the International Society theory.
The major issue that has led to animosity is that the major powers that have sought to advance morality
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in international relations, when it comes to HMI, are seen being driven more by interests than by morality, hence the mistrust of the concept of HMI.
In summary, the chapter attempted to bring to light and illustrate how national interests are the end goal or the hidden objectives in humanitarian military interventions. The discussion on interest of major powers in less powerful states was also meant to give an understanding of what the thesis means when it argues that HMIs were not conducted in a certain country due to non-availability of Major Power interests.
These interests are simply the pursuit of economic benefits, protection of geo-strategic regions and fighting to bar the entry of other countries into the ranks of regional and international powers and it is these interests that are camouflaged under HMIs. The following chapter, will be a discussion of the creation of the responsibility to protect doctrine.
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