CHAPTER 9: RESEARCH FINDINGS
9.7 The Pursuit of Strategic Resources through the Guise of Humanitarian Military Interventions 170
intervention is fraught with abuses and inconsistences and that double standards are at play when decisions are taken by the UNSC.
9.7 The Pursuit of Strategic Resources through the Guise of Humanitarian Military Interventions
Chapter 4 dwelt on the actual tangible interests of Major Powers that define their military interventions in weaker developing states. These interests were grouped into 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 groups of interests have a greater influence on the decision by Major Powers in undertaking HMIs.
Under economic interests, it was noted that Major Powers undertook HMI to protect strategic resources that were important for their industries. These resources included but not limited to 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 was also rising as an influential producer of oil.
9.7.1 Economic Interests
Other economic interests were based on the preservation of traditional areas of influence for marketing and extraction of raw material. This explained the asserted gentleman’s agreement among former
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colonial powers and dominant western major powers that have seen former colonial power undertaking HMIs in their 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 leads in former Anglophone Africa which includes countries like Sierra Leone and Zimbabwe. In some cases, where stakes were high, Major Powers have stumbled on each other to undertake HMI specifically to secure economic concessions, as was the case in the 2011 Libyan intervention by NATO (Stratfor Global Intelligence, 2011: 6-12).
9.7.2 Geo Strategic Interests
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 HMI 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 countermove, 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.
The chapter noted that, in the Cold War era, USA declared the Middle East a region of vital interests.
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 has been 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 beings 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. The crisis has led to the creation of the
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greatest humanitarian catastrophe and migration crisis which the international community has only condemned in public but stalked covertly.
9.7.3 Balance of Power and Threat Diffusion
The other 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 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 a Major Power. It could be because of this competition of national 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 national interest and the interests of USA allies such Saudi Arabia and Israel in the Middle East which saw 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. Regime changes in Iraq and Libya were as a result of self-national interest rather than the humanitarian concerns by the USA and her Western allies.
In summary, the chapter attempted to bring to light and illustrate how national interests are the end goal or the hidden objectives in HMIs. The discussion of interest of Major Powers in less powerful states was also meant to give an understanding on what the thesis means when it argues that HMI was not conducted in a certain country due to lack of the interests of major powers. 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.
9.7.4 Political Hegemonic Interests
It was noted that the term hegemony originates from the ancient Greek ‘Hegemonia’ literally expressing the dominant and oppressive status of one element in the system of others. According to Gramsci, hegemony represents the status of the most powerful country in the international system or the position
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of a dominant state in a specific region (Barrett, 1997: 239). He further notes that hegemony entails
“cooperation ensured by force, combining social and political supervision, force and consent”. Cox (1981: 16 – 155) postulates that hegemony enables the dominant state to spread its moral, political and cultural values around the society and sub-communities. This has been done through civilian society institutions which consist of the net institutions and practices that are partly autonomous from the state.
He further notes that hegemony produces social and political systems that are to be applied on the nations targeted.