61
2001:7). As for humanitarian intervention, it fails in most cases because it concentrates on those solutions that are not long term but immediate. This is often carried out without adequately assessing the primary causes of the problem that need to be addressed. This can lead to a situation whereby humanitarian intervention is manipulated by the intervening countries (Thompson, 2001:7). The US led intervention in Iraq and Afghanistan, arguably serve as examples.
62
Some of the interests that trigger interventions include “targeted domestic disputes, domestic policies and foreign interests to protect social factions, economic and political interests and military or diplomatic facilities, to protect lives or to affect regional power balances and strategic relations between countries” (Arlinghans and Baker, 1986:88). Military intervention in support of a government in power and in opposition to other domestic forces is perceived as motivated by realist interests, which will be discussed in detail in the later segment of this study. Intervention can be understood in relation to the purposes it intends to invoke among the parties involved and the international community. Despite the fact that the intervention might be through invitation by a sovereign state, it should - sooner or later - have the consent of the international community and, specifically, the UNSC (Green, Kahl and Diehl, 1998:
486; Claude, 1996:289-298).
There are certain factors that can trigger or constrain intervention (Macfarlane, 1985: 67).
These factors can be diagrammatically presented as follows:
63
Table 10: Factors that constrain or trigger intervention
Factors conducive to intervention
Factors constraining intervention
Factors triggering intervention
Target country Deep internal divisions in the target country
Internal instability in the state or opposition to external intervention
Response to a request of a client in the target state whose survival is at stake
International environment
Regional instability, ideological divisions among states in the region, asymmetry in the distribution of power
The risk of escalation including super power involvement and counter intervention by extra regional powers, legal constraints(international
law and UN
Charter/Resolutions, Intervening state Unpopular governments,
incapable governments, military dominance in decision making
Available military force including logistic capabilities, economic constraints, other domestic constraints like a lack of public support of military operations
The situation poses a serious risk to the interests of the external actor. The emergence of a new opportunity for the furthering of interests of the external actor
Source: Macfarlane (1985)
Ideology, influence, status, strategic motivations based on political interests and economic considerations are some of the factors that Macfarlane identified as inducing military intervention (Macfarlane, 1985:67; Hughes and May, 1986:177-202). The other generally agreed reasons that most states give to their domestic constituents whenever they intervene
64
militarily include intervention at request, right to protect its citizens abroad, individual or collective self-defence, self-determination, treaty commitments, and humanitarian purposes (Du Plessis, 2000:89; Finnemore, 2000:20; George and Keohane, 1980:217).
As regards intervention on request, the UN Security Council accepts it as the inherent and lawful right of every individual state to exercise its sovereignty by requesting assistance from another state or a group of states (UNSRC 387, 1976). However the sovereign right to invite assistance becomes contestable in situations where control of the state is disputed because contending legal claims by parties (Zimbabwe and Kenya in 2008 and Libya in 2011) when each party will be claiming to be in charge of the government. In many instances these requests and assistance would be in the form of provision of military forces and equipment (Barrie, 2000:90). Examples of such assistance include the British assistance to Uganda, Tanganyika and Kenya in 1964 at the request of the Kampala and Nairobi governments respectively and the French assistance to Zaire and Chad at their request in 1978 and 1983 respectively. After an attempted coup in the Maldives in 1988, India was requested to deploy its troops to restore order in that country (Barrie, 2000:90).
There are various questions that have often been raised as to the possibility of states abusing the exception of intervention by request. These abuses would include the fabrication of requests by the would-be intervener or the request for assistance coming from a government with limited or temporary authority to govern (Barrie, 2000:90). Thus all relevant circumstances surrounding a particular request should always be analysed in order to be able to determine whether or not a request to intervene was not manipulated. When the US forces landed in Panama in 1989 with the aim of securing the arrest of General Noriega, the then military ruler of Panama, the US government justified its actions by arguing that the landing
65
had taken place at the request of the constitutional authority of Panama and that Washington was acting with the consent of Estrada who had been sworn in as president of Panama within hours of the landing of the US troops (Barrie, 2000:90).
The question of lawfully established governments being entitled to request assistance from other states to preserve internal law and order as well as defending them against unlawful attacks or aggression has also been a subject of debate, particularly in cases where there is a civil war (Barrie, 2000: 92). In cases where the government is in complete control of the state and that the internal disturbances are isolated terrorist activities that are confined to the domestic laws of a given country, that government, as Jennings and Watts (1992:438) argue, may seek assistance from other states (see also Barrie, 2000:92). Barrie argues that in situations where a country is engulfed in a civil war and state control is divided between the warring factions, intervention could be contrary to international law (2000:92). This may be so because no one seems to have ultimate political authority in the target state. Barrie’s argument is reinforced by the Declaration on the Inadmissibility of Intervention in the Domestic Affairs of States and the Protection of their Independence and Sovereignty 1965 (section 2) declares that “…no state shall organize, assist, foment, finance, incite or tolerate subversive, terrorist or armed activities directed towards the violent overthrow of the regime of another state, or interfere in the civil strife in another state” (Barrie, 2000:92, also see Dugard, 1994:298).
Although the apartheid South African government defended its intervention in Angola in 1975-1976, arguing that the MPLA government was supported by Cuba and the Soviet Union, there was doubtful legality for South Africa’s actions and its defence was condemned by the UN Security Council on the grounds that the evidence supported the claim by the
66
MPLA that it had invited the Havana government to send troops to Angola to assist the Luanda regime against South African aggression (Barrie, 2000:92). The UN Security Council also rejected South Africa’s subsequent intervention and active support for UNITA which Pretoria justified as an act of self-defence against Angolan supported SWAPO bases (South African Yearbook of International Law, 1982:263). In situations where a civil war is being fought and the control of the state is divided between warring factions, intervention of a humanitarian nature may be allowed (Barrie, 2000:93; see also UNSRC 567, 1985).
The instituting of the UN Charter means that it is no longer a foregone conclusion that there is a right to intervene in any civil war in support of a government unless those forces that are fighting a government are receiving support from another state (Barrie, 2000:93; see also Shearer, 1994:96). In supporting the above argument, Wright (1960:521) noted that the use of force in another state’s territory either on the invitation of a recognized or insurgent government in times of a rebellion, insurrection or civil war is not permitted under international law (also see Barrie, 2000:93). However, a United Kingdom representative in the UN Special Committee on the Principles of International Law put across the argument that the only condition to be met by any government that wants to respond to a request for assistance would be to satisfy itself that its response is proper and that it should expect its actions to be closely scrutinized by the international community (Barrie, 2000, 93-94, also see British Yearbook of International Law, 1986:614). What the British representative did not take cognizance of is that although the international community can scrutinize a particular intervention by a particular country or a group of countries, there will be little if any consensus regarding whether or not the intervention should have taken place. The 2003 US led intervention in Iraq is also a significant example.
67
As mentioned at the beginning of this section, the other reason given by a state in justifying its intervention is the right of that particular state to protect its citizens abroad. Wherever a state realizes that its citizens abroad are being mistreated or that they are in immediate danger of losing lives or they are threatened with serious injury, it is bound to intervene. Such was the case when Belgian troops were deployed in the Congo in 1960 to help Belgian nationals.
(Barrie, 2000: 94). The French and Belgian forces intervened in Zaire to protect the Belgian and French nationals when a rebellion broke out in Zaire (Barrie, 2000:94). Besides the protection of citizens, the need to protect property can also be used as justification for military intervention. When the then apartheid South African government sent its troops into Angola in 1976, it justified its action by claiming that this was meant to protect the Calueque Dam and construction. The Pretoria regime argued that these two installations were of significance to the economy of then South West Africa (Namibia) which was under the political and military control of the South African regime (Barrie, 2000:95).
The right to self-defence or collective self-defence constitutes one of the justifications used by states for military intervention. In 1990, Kuwait and a number of other states led by the US acted in collective self-defence as a response to the occupation of Kuwait by Iraq.
However, this was after the adoption by the UN Security Council of Resolution 678 in November 1990 which authorized the use of force (Barrie, 2000:96).
Literature on military interventions seems to be informed by realpolitik notions that strong states take decisions to intervene when their geostrategic and economic interests are served.
However, states can intervene militarily for humanitarian purposes. Finnemore (2003:5) noted that the common problem with the traditional formulation is that interests are indeterminate and “in almost any case of intervention, one could impute a very reasonable set
68
of interests that would explain intervention and equally plausible set that would explain nonintervention”.6 In most cases, as Finnemore (2003:5) points out, these opposing conceptions of national interests actually are articulated and pushed on decision makers by groups on different sides of the debate over whether or not to intervene. Of importance here therefore is not the claim that intervention serves interests and in the context of this thesis, it seeks to identify what these national interests were and how the varying national interests of the intervening countries were served through the military intervention. The thesis also tries to bring out the significance of military strategy as a key tool that nation states employ in the pursuance, attainment and protection of these interests.
It is through the examination of broad patterns of intervention behaviour of states and the debate on the subject that one can fully comprehend the coordinated shifts in perceptions of interests among states and how states understand the importance of intervention as a utility tool of policy. As observed by Finnemore, due to the fact that interests shifts more often, nation states have over time taken initiatives to construct rules among themselves about when intervention is legitimate and inevitable (Finnemore, 2003:5). The rules about intervention are not divorced from power and interests. Finnemore further asserts that the rules that guide military interventions are “strongly and entirely shaped by the actions of powerful states that actually have the capacity to intervene” thereby exploring how one set of rules perceived by the powerful to be “in their interest” is replaced by a different set of equally “self interested
6 Whilst there is a general claim that parochial interests (national or otherwise) must be present for a country to intervene militarily (committing troops and resources) to assist another state, Professor Neethling offers a scholarly point of view that there is a need however to try and distinguish between military intervention (e.g.
Liberia, Lesotho, Iraq) and ‘peace intervention / intervention in the realm of peace and security’ (especially UN Chapter 6 type operations). According to Neethling (2008), parochial or national interests are less likely to inspire or underpin the latter. In fact, traditional UN troop-contributing nations, such as Canada, Senegal, Ghana, Austria, Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh, do not seem to be inspired or motivated by regional or parochial interests. Rather, these traditional troop-contributing nations seem to be inspired by altruistic reasons – although ‘international profile’ might also play a role in some cases (India, Pakistan) (Views obtained courtesy of feedback comments through email correspondence by Professor Theo Neethling to author, August 2008.
Professor Neethling, who is now Head of School in the Department of Political Science and Administration, was then holding the same appointment at the University of Stellenbosch’s Centre for Military Science).
69
rules” (Finnemore, 2003:5). The current trend of military interventions by the US and NATO seem to support Finnemore’s above observation.
The shifts in terms of what constitutes national interest has also seen literature on the military intervention in DRC by AZN coalition varying as to what motivated this coalition of countries to take the decision to intervene. The shifts in the levels of interests also determined the patterns of execution of the coalition military strategy. Whilst one school points out that the coalition’s military intervention was meant to restore peace and tranquillity in the DRC whilst safeguarding the national interests of these three members of the coalition, the other school of thought argues that personal elite interests dominated the decision to intervene in the conflict. The latter school of thought also argues that the initiative to sustain the war effort can sometimes also become significant for those who intervene militarily if the mission is not achieved according to the time frame or plan of the allies (Nest, 2006:31). Intervening countries may become cognisant of the profit making opportunities available to them from their involvement in the target state (Nest, 2006:31). As Du Plessis noted, “the dynamism, uncertainty, complexity and potential destructiveness of military intervention provide adequate scope, and also enhances its utility, for achieving some other and very different objective(s) than the purported and declared objectives” (2000:33). The point which Du Plessis (2000), Nest (2006) and other scholars seem to try and bring out is that there may be (and arguably not always) some development of personal economic agendas for decision makers within institutions that have significant influence in as far as the decision for military intervention and execution of the intervention is concerned. Combined with political interests, the emergence of economic interests may result in a predatory, exploitative and multiwar complex (Nest, 2006:31). As has been noted previously, this study takes the position that national interest is the prime motivating factor that informs governments to take
70
the decision for military intervention and military strategy remains a key tool in the attainment and safeguarding of these interests. Therefore, it is required that the next chapter clarifies what constitutes national interest in the context of the military intervention and national interest nexus.