CHAPTER 7: AN INVESTIGATION ON THE ROLE OF NATIONAL INTERESTS IN HUMANITARIAN
7.4 The Relationship between National Interest and Selfishness
National interest is related to selfishness in the sense that it presupposes a sense of concern for the wellbeing of others. National interest is related to belief in group selfishness whereby a sense of right and wrong is nurtured. National interest presupposes all citizens of a particular country are selfish or egoists, hence the relationships of nations is a relationship on egoism or selfishness. It is mainly on this salient presumption that national interest has been critiqued by ethicists such as Peter Singer as based on a fallacious understanding of human nature because as human beings we do sympathise with the sufferings of others. Within a nation-state not all citizens egoists because there are many instances where
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some individuals have used their own personal individual economic resources to serve lives of people who are not their own fellow citizens (Singer, 1981: 5 - 18).
In the history of Western modern philosophy, the idea that nations should always pursue their own national interests in their relations with other nations has militated against the idea that nations should be altruistic towards each other. In fact, the argument that nations do behave in a way that is amoral towards each other cannot be refutable, especially in light of the behavior of the powerful states in the Middle East.
7.4.1 National Interest and Social Contractarianism
An argument for the prevalence of national interest as the prime motivation for state action including humanitarian intervention comes from realist social contractarianism. Realist social contractarianism rejects the moralist argument that humanitarian intervention must be purely humanitarian in its intent that is the protection of the freedom, rights and interests of people in another state. Allen Buchanan argues that the internal legitimacy of humanitarian intervention has to take precedence over the external legitimacy. That is to say governments do not only have to justify the intervention externally as humanitarian, but also internally to its own citizens as an efficient intervention in terms of cost benefit analysis. Dobos (2009: 3) notes that, the state’s raison d’etre is to ensure the security and wellbeing of the people that bring the state into existence through the social contract. That is to say, that the social contract is a construct by a certain group of people, named a discretionary association, with the primary purpose to protect these individuals from the perils and inconveniences of the state of nature. Every individual in a state submits to the authority of the state in order to receive in return protection and security. On this view, citizens empower their government to act as an agent for the sole purpose of promoting their interests. They relinquish a portion of their earnings in tax in return for this service. The state is to be understood as the benefactor for its own citizens acting exclusively in their interests due to the fact that no one else’s interests are represented, so legitimate political authority is naturally defined as authority exercised for the good of the parties to the contract, the citizens of this state.
According to Buchanan (1999: 75), the state itself receives its legitimacy primarily from the service it renders to its citizens; hence, benefaction is what gives the state the right to rule. Quite to the contrary, states or governments do not have the obligation to serve the world at large. Further, according to realist
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social contractarians, the government does not have any inherent legitimacy in itself but is a sole agent of the discretionary association it represents. Therefore, for governments to engage both internally and externally to practices that do not serve the primary interest of its citizens would be morally wrong.
Charles Krauthammer (1985: 11) also notes by stating that since statesmen or governments are no more than people’s trustees spending the blood and treasure of others, their freedom to wage or intervene militarily is limited to cases where it is strategically necessary or where it renders an increase in domestic benefits. Therefore, if intervention occurs in order to secure natural resources or sea ways that are of particular national interests to the intervening state, intervention is acceptable. If on the contrary intervention occurs for the sole purpose of pleasing international law, world public opinion or public sentiments of crucial allies, intervention is not internally justifiable. In this view, it follows therefore that purely HMI as envisaged by moralists and altruists is commonly rejected by realists social contractarianism for the simple reason that intervening states invest both the lives and funds of their own people in order to serve strangers who are not part of the social contract.
7.4.2 National Interests and Morality in Humanitarian Military Interventions
According to skeptical realism, the Western political theory of liberalism evolved around the idea that human beings were solely self-interested creatures by virtue of the fact that they were not originally endowed with a sense of promoting the common good in their social relation. In advancing the theory of skeptical realism, Thomas Hobbes noted that human social existence was basically a contract and that it was this contractarian nature of our human existence that helps us to kill each other. Hobbes maintain that the main responsibility of the government or the sovereign was to enforce contracts and that these contracts were relevant within the nation state which is a sovereign. He further maintains that the principles of law and order are only intelligible and plausible with the realm of a nation state because of the existence of a common power or ruler. Hobbes notes that:
For the laws of nature, as justice, equity, modesty, mercy, and in sum doing to others, as we would be done to, of themselves, without the terror of some power, to cause to be observed, are contrary to our natural passions, that carry us to partiality, pride, revenge, and the like. And covenants, without the sword, are but words, and no strength to secure a man at all. Therefore, notwithstanding the laws of nature, if there be no power erected, or not great enough for our security; every man will, and may lawfully rely on his own strength and art, for caution against all other men (Hobbes 1967:129).
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Taking note from the above quotation, Hobbes was advocating a sceptical outlook towards human nature in the sense that he argued that abiding with morals presupposed the existence of a terrifying power.
Hence, without the existence of this terrifying power, societies can easily descent into anarchy.
Furthermore, he notes that for human beings to abide by their contract, Hobbes maintained the use of brutal force was indispensable. Hobbes also maintains that without the use of brutal force, society would disintegrate into chaos. It was part of human nature that there is always disagreement. Whilst other creatures are naturally predisposed to agreeing with each other, the agreement among human beings
“is by covenant only, which is artificial; therefore, it is no wonder if there be somewhat else required, besides covenant, to make their agreement constant and lasting; which is a common power, to keep them in awe, and to direct their actions to common ends” (Hobbes 1967: 131-132).In other words, he notes that our human existence is something that is artificial in the sense that it is based on covenants which are to be enforced by an all controlling power. Human beings were originally violent creatures who are only interested in pursuing their private self-interests. Hobbes went on to say that the issue of a common covenant among different nations was illusory because, “The notions of Right and Wrong, Justice and Injustice, have no place. Where there is no common Power, there is no Law, no injustice.
Force and Fraud, are in War, the two Cardinal virtues” (Hobbes 1967: 139). In his book, Leviathan, Hobbes propounded a theory whereby international relations are only based on anarchy. In other words, there is no nation which is concerned with the wellbeing of another nation, but its own national self- interest. Murove (2005:75) summed up the Hobbesian theory of international relations as follows,
The salient presumption in this reasoning is that citizens of country A are concerned with the wellbeing of country B only in so far as the wellbeing of country B promotes the self- interest of country A. If the perishing of country B would promote the self-interest of country A, then it follows that it would not be to the self-interest of country A to stop country B from perishing.
Given the above quotation we can conclude that national self-interest eliminates the possibility of the existence of altruism in international relations. Therefore, whatever help countries give each other it has to be seen as a way of the other country pursuing its own self-interest. Thus, the element of anarchy inherent in national self-interest cancels the possibility of the existence of common morality among nations. In a similar vein, Mary Maxwell summarised Hobbes’ view of morality among nations as follows:
For morality to exist between nations, certain features such as power and compliance must also exist
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concurrently. These features do not exist in relations between nations, therefore we cannot have morality in international relations because there is no common power that can enforce the rules (Maxwell 1990:
11-12; see Hobbes 1967: 65).
7.4.3 National Interests and the fear of the Political Influence
The importance of national interests in current foreign affairs has stoked the concerns in some circles that the concept of humanitarian intervention is no more than a means of powerful Western countries to broaden their influence and guarantee their access to vital resources. The fear of what scholars name neo-colonialism has been intensified by the recent experience of the usage of humanitarian rhetoric to justify the interventions in Afghanistan 2001 and Iraq 2003. Fear of a new imperialism is particularly acute in parts of the world that have known colonisation, where international interventions revive memories of the imperial past.
Ottaway and Lacina (2003: 74) maintain that due to the fact that Western governments have promoted Western values of liberalism and democracy abroad and in the post-Cold War era have used their economic, political and military superiority to correct humanitarian grievances abroad, many in the non- Western world have come to regard the concept of coercive intervention for humanitarian purposes quite sceptically. Unlike pure peace-keeping missions that require the consent of the receiving country and lack any coercive nature, the emerging humanitarian intervention regime enables Western states to take all measures necessary to bring humanitarian crises to a halt with or without the consent of the receiving state. For example, the USA and UK actions in Iraq (2003) were carried out without the consent of the receiving state, a sign that the actions were influenced by their national interests. Despite the fact that outside interventions in the last two decades have become less exploitative and abusive in comparison to 19th Century imperialism, many international interventions in the post-Cold War era have nonetheless aimed at regime change and/or nation building along Western liberal lines. Ottaway (2003:74) notes that, while some instances such as Operation Uphold Democracy in Haiti 1994 were designed to re- install a democratically elected regime, post-conflict resolutions such as in Afghanistan or Iraq have relied on the installation of local transitional governments usually closely affiliated to the intervening parties. In the cases of Kosovo or East-Timor, the international community has even taken over the role of the administrator itself by setting up an in international administration. Together with the creation of a political
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elite, Western states further support the new regimes by training security as well as administrative personnel. Thus, it seems plausible that the intervention of foreign governments into the internal affairs of another country has a tremendous impact on the sovereignty and autonomy of the receiving state.