Classical liberalism #5: Can foreign intervention lead to peaceful solutions? | Abigail Blanco

Classical liberalism #5: Can foreign intervention manifest peaceful solutions?
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Intervention covers a range of activity broader than just war. Some interventions have more humanitarian aims, such as disaster relief and development aid.

Oftentimes, the drive behind many instances of intervention involves some form of political, economic, or social outcome.

There are important questions to consider regarding knowledge, goals, incentives, and unintended consequences. The answers to these indicate whether an intervention is necessary and appropriate.
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ABIGAIL BLANCO:

Abigail Blanco is an Assistant Professor of Economics at the University of Tampa. She is the co-author of Tyranny Comes Home: The Domestic Fate of U.S. Militarism (2018, Stanford University Press). She is also an Affiliated Scholar with the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, an Affiliated Scholar with the Foundation for Economic Education and Research Fellow at the Independent Institute.

Check Abigail Blanco's latest book Tyranny Comes Home: The Domestic Fate of U.S. Militarism
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TRANSCRIPT:

ABIGAIL BLANCO: Interventionism is actually difficult to define, and you will have different definitions based upon who it is that you're talking to. A lot of people when they hear the term intervention they immediately think about military intervention, so they think about something like war or another type of military intervention. But intervention is actually a lot broader than that. In addition to military actions are things that are undertaken with the idea of being humanitarian action. So things undertaken with humanitarian aims in mind or other types of interventions can count, as well. So things like short-term disaster relief. Things like long-term development aid. All of those things can be categorized as interventions. One of the things that all of these, and others, have in common are that they typically fall under the umbrella of what we could refer to as state sponsored intervention. The idea of governments intervening in some way to try to shape a variety of outcomes in a different population. Whether that's a political outcome, economic, social, or otherwise that's the typical impetus or the drive behind a variety of types of intervention.

Frequently we see people making the cases for more intervention. And they will point to a variety of cases to make this point. So people will say things like well, governments didn't intervene in Sudan and look what happened. Or they'll point to Rwanda in the 1990s or they'll even point to European Jews in the Holocaust in the 1930s and the 1940s and make the case for more expanded intervention frequently on humanitarian grounds. And we can debate the merits of those types of interventions and certainly there may be some cases where interventions are justifiable and perhaps necessary. But, the impetus is really on the individuals pushing for the intervention to make the case that they are not only should intervene but are actually able to achieve the goals that we have set out to achieve.

So one of the things that the literature in economic development, literature in international relations and political science and elsewhere has pointed to is that oftentimes the stated goals of intervention are not achievable. Particularly within the case of economics, we see that there are a couple of very serious problems when discussing the feasibility of foreign intervention. In particular we can look more intensely at what are referred to as planner problems or issues of knowledge and then also issues related to incentive compatibility. So are the incentives of the individuals engaged in the intervention actually aligned with achieving the goals of the intervention?

There are a variety of different dangers or unintended consequences that we might think about with foreign intervention. A lot of these unintended consequences are things that have to do with issues or problems that arise within the countries themselves that the intervention is taking place. So, a primary example of this would be something like Libya in 2011 after a coalition with the United States and other forces went and overturned Muammar Gaddafi. Which initially seemed to be successful but had a number of unintended consequences. One of those is that it created a power vacuum within Libya, something which...

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[somarmohammad]

"Unintended canequences" lmao

[genzcurmudgeon]

There are rarely solutions, only trade offs. If you think you will solve problems, especially if they’re complicated, with no unexpected adverse affects, your are naive.

[MartinChibanda]

Foreign interventions can lead to peaceful solutions if done right & righteousness here is a concept without objective measure. It come across as a moral obligation depending on the situation. Success may rely on complicated scenarios & benefits may rise or fall on the competence of the leaders of the intervening nation including such factors as access to valid knowledge and/or intelligence. There is no absolute answer.

Was it right for the allies to intervene in Libya and Iraq? This is unknown because nobody had the opportunity to assess a world in which Muammar Mohammed Abu Minyar Gaddafi and Saddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti had survived. It may have been for better or much worse than the ensuing conflagratory confusion. Both were iconic heroes to some limited extent with a means to achieve great progress and both had insane despotic tendencies by liberal standards.

During the Rwandan Genocide, perhaps The African Union and others ought to have acted? If so then one would wonder whether the resulting peace (if that) would have led to the ascendancy of Paul Kagame whom to all intents and purposes became Rwanda's Socio-economic "saviour" for reconstruction.

Interventions can be messy & can have dire negative consequences. On the other hand they signal to leaders that they cannot be a law unto themselves and that sovereignty does not preclude international scrutiny or decapitation of the status quo.

[slimreynolds]

Ummmm, WWII? It's why we have the luxury of enjoying this debate and why the entire of Europe is not one, giant, dictatorial nation-state.

[cooblin]

There should be categories of the reason of intervention. I think maybe two or tree categories. 1. Kindness intervention. Intervention in according to being kind. Mostly known as charity or financial help. Where expecting nothing or little back is normal.

2. Exploit intervention. To intevene for your own benifit. This will be any intervention for either militaristic, diplomatic or economic gain. The USA is famously known for starting many revolutions, trying to get a good guy in leadership to stop communism.

And 3. Unintentional interverntion. While the information we have today is vast. Many times intervention effects people that you were not ment to effect. This can happen when the USA in the future choses to import more fish from Japan. This will have a effect on all the other countries that exports fish to USA, like Norway. They will earn less, Since Japan will then increase his market share. The nations losing profits will then be more hostile to the USA. Today these situations are more rare. Most times all parties are involved. But it still happens. In companies they take decisions without knowing all the variables. Many times causing the oposite effect then intended.


Sorry for bad english. Im a little rusty.

[tenholindberg]

If she try to make case for classical liberal doctorine, then this is some next level hypocricy. At the heart of classical liberalism, is the economical shock therapy. The idea that windows of opportunities in the times of crisis must be taken advantage of. No matter if it is an natural, humanitarian or economical crisis, there always lies the window of time that offers massive advantages compared to normal, if used. And if there are no disasters where interventions can be practiced, at least near history proofs that then those disasters are manufactured. Thus the incentive has been every time economical grow from the backs of foreign nations.

There are so called code words for why these are done, " shipping democracy or human rights around the world etc" but the reality is, the incentive is always to introduce complete privatization of natural resources as other ones too, for the benefit of those who execute the interventions. The proof of the total failure of this ideology is, that motivations and outcomes for the subjects of intervention, newer deliver what it promise, the benefits always goes to the executers of intervention. The second problem is unsustainibility. The methods introduced can not be sustained whitout repressive actions against common ppl. Third, the crisises we have today are primaly motivated visioned and executed by forces self-identified as classical liberals, and the misery and inequality along with hostilities has only grow around the world due to them ( classical liberals like R.Reagan, M.Thatcher, J.W Bush and Bush senior, etc)

the simple truth is, classical liberalism values economical growth over human rights. Or humanism is over rated according to ideology. It is counter human and counter individual bcoz of only viewing certain chategory of rare ones as individuals, cladly world is now seeing this

[markkravitz]

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