8.9A - Military Interventions
Global strategic interests might drive military interventions but are often justified by the protagonists in terms of human rights.
There are many examples where Western countries have undertaken military intervention in other sovereign states, however the number doing this is small.
- Britain, France and the USA intervene quite regularly either as part of a United Nations intervention, a NATO led intervention (Libya in 2011, Bosnia in 1992-95) or unilaterally.
- NATO = North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, a military alliance between North America, nations in Europe and Turkey
- Russia tends to intervene if it perceives a threat directly on its borders (annexation of Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, USSR invasion of Afghanistan in 1979); its military intervention in the Syrian conflict since 2015 is unusual
- Other countries provide troops, equipment and financial backing for UN Peacekeeping forces, but these are not offensive combat operations
- These operate under the UN flag, to keep peace in areas of conflict and protect civilians. The forces are composed of troops and equipment from UN member states, with commanders appointed from one or more countries.
- The terms of the peace treaties at the end of the Second World War limit the ability of Japan and Germany to undertake military intervention.
Military intervention is often justified on human rights grounds. In some examples the case for this is strong, but less so in other cases. Most interventions are more about wider global strategic interests - in other words military intervention is undertaken to protect the interests of Western powers, such as:
- A need to protect strategic resources, such as oil supply, especially from the Middle East. Intervention in Iraq in the 1990s and 2000s can partly be seen in this context.
- The need to protect shipping routes for oil, gas and other goods, such as the Suez and Panama canals, the Red Sea and Persian Gulf. If these narrow shipping routes were controlled by hostile countries, there could be large economic consequences.
- The need to prevent wider conflict destabilising whole regions: NATO intervention in Bosnia in 1992-5 was partly to prevent the Bosnian war spilling over into other European countries.
NATO Intervention in Bosnia, 1992-5
- In 1995, an attack on Bosnian Muslims by Bosnian Serbs led to 8,000 deaths and became known as the 'Srebrenica Massacre'. This led to the NATO Operation Deliberate Force - an offensive air and bombing campaign against the Bosnian Serbs
- Strong human rights justification, which eventually led to war crimes arrests among Bosnian Serb military leaders
2003 Invasion of Iraq
- A US- and UK-led invasion that led to the downfall of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. It was justified at the time on the basis of removing Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, especially chemical weapons, and Iraq's support for terrorism
- Weapons of Mass Destruction (chemical/biological/nuclear weapons that kill large numbers of people indiscriminately) were never found in Iraq by USA and UK forces, and some argue that the conflict and its aftermath inflicted greater human rights abuses than before the invasion.
UK Intervention in Sierra Leone, 2000
- Operation Palliser was a UK unilateral intervention in the Sierra Leone civil war after a failed UN operation. UK forces quickly stabilised Sierra Leone, defeating the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebel forces and implementing a ceasefire
- The RUF committed mass killings, used rape as a weapon of war, and used child soldiers. Ending these atrocities and war crimes provided a strong human rights justification.
However, military intervention does not always take place, even when it appears to be strongly justified. Recent examples of genocide include:
- Darfur genocide in Sudan (2003-ongoing), with estimates of 100,000-500,000 deaths by 2018
- Rwandan genocide of the Tutsi people by Hutus (1994), estimated to have led to at least 500,000 deaths.
- Between 2016 and 2018 the government and military of Burma have forced about 950,000 Rohingya Muslims to flee the country, mostly to Bangladesh. This is an example of ethnic cleansing (although some NGOs have called it genocide).