8.12A - The Costs of Recent Military Interventions
The recent history of military interventions, both direct and indirect, suggest that there are significant costs, including loss of sovereignty and human rights and contrasts between short-term gains with long-term costs.
There have been many direct and indirect military interventions in recent history. UN peacekeepers have been involved in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) since 1999, intervening in the Second Congo War. The war is a fight between DRC government forces under President Laurent Kabila and various rebel groups under the RCD (Rally for Congolese Democracy) flag. At stake is control of the DRC and its vast mineral wealth - including conflict minerals such as gold, diamonds and coltan (used in mobile phones).
- conflict minerals are high value minerals and ores, such as gold and diamonds, that have caused war as opposite groups fight to control mining and trade.
- In 2017, there were 18,300 UN peacekeepers in DRc operating as MONUSCO (UN Organization Stabilization Mission in the DRC)
- More than 30 member states have contributed troops
- The total cost has been over $9 billion.
Costs and Gains of UN Action
Gains
- The situation may have been worse without UN involvement
- The UN may have prevented wider, direct involvement by other countries, e.g. a World War in Africa
- The UN has collected evidence that may lead to war crimes trials
- Humanitarian help and aid has been provided by the UN, protected by peacekeepers
- Despite 20 years of UN action, in 2018 the war was still raging in the Ituri and Kivu regions
- DRC is more dependent than ever on warlord-controlled conflict minerals
- Over 5 million dead, including 200 UN peacekeepers
- GDP per capita $458
- Shocking war crimes, involving child soldiers and sexual violence, have been widespread
Sometimes individual nation states act on their own. An example is the UK's intervention in Sierra Leone (a former British colony) in 2000. It was considered to be a failed state at the time, which is where governance has broken down and there is no effective state to protect people. Basic services have collapsed and people's lives are risked daily by the lack of security.
- Sierra Leone descended into civil war in 1991, and by 1999 more than 50,000 were dead
- The UN became involved in 1999, but this intervention failed and the UK decided to step in
- Operation Palliser, with 1,200 troops, naval and air support drove rebel forces back from Freetown (the capital city) and led to a ceasefire.
- UK intervention saved the UN mission in Sierra Leone.
The USA's War on Terror since 2001
Military actions around the world against Islamic terrorists (Al Qaeda, Taliban, IS) in response to the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York.
- Views as demonising Muslims
- Turned some Muslims in Western countries into radical extremists
- Contributed to the rise of IS - as an extremist response to the 'War on Terror'
- Made Middle Eastern countries take sides for or against the USA
UK and France in Libya, 2011
An air force bombing campaign in support of rebel forces fighting the government forces of Colonel Gaddafi. (In the context of the 2011 Arab Spring, a popular uprising against military dictatorships in North Africa (Libya, Tunisia, Egypt) and the Middle East (Syria, Iran) which led to the overthrow of several governments, but also longer-term conflict in Syria and Libya.)
- Disagreement among NATO members over how to act
- Disintegration of governance in Libya
- Refugee and humanitarian crises in Libya as no effective governance has emerged since 2011
- Widespread disregard for human rights
Any military intervention, either by the UN, a coalition of countries or an individual country inevitably means the sovereignty of the country where the intervention takes place is severely eroded. This means the 'bar' for intervention is high.
In some cases, intervention may make a bad human rights situation worse. Failed intervention risks prolonging conflict, with greater numbers of deaths, injuries and human rights abuse. The West's failure to create a situation where a stable, unified, democratic post-intervention government could exist in Somalia, Libya, Iraq or Afghanistan begs the very difficult question as to whether these countries would have been better off without Western intervention.