Foreign Intervention: Threat to the State.

As the War drums are beating over Ukraine and Russia, with both sides ramping up their rhetoric and positions, it is necessary for one to be reminded of the consequences of foreign intervention and its threat to the state and people.

Interventions are situations where one state seeks to help or has the responsibility to protect of another state. In the west, when the news come up reporting violent attacks in one foreign state, it prompts the question to peoples mind, “what should we do?” In answering the question, the state could impose sanctions on the other, pressure the other through diplomatic channels and also report for international prosecutions but mainly, the one thing most states do, which many think is the way to get results, is through an armed intervention. Many countries especially in the global south have faced intervention in their territory as history as taught us through colonization.

According to the Lattimer, 2013, countries in violent situations of most concern, where the threat of genocide or mass killing is greatest or is rising most quickly, foreign military intervention is not the exception but the norm and according to the findings of the Peoples under treat 2013, there is a complex causal relationship between civilian security and armed intervention in practice as it is possible that foreign military action may cease an episode of mass civilian killing or decrease its intensity, it may also prolong or intensify killing, or even initiate a conflict where there was none before. In some cases, it may end one conflict, but start another; or have the effect of shifting violence away from one people or population group onto another or others (Lattimer, 2013).

Intervention to a state can be carried out through the deployment of a multilateral force under the support of NATO, the African Union or the UN, a military intervention launched by a foreign government or governments, or the arming and logistical support of proxy militias by neighboring or interested states. The great majority of countries where the threat of mass killing is acute or killing is ongoing have been subject to armed intervention, in some cases on several occasions going back looking at their histories (Lattimer, 2013).

Looking at different countries with subsequent analysis of military intervention within its borders and how it has destroyed the community and has caused more violence along with the social ramifications they have left on the state and its citizens:

· Syria:

According to the UN statistics, at least 93,000 people estimated to have been killed in Syria’s conflict (Lattimer, 2013). It was announced in June 2013, that the US would provide direct military support to Syrian rebels to fight against their government, joining a long list of other states that are already engaged in supporting one or other side in the war, including Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Russia and Iran. Also the participation of the Lebanese group Hezbollah in support of the Syrian government has also increased the danger of the conflict spilling further into Lebanon, which itself rose in the index of People Under treats, 2013 (Lattimer, 2013). In an article in the Russian times, the head of the Syrian opposition bloc National Coordination Committee, Hassan Abdul Azim stated, ““We refuse on principle any type of military foreign intervention because it threatens the freedom of our country” (RT, 2012). This can lead into unrest as Walzer succinctly puts in his article, “if a particular state were attacked, its citizens would think of themselves bound to resist, and would in fact resist, because they value their own community in the same way we value ours or in the same way that we value communities in general” (Walzer, 1980).

· Libya:

Libya also has been embroiled in a recent armed intervention case where success has been claimed for large-scale foreign military interventions, in support of rebels, and Libya has had a spike in its rise in the people under treats index this year, following major rises last year. With the support of NATO forces, the rebels topple Libya’s President Gaddafi in 2011 and led to democratic elections in 2012 (Lattimer, 2013). Large areas of the country, however, remain under the effective control of different militia groups as there was a rise in the infiltration of arms in the country and the rebels continue to cause problems after the rebel movement, and security for much of the population worsened over the last year (Lattimer, 2013). Some of the causation of the war has been that many of the Sub-Saharan population that resided in the country were expelled during the rebellion in 2011 and dark-skinned Libyans, including former residents of Tawergha, remain vulnerable to racist attacks and arbitrary detention which can cause unrest for the state itself and makes it ungovernable.

· Mali:

Mali also one of the latest instances of military intervention, and unlike the Libya that NATO supported, this military intervention was a support for the incumbent government. This has led to the granting of the Houphouët-Boigny peace prize to the French President, François Hollande by UNESCO in June 2013 for his decision to send French troops to Mali earlier in the year in a move to regain the north of the country from Islamist rebels. Resulting from the intervention, Arab properties in Timbuktu and other key northern towns were looted and much of the Arab population were forced to evacuate the lands, as were Tuaregs who were perceived to have initiated the rebellion (Lattimer, 2013). The UN estimated that some 470,000 people in all have fled the fighting, with Arabs and Tuaregs remaining at risk of reprisal attacks as well as inter-ethnic clashes in the north and leading to more internal displaced peoples according to the UNHCR.

We have gone through countries, that was once colonized or currently occupied by outside forces (although one could argue that colonization is another form of foreign intervention which a state should securitize). It is evident that the former colonies rights are still being trumped upon and the Peace of Westphalia treaty that brought about sovereignty has been largely ignored and intervention has been carried out through multilateral institutions in some cases (like R2P, responsibility to protect) or using unilateralist actions.  The state as a referent object has so much value to its individuals and thus its ultimate responsibility should be its citizen’s welfare, as the citizens defend one another and their common life; the government should be their instrument (Walzer, 1980).

I argue foreign intervention should be securitized, it should have been the first thing states should have done after gaining their independence, it is what makes them sovereign in their territory and thus, they have to make policies in order to protect its sovereignty. It can be collective security, maybe regional so as to protect itself from outside forces infiltrating.

Foreign intervention is a security problem in that in can protects the state from terrorism by other states like the USA with policies that support covert operations. It should be securitized because it protects its own resources for itself and for each individual citizen to benefit from. Foreign intervention in international relations is a threat to the state, whatever state as it raises the issue of sovereignty. Every nations sovereignty should be protected by all means by virtue of it being a state.

See you tomorrow!

- Ope