The World Today
March 1999

Something Must be Done
By Karin von Hippel and Michael Clarke

 

Why does the world notice and intervene in some crises while paying much less attention to others? Is there a formula which might indicate when intervention is more likely and clarify the steps preceding it — advance warning for peacekeepers and errant states alike?

 

Europe and the United States face a profound crisis over when to intervene militarily in ‘complex emergencies’— defined here as compounded, and in many cases protracted, political crises  marked by violent conflict and humanitarian disasters.

The balance sheet of intervention sanctioned by the United Nations Security Council in such cases since the end of the Cold War, reveals an inconsistent pattern of involvement that only complicates the problem of when, in the contemporary world order, intervention in domestic affairs might be justified. As Thomas Buergenthal has pointed out, ‘once the rule of law, human rights and democratic pluralism are made the subject of international commitments, there is little left in terms of governmental institutions that is domestic’. ₁

The role of the US is critical in a behavioural, if not in a legal, sense in setting an international agenda of intervention in complex emergencies. It plays a key part both in creating and responding to a ‘do something’ syndrome; and its attention to a crisis forces other players, like the Europeans, to define their attitudes and stakes more precisely.

The Italian-led intervention in Albania in 1997 — Operation Alba — was a low-key, ambiguous international response to a crisis in which the US was not prepared to become involved. In contrast a spectrum of NATO responses to the present Kosovo crisis has been fully rehearsed, since it is clear that the US regards Kosovo as its business.

The factors that drive the Do Something Effect in the United States, therefore, are one key to understanding the contemporary phenomenon of apparently arbitrary intervention in complex emergencies. An examination of these factors provides pointers to the attitudes of the international community over further nascent complex emergencies; such as in Central Africa, Kosovo and other southern areas of the former Yugoslavia, where the situation may well worsen.

It is now possible to draw some robust research conclusions from four previous cases of post-Cold War military interventions led by the United States in Panama, Somalia, Haiti and Bosnia. All help clarify when and why the Do Something Effect might feature in other cases.

 

Where do we intervene and why?

Although the Panama, Somalia and Haiti involvements took place in the developing world, while Bosnia was considered a European problem, and two have been in the US sphere of influence, the commonalties in the run-up to the interventions in all four are considerable.

In each, the US government increased diplomatic and economic pressure to try and force a change, either of government or to put an end to civil war. In all these cases the period leading up to the intervention was marked by inconsistent policy, public waffling, and successive threats — by the US government in Panama and Haiti, the international community in Somalia, and Europe and then the United States in Bosnia.

It is difficult for democratic states to avoid such preliminaries. As Bruce Russett puts it, ‘In the absence of direct attack, institutionalised checks and balances make democracies’ decisions to go to war slow and very public’. ₂ What, then, eventually drives them? The most obvious factors are large refugee flows into neighbouring — perhaps developed — states, the media spotlight on humanitarian suffering, continued defiance by nasty rulers, and sanctions policies which are often made more severe, but which are perceived to be insufficient.

These factors have been noticeably less prominent in other civil crises, which partially accounts for the absence of a threat to intervene, in Burundi, Algeria or Sudan, for example, where the conflicts may be as horrific — if not worse — than the cases examined here.

Additionally, a decision to intervene is based on the international context of a country, its relative power and size and the likelihood of a successful outcome. It is highly unlikely, for example, that the US government would ever threaten China or Nigeria with intervention, even if there were catastrophic domestic collapse.

The presence of these factors, compounded over time, therefore, produces the Do Something Effect.

 

The Refugees

Large increases in refugee flows, especially to a powerful neighbouring country, are one indicator. In Panama and Somalia, this was not a factor, although a large proportion of the Somali population became refugees or internally displaced. Such flows have been significant in Haiti and Bosnia.

This is confirmed by some other notable cases. Refugees from Albania going to Italy and Greece, and from Liberia and Sierra Leone to Nigeria and other West African states, as well as within several states in Central Africa, played a significant role in decisions to intervene in those countries since population movements created instability.

Most governments cannot easily prevent refugees from arriving, not only because it is difficult and expensive to police borders, but also for human rights reasons. Emergency food aid may even exacerbate refugee problems since it encourages movement away from indigenous areas — a process that can be difficult to reverse even when local food production is restarted.

Faction leaders often maintain — or even cause — instability so they can steal supplies of international food aid. The manipulation of refugee flows also provides a political tool that is wielded by weak governments in developing countries.

While serving as President of Haiti, Aristide used the threat of refugee flows from his country to America to increase foreign aid. Even King Hassan of Morocco has issued similar warnings over the years in negotiations with Spain. Aid to developing countries, especially those located in the sphere of influence of the major powers, is partially driven by the desire to improve the situation at home so that the inhabitants will not want to leave.

Development aid to strengthen governance and the local economy therefore emerges as a long-term priority. This may be the only way to forestall large refugee flows in a global marketplace of increasing inequality. But such developmental policies take some time to have an impact, while the destabilising effect of population movements can cripple a region very quickly.

 

The Media Effect

Extensive television coverage of all these crises, and the ensuing public outcry, has had a significant impact and forced policy makers to react. In some recent cases the media has also been responsible for initiating a considered debate on the merits of intervention.

The ‘CNN effect’ fuelled the initial military response in Panama. It was also a significant factor after the Gulf War where a more considered reaction to the problems of the Kurds — stimulated by footage of thousands of people camped on barren mountainsides — briefly stimulated Western governments to enforce a safe havens policy. This seemed like a judicious option which steered a course between upholding a humanitarian objective and avoiding further war with Iraq.

By the time of the Somalia crisis, the media not only pushed the US government into intervening because images of starving children were viewed with discomfort by most Americans, but was also responsible for the eventual termination of the UN operation. This happened when Americans witnessed their boys being killed, and their naked bodies being dragged through the streets in a brutal fashion by the people they had gone to help. Certainly, in this case, the evidence is that the US government reacted impulsively to media pressures, both to become involved, and then to withdraw.

In Haiti, the opposite occurred. Significant coverage of events there prior to US involvement spurred a more considered debate about a possible intervention, and gave those organisations that would be involved ample time to plan.

The refugee crisis, however, was exacerbated by the American media, and articles on Haiti were very soon included in the domestic pages of the press. But Cuban refugees were also arriving in large numbers, without any corresponding threat to the government in Havana.

In Bosnia, televised atrocities — particularly by Serbian forces — belatedly helped convince uncertain US and European publics of the acceptability of a NATO bombing campaign by promoting serious international dialogue.

The Sarajevo marketplace attack of 5 February 1994 was a critical turning point. This was not, by any means, the worst atrocity, or the greatest single loss of life from a mortar attack; but it happened right in front of the cameras and became an instant media horror scoop. Coverage such as this also contributed to the establishment of the International War Crimes Tribunal.

In drawing wider conclusions from such experiences, it is clear that the balance of media coverage will continue to be very uneven. For the scale of its misery and depredations, the Great Lakes crisis in central Africa has received very little coverage in comparison with the less severe events in Kosovo.

The Balkan crises create dramatic images resonant of World War Two and all that suggests. Significantly, they are also located within Europe. African emergencies appear so overwhelming as to produce compassion fatigue amongst television viewers.

 

Defiance and Humiliation

The increase in refugee flows and media coverage in the key cases we have examined — Panama, Somalia, Haiti and Bosnia — provoked the US and European governments, with the support of the United Nations, to threaten action against all the errant rulers. We do not class the Iraq/UN crises as complex emergencies, though it is clear that the drivers of US involvement in this situation are very similar.

In all four key cases, the pattern was similar; increased public threats exposed Western governments to charges that their warnings were being ignored and not ameliorating the deteriorating situation. Indeed, Noriega, several Somali warlords, Cedras and company, and the Bosnian Serb leadership continued to defy international pressure.

International policy prior to the interventions was confused, did not follow a consistently firm line, and fluctuated enough to give the impression to local rulers that they could ‘play’ the international community and still achieve their own objectives, particularly when they threatened US and European soldiers.

Such rulers were learning, by instinct, how to conduct what has now been dignified with the term ‘asymmetric warfare’: the use by the weak of terrorist, guerrilla, and human weapons against an opponent who is overwhelmingly strong militarily. Their non-compliance eventually compelled the Americans to use force to demonstrate that the sole remaining superpower could not, and would not, be pushed around by small-time, thug dictators and warlords. The United Nations Security Council also felt a sufficient need to demonstrate that its resolutions were intended to be observed, and thus approved the military option in Somalia, Haiti, and Bosnia.

Such defiance was all the more provocative, particularly to the US, because several of these leaders had been supported by parts of the US government before they became troublesome — including, but not limited to, Noriega, Siad Barre, Cedras, and even Saddam Hussein. This played strongly to a US stereotype that affected its decisions to intervene: the common assumption that if such rulers were only removed, democracy and/or stability would neatly fall in place. This is what is sometimes referred to as the ‘Evil Man’ complex, in which the systemic causes are ignored.

When Noriega was removed from Panama, for example, democracy did not automatically develop but, rather, the country fell into a destructive power vacuum because there was simply no experience of pluralism. Or again, in Somalia after General Aideed’s death in August 1996, his son assumed control over his father’s faction, and has been pursuing a similar agenda.

 

The Sanctions Effect

Sanctions also tend to accompany large refugee flows, pressure applied by the media, and defiance by nasty rulers. Yet, in themselves, sanctions do not usually achieve their desired aim of reversing or ending the crisis. This was blatantly evident in Panama, Iraq, Somalia, and Haiti, although in some cases, such as in the former Yugoslavia and possibly South Africa, there is evidence of some effectiveness.

A 1991 study demonstrated that of one hundred and fifteen cases, sanctions ‘worked’ in thirty-four percent of them. ₃ But particularly in cases of complex emergencies, sanctions can also promote nationalist solidarity amongst a targeted population in defiance of a major power, rather than a reversal of policy or the removal of a leadership.

Johan Galtung remarked that the ‘collective nature of economic sanctions makes them hit the innocent along with the guilty’ which is why an ‘attack from outside is seen as an attack on the group as a whole, not only on a fraction of it.’ ₄

Sanctions also normally require time to work and local leaders can take the necessary precautions to remain in power. Tom Carothers explained that, ‘confronted with a choice between accepting the economic deprivation of the citizenry or a total loss of power, a stubborn dictator will inevitably choose the former. And he will step up repression to ensure that those countrymen do not react to their deteriorating economic situation by trying to throw him out.’ ₅

Moreover, sanctions are almost always by-passed by those with money and power, sometimes by import substitution, but mostly by smuggling. During the Haitian embargo, the wealthy continued to maintain stores of essentials. Saddam Hussein has provided for his extensive personal entourage through organised oil smuggling, and sanctions against Serbia were never severe enough to undermine the wealth of President Milosevic’s immediate political circle.

Additionally, the policy of applying sanctions is inherently myopic and frequently — and ironically — leads to the collapse of the domestic economy. The Haitian embargo, which endured for several years without accomplishing its stated purpose of removing the Cedras regime, affected long-term recovery because essential medical, food and financial supplies were drastically reduced. Most jobs in basic industries were lost, causing more refugees to attempt the journey to the United States, and greater economic instability. The Panamanian economy also took years to recover from the after-shocks of sanctions.

In these cases, sanctions imposed by the UN only served to make the post-conflict renewal period more difficult — except for Somalia which has not yet reached this stage. More research needs to be conducted to understand where sanctions are most effective and how they affect long-term policy goals such as post-conflict reconstruction.

 

The Force Factor

An eventual lack of alternatives, and the dynamics of the Do Something Effect, soon drove the US government in Panama, Somalia, Haiti and Bosnia into choosing the most extreme option — that of force.

In justifying the decision to intervene in Haiti, for example, Madeleine Albright explained, ‘Together, we — the international community — have tried condemnation, persuasion, isolation and negotiation. At Governors Island, we helped broker an agreement that the military’s leader signed but refused to implement. We have imposed sanctions, suspended them and strengthened them. We have provided every opportunity for the de facto leaders in Haiti to meet their obligations. But patience is an exhaustible commodity... The status quo in Haiti is neither tenable nor acceptable.’ ₆

A similar frustration attended the UNPROFOR operation in Bosnia, and the continued disregard of Security Council resolutions again pushed the US government into a direct use of force that eventually sidelined the United Nations. As Lawrence Freedman remarked, in Bosnia the Security Council had ‘experimented with almost every available form of coercion short of war’ ₇ before force was openly used.

Only after the fact — in all these cases — did the US government add the public rationale that it was intervening ‘to defend democracy’ or ‘to maintain our reliability’ and add them to the list of occasions when the US can use force; what has become the Shalikashvili, Christopher and Lake ‘guidelines’ on intervention.

 

Different crisis...different reaction

In other post-Cold War interventions — for example that of Russia in Georgia, France in Rwanda, Italy and allies in Albania, ECOMOG in Liberia, and Nigeria/ECOMOG in Sierra Leone — some of the key factors outlined here may have been evident. They were certainly enough to engage a major regional power, though not to the same degree; and significantly, not to the higher force levels that the US government used.

In conflicts that have not raised any realistic possibility of such intervention — such as Algeria, Burma/Myanmar, Burundi, Nigeria, or Sudan — the four key factors have not been nearly as prominent; the negative correlation in these cases is remarkably strong. Until these factors play prominently, and simultaneously, in western capitals such conflicts are not likely to attract major external intervention.

The contemporary Kosovo and Great Lakes crises provide an instructive comparison. In Kosovo, refugees flows increased dramatically, the media focused on the conflict, Milosovic and local Serb leaders continued repression of the Albanian majority in the region despite increased threats of reprisals by Britain, Italy and the United States and condemnation by the UN. Sanctions were stepped up, along with the level of political rhetoric. It is clear that the four key factors were all present in this case and became increasingly prominent in Western capitals during the second half of last year. They are far less evident in Western perceptions of the Great Lakes crisis. On this basis, the differences in reactions to each crisis is not difficult to explain.

	Panama December 1989	Somalia December 1992	Haiti September 1994	Bosnia August 1995
Time until the US reacted with force	43 months	24 months	38 months	51 months
Justification for intervention	democracy denied	humanitarian crisis (famine)	democracy denied	humanitarian crisis (genocide)
Situation prior to intervention	nasty dictatorship	civil war leading to state collapse	nasty dictatorship	civil war leading to state collapse
Electoral status	results overturned	no election held	results overturned by coup	referendum boycotted by Serbs
International setting	US sphere of influence	exacerbated by end of cold war	US sphere of influence	exacerbated by end of cold war
Refugee crisis affecting west	no	no	yes (US)	yes (Europe)
Extensive media coverage	yes	yes	yes	yes
Increased sanctions	yes	yes	yes	yes

In these four key cases, there is a high correlation in the inability of the US to cope, over time, with each of the factors. They also highlight some of the reasons why in the ‘non-complex emergency’ of the Iraq/UN crisis, despite the fighting of a war with — but not in — Iraq in 1990–91, the use of force has been threatened but nothing approaching a direct ground intervention. There are comparable similarities in the Iraqi case in ‘Situation prior to intervention’,‘Electoral status’,‘Extensive media coverage’ and ‘Increased sanctions’, but critical differences in ‘Justification for intervention’, ‘International settings’ and ‘Refugee crisis affecting west’.

 

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Endnotes

Note 1: Quoted in Thomas Franck, ‘The Emerging Right to democratic Governance’, The American Journal of International Law, 1992, p.68.  Back.

Note 2: Letter to the editor, The Economist, 29 April 1995.  Back.

Note 3: Gary Hufbauer, Jeffrey Schott and Kimberly Elliott, Economic Sanctions Reconsidered, Washington, DC, Institute for International Economics, 1991, pp.93-4, as quoted in Vojin Dimitrijevic and Jelena Pejic, ‘UN Sanctions against Yugoslavia: Two Years Later’, in Dimitris Bourantonis and Jarrod Wiener, eds., The United Nations in the New World Order: The World Organisation at Fifty, Basingstoke, Macmillan, 1995, p.126.  Back.

Note 4: Johan Galtung, ‘On the Effects of International Economic Sanctions’ World Politics, vol.3, 1967, pp.389–390, as quoted in above.  Back.

Note 5: Tom Carothers, ‘Lessons for Policymakers’, p.120, in Georges A. Fauriol, ed., Haitian Frustrations: Dilemmas for US Policy, A Report of the CSIS Americas Program, CSIS, Washington, DC, 1995.  Back.

Note 6: UN Document S/PV.3413, 31 July 1994, p.12.  Back.

Note 7: Lawrence Freedman, ‘Why the West Failed’, Foreign Policy, no.97, Winter 1994–95, p.59.  Back.