Evaluating Military Interventions
Geography: Edexcel A Level, topic 10.4.5
Evaluating the Costs and Benefits of Military Interventions
Military interventions, both direct and indirect, have a mixed record of success. The recent history of military interventions suggests that there are significant costs, including loss of sovereignty and human rights.
Costs
- The major cost of military interventions is the large numbers of deaths, civilian as well as personnel.
- E.g. the war in Afghanistan is estimated to have caused 150,000 deaths.
- Another cost is the number of refugees who have fled conflict zones.
- E.g. 4 million people are thought to have fled Syria in recent years.
- Another cost is the sheer devastation done to cities, towns and villages.
- E.g. the almost total destruction of Aleppo with over 34000 buildings destroyed.
Accuracy and benefits
- Accurate figures for all of the costs cannot be determined.
- They are estimates made by neutral IGOs and NGOs.
- Benefits are also difficult to determine.
- Protagonists often depend on the argument that things would have been worse without the intervention.
Non-military Interventions
Military interventions, both direct and indirect, have a mixed record of success.
UN peacekeeping
- UN peacekeeping is guided by three basic principles:
- Consent of all parties in the conflict.
- Impartiality.
- Non-use of force except in self-defence.
- The UN is able to draw on troops, police and some civilians from around the world to provide its peacekeeping forces.
- The costs are shared by UN member states.
- UN peacekeepers are asked to undertake a wide variety of tasks, from disarmament and reintegration of former combatants to helping to build sound governance and monitoring human rights
Examples
- Countries affected in the recent past include Angola, Mozambique, Namibia, Cambodia, El Salvador and Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina.
- Successes and failures are difficult to determine; some say the intervention in Cote d’Ivoire was a success and that the intervention in Bosnia-Herzegovina (Srebrenica) was a catastrophic failure.
Non-intervention Instead of Military Intervention
Military interventions, both direct and indirect, have a mixed record of success. The recent history of military interventions suggests that there are significant costs, so sometimes non-intervention is chosen.
Lack of action
- One option is to ‘Turn a blind eye’ and do nothing.
- Lack of action has global consequences which may impact negatively on progress in environmental, political and social development (poverty, human wellbeing and human rights).
- An issue not covered by military interventions is the need for greater care of the environment.
- Some suggest that a lack of action threatens the survival of the human race and so would make issues relating to human rights irrelevant.
IS
- Some suggest that the rise of IS (Daesh) is a salutary reminder of the dangers of doing nothing.
- IS (Daesh) emerged in the aftermath of the chaos following the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts.
Peacekeeping in Cote d'Ivoire
Peacekeeping in Cote d'Ivoire started in 2010 as a civil war broke out.
Civil war
- Cote d’Ivoire is a former French colony, gaining independence in 1960, with a mix of peoples of both Christian and Islamic faith.
- In 2010 a Muslim president (Alassane Ouattara) was elected defeating the previous Christian president (Laurent Gbagbo).
- Gbagbo refused to step down and a civil war ensued.
UN Peacekeeping
- The UN sent in a peacekeeping force to protect civilians, bring about disarmament and reintegration as well as protect human rights.
- Gbagbo was arrested and handed over to the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity.
- Tensions remain and thousands of UN blue-helmet troops are still in the country.
Test yourself on Evaluating Military Interventions
How many deaths did the war in Afghanistan cause?
How many people are thought to have fled Syria in recent years?
What is the only time that peacekeepers are allowed to use force?
Which of these are countries that have needed UN peacekeepers in the past?
What organisation emerged in the aftermath of the chaos following the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts?