Constrained Intervention

On October 5th, I attended an event at the Institute of International and European Affairs (IIEA) in Dublin, to hear Lord David Owen speak about 'constrained intervention'. To begin, I think it is valuable to offer some information on Owen to establish his credibility, or as you may find, his lack there of.

Lord Owen has a CV of encyclopedic lengths, but to be brief, he is amongst the founders of the Social Democratic Party in Britain, which he was deputy leader and leader respectively in the eighties. Owen has also served as Minister of Health (he is a trained surgeon) and the youngest Foreign Secretary in Britain. He is/has been a member of various bodies, ranging from disarmament, preventing deadly conflict, humanitarian cooperation and arms trade.

He also found the time to be the Chancellor of University of Liverpool from 1996-09, and now, at the age of 73, spends his time as a crossbencher in the House of Lords for Plymouth. In his speech at the IIEA, he mentioned, on several occasions, his business interests in Guinea and Russia. This is clearly a very busy, and accomplished man. It was exciting to be at the IIEA, and hear him speak. So, to move on, Owen discussed 'constrained intervention', in relation to Libya.

His main point was that we are entering a new era of intervention, one that is slightly different from the unpopular liberal intervention style of putting men on the ground and taking control from a military standpoint. The scars remain tremendously visible in the U.S. after the Somalia affair in the 90's, with the image of the American soldier being dragged on the streets remains ingrained in the memory of many politicians and citizens. As Owen pointed out, Rwanda and Bosnia paid the price for that. His argument was that constrained intervention, whereby, outsiders (the West?) offer assistance to groups, without putting occupying forces or men on the ground. This, in effect, allows the citizens to fight, and resolve, their own battles but with 'legal military action' that 'tilts the balance'. Owen stresses that constrained intervention must be utilised on a human rights basis, and not to install democracy, it must be sanctioned and practiced within the realms of the UN Charter. In the case of Libya, it was a cooperation between France and UK (main players) and approval of the U.S. It was a NATO operation given thumbs up by the UN. Pretty perfect, with the absence of key player Germany and other allies. Owen, despite describing himself as an eternal optimist, said that EU, NATO and other international organisations always acting together is a broken dream - and it just not going to happened.

Initially, I was awe-struck by the idea of constrained intervention and supported what Owen was saying. It wasn't until discussion with my colleagues where the skepticism began to arise. Is constrained intervention a way to ensure blood is not spilled on the hands of the West? We can always blame the men on the ground, which are not our own. Is it a simple way for western powers to steer, or, ahem .. 'balance', the conflict to a suitable agenda without being responsible for the blame when it goes tits up? We know from the past that interventions are heavily criticised, and often fall short of peoples expectations. In a time of economic downturn and the deeply unpopular Afghanistan and Iraqi invasions on part of the UK and US, sending troops to fight 'another mans battle' is out of the question, and a really good way for Obama and Cameron to say goodbye to their jobs, respectively. The truth is, I don't know. Just as I don't know much of anything, I certainly don't know about some new military/aid/intervention strategy that is just being put to the test now - I can say, whole heatedly, however, that it is far too early for Owen to declare Libya a success. He approaches the situation as if it is a done and dusted affair. Civilian lives, in great numbers, were lost by our air strikes and we are yet to witness the new leader of Libya. Who said the devil that we know is sometimes better then the one we don't? This is an unfinished story, but I'd be very interested in keeping up with this concept of constrained intervention. My hopes are that it will not be some new half-arsed method of 'saving the world' from an arms length, which provide an immediate and easy exit strategy for those involved.