So, I had a mock debate with an anti interventionist in my head, and it basically led to me trying to discuss my views on foreign policy and interventionism in a nutshell. So, I'm going to explain my humanist view on this.
Hobbes and the State of Nature
So...I actually embrace the proposition from Christians that without a divine lawgiver that there is no "objective morality." I mean, I come to a form of quasi objective morality based on consequentialism and universal preferences later, but yeah. We actually do live in a world where it's theoretically permissible to just do horrible things.
This is Hobbes' state of nature. Life in it is nasty, brutish, and short.
States: the arbiter of law and shared morality
So, what gives us the ability to actually live outside of Hobbes' state of nature is cooperation. We form states and social contracts. I admit, in practice, we might be more forced into them by the states themselves, but the modern nation state at least in theory gets its legitimacy, not from force, but the consent of the governed.
States give us laws. They give us security. They improve well being. Without states, we just have Hobbes' state of nature.
Foreign policy: interactions between states
So, what foreign policy basically is, is interaction between states. And that IS, generally speaking, lawless. Warfare is common throughout history. Warfare often has been brutal, with cruel consequences to the losers including slavery, genocide, etc. It is the law of the jungle after all.
Not all states see eye to eye. Western powers have enlightenment values leading to concepts like human rights and freedoms, but others dont. Other states often have different philosophies and values in governance. Most enemies of our own country, the US, do not share our high minded values. They are various flavors of authoritarian, and often reject the idea of human rights. Some are also still driven by religious philosophies, such as, for example, Islam.
The fact is, countries with Western values tend to stick together with one another. We have formed the most dominant world order on this planet, mostly backed by the United States, which is the country with the biggest military, and is most able to enforce its will on the rest of the world. If we did not do this, one of our rivals would instead form the most dominant world order, which would come at our detriment and probably lead to worse outcomes for most in the world, and especially for ourselves.
Discussing international law
International law arose our of our most high minded western values involving things like human rights. However, in practice, international law is enforced selectively, as enforcement requires force. As such, we might see it applied more consistently against two bit dictatorships that horribly mistreat their citizens, but we might turn a blind eye against countries such as, for example, Israel, who is arguably violating it with their war in Gaza. The fact is, there are international complications associated with holding a friendly country accountable for possible war crimes, which is why the US is reluctant to do it.
High minded people might have issues with this, but this is the reality of things. For as much as we value our ideals, sometimes the actual calls to intervene or enforce international law come down to politics. We might hold countries that we don't like more accountable, or even use their crimes as a pretext for invasion, but when our own does stuff, we tend to have a double standard.
Some question if rival powers, through up and coming organizations like BRICS, will eventually come to challenge the US led world order. I would like to remind anyone that BRICS is basically headed by countries like Russia and China that are functionally authoritarian and don't even have the pretense of caring about others. They just want to use these orders to challenge the US led world order so they can just do whatever they want without consequence.
Interpreting various conflicts through my own lens
World war II- A fight against a rival ideology of fascism, we largely stayed neutral, but it seemed clear that if the US didn't have a more interventionist approach to foreign policy, that the world would em embroiled in costly wars that would eventually come to affect us at home.
After World War II, the victors established the United Nations, which unlike the previous League of Nations actually had US backing and teeth. The League of Nations largely failed without US support, but that led to the most destructive war in human history, so we basically established a new world order in order to keep the peace.
The cold war- An ideological conflict that never broke out into hot war because doing so would've been so destructive it would have ended humanity. It instead was an ideological geopolitical chess game between the US (capitalist/pro democracy) and the USSR (communist/authoritarian). Instead of fighting major battles, there were minor conflicts like Korea, Vietnam, and Afghanistan that became proxy wars for the major powers. The west eventually won when the USSR collapsed in the early 90s.
War on Terror and other conflicts- Post cold war, there has been a lot of debate about what the role of the US should be. Some envisioned it as high minded in the 1990s, like us being this international police force intervening in countries where tyranny,, injustice, and genocide are taking place. These ventures ended up being short lived. They were unpopular and costly at home, and got US service people killed for no reason (see: Somalia and the movie "Black Hawk Down".
We actually became increasingly less interventionist through the 1990s, only for us to become REALLY interventionist in the 2000s as 9/11 precipitated the war on terror. Initially it had support as we were attacked, but the complexities of interventionism proved to be very costly, and the geopolitics of reforming third world countries complicated. In general these wars proved to be a failure.
This has led to somewhat of a controversy about what exactly the US's role should be in the post cold war world. Should we intervene overseas? Should we be more isolationist? I would argue that the modern era has caused a lot of malaise with foreign policy that has led to the rise of anti interventionist sentiments. In the world police context, I agree. We should not be involved in conflicts to "nation build" or play "world police". HOWEVER....
Modern conflicts- HOWEVER...(to continue the previous thought), the US is still the sole superpower and needed in world affairs. yes yes, we shouldnt intervene in back water countries like Iraq and Afghanistan and try to spread democracy to them. It's been a massive failure. BUT...we still need to maintain our strategic alliances with other like minded countries, and we still need to combat the once again growing influence of Russia and China, authoritarian countries that do not share our values. As such:
Ukraine- Ukraine is a democracy under great threat from Russia. Alarmed by the expansion of NATO since the cold war (which was brought on by Russia's own aggressive actions toward neighbors), it has launched a desperate bid to take over Ukraine as a bit of a land buffer to push NATO as far west and away from Moscow as possible. We can't intervene directly in Ukraine as direct conflict with Russia can lead to nuclear war, but we are doing a cold war style proxy war there in arming and funding Ukrainians to defend their country from Russia. I do believe this is an important conflict, both for western ideals like democracy, but also to weaken one of our chief rivals, Russia.
Israel- Israel I'm more mixed on. Israel is effectively committing a de facto genocide in Gaza. And I do wish the US put more pressure on them to rein the conflict in. However, Israel IS a friendly nation to the US. They were attacked, they do have a right to defend themselves, and regardless of how flawed the Netanyahu regime is, if the region were ruled by Hamas or the Palestinians, the outcome would be even worse. Historically, Israel has always been the more reasonable and humanitarian power, and the power with more western values. This does not excuse the gravity of their actions in Gaza, but it does make stopping them kind of tricky in practice, especially given the amount of domestic support Israel has.
Taiwan- Basically has the potential to be China's Ukraine. We need to promise to defend it as a counterbalance to Chinese expansionism. Taiwan is a democracy, like us, with values similar to us, and CHina taking Taiwan could mark the decline of western power in the Asian theater and tip the balance of power in China's favor. China is just as if not more dangerous than Russia long term given their massive population, and rapid economic development.
Conclusion
And yeah, that's generally how I view foreign policy in a nutshell. While I get people who are very ideological and dedicated to humanitarian values who in the modern era might seek a more non interventionist role for the US post cold war, we cant afford to just sit on our laurels. We have to deal with the rising threats of both China and Russia, and I do mark the past few years during the Biden administration as somewhat of a shift away from the war on terror years back toward new a cold war 2.0 where our intervention is very much needed for the world right now. And we gotta reorient ourselves from the non interventionist mindset that came out of our failed ventures in Iraq and Afghanistan to being a champion of democracy and human rights that defends our like minded allies against the forces of authoritarianism and illiberalism in the modern era.
For me, the conflict is about values, it is ideological. it's about governing philosophy. Do we want the dominant world powers to be liberal democracies that care about human rights and well being or illiberal dictatorships that think life is cheap and just use raw power to achieve their ends? The choice is yours, but I support the west on this one. My values are western through and through, for better or for worse, and we gotta support our team, even if they aren't always in the right in individual situations (like Israel). So yeah, that's how I view things and that's why I'd differ from more humanitarian non interventionists. Their hearts are in the right place, but I think they miss the big picture. I hope I just explained the big picture clearly and concisely enough.
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