What to Read: Intervention
The Idea that is America: Keeping Faith with Our Values in a Dangerous World
Ann Marie Slaughter (Basic Books) 2007
In The Idea That Is America, a preeminent foreign policy scholar eloquently reminds us of the essential principles on which our nation was established: liberty, democracy, equality, tolerance, faith, justice, and humility. Our ongoing struggle to live up to America’s great promise matters not only to us, but also to the billions of men and women everywhere who look to the United States to lead, protect, and inspire the world. In The Idea That Is America, Anne Marie Slaughter shows us the way forward.
ICISS (IDRC Books) 2002
Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS) was established by the Canadian government in September 2000 to respond to that challenge.
After a year of intense worldwide consultations and debate, the Commission now presents this path-breaking report. With its central theme of the “responsibility to protect,” the report underlines the primary responsibility of sovereign states to protect their own citizens from avoidable catastrophe – from mass murder, from large scale loss of life and rape, from starvation. But when they are unwilling or unable to do so, that responsibility must be borne by the broader community of states – there must be no more Rwandas or Srebrenicas.
Humanitarian Intervention: War and Conflict in the Modern World
Thomas Weiss (Polity Press) 2012
A singular development of the post Cold-War era is the use of military force to protect human beings. From Rwanda to Kosovo, Sierra Leone to East Timor, and more recently Libya to Côte d’Ivoire, soldiers have rescued some civilians in some of the world’s most notorious war zones. Could more be saved? Drawing on over two decades of research, Thomas G. Weiss answers “yes” and provides a persuasive introduction to the theory and practice of humanitarian intervention in the modern world. He examines political, ethical, legal, strategic, economic, and operational dimensions and uses a wide range of cases to highlight key debates and controversies.
Interventions: A Life in War and Peace
Kofi Annan, Nader Mousavizadeh (Penguin Press)
Showing the successes of the United Nations, Annan also reveals the organization’s missed opportunities and ongoing challenges—inaction in the Rwanda genocide, continuing violence between Israelis and Palestinians, and the endurance of endemic poverty. Yet Annan’s great strength in this book is his ability to embed these tragedies within the context of global politics, demonstrating how, time and again, the nations of the world have retreated from the UN’s founding purpose. From the pinnacle of global politics, Annan made it his purpose to put the individual at the center of every mission for peace and prosperity.
First Do No Harm: Humanitarian Intervention and the Destruction of Yugoslavia
David N. Gibbs (Vanderbilt University Press) 2009
First Do No Harm argues for a new, noninterventionist model for U.S. foreign policy, one that deploys nonmilitary methods for addressing ethnic violence.
