G Division
Looking at Darfur and the strains on US troops being caused by deployments in Afghanistan and Iraq, Michael O'Hanlon argues that we should create a dedicated genocide-prevention division of about 20,000 troops within the Army:
A genocide-prevention division within the U.S. Army would circumvent this problem. Since its only mission would be to stop genocides, deploying the force would never require us to ask more of soldiers who already have their hands full with other conflicts. Moreover, those volunteering for the new force would know exactly what they were getting into and enlist specifically because they embraced the mission. These soldiers could be recruited from the ranks of idealistic college and high school students across the nation who have done so much to keep Darfur in the public eye.
Color me skeptical. Different kinds of soldiers get different kinds of training, but they're all at least semi-fungible. If we had a spare genocide-prevention division lying around, it would be getting sent to Iraq as part of the "surge" not to Africa. The President would simply argue that escalation of the Iraq War is a genocide-prevention mission because of the sectarian violence. Then on the flipside, I'm not sure there's a discrete military task called "genocide prevention." You might, in an effort to halt a genocide, bomb some buildings or troop formations somewhere. Alternatively, as part of a war to overthrow the Taliban you might wind up policing the streets of Kabul and taking responsibility for the safety of the city's residents. So you want some military forces who specialize in bombing, and others who specialize in policing, but you don't have some troops who specialize in genocide prevention and others who specialize in attacking hostile governments.
At any rate, though the mass killing of civilians is certainly awful on US foreign policy should seek to minimize violations of the international prohibition of such tactics, I do think pursuit of such a goal needs to be put in a broader context [UPDATE: what follows here is an excerpt from Ye Olde Book Drafte]:
Unfortunately, to many liberals and many members of the administration, Kosovo came to be viewed not as an unusual case -- an outlier defining the limits of when liberals would endorse the use of aggressive force absent U.N. authorization -- but as setting a baseline for an ill-defined new era of humanitarian militarism. Michael O'Hanlon, a Brookings Institution scholar thought to have been in line for a top post in a hypothetical Kerry administration, penned a 1999 article advocating military intervention "whenever the rate of killing in a country or region greatly exceeds the U.S. murder rate, whether the killing is genocidal in nature or not" utterly without reference to the United Nations or any other sort of multilateral authority. He listed ten countries -- Sudan, Somalia, Rwanda, Burundi, Liberia, Angola, Bosnia, Chechnya, North Korea, and Kosovo -- where interventions would have been warranted by this standard during the Clinton administration alone. Mercifully, he conceded that fighting the Russian Army in Chechnya was not a very pragmatic option (as he says, it "would have risked a major-power war between nuclear-weapons states with the potential to kill far more people than the intervention could have saved" ) but gave no consideration to the possibility that launching unprovoked unilateral military strikes at the rate of one every nine months or so would destabilize the entire international system. Indeed, despite O'Hanlon's demurral on the Russia front, later that year The New Republic was lamenting that "Milosevic-like deeds by Milosevic's allies will provoke only scolding followed by winking" rather than some unspecified more robust action.
I don't think a 20,000 member division is going to be able to meet the ambitions of a policy like that.
Comments
Where is the second block of text from?
My question, too.
'idealistic ..students who have done so much to keep Darfur in the public eye'
As far as I know those hordes of idealists haven't flocked to Gaza where they believe Israel is genocidal. Or to any of those ten countries mentioned or perhaps twenty other sites where genocide is constantly alleged but things are safer.
They are probably too busy worrying about whether Kerry really lost Ohio.
Surely there are enough civilian funds for a brigade. That isn't much but the longest journey begins with .......
Whether we like it or not there isn't much idealism among our students when things aren't fun.
Matt, please post a link for the second block of text. It is so radiantly common-sensical, and that is so rare for foreign policy "experts", that I'd love to see who wrote it.
I doubt you could get even 2,000 that would be willing to go to Sudan and fight (and they would have to fight). Your genocide prevention Division would need to be able and willing to handle small-scale insurgencies (including hunting and killing the enemy). In Sudan's case you would need to replace the Khartoom (sp?) government to stop the genocide. So our 'G' division would be sent in right after the regular army removed the government to patrol the streets and assert order. Any takers to patrol an Islamic city???
Do you really think you could get 20K liberal idealists to go to Sudan for a year? or a Rwanda? And Fight? I agree with K, there is no idealism when things arn't fun and even less when it requires actual sacrifice and risk.
Ooops -- sloppy writing. That's from the draft of my book.
Perhaps we could have our armchair military mavens write a comic book called "Genocide Prevention Division!" in which they could fantasize about the exploits of a hypothetical team of superheroes who fly around the world fighting evil dictators. After a final mano-a-mano battle with the evil dictator (who would also have super-powers, but be no match for the Genocide Prevention Division), the helpless but grateful population of meek and oppressed third-world brown people would gather around the heroes and thank them profusely. This would be both cheaper and more entertaining then giving these people say in U.S. foreign policy.
Good work on the book, Matt.
One thing I would say: you should reconsider Kosovo. I think it was less an outlier than a mistake. Perhaps an intervention in Bosnia when genocide was ongoing might have been a justifiable emergency outlier, but there is no evidence that Kosovo actually, you know, prevented genocide.
Also, given how unpopular the US currently is around the world, it's hard to see how such a force would be seen as having any political legitimacy.
However, having some sort of permanent genocide prevention/peacekeeping/humanitarian aid force under NATO or the UN might not be a bad idea... although this idea has batted around for years and never seems to get anywhere.
the book's looking awesome--keep those chapters coming.
hanlon's proposal--jesus what a flake. If throwing money at trivial problems is what gives liberals a bad name, then throwing troops at trivial problems should give liberal interventionism a bad name.
intervene whenever the death toll "greatly exceeds" the us murder average? is that the nutsiest thing you've ever heard? how much is greatly? and why does it trump issues like, say, national sovereignty?
man, that combines starry-eyed utopianism, blindness to unintended consequences, disregard of local autonomy, and busy-bodyism in such perfect proportions that it seems more like something written by a right-wing parody of a liberal than a genuine liberal.
the only upside is that it might trigger a marine assault on camden, newark, or washington dc. sorry about that ac-130 attack on florida avenue--we heard there was a nest of insurgents operating there.
Actual genocide is the ultimate crime against humanity, as genetic variation is critical to any species' survival in the face of unknown future threats, such as a deadly pandemic. Our gene pool is our greatest treasure, sacred, it seems to me.
A fast action force to counteract acts of genocide looks like an unfortunate necessity in our times. That shouldn't be the responsibility of the US, but the entire world. The UN troops may not be up to it, but NATO is equiped for the task, until something better can be built. I agree that it wouldn't work as described above, for the reasons given, but the task is important. I've wished for such a force for some time now.
"As far as I know those hordes of idealists haven't flocked to Gaza where they believe Israel is genocidal."
A) There are Americans who have gone to the West Bank and Gaza to act as non-Palestinian shields for Israeli bulldozers, and some have even died doing this.
B) Hanlon is advocating giving these idealists guns and body armor. That's quite a bit better proposition than going to Gaza unarmed, knowing that if you die at the hands of a foreign government the State Department will probably not care very much.
All that said, it doesn't seem like a great idea to target issue-idealists for military service. I guess there's nothing wrong with joining up because of the cause itself, but it seems to be an absurd conclusion of this sort of Wilsonian/ neo-con militaristic idealism when we are selling military service not as service to the country and the Constitution in general but service to certain moral projects. The other big thing is the sad fact that U.S. interventions of this sort are not as credible as they once where. The U.S. is probably one of the worst countries for the job, since today a lot more people would believe the ravings of a guy like Milosevic. In a place like Darfur, a U.S. intervention becomes a great recruiting opportunity for Islamists in the region. An operation which was supposed to be a short term intervention to stop a wave of genocidal violence becomes one more episode in the Third World/ Islamist struggle against the U.S. You don't even have to argue that these interventions would 'create more terrorists' to acknowledge that we will be doing people more harm than good by making their genocide-threatened neighborhood into another front in the war on terrorism.
I', surprised you didn't title the post "G Force".
This Darfur stuff is infuriating. The exact same people who criticize the Iraq war line up in support of a unprovoked war elsewhere jsut ebcause the justification better flatters their vanity. It's like all the arguments against the Iraq war vanish as soon as you say the magic words "human rights".
Yes, what's happening in Darfur is terrible -- maybe even as terrible as the consequences of our last attempt at bombing a country into peace and democarcy. But there are awful things happening every day in this awful old world of ours. How about a dedicated UN program for eradication of waterborne disease? How about a special task force for worldwide literacy? How about malaria -- 1.2 million deaths every year. Nah, not sexy. let's go bomb some bronpeople instead.
Book excerpt is good by the way. In my fantasy world, one of the main arguments you're going to end up makin is that Iraq is not a dramatic departure from the long history of US military interventions abroad, and that the main difference between Bush foreign policy and the Democratic alternative is the rhetoric.
(Domestic policy is of course a different story.)
Matt, you just graduated not long ago from Harvard (I believe). Do you think any of those people you know who are liberal idealists would do this? For 20K people, I would expect 6-9 months training, 1 year in Sudan and maybe 3 months afterward to help train another set. Say 2 years total away from home, job opportunities, schooling etc., plus 50-100 dead and 500-1,000 wounded permanently (in some form or another). Plus the fact when they got back they would have probably been directly responsible for the death of 5,000-10,000 of the Sudanese people doing the genocide (at least).
Can you imagine in your wildest dreams getting even 200 of these types to commit to this? Would you?
And what, prey tell, would be the difference in doing this vs. Iraq? (other than competence).
I'm looking forward to the book.
One potentially feasible peaceful alternative in some cases of ethnic conflict is "compensated ethnic cleansing," such as Israel used to get its settlers out of Sinai and Gaza -- pay people to leave disputed territory, or have them exchange houses (as was done in the Prussian-Danish conflict of the 1860s) and toss in some cash to both families as a sweetener. It's expensive, but not as expensive as war.
I described how it could have worked in Kosovo here:
http://www.isteve.com/kosovo.htm
By the way, in the typical African catastrophe, mercenary units are often strong enough to re-impose order. Nice liberals wouldn't have to go to Darfur themselves, just raise the money to have whatever Executive Outcomes calls itself these days go do it for you.
Of course, there are all sorts of downsides to paying mercenaries, such as they tend to eventually take over the country, as Italian city-states found out in the 1400s and as happened to the Comoros, which French mercenary Bob Denard conquered to use as his retirement home.
Wow, even a dyed-in-the-wool racist like Steve Sailer is smarter than the liberal interventionists.
Clearly, the name of this division should be "G-Unit".
"Wow, even a dyed-in-the-wool racist like Steve Sailer is smarter than the liberal interventionists."
And oddly enough ,seems to have a stronger moral compass than yourself.
"The exact same people who criticize the Iraq war line up in support of a unprovoked war elsewhere jsut ebcause the justification better flatters their vanity."
Indeed. Let's expose these hypocrites who would dare oppose an idiotic, pointless, half-trillion dollar war and then turn around and support the use of military force to stop genocide.
What Sailer is saying is true in that Rwanda and Darfur have been the result of basically stateless situations. This is not a matter of bombing and then invading an area formerly controlled by a mechanized army and institutionalized government structure (like Iraq). We're talking about areas so primitive where groups that don't even rise to the level of paramilitary units can kill on a massive scale because machetes trump just about everything else on the ground. In Darfur it's mainly roaming gangs in Jeeps with small arms.
Stop dumping on Sailer, he's smart and consistently interesting and gives us his writing for free. It's not like he's out there trying to lynch your sister or something. He's just a nut on IQ differentials.
Marines and Army infantry are trained to kill. If you want someone dead that is who you send. Humanitarians on the other hand are usually not all that keen on killing other people. I don't see how these two groups mix.
The US would be better off contributing large sums of money to the various NGOs (and idealists) who are already working in the field in dangerous places where it isn't very fun.
Believe it not there are already some idealists serving in the US military (or at least there were in the 90's)
I don't know anout a genocide protection force, but I do think a dedicated peacekeeping force would be good. The difference to me is a peacekeeping force would have training in things like law enforcement, trust building, capacity building, etc, and hopefully would stop a genocide from occuring. Another positive is that in situation such as Iraq where there are lots of US troops, this force could either train them, or the trainign they udnerwent could be applied to the entire US force. The negative to having such a force is that people would want to deploy them everywhere, and they would probably be stretched too thin
"The exact same people who criticize the Iraq war line up in support of a unprovoked war elsewhere jsut ebcause the justification better flatters their vanity."
"Indeed. Let's expose these hypocrites who would dare oppose an idiotic, pointless, half-trillion dollar war and then turn around and support the use of military force to stop genocide."
Insulting those who express different views, while avoiding their actual arguments, is a very good indication of a vapid position. Re: vanity; project much?
If you don't see the distinction between these situations, look again, then think harder. Vent if you must, but don't expect to be taken seriously after posting like that.
"We're talking about areas so primitive where groups that don't even rise to the level of paramilitary units can kill on a massive scale because machetes trump just about everything else on the ground. In Darfur it's mainly roaming gangs in Jeeps with small arms."
Yes, making the point that an organized force backed by united governments can more easily stop the killers. Who said anything about bombing and invading? Do you understand what a peacekeeping role is? If you are completely opposed to any military mission, say so and clarify your opinion. Implying that every such action amounts to total war, and is therefore unacceptable (but a handy excuse to insult others) is nothing but strawman argument. Please try to do better in the future.
I believe that we should leave the regular army to focus on force-on-force operations and create a new armed service specifically tasked with mixed-style military-police operations like "nation building", "occupation", etc. on FOREIGN SOIL (not for domestic police use - they are military and would be under DOD). It would also have its own in-house intelligence department that focused on the kinds of intelligence work appropriate for its mission.
This would help avoid the kind of beaureucratic f-ups that always happen when you have multiple military and intelligence services all working in an environment that none of them are actually designed for.
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