Articles

20 Items

The newly renovated United Nations Security Council Chambers, also known as the Norwegian Room, is seen before the reopening ceremony, Tuesday, April 16, 2013 at U.N. headquarters.

AP Photo/Mary Altaffer

Journal Article - Quarterly Journal: International Security

The Permanence of Inconsistency: Libya, the Security Council, and the Responsibility to Protect

    Author:
  • Aidan Hehir
| Summer 2013

Many observers heralded the Security Council–sanctioned intervention in Libya in March 2011 as evidence of the efficacy of the responsibility to protect (R2P). Although there is no doubt that the intervention was significant, the implications of Resolution 1973 are not as profound as some have claimed. The intervention certainly coheres with the spirit of R2P, but it is possible to situate it in the context of a trajectory of Security Council responses to large-scale intrastate crises that predate the emergence of R2P. This trajectory is a function of the decisionmaking of the five permanent members of the Security Council (P5), a group guided by politics and pragmatism rather than principles. As a consequence, the Security Council’s record in dealing with intrastate crises is characterized by a preponderance of inertia punctuated by aberrant flashes of resolve and timely action impelled by the occasional coincidence of interests and humanitarian need, rather than an adherence to either law or norms. The underlying factors that contributed to this record of inconsistency—primarily the P5’s veto power—remain post-Libya, and thus the international response to intrastate crises likely will continue to be inconsistent.

Tuareg militants, seen driving near Timbuktu, Mali, on May 7, 2012, share control of northern Mali with Islamist groups and al-Qaeda fighters. The Tuaregs militants fled to Mali after Qaddafi's defeat and launched a rebellion there.

Magharebia Photo CC

Journal Article - Quarterly Journal: International Security

A Model Humanitarian Intervention? Reassessing NATO's Libya Campaign

| Summer 2013

NATO's 2011 humanitarian military intervention in Libya has been hailed as a model for implementing the emerging norm of the responsibility to protect (R2P), on grounds that it prevented an impending bloodbath in Benghazi and facilitated the ouster of Libya's oppressive ruler, Muammar al-Qaddafi, who had targeted peaceful civil protesters. Before the international community embraces such conclusions, however, a more rigorous assessment of the net humanitarian impact of NATO intervention in Libya is warranted.

In this photo released by Syria's official news agency, aid supplies are seen unloaded  in Damascus airport, Mar. 15, 2012. Arabic words on the boxes say: "Tribute of love and loyalty from the people of Iran to the dear Syrian people."

AP Photo

Journal Article - Tel Aviv Notes

The Syrian Uprising: The View from Tehran

| June 27, 2012

"Though the inconsistency of Iranian support for popular protest everywhere but Syria (and Iran itself) is apparent, it is hardly remarkable. Throughout the last 18 months of tumultuous events in the region, governments have struggled to calibrate their interests and align them with the values and beliefs used to justify their actions."

Journal Article - Quarterly Journal: International Security

The Security Curve and the Structure of International Politics: A Neorealist Synthesis

    Author:
  • Davide Fiammenghi
| Spring 2011

Realist scholars have long debated the question of how much power states need to feel secure. Offensive realists claim that states should constantly seek to increase their power. Defensive realists argue that accumulating too much power can be self-defeating. Proponents of hegemonic stability theory contend that the accumulation of capabilities in one state can exert a stabilizing effect on the system. The three schools describe different points along the power con­tinuum. When a state is weak, accumulating power increases its security. This is approximately the situation described by offensive realists. A state that con­tinues to accumulate capabilities will eventually triggers a balancing reaction that puts its security at risk. This scenario accords with defensive realist as­sumptions. Finally, when the state becomes too powerful to balance, its oppo­nents bandwagon with it, and the state’s security begins to increase again. This is the situation described by hegemonic stability theory. These three stages delineate a modified parabolic relationship between power and secu­rity. As a state moves along the power continuum, its security increases up to a point, then decreases, and finally increases again. This modified parabolic re­lationship allows scholars to synthesize previous realist theories into a single framework.

A view of the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan on October 25, 2003.

AP Photo

Journal Article - World Policy Journal

Afghanistan: Partners in Time

| Fall 2008

"If the Pakistani authorities cannot or will not play their part, a way should be found to scale back significantly the U.S. and NATO military commitment in Afghanistan. Our fundamental problem, it should be emphasized, is with Al Qaeda, and secondarily with the Taliban, who sheltered Al Qaeda. We cannot be perceived as moving toward a colonial war, as happened in Vietnam...."

Russian troops ride atop armored vehicles near the village of Khurcha in Georgia's breakaway province of Abkhazia,  Aug. 10, 2008, heading toward the border of Georgia.

AP Photo

Journal Article - Caucasian Review of International Affairs

Identities, Interests and the Resolution of the Abkhaz Conflict

| Summer 2008

"The recent crisis in Abkhazia reveals a fundamental qualitative change in the conflict in which the balance among three main actors is shifting, and increasingly the conflict plays a more important role in the triangular relations between Georgia, Russia and the West. The search for a new equilibrium in the conflict, one that would be an optimal outcome for the actors involved, will require rethinking the mutually constitutive roles (identities) and interests they want to assume with respect to the conflict and the entire South Caucasus...."