Earlier today, Andrew Exum posted a concise, pointed reflection on the danger of “military intervention,” both as a policy concept and a buzzword. Exum raises a crucial point on the need for collaborative engagement between regional and military expertise, in order to facilitate a cross-disciplinary understanding of the mechanics of coercive force (military), as well as the political contexts in which they operate (regional).
In addition to the regional/military expertise nexus, I’d toss the advocacy realm into the equation. I applaud the Truman National Security Project for their attempt to promote greater understanding of the military and intelligence services among progressive foreign policy advocates, but the human rights community remains largely unfamiliar with the complex dynamics of coercive resource restraints, institutional inertia, and interest-based foreign policy decision-making. For advocates, Eric Martin’s “intervention ratchet” is an all-too-easy process, underlined by a buzzword-level understanding of the defense/security lexicon.
This blog is targeted towards the human rights community, rather than the defense/security folks. In that spirit, I’d like to use this page as a crowd-sourced resource: What terms–”military intervention,” “no-fly zone,” “cross-border operation”–underline the intervention ratchet? Which case studies would you use to exemplify the policy’s mechanics and potential shortcomings? I’ll use this page as a home-base for an expanded series, tagged “The Intervention Ratchet’s Lexicon,” which will serve as a resource for human rights advocates interested in coercive policy interventions.
Cross-Border Operations:
Mass Atrocities Prevention:
- On the teleological, moral narrative of mass atrocities, and how it prevents us from stopping them.
- The leverage metric and the disaggregation of mass atrocities response policy.
- Human-rights organizational cultures and misperceptions of mass atrocities.
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