Robert D. Kaplan on Humanitarian Aid in Syria (Agenda)
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Editor’s Note: Transcripts are generated using speech-recognition technology. Therefore, Stratfor cannot guarantee their complete accuracy.
Video Transcript:
Colin Chapman: The Syrian conflict and many others prompt a great deal of hand wringing across the world with a catchcry: Do Something! But what? Back in 2005 the United Nations initiated the Responsibility to Protect concept, or R2P, to use the diplomat's jargon. It's a set of principles based on the concept that sovereignty is not a right but a responsibility. One problem with this is that in recent years few countries have answered the call, and when they have particularly the United States, then Washington has more often than not been criticized, not complimented.
Welcome to Agenda. I'm Colin Chapman and joining me to discuss this measure is Stratfor's chief analyst Robert Kaplan. Well, what's happening with this particular doctrine?
Robert D. Kaplan: The doctrine, Responsibility to Protect, is still very much alive. The responsibility to protect, though, does not necessarily mean in every case that it's feasible to intervene in a military fashion. The Obama administration is wrestling with something very difficult here, which is everybody wants Syrian President Bashar al Assad removed -- everybody in the west that is. But what would happen if he actually were removed? Would the Syrian Cabinet and military and intelligence services crumble, would they form separate militias and gangs as happened when the Soviet Union crumbled, when Iraq crumbled, when Bulgaria and other east bloc states crumbled, because remember, the Syrian power structure was very much influenced by the east bloc during the Cold War under Bashar al Assad's father, Hafez al Assad. So there still very much is a doctrine Responsibility to Protect, but one has to be very smart about it. Because what one doesn't want to do is precipitate an intervention that rather than minimize the violence, explodes it even further.
Colin: As we've seen in the case of Syria, we've looked at one side, the government, being provided with arms from a U.N. Security Council member, Russia.
Robert: Yes, it is. Increasingly as the Syrian crisis escalates and drags on, the United States is entering a sort of Cold War-style competition with Russia. Remember during the Cold War, the Soviet Union and the United States fought proxy wars around the globe, in Angola, to a much smaller extent in Ethiopia and to a much greater extent in Afghanistan. With Russian President Vladimir Putin supporting Syria, the government of Syria that is, and the United States supporting the rebels, the resistance against the government, each big power seems to have chosen sides. So that the Syrian crisis explodes outward into great power politics, rather than kind of crumbles inward and remains just a very self-contained tragedy.
Colin: What do you say to the people who are wringing their hands and say, "We have to do something." Do being the operative word and suggesting international institutions, like the United Nations, are really ineffective.
Robert: Well here's what I say: several things. First, if we had to do something every time there was an awful atrocity, we would be involved in half a dozen countries around the world, on the ground at any one time. And the American people will simply not support and politically sustain that. Remember, we intervened in Libya, and one of the second order effects of the end of the Gadhafi regime was arms flowing into Tuareg rebels who migrated to Mali, and Mali has since descended into anarchy with a weak military-led government in the south, a Tuareg movement divided from within in the North and significant humanitarian abuses. This can be traced originally to the fall of the Gadhafi regime, so when you do something, you can never sure what the second order effects are. And also, I object to the whole notion that only if you do something in Bosnia, or you do something in Iraq or you do something in Syria, only that qualifies as humanitarian intervention. American warships patrol the high seas 24/7 and that basically minimizes the risk of interstate war between Taiwan and China, between North and South Korea, between the remilitarization of Japan and between India and China heating up their rivalry. So it's the things you prevent that are out of sight and over the horizon that also count as humanitarian actions.
Colin: And of course if the United States or anyone else were to get involved, then they'd probably be criticized for just intervening.
Robert: Yes. Remember that given Iraq, given Afghanistan, given about 6,000 American dead and about 40,000 seriously wounded over the past decade, the American public has no appetite for ground intervention in Syria that could go on for weeks or even months if the problem is not solved immediately. Now to be fair, those calling for intervention in Syria have often made it clear that they too oppose a ground intervention. They understand the problems completely, the complexities, the lack of appetite in the American public. What they've been arguing for is more robust and creative ways for the Obama administration to dislodge President al Assad without an actual invasion of sorts. And also, the administration is cognizant of the fact that once al Assad leaves or is overthrown, who and what replaces him. Because again, we all hated Saddam Hussein, but when he was toppled, the whole system crumbled and we had almost more of a humanitarian catastrophe after he was toppled than was perpetrated over the decades he was in power.
Colin: Robert Kaplan, chief analyst of Stratfor, and that's Agenda for this week. Thanks for being with us, bye for now.
