ASP’s Brown and Consensus member Neumann in American Interest: An Evolving Hope That’s Here to Stay
In the July / August edition of American Interest ASP Adjunct Senior Fellow Seyom Brown and ASP Consensus member Amb Ron Neumann write on the principles sounding the Responsibility to Project (R2P) concept.
They write:
Responsibility to Protect (R2P) principles were a driver of the intervention that toppled the Qaddafi dictatorship and produced its chaotic aftermath.
But their role should not be exaggerated, nor should they be expected to resolve the recurring debates over the weight that humanitarian obligations should be given in U.S. foreign policy, as distinct from geostrategic interests or non-intervention norms. The choices facing the United States in Syria, for example, are more complex than can be deduced from any abstract doctrine, and these choices are themselves no less complex than the dialectic between state-sovereignty and “justice”imperatives that recur throughout history.
Viewed in historical perspective, the R2P concept is a facet of the still-evolving state system. It is not its antithesis, as both some of its champions and detractors are wont to claim. Indeed, the concept is derived largely from traditional just war criteria for employing military force. But it has very large problems as a guide to action.
For the full article, go to:
http://www.the-american-interest.com/article-bd.cfm?piece=1435
