Is humanitarian intervention dead?

Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright fears that it is: THE Burmese government’s criminally neglectful response to last month’s cyclone, and the world’s response to that response, illustrate three grim realities today: totalitarian governments are alive and well; their neighbors are reluctant to pressure them to change; and the notion of national sovereignty as sacred ...

Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright fears that it is:

Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright fears that it is:

THE Burmese government’s criminally neglectful response to last month’s cyclone, and the world’s response to that response, illustrate three grim realities today: totalitarian governments are alive and well; their neighbors are reluctant to pressure them to change; and the notion of national sovereignty as sacred is gaining ground, helped in no small part by the disastrous results of the American invasion of Iraq. Indeed, many of the world’s necessary interventions in the decade before the invasion — in places like Haiti and the Balkans — would seem impossible in today’s climate.

I’m not so sure Burma represents the best test case here. Can we really imagine a Haiti-style intervention in one of the world’s most xenophobic countries? We’re not talking about a failed state here, but a paranoid, Stalinist military junta that would need to be violently shoved aside in order for a Haiti-like receivership to take hold.

There’s another thing Albright doesn’t take into account: the China factor. Guess who is not too enthusiastic about humanitarian intervention in places like Burma, Sudan, and Zimbabwe, and guess who’s vastly more powerful than in the 90s?

UPDATE: Yglesias chimes in.

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