Intervening to win?

Based on his prior scholarly and advocacy work, it’s safe to say that Bob Pape has not been a huge fan of U.S. military interventions.  In Bombing to Win, he argued that the coercive effect of air power had been wildly overstated.  In Dying to Win, he argued that the presence of foreign troops and bases are most likely to inspire suicide terrorism.  Pape was a foreign policy advisor to Ron Paul’s 2008 presidential campaign, which evinced a foreign policy based on non-interventionism.  There’s been some more-than-mild disagreements with Pape’s scholarly conclusions, but to date he’s articulated a very clear and consistent message warning about the risks of foreign interventions.

Which is why his New York Times op-ed today is so damn surprising.  His basic argument: 

A new standard for humanitarian intervention is needed. If a continuing government-sponsored campaign of mass homicide — in which thousands have died and many thousands more are likely to die — is occurring, a coalition of countries, sanctioned by major international and regional institutions, should intervene to stop it, as long as they have a viable plan, with minimal risk of casualties for the interveners….

Limited military force to stop campaigns of state-sanctioned homicide is more pragmatic than waiting for irrefutable evidence of “genocide.” It will not work in every case, but it will save large numbers of lives. It also promotes restraint in cases where humanitarian intervention would be high-risk or used as a pretext for imperial designs.

As the world’s sole military superpower, the United States will be at the center of many future debates over humanitarian action. Rather than hewing to the old standard of intervening only after genocide has been proved, the emerging new standard would allow for meaningful and low-risk military action before the killing gets out of control.

This is quite the conclusion coming from Pape, and, at a minimum, is hard to square with some of his prior work (though, it should be noted, it is consistent with what he wrote in April 2011).  I wonder how it applies to Syria…. oh, here’s the relevant paragraphs: 

Syria is, I admit, a tough case. It is a borderline example of a government’s engaging in mass killings of its citizens. The main obstacle to intervention is the absence of a viable, low-casualty military solution. Unlike Libya, where much of the coastal core of the population lived under rebel control, the opposition to Syria’s dictatorial president Bashar al-Assad, has not achieved sustained control of any major population area. So air power alone would probably not be sufficient to blunt the Assad loyalists entrenched in cities, and a heavy ground campaign would probably face stiff and bloody resistance.

If a large region broke away from the regime en masse, international humanitarian intervention could well become viable. Until then, sadly, Syria is not another Libya. A mass-homicide campaign is under way there, but a means to stop it without unacceptable loss of life is not yet available.

I’m not sure how keen I am on military intervention into Syria right now, but if one employs Pape’s own criteria, then these paragraphs seem like some serious hand-waving.  First, it’s not a "borderline example" of atrocities.  The UN estimated more than 5000 dead back in December — that meets the "thousands have died" criteria, and if the status quo persists, thousands more are going to die. 

Second, one could argue that Assad’s ability to repress has been severely compromised.  If it’s really true that Assad’s forces no longer control half the country — and that’s a big if — then creating an enclave would be easier than Pape suggests. 

Again, I’m not suggesting that the United States should do this — there would be a lot of policy externalities and second-order effects to consider.  What I’m suggesting is that Pape’s sudden embrace of humanitarian intervention — and subsequent rejection of that option in Syria — is just damn puzzling.

What do you think?