Posner, "Realism" And Confusions About Humanitarian Intervention

Via Sullivan, this from Posner re: Iraq:

A number of people think that my post was meant as a defense of the Iraq war. I have long criticized the idea of humanitarian intervention and have never defended the Iraq war, which was certainly a mistake on the basis of national-interest considerations. But many people, including likely members of the Obama administration (such as Susan Rice, who has advocated a military intervention in Sudan), believe that humanitarian wars are justified. The humanitarian effect of a particular war is an empirical question. The answer in the Iraq case will help determine the Obama administration’s ability and willingness to launch humanitarian interventions in places like Sudan.

Although Posner in general seems as if he's trying to do something good here, I can't help griping about a fiew things. I feel like a broken record...but so long as people keep falling into these elementary confusions, I'm going to keep making the points:

First, only an insane person thinks that national interest is the only consideration we can employ when making foreign policy. Yes, that is what foreign policy "realism"* (actually: ethical egoism writ large) entails; but it is insane. Real "realists" must hold that we should kill everyone in, say, Belize and take their stuff if we could get away with it--that is, if the balance sheet happened to come out in our favor. If that's too science-fictiony for you (and it shouldn't be; science fictiony though-experiments are the best kind (because they are best able to control for the relevant conceptual variables)), then think of a smaller and more realistic kind of thought experiment: realism entails that the U.S. is not only permitted, but, in fact, obligated to steal whatever it can from other nations so long as the expected gain calculations come out right--that is, roughly, so long as what we're likely to gain outweighs what we're likely to lose. What we did to the American Indians was not only permissible, it was obligatory. To be a realist, you have to be a kind of national sociopath.

Second, most FP "realists" aren't actually sociopaths, and don't really think that we as a nation should be a big sociopath. Rather, they invoke "realism" only as a stick to beat policies they don't like. But that's just most of them; some people, I'm sure, really are "realists." Others who invoke "realism" aren't really "realists," but, rather, just think that we should pay more attention to our national interest in making foreign policy. That's a different position entirely. It is not "realism."

Third, not only does Obama think that humanitarian wars can be justified on humanitarian grounds, but they can be. In fact, if any war can be justified, wars can be justified on humanitarian grounds. (In my view, incidentally, there is no fundamental right of self-defense, but, rather, the right to self-defense follows from the obligation to defend the innocent. (One quick argument for this position: it explains why you lose the right to self-defense if you are yourself illicitly attacking the innocent.)) Unless all of Just War Theory is mistaken, pure, unadulterated self-interest can't justify any war. (Of course all of JWT could be mistaken...but it rests on far stronger arguments than FP "realism.")

Fourth, Iraq tells us almost nothing about interventions in, say, Sudan. First, Iraq was not a humanitarian war, and humanitarian goals were never taken that seriously by the Bush administration. (One quick argument for this: if they had, they would have made passably rational plans for after the war.) (Though, of course even non-humanitarian wars can tell us something about humanitarian wars...and vice-versa.) Second, the Iraq war was botched, so, agian, it is of limited informational value, except (speaking from a humanitarian perspective) insofar as it informs us about how not to do things.

I'm starting to worry that this is all too snitty, but damn this "realism" nonsense ticks me off. There is already a tendency for the opponents of the Iraq war to slip into the language of "realism," even though their opposition was based largely on humanitarian arguments (some of them faulty, incidentally). The "realist" certainly should have opposed the war...but one needn't be a "realist" to have done so.


* Note: Foreign Policy "Realism" always deserves the scare quotes, and I'll use them relentlessly, despite how annoying that is. It's not related to any other view known as realism. It certainly has nothing to do with metaphyisical or moral realism. "Realism" is a kind of euphemism. The view should be called something like "State Ethical Egoism." Or perhaps just "the crazy view."