When Intervention Becomes Duty

Last week, an op-ed was published in The Exonian alleging that the Democratic Party has drifted towards support for imperial politics, particularly in the global South. The nature of this imperialism remains amorphous. For the sake of this article, I will presume the author refers to military and political interventions by the United States in other nations’ affairs.

First of all, the author claims that “Historically, liberal progressives were strongly opposed to wars, advocating and marching for peace abroad. Over the past few years, the historic position of the Democratic Party has flipped entirely.” But is it really true that the Democratic Party has historically opposed intervention? I cite the counter-examples: Wilson in WWI, Roosevelt in WWII, Truman in Korea, Kennedy in Cuba, Johnson in Vietnam, Clinton in Kosovo, Obama in Afghanistan and Libya. That’s every Democratic president since the First World War, spare one—Jimmy Carter. So, for starters, the isolationist camp has never really dominated the Democratic Party, and if there was a shift, it certainly didn’t happen “over the past few years.”

Now, why is it that the Democratic Party is, and frankly, has always been, “the globalist imperialist party of perpetual war,” as the author describes it? As a liberal myself, I will happily contend that support for intervention, at least in some circumstances, stems from liberal principles. What are these principles? Rule of law, individual freedom, equality before the law. The list goes on, but liberals fundamentally believe that legitimate governments respect basic and universal human rights. The state, we contend, has no authority to take away those rights, because they were not given by the state to begin with. Rather, the rights are naturally and universally true.

Thus, the claim of the liberal is a truly radical one—that human rights apply to people everywhere, that the rule of law works everywhere, and that those foundations ought to be respected everywhere. Herein, of course, lies the question of liberal foreign policy. How do we act out of respect for that belief in human dignity, especially when confronted with other nations who systematically deny their citizens civil freedom? What should liberals do about countries with no press freedom that burn churches, that suppress protests, that subjugate women and LGBT+ people, or that invade their citizens’ privacy? I answer: intervene. I don’t see it possible for a liberal, one who posits the relevance of civil rights everywhere, to simultaneously be silent as they are taken away.

I never have and never will contend that military force is always the solution, neither do most liberals. We should cooperate with our allies, apply diplomatic pressure, use sanctions—and only when absolutely necessary—military force to protect human rights. I will acknowledge that America has an imperfect track record in the application of these tools; far too often, they have been used to advance the interests of select groups of people, at the expense of millions. I will acknowledge that this has happened far too often and will point to our Latin American policies as an example. I do not deny as much, but I do deny the claim that intervention itself is the problem.

Intervention by the United States has brought real, material progress—such as the development of Europe following WWII, the defenses of Kosovo, Korea and Kuwait from invasion, real infrastructure and political development in the Global South and the survival of democratic government in every corner of the Earth, despite oftentimes hateful attempts to push democratic movements down. One need not support war with Iran to see that, at its best, the intervention of the “Euro-American axis” has helped form the global values and institutions that protect these basic human rights, including the United Nations.

The “Pax Americana,” as some critics have called it, is perhaps the greatest achievement of the modern liberal movement.

Of course, the author of last week’s opinion has drawn some distinction between internationalism and globalism. The thing is, the two words are literal synonyms. Rather than being representative of two fundamentally different foreign policies, it seems that globalism has become merely “internationalism that I don’t like.” But at the end of the day, we have two real choices: (a) we can lean into the world as a defender of human rights, or (b) we can retreat into our own corner and lean away from the world’s problems.

If we choose (b), I’m going to need to know who fills the void of this “Euro-American axis.” Is it Russia? Is it China? As we look to the 2020 presidential election, I’m pretty sure that neither Bernie Sanders nor Tulsi Gabbard would like the answer.