Foreign Intervention Never Plays Out Like They Say It Will

While foreign intervention has continued to be employed liberally, even as the public has less interest in it, politicians continue to justify it through several tired excuses. They might even gain popularity by throwing aside their pretensions at justice and stating the real reason for their conquest, but the reasons they give unknowingly show a glaring contradiction. One reason often cited by the US and the UN when invading some unfortunate country is that they are seeking to mitigate violence. While in most countries they encounter, violence may be present, they are multiplying that violence by guaranteeing the deaths of any who stand up to their attempts at world hegemony. Protection against tyranny is also a key ground for attacks, yet most only replace the tyranny of that country’s government with a US imposed tyranny and an increased level of economic tyranny on US citizens. Additionally, the justification of unifying the world under one big happy family of democratically governed nations is not permissible either, as these attacks drive deeper cultural rifts, and even damage democratic nations who would otherwise have been just fine. This does not mean that there is no justification for war, but rather that the intervener must justify intervention only as a last resort. 

Many intervention decisions seeking to end violence are made without a consideration of the cost of the conquest being considered. The violence inflicted on American troops and by them to civilians is an afterthought to whatever violence is being done by the regime in power. The readiness of the US to jump into foreign conflicts, even under the Trump administration shows that the balance has been tipped heavily towards favoring intervention. Strategic targeting of policy outcomes with minimal loss of human life is forgotten in favor of a status quo that rewards intervention. The military industrial complex, lobbyists, and bloodthirsty allies don’t make the resistance of violence any easier. While a foreign dictator engaging in violence is seen as an unforgivable crime against humanity, the associated violence that we cause is something we have the international clout to avoid consequences for. Corrupt dictators should be toppled, but the assumption that the US will always be the best one to do that must end. Foreign intervention to stop violence cannot be justified any longer without a more robust understanding of our own propensity to multiply violence.

Tyranny when seen in another nation is both recognizable and worthy of condemnation. However, as the US slides further down the international ranks of free countries, it is easy to see that we are blind to our own tyranny. Regulatory control and rigid ideological standards have become the norm, and election cycles simply tilt the font of these restrictions. A lack of freedom in other countries is used to justify our interference, yet very rarely is a foreign campaign free from some level of American tyranny. The stripping of a nation’s sovereignty through the use of violent force along with the associated tax burden on American citizens can no longer be seen as collateral that is always justifiable. The rest of the world has become increasingly skeptical of US involvement as they recognize whether well-intentioned or not, our ability to de-stabilize entire regions of the world. The phenomenon of Federal expansion in times of war is not new information to anyone, yet it can easily be brushed under the rug when using the crisis mentality that typically beats down resistance to foreign attacks.

Very few things have done more to damage the potential world unity in the post World War II era than American intervention. While there are certainly some proxy battlegrounds on which Russia or China would have gained a huge strategic advantage over the US, there were many that could have been left to govern themselves without US intervention in either war or financial support. US citizens will forever be limited in their ability to do business and interact with the world because of the repeated intervention of the government. The desire to unify the world through the eradication of radical Islam created far more radical Islam then there would have been otherwise. The US conquest of the middle east gave clear data points that could be used to inspire ire against America for years to come. There are countless more examples where a desire to fix a specific situation created a perpetual battleground for years to come. In almost no situation has foreign intervention provided a step towards world unity without some unforeseen consequences that further fragment the world. Before politicians sell you on our next big intervention, look to the past, and recognize that the situation must be truly dire and relevant before we should really intervene.