The Stick or the Carrot

Debated during the Bosnian War and endorsed during the Kosovo campaign, unilateral military intervention is the politically inopportune means to surely halt civil violence. Debate about American foreign policy, caught between the moral mandate to police humanitarian crises and the political cost of losing American lives abroad, typically oscillates, at least very generally, between interventionism and isolationism.

The latest in this line of debate concerning South Eastern Europe: Marko Attila Hoare fears that a dovish Obama would not, as President, stand up to an aggressive Russia in the Caucuses or an emboldened Serbia in the Balkans:

“…At the very moment when there is greatest need for US leadership, and for more US unilateralism to compensate for Europe’s retreat into short-sighted selfishness, a President Obama would defer to the West Europeans on issues relating to South East Europe, on account of his own inexperience and lack of interest in foreign affairs. This is precisely what Clinton did…”

Hoare must not have read Hans-Jürgen Schlamp’s piece in Der Spiegel, saying that turning from the negotiating table and confronting aggressive states in South Eastern Europe would be a move not only politically inadmissible to the US’s Western European allies, but strategically idiotic:

“Anyone who takes a clear-headed look at the situation must come to the conclusion that there really is no alternative to a dialogue with the Kremlin. What would be the alternative? Arming Georgia and Ukraine? Deploying NATO troops? Where would they be sent?”

The upshot: Unilateral military action can sometimes make sense in a humanitarian crisis, but never in a diplomatic one. The challenge is how to tell the difference between the two.