Altruism In Military Action

A couple of posts from Volokh Conspiracy that discuss what I brought up earlier about interventionism and how Congress didn't authorize American involvement.

First let's address the latter about 'Why Congress played no role',

Congress’ reaction to President Obama’s decision to launch a military intervention in Libya has been supine even by Congress’ usual standards. Congress vigorously debated and refused to authorize President Clinton’s military intervention in Kosovo in 1999 (Clinton intervened anyway). Congress debated and authorized the attacks on Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003. Yet Congress has been mostly silent about the intervention in Libya. Why?



President Obama is following a long line of precedents in which the executive lanched a foreign war without congressional authorization. The president disavowed these precedents during his campaign; he may or may not attempt to distinguish his campaign statement by invoking the UN security council resolution authorizing the attack, as Truman did for Korea. But this legal wrangling is all superstructure. Congress is disabled in numerous ways from making practical contributions to a war effort. It cannot prevent the president from starting a war, and it is nearly impossible to halt an ongoing war. Wars, then, simply become an opportunity for members of Congress to stake their reputations as hawks or doves for the sake of future elections.


The Libya intervention provides an instructive example of the disabilities hampering Congress. Events in Libya unfolded with extraordinary rapidity, while the proper American stance depended on numerous constantly changing factors—the security situation in Libya, the attitudes of neighboring states and their populations, and the positions of foreign powers such as the UK, France, China, and Russia. A major source of complexity is that these various attitudes and positions depended in part on what other people thought the United States would do. The rebels might hold out if they believed that the United States would intervene, and by holding out possibly prevail without American intervention. The UK and France might sound the tocsins of war only as long as they believed that the United States would support them if they obtained the acquiescence of other countries, which in turn would care about American attitudes as well. As these various actors calculated their moves, they sent out feelers to the U.S. executive and received responses—promises, hints, suggestions. Eventually, international opinion coalesced and military intervention followed.

Still. Sounds dangerously like the Commander-in-Chief can over ride Congress in times of war - which I think is lawful. However, is Libya a direct threat to the United States? Europe may have more of an argument. Again, what makes this tricky is the oil and business interests in the region. Nonetheless, there's still a part of me that wonders if oil is, though a serious one, but one mere consideration among several.

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As for the former, years ago I remember The Economist describing Clinton's intervention in Bosnia-Kosovo as an interventionism that came as close to "altruism" as one can get in military matters.

We're seeing this line of logic being used in Libya. Humanitarian interventionism as it were.

Discussed here.