International/Foreign Intervention

[Simplicius]

To avoid going on for bloody ages, and also drafting and re-drafting this post a dozen times, I'll just pose the questions outright:

Is a humanitarian purpose worth a military intervention? Is the ultimate success of humanitarian aid (cash, food, medicine, whatever) contingent on the existence of political stability, and is a military intervention (in cases of civil or ethnic war) necessary or useful before that stability can be achieved? Neocon triumph-of-democracy nation-building may be crap, but does that preclude the possibility that outside effort can improve the basic material condition of people over the long term?

Should or could high military spending and maintenance of global force-projection capability be justified on these grounds?

These are some of the questions I asked myself after watching Black Hawk Down last night. You may now laugh, and, should you so desire, point.

(Note to Mods: If you deem this less an ethical/moral matter than a political one or none-of-the-above, I encourage you to exercise your powers.)

[Stuart Mackey]

Sometimes. It depends on the nature of the conflict and how you approch it. For a succesful millitary interevention look at East Timor Bouganville and the Solomon Islands.

[wolveraptor]

This kind of thing only works if external military intervention is desired by the oppressed populace of Shitholistan, or whatever 3rd world country you're invading.