Non-Intervention

I was talking with a friend recently about the Australian Defence Force, and whether it was just that - a defence force. We seemed to be in agreement that it was an offensive force, yet I, unlike my friend, saw this to be a good thing. I am not a big fan of the policy of non-intervention - it seems to me irresponsible to stand by idly by and let evil run its course. They say, 'Evil triumphs because good men do nothing', but I think the man who does nothing is part of the evil, and can’t be separated from it.

Of course, this doesn’t mean we all need to go sticking their hand into every dispute we know about. For example, hindsight shows us that the American intervention in Vietnam escalated a small scale conflict into a huge scale war. It increased involvement from major Communist powers, brought in far more destructive weaponry and ended up costing millions of lives. But where we have the capability, we also have the responsibility to prevent evil.

I can think of a number of reasons I can think of that are given as a defence for passivity:

(1) The Postmodern View - given that right and wrong are products of a society s culture and heritage and therefore there is no universal right/wrong. Because of this, one culture can not criticise another based upon its own understanding of morality. This leads to the tag of neo-colonialism whenever the need for intervention arrives.
(2) Karma – if you believe ‘what goes around comes around’ then any suffering that you witness is the just return for somebody’s wickedness. Thus, to intervene would be to divert the divine course of justice, creating more unbalance.
(3) The Pacifist View – there are plenty of people out there who seem to think that ‘violence is never the answer’. Among the advocates of such a view are the Christian ‘peace churches’, such as the Church of the Brethren, the Mennonites, and the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), who somehow got in their head that Jesus promoted non-violence.

On the other hand, we have some strong reasons for being interventionist:

(1) Utilitarian View – ‘the end justifies the means’. If by intervening more suffering is prevented than created, then intervention is a moral imperative. However, one should not intervene if such an action will increase the overall suffering. This can be a useful way about thinking, but it can be unhelpful as you can’t really know how events will turn out (would the US have joined the Vietnam War if they had known the outcome?).
(2) Deontological View – if you hold that there are certain moral absolutes than it is necessary that you defend these absolutes, even if to do so would mean risking your life or the lives of others. So, if you actually think genocide is wrong, and that we ought to avert what is wrong, then you can not let genocide occur. Indeed, to not intervene would be to tacitly consent to genocide.

I wouldn’t be the first to criticise the isolationism of the Allied powers pre-WWII which allowed the rise of Hitler – whose views had been quite clearly stated in Mein Kampf. The decision not to intervene allowed the situation escalate into a world war. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who I consider something of an authority on the subject, claimed,
'There can only be a community of peace when it does not rest on lies and injustice. Where a community of peace endangers or chokes truth and justice, the community of peace must be broken and the battle joined.' [1]
When there is injustice, peace can not be present. First remove the injustice, paving the way for peace.


[1] Dietrich Bonhoeffer, No Rusty Swords