Arguments Against Intervention Essay

The international community has undergone extensive change in the last century. We have seen atrocities like the Holocaust, the Rwandan genocide, and more recently, the violence of Al Qaeda and ISIS. Each time a new tragedy strikes, the world is asking “Should we help?” or “Who will help if we do not?”. In an era and globalization and interdependence, these questions need to be considered carefully. As Adam Roberts points out “It is sometimes suggested that the changes in the world in the past decade require exponents of the academic subject of international relations to go back to the drawing board.” (Roberts, 3). In the end, it comes down to the fact the United States, along with the rest of the international community, needs to intervene

One argument against intervention is that other countries are sovereign and we do not have the authority to impose our moral standards on the rest of the world. While this may be true for some minor cultural aspects, I do believe there should be some standards when it involves unnecessary suffering or death for a large group of people. Another argument against intervention is that countries tend to rush into conflicts in order to protect the citizens’ human rights without knowing exactly what they are getting involved in, and this can make the situation worse. Historically, in my opinion, the United States has been slow to react to human rights violation, specifically the Holocaust and the Rwandan genocide. If other countries had stepped in sooner, millions of lives could have been saved, which I would think is more important than causing some political turmoil for a genocidal

Even Chinese ambassador Qiao Zonghuai echoes this point when he addressed the United Nations: “The United States is used to pointing fingers at other countries ' human rights situations, but back in its own country, there exist gross violations of human rights: notorious racial discrimination, police brutality, torture in prison, infringement on women 's rights and campus gun killings. A country like the U.S.…has no right to judge other countries.” (Human Rights, 4) While I definitely agree the United States has had a less than pleasant history of human rights violations, that does not excuse the actions of other countries now. The U.S. has (hopefully) learned from their past mistakes and is now able to recognize atrocities in the present, and should be capable of handling them or assisting other countries. The United States is not the only country to have a scarred past. Nearly every other country in the world has a shameful history. It is not exclusive to individual countries, instead it is a characteristic of humanity as a whole. We need to continue moving forward and healing from our past transgressions instead of pointing fingers. If we focus on our ability to come together to prevent human rights violations we can have a future