Ten Years After Saddam's Fall

Lesson of Saddam’s Fall is that War Can Be Best Way to Justice, Yorkshire Post, December 13, 2013. "It was only a decade ago that US forces pulled Saddam Hussein out of his spiderhole at a farmhouse in ad-Dawr, near his home town of Tikrit. That success – indeed, that war – seems now to belong to another century. But it’s not so far removed from today’s travails."

John Stuart Mill, the ATT, and Syria

Multilateralism and the Arms Trade Treaty, Contentions, March 18, 2013. "The negotiation of the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT), which I am observing at the U.N., offers a wonderful environment in which to observe the various species of hypocrisy. But like any zoo, you pretty well know what’s in the cage. Iran will be smoothly menacing, Syria will spit venom, and every developing nation will demand “implementation assistance,” i.e. more foreign aid. In the U.N., the dangers and the silliness are somewhat mitigated by their predictability."

Intervention to Enforce Non-Intervention

John Stuart Mill on Mercenaries in Libya, Contentions, March 9, 2011. "It’s not clear whether Muammar Qaddafi is importing mercenaries to help him (further) crush his own people. The Christian Science Monitor is inclined to credit the reports, while Human Rights Watch argues that the allegations are unconfirmed and arise from Qaddafi’s efforts to promote civil equality in Libya (no, really, that’s what they say)."

Back to First Principles on Sovereignty

Sovereignty and Humanitarian Interventions, New Ledger, April 28, 2010. "Mark Mazower is a distinguished historian of Europe, and a professor of history at Columbia University. He has a piece in the latest World Affairs that sheds useful light on the rise and fall of the concept of humanitarian interventions. But it also reveals some common misconceptions about the relationship between sovereignty and international institutions, and presents a thoroughly contradictory vision of the road forward."

What Might John Stuart Mill Say About Engagement?

J.S. Mill and Burma, Contentions, August 27, 2009. "Van Jackson, founder and executive editor of Asia Chronicle, has written a column titled 'Principles impede progress for Burma,' attacking those—like a colleague of mine here at the Heritage Foundation—who have the temerity to argue that U.S. policy toward Burma should be based on principles. Jackson, by contrast, prefers the meaningless criterion of effectiveness devoid of any actual objectives. In his pursuit of steely-eyed utilitarianism, Jackson makes the amusing claim that 'British philosopher John Stuart Mill would turn over in his grave at the idea of allowing such a failed policy to continue.' Jackson appears to know just enough about Mill to be dangerous, i.e., that Mill was a utilitarian. True indeed—at least until Mill suffered from a nervous breakdown at the age of 20 and turned to the poetry of the Romantics as a relief from the dust-dry pursuit of utility. Partisans of policy without principle might take a lesson from that."