The Diverse Outcomes of Humanitarian Interventions in Conflict Zones
While the world believes humanitarian intervention holds the power strong enough to
alleviate suffering in conflict zones, it can be argued that the outcomes can be multifaceted as
circumstantial intricacy occasionally aggravates the conflict dynamics leading to augmented
violence, and casualties limiting the prospect of long-term peace. Scholars and researchers have
identified that humanitarian interventions rarely succeed because of the issues that lie within the
leaderships and international organizations that fail to learn from their mistakes from previous
interventions. Humanitarian interventions and their multifaceted outcomes in conflict zones are
not a new topic of discussion. Such interventions are happening in this post-WWII world
frequently. However, interventions in conflict zones by the international community rarely succeed
because of the ulterior motives of intervening states and the lack of comprehensive post-conflict
planning required for establishing long-term peace.
Firstly, humanitarian interventions in recent times have usually failed because of the
ulterior or hidden motives of intervening states or organizations that do not intend to alleviate the
suffering of civilians in a conflict zone. NATO’s intervention in Libya is a prominent example of
it. The intervention was successful in assassinating Muammar Gaddafi, but completely failed in
restoring peace in Libya. The reason behind the unrest could be NATO’s ulterior motives. The
intervention suggests NATO was there not for civilian protection but for overthrowing Gaddafi’s
regime and for that they continued to support rebel groups militarily even when they were
committing war crimes and violating human rights severely (Bachman, 2015). The same military
groups then created a situation of unrest in Libya leading to the failure of restoration of peace. The
answer to whether or not Libya would be peaceful if NATO didn’t defy the UN mandate and
focused on civilian protection rather than regime change or geopolitical interests by strengthening
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rebel groups remains unknown. A similar incident had already occurred in Iraq eight years before
Libya’s intervention, but the intervening states and authorities failed to learn from it. In 2003, the
United States led an intervention in Iraq citing the goal of eliminating Weapons of Mass
Destruction (WMD) held by Saddam Hussein which was never found. Several scholars have, then,
identified numerous ulterior motives of the intervening states. According to Butt (2019), a major
motive behind the invasion was the “desire to maintain the United States’ global standing and
hierarchic order” and post a statement to the world that they wouldn’t be pushed by attacks like
9/11. The arguments presented by these scholars seem valid enough as it appears that the
intervening states lied about their motives of protecting the civilians and strengthening security in
both cases which has led to an ongoing unrest in the region.
Secondly, a lack of comprehensive post-conflict planning by the intervening states and
organizations has often failed humanitarian interventions. One such incident was the US and the
UN intervention in Somalia during the Somali Civil War. The intervention’s motive was to address
famine and protect innocent civilians during the violent civil war, but the intervention faced several
challenges in peacekeeping. The biggest setback they faced was the ‘Black Hawk Dawn’ in which
two Black Hawk helicopters were shot down killing 18 US troops and several hundreds of Somalis
(Carpenter, 2021). This led to the US and the UN both pulling out their forces from Somalia
without establishing a proper government which led to a power vacuum in Somalia resulting in
unrest that has exceeded three decades now. Both the US and the UN failed to have a proper
conflict and post-conflict resolution plan which led to the failure of the humanitarian intervention.
After a few years, the United States again failed to establish long-term peace in Afghanistan when
they decided to intervene to oust the Taliban regime following the 9/11 attacks. According to Herd
(2021), the intervention in Afghanistan can be judged as a “collective strategic failure”. An
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Afghani internal minister believes the intervention to be an “accidental war” with no strategy for
what needed to happen after the intervention. A report prepared by the State Department of the US
also emphasized how some decisions made by Donald Trump and Joe Biden to pull out troops
from Afghanistan without proper planning served as an incentive for Taliban to take over the
government of Afghanistan. It was seen that failure to include a crisis management team during
the planning process led to the overall failure of the mission (Wadhen et al., 2019). These instances
of Western interventions in conflict zones create a vivid picture of how a lack of proper planning,
both during and after the conflict contributes to hindering the long-term peace and stability in the
conflict zone.
In recent times, when the Western military has intervened in conflict zones, they tend to
create a bigger mess than what was there, but sometimes interventions work, and the forces
deployed there meet their objective of establishing peace. One such incident of the success of
humanitarian interventions is the International Forces for East Timor (INTERFET) created to
restore peace and security in East Timor. Within forty days of its operation, the last Indonesian
troops left East Timor after 24 years of occupation (Lachica, 2011). Even after a successful
intervention, INTERFET helped in logistics, reconstruction, and escorting of aid convoys and also
provided medical assistance which allowed other organizations to deliver supplies of basic needs
to the people of East Timor (Seybolt, 2007). Why INTERFET succeeded while the aforementioned
four interventions failed can be justified using the two same reasons again. Firstly, the only motive
of INTERFET was to free the people of East Timor from the Indonesian occupation, unlike Libya
and Iraq where humanitarian motives were downplayed by the desire for a regime change and a
show of power respectively. Secondly, INTERFET was properly planned as they stayed in East
Timor and helped them reconstruct even after the success of the intervention while the US and the
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UN failed to do so in Somalia and Afghanistan. If we evaluate the interventions that have been
conducted to date, most of them have failed because of these two reasons. This implies that in the
present world of ours where states prioritize their geopolitical interests above humanity and peace,
it is very rare that a humanitarian intervention succeeds.
In conclusion, it can be said that humanitarian interventions until conducted without any
loopholes and considering a lot of important factors especially ulterior motives, and a lack of
proper planning would just contribute to escalating the conflict. The common belief of people that
humanitarian intervention alleviates the suffering of civilians in conflict zones is not always true.
Only when intervening nations or organizations learn from the mistakes they made in previous
interventions and through continuous studies and research in this field, we might move forward in
maintaining peace through humanitarian interventions.
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References
Bachman, J. (2015). R2P’s “Ulterior Motive Exemption” and the Failure to Protect in Libya.
Politics and Governance, 3(4), 56. https://doi.org/10.17645/pag.v3i4.309
Butt, A. I. (2019). Why did the United States Invade Iraq in 2003? Security Studies, 28(2), 250–
285. https://doi.org/10.1080/09636412.2019.1551567
Carpenter, T. G. (2021). Killing with Kindness: Somalia Sets a Precedent for US “Humanitarian”
Interventions. Cato.org. https://www.cato.org/commentary/killing-kindness-somalia-setsprecedent-us-humanitarian-interventions
Herd, G. (2021, August). The Causes and the Consequences of Strategic Failure in Afghanistan?
Www.marshallcenter.org.
https://www.marshallcenter.org/en/publications/security-
insights/causes-and-consequences-strategic-failure-afghanistan-0
Lachica, A. A. (2011). Humanitarian intervention in East Timor: An analysis of Australia’s
leadership role. Peace & Conflict Review, 5(2).
Seybolt, T. B. (2007). Humanitarian Military Intervention : Causes of Success and Failure.
Oxford University Press.
Wadhen, M. H. Z., Hali, S. M., & Jamil, A. (2019). US failure in Afghanistan: Half-baked planning
or Pakistan? Margalla Papers, 23(II), 127–138.
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