By Nikolas Gvosdev | 07 Oct 2011
The decision this week by Russia and China to veto a U.N. Security Council resolution condemning the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad for its use of violence against its domestic opponents has attracted much attention — and opprobrium. What has generated less discussion is the fact that the three states of the IBSA bloc — India, Brazil and South Africa — abstained from the vote. But their unwillingness to support the resolution has clear implications both for the future of the “responsibility to protect” doctrine as well as for America’s own relationships with the rising democracies of the South.
Certainly notions of anti-imperialism and “Third World solidarity” help to provide some context for their decision to abstain. India, which for decades played a leading role in the Non-Aligned Movement; South Africa, which is ruled by the African National Congress; and Brazil, which is looking to establish its own distinct global presence: None of the three were predisposed to automatically rally behind a resolution sponsored by the Western powers. But these three democracies’ reluctance to sanction an authoritarian regime that is increasingly relying on repressive violence to retain its hold on power has a far deeper root.
China’s distaste for taking action against the Syrian regime, and its willingness to support the Russian position, is explained by Beijing’s own experiences with protesters seeking to change the status quo — notably the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989. But New Delhi, Brasilia and Pretoria have similar concerns. India, for instance, is engaged in an ongoing battle with a number of different insurgencies and organized crime groupings across the subcontinent. The Maoist Naxalite insurgency in central and eastern India, which has led to the deaths of thousands of civilians over the past two decades, has been described by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh as “the single biggest internal security challenge ever faced by our country.” Brazil has stepped up efforts to regain control of the favelas in Rio de Janeiro and other major cities, especially before the spate of world sporting events the country is scheduled to host later this decade. This has included using the military to take down the gangs that for years have enjoyed sanctuary in these “brown zones,” where the writ of the Brazilian state has been nonexistent. South Africa has successfully undergone the transition from white minority rule, but significant ethnic and class divisions still percolate and threaten the state’s stability.
All three of these governments are keenly aware of what Max Weber noted was one of the fundamental characteristics of a state: the right to wield a monopoly on violence — and to use force, if necessary, to ensure that its edicts and proclamations were enacted. Establishing that the state — and not local leaders, tribal elders, separatist politicians or organized crime figures — would rule has historically required the use of force and, at times, the spilling of blood.
Yet, when in the early days of the Arab Spring, Western pundits and policymakers began to send the message that the use of lethal force by a state against its citizens ipso facto proved that the regime was illegitimate and had lost its right to govern, it raised the hackles of governments that know that even citizens of democracies at times seek to challenge the authority of the state. What would be the criteria for determining whether a state had crossed the line from its legitimate right to suppress disorder and prevent insurrection, to the illegitimate repression of its population? Though there was justifiable outrage at the idea of military units deployed against unarmed civilians, no clear standards were elucidated.
When it came to Libya, these concerns led Brazil and India to abstain on U.N. Security Council Resolution 1973 authorizing the imposition of a no-fly zone and the use of force to protect civilians. South Africa voted in favor, guided in part by the assessment that Moammar Gadhafi might in fact inflict a major bloodbath to drown the rebellion. Yet the South Africans apparently believed the resolution would hasten a political solution of the crisis by creating “safe areas” for the rebels, similar to what the U.S.-led coalition had done for Iraqi Kurds after 1991.
When the Syrian resolution subsequently came up for a vote, Brazil and India again decided to abstain, but this time they were joined by South Africa. A South African spokesman explained the decision by noting, “We were concerned that this resolution should not be part of a hidden agenda to yet again institute regime change.” Indeed, an IBSA delegation had visited Assad last month to discuss a possible political process to end the violence. In discussing India’s position on the failed resolution, New Delhi’s U.N. ambassador, Hardeep Puri, said, “The resolution does not accommodate our concern about threat of sanctions . . . [n]or does it place any responsibility on the opposition to abjure violence and engage with the Syrian authorities for redress of their grievances through a peaceful political process.”
None of the three countries endorse the Syrian regime’s dictatorial practices, but neither do they want to forswear the right of any state to “take appropriate action when militant groups, heavily armed, resort to violence against state authority and infrastructure,” as Puri noted.
This has put the United States, in particular, in a quandary. The window of opportunity for establishing the norm of humanitarian intervention that was opened by Resolution 1973 is now closing shut again. And it is not simply because of authoritarian states on the Security Council, but also due to the continued resistance from Southern democracies. U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice complained about just that, observing, “It’s been a very interesting opportunity to see how they respond to the issues of the day, how they relate to us and others, how they do or don’t act consistent with their own democratic institutions and stated values. Let me just say, we’ve learned a lot and, frankly, not all of it encouraging.”
There is an obvious solution: a clear declaration that humanitarian intervention will never be employed against a democratic state that has to resort to force to preserve civil order. But such an explicit guarantee would further solidify the “East versus West” alignment in the Security Council, which in turn could lead to longstanding paralysis in responding to international crises. Beyond that, “democracy” remains very much in the eye of the beholder. One only need observe how, in the past several years, the “inside-the-Beltway” rhetoric on Turkey has changed noticeably. Once lauded as a secular democracy and given a relatively free pass from Washington on how it waged its counterinsurgency campaign against Iraqi-based Kurdish rebels, Turkey is described in far less complimentary terms now that the government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is pursuing policies that conflict with U.S. interests.
There has always been a good deal of facile rhetoric in Washington about forming a global “association of democracies.” The IBSA group’s abstention on the Syria resolution again reminds us that many governments see themselves as states first, and democracies second.
Nikolas K. Gvosdev is the former editor of the National Interest, and a frequent foreign policy commentator in both the print and broadcast media. He is currently on the faculty of the U.S. Naval War College. The views expressed are his own and do not reflect those of the Navy or the U.S. government. His weekly WPR column, The Realist Prism, appears every Friday.