How middle power leadership defied US hegemony, by Ronald M Behringer

Abstract

Ronald M Behringer The human security agenda: How middle power leadership defied US hegemony New York: Continuum (Bloomsbury Academic), 2012. 221pp., £16.99 (paper) ISBN: 978-1441 182999Recent events in Syria are encouraging new thinking about humanitarian justifications for war. Seemingly paralyzed by the fear of a Russian veto, the United Nations Security Council has taken no concrete steps to intervene in the Syrian uprising. All eyes are now fixed on United States President Barack Obama as he examines the evidence of possible chemical weapon use by the Assad regime to determine whether the American red line has indeed been crossed, necessitating intervention. If the UN eventually authorizes intervention, it will not be to restore or protect the territorial sovereignty of the Syrian state; instead this decision would imply that the ruling regime has violated its responsibility to protect the safety and security of its population. What is at stake for the UN, therefore, is human security. Other potential impetuses for multilateral intervention in Syria, such as the threatened security of a neighbouring state, appear less likely at present.While scholars and policymakers devoted significant attention to security studies in the 1990s, the study of human security was rejuvenated in 2005 with the UN's adoption of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) doctrine. Ronald Behringer takes up the subject in The Human Security Agenda with a focus on the contributions of middle powers. This highly informative book highlights the leadership role played by middle powers in the realm of international security. Behringer has a positive view of this role, as he claims that states such as Canada, Australia, and Norway have redefined the global security agenda by embracing and promoting the notion of human security (9).Well written and easy to follow, if date- and acronym-heavy, Behringer's book claims that middle powers have played the roles of securitizing actors in emphasizing the need to protect human populations, and norm entrepreneurs in promoting the human security agenda (9). Describing middle powers as states with a tendency to pursue multilateral solutions to international problems and embrace compromise in solving international disputes, and as sharing a humane internationalist outlook in their foreign policies (17), Behringer uses five international initiatives as case studies to demonstrate the potential for middle power leadership in human security. The Standby High Readiness Brigade for United Nations Operations (SHIRB RIG), the Ottawa Process banning antipersonnel landmines (APL), the International Criminal Court (ICC), the initiative to regulate trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons (SALW), and the R2P project had varying degrees of success but were all characterized, according to Behringer, by the sustained leadership of middle powers with a distinctly middle power approach to international negotiation. …