Suicidal rebellions and the moral hazard of humanitarian intervention

Abstract

This piece argues that the emerging norm of humanitarian military intervention, which is intended to prevent genocide and ethnic cleansing, perversely causes such violence through the dynamic of moral hazard. The norm, intended as a type of insurance policy against genocidal violence, unintentionally encourages disgruntled sub-state groups to rebel because they expect intervention to protect them from retaliation by the state. Actual intervention, however, is often too late or too feeble to prevent such retaliation. Thus, the norm causes some genocidal violence that otherwise would not occur. The piece starts by documenting the fact that historically most genocidal violence—unlike that of the Holocaust—has been retaliation against groups who threaten state authority. It then develops a framework based on deterrence theory to explain why groups vulnerable to genocidal retaliation might provoke that outcome. Next, it illustrates this dynamic in two cases from the 1990s: Bosnia and Kosovo. Following this, it explores analogous problems in economics and discusses potential remedies. The piece concludes by presenting a critique of the putative moral responsibility to intervene.