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Add to NewsvineIf there were ever a moment when the international community, led as it must be, by the U.S. and the U.N., should use force to prevent what now looks like mass murder, this is it.
Three words: Black Hawk Down.
The 1992 US invasion of Somalia came off with the approval and ultimately the participation of the United Nations, and was undertaken solely for humanitarian reasons. We wanted to feed the people who were being starved as a result of civil war. Everyone remembers, or should, how the Somali warlord Aideed dragged our troops into the war. Nearly 50 Americans were killed before the US and the UN withdrew.
If we went into Burma, we wouldn't be able to do it with UN backing; Russia and China, which covet Burma's offshore oil reserves, will not let that happen. Furthermore, any humanitarian invasion force will have to face not irregular jackasses with AK-47s, but an army that has nearly half a million men under arms, and boasts modern Chinese-made jet fighters. There would be a very real risk of shooting war. Are we prepared to have our cargo planes blown out of the sky by the Burmese? Are we prepared to provoke that paranoid regime into arresting or killing all foreign aid workers?
Sometimes, as painful as it is, you have no real choice but to say, "Don't just do something -- stand there!"
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A shooting war in SE Asia? Haven't we seen this movie before? Econimic development in Burma essentially stopped after WWII, and the rebuilding effort will take decades. We have neither the troops nor the $$ to pull this off. No sale.
Posted by: Adam | May 13, 2008 11:18 AM
Does Burma have oil? Otherwise, no.
Yeah, I'm still trying to figure out why the price of oil keeps going up for us when we conquered an oil-producing country. I mean, aren't we entitled to Iraq's oil by right or conquest? Otherwise, why did we go in there? Maybe my attitudes are too Roman. But the Iraqis are too busy fighting each other right now to be able to do much with their oil, and besides, the world won't think any worse of use for doing what they think we really went in there to do in the first place.
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As for Burma (to get back on topic), I agree; we have no discernable national interest there that would justify getting involved in another morass. As for UN action, the UN doesn't have an army unless its member states give it portions of theirs.
Posted by: David J. White | May 13, 2008 3:58 PM
What about a Burmeses Air Lift? Could we drop aid into the most heavily impacted areas?
And what happens if (when?) our planes get shot down? And the Burmese regime sends ground forces hunting downed airmen? Shall we cleanse the skies of Burma’s air force (such as it is), and run Wild Weasel missions against any SAM sites (accepting the resultant collateral damage as par for the course)? Perhaps a “Burmese Airlift” might end up being bloodless (at least for us), but I wouldn’t count on it.
a "shooting war" as you described it would possibly be easier, tactically, than battling an insurgency.
Perhaps, but if the Burmese regime is at all intelligent, they’ll follow Hussein’s example and start prepping a post-invasion insurgency as soon as America starts beating war drums. Call me pessimistic, but if we decide to send ground troops into Burma, we should be prepared for both conventional war and guerrillas.
Posted by: MI | May 13, 2008 8:31 PM
The difference in history and culture between Burma and Somalia is I believe what matters here.
Somalia is a failed state torn apart by tribal and sectarian divisions and extreme poverty; it is a nightmare on wheels.
Burma is a unitary country with a long history of nationalist but pro-western sentiment among the people. In the middle part of the last century Burma - under U Nu - was fast becoming a prosperous Buddhist democracy with an emerging middle class; it was a so-called model third world country.
What doomed 20th century democracy in Burma was not leftist insurgency or sectarian division but a lack of civilian authority over a traditionally powerful military. The West cared little. Neither did the Soviets.
I would add two further points: to the extent you see images from Burma in the news media they're often of monks. A significant minority of Burmese men from all social classes spend a portion of their lives as monks; they're not an untouchable elite. In the colonial era as well as under the junta I believe popular political sentiment has been channeled through the monks. The regime is not popular but they have the guns.
The one concern I would have about a possible intervention (apart from the cost in American lives and dollars) is the extent to which the junta (like perhaps Tito in Yugoslavia and Saddam Hussein in Iraq) has stoked sectarian divisions over the past four and a half decades. Little is known about contemporary Burmese history and the world has changed a lot in the last half-century and since the end of the Cold War.
Posted by: Linus | May 14, 2008 11:40 AM
Of course these things come at the price of sacrifice. Not good comes without it.
Posted by: James | May 14, 2008 1:53 PM
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