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You have to admit, the track record for international intervention is extremely spotty. When was the last time that a rich country went into a poor country, for

You have to admit, the track record for international intervention is extremely spotty. When was the last time that a rich country went into a poor country, for non-self-serving motivations, and fixed most big issues? I freely admit that I'm not a good student of history, but I can't actually think of one.

brcmthrowaway 2y ago
Aus intervention in East Timor.
- galfarragem 2y ago
  Australia had oil interests in the region.
adamnemecek 2y ago
UK intervention in Sierra Leone in 2000.
nindalf 2y ago
You’ve made the requirements impossible to satisfy when you added “non-self-serving motivations”. The world is relatively small and disasters have ripple effects. Almost any action a country takes will either help or hurt them. Since the people in charge will mostly try to take actions that help their country, they look self serving now. A sibling comment mentioned the Australian intervention in East Timor. I can easily dismiss that by saying “well the Australians have a vested interest in a stable neighbourhood. They’re just self pricks looking out for themselves”. This statement would be technically correct but also pretty meaningless in this discussion.
TulliusCicero 2y ago
> for non-self-serving motivations That's a gotcha if I've ever seen one. Why would self serving motivations be a disqualifier? Not to mention, you can basically argue that it's always self serving motivations no matter what. That said, yeah things are more likely to go badly than to go well. Nation building is hard; the allies were able to reform Japan and (West) Germany because while they had evil states, the states were at least functioning. It seems easier to improve governments morally than functionally.
- rayiner 2y ago
  Germany and Japan had highly functional states for centuries--in the case of Japan, over a millennium--before the allies installed democracy. Not only that, those places had cultures that had long internalized administration and rule of law even if people couldn't vote on those systems.
  - broken-kebab 2y ago
    Germany as a single state emerged only at the second half of XIX. You may argue that those multitude of German states which existed before still count, but how more functional each of them were compared to e.g. Khmer Kingdom is an open question. What is 'functional' to begin with? I probably would agree that there should be some sort of pre-requisite for a working democracy, but your theory of a 'functional state' (at least as I can derive it from your commentaries) feels a bit too raw so far
    - throwup238 2y ago
      Functional means it has some form of bureaucracy that can collect taxes from the population and use that to do state things, usually provide for the defense of that population against internal and external threats. The actual system of government is irrelevant and in many cases the state itself survives even radical political change. What matters is whether it has the resources to actually exert authority. Haiti lost its functional state when the French colonialists fled en masse after the 1804 massacre. Due to racism, they were the only ones allowed in administrative positions in the bureaucracy so when they left Haiti, it was left with no one qualified to run the state apparatus. Since the population were transplanted slaves, they had no tribal traditions to fall back on. Without a continuity of bureaucracy it was left hobbled to this day. Since the state can’t afford to police the population, these gangs fill the void because they can use force to collect taxes (in the broadest sense because usually this takes the form of business shakedowns and roadblocks that they use to extract money from the population).
      - broken-kebab 2y ago
mitthrowaway2 2y ago
Big issues are by nature hard to fix, but perhaps major UN peacekeeping efforts count, like Rwanda or Kosovo?
legitster 2y ago
Taiwan, Philippines, Egypt, South Korea. Arguably India, but there was so much bad mixed with the good. The Caribbean is a special case though where there are lots of miraculous turnarounds because tourism is so lucrative.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- paleotrope 2y ago
  What are these examples? Taiwan and South Korea could be argued that Japanese colonialism and authoritarian states are the reason they are successful today. Philippines was an important Spanish trade colony for a few hundred years. None of these were non self serving. As for Egypt are you talking about the Ptolmaics?
- rodgerd 2y ago
  > South Korea The West supported an brutal military dictatorship in South Korea for decades. South Korean democracy is the result of internal struggle by the South Korean people.
  - walrus01 2y ago
    > The West supported an brutal military dictatorship in South Korea for decades. South Korean democracy is the result of internal struggle by the South Korean people. I mean, the US was a huge supporter of Suharto in Indonesia as the "less bad" option to the thread of communism, and Mubarak in Egypt as an alternative to the worse option of a Islamic Brotherhood run state, or possibly something even more deeply Soviet aligned. I don't think there is any "lesser evil" warlord to pick in Haiti right now and prop up above any of the others.
    - paleotrope 2y ago
      In the logic of empire, the overlord just needs to pick someone and eliminate the competitors. It's best if they have some popular support but not necessary. I am sure there are some networks with titular heads that can be utilized.
emmelaich 2y ago
You have to have some self-serving motivation to make it worthwhile. If you're just intervening because you're charitable and nice, then things will be mismanaged and messed up. Like the UN peacekeepers raping and spreading cholera in Haiti.
TulliusCicero 2y ago
Arguably some self-serving motivations can be good. Again, look at Japan and West Germany. It was very self-serving for the US/West, but in a good way: they wanted strong states as allies, so they made sure to fund, protect, and rebuild those societies, even though they had recently finished an extremely terrible war with those countries. This is different from the blatant colonialism/exploitation that was more typical in earlier decades and centuries.

brcmthrowaway 2y ago

Aus intervention in East Timor.

galfarragem 2y ago
Australia had oil interests in the region.

adamnemecek 2y ago

UK intervention in Sierra Leone in 2000.

nindalf 2y ago

You’ve made the requirements impossible to satisfy when you added “non-self-serving motivations”. The world is relatively small and disasters have ripple effects. Almost any action a country takes will either help or hurt them. Since the people in charge will mostly try to take actions that help their country, they look self serving now. A sibling comment mentioned the Australian intervention in East Timor. I can easily dismiss that by saying “well the Australians have a vested interest in a stable neighbourhood. They’re just self pricks looking out for themselves”. This statement would be technically correct but also pretty meaningless in this discussion.

TulliusCicero 2y ago

> for non-self-serving motivations That's a gotcha if I've ever seen one. Why would self serving motivations be a disqualifier? Not to mention, you can basically argue that it's always self serving motivations no matter what. That said, yeah things are more likely to go badly than to go well. Nation building is hard; the allies were able to reform Japan and (West) Germany because while they had evil states, the states were at least functioning. It seems easier to improve governments morally than functionally.

rayiner 2y ago
Germany and Japan had highly functional states for centuries--in the case of Japan, over a millennium--before the allies installed democracy. Not only that, those places had cultures that had long internalized administration and rule of law even if people couldn't vote on those systems.
- broken-kebab 2y ago
  Germany as a single state emerged only at the second half of XIX. You may argue that those multitude of German states which existed before still count, but how more functional each of them were compared to e.g. Khmer Kingdom is an open question. What is 'functional' to begin with? I probably would agree that there should be some sort of pre-requisite for a working democracy, but your theory of a 'functional state' (at least as I can derive it from your commentaries) feels a bit too raw so far
  - throwup238 2y ago
    Functional means it has some form of bureaucracy that can collect taxes from the population and use that to do state things, usually provide for the defense of that population against internal and external threats. The actual system of government is irrelevant and in many cases the state itself survives even radical political change. What matters is whether it has the resources to actually exert authority. Haiti lost its functional state when the French colonialists fled en masse after the 1804 massacre. Due to racism, they were the only ones allowed in administrative positions in the bureaucracy so when they left Haiti, it was left with no one qualified to run the state apparatus. Since the population were transplanted slaves, they had no tribal traditions to fall back on. Without a continuity of bureaucracy it was left hobbled to this day. Since the state can’t afford to police the population, these gangs fill the void because they can use force to collect taxes (in the broadest sense because usually this takes the form of business shakedowns and roadblocks that they use to extract money from the population).
    - broken-kebab 2y ago

mitthrowaway2 2y ago

Big issues are by nature hard to fix, but perhaps major UN peacekeeping efforts count, like Rwanda or Kosovo?

legitster 2y ago

Taiwan, Philippines, Egypt, South Korea. Arguably India, but there was so much bad mixed with the good. The Caribbean is a special case though where there are lots of miraculous turnarounds because tourism is so lucrative.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
paleotrope 2y ago
What are these examples? Taiwan and South Korea could be argued that Japanese colonialism and authoritarian states are the reason they are successful today. Philippines was an important Spanish trade colony for a few hundred years. None of these were non self serving. As for Egypt are you talking about the Ptolmaics?
rodgerd 2y ago
> South Korea The West supported an brutal military dictatorship in South Korea for decades. South Korean democracy is the result of internal struggle by the South Korean people.
- walrus01 2y ago
  > The West supported an brutal military dictatorship in South Korea for decades. South Korean democracy is the result of internal struggle by the South Korean people. I mean, the US was a huge supporter of Suharto in Indonesia as the "less bad" option to the thread of communism, and Mubarak in Egypt as an alternative to the worse option of a Islamic Brotherhood run state, or possibly something even more deeply Soviet aligned. I don't think there is any "lesser evil" warlord to pick in Haiti right now and prop up above any of the others.
  - paleotrope 2y ago
    In the logic of empire, the overlord just needs to pick someone and eliminate the competitors. It's best if they have some popular support but not necessary. I am sure there are some networks with titular heads that can be utilized.

emmelaich 2y ago

You have to have some self-serving motivation to make it worthwhile. If you're just intervening because you're charitable and nice, then things will be mismanaged and messed up. Like the UN peacekeepers raping and spreading cholera in Haiti.

TulliusCicero 2y ago

Arguably some self-serving motivations can be good. Again, look at Japan and West Germany. It was very self-serving for the US/West, but in a good way: they wanted strong states as allies, so they made sure to fund, protect, and rebuild those societies, even though they had recently finished an extremely terrible war with those countries. This is different from the blatant colonialism/exploitation that was more typical in earlier decades and centuries.