The Argument About Humanitarian Intervention Michael Walzer

Michael Walzer makes a compelling argument in his article on global crisis, “the Argument about Humanitarian Intervention”. Walzer argues that humans have always been fighting each other and causing global problems. He claims that with today’s technology it has never been simpler to kill large numbers of people, if one has the resources of course. Walzer poses the question that in the event of a humanitarian crisis, such as cases of severe war crimes or ethnic cleansing, to what degree should the rest of the world respond? In Walzer’s article he discusses four major questions. First he talks about in what circomstances is intervention necessary. Second, he asks who the preferred people would be to intervene. Thirdly, how should these agents conduct their intervention? Finally he asks, how long should an intervention last? …show more content…
He argues that a crisis needs to be very extreme to justify military use. He claims that not every violation of human right warrants armed intervention. Walzer interestingly point outs that in many cases foreign leaders or military commanders will misunderstand a crisis in a country they are unfamiliar with. We have seen this happen many times in history. Some countries instead of intervening directly usually will try to use “external acts” such as economic sanctions to stop a crisis (Walzer 2). When this doesn’t work, Walzer claims that the army invading a country will argue they are fighting for “human rights” (Walzer 2). Walzer makes a fascinating point that in most cases the “rescuing forces are the invaders” most of the time we view invaders as the bad guys, this could lead to confusion among the population of the country in crisis (Walzer