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What’s the Matter with Selective Intervention?
Brilmayer, Lea
Brilmayer, Lea
Abstract
"Nothing," most Americans would probably respond. Most Americans would claim that it is for the United States to decide for itself whether it wants to engage or not in conflicts that arise around the world, consulting only its own people and its own preferences. Most Americans find nothing wrong with the United States involving itself in the Persian Gulf but not in Yugoslavia; in Haiti but not Liberia; in Somalia but not Rwanda. Perhaps the patterns of American engagement we see are morally defensible; perhaps they are not. But whether or not it would actually be possible to morally reconcile our pattern of selective action and inaction, what matters here is that most Americans experience no need to try.