Balancing Ideas and Interests

While watching a few different class presentations I noticed something interesting about groups designed to operate mostly on ideas such as the United Nations. It occurred to me that though these groups attempt to keep coercion out of the picture and work based on ideas, often this doesn't yield any results. When we think of the United Nations we think of peace keeping missions and humanitarian aid. We think of United Nations missions being predominantly about “what is the right thing to do”. Yet, it appears, that when there are no additional interests (i.e. a state’s interests) invested in a situation, results are less likely.

For example, the United Nations Operation in the Congo was started because of two state’s interests. Belgium wanted to protect it’s citizens from newly free Congo. Congo wanted the United Nations to protect their newly attained national territory from external aggression (Belgium). Though the United Nations was also operating under “ideas” or “what is the right thing to do” by keeping Belgium and Congo from aggression, helping stabilize Congo, maintaining order in Congo. However, this intervention was also driven my state’s interests and happened to be the result most likely to succeed when intervening rather than allowing Belgium and Congo to go against each other.

In contrast, as Michael describes in his UNOSOM project this was a situation where the UN intervened to provide humanitarian relief to Somalia. The use of UN forces failed, famine, droughts and warring clans continued to overwhelm Somalia. After requesting assistance from the United States, there still wasn't any progress in Somalia, and in fact there is still none today. There was no state interest in Somalia, no motivation to provide the assistance or interference they would need. There was no global economic or violence threat that motivated a state to take interest in the situation. Though it was the “right thing to do” when rationally calculating what the best decision is, intervening in Somalia just doesn't seem to be one of them.

So, though we might argue that at times it seems it would be best if groups such as the UN and even states selected their actions based on the right thing to do (what the ideas are) it seems this is not always the most effective way to resolve an issue. Working solely off of interests would eventually lead to conflict as well since each party would only be looking after themselves. Each participant’s rational calculation on the best way to succeed would clash with the others. I think we require both ideas and interests to drive actions in order to do the right thing while achieving the best possible result.