There are several problems with trying to generalize from the historical record to Libya today, though. First, we can generally ignore the Cold War interventions because they were not normally attempts at establishing a democracy. If the goal is not democracy, then it is unlikely to result in one. Second, we can generally ignore pre-WW II interventions for the same reason - they weren't attempts at pro-democratic regime change. Third, in some more recent cases (Iraq and Afghanistan, for example) they weren't interventions in support of a domestic rebellion so you would expect to see a different process there than in Libya. In sum, there is very little the historical record can tell us about Libya, because its particular characteristics and external circumstances suggest it may be sui generis.

Now, that said, I don't disagree with the basic premise of Walt's post, which is that we can't reasonably expect to get a stable democracy out of this. On the other hand, I doubt most of us expect such an outcome so that really isn't a problem for us.

Its encouraging to read commentary on the Libyan operation that is grounded in social science and as such refrains from parroting the litany of vague platitudes we've come to hear from the political and media elites about the president's need to assert "American leadership," American exceptionalism," and the world community's "responsibility to protect" (R2P). So I thank Dr. Walt for that. But I take three issues with the studies you've cited (and I haven't read them, so I can only assume that some of these points are most likely already addressed by them).

The first is, for me at least, the most obvious. How many poor, heterogeneous societies can legitimately claim to call their state structure a stable, functioning democracy. Latin America and India come to mind, but none of these states is in the MENA region. Furthermore, the only true MENA democracies out there are Israel (I know the prof. and others might take issue with this assertion) and Turkey; and neither of which fit the poor/heterogeneous precondition. So my point is, these theories aren't really falsifiable and thus not compelling social science. How can we blame the intervening country if the absence of intervention was just as likely to lead to the same political result in the host country, which was a poor, fragmented autocracy?

Second, as stated above, the articles Dr. Walt cites claim that after examining over a hundred years of history that foreign interventions have not led to democracy. However, democracy promotion was hardly the policy rationale of these intervening countries in the first place. Instead they sought stability, influence, and other "realist goals" at the expense of democracy. So again, how can we fault the intervening countries for failing to bring about democracy when that wasn't their reason for intervening in the first place? I would instead argue that the US is still in the business of promoting globalizing monarchies or autocracies in lieu of democracy in the MENA. Obama would settle with any kind of leadership change in Libya, just as he has done in Egypt; he's not staying awake at night pressing for democracy in the MENA. The US is no longer willing to bear that costs.

And finally, you can't argue that it hasn't already been a relatively successful humanitarian intervention. We stopped Gadafy from entering Benghazi and exterminating the rebels. So at least that's a win for the president. But I'd also argue that the threat of humanitarian crisis isn't over and its difficult to claim that it goes away altogether in the absence of a significant Libyan leadership change or permanent intervention. Humanitarian interventions require long-term commitments, and I know Obama advisor Samantha Power knows this; she wrote the book after all. So the question is can she and others convince the president to stay indefinitely. I think, however, that this potentiality is extremely unlikely.

Professor Walt:

Why the emphasis on quantitative studies to lend the imprimatur of social science? Are there absolutely no works that examine the topic as well employing (a) more qualitative approach(es)?

I am still attached to the idea that states treat with other states based on their foreign policy rather than domestic ideologies but I believe that it is also important to determine the legitimate representative of a state in international affairs. It is unwise to engage with rulers who are not reliable but easy to deal with. Domestic politics don't matter in international affairs only in democracies. In Libyan case, I hope the entire process of military intervention is not a bungle because coalition forces have still not figured out which institution will command the military campaign despite days of military offensive.

But it is imperative on behalf of the international community to change Libyan leader because he is not a reliable ally and the state he represents is not a true unit of international relations. Dealing with Gaddafi is not a realpolitik, it is a communication between a government and a minority group in the Arab country.

Mr. Walt,

Why do you believe that the West wants a democracy in Libya? Don't we just want a client regime--format whatever? Have we ever been picky before?

And aren't we sill working out of the same playbook? What is the basis for believing anything has changed?

The New York Times reports today that the UK has promised $1.1 Billion of Libyan funds (which the UK does not have any apparent legal authority to be dispensing) to a new "shadow government" whose relationship to the "previously announced national council" is "not clear".

What do you think?

This is a relatively meaningless debate since it does not start with any clear definition of what is meant by ‘democracy’. A search for common elements in those nations we broadly accept as democracies would seem to yield little more than periodic ballots of varying integrity. The truth is that there must ever be a system of rulers and ruled and within it there will inevitably be a range between despotic rulers imposing upon people and a will on the part of people to effect their interests for themselves. The former invariably leads to oppression and the latter to chaos: the healthiest situations only arise when societies fluctuate across the middle ground and this demands struggle, conflict and sacrifice. If this fluctuation is impeded, for instance by external interference, the break when it comes will be proportionately more extreme. There is a danger in being too effete when observing such struggles from the outside because although they may be rowdy, even bloody, they are also healthy, and outside interference only serves to fragment what is otherwise a process of synthesis. I would suggest that protecting protestors is no different from protecting despots and cannot be justified by being shrouded in institutionalised humanitarianism. If citizens of one nation feel the urge to join a struggle in another, fair enough but they should do it each on his own account, as many did with great courage during the Spanish Civil War.

A new and unique observation in the Foreign Policy article. First reported, I believe by Niccolò Machiavelli in Discourses on Livy , 1520 +/-

It would help no end if our leaders had a true liberal education.

[3/25/11 11:29:23 AM] gfozzard:

This time our infamous Harvard based re-discoverer of the Jewish Lobby (after the author of Protocols of the Elders of Zion) is promoting another garbage theory. In fact, the very first comment by Dr. Lake 777 pointed to the basic flaws in Walt and Downes mental equilibristics. A couple of other commenters just finished Walt off (even when they "agreed" that US should not be involved). Downes, to his credit, has not published yet his stream of thought. Perhaps he was not sure of his value of method. And he was right. No surprise, Walt has no such problems.

The real problem for us is not whether US should be involved in Libya or not. The problem is for how long we will tolerate offensive and inherently racist junk science sold to the public. There is startling difference between so called "social science" and normal science in their respective limits of the tolerance to the garbage emanating from the distinguished professors. We all remember two major cases of junk science in physics and biology: cold fusion and faked stem cell cloning. The perpetrators received death sentence immediately after people uncovered the fraud. It was death sentence for them as scientists (the Korean guy even got prison term).

But in "social science" there is still no punishment for the anti-scientific fraudulent garbage. This must change. Universities cannot do this on their own - they are too arrogant. The American citizenry that supply money for their so-called research should help them come to their senses. Or else.

The Libyan case and perhaps all of the recent middle east upheavels are dealing with the same core issues issues that do mimick or follow past military intervention blunders. The fact is that these conflicts arise from the people social revolution within the country they did not start as a bloodbath like Somalia. ALthough one could argue our failure in Somalia in the 1990's the context was far from LIbya's. I do not expect what happened in Somalia to repeat itself simply because we an allied effort and we are not going in primarily on our own. This is a Nato effort and as of yesterday March 24, 2011 NAato actually took over operations in Libya. AS is developing already this is not at all like past situatioins military intervention could very well prevail we will have to see. It all comes down to Qaddifi's determination and the will of his foreign rebel mercenaries the NATO military superioiry will rid the country of the oppressive ruler it is not like every other intervention.

Let's not pick our poppies before they fall.

There are real benefits to the limited intervention we've seen so far, though they are cold-blooded enough to be unspeakable in the context of a news conference or sound-bite.

Right now, particularly, ongoing civil war in Libya is better than ongoing massacres. This partly because of the immediate humanitarian concern, but more importantly because neither Egypt nor Tunisia need compound political crisis with refugee crisis. In short, slow bleed is better than hemhorrage, or to put it another way, there's much to be said for the very limited goal of letting women and children escape from Benghazi.

No question, a similar intervention in the Balkans was only a qualified success. Still the firewall did hold: both against NATO mission-creep and against conflict spreading into Macedonia (and Greece/Turkey -- not, historically, the best of cooperants in the face of humanitarian crisis). Conversely, failures and bumbling in Rwanda cascaded into ongoing war in Central Africa.

Alex Downes is a great scholar asking good questions, but I'm not sure they're pertinent to the current intervention in Libya.. this particularly because we're not necessarily talking about regime change.... yet.

So far, we have a limited war for limited goals in Libya. Unquestionably, the idealists will argue that this war can only be justified by greater goals. And of equal concern, it seems quite likely that Quaddafi will do everything he can to deserve regime change.

It's going to be hard enough to prevent mission creep as it is... Perhaps it would be best if 'public realists' focused on building the firewall, rather than staring at the fire.

Yes, yes, yes, a thousand times yes...somebody in power needs to start reading this....

Not consulting recent social research about the likely results of our intervention must be tantamount to failing to consult the Delphi Oracle : How else would we know the obvious, that military intervention whether to achieve regime change and/or to infuse democracy yields mostly disappointing results?
I find this citing among the recent studies humorous: "a separate study by their NYU colleague William Easterly and several associates found that both U.S and Soviet interventions during the Cold War generally led to "significant declines in democracy."
Both U.S. and Soviet interventions led to significant declines in democracy??? I thought it had been a known fact that Soviet interventions always pursued dictatorship of the proletarians (by way of leadership from the Communist Party) and now we learn from this study that actually they led to significant decline in democracy. Someone, please, point this out to the administration.
And the Downes unpublished study : "He finds that foreign intervention tends to promote stability when the intervening powers are seeking to restore a previously deposed ruler..." Well, lets hurry and wait until Qaddafi is deposed, indeed, by the Lybian revolution, and restore him to power after that to promote stability. If that's all it takes...perfect for the Downes study.
In the meantime why not give the administration a chance to do what they claim to be humanitarian assistance, and let the Lybians worry about their democracy and stability. They must earn both and they seem to be willing.
But don't quote me, Verbatim, that this will be the outcome. We've been lied to before.

"[Foreign imposed regime change] is likely to spur resistance and civil war in those countries where the United States and other advanced democracies are most likely to undertake such intervention [i.e., poor, weak states]; the situation is made even bleaker if war is needed to overthrow the existing regime. . ."

I'm sorry but this chain of events & logic seems to be almost exactly reversed in the Libya case. There already was a civil war, the West intervened after the civil war started, and regime change has yet to happen (but in all likelihood will happen eventually).

Does this argument, and the data, support the conclusion that Western invervention in a pre-existing civil war... leads to more civil war? I'd rather see the data for those instances, and what conclusions they lead to, than ones akin to Panama, Iraq, etc... Afghanistan is the closest case raised.

Thats all I have to say. After 3 years of rhetoric and 400,000 deaths, the U.S. finally did something and saved a couple hundred thousand lives in the process. I'd personally prefer not to have my country stand by as the rebels slowly get crushed (and very likely a mass killing will ensure afterwards).

Such a great debate going on here, I jut want to say thanks for the great post it was very insightful.
wall art

"A 2006 study by Jeffrey Pickering and Mark Peceny found that military intervention by liberal states (i.e., states like Britain, France and the United States) "has only very rarely played a role in democratization since 1945.""

Sure, and the reason why is because neither of these colonialist powers seeks democracy. In fact, they will gladly thwart a real democracy in order to institute a dictatorship that is friendly to their interests. Interests as defined herein shall be complete control over said nation's resources. There are plenty of examples of that, one of the most poignant being Haiti. In fact, democracy is their worst enemy. In a true democracy, they wouldn't be able to control regimes and pillage countries the way they do when the instituted dictator is in their back pocket. Therefore, I have to object to the basis of this ground being on the false premise that the colonialist powers seek or play a role in democracy.