Military humanitarianism

Weiss, Thomas G.; Campbell, Kurt M.

doi:10.1080/00396339108442612

Cited by 34 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 12 publications

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“…How else to explain the ability to contend, as Weiss does, that 'historically there has always been too little deployment of military force for human protection'? 109 The unspoken assumption is that military force can be adequately shaped for human protection. The theorization offered here does not rule out that possibility.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…92 But without more than the correlation between elite rhetoric and the inevitably messy violence of war, proponents of 'military humanitarianism', seeing it through the prism of their own assumptions about the dynamics of humanitarian war, can dismiss such criticisms as 'ultimately mischievous' -as ideologically motivated to prevent future humanitarian wars. 93…”

Section: Humanitarian War Pessimistsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Leveraging the idea of ‘Humanitarian War’

Banta

2017

International Relations

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In attempting to bring the frame of war more directly into the discussion over humanitarian intervention in the early 1990s, Adam Roberts quipped that ‘“humanitarian war” is an oxymoron that may yet become a reality’. No longer was humanitarianism only meant to restrain the means of warfare, but the violent and political logic of war was now supposed to serve the caring and universal dictates of humanitarianism. This essay takes the chance to theorize the idea of humanitarian war further to help improve our understanding of the reality that has become of it, where not only humanitarian interventions or coercive enactments of the ‘Responsibility to Protect’ feature humanitarian casus belli, but even more geopolitically motivated wars often do as well. It notes how scholarship on such phenomena often rests on overly restrictive and sometimes only implicit notions of how a humanitarian justification can and does influence the practice of war. It then offers a deeper and more plausible theorization of humanitarian war, laying out a range of possible forms and a central tendency that ties them together. This essay closes by discussing some of the benefits of grounding future analyses of humanitarian war in the theorization on offer.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Humanitarian War Pessimistsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Leveraging the idea of ‘Humanitarian War’

Banta

2017

International Relations

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“…Despite the extensive soul-searching in the 1990s, the humanitarian sector as a whole still underestimates the ramifications of this reordering for humanitarian work. Interestingly one of the strongest recent warnings on the dangers of humanitarianism becoming dangerously entangled with Western foreign military missions comes from the research director of the MSF-Foundation, considering MSF pioneered today's politicised humanitarian advocacy (Weissman, 2005). Fabrice Weissman's report pointedly observes humanitarians' endorsement of the concept of humanitarian war has compromised humanitarianism's meaning.…”

Section: Humanitarian Advocacy's Direction?mentioning

confidence: 99%

The politics of emergency and the demise of the developing state: problems for humanitarian advocacy

Pupavac¹

2006

Development in Practice

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“…The nature of intra-state and transnational violence, the upsurge in interventions and a perceived need for civilians and military to co-operate has sharpened the longrunning and generally inconclusive debate about military involvement in humanitarian activities (Gordenker and Weiss, 1991;Weiss and Campbell, 1991;Minear, 1994). Part of the problem arises from differing conceptions of 'humanitarianism' and 'humanitarian action'.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Military Intervention and Humanitarian Action: Trends and Issues

Pugh

1998

Disasters

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An important trend in military doctrine for so-called 'peace support operations' has been to place them on a spectrum that includes coercion and enforcement. This paper focuses on British writers of doctrine as those responsible for driving the debate forward and forging a consensus among leading military powers. Their discourse is combat oriented, a fact reinforced by a trend towards strategic subcontracting to coalitions of the militarily willing and able. At the same time, there has been a move to institutionalise the involvement of military forces in relief, peace building and development activities. The overall emphasis is on stability and security to facilitate the delivery of humanitarian relief and to establish the conditions for peace-building processes. In the case of Bosnia, this involves conditionality and economic leverage. Although there is a long-established record of peace-keeping forces engaging in goodwill activities (with mixed results), the current trends contain contradictions that seem likely to contribute to the widely perceived erosion of classical humanitarian principles.

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Military humanitarianism

Cited by 34 publications

References 12 publications

Leveraging the idea of ‘Humanitarian War’

Leveraging the idea of ‘Humanitarian War’

The politics of emergency and the demise of the developing state: problems for humanitarian advocacy

Military Intervention and Humanitarian Action: Trends and Issues

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