WASHINGTON — France has invoked the”Responsibility to Protect” (R2P) at the United Nations Security Council, calling for an international aid mission to Myanmar with or without the approval of the military junta. While Russia and China will ensure that nothing comes of it, France’s willingness to propose this in response to a natural disaster represents a departure from what was codified by a 2005 UN General Assembly resolution. Gareth Evans lays this out nicely in today’s Guardian. Says Evans, “if it comes to be thought that”R2P”, and in particular the sharp military end of the doctrine, is capable of being invoked in anything other than a context of mass atrocity crimes, then such consensus as there is in favour of the new norm will simply evaporate in the global South.” As a body of law, R2P may prescribe the circumstances for when and how forceful intervention may be used. In practice, though, it has been an inspiring yet vague norm that could increasingly be used, as it was last week, to advance the liberal internationalist cause in the wake of Iraq and Afghanistan. This is a cause to which I’m largely sympathetic, but I worry that invoking R2P beyond the confines of what has been adopted by the UN will, in the eyes of those who disagree, turn what is a legal document into a manifesto. As the debate over the ethics of intervention rages on, liberal internationalists should realize that R2P has grown up: Perhaps we need a manifesto, but this document, codified into international law, cannot be it alone.

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WASHINGTON — Two weeks ago, Richard Haass expressed doubts about the future efficacy of transatlantic cooperation in addressing international security challenges. He’s joining a popular bandwagon. In the lead up to the American presidential election, analysts from across the political landscape are grinding a rusty axe that we’ve heard year after year since the end of the Cold War: The principal strategic imperative that united the transatlantic community has disappeared, making sustained, predictable collaboration impossible. This is as wrong now as it was in the mid-90s.

Let’s begin with the premise. Have American and European interests really diverged as much as Haass and others claim? They’ve certainly changed and diversified, but the laundry list of current international challenges reads much the same across Europe as it does in the United States. In terms of public opinion, both Americans and Europeans feel threatened by energy dependence, international terrorism, and global warming, and we’ve expressed a common sentiment that working together to address these threats is better than going it alone.

To be sure, there are some fundamental disagreements when it comes to our preferences for addressing these threats. In our willingness to go to war in defense of justice, it’s true: Americans and Europeans, at least in theory, aren’t on the same page. But the reality is more complex. European nations played key combat roles in the Gulf War and the Balkans conflict, and their publics continue to show robust support for peacekeeping and humanitarian missions in places as diverse as Darfur and southern Lebanon. In Afghanistan, things are more difficult. The diplomatic disaster from Iraq and Bush’s Article V debacle in 2001 have created a strained atmosphere of cooperation, and European publics are putting pressure on their leaders to disengage from the conflict. Taken as a whole, post-Cold War cooperation has shown that in the right context, Europeans can be committed and trustworthy allies.

Haass writes as if the transatlantic relationship of the “golden years” coalesced by osmosis in reaction to the emergence of a common threat. This could not be further from the truth. Like any alliance, the transatlantic partnership required difficult and protracted diplomacy at its post-war inception, and constant maintenance thereafter. Some set of shared interests might be a necessary condition for alliance-building, but it is in no way sufficient. What it took then, and what we need now, are strong leaders who understand the importance of diplomacy and compromise. Reaching consensus on how to address the great international challenges of our time won’t be easy, but if America wants to remain a legitimate operator around the world, and if Europe wants a say in the building of a post-Iraq international order, it’s our only choice.

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