"Mobilizing the Will to Intervene"

In an interview with Lt. Gen. Romeo Dallaire, Foreign Policy unearths some serious issues underlying our involvement in international conflicts. Lt. Gen. Daillaire was the head of the UN peacekeeping mission in Rwanda in 1994 and now advocates strongly for intervening in international conflicts (like Rwanda) to protect civilians of all nations. He believes that due to the globalizing effect that intra-country or intra-region conflict can have on international security (like leaving space for terrorist cells to establish themselves) and different rules of engagement that have militaries engaged in something other that the classic use of force, that we need mobilize the international community to intervene in these crises like genocide and civil war. But for these types of interventions we need militaries and commanders trained in methods of anthropology, sociology, and philosophy so that they can understand the complexity of the problem and employ adapted forms of force. And just as important, we need countries on the UN Security Council to stop being so isolationist and believe that the problem's just between "those guys" because Lt. Gen. Dallaire says "..in this era, that stuff moves, and it will affect us."

To me this question of intervention is incredibly interesting and so understandably controversial. In general, I do believe that we live in a different world now and another country's war will affect everyone in the end. But I'm also torn about what this means for national sovereignty and allowing a country to clean up its own messes and grow from them. We certainly had to do that and we are stronger and more unified because of it. And where do you draw the line about how extensive the intervention will be? Obviously Iraq brings up this question; how much resources do you have to commit to for rebuilding purposes and how we will sustain this? And then finally why are we really intervening? Lt. Gen. Dallaire is not shy to admit that it really comes down to protecting one's own national interests but wouldn't that inevitably affect our decisions on what areas get preference--who are we going to decide is more worth our while to save--civilians in the DRC or those is Afghanistan?