Civil Wars and

Intervention
Joanna Diane D. Mortel
AB Political Science II
Divine Word College of Calapan

 involves
armed
conflict
between
competing factions within a country or
between an existing government and a
competing group within that country
over control of territory and/or the
government.

Civil War

 Civil wars may initially pit factions within

a country against each other, but they
frequently become internationalized.
This may occur as the conflict or its
consequences spill over the countrys
borders or if external parties become
involved in the conflict.

Civil War

 a good example is the 2011 conflict in Libya,

in which resistance to the dictatorship of
Coronel Muammar Gaddafi and his 40- plus
years of rule soon resulted in intervention by
US and NATO forces, along with limited
support from other states in region, to
establish a no- fly zone and attack
government forces and targets, in part to try
to prevent wide- scale attacks on civilians.

Civil War

 Other civil wars have been fought

among ethnic rivals, religious rivals,
and rival clans. Revolutions can spark
civil wars as well.

Civil War

Intervention is
a
fairly common way for
a third-party state to
get involved in a civil
war or a war between
two or more other
states.
A state intervenes when it sends
troops, arms, money, or goods to help
another state that is already at war.

Intervention

 During
the
Cold
War,
the
term intervention was used to describe
one of the superpowers becoming
involved in a smaller countrys war
(often a developing country).

Intervention

But states sometimes

intervene in order to
bring peace. This
type of intervention
occurs when a
country (or
countries) sends
military forces into
another state to act
as peacekeepers or
to block other forces
from attacking.
Sometimes these
interventions are
the United
organized
orNations or another international governmental
organization.
conducted
by

Intervention

Example:The United States, along with

other NATO nations, sent troops into the
former Yugoslavia on a number of
occasions to protect people from war.
A successful example of this peaceful
intervention occurred during the 1999
U.S. bombing campaign in Kosovo, which
helped stop a slaughter of Kosovars by
attacking Serbs.

Intervention

 A less successful example was the U.S.

intervention in Somalia in the early
1990s,
an
attempt
to
provide
humanitarian
aid
that
ultimately
achieved little at the cost of American
lives. This failed intervention culminated
in the Battle of Mogadishu (dramatized in
the movie Black Hawk Down [2001])
October 34, 1993, which killed eighteen
Americans and as many as a thousand
Somalis.

Intervention

 Intervention=Invasion
Article 2.7 of the UN Charter protects
national
sovereignty
even
from
intervention by the United Nations itself.
(The article forbids the United Nations to
intervene in matters which are
essentially within the domestic
jurisdictionofthestate.)

Reflections on Intervention
By Kofi Annan

Our job is to intervene: to prevent

conflict where we can, to put a stop to it
when it has broken out, or- when
neither of those things possible- at least
to contain it and prevent it from
spreading.

Reflections on Intervention
By Kofi Annan

 The United Nations is an association of

sovereign States, but the rights it exists
to uphold belong to people, not
government. By the same token, it is
wrong to think the obligations of United
Nations membership fall only on States.
Each one of us has an obligation to do
whatever he or she can to correct
injustice and to prevent the infliction of
suffering.

Reflections on Intervention
By Kofi Annan

Almost 200,000
Syrians have lost their
lives in the escalating
conflict between
forces loyal to
President Bashar alAssad and those
opposed to his rule.
Syria's bloody internal
conflict has destroyed
entire neighbourhoods
and forced more than
nine million people
from their homes. This
is the story of the civil
war so far, in eight
short chapters.

Syria: The Story of Conflict

BBC News, 8 December 2014

1. Uprising turns violent

Pro-democracy protests erupted in March 2011 in the
southern city of Deraa after the arrest and torture of
some teenagers who painted revolutionary slogans on
a
school
wall.
After
security
forces
opened fire on demonstrators, killing several, more
took to the streets.
The unrest triggered nationwide protests demanding
President Assad's resignation. The government's use of
force to crush the dissent merely hardened the
protesters'
resolve.
By
July
2011,
hundreds of thousands were taking to the streets acros
s the country.
Opposition supporters eventually began to take up
arms, first to defend themselves and later to expel
security forces from their local areas.

Syria: The Story of Conflict

BBC News, 8 December 2014

2. Descent into civil war

The conflict is now more than just a battle
between those for or against President Assad. It
has acquired sectarian overtones, pitching the
country's Sunni majority against the president's
Shia Alawite sect, and drawn in neighbouring
countries and world powers. The rise of the
jihadist groups, including Islamic State, has
added a further dimension.

Syria: The Story of Conflict

BBC News, 8 December 2014

3. War crimes
A UN commission of inquiry,
investigating
alleged
human rights violations since March 2011, has
evidence that those on both sides of the conflict have
committed war crimes - including murder, torture, rape
and enforced disappearances. Government and rebel
forces have also been accused by investigators of
using civilian suffering, such as blocking access to
food, water and health services, as a method war.
The jihadist group, Islamic State, has also been
accused by the UN of waging a campaign of fear in
northern and eastern Syria. Its fighters have beheaded
hostages and carried out mass killings of members of
the security forces and religious minorities.

Syria: The Story of Conflict

BBC News, 8 December 2014

4. Chemical weapons
Hundreds of people were killed in August 2013 after
rockets filled with the nerve agent sarin were fired at
several agricultural districts around Damascus.
Western powers, outraged by the attack, said it could
only have been carried out by Syria's government. The
regime and its ally Russia blamed rebels.
Facing the prospect of US military intervention,
President Assad agreed to the complete removal or
destruction of Syria's chemical weapons arsenal as
part of a joint mission led by the UN and the
Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons
(OPCW). The destruction of chemical agents and
munitions was completed a year later.

Syria: The Story of Conflict

BBC News, 8 December 2014

5. Humanitarian crisis
More
than 3 million people have fled Syria since
the start of the conflict, most of them women and
children. It is one of the largest refugee exoduses in
recent history. Neighbouring countries have borne the
brunt of the refugee crisis, with Lebanon, Jordan and
Turkey struggling to accommodate the flood of new
arrivals. The exodus accelerated dramatically in 2013,
as conditions in Syria deteriorated.
humanitarianism is an ethic of kindness, benevolence,
and sympathy extended universally and impartially to
all human beings. In armed conflict and beyond,
humanitarianism is the organized efforts to alleviate
suffering and protect non-combatants, such as the
wounded or civilians

Syria: The Story of Conflict

BBC News, 8 December 2014

5. Humanitarian crisis
The UN launched its largest ever appeal for a
single crisis in December 2013, seeking $6.5bn
(4bn) to provide medical care, food, water,
shelter, education and health services.

Syria: The Story of Conflict

BBC News, 8 December 2014

6. Rebels and the rise of the Islamists

Capitalising on the chaos in the region,
Islamic State (IS) - the extremist group that grew out
of al-Qaeda in Iraq - has taken control of huge
swathes of territory across Iraq and Syria. Its many
foreign fighters in Syria are now involved in a "war
within a war", battling rebels who object to their
tactics as well as Kurdish forces. In September 2014, a
US-led coalition launched air strikes inside Iraq and
Syria in an effort to "degrade and ultimately destroy"
IS.

Syria: The Story of Conflict

BBC News, 8 December 2014

7. Peace efforts
In January 2014, the US, Russia and UN convened a
conference in Switzerland to implement the 2012
Geneva
Communique,
an
internationally-backed
agreement that called for the establishment of a
transitional governing body in Syria formed on the
basis of mutual consent.

Syria: The Story of Conflict

BBC News, 8 December 2014

7. Peace efforts
The talks, which became known as Geneva II, broke
down in February after only two rounds. The then UN
special envoy Lakhdar Brahimi blamed the Syrian
government's refusal to discuss opposition demands
and its insistence on a focus on fighting "terrorists" - a
term Damascus uses to describe rebel groups.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon says the
organisation's long-term strategic objective remains a
political solution based on the Geneva Communique.
The new UN special envoy Staffan de Mistura has also
proposed establishing a series of "freeze zones", where
local ceasefires would be negotiated to allow aid
deliveries in besieged areas.

Syria: The Story of Conflict

BBC News, 8 December 2014

8. Proxy war
What began as another Arab Spring uprising
against an autocratic ruler has mushroomed into
a brutal proxy war that has drawn in regional and
world powers.
Iran and Russia have propped up the Alawite-led
government of President Assad and gradually
increased their support, providing it with an edge
that has helped it make significant gains against
the rebels. The regime has also enjoyed the
support of Lebanon's Shia Islamist Hezbollah
movement.

Syria: The Story of Conflict

BBC News, 8 December 2014

8. Proxy war
The Sunni-dominated opposition has, meanwhile,
attracted varying degrees of support from its
main backers - Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and
other Arab states along with the US, UK and
France. However, the rise of radical Islamist
militia in rebel ranks and the arrival of Sunni
jihadists from across the world has led to a
marked cooling of international and regional
backing.

Syria: The Story of Conflict

BBC News, 8 December 2014

SparkNotes Editors. SparkNote on International

Politics. SparkNotes LLC. 2010.
http://www.sparknotes.com/us-government-andpolitics/political-science/international-politics/ (accessed
March 1, 2015).
Art & Jervis (2013). International Politics: Enduring
Concepts and Contemporary Issues: Pearson Education
Inc.

References