The Security Council and the Death of Responsibility To Protect (part 2)

Another interesting issue raised by Julia Gronnevet is what kind of Obama administration we'll be looking at, whether they'll be interventionist or pragmatic or what. So it's curious to see that Obama has stocked his State Department with interventionists like Hillary Clinton and Susan Rice, but the military guys like Robert Gates and James Jones are all very cautious about taking action in places like Darfur. Remember in the 1990s when various State Department folks, led by Madeleine Albright, wanted more action on Bosnia and Rwanda and the it was the military who, post-Somalia, didn't want to do it? Remember Albright imfamously telling Colin Powell "what's the point of having this great military if we never use it?" Makes me wonder if we won't have something like that again.

Needless to say, if that's how it goes down, I'll be rooting for Gates and Jones to win out. And at least in the short term, given how stretched our armed forces are, I rather think they will.