On November 5th, SIWPS Member Stuart Gottlieb published an article in The National Interest entitled “Syria and the Demise of the Responsibility to Protect.” The article explores the world’s response to chemical gas attacks in Syria, and the dual personality the international community seems to have towards intervention for security issues and intervention for humanitarian issues.

Professor Gottlieb believes that the overreach in what was supposed to be a humanitarian intervention in Libya has given UN Security Council members like Russia and China cold feet for any future R2P mission. He suggests we try to separate security norms from humanitarian norms in an attempt to facilitate these humanitarian interventions in the future, a “[modest step that] would go a long way toward reining in the unrealistic expectations of R2P.”

The article can be read in full here.