What to do about Burma?

It’s about month since Cyclone Nargis hit. The Burmese government has consistently failed their people with 2.4 million still homeless. More aid was allowed in after the government conducted its unfair and unfree constitutional referendum in the week following the quake. Near as I understand it, some U.S. aid is allowed in, but the aid workers who can actually operate in the country largely have to be from Asian countries. Given the severe limits on aid, from most of the world, I think it’s safe to say that initial harsh U.S. comments might not have made the difference in terms of access and were certainly well deserved. Sullivan has a link with pictures.

There are some, such as George Packer, that consider intervention. I don’t think anyone is arguing for a full on invasion, but instead sending in naval ships that have a proven record when it comes to disaster relief. Sadly, it would probably take ships or landing aircraft, as the PCR project points out airdrops can’t really be effective in this sort of situation.

I’d oppose a naval intervention, the Burmese government is made up of paranoiacs with no interest above maintaining power, they would escalate and a limited intervention would not stay limited. At the same time they’d likely cut off humanitarian access to those countries they’ve allowed in. Moreover, gross negligence in disaster response, while evil, doesn’t rise to the level of genocide. At the same time, setting aside China’s active opposition, we don’t have the support of democratic regional powers such as India or Indonesia.

However, as Matt Yglesias notes there are many opportunities, such as non-coercive relief opportunities in Sudan, where aid could help deal with disasters. We’d do well to gain experience by taking these opportunities that would give valuable experience. We actually handled the tsunami pretty well, but often have difficulty dealing with the other parts of a failed state even when we do have U.N. support. Learning to get better at that and developing a track record of success would much improve our performance and ability to gain support when coercion might be appropriate.

Image taken by groundreporter and used under a creative commons license.