The US and R2P

Conflict, Security & Development
ISSN: 1467-8802 (Print) 1478-1174 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/ccsd20
The two-level politics of supportUS foreign policy

and the responsibility to protect
Julian Junk
To cite this article: Julian Junk (2014) The two-level politics of supportUS foreign policy
and the responsibility to protect, Conflict, Security & Development, 14:4, 535-564, DOI:
10.1080/14678802.2014.930588
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14678802.2014.930588
2014 The Author(s). Published by Taylor &

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Conflict, Security & Development, 2014

Vol. 14, No. 4, 535564, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14678802.2014.930588
Analysis
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The two-level politics of

supportUS foreign policy
and the responsibility to
protect
Julian Junk
This article investigates the US foreign and
R2P. The article reveals several patterns in US
security policy with regard to the responsibility
attitude and practices towards R2P across
to protect (R2P). Based on the analysis of
recent administrations: the avoidance of new
expert interviews and official documents, it
obligations in international law despite a
traces the US position on R2P across critical
general supportive attitude towards R2P; a
junctures between the principles 2005
deeply-rooted pragmatism that leads to the
adoption at the UN World Summit and its
development of practical tools that follow-up
latest invocations in the Syrian crises of 2013.
on the principles it commits to, even if R2P
It discusses the recent atrocity prevention
language had to be avoided in domestic
agenda of the US Government as ambitious
politics; and a constant balancing act between
and as a still evolving operationalisation of
domestic- and international-level politics.
Introduction
When US ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power was asked during her
confirmation hearing how she would define the responsibility to protect (R2P), she
responded that when civilians were murdered by their governments, its incumbent on us
Julian Junk is a research fellow at the Peace Research Institute Frankfurt and at the working group International
Organisations of the Cluster of Excellence Normative Orders at Goethe University in Frankfurt, Germany.
q 2014 The Author(s). Published by Taylor & Francis.

This is an Open Access article. Non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided
the original work is properly attributed, cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way, is
permitted. The moral rights of the named author(s) have been asserted.
536
Julian Junk
to look for ways to halt the bloodshed, and concluded by saying that the principle is less
important, I think, than U.S. practice and U.S. policy.1
This response aptly summarises the ambivalence of US foreign and security policy
towards this UN concept: the US certainly subscribes to the main principles of R2P
and, as this article demonstrates, has supported it sometimes tacitly, sometimes
more forcefully during the critical junctures of the first decade of its existence. However,
there is an inherent tension between this generally supportive attitude and the
frequently sceptical interpretations of R2P heard in some US public and political
discourses.
Large parts of the US public discourse have always been deeply sceptical of R2P and this
has translated into a discomfort with including R2P in political rhetoric. As a recent report
The United States and R2PFrom Words to Action by Madeleine K. Albright and
Richard Williamson summarises: unfortunately, R2P is better known in many other parts
of the world than it is in the United States, and to the extent the phrase is familiar to the
U.S. public, it is often misunderstood.2 This misunderstanding arises from the perception
that R2P obliges the US to foreign interventions if mandated by the international
community; a mandate, which in turn is created through procedural automaticity at the
UN. This interpretation of R2P is not backed by international law, but is nonetheless
powerful enough to make US politicians and diplomats tread lightly when discussing R2P
domestically and adjust their national and international public rhetoric and efforts of
norm entrepreneurship accordingly.
As this article shows, the challenge of coping with a sceptical public has affected the
R2P practices of both recent US administrations on domestic and international levels.
But while there are continuities between the administrations of George W. Bush and
Barack Obama, there are also notable differences. First, both were committed to
developing pragmatic tools to ensure a coherent set of policies designed to prevent mass
atrocities, which by and large corresponds to pillars one and two of R2P. However, it was
the Obama administration that finally implemented a large-scale policy change within
the US bureaucracy, by introducing the atrocity prevention agenda. With this, it takes on
a global leadership role in domestically operationalising the main elements of R2P. But as
this article discusses, the success of this agenda has been partly based on the decision not
to frame it in R2P terminology and initiate it through a bureaucratic process led by the
president rather than the US Congress.
The two-level politics of support
537
Second, both administrations have tended to avoid language and international

agreements that could be domestically perceived as legally binding or limiting its sovereign
freedom to act. This concern about decision-making sovereignty, as Luck calls it,
differentiates the US from the emerging powers being analysed in this special issue,3 who
instead closely guard their territorial sovereignty.4 These powers scepticism towards R2P is
partially rooted in a wary attitude towards being the target of foreign interventionsnot
in retaining the freedom to intervene themselves. Although both US administrations have
catered to this latter frame of defending sovereignty, they have done so for different
reasons. The Bush administration was inherently sceptical towards new international
obligations and multilateral decisions: scepticism of large parts of the public and the
governing political elite coincided. Inside the Obama administration, there has been less
scepticism (though it still exists) towards R2P, but rather a careful avoidance of becoming a
target for those voicing this scepticism within Congress5 or being perceived as weak on
matters of national security.
Third, US diplomats from both administrations have frequently invoked R2P in UN
debates on severe humanitarian crises, genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity,
and have helped to shape international responses accordingly. The foreign policy of the
Bush administration was based in large part on neoconservative interventionism, and R2P
as a frame was occasionally consistent with that pattern. During Bushs second term, the
administration was far more reticent in using R2P: the loss of credibility over the Iraq
intervention and the war on terror worked against effective R2P framing, while, at the
same time, the administration took pains to avoid further obligations to international law.
The Obama administration, despite having ardent and influential supporters of R2P on
its foreign policy team, has also been reluctant to embrace R2P wholeheartedly. While the
concept is consistent with its more multilateralist impulses and the aforementioned
atrocity prevention agenda, the Obama foreign policy is still restrained, carefully weighing
its options between national security interests and values.6 Again, the reasons for this are a
sceptical interpretation of R2P in parts of the public and the US Congresswhere key
players are wary of multilateral engagement and allocating corresponding budget items
and widely shared war fatigue after the experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Obama
administration has thus attempted to convince a sceptical public on a case-by-case basis,
while the Bush administration tended to voice its scepticism. Despite the fact that reasons
for the reluctance to invoke R2P vary between the two administrations, the result is a single
nearly-consistent interpretation of the concept: it is viewed as a moral principle that
538
Julian Junk
should guidenot bindthe international community, while binding those governments

under whose jurisdiction atrocities are committed.
Thus, US R2P practices should be understood as a balancing act between domestic and
international deeds and words. This article traces the complex interdependencies
and ambivalences of these two-level politics.7 Based on the analysis of expert interviews8
and official documents, this article scrutinises the handling of both the explicit references
to R2P in US foreign and security policy and the concrete measures congruent with the
objectives of R2P.9 After introducing continuities of and constraints on US foreign policy, it
focuses on critical junctures that occurred between R2Ps 2005 adoption at the UN World
Summit and its latest invocations in the Syrian crises of 2013.10 The last section discusses
the atrocity prevention agenda as a partial, but ambitious operationalisation of R2P.
Intervening abroad: continuities of and constraints on

US foreign policy
At the heart of R2P as defined by world leaders at the UN World Summit in 2005 lies the
dual responsibility of a state to protect its own population from grave human rights
violations and, in case another state fails to do so, to support the international community
in its efforts to protect populations at risk. The latter requires both the capacity and
willingness to monitor developments and to interfere abroadbe it via diplomatic,
developmental or military measures. The status of the US as a superpower11 has always
been linked to such a capacity and willingness. While the term and the combination of
principles enshrined in R2P is a recent development, the US has a long history of response
and non-response to grave atrocities abroad. This section provides a brief overview of the
developments of the last two decades and how they fit into continuities in US foreign and
security policy-making.
In August 2011, President Obama initiated a national security policy review devoted to
the creation of an interagency Atrocities Prevention Board (APB) by issuing the so-called
Presidential Study Directive 10 (PSD-10). He declared that, [p]reventing mass atrocities
and genocide is a core national security interest and a core moral responsibility of the
United States.12 This was the final step of a journey that started with the experience of
genocide in Rwanda and Srebrenica.13 The well-documented failure to act decisively in
both instances triggered the development of R2P within the UN context,14 and provoked
institutional changes within the Clinton administration such as the creation of the Office
539
for War Crime Issues in the State Department and an Atrocity Prevention Interagency
Working Group.15
The subsequent administration of President George W. Bush left many of these Clintonera structures in place, and helped to shape the emergence of R2P on the international
scene. It even showed a willingness to engage in conflicts on the African continent, most
notably in Liberia and Sudan, including Darfur, as will be discussed below. However
priorities shifted following 11 September 2001. The war on terror and the Iraq
intervention were expressions of a more unilateral approach, with a focus on using
military means in defence of national security. In fact, the new interventionism heralded
during the last years of the Clinton presidency had never met with enough domestic or
international support to be effective. The presidential campaign of George W. Bush found
its opposition to Clintonian interventionism to be a very powerful campaign theme.16
Historically, this fits the pattern of a constant shift between isolationism and
interventionism in US foreign and security policy. While the presidency of George
W. Bush, particularly post-11 September, has often been portrayed as an aberration in
recent American foreign and security policy, in fact, many of its characteristics are a
continuation of the normal variance between isolationist and interventionist tendencies
and between idealistic and realistic motivations.17
One component of US foreign and security policy has always been to emphasise a
hegemonic, moralising exceptionalism for its own actions,18 and to reserve the right of
unilateral military intervention into another states affairs if it feels its national security has
been gravely violated.19 What exactly encompasses national security has been subject to
great variance over time. Interest-based realistic and value-based idealistic foreign policy
approaches have often gone hand in hand.20 While in some cases, US administrations have
used humanitarian reasoning as a mere tactical tool to garner domestic or international
support (as in Iraq in 2003),21 there were many instances in which there was less
instrumentalisation or cynicism, and rather a real ambition to take action when basic
human rights were being systematically violated (as in Kosovo in 1999).22 That those
ambitions have often failed when confronted with genocide is described in detail by Power:
despite being self-aware of its leadership role in shaping international politics in the last
century, as well as its history as a country of immigrants and refugees, active interventions
by the United States have often been prevented by narrow definitions of national security,
the intricacies of a political system based on checks and balances and a tradition of
polarised debate in politics and media.23
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Julian Junk
The various checks and balances between the departments of the executive branch
(most notably between the State Department/USAID, the Pentagon, the National Security
Staff, the Intelligence Community and the Department of Treasury, each of whom set
different priorities on foreign and security policy issues) as well as between the executive
and the legislative branches provide ample room for deliberation and control. When they
are united, they can act swiftly in matters of foreign and security policy. Cohesion within
the administration is ensured by the fact that large numbers of key positions are filled
anew with each new president. In particular in foreign and security policy, the position of
the president remains strong and his personality matters a great deal.24
When it comes to R2P, the Obama administration included some officials who have
been at the forefront of those who see the US as having both a moral and a legal obligation
to act when faced with large-scale atrocities. This results in frequent disputes within the
administration with more restrained players who adhere to more traditional notions of
national security interest, like former Defence Secretary Robert Gates.25 As the discussion
of the cases of Libya and Syria will show, Obama himself is often sceptical of interfering
more forcefully abroad. The most prominent advocates for intervention were Samantha
Power, at first Senior Director for Multilateral Affairs and Human Rights on the National
Security Council, then Permanent Representative to the UN, and Susan Rice, first
Permanent Representative to the United Nations, then National Security Advisor. The
Bush administration also gave posts to ardent supporters of a more engaged US such as
John Danforth, special envoy to Sudan and later US ambassador to the UN.
With the exception of posts within the National Security Council staff at the White
House, the US Senate needs to confirm all nominations made by the president. In general,
the US Congress can influence and constrain the president via legislation, control
(hearings and committee investigations) and public comments designed to change public
opinion.26 However, the most important tools are its budgetary power and its right to
declare war.27 It matters whether a president can count on his own party to be in the
majority or whether the presidency and the majority in the chambers of the US Congress
are held by different parties: partisan support gives the president much more flexibility,
which tends to lead to longer and more robust military actions.28
In the US, any implementation of R2P policieswhether in pillars one and two, the
preventive pillars, or three, its interventionist pillaris subject to the checks and
balances of the government branches and agencies, which means that there are many
audiences an administration must cater to and many veto points it must reckon with.
541
However, R2P principles fall on fertile ground, as they are increasingly congruent with
parts of US foreign policy objectives and institutional capacities.
The US and R2P along critical junctures

The following section will examine the R2P-related interpretations, attitudes and practices
in international fora as well as the US bureaucracy during critical junctures that provoked
an international debate on R2P between 2005 and 2013. As the most powerful player in
world politics in the last decades, the US was certainly involved in all these instances, not
least through their UN Security Council veto power. While some critical junctures have
received more attention in US foreign and security policy deliberations than others, most
US policy responses were shaped by the interdependencies and ambivalences between
domestic and international politics as described above.
World Summit 2005

The UN General Assembly adopted R2P in resolution 60/1 in 2005. The Bush
administration supported the main idea of R2P: that state sovereignty carries the dual
responsibility of each sovereign state to protect its own population as well as that of the
international community to protect populations if a state fails to do so itself. Nevertheless,
the engagement of the US during the World Summit negotiations of 2005 was
ambivalent.29 While US diplomats agreed that each sovereign state was obliged to protect
its own citizens, they argued that the international communitys responsibility should be
decided upon a case-by-case basis and be enacted within the existing institutional
framework. There was to be neither legal obligation nor any kind of automaticity for
international humanitarian interventions.
As the other studies in this special issue show, the fear of limiting national sovereignty
that was voiced during preparations for the 2005 World Summit remains within the global
mainstream (with the exception of some European positions).30 However, there is an
interesting twist that differentiates the US case from that of the emerging powers discussed
in this issue: while the latter tend to fear interventions into their territory or sphere of
influence by an international system still dominated by the West,31 US discourse has
centred around the notion of protecting itself from the obligation to take part in such
interventions.32 US diplomats worked hard to retain the USs freedom to act of its own
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Julian Junk
accorda position widely criticised by the Non-Aligned Movement, who were concerned
about the potential abuse of R2P after the experience of the Iraq intervention.33
The ambition of preserving US sovereignty was a leitmotif of R2P-related policy for the
George W. Bush presidency and the US foreign and security policy of the last decades.34
In the final stages of negotiations before the 2005 World Summit, then-US ambassador to
the UN John Bolton sent letters proposing amendments to the wording of the outcome
document to various UN delegatesall with the intent to avoid legally binding language.
R2P, in his view, was of a moral character: the UN Security Council already possessed
enough legal authority to enforce humanitarian interventions and US troops should not
be subject to any international criminal justice system.35 Even though this campaign
provoked criticism,36 it was successful to the extent that the final text avoided new legal
obligations for the UN institutions, instead allocating a softer responsibility to initiate
debate and to leave decision-making on intervention squarely within the existing
framework of the UN Security Council.37
While the deliberations over the legal aspects of R2P were indeed prominent in the US
engagement at that time, interviewees pointed out that the US supported all other aspects
of R2P, viewing them as being in line with its own moral compass and its own efforts after
Rwanda and Srebrenica38 to react more efficiently when faced with mass atrocities. Once
the wording of the dual responsibility was set, the US fostered the further normative
development of R2P, not least by elevating its status internationally. It supported Britain
and France in their effort to include a reference to the non-binding General Assembly
resolution 60/139 into the binding resolution 1674 of the UN Security Council on the
protection of civilians in armed conflict adopted on 28 April 2006.40
Darfur
The Darfur case showed the power of US grassroots movements and serves as an example
for norm entrepreneurship within the US government. It also triggered a debate on the
term genocide and the legal obligations to act under international law. This debate
together with many experiences unrelated to R2P like the war on terror and the 2003 Iraq
interventionultimately led to a more cautious approach to the use of the term R2P by
both the second Bush administration and the Obama administration. Both used less
legally-defined terms like atrocity prevention. Darfur not only serves as a clear critical
juncture in the US discourse on R2P, as interviewees have confirmed.41 It has also been
543
framed as the first test case of R2P.42 The US support of UN Security Council resolutions
on a concrete case of grave human rights violations43 and its tolerance of the cases referral
to the International Criminal Court (ICC) despite a long-standing aversion to the court
itself underline the significance of this critical juncture. In addition, US diplomats used
R2P as a frame internationally to garner attention and support for a more robust
multinational intervention in Darfur.44
From the beginning of the crisis Darfur was on the US radar, not as a deadly conflict but
as a looming humanitarian catastrophe caused by severe droughts and subsequent food
crises. As early as 2001, the then administrator of USAID Andrew Natsios visited Darfur
and started to shift the narrow focus of USAID involvement in relief operations in the
North South conflict to this other conflict area in Sudan. But it took until 2003 for USAID
to send its first humanitarian mission, thanks to the personal involvement of Roger Winter,
then head of USAIDS emergency relief bureau and the first high-ranked official to deliver
eyewitness reports of the horrors of the Darfur conflict to US Congress.45 Following this,
the US administration slowly started to engage, financially through emergency and relief
funds and diplomatically through internal cables on ethnic cleansing. Natsios and Winter
warned the Government of Sudan that if there was peace in Southern Sudan, but none in
Darfur, US-Sudanese relations would not be normalised. US diplomats were the driving
force behind brokering one of the first peace agreements, the Ndjamena Agreement.46
However, while the crisis in Darfur was unfolding, US policy often suffered from
competing priorities, with at times three different policy objectives towards Sudan. First,
ending the decades-long North South civil war by providing essential good offices for the
negotiation and preservation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA). The strong
US involvement in the negotiations of the CPA and its implementation until the
independence of South Sudan in 2012 has been called one of Washingtons most effective
campaigns of the past 20 years.47 Second, cooperating with the government in Khartoum
on anti-terrorism policy since Sudan was a not-so-secret haven for Al-Qaeda and, third,
containing the humanitarian tragedy unfolding in Darfur.
While the first two objectives seemed to have been prioritised in the first years of the
Darfur crisis, the last was pushed to the fore48 in 2004 as pressure from civil society and
media grew,49 and the first two stabilised somewhat. In a rare display of bipartisanship, in
2004, the US Senate unanimously declared that the atrocities unfolding in Darfur, Sudan,
are genocide.50 Shortly afterwards, on 9 September 2004, then Secretary of State Colin
Powell testified before the US Senate Foreign Relation Committee after a trip to Khartoum
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Julian Junk
and an internal review of the situation in Darfur.51 He called the situation a genocide
committed by the Government of Sudan and its proxy, the militia Janjaweed, against the
inhabitants of Darfur though he wordily denied that there was any obligation for military
action.52
Indeed, the US avoided military engagement in Darfur at any cost for several reasons,
most important of which was the complexity and risk of a large-scale operation at a time of
military overstretch due to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. But there were also concerns
about the legitimacy of a Western forcewhich explains US lobbying for strong AU
involvement.53 However, armed with a cheque book and by instituting sanction and
divestment regimes,54 the US went beyond the usual routine.55 This unusual activism is
exemplified by the divergence from the long-standing US foreign policy pattern of ignoring
or even undermining the ICC. Reacting to social activism that started with Amnesty
International USAs call for the UN Security Council to refer Darfur to the Court, both
Congress and the Bush administration re-evaluated their stance on the ICC in this case.56
On 17 March 2005, Congress called to support the accountability of war criminals by
the UN Security Council. On 31 March 2005, the US Government abstained from UN
Security Council Resolution 1593, thus allowing the referral of the situation in Darfur to
the ICC.57 Indeed, for some in the US administration this was a major shift, not least for
John Bolton, then US ambassador to the UN, who had led US government opposition
against the ICC and would have preferred to veto the referral.58 Since then, the US has
supported the ICC on Darfur, for example, when the ICC chief prosecutor MorenoOcampo and the Judicial Chamber of the ICC issued warrants against high-ranking
Sudanese government officials in February 2007,59 and when Sudanese president Bashir,
one of the indicted, was refused a visa to visit the UN General Assembly in 2013 by the
Obama administration.60
However, aside from Darfur, the general pattern of ambivalence towards the ICC has
continued also with the Obama administration. And although the latter may be more
supportive of the ICC than the Bush administration on a case-by-case basis and is
predisposed to sign the Rome Statute as Clinton did,61 the Government of Barack Obama
ensures that citizens of non-signatory states beyond the state in question are exempt from
the ICCs jurisdiction. Meanwhile, it negotiates bilateral immunity agreements for US
soldiers abroad, thus effectively undermining the ICCs statute.62 This shows that support
for the ICC in the critical junctures analysed here are deviations from the norm, and can be
read as support of the implementation of R2P.
545
On Darfur, the Obama administration has largely continued the politics of its
predecessor not only with regard to the support of the ICC referral. Reacting to longstanding civil society pressure, Obamain line with his earlier rhetoric as a US
senatormade campaign promises to make Darfur a priority on day one of his
presidency.63 While visible policy practice has hardly changed, there has occasionally
been a different, more offensive tone. In reaction to first criticisms of the handling of
the Darfur crisis, Secretary of State Clinton issued a harsh statement, when Sudanese
president Bashir threatened the expulsion of humanitarian agencies from Darfur
(an obvious link to his indictment by the ICC). Obama finally appointed a special envoy
for Sudan, Scott Gration;64 and his administration was very involved in supporting the
referendum in South Sudan, which led to the countrys independence.65 In addition to
these examples, the administration claimed to be pursuing behind-the-scenes diplomacy
in order to avoid a lot of bluster and public threats, as Susan Rice put it66an
argument she would reiterate in the case of Kenya, when R2P was only invoked by US
diplomats after the fact.
Kenya, Myanmar and Georgia

During and after the general elections in Kenya in 2007 and 2008, violence erupted along
tribal lines among the supporters of the main contenders in the elections, Kibaki and
Odinga. The US supported both the mediation efforts led by former Secretary-General
Annan and the ICC indictments against high-ranking members of the governing Party of
National Unity, but was reluctant to invoke the R2P during the crisis.
The UN Security Council was only marginally involved in the post-election crisis in
Kenya. According to Weiss, this was a conscious decision due to difficulties in reaching a
consensus: [t]aking the Kenyan case to the UN undoubtedly would have delayed action.67
Therefore, the UN Security Council, with the support of the US, only issued a presidential
statement supporting the AU efforts as well as the UN Secretariats logistical support for
Annans mediation efforts.68 R2P was not used as a direct reference in this statement.
Susan Rice later recalled:
Its worth noting that the Responsibility to Protect was explicitly not part of the
debate in the Council [ . . . ] It was difficult even to build support for a Council
vote of confidence in Annans mission. Raising the R2P flag may be morally
satisfying, but it can be politically fraught.69
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Julian Junk
US officials viewed R2P as an ineffective frame for the case of Kenya due to its international
contestation: at no time [did] we use the language of R2P in our deliberations at the White
House, one observer remembers.70
However, it played an indirect role: Weiss described R2P as background music that
contributed a sense of urgency, motivating Africans, the U.S. and the EU to enter the fray
with seriousness and due speed.71 It was thus diplomatically influential.72 And indeed, the
US practised diplomacy not only through the Security Council but bilaterally, and with
some effect on the warring parties:73 Bush, on tour through Africa, consciously avoided
visiting Kenya and publicly voiced his concern. He sent Condoleezza Rice to Nairobi
in February of 2008, where she pushed the warring parties to participate in Annans
mediation efforts and warned Kenyan policy-makers of a cooling in US-Kenyan bilateral
relations.74
Furthermore, the crisis around the 2007 Kenyan elections, though not a prime example
of the US Governments active involvement,75 proved important for both the US and the
international R2P discourse in two ways: first, it strengthened the case for the systematic
inclusion of criminal justice in the R2P toolbox;76 and second, it paved the way for a
renewed focus on preventive strategies.77 The international efforts during the Kenya crisis
were described as both the first case of successful R2P prevention and a case that shed
light on the post-conflict dimension of R2P78within the UN context, but as well for the
US atrocity prevention efforts that took conceptual shape in 2008.79 Later, the 2010
referendum on the new Kenyan constitution and the 2013 general elections in Kenya
became test cases for the atrocity prevention agenda and US Ambassador Robert Godec
led the efforts of a coherent US support of the elections.80
The cases of Myanmar in May 2008 and Georgia in August 2008 are important for
understanding what the US sees as the limits of R2P:81 in its view, the concept does not
apply to the withholding of humanitarian assistance in the aftermath of a natural
catastrophe, and cannot be used as alleged cover for an inter-state war or territorial
annexation. Georgia exemplifies the latter circumstance. The US and a vast majority of UN
member states rejected Russias view that Russian minorities in parts of Georgia were at
risk and that this constituted a case for R2P.82 US diplomats instead condemned the
Russian attacks on Georgian civilians and accused Russia of regime change and attempting
to annex the separatist enclaves.83
In the Myanmar case, tropical storm Nargis affected marginalised ethnic groups most,
and when the military Government of Myanmar refused to let international humanitarian
547
assistance into the region, the US swiftly offered humanitarian aid and, together with
France, put pressure on the government.84 While both France and the US considered
delivering the aid without the consent of the Myanmar Government, their reasoning
differed. Whereas the French Foreign Minister Kouchner was quick to invoke R2P,85
stretching the original criteria for R2P beyond the agreed catalogue,86 the US Government
condemned the Myanmar Governments inaction, but did not invoke R2P. US diplomats
did not need to voice this scepticism forcefully, for China, Russia and South Africa had
expressed their rejection of Kouchners rhetoric already.87
Within the UN context, US diplomats rather expressed their outrage at the slowness of
the Myanmar Governments response, avoiding any reference to the French push to
include humanitarian crises brought about by natural disasters under the R2P umbrella.88
Zalmay Khalizad, then US Permanent Representative at the UN, came close to mentioning
R2P by stating that a government has responsibility to protect its own people, to provide
for its people. And since its not able to, you would expect the government to welcome
assistance from others.89 However, most officials resorted instead to the tactic of
criminalising Myanmars behaviour rhetorically without specifying a legal basis. US
Defence Secretary Robert Gates, for instance, condemned Myanmars behaviour as
criminal neglect.90 After Asian criticism, Washington avoided language that could be
perceived as taking advantage of the situation to finally achieve a regime change in
Myanmar91 and that might lead to a politicisation of the crisis: [i]t is not a matter of
politics. This is a humanitarian crisis, Condoleezza Rice argued at the time.92 However,
Myanmar has since become one of the priorities of the Obama administrations atrocity
prevention agenda, and the administration monitors the situation of the Rohingyas and
the Karen closely.93
General Assembly debate 2009

When the UN General Assembly passed a resolution operationalising R2P on 14
September 2009, it did so with the support of the Obama presidency. The administration
signalled its support for the UN Secretary-Generals recommendations, including the now
well-established three-pillar approach, early on.94
In the run-up to the UN General Assembly, Ambassador Susan Rice outlined the US
position towards R2P in a well-staged speech on 15 June 2009 in Viennareiterating and
substantiating the support outlined in her first statement to the UN Security Council on
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Julian Junk
29 January 2009.95 She emphasised the personal duty she feels when it comes to R2P which
stems in no small part from her own experiences with the failure to respond to the
Rwandan genocide while working for the Clinton administration. Rice focused on pillar
one- and two-related efforts of the Obama presidency, which Obama himself again
emphasised some weeks later96 and led to the creation of the atrocity prevention agenda
(see section on the agenda).
Yet with regard to pillar three, she still emphasised the moral, not legal, obligation that
R2P carried.97 Rice mentioned the political risk that comes with the explicit use of the term
R2P when forging international coalitions: given the contestation of R2P in some parts of the
world, it might be better to rhetorically avoid direct references and instead act accordingly
as was done in Kenya.98 While Rice emphasised international contestation, she could have
also pointed outin line with the classical constraint of two-level politicsthe unease with
the UN terminology felt by some parts of the American public and Congress, which explains
the reluctance of many US officials to directly reference R2P in the domestic arena.99
Even though US support for R2P was publicly voiced by Rice and Obama in the run-up
to the General Assembly debate, US diplomats deliberately decided on a more restrained
public strategy in order to make it easier for member states usually critical of the US to sign
up to the process.100 US support was present, but not overwhelming. In comparison to the
World Summit of 2005, the US interpretation of R2P had not shifted, but the support was
more forceful.
Libya
During the Libya crisis, the Obama administration shifted at the last minute from
reluctant to active support of the British- and French-led efforts to forge a coalition for an
intervention to stop and prevent atrocities in the country. It then went above and beyond
by not only supporting a no-fly zone, but a full-scale military intervention.101 That the
administration was still reluctant to sell yet another military intervention to the warfatigued American public102 was shown by Obamas announcement to shift the main
burden of the military operation to NATO allies as soon as possible.103 This attitude
formed the basis for the now-infamous characterisation of the Obama foreign policy as
leading from behind.104
Three factors pushed the US towards advocating for an intervention: first, broad
international support, which included many African states and the Arab League; second,
549
the unusual clarity of the situation in Libya, in which Qaddafi had clearly indicated his
willingness to massacre the insurgent parts of the population; and third, an internal push
by Clinton, Rice and Power.105
When justifying the US role in the intervention, Obama made clear that Libya was to be
seen as an individual case that did not constitute any shift in the US policy of military
intervention on humanitarian grounds. His only reference to R2P was directly linked to
NATO ([l]ast night, NATO decided to take on the additional responsibility of protecting
Libyan civilians).106 He justified the intervention through broader notions of interests
and values and responsibilities to our fellow human beings under such circumstances.107
His rhetoric confirmed the pattern of the case-by-case support of R2P.108 Additionally, the
Libya case again displayed the US willingness to refer cases to the ICC via a UN Security
Council resolution109this time by explicitly voting in favour of referring the case to the
ICC (and not abstaining, as was the case for Darfur). Libya followed the UNs R2P
procedural script closely (Obama even made a UN mandate a condition of US
involvement) and some argue that R2P was an important part of the Obama
administrations internal deliberations.110 In general, Libya reveals two characteristics
in US policy-making during that time: the aforementioned deeply-embedded
reluctance to push actively and publicly for military interventions; and the significant
influence of R2P-friendly voices within the Obama administration such as Power, Rice
and Clinton.111
The aftermath of Libya was important for R2P in yet another dimension.
Emerging powers had been widely critical of the regime change rhetoric after UN
Security Council resolutions 1970 and 1973 were passed.112 In the wake of this,
Brazil outlined the contours of a responsibility while protecting (RwP), which included
the suggestion to chronologically sequence the three pillars of R2P and integrate a
monitoring mechanism to oversee interventions.113 The US reaction to this new
proposition was reluctant. Reflecting the multilateralist impulse of the Obama
administration, it was open to considering the proposal seriously, but retained a
certain degree of scepticism.114 US diplomats in New York stated they realised soon the
RwP was important for the Brazilians, but even more they wondered where the new
aspects were beyond already established procedures and whether a change of procedures
would be necessary at all.115 This episode shows again that the US is open to further
developments of R2P within the UN context, but tends to guard current institutional
procedures.
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Julian Junk
Syria
The example of Syria reveals the constraints the US faces when organising global
coalitions: in cases with a high international profile but conflicting agendas,116 there are
limits to US multilateral influence and the use of the R2P frame. Anticipating this, R2P was
not emphasised by US diplomats at the UN or by US officials in the domestic discourse
the Obama administration was instead occupied with weighing the risks of a military
intervention.117 Thus, the case of Syria is another example of the Obama administrations
reluctance to engage in international military intervention and R2Ps low priority as a
public frame in situations of administration internal deliberation.

At the start of the Syrian protests in 2011, the US sponsored two UN Security Council
resolutions, both of which were vetoed by Russia and China. Aside from these expected
voting defeats in the Security Council, early demands for Assad to step down and
continuous engagement in multilateral fora to stop the flow of arms to Assad (like within a
UN group of friends),118 the Obama administration seemed to be hesitant to engage. This
could be traced to two reasons: first, the situation in Syria seemed to be clear-cut on the
aggressor side, but more complex on the opposition side. Second, the experiences of
Iraqanother complex political landscapewere still very present in the Washington
discourse, and there was a general reluctance to once again become militarily involved in
the Middle East.
In light of this reasoning, the White House had been against arming the rebels or taking
military action since early 2011. The non-lethal aid it supplied to opposition forces was so
tightly controlled that its impact was minimal. Even after intelligence presented proof of
small-scale chemical weapons attacks by Assad in April 2013, violating Obamas selfimposed red line for a more robust American engagement, there were only minor efforts
to train and arm rebel groups.119 It was only after the widely-televised large-scale chemical
attack on 21 August 2013 that the dynamic inside the White House changed and Obama
favoured air strikes (but without directly referencing R2P).120
In a potentially crucial twist, Obama, faced with a sceptical public, asked Congress to
authorise the use of forcecounter to the well-established pattern of the presidential
exercise of war powersa move which could have tipped the balance towards
parliamentarising these decisions. But despite an intensive public effort to convince a
sceptical public and Congress, the Obama administration failed to garner enough support.
It was only a seemingly offhand remark by Secretary of State John Kerry, that Assad could
551
hand over all chemical weapons within the next week, that allowed Obama to save face and
avoid military action.121 This led to an agreement between Russia and Assad for the
removal of chemical weapons, a move that did not end the conflict or change Assads
momentum.122 However, since then, the UN Security Council has included R2P language
in one presidential statement and one resolution, reminding the Assad regime of a
primary responsibility to protect its population.123
In sum, in the case of Syria there has been a long-term lack of political will to act
decisively. References to the R2P were never used to sell policies nor did they have impact
when voiced from the outside. The Obama administration avoided these references
studiously,124 even though there were voices within and outside the administration that
warned of the potential for genocide125 and critical humanitarian developments.126
The case of Syria and the other critical junctures investigated above show the limits the
US R2P discourse in two ways. First, if the administration is carefully avoiding being
drawn into a conflictlike in SyriaR2P does not function as an outside frame to put
pressure on an administration. Second, if R2P is not useful as a frame to sell policy (either
because there is no clear-cut policy or another frame, like the chemical weapons ban,
might suffice), R2P is not invoked. R2P remains for the US a moral principle, subject to
the interdependencies of two-level politics, and not an obligation.
Atrocity prevention agendathe domestic

operationalisation of global responsibilities
As frequently mentioned above, in the past decade US governments have focused on
sharpening their policies and procedures for preventing mass atrocities. This process
culminated in April 2012, when Obama, following up on his national security strategy of
2010127 and the Presidential Study Directive on Mass Atrocities (PSD-10),128 announced
the creation of an interagency Atrocities Prevention Board (APB).129 This atrocity
prevention agenda crystallises important characteristics of US R2P policy. First, R2P has
slowly but steadily taken hold in key US foreign and security policy documentsbe it in
the form of a direct reference, as in the national security strategy, or the implicit
operationalisation of its first and second pillar. Second, it reveals the decision to cater to
domestic sceptics by avoiding using the term R2P to frame key policies. Third, the toolbox
implemented as a central part of the atrocity prevention agenda places the US in a global
leadership position with regard to operationalising pillars one and two, and there are
552
Julian Junk
attempts to spread the R2P gospel internationally. Fourth, even though the agenda seems
to have been successfully implemented within the Obama administration, the decision to
implement it through a bureaucratic, not legislative, process has made it dependent on
election cycles. In the following section, these four aspects will be analysed in greater
depth.
First, advancing the principles of R2P in the domestic context: Obamas 2010 national
security strategy was the first to directly reference R2P and the responsibilities that
come with it for the United States130neither of the two national security strategies of the
Bush administration did so.131 Other departments echoed this to various degrees. The
State Department included a direct reference to R2P in its first Quadrennial Diplomacy
and Development Review.132 The Pentagon stated its preparedness to confront mass
atrocities in the Quadrennial Defense Review Report of February 2010133 and the US
Senate followed with a bipartisan resolution recognizing the United States national
interest in helping to prevent mass atrocities.134 While the Obama administration
commits itself to R2P with an emphasis on a prevention strategy with adequate internal
capabilities, R2P is not directly mentioned by the Pentagon or the US Senate, both of
which instead referred solely to the notion of atrocity prevention. Nevertheless, this
atrocity agenda puts the US at the forefront of operationalisation and institutionalisation
of R2P.135
With this emphasis on atrocity prevention, the Obama administration implicitly
continued patterns established and discussed in the Bush administration136 and explicitly
built upon findings and recommendations of the Genocide Prevention Task Force Report
of 2008.137 The report highlighted the systematic nature of genocides: they are rarely ad
hoc, requiring long-running tensions, conflicts and even preparatory measures.138
According to the report, mass atrocities can be prevented, but one has to monitor
indicators closely and implement long-term strategic planning on cases which are not yet
cases,139 those which have so far flown under the radar of international policy-making.
This finding forms the basis for the mass atrocity prevention agenda. With introducing the
atrocity prevention agenda, the administration can be credited for, as Jentleson puts it:
shifting the US R2P debate from if to how and which: i.e., no longer if
the United States should adopt R2P as an international norm and genocide and
mass atrocities prevention as a priority US policy objective but how best to do so
and in which cases to do so.140
553
The task force explicitly recommended presidential involvement to cope with bureaucratic
inertia, in particular when it comes to inter-departmental co-ordination.141
Second, on the unease of using the term Responsibility to Protect: when Obamas PSD10 read preventing mass atrocities and genocide is a core national security interest and a
core moral responsibility of the United States.142 This is repeated in all key documents
related to the atrocity prevention agenda. Responsibility is mentioned rather abstractly
as the responsibility of the United States or as a global responsibility143not as a
responsibility to protect. The key term is mass atrocity prevention. All interviewees for
this study, be they in the White House, the State Department, the Pentagon, the Treasury
or from outside think tanks, were asked whether this was a conscious decision and, if so,
why it was made. All agreed that it was a conscious decision, and that it was made to avoid
not only R2P, but other terms, such as genocide prevention. They highlighted two reasons
for this: emphasising the innovation that comes with the agenda, and avoiding
controversies with those sceptical of terms associated with national or international legal
obligations. According to some interviewees, this latter decision decisively contributed to
the agendas until-now successful implementation within the current administrationas
was the presidential involvement in the process and the decision to not involve Congress
by resorting to a purely bureaucratic process (see below).144 But, as one interviewee put it,
one of the biggest challenges of the agenda is, in essence, a public relations challenge.145
Third, a toolbox to operationalise pillars one and two of R2P: the atrocity prevention
agenda enlists many concrete measures which aim to allow the administration to harvest
early warning information, to be appropriately alerted, to react coherently across all
branches of government with co-ordinated preventive measures and to provide strategies
for the sustainability of its measures. In regard to the intelligence agencies, this means
implementing a new focus on information about potential mass atrocities,146 enhancing
intelligence co-ordination and making relevant intelligence available to all government
agencies.
The State Department took concrete institutional steps to meet the tasks assigned by the
agenda: it developed procedures to better co-ordinate the US government actors on the
ground. It also upgraded the Office of the Coordinator for Reconstruction and
Stabilization to a Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations (CSO) and tasked it
with developing cross-cutting preventive measures147 and organising a standby group of
personnel and experts. Similarly, the Office of War Crimes was renamed and upgraded to
the Office of Global Criminal Justice, putting special emphasis on post-conflict settings to
554
Julian Junk
ensure sustainability of the stabilised situation, support the ICC wherever possible148 and
review national measures in co-ordination with the Justice Department. Official alert
mechanisms were built into the State Department (as in other agencies) to ensure that
early warning signs could be immediately brought to the attention of the Atrocity
Prevention Board on all staff levels, without being delayed by hierarchies. In the Pentagon,
the previously-developed Mass Atrocity Response Operations (MARO) gained new
traction when they were incorporated into the army operation concept.149 The Treasury,
for its part, developed further smart sanction tools.150
These and further concrete measures are being increasingly discussed by US diplomats
within the UN context as well, for instance during the third meeting of the Global Network
of R2P Focal Points that took place on 11 and 12 June 2013 in Accra, Ghana, where
prevention strategies were highlighted.151 However, additional co-ordination with other
states on early warning mechanisms and intelligence is still being developed beyond the
usual routines of sharing intelligence with allies and co-ordinating with other embassies in
given countries.152 The agenda remains primarily a project of creating capacities and
routines in US foreign and security policies and only secondarily one of ensuring those
capacities are at hand in international institutions.
Fourth, the sustainability of the agenda beyond the Obama administration: since the
atrocity prevention agenda is based on executive action and has no designated budget, the
main challenge for its proponents is sustaining it beyond changes of administration. Some
interviewees expressed hope that the agenda is already well-suited to endure due to a
variety of factors: first, its objectives are in essence of bipartisan nature; second, it will be
difficult to justify abolishing instruments backed by many civil society groups;153 and
third, at the end of Obamas second term its ideas and tools will have so deeply penetrated
into the routines of the agencies and into interagency processes that they will continue to
be pursued.
However, most interviewees were a bit more sceptical and pointed to the fact that the
APB was very much driven by individual commitments like that of Powerthus its
influence might wane once this founding generation leaves the political stage.154
Furthermore, they highlighted its contingent budget and the scepticism among the
Republican ranks in Congress in particular. They emphasised the necessity of the APB and
corresponding entities in the various agencies having some budget titles at their disposal.
This would not only speed up the application of atrocity prevention measures, it would
also ensure that Congress is on board through the budgetary processas would a law
555
institutionalising the APB.155 In fact, the recommendations of the report The United
States and R2PFrom Words to Action by Albright and Cohen reflect these concerns.156
Hence, the sustainability of the atrocity prevention agenda is not yet assured. However,
the pragmatism of operationalising the prevention aspects of R2P will likely survive any
change of administration, as will the reluctance to directly reference R2P in the domestic
discourse. At the same time, the US will likely continue to highlight internationally its
efforts in regard to pillars one and two.
Conclusion
This article has traced the ambivalences and selectivity of US foreign and security policy
when it comes to implementing R2Pin particular related to its pillar three, while on
pillars one and two the US has been in the front seat of operationalising R2P-related
measures further. The patterns revealed continue to shape responses to humanitarian
crises, as the examples of Syria and the Central African Republic (CAR) show. While both
crises have been dealt with frequently within the established institutions of national
security and the newly created Atrocity Prevention Board, only the crisis in CAR has been
met with the whole toolbox of mass atrocity prevention and response, and all means just
short of robust intervention have been employed.157 This crisisnot in the full
geopolitical limelight and not yet requiring massive investment of resources, but meeting
the conditions outlined in the National Security Strategy of 2010 and subsequent
documentsserves as a further example of the supportive attitude the US generally
displays towards R2P on the international level. The case of Syria, however, shows once
more that the threshold for using references to R2P to sell an intervention is high when a
sceptical public needs to be convinced of a large-scale and high-risk military undertaking.
The article has shown that while the US has been by and large supportive of R2P on the
international level and has even taken a global leadership role in implementing its first two
pillars, the US public and US Congress, being in large parts sceptical of international
obligations and tired of sending troops abroad after Iraq and Afghanistan, serve as a
counterweight. Administrations who are themselves sceptical of international interventions
are pushed to voice their concerns openly at the international level, and administrations that
might be more supportive are constrained. We thereby witness the classical
interdependencies of two-level politics. However, there are larger continuities in US
attitude and practices towards the R2P: the avoidance of new obligations in international
556
Julian Junk
law; a deeply-rooted pragmatism that leads to the development of practical tools that follow
up on the principles it commits to and that brings it into a global leadership position; and a
constant balance between domestic and international deeds and words.
Acknowledgements
The author is immensely grateful to all interviewees for providing valuable input for this article, to
the two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments and to colleagues in the global norm
evolution research team who commented on earlier versions of this article, among them in
particular Sarah Brockmeier, Christopher Daase, Philipp Rotmann and Liu Tiewa. This article is part
of a collaborative research project on Global Norm Evolution and the Responsibility to Protect
(www.globalnorms.net), generously funded by the Volkswagen Foundation through its Europe and
Global Challenges programme.
Endnotes
1. The question was asked by Republican Senator Bob
determining the leeway for agents in international
Corker during Powers confirmation hearing in July
negotiations (Putnam, Diplomacy and Domestic
2013. Quote from Mark Landler, U.S. Urged to Adopt
Politics). This article instead relies on Putnams basic
Policy Justifying Intervention. The New York Times, 23
logic that there are interdependencies, but that they can
July 2013.
go in both directions: bottom-up (domestic interpret-
2. Albright and Williamson, The United States and R2P, 10.
ations and attitudesbe they public or elitist) and top-
The high-level, bipartisan report aims at explaining the
down (international advances of R2P)the latter
concept to the U.S. audience and to show how it is
aspect is mentioned but not equally emphasised in
connected to our countrys best interests and traditions
Putnams logic.
and as such attempts to counter this predominant but
8. The 21 semi-structured expert interviews were con-
wrong interpretation of R2P. As for the level of public
ducted in Washington DC and New York in May and June
knowledge about R2P: according to a PBS poll of 2012,
2013 with follow-up phone interviews in summer 2013.
only 21 per cent responded yes, when being asked whether
All interview quotes and references used in this article are
they were familiar with the R2P initiative, while 77 per

cent answered no (Penn Schoen Berland, Phone Poll).
authorised by the interviewees.

9. Much has been written about the US and its R2P
3. See articles by Stuenkel and Tourinho, Tiewa and
related policy: Reinold describes the Bush adminis-
Haibin, Mohan and Kurtz as well as Verhoeven,
trations reaction to this new norm in detail, but she
Murthy and Soares de Oliveira in this issue.
focuses primarily on military intervention and thus on
4. Luck, Sovereignty.
pillar three of R2P: Reinold, The United States and the
5. As Abramowitz put it, there is a bipartisan reluctance
Responsibility to Protect. Chesterman comments
to sign on to anything that smacks of the United
primarily on the US Libya policy: Chesterman,
Nations: Michael Abramowitz, Does the United States
Leading from Behind. Jentleson, as well as Farer and
have a responsibility to protect the Syrian people?.
Fuentes Julio, but most meticulously Brockmeier,
Washington Post, 6 September 2013.
Kurtz and Rotmann analyse the Obama adminis-
6. At a press conference in Manila on 28 April 2014,
trations agenda on atrocity prevention: Jentleson, The
Obama defended his incremental style of foreign
Obama Administration and R2P; Farer and Fuentes
policy-making forcefully and asked in disbelief why is
Julio, Flesh on Doctrinal Bones; Brockmeier et al.,
it that everybody is so eager to use military force: Juiet

Eilperin, Obama Lays Out his Foreign Policy
Doctrine. Washington Post, 29 April 2014.
Schutz und Verantwortung.

10. For the framework of the special issue and particular
the notions of critical junctures, norm development
7. Two-level politics is not operationalised in the strict
and norm entrepreneurship, see the introductory
sense of Putnam with its domestically shaped win-sets
article by Rotmann, Kurtz and Brockmeier in this issue.

11. As Jones argues in his recent book, the US will stay the
heaps by the searing flames of hatred; suffering we
most influential actor for the foreseeable future and
thought modern man was incapable of contemplating
there is no serious contestation by emerging powers:
and surely not disposed to inflicting (US Department
Jones, Still Ours to Lead.
of Defense, Remarks to the Atlantic Council). After
12. The White House, Presidential Study Directive on

Mass Atrocities.
the war, Clinton remarked: whether you live in Africa,

or Central Europe, or any other place, if somebody
13. The genocide in Rwanda was never a formal issue of an
comes after innocent civilians and tries to kill them en
official meeting in the White House. The State
masse because of their race, their ethnic background or
Department focused instead on the Arusha Peace
their religion, and its within our power to stop it, we
Process between the Rwandan Government and rebel
will stop it (The White House, Remarks by the
groups and consciously avoided using the word
President to the KFOR Troops).
genocide for the tragedy unfolding (Power, Bystan-
23. Power, A Problem from Hell.
ders to Genocide). Traumatised by the experiences in
24. Gallagher and Allen, Presidential Personality. See as
Somalia, the Clinton administration sought to avoid

any military entanglement.
557
14. As for the process within the UN, the legal debate over
the NATO intervention in Kosovo certainly was an
equally important, if not more immediate, trigger.
15. See, for instance, Power, Bystanders to Genocide;
Power, A Problem from Hell.
well Walker and Malici, U.S. Presidents.

25. Manuel Roig-Franzia, Samantha Power: Learning to
Play the Diplomats Game. The Washington Post, 3
April 2014.
26. Kriner, After the Rubicon.
27. Constitutionally, the US president is commander in
chief, but the US Congress is given the power to fund
16. See Saunders, Leaders at War.
those endeavours and to declare war. This remains one
17. Western, From Wars of Choice; see as well Kriner,
of the great unresolved tensions of the US constitution.
After the Rubicon; Mitchell, Democracys Blameless
Despite attempts by the US Congress (for instance,
Leaders; Saunders, Leaders at War; Walker and Malici,
with its War Powers Resolution of 1973) to constrain
U.S. Presidents.
the president, the reality of a rather passive Congress
18. Lockhart, The Roots of American Exceptionalism; Foot
allows the president to be by far the most central figure.
et al., US Hegemony and International Organizations;
Wittkopf et al., American Foreign Policy, 430; Auerswald
Kennedy, The Manichean Temptation. This excep-
and Cowhey, Ballotbox Diplomacy.
tionalism and moralising foreign policy has been
28. See Kriner, After the Rubicon.
subject to many criticisms by other actors in global
29. Reinold, The United States and the Responsibility to
politics, as the other contributions in this issue vividly

demonstrate.
19. Roth, Bending the Law.
20. In fact, the oscillation between those poles and, in
Protect, 66.
30. See Brockmeier, Kurtz and Junk in this issue.
31. See, for instance, Verhoeven, Murthy and Soares de
Oliveira in this issue.
general, room for change and doubt are, as some argue,
32. For a discussion of this world summit dispute between
an inherent strength of the US foreign policy, because
territorial and decision-making sovereignty, see Luck,
trial and error and the ability for renewal go hand in
Sovereignty.
handand conflicts within an administration and
33. Vlasic, Europe and North America, 9.
divisive decision-making throughout the political
34. See the careful analysis of the wording used by State
system are a key ingredient for that. See, for instance,
Department policy planning staff in these years by
Sestanovich, Maximalist.
Reinold The United States and the Responsibility to
21. The damage done to the credibility of US foreign and
Protect, 66 68.
security policy by this intervention has haunted many
35. Bolton Voices Opposition to U.N. Proposals. The
US efforts to build international support for R2P until
Washington Post, 1 September 2005. For a careful
today: Jentleson, The Obama Administration and
analysis of the wording, timing and impact of Boltons
R2P, 402. See as well Farer and Fuentes Julio, Flesh on
proposals, see Pollentine, Constructing the Responsi-
Doctrinal Bones. 209.
bility to Protect, 273 342.
22. This was the first war of NATOs 50-year history. US
36. See, for instance, the criticism by Jeffrey Sachs quoted
Defence Secretary William Cohen said: the haunting
in: Bolton Voices Opposition to U.N. Proposals. The
sight and the sound of women and children herded

onto rail cars for deportation, fathers and brothers last
seen kneeling in rows, whole villages turned into ash
Washington Post, 1 September 2005.

37. Orford, International Authority; Chesterman, Leading
from Behind, 282.
558
Julian Junk
38. Interview with current member of the National

Security Staff, Washington DC, 22 May 2013.
39. Reaffirms the provisions of paragraphs 138 and 139
documentation survey, in Chad refugee camps to

substantiate the claim of genocide: Hagan and
of the 2005 World Summit Outcome Document
Rymond-Richmond, Darfur and the Crime of Genocide,
regarding the responsibility to protect populations
58. See for the testimony of Powell: Powell, The Crisis
from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes

against humanity (UNSC, Resolution 1674).
in Darfur.
52. Flint and de Waal, Darfur: A New History, 182.
40. US diplomats highlighted their view on the dual
53. Interviews with Cameron Hudson, Washington DC, 22
responsibility throughout the long process of drafting
May 2013, and with Jean-Marie Guehenno, New York,
this resolution. As the US representative at the open
28 May 2013. See as well Brockmeier, Kurtz and Junk in
debate of the resolution stated: [w]e would like to
this issue.
stress, however, that the primary responsibility for
54. For instance, Bush signed the Sudan Divestment and
protecting civilians lies with States and their Govern-
Accountability Act into law at the end of 2007: Patey,
ments and that international efforts should comp-
first large-scale victimisation survey, the atrocities
Against the Asian Tide.
lement Government efforts rather than assume
55. Interviews in Washington DC and by phone, among
responsibility for them (UNSC, Transcript of the
them Cameron Hudson, 22 May 2013, with members
Open Debate, 8). As for the protection of civilians,
of the CSO at the State Department, 22 May 2013, and
interviewees at the UN often referred to it together
Michael Abramowitz, 17 July 2013.
with R2P as the protection siblings. While both
56. Stedjan and Thomas-Jensen, The United States.
concepts have been by and large developed simul-
57. Ibid. The US abstained along with Algeria, Brazil and
taneously within the UN, the protection of civilians is

rather the operative concept and R2P has been shaped
on the strategic state level (interviews in New York,
28 29 May 2013).
41. Interviews with, amongst others, Cameron Hudson, 22
May 2013 and with members of the National Security
Staff, 22 and 24 May 2013.
42. Beardsley, Lessons Learned or Not Learned.
43. In this case, the resolutions 1706, 1755, 1769 and 1778.
44. Interviews with diplomats at the United States Mission
to the United Nations (USUN), New York, 28 29 May
2013.
China.
58. Hagan and Rymond-Richmond, Darfur and the Crime
of Genocide, 32.
59. Ibid., 105 106.
60. Western, ICC Victory.
61. Phone interview with Beth van Schaack, 10 June 2013.
62. Kersten, Unfortunate but Unsurprising?.
63. CNN, Obama is Asked to Focus on Darfur, 13
November 2008. See as well Obama, Renewing
American Leadership.
64. Reinold, The United States and the Responsibility to
Protect, 84. Scott Gration was followed by Princeton
45. Flint and de Waal, Darfur: A New History, 167 170.
Lyman in this position (2011 2013), who in turn was
46. Ibid., 167 169.
followed by Donald Booth in 2013. Gration was
47. Boswell, The Failed State Lobby. In fact, Boswell goes
frequently criticised as being diplomatically lenient
on to criticise the almost unconditional support the US
with the Bashir regimeand he even dropped the use
governments provided to the main military and
of the word genocide to describe the situation in
political faction in Southern Sudan, citing it as a
Darfur, receiving praise from Khartoum for his even-
potential source for future conflicts between North and
handed approach: Obama Aides Clash over Sudan
South as well within South Sudan. Sadly, both
Policy. The Washington Times, 31 July 2009; U.S.
predictions came true in the last one and a half years,
Envoys Outreach to Sudan Is Criticized as Naive. The
providing the grounds for renewed attention of the
Washington Post, 29 September 2009. There were
atrocity prevention team within the Obama adminis-
indeed controversies within the Obama administration
tration and both were predicted early on. Abramowitz
about whether to apply positive or negative incentives
and Lawrence, How Genocide Became a National
to the Bashir regime: Jentleson, The Obama
Security Threat.
Administration and R2P, 405.
48. Junk, Humanitare Appelle.
65. Jentleson, The Obama Administration and R2P, 415.
49. Flint and de Waal, Darfur: A New History, xi;
66. Adding Pressure to Sudan, Obama Will Tap Retired
Brockmeier et al., Schutz und Verantwortung, 28.
General as Special Envoy. The New York Times,
50. US Senate, A Concurrent Resolution.
17 March 2009. Indeed, even some from the activism
51. Together with USAID and the Coalition for Inter-
side were deeply sceptical about the role of celebrity
national Justice, the State Department undertook its
presence and political rhetoric, as those might divert

attention from negotiating a political settlement: de
91. Haacke, Myanmar, 169. Comments by first lady Laura
Waal, The Humanitarian Carnival; Flint, Darfur:
Bush initially gave the impression of an ongoing regime
Stop!.
67. Weiss, Halting Atrocities, 28.
68. UNSC, Presidential StatementS/PRST/2008/4.
69. Rice, Remarks on the UN Security Council.
70. Interview with Cameron Hudson, Washington DC, 22
May 2013.
change agenda, as Haacke points out.

92. Myanmar Faces Pressure to Allow Major Aid Effort.
The New York Times, 8 May 2008.
93. Interview with Gideon Maltz, National Security Staff,
Washington DC, 21 May 2013; interview with Jonas
Claes, USIP, Washington DC.
94. Vlasic, Europe and North America. 9.
72. Badescu and Weiss, Misrepresenting R2P, 17; Stein-
95. USUN, Statement by Ambassador Susan E. Rice.
berg, Responsibility to Protect.

73. Luck, Preface; Juma, African Mediation.
74. Rice, in Nairobi, Offers Incentives to End Violence.
The New York Times, 19 February 2008.
75. In fact, one of the most publicly visible rhetorical
559
interventions came when then presidential candidate

Obama taped a video message to the Kenyan people
before the elections.
96. The White House, Press Conference in LAquila.

97. See the case of Kenya, above. Quote from Rice,
Remarks on the UN Security Council.
98. Ibid.
May 2013.
100. Interview with Ed Luck, Berlin, 14 June 2013. Luck
emphasised his own consultations on that matter with
76. Phone interview with Beth van Schaack, 10 June 2013.
US diplomats supporting them in this decision. This
77. Interviews with Kenya Team at State Department CSO,
was confirmed by US diplomats in interviews at USUN,
Washington DC, 22 May 2013.

79. Interviews with Kenya Team at State Department CSO,
Washington DC, 22 May 2013.
New York, 28 29 May 2013.

101. Thanks go to Sarah Brockmeier, who highlighted this
to me. See as well Brockmeier, Germany and the
Intervention in Libya; Seibel, Libyen.
102. The military intervention in Libya was by and large
Washington DC, 21 May 2013; interviews with Kenya
unpopular in the US, putting additional pressure on
Team at State Department CSO, Washington DC, 22
Obama to justify a limited US engagement. Jentleson,
May 2013. In fact, the CSO took a lead role in these
The Obama Administration and R2P, 419.
efforts: Smiddy et al., Final Evaluation of CSOs Kenya
103. The White House, Remarks on Libya.
Engagement.
104. Lizza, The Consequentialist.
81. As Badescu and Weiss argue, even in cases in which
105. Hastings, Inside Obamas War Room; Lewis, Obamas
there are misuses or contestation of R2P, R2P is used as
Way. Confirmed by interviews in Washington DC,
a relevant frame. They thus contribute to conceptual
21 23 May 2013.
clarification and to the liveliness of an potentially
106. The White House, Remarks on Libya.
emerging norm: Badescu and Weiss, Misrepresenting
107. Ibid. For a careful analysis of the patterns of justifying
R2P.
82. Luchterhandt, Volkerrechtliche Aspekte des Georgien-
the intervention, see Holland and Aaronson, Dominance through Coercion, 12 13.
Krieges, 470 471; Evans, The Responsibility to
108. See as well Chesterman, Leading from Behind, 283.
Protect, 11 12. See Kurowska in this issue.
109. In this case: resolution 1970 adopted on 26 February
83. Vlasic, Europe and North America, 12.
2011. A pattern that was repeated in the case of Cote
84. Bypass Juntas Permission for Aid, US and France
dIvoire, where at about the same time French- and
Urge. The Guardian, 9 May 2008.
ECOWAS-led forces paved the way for the rightful
85. See Brockmeier, Kurtz and Junk in this issue. See as
winner of the elections, Ouattara, into office. Like the
well: Bypass Juntas Permission for Aid, US and France
Libya resolution 1973, resolution 1975 also invoked
R2P and referred former president Gbagbo to the ICC;
86. Schaller, Die volkerrechtliche Dimension, 12.
the US was supportive of all of these measures, invoked
87. Cohen, The Burma Cyclone.
some diplomatic pressure on South Africa and
88. Bypass Juntas Permission for Aid, US and France
instituted some targeted sanctions against perpetrators

89. Quoted in: Haacke, Myanmar, 164.
90. Allan and ODonnell, A Call to Alms?, 370.
of violence. See, amongst others, Jentleson, The

Obama Administration and R2P, 417.
110. Ibid.
560
Julian Junk
111. Hastings, Inside Obamas War Room. Senior officials

in the administration were nevertheless quite divided
Review Report, vi and 15.
on the support for the intervention: Farer and Fuentes
134. US Senate, Recognizing the United States.
Julio, Flesh on Doctrinal Bones. 217.
135. Some observers suggest that the years after the World
112. See Brockmeier, Kurtz and Junk in this issue. On the
Summit were years of consolidation of R2P, while after
rhetoric of Cameron and Sarkozy, see as well Stuenkel
Libya the emphasis is now on institutionalisation and
and Tourinho, Tiewa and Haibin, Mohan and Kurtz as
operationalisation: Weiss, RtoP Alive; Bellamy, Libya
well as Verhoeven, Murthy and Soares de Oliveira in
and the Responsibility to Protect; Jentleson, The
this issue. The Obama administration, however,

avoided the term regime change consistently: Holland
and Aaronson, Dominance through Coercion, 12 13.
113. Benner, Brazil as a Norm Entrepreneur. See as well
Stuenkel and Tourinho in this issue.
133. US Department of Defense, Quadrennial Defense
Obama Administration and R2P, 420.

May 2013.
137. Albright and Cohen, Preventing Genocide. The authors
of the report rightly envisaged an opportunity to infuse
114. USUN, Remarks by the United States.
its ideas into the political process and chose to publish
115. Interviews with US diplomats in Washington DC, 24
near the 60th anniversary of the Genocide Convention
May 2013, and in New York, 28 29 May 2013.

116. As Bellamy discusses, the contestation of the R2P-based
and the start of the Obama presidency.

138. Ibid., xv.
intervention in Libya might have played a less
important role than diverging political interests related
Washington DC, 21 May 2013. Syria was an exception
to Syria itself for these conflicting agendas: Bellamy,
that proved the rule: public pressure, not least from
From Tripoli to Damascus?.
Congress, prompted the APB to suggest its own
recommendations early on, but they failed to be taken
into account at the regular meetings, even at the
118. See Brockmeier et al., Schutz und Verantwortung, 109.
presidential level. Brockmeier et al., Schutz und
119. Rohde, How John Kerry.
Verantwortung, 13. Samantha Power and others
120. Ibid.
continued, however, to push hard for more robust
121. Ibid.
efforts (Glasser, The Price of Smart Power). Never-
122. Though some observers still see a stalemate. Blanchard
theless, the failure to act in a high-attention, non-
et al., Armed Conflict in Syria.

123. See UNSC, Presidential StatementS/PRST/2013/15;
and UNSC, Resolution 2139.
124. Michael Abramowitz, Does the United States have a
Responsibility to Protect the Syrian People?.
prevention case like Syria put the expectation management strategy of the APB at risk. Afterwards, it focused
even more on cases that were not yet visible and could
be subject to true prevention strategies. Interview with
Cameron Hudson, Washington DC, 22 May 2013.
Washington Post, 6 September 2013. Abramowitz
140. Jentleson, The Obama Administration and R2P, 400.
highlights that there is only one international norm
141. Albright and Cohen, Preventing Genocide, xxi.
frequently invoked by Obama, the chemical weapons
ban.
125. See, for instance, Hof and Simon, Sectarian Violence.
126. Danny Postel and Nader Hashemi, Use Force to Save
Starving Syrians. The New York Times, 11 February 2014.
127. The White House, National Security Strategy 2010.
Mass Atrocities.
129. The White House, Remarks at the Holocaust
Memorial Museum.
Mass Atrocities.
Memorial Museum.
144. For instance, interviews with Gideon Maltz, National
Security Staff, Washington DC, 21 May 2013, and with
Cameron Hudson, Washington DC, 22 May 2013.
May 2013.
146. This was put into practice right away, when then
130. The White House, National Security Strategy 2010, 48.
Director of National Intelligence, Dennis C. Blair
131. However, the security strategy of 2006 mentioned the
warned in testimony before Congress in 2010 that there
prevention of genocide and mass atrocities as an
is the danger of future mass killings in Southern Sudan:
important policy priority: The White House, The
Abramowitz and Lawrence, How Genocide Became a
National Security Strategy 2006, 17.

132. US Department of State, Leading Through Civilian
Power, 128 129.
National Security Threat.

147. Many interviewees remarked that the traditional
rivalries between thematic and regional entities within

the State Department continue to hamper the
implementation of those co-ordination efforts.
emy of Diplomacy and United States Institute of Peace,

Washington, DC.
148. Though not a signatory to the ICC, the US increasingly
Albright, Madeleine K. and Richard S. Williamson, 2013. The
supports the ICC via the UN Security Council and
United States and R2PFrom Words to Action; Report of
direct assistance. Phone interview with Beth van
the Working Group on the Responsibility to Protect.
Schaack, State Department, Office of Criminal Justice,
United States Institute of Peace, United States Holocaust
10 June 2013.
Memorial Museum and Brookings Institution,
149. Jentleson, The Obama Administration and R2P, 400;

for an in depth discussion of MARO, see Brockmeier
et al., Schutz und Verantwortung, 41 42.
Memorial Museum. Interview with official at the US
Treasury, Washington DC, 23 May 2013,
561
Washington, DC.
Allan, Craig and There`se ODonnell, 2012. A Call to Alms?
Natural Disasters, R2P, Duties of Cooperation and
Uncharted Consequences. Journal of Conflict & Security
Law 17(3), 337 371.
Auerswald, David P. and Peter F. Cowhey, 1997. Ballotbox
Diplomacy: The War Powers Resolution and the Use of
Force. International Studies Quarterly 41(3), 505 528.
Badescu, Cristina G. and Thomas G. Weiss, 2010.
Misrepresenting R2P and Advancing Norms: An
153. As Brockmeier et al. emphasise, two main factors
Alternative Spiral?. International Studies Perspectives
helped the atrocity prevention agenda gain traction in
11(4), 354 374.
the public discourse: political entrepreneurship and
Beardsley, Brent, 2009. Lessons Learned or Not Learned
individuals as well as social movements and advocacy
from the Rwandan Genocide. In The World and
campaigns. Brockmeier et al., Schutz und Verantwor-
DarfurInternational Response to Crimes Against
tung.
Humanity in Western Sudan, ed. Amanda F. Grzyb.

May 2013.
Washington DC, 21 May 2013, and with Cameron
Hudson, Washington DC, 22 May 2013.
156. Albright and Williamson, The United States and R2P, 11.
157. As Hamilton elaborates, the APB was briefed from the
McGill-Queens University Press, Montreal, 41 60.

Bellamy, Alex J., 2011. Libya and the Responsibility to
Protect: The Exception and the Norm. Ethics &
International Affairs 25(3), 263 269.
Bellamy, Alex J., 2014. From Tripoli to Damascus? Lesson
Learning and the Implementation of the Responsibility
to Protect. International Politics 51(1), 23 44.
outset about rising tensions and the US administration
Benner, Thorsten, 2013. Brazil as a Norm Entrepreneur: The
acted quickly and coherently after 5 December 2013,
Responsibility While Protecting Initiative. GPPi Work-
when there was first credible evidence about atrocities
ing Paper. Global Public Policy Institute, Berlin, March.
being committed: the French UN Chapter VII
Blanchard, Christopher M., Carla E. Humud and Mary Beth
resolution was co-sponsored, Obama taped a message
D. Nikitin, 2014. Armed Conflict in Syria: Overview and
directed at the population of CAR, one day later, the
U.S. Response. Congressional Research Service,
administration channelled US$ 60 million in military

assistance to the UN mission, airlift capacities were
immediately deployed and Ambassador Power travelled to Bangui to support reconciliation efforts:
Hamilton, Samantha Power in Practice.
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The two-level politics of

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security policy with regard to the responsibility

attitude and practices towards R2P across

to protect (R2P). Based on the analysis of

recent administrations: the avoidance of new

expert interviews and official documents, it

obligations in international law despite a

traces the US position on R2P across critical

general supportive attitude towards R2P; a

junctures between the principles 2005

deeply-rooted pragmatism that leads to the

adoption at the UN World Summit and its

development of practical tools that follow-up

latest invocations in the Syrian crises of 2013.

on the principles it commits to, even if R2P

It discusses the recent atrocity prevention

language had to be avoided in domestic

agenda of the US Government as ambitious

politics; and a constant balancing act between

and as a still evolving operationalisation of

domestic- and international-level politics.

q 2014 The Author(s). Published by Taylor & Francis.

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The two-level politics of support

Second, both administrations have tended to avoid language and international

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should guidenot bindthe international community, while binding those governments

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Intervening abroad: continuities of and constraints on

The two-level politics of support

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The two-level politics of support

The US and R2P along critical junctures

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World Summit 2005

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The two-level politics of support

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The two-level politics of support

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Kenya, Myanmar and Georgia

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The two-level politics of support

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General Assembly debate 2009

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The two-level politics of support

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