My thanks to Professor Sean Yom for his comprehensive review, which lays out with clarity the purpose and central claims of my book. He raises two questions, important and entirely fair, which I would like to address briefly here.

Professor Yom wonders whether my critique of armed humanitarian intervention also implies opposition to non-military steps to help conflict-ridden countries: economic aid, the supply of food, refugee relief, and the other myriad services provided by non-governmental groups, Oxfam, Doctors Without Borders, and the like. As Yom notes, I limit my book’s focus to armed humanitarian intervention, by far the most controversial and consequential form of intervention. I do not, however, maintain that outsiders can do nothing to assist innocent people victimized by violent internal conflicts. Indeed, in discussing Syria I dwell on the curious lack of concern on the part of advocates of military intervention about the lackluster record of wealthy and powerful countries in helping Syrian civilians on the non-military front. We have the odd spectacle, then, of influential people pressing for the use of military power in Syria but failing, with some exceptions, to criticize countries for inadequately funding the World Food Program or for not being more generous and compassionate in offering temporary haven to Syrian refugees. These steps are easier (not to say easy) to take; there is no excuse for not taking them, and R2P’s originators deserve credit for highlighting these and other non-military measures. Many non-governmental agencies, and some states, have done heroic work in Syria and other places plagued by violence. I applaud, indeed support, their efforts. The fixation with armed intervention reflects in part the lamentable militarization of our foreign policy thinking.

Yom’s second question is one that I’m often asked by those who have read my book, namely whether my bottom line is that nothing whatever should be done when mass atrocities occur. That is not my view. There are instances in which, all else having failed, a resort to military force may be necessary. What I oppose is unilateral interventions by individual states and alliances, or even interventions authorized by the UN but lacking effective controls, Libya 2011 being a case in point. Without accountability, states and coalitions will intervene in, or to become exercised about, atrocities in self-serving, selective ways (on the latter point consider the lack of outrage among American leaders about the mounting civilian casualties in Yemen caused by Saudi Arabia’s bombing campaign against the Houthis). I am also deeply skeptical that there are, or ever can be, universal norms on human rights, let alone on armed intervention, beyond declarations that are rife with loopholes. States, whatever their leaders may say, do not wish to take binding, enforceable obligations. They demonstrated this by watering down R2P at the 2005 UN World Summit.