Zimbabwe and the Balance of Interests
Robert Mugabe is poised to further extend his disastrous rule of terror. Will the West act? No. By Jason Steck, managing editor.
With the withdrawal of opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai from the upcoming presidential runoff, Zimbabwean dictator Robert Mugabe is poised to further extend his disastrous rule of terror. The Zimbabwean currency has collapsed, now requiring over 40 billion Zimbabwean dollars to purchase a single British pound. And what was once the breadbasket of Africa is now fed only by the charity of international humanitarian groups. Gangs of hired political thugs — virtually the only paid work available in the country anymore — roam through dilapidated shanty towns, beating, maiming, and even murdering anyone who might raise a voice of protest against the regime’s incompetent leadership. Tsvangirai is calling for UN peacekeepers . It won’t happen.
Mugabe’s reprise of Idi Amin’s infamous cult of personality begs the question of why it is allowed to continue. After all, Amin was eventually overthrown by an outside invasion. But Mugabe’s depredations provoke little more than muted frustration from his neighbors. And international outcry has largely been limited to the drumbeat of daily updates on the deterioration of Zimbabwe on the BBC. In point of fact, Mugabe’s boldness and international meekness both result from perfectly predictable foundations — what international relations theorists call the “balance of interests”.
Mugabe’s interests are relatively easy to outline — stay in power. Like all dictators, Mugabe fears that loss of power would lead to the loss of his life. Whether from projection of his own violent instincts or from a reasonable calculation of how an overthrow would play out, Mugabe believes that his enemies would run him down, if given the opportunity. He therefore seeks to use whatever means necessary to deny them that opportunity. In addition to using thuggery to suppress dissent, Mugabe seeks to contol other potential bases of power by putting a hammerlock on the economy and using seized land as payoffs to purchase enough supporters to keep himself in power.
The interests of the international community are harder to specify. Certainly, there is a vague, general interest in the welfare of the Zimbabwean people on humanitarian grounds. And there is a more focused interest in that welfare from Zimbabwe’s neighbors, who face the prospects of political instabiltiy producing refugee flows and the creeping spread of violence, as has happened in areas of Chad neighboring Darfur and areas of Albania and Macedonia neighboring Kosovo in 1999. There are, however, few concrete material interests of a type that will engage serious international attention. Chaotic and impoverished Zimbabwe poses no significant military threat even to its immediate neighbors and the collapse of its agrarian economy combined with Mugabe’s pogroms against white landowners left over the colonial era has left few economic assets of any interest to the global economy.
While the benefits that could be secured by intervention are low, the costs of intervention would be high. Zimbabwe has been systematically looted, resulting in a small minority that has been enriched by the regime and would fight to the death to protect their gains and their lives and a huge majority that would have to be fed, policed, and employed by any interventionist. Beset by their own problems of underdevelopment, poverty, and disease, none of Zimbabwe’s neighbors have even a fraction of the necessary resources. Britain is hamstrung by post-colonial reluctance and the broader international community is fixated on bigger problems of the global economy, terrorism, and war.
As a result, the balance of interests is clearly in Mugabe’s favor. He can calculate with relative assurance that both his neighbors and the broader international community will do nothing more than mouth sad platitudes as he proceeds to repress opposition and further loot his country’s dwindling assets. And without external support, his political rivals will lack tools with which to sustain opposition. Mugabe can, in short, act with impunity. And he clearly knows it.
This results in a tragic prediction for the fate of Zimbabweans. They will undoubtably face many more years of repression and poverty as Mugabe’s reign drags on. Upon Mugabe’s death, it is likely that a successor will arise from his ranks of bought supporters after a brief period of intercine fighting. And the world will remain disinterested. The sad truth is that no one will have the “ courage to save Zimbabwe “. More bluntly, the costs outweigh the benefits.
Recommended reading: “ How to Put the Heat on Mugabe ” by Paul Wolfowitz, for the Wall Street Journal.
