How do you define “raw national interest”? Is it distinct from “unraw” national interest? Is raw better than unraw? Furthermore, how do you know yet whether or not it will turn out well? We are only a couple months into it?
"Theory" from the early days when that profession began to be seriously taught and studied. I meant to make a distinction between what individuals allow themselves to do as moral agents (for lack of a better term) and what nations are expected to do as a very different kind of 'moral agent,' especially in their relations with other nations
I'm pretty sure you get my drift.
As individuals we have (many of us anyway, and many more are legally bound) to exercise a definitely responsibility to intervene when we see another person in distress.
The state, on the other hand, can deprive citizens of life, liberty and property (following due process, in the United States.
Ideally.
That's the theory, anyway.
In the case of Libya, for example, it could be argued that allowing Q'Daffy to run rough shod over one of the foremost hot bed home towns of the foreign nationals who roamed over the Iraq to fight against American troops as "insurgents" was probably not among our "raw self interests."
Foreign Policy schools used to teach nations were not moral agents, and they should, be expected to act in their own 'raw' self interest, despite world opinion.
It seems there is now a school of academic thought, among the anointed curia, that holds nations to be actual moral agents in their own right, and that's where this "Responsibility 2 Protect" doctrine may originate.
Human Rights, determined by President Carter to be a cornerstone of our national foreign policy, was disastrous.
There's a elementary example taught among the Old School from the time of Napoleon, when Alexander of Russia lied about something to the Emperor, ostensibly his ally, though he initially saw himself as a very Christian man and definitely a responsible moral agent. It bothered him a lot, and the story goes he rationalized that deception because, as Tzar, he was acting as Head of State, as the corporate entity called Russia. The lie was definitely in his nation's self-interest.
Perhaps the New School can't divorce its individual actions from those done on behalf of, and in the name of, a nation with larger interests.
Something like that, anyway.