I noted yesterday the following from Romesh Ratnesar in Time, but didn’t get a change to blog it: Is It Time to Invade Burma?

it’s time to consider a more serious option: invading Burma. Some observers, including former USAID director Andrew Natsios, have called on the U.S. to unilaterally begin air drops to the Burmese people regardless of what the junta says.

That the response to the cyclone by the junta has been unconscionable (indeed, “evil” comes to mind) is clear, but the notion that an invasion would solve the problem is problematic (indeed, the word “ridiculous” comes to mind).

Such an action would not, at the end of the day, be simply an invasion to distribute food, it would end up being an occupation to establish zones to distribute aid and would essentially be an attempt at regime change (or, at least, nullification). If one actually put troops on the ground, the regime would respond. Fighting and degrading the military would clearly damage the regime, and likely leading to its collapse. So, if the international community goes in, provides aid, fights the military, causes a regime collapse, will those who invaded for humanitarian reasons then leave if there is no effective government in place? Will the humanitarian situation actually be better at that point? What if a regime collapse sparks internal political violence?

It seems to me that the lesson of how difficult regime change from the outside is should be clear by now. Further, we should have learned that invading to help people doesn’t always work out the way one thinks it will (or have we forgotten certain predictions of being greeted as liberators with flowers and candy?). Just because people need help doesn’t mean that they will automatically understand that guys with guns from a foreign land are there to help.

You’d think we would have learned the lesson about the limits of military power by now.

James Joyner is similarly unimpressed by the notion and suggests:

The international community doesn’t recognize them as legitimate. If the people who do these things for a living decide that ignoring the junta and dropping relief supplies will do more good than harm, I don’t have any problems with it.

But coercive humanitarian intervention? No, thanks.

Of course, even something like that would require taking out their anti-aircraft capabilities, yes? And if such actions were undertaken, and it damaged the regime to point of making the internal circumstances (bad though they are) worse, will the international community then take responsibility for the Burmese? The situation is fraught with problems.