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Chapter 10: Regret Is Not a Policy

It is 1998, on the tarmac at Kigali airport. President Bill Clinton stands at a podium, his face a mask of pained sincerity. "We did not act quickly enough after the killing began," he says, his voice heavy with emotion. "We did not fully appreciate... the depth and speed with which you were being engulfed by this unimaginable terror." The words are carefully chosen, filled with remorse. They are delivered four years and one million lives too late.

It is 2015, in Srebrenica. A high-ranking UN official commemorates the 20th anniversary of the massacre, speaking of the UN's "shame" for its failure, the "stain on our history" for abandoning the enclave to the butchers. His speech is layered over the raw, keening grief of the Mothers of Srebrenica, a sound of sorrow that no apology can ever quiet, echoing across a sea of pristine white headstones.

It is 2024, in the ruins of Kharkiv. The German foreign minister stands amidst the rubble of a bombed apartment block, her face etched with sorrow. She speaks of her country's "historical responsibility" for the destruction. "We got it wrong," she says, admitting to decades of naive and self-serving energy policy that fed the Russian war machine. The apology is heartfelt. The building behind her is still burning.

The scenes change, but the ritual is the same. The regret is always sincere. The apology is always delivered after the graves have been filled. It is a predictable, almost liturgical performance: catastrophic failure, followed by a period of silence, followed by a public display of remorse. This ritual, this doctrine of post-facto regret, serves a purpose. It allows the powerful to express a genuine human emotion, to assuage a collective guilt, and to publicly turn the page on a shameful chapter. But it is not a policy. It is an eulogy.

And so we are left to imagine the next performance. We see a future leader, a decade from now, standing on the rubble of a city whose name we do not yet know, delivering the exact same speech. The question that hangs in the air, the question that this entire epic seeks to answer, is when, and how, we finally decide to stop perfecting the art of the apology and start practicing the hard science of prevention.

The Discourse 10: The Doctrine of Post-Facto Remorse

1.1 The Birth of a Doctrine: Rwanda and "R2P"
In modern international relations, public regret has been elevated to a quasi-doctrine, a post-facto diplomatic tool used by Western powers to manage the political and moral fallout of their own inaction. This "Doctrine of Post-Facto Remorse" is not only an insufficient response to past failures but is a dangerous end in itself, as it creates the illusion of learning lessons without necessitating the difficult, proactive policy changes required to prevent future atrocities.

The catastrophic failure to intervene in the Rwandan Genocide served as the crucible for this modern doctrine. The profound shame that followed led directly to the creation of the "Responsibility to Protect" (R2P) doctrine, a landmark international norm officially adopted by the UN in 2005. [CITATION 1] R2P stipulated that sovereignty was not absolute and that the international community had a responsibility to intervene to prevent genocide or mass atrocities. The apology by President Clinton in 1998 was a key political moment that helped create the momentum for R2P's adoption. [CITATION 2] This established the initial pattern: catastrophic failure, followed by public regret, followed by the creation of a new, supposedly binding, principle.

1.2 Selective Application and the Death of "R2P" in Syria
The doctrine's promise was short-lived. The 2011 NATO intervention in Libya, authorized under R2P, was seen by many as a misuse of the doctrine for regime change, a perception that Russia and China exploited to discredit the entire concept. [CITATION 3] The true death knell for R2P, however, was Syria. Confronted with years of documented mass atrocities and chemical weapon attacks by the Assad regime, the international community, led by the US, explicitly chose not to intervene militarily. This demonstrated that R2P was not a binding responsibility but a policy option to be applied selectively based on the geopolitical interests and risk tolerance of the great powers.

1.3 Regret as a Substitute for Action
In the post-R2P era, the ritual of regret has detached from any meaningful policy outcome. It has become an end in itself. When confronted with evidence of their past policy failures, Western leaders now routinely offer apologies—as Germany has for its decades of failed Russia policy that enabled the invasion of Ukraine. [CITATION 4] These displays of remorse serve a valuable domestic political function and help "reset" diplomatic relations. However, they are a poor substitute for the proactive, costly, and risky decisions needed to actually stop a current crisis. The world has become expert at writing eloquent eulogies for the victims of its inaction. The purpose of this book is to argue for a new doctrine that focuses on preventing the need for them in the first place.

References

1. United Nations General Assembly. "2005 World Summit Outcome." Resolution A/RES/60/1, 24 October 2005, paragraphs 138-140. https://www.un.org/en/development/desa/population/migration/generalassembly/docs/globalcompact/A_RES_60_1.pdf

2. Clinton, Bill. "Remarks to Survivors of the Genocide at the Kigali Airport in Kigali, Rwanda." 25 March 1998. Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States. https://www.clintonlibrary.gov/archives/public-archives/public-papers/all?_paged=708

3. Williams, Paul D., and Alex J. Bellamy. "The Responsibility to Protect and the Crisis in Libya." Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), Whitehall Report 3-11, 2011. https://rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/whitehall-reports/responsibility-protect-and-crisis-libya

4. Baerbock, Annalena. "Germany Got It Wrong on Russia But Has Learnt Its Lesson." Interview with The Guardian, April 20, 2023. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/apr/20/germany-wrong-russia-annalena-baerbock-ukraine-war-china-lessons-learned