Haiti has once again found itself in crisis, rattled by an assassination, overtaken by gang violence, and led by an unelected government. Associate dean John Ciorciari recently penned an article in Foreign Policy warning of the consequences of ill-timed or defined international intervention.
"Five years later, Haiti is back to the drawing board. Security has deteriorated since peacekeepers left, particularly since Moïse’s assassination, with a sharp rise in violence and no real progress toward a resolution of the country’s political impasse," he wrote. "The question is whether another round of armed international intervention would help."
Ciorciari contends that intervention will only be helpful if it supports domestic political development.
"The United States and its partners should use the prospect of security assistance to push the Haitian government to engage earnestly with opposition groups and civil society leaders on a transitional framework and path to elections," he concludes. "With a credible plan in place, international forces can provide much-needed stopgap security functions. Until that point, even an intervention with the best of intentions may do more harm than good."