Last year, President Obama announced he would deploy 50 Special Operations troops into Syria to advise and assist local groups who are fighting the Islamic State.
As numerous foreign policy observers have noted, Obama's decision to intervene in Libya helped set the stage for the ongoing chaos in the Middle East. At the time, many pundits supported the president's intervention, justifying their support by invoking what has become known as the Responsibility to Protect doctrine, or R2P.
The R2P doctrine essentially states that governments have a sovereign responsibility to protect their population from abuses of state power such as genocide, ethnic cleansing, and other crimes against humanity. If the government fails in this first task, however, the international community, according to the doctrine, has a responsibility to intervene.
Throughout the post-World War II era, the United States has embraced its self-assigned role to "make the world safe for democracy" in three main ways: through direct military intervention; through indirect interventions, such as by arming rebel groups to help overthrow hostile regimes; and through economic sanctions. The best of intentions may drive these interventions, but in most cases the outcome has been disaster.
Luckily, economics can teach us a few lessons about reformulating the R2P doctrine in a way that maintains its altruistic spirit while at the same time giving policymakers more effective means to help victims of horrendous crimes. Surprisingly, part of the answer lies in loosening immigration quotas for refugees to come into relatively peaceful and developed countries such as the United States, which in the long term can have better results for us and for them.
To his credit, the president did announce that he plans to extend refugee status to 10,000 Syrians in 2016. The recent terrorist attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, however, have placed these proposals under enormous scrutiny. Even if we concede there might be national security concerns, the economic argument for allowing more refugees and migrants remains quite compelling.
Many Americans would reject expanding immigration out of fear that these immigrants will "steal" American jobs. Yet contrary to popular opinion, many economists have estimated that opening up immigration would actually make most people better off and bake a much larger economic pie. As George Mason University economist Bryan Caplan notes, most immigration studies do not show a long-run decline in American wages due to increased immigration. In fact, since most foreign workers enhance our productivity by doing jobs most Americans won't, most studies show a notable rise in Americans' real earnings.
Many might reasonably worry the influx of refugees would impose a net fiscal burden on our welfare state. Again, the evidence suggests these concerns are vastly overstated. As a Cato Institute study shows, immigrants pay far more taxes than they receive in benefits.
Some argue that loosening immigration is likely to result in a surge in criminal and perhaps even terrorist activity. Indeed, these concerns are what lie behind the fairly substantial support for Donald Trump's proposal to temporarily halt all Muslim immigration to the United States. Yet contra Trump, immigrants are considerably less likely to commit violent crimes or be incarcerated. It's true some might have criminal intent, but it is safe to presume the majority are good, hard-working people.
A final concern is that loosening immigration restrictions would erode American culture and values. Again, evidence of this alleged cultural erosion is incredibly weak. Most of the United States' meccas of culture are filled with immigrants. Moreover, immigrants who choose to come to the United States because of its civil and economic liberties are especially unlikely to wage war on American values either in the streets or in the voting booth.
In the special case of political refugees, there's another important economic argument for liberalizing immigration. Just as allowing open entry and exit in the marketplace introduces competitive pressures on firms to continually innovate, opening borders and allowing refugees to more easily escape the grip of oppressive despots puts enormous pressure on all governments to treat their citizens humanely for fear of losing their most productive ones to foreign competitors.
This wouldn't mark the first time the United States opened up immigration to thousands of refugees from the Levant. During the Lebanese Civil War, millions of Lebanese citizens fled. According to the Arab American Institute, one million Lebanese refugees currently reside in the United States -- roughly one-third of the Arab-American population. These immigrants earn an average annual household income of more than $67,000 -- 25 percent more than the national average.
History clearly shows that the United States has relied on its dominant military power for too long and at too high an ethical and economic cost. It's now time for policymakers to heed the advice of economists who recognize the failures of these coercive policies. They can start by recognizing that Good Samaritan policies are also good economics.
(AP photo)
