ABSTRACT
The global diffusion of power underway means that Westerners have lost their previous capacity to set global standards and rules of behaviour. Responsibility to Protect (R2P) provides an entry point for the international community to step in and take up the moral as well as military slack. Pared down to its essence, R2P is the acceptance of a duty by all those who live in zones of safety to care for those trapped in zones of danger. The practice of intervention, and the belief that it is in the best interests of natives who will warmly welcome and benefit from it, has a long but necessarily distinguished lineage. When Russia claimed an R2P mandate in intervening against Georgia in South Ossetia in 2008, it drew attention to the relationship of R2P to the problem of the kin state. The dual experience has shaped its response to the tension between sovereignty and intervention more sharply than in Africa and Asia.
