Western moral ethics has a long tradition of protecting the innocent. At least since the Christian teaching to care for the least among us (Mt 24:40), ethicists have advocated that the responsibility to protect takes a variety of forms, including a central concern for those who are suffering beyond the borders of one’s nations. It should not surprise us then, that the strife in Syria and recent “Kony 2012” video have captured the attention of liberal and conservative alike. In both instances, the tragedy we see appeals to our sense of universal justice. Something must be done. Or so we say to ourselves because America has both the moral authority and the military capability to intervene in either (or both) cases.

But is the Christian commanded to do good everywhere? This seems unlikely because there are infinite opportunities for one to do so. The only real exceptionless norm in the Christian understanding of natural law is not to do intrinsic evil. (Other such ethical traditions, both Christian and secular take a similar point.) For example, the Christian teaching against murder, theft, adultery are “negative commandments” in that they tell the faithful what not to do. They comport with secular notions of avoiding evil. And yet, there is an immediate tension with other teachings such as feeding the poor because if it were followed everywhere and always, we ourselves would eventually run out of food, not only for the poor but also for our families and ourselves.

Still, we each have our own difficulty wrestling with the horrors going on around the world and we feel compelled to do something. Realist theory of international politics is helpful here: as a school of thought, realism (realpolitik) offers immense explanatory power to state behavior in the modern world. It’s a deductive world view, resting on a few fundamental assumptions about the international system: chief among them, the international system is described as anarchic—i.e., that it has no global governing power. States are on their own. Second, material scarcity exacerbates anarchy. There are limits to how much of all things each person, or nation can have: food, shelter, water, security (bombs, planes, etc.). As such there are constraints on any possible path of agency that a state can or will undertake.

Individuals, political factions, and decision-making agencies in states can learn much if they reflect on points of mutual intersection and departure between these two world views, Christian ethics and realpolitik. The imperfect nature of the world is the root cause of such evils, but it is likewise something that we need to remember. We cannot simply absorb the entire world into one universal state, nor can we police every such tragedy. And yet, Christianity is the matrix of moral evaluation from which we can discern if something ought be done. It provides the language of discernment necessary for evaluating the evils being done and being suffered by the innocent; If the suffering is so immense as to warrant the involvement of another state—in this case, our own—then the moral framework of those who promote such an agenda will no doubt use the language of ‘human rights’ and ‘humanitarianism’. Of course, it bears mentioning that these values are themselves secular formulations of Christianity’s assertion that man is made imago dei; and therefore, we all share in the common human enterprise.

Involvement is not without risk. Opponents of the Iraq war are quick to remind us that liberal-democracies have tendencies toward imperialism in the name of spreading our valued political form. Moreover, if we choose to violate another nation’s sovereignty in the name of humanity, we are still obligated not to do evil. This means that we must be willing to accept the obligation for that nation’s stability. For even if we claim it has no stability, no justice, and no current legitimacy on account of the crimes being committed by the state in question, once we decide to intervene, we bear the responsibility to see it through. To remove what little authority there is only to leave a power vacuum is to do more harm than good.

This is hard stuff. I do not think there are easy answers or clear positions to take vis-a-vis specific policies. But we should, at a minimum, highlight the moral tension for any proposed action (or in-action) in international affairs if we are to make sound, prudential political decisions.