Scholars noted a remarkable shift in the pattern and motives of international military intervention with the end of the Cold War, namely toward more multilateral and humanitarian missions, often leading to more negotiated conflict settlement. Yet just twenty years later, counter‐trends had already begun to emerge, with renewed major power competition, more complicated multi‐factional civil wars, and cross‐border insurgent/terrorist networks. Using aggregate intervention data from 1989 to 2006 and case study analysis since 2010, we examine the question of continuity versus change in international security and humanitarian policy, in general, and regarding military intervention and outcomes, in particular. Based on patterns of pro‐ and anti‐government interventions and their effects on conflict duration and outcome, appropriate policy approaches are suggested.
This was originally published on Wiley: Peace & Change: Table of Contents.