International Peace Plans for the Balkans–A Success? 133 pages, pdf  Download Back

International Peace Plans for the Balkans–A Success?

Publisher: Predrag Jureković Frederic Labarre

Volume: 133 pages, pdf

Description:

More than 15 years after the end of the Cold War, it is clearer than ever that the ‘New World Order’ has failed to bring about eternal peace, and that we are nowhere near the ‘end of history’. People are talking about third and even fourth generation peace operations (erroneously, in this author’s opinion, by the way). So a historical perspective to this topic may be justified. Actually, relevant experience goes much further back in the past. International peace operations developed as an element of the international state system in the 19th century. The original aim, in the context of post-Napoleonic Europe, was to stabilize crisis zones, usually at the fringes of Europe, in the borderlands of the ailing Ottoman Empire. Stabilisation, one might argue, is still the main purpose of most peace operations today, be it to prevent a war or – more usually – internal fighting from continuing, to prevent a crisis from spilling over into neighbouring territories, or to prevent a smaller conflict from escalating into a major one, for the sake of international peace and stability.