Peace Works: America's Unifying Role in a Turbulent World

摘要

Publishing recommendations on how to deal with the symptoms and causes of violent conflict and state fragility has been a booming industry since the wars in the former Yugoslavia in the early 1990s (not least in the RUSI Journal, such as this reviewer's article, 'Adapting Government for Stabilisation and Counter-Insurgency Operations', published in December 2009). In the past quarter century, practitioners, scholars and governments in the US, its Western allies and international institutions have churned out numerous proposals for how to better deal with such messy conflicts. Institutional innovations have followed - ranging from reforms at the UN to the creation of new units and funding streams in most Western governments, and revised doctrines and practices for civilian and military teams in the field. But no silver bullets have been found. Even in the Balkans, while peace has been kept, the underlying drivers of conflict and instability remain. In newer conflict zones such as Libya and the Sahel, Western states and international institutions are struggling as much as ever to deliver peace, stability and sustainable development.