Description
There is a very rude proverb in the Balkans: 'it is easy to beat thorn bushes. with other people's pricks'. Paddy Ashdown first heard this when a Bosnian friend explained why his country's leaders left the international community to tackle problems that they ought to have faced up to themselves. There are more than 70 wars underway today, mostly civil wars, and many will require international intervention to stop. Western armies can win their modern, digital wars in a few weeks, but that is the easy bit. Building the peace afterwards can take decades.
This book investigates modern peace-keeping missions, and reveals how to build a country out of the ruins of civil war. No two missions are the same. but there are already lessons enough to build on. This is a vital task that affects us all. 'Failed states are simply too dangerous to left alone, yet we cannot afford interventions that fail on such a massive scale as they have in Iraq. It is no good winning the war only to face a bloody insurrection by the very people the operation was intended to help.
ISBN:9780297853282
