Prevention of Violent Conflicts: A New Task for Security Policy — Lessons Learned from Successes and Failures for the Mediterranean

With the ending of the Cold War, longstanding civil wars such as in Mozambique and Central America finally reached peace settlements, in part through efforts by international third parties. The UN and other entities extended their traditional peacekeeping responsibilities into many more societies formerly at war. Unexpectedly during the 1990’s, despite or because of the lowering of inter-bloc tensions at the end of the Cold War, a series of new intra-state conflicts also emerged, such as in Somalia, Yugoslavia, Tajikistan, Algeria, Sierra Leone, Rwanda, Mexico, and Nepal. Although most international attention is paid to major inter-state crises or wars such as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the Kashmir confrontation, by far the largest number of violent conflicts over the post-Cold War era have been intra-state in focus. Both the old and new intra-state conflicts have increasingly influenced the diplomacy, development and military policies, and budgets of many states, multilateral institutions, and non-governmental organisations outside the immediate societies affected.