ABSTRACT
By 1992, early in the post-Cold War period, there were more armed conflicts occurring worldwide than for nearly 50 years, and most of the violence unfolded within the boundaries of United Nations (UN) member states. While major, international war turns out not to be wholly obsolete as some have argued1 – as the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, the EthiopiaEritrea war of the early 2000s, or the cross-border Israeli-Hizbollah conflict of 2006 attest – overall mostly internal or civil wars are the principal present threat to contemporary international peace and security. The post-Cold War civil wars were accompanied by hideous features: attacks on civilians increased dramatically, and the protagonists in warfare were often amorphous “non-state actors” – irregular insurgents, paramilitaries, quasi-criminal gangs, and shadowy factions within state security forces.2
