ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses some of the so-called lessons and then the dominant views against humanitarian intervention as a basis to examine the conceptual and operational voids that emerge from the experiences in Somalia and elsewhere. The residue from Somalia continues to foster isolationism. Military and diplomatic authorities now tend to emphasize the reasons to forgo effective participation in humanitarian interventions rather than those that point toward engagement where it would make a difference. The media's influence on humanitarian responses to civil wars is not new, but technology seems to have altered media influence in post-Cold War crises. In general, advantages of regional organizations exist more in theory than in practice for humanitarian intervention. The effective protection of the new category of humanitarian workers would be enhanced by the implementation of an international decision to treat attacks against humanitarian personnel as an international crime.
