ABSTRACT
Civilians caught up in the midst of violent conflicts confront intended and unintended devastation. They may be killed or wounded by mines, small arms, artillery or simple clubs and machetes; they may face starvation, displacement, and loss of shelter; they may be the victims of genocidal or sexual assault; and their children may be kidnapped and turned into perpetrators of violence. When such devastation occurred in the distant past, it did not generally draw interventions by outsiders seeking to protect native populations. Rather, the interventions that did occur usually involved global or regional great powers, acting independently or loosely allied, sending military forces into supposedly less civilized areas when their own nationals were harmed in civil disturbances. The responsibility to protect then meant defending the well-being of British, French, German, Americans, Russians, Japanese, and the like from indigenous peoples.
