ABSTRACT
The last decade of the twentieth century saw the disintegration of the former Yugoslavia, genocide in Rwanda and the collapse of Somalia, to name only three tragedies. At least 43 major conflicts occurred in the 1990s —the exact number depending on how we define a ‘major’ conflict-with Africa accounting for 17 of these (Brogan 1998 and CCPDC 1997). These have included inter-state wars (most notably the Gulf War of 1991), but the majority are intra-state in nature (see Wallensteen and Sollenberg 1997). Such horrors are not unique to our time-the 1970s saw genocide in Cambodia-but the number of intra-state conflicts in the 1990s suggests a deterioration in the mechanisms of conflict management in many societies. How to prevent and end violent conflict, deal with its humanitarian debris, and help countries recover, is now the most important set of issues facing the donor countries and their development, foreign policy, and military institutions.
