ABSTRACT
Military intervention in weak states by their more powerful peers is one of the great constants in the history of international relations, and is closely related to the question of state survival. Intervention has remained a constant throughout post-independence history, but its purposes and rules have altered. Intervention is more than the naked imposition of force by the mighty against the frail. The creation of two new African countries in the last 25 years, Eritrea and South Sudan, is indicative of the growing erosion of the principles of non-interference, border integrity and sovereignty that have structured Africa’s international relations since 1963. Growth in the number and size of stabilisation operations, along with their increasingly robust mandates to use force, form part of the broader militarisation of responses, by Africans and non-Africans alike, to perceived security hazards emanating from the continent. More importantly, stabilisation is a response to the enduring challenge of managing state fragility.
