ABSTRACT
In the post-Cold War world, states have increasingly come under pressure to intervene in conflicts that have begun to follow an identifiable pattern whereby such 'interference' takes place. The end of the Cold War has seen a breach in the norm established in the Westphalia revolution: non-intervention. Intervention is the use of coercion, compulsion, or manipulation by some external agent or agents in an effort to effect or to prevent changes in the policies or practices of a state. Military self-defence and other-defence fall outside the category of intervention. The notion of collective self-determination is as elusive as the notion of intervention and is variously understood in the literature. Walzer's theory may draw plausibility from the fact that it is, primarily, a theory about military intervention. Post-Westphalian rationality implies that the state has lost its historical usefulness, and certain new solutions to problems of security must increasingly be found in the form of multinational collective decision-making and action.
