ABSTRACT
A general presentation on the subject of intervention is likely to contain little that is original, and to consist only of an endless series of classifications. The reason for this is very simple. The subject is practically the same as that of international politics in general from the beginning of time to the present. The chapter deals with a discussion of intervention as a set of facts, so as to present a broad picture of intervention in international relations. It looks at it as an issue, as a problem to be solved, before coming to the obvious conclusion that it is insoluble. The balance-of-power system was unsatisfactory for purposes of controlling intervention. There are, in international affairs, some fundamental contradictions which underlie the whole subject of intervention. Soviet intervention in Afghanistan —as well as the attempted American invasion of Cuba in 1961, or the successful American interventions in Guatemala in 1954 and in Grenada in 1983.
