View article

Under what conditions can peacekeepers fold up their tents, box their equipment and depart a country formerly riven by ethnic conflict? The 1990’s saw a vast expansion of efforts by a variety of actors to prevent, manage and/or resolve conflicts around the world, including Bosnia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Cambodia, East Timor and elsewhere with mixed results The first years of the new millennium have seen more missions in even more apparently hopeless places such as Afghanistan and Iraq. The primary mission for the militaries inserted into these situations is to create a “safe and secure environment” 1 so that the rest of the peace implementation (or nation-building) processes can take place. What seems to be relatively unproblematic in Bosnia in 2004 is extraordinarily difficult in Afghanistan and Iraq. To be clear, the most important objective in reality for most militaries involved in these efforts is to get out and get …