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Abstract
The Limits of Non-Military International Intervention:
A Case Study of the Kosovo Conflict
The conflict in Kosovo is an ethnic conflict with strong territorial and
cross-border/international dimensions. Its implications reach beyond Kosovo
into Serbia, the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY), and the neighbouring
states Albania and FYROM. The conflict also had (and still has) an impact on
the stability of the entire Balkans region and the success or failure of the
international community's reconstruction efforts in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
Driven by concerns about the human rights situation in Kosovo and the
implications of a further escalation of the latent conflict there, a number
of international governmental organisations began to adopt various
strategies of intervention since 1990. The difficulties the international
community was experiencing in formulating and implementing a consistent and
effective policy approach towards the conflict in Kosovo were several and
they had their sources within Kosovo, within the Federal Republic of
Yugoslavia, within the wider region, and within the complex framework of
relations between the main actors in the international arena. Together these
factors have, from the outset, limited the range of possible policies,
resulting in international governmental actors failing, individually and
collectively, to prevent and thus far to settle the conflict.
This paper will a develop framework of distinct, yet interrelated,
categories that allow an analysis of the conflict and the possible
management and settlement strategies that were tried. This will make it
possible to determine whether policy makers in the international community
were constrained by their own inabilities or by conditions upon which they
had little or no influence. In addition, such an analysis can provide an
answer about any alternative courses of action and the likelihood of their
success.
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