The Communication between Policymakers and the Military in Humanitarian Intervention: Bosnia, Kosovo, and Libya

Abstract

This paper examines three cases of humanitarian intervention (Bosnia, Kosovo, and Libya) to show that intervening parties face challenges concerning the effectiveness of it. The analytical framework for this inquiry consists of ‘the relationship between the use of force and diplomatic negotiations’. The specific challenges are as follows: there are difficulties in defining the proper use of force in relation to diplomatic negotiations for a resolution of political conflict within a intervened state, and those are due to the uncertainty of communication between policymakers and the military within intervening parties; a gap between the use of force and diplomatic negotiations causes the uncertainty; and the gap has at least two variations, ‘the gap between means and end’ and ‘the gap between different ends’. The latter type of gap is especially noticeable since it reflects the trend of the time, the rise of legitimacy of humanitarian intervention.