Intervention continues to be a prominent dimension of the post-cold war world. Since the early 1990s, Britain and other countries have made the choice to be involved in, among others, Bosnia, Kosovo, East Timor, Iraq, Afghanistan and now Libya. For some, these represent latter-day military adventurism. For others, the operations are “all about oil”, or “a clash of civilisations”. But none of those views is borne out by the facts.
Of course, the degree of national consensus in support of each has been mixed: from general support for the Nato Kosovo operation (despite the lack of a UN Security Council resolution) and for the UK operation in Sierra Leone, to the controversy of Iraq and, today, Afghanistan. The interventions in the Balkans were undertaken mostly to safeguard Muslim minorities and there are certainly no great oil reserves in that part of Europe.
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