Suchergebnisse

Das besonders üble Kapitel des Jugoslawienkrieges (der durch bosnische Serben verursachte Fall der Enklave Srebrenica im Juli 1995) taugt zur Diskussion über aktuelle Entwicklungen auf dem Balkan und die Möglichkeiten der Verhütung von Aggressionen. Indes bedürfen darüber nur wenige Bibliotheken gleich mehrere Titel. David Rohde (BA 11/97) bleibt zumeist ausreichend, schon wegen der leichteren Vermittelbarkeit (halbbelletristischer Charakter, unmittelbare Zeitzeugenschaft). Methodik, Wissensstand, Analyse und Interpretation sowie (kärgliche) Ausstattung beider Bände ähneln sich jedenfalls sehr. Der neue besticht jedoch durch größere Überschaubarkeit und prägnante Kürze. Auch der Hardcover-Einband mag von Vorteil sein. (2) (Gert Kreusel)

"Predicting the future is notoriously difficult. Producing lists of security risks that may call for military responses is perhaps less difficult, even in the uncertain international climate of today. However, predicting the timing and significance of such risks in terms of severity and political consequences is another matter altogether. The current state of academic theorising offers little solace. This contribution identifies three processes - emancipation, articulation and mirroring - that offer a framework for recognising and constructively approaching the more serious security risks where the threat of organised force invites counteraction." (author's abstract)

Modern military historians struggle to explain medieval strategic behaviour. One key reason, the article argues, is their strong belief in the existence of timeless strategic standards. By analysing the example of the 1415 Agincourt campaign, the article proposes a new approach to understanding late medieval strategy. By reconstructing the normative framework that underpinned strategic practice, the critical importance emerges of an unusual set of conventions which regulated strategy and which allowed for a degree of risk-taking that the traditional and current historiography cannot otherwise explain.

The key contention of the article is that management of the July 1995 Srebrenica crisis (that led to the massacre of an estimated 7,000 Muslim men by Serb forces) failed because of an unwillingness by the international community to use force. As Srebrenica is in critical ways a crisis typical of peace support operations, this is a lesson that applies to such operations in general. It is also a lesson that goes against the standard crisis management literature which, having grown up under the shadow of the Cold War, saw the avoidance of the use of force as the main objective. The use of force, however, is plagued by difficulties which make contemporary crisis management more complex than in the Cold War. The number of actors involved means a far‐reaching dispersal of authority and decision‐making powers. Further complications are confused moral agendas, competing bureaucratic interests and limited national interests. One critical factor, highlighted particularly by Srebrenica, was a deep‐seated misunderstanding of the nature of contemporary conflict and the efficacy of the use of limited force.