Securing Europe

The new model of intervention that emerged from Bosnia and Kosovo signalled a revolution in International Affairs. The crises in the Balkans revealed a new division of labour amongst Western states: US forces are primarily responsible for military action while European partners are more committed to Peace Support Operations and the subsequent building of 'security communities' via integration into the NATO and EU. This model has been evidenced in the post-9/11 'war on terror'. Here Moustakis and German examine the emergence and practice of this new Western model of intervention, which combines 'hard'/military and 'soft'/peace approaches, and assess its success and failures in the light of recent operations in Bosnia, Kosovo, Chechnya, Georgia, and Nagorno-Karabakh. The fragile democratisation processes unfolding in the Balkans and the Caucasus offer important insights into the challenges of securing volatile regions and peripheries.