This course analyzes the effectiveness, limitations, and unintended consequences of military intervention as a tool for managing ethnic conflict, preventing atrocities, and achieving humanitarian ends. It explores these topics through in-depth examination of three recent cases: Bosnia, Rwanda, and Kosovo. No auditors, except for Army fellows, are permitted because the course is based on student discussion of the assigned readings.
The requirements are regular attendance and class participation (20% of grade), one in-class presentation on a reading from the supplementary reading list assigned at the start of the semester (10%), a five-page take-home mid-term examination (20%), and a 25-page seminar paper (50%). Students also will prepare preliminary and revised paper proposals during the first half of the semester to ensure an early start to their research. The seminar paper will address a humanitarian military intervention that either was, or could have been, carried out in an internal or inter-state conflict. The paper typically will not address one of the three cases explored in the course.
Books Available for Purchase: Most readings are on Canvas. In addition, the following five books will be used extensively and are recommended for purchase, as students will be spending many hours with them.
Steven L. Burg and Paul S. Shoup, The War in Bosnia-Herzegovina (New York: M.E. Sharpe, 1999).
Tim Judah, Kosovo: War and Revenge (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000).
Alan J. Kuperman, The Limits of Humanitarian Intervention: Genocide in Rwanda (Washington: Brookings Institution Press, 2001).
L. R. Melvern, A People Betrayed: The Role of the West in Rwanda’s Genocide (New York: Zed Books, 2000).
Laura Silber and Allan Little. Yugoslavia: Death of a Nation (New York: Penguin Books, 1997).