Do humanitarian military interventions ensure sustainable peace; do they at least reduce suffering and the number of deaths? There is much debate concerning humanitarian military interventions but studies on the impacts of these interventions comprising all cases are still missing.
In HSFK-Report 2/2013 Bestandsaufnahme der humanitären militärischen Interventionen zwischen 1947 und 2005, Thorsten Gromes and Matthias Dembinski want to bridge this gap. Gathering 31 humanitarian military interventions, their study assesses the change of the level of violence in the short and medium term in countries where humanitarian military interventions took place.
The authors dampen too high expectations on humanitarian military interventions. They point out three findings:
First, wars and genocides are neither shortened nor extended due to humanitarian military interventions. Second, there is little evidence suggesting that deadly violence decreases after humanitarian military interventions. Third, the probability of a relapse to war or genocide after such an intervention is not lower than in cases without humanitarian military interventions.
Single cases may suggest different findings but the study describes a general tendency manifesting the need for further research.
This HSFK-Report is avaible at PRIF for 6 € or as free PDF download.