Why conflict prevention does not exclude the use of force

Were expectations too high, as Michael E. Brown argued in Causes and Implications of Ethnic Conflict, back in 1993? “As the Cold War ended, many people might well have assumed that international tensions would have been reduced and would continue to be reduced, and that stability on top would be retained, or even extended to previously troubled parts of the world.” Correspondingly, commentators had framed the prophecy of an “end of history ”. In fact, presidents of a former bi-polar world suddenly suggested, that the great powers would start or continue to work together while creating a “New World Order ”. And, many people, including foreign relations experts, expected, probably inferring too much from the international community ’s response to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, that effective international action was taken in the future to prevent conflicts, as if the end of the Cold War had marked the advent of the millennium.