Lessons from wars gone by

As the situation deteriorates in Libya and the international community begins to look at various options, including military ones, policymakers would do well to remember a number of key lessons from the last 15 years of warfare. Like all history, they don’t provide a guide to the future, but can be a warning nonetheless.

The Bosnian experience of the mid ’90s contains four key lessons. The first is that international handwringing costs lives. Many lives. (The same lesson emerges from the post-Gulf War I slaughter of the Kurds and Shia by Saddam Hussein). Wait, and the situation usually gets worse not better.

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The second lesson is that however great the humanitarian need may be, any military mission must not be framed as a humanitarian one. It is ultimately a political mission to stop the killings and help topple the regime; it must be conceived as such.