External interventions in secessionist conflicts in Europe in the 1990s

Secessionist conflicts have become a major feature of the European political landscape in the 1990s. International response to them have varied from full‐scale military interventions to half‐hearted mediation, generally providing for freezing of most active hostilities and for addressing most urgent humanitarian needs. Europe in the 1990s saw more ‘peace’ operations on its soil than any other region in the world, but still was not able to find a satisfactory answer. Kosovo is a tragic illustration of that, and the deployment of NATO troops after a massive use of airpower still lacks the framework political plan and appears very tentative and opportunistic. Several specifically European factors define the perspective of a possible new wave of secessionist conflicts in the region.