N. Luttwak: “Give War a Chance” Analysis

“Give War a Chance” is an article written by the American economist, historian and military strategist Edward Nicolae Luttwak in 1999, in the American magazine Foreign Affairs. It make an easily understandable “buzz”, since its main assumption is that most kind of peacekeeping or humanitarian operations are, in an objective point of view, a bad thing for the peace, and that it tends, paradoxically, to slower its establishment. We will analyze here the main hypothesis that Luttwak is developing among the article, the first one being the destruction of the legitimacy usually accorded to peacekeeping operations, led by the UN or by other military organizations, and the second one being the obstacle to a durable peace establishment, created unwillingly by humanitarian help during conflicts. We will conclude on the suggestions made by the author on the evolution of international organizations’ way of intervening in nowadays conflicts. For that, we will articulate our analysis on the following problématique: how peace-turned foreign interventions among conflicts end up being an obstacle for peace establishment? The analysis will follow the same path used by Luttwak, demonstrating how peacekeeping often turns into peace blocking, then how humanitarian interventions also do, and concluding on the position international organizations and NGOs should adopt to promote a durable peace more easily, according to the author.

Problems and paradoxes of peacekeeping
The main idea here is quite simple to understand: forced peace is no good peace, since the only viable peace is the one established in the postwar era, which means there has to be a war, and it has to end “naturally”, by its own. There has to be a climax of violence so that there can be a decrease of it, ending to peace. Thus, interventions become, more than useless, obstacles to real peace establishment. Moreover, there is an inefficiency of military organizations regarding peace establishment as well as local