International Conflict Analysis - Essay Example

However, since the war ended in 2002, there have been several positive developments like conducting elections and involving the youth. Of course, one has to keep ones’ fingers crossed as earlier attempts at peacemaking have usually resulted in breakdown given the greed and grievance of the warlords and the presence of thousands of brainwashed soldiers ready to do their bidding. The role of the international community is also discussed and some criticism expressed for the way in which their non-intervention caused avoidable suffering and casualties.

Given the interplay of the resource argument (the so-called conflict diamonds) with that of a failed state where a “free for all” was the norm rather than the exception, the peace that the citizens of Sierra Leone are experiencing now is indeed welcome from all aspects. Finally, the conflict in Sierra Leone is also notable for the way in which the post cold war illusions about durable peace and establishment of a new world order were disabused. The end of the cold war produced diametric reactions from intellectuals and foreign policy experts.

Whereas writers like Francis Fukuyama were quick to predict the “End of History” and proclaim that the democratization of the nations of the world would give us the meaning that we have always sought, other writers like Samuel Huntington warned of a coming “Clash of the Civilizations” where who you were mattered more than what you were or which side you were on (Huntington, 1996, 14). The former is the “new war” hypothesis that posits the view of how conflicts in the last two decades are about economic reasons and identity whereas the latter is the “old war” theory about the cold war which was essentially an ideological battle.

However, there are many who see the so-called new wars as a continuance of those fought earlier just that the international order does not have the