International security deals with the fundamental

questions of war and peace. It is the highest

responsibility of the international community to avoid
war and maintain peace. During the Cold War period,
leaders of the two superpowers were mainly responsible
for avoiding the most devastating nuclear war and
maintaining the world order. Academics helped them in
formulating policies that "avoided both war and
appeasement." 1 No doubt, a major war could be
avoided, but it was the period of Cold War, with a brief
interval called a period of detente. World peace was
always uneasy and fragile.

With the end of Cold War, it was widely felt that an era
of stable world peace had begun. President George Bush
called it the beginning of "a new world order." But
Samuel Huntington wrote the most controversial and
widely quoted thesis that economic and ideological
antagonisms would be superseded by the clash of
civilisations in the future. 2 However, Kenneth Waltz
maintained that countries would continue to compete for
wealth and security. Their competition will lead to
conflict in the future, he surmised. 3 While the two
American academics gave their own assessment about
the behaviour of states or civilisations in the future,
President Bill Clinton's security adviser, Anthony Lake
argued that the world's future faultlines will fall not
between the states or civilisations but between
democratic market-oriented states and the states that
defied the world community. The latter states are
classified as "pariah" or "rogue" powers. These are states
that support terrorism and are clandestinely seeking the
production of nuclear and/or chemical weapons. Lake
placed several nations in this category--Cuba, North
Korea, Iran, Iraq and Libya; 4 and other writers have
added Sudan and Syria. 5

However, neither could the new world order be

established after the conclusion of the Cold War, nor did
different civilisations begin to fight; competition for
wealth and security amongst countries did not lead to
conflicts; and nor did the so-called "rogue" powers
threaten the existence of the international community.
But the threat to international security has emanated from
a different source, i.e., ethnic conflicts, according to
many academics and commentators. The present world
order has failed to establish any principles or methods
whereby either international or regional organisations
could resolve such crises successfully. So far they have
intervened only after the heat of the conflict has subsided
and have failed to offer any lasting solution to such
conflicts. In fact, the widely endorsed principle of
imposing international sanctions for containing ethnic
crises have not produced the desired results. In certain
cases, use of international military force with the
sanction of the United Nations (UN) is also considered as
a plausible means to resolve the ethnic crisis.

The pertinent question is whether an ethnic conflict

really poses a threat to the international security system.
In fact, international security is considered to be
threatened if any crisis challenges the present world
order because the basic objective of security is to
preserve the existing order. Ethnic crises have been
persisting in different parts of the globe and the present
international security system lacks the capability to
contain them, leave alone solve them. Moreover, the
crises appear to be spreading and giving birth to new
flashpoints the world over. No doubt, an ethnic crisis is
not a new phenomenon: numerous multi-ethnic countries
have been confronted with ethnic crises in the past but
they were able to control them with reasonable success,
without the involvement of the international community.
Though at times an ethnic crisis had threatened the
territorial inviolability of a country, by and large, they
had not threatened the international security system in
the past. This may have been because most of the serious
ethnic crises were confined to one or a few countries and
never assumed a universal trend. Many ethnic differences
could be controlled by a strong central authority.

But from the late 1960s onwards, observes David Brown,

"Disparities between the developmental promises of state
elites and their performances began to engender
disillusionment, so that state elites began to be seen
increasingly as the source of insecurity and disruption. In
these circumstances, individuals began to look for
alternative imagined kinship communities able to offer
security in the form of social justice." 6 Consequently,
the state authority began to decline, leading to erosion of
the state's main legitimatory ideology--the myth of
assimilating nationalism, believes Brown.

The history of existence of the modern state is just 350

years old. Under the Westphalia order, states enjoyed a
monopoly on the legitimate use of violence or force
within their borders, and the right to use force outside
their borders. But now the state's authority to use force
on both fronts has been challenged. With the growing
democratisation of polity and internationalisation of the
economy, it is widely felt that the state's legitimate
authority for inter-state war has declined enormously.
Any inter-state dispute may be resolved or contained by
the mediation or direct intervention of regional or
international organisations or both. At the same time, the
state's monopoly of power has recently been confronted
with serious challenges from increased differences within
the state along ethnic, racial, religious, linguistic, caste or
class lines.

These challenges to the state authority or even to its

inalienable right of sovereignty have questioned the
validity of the Westphalia order. In other words, the
state's monopoly on the legitimate use of violence within
and outside its borders "is being jeopardised both by the
trend toward transnational deterritorialisation and by the
trend toward national, subnational, and ethnic
reterritorialisation." 7

This is an irony of history that when efforts were made to

integrate the world through economic and political
means, especially in Europe where integration even on
security was also attempted, disintegrating trends erupted
along ethnic lines. The European Union (EU) has moved
towards the integration of Europe by economic and
political means by adopting a new integrative policy and
expanding its membership. At the same time, the North
Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) has also enlarged
its membership by deciding to admit new members and
promising to admit more in the future. Thus, bringing
more European countries into the ambit of a common
security system. Though both integrative moves in
Europe have failed to meet the aspirations and wishes of
all countries of the continent, as also become a bone of
contention amongst some of the countries, yet the
process of European integration has gradually been
advancing. While Moscow has agreed on the expansion
of NATO eastward, the Russian leaders have time and
again expressed their unhappiness over the move. 8

Be that as it may, the integration of Europe has not been

a smooth affair because of the reservations of some
countries on its principles and procedure. While many
countries have shown their keenness to join the process
of European integration, they have been denied active
participation on account of a variety of reasons, e.g.,
standards of economic development, or lack of political
democratic institutions, or unsatisfactory records on
human rights. It may be recalled that when the members
of the European Community decided to integrate
themselves and agreed to establish the European Union
at the Maastricht Summit in December 1991, at the same
time they also made a historical decision on hastening
the process of the disintegration of Yugoslavia. In other
words, the process of integration and disintegration of
Europe began at the same time. They gave legitimacy to
the establishment of a new state on the basis of ethno-
nationalism and allowed the disintegration of a multi-
ethnic state because one or more of its constituent ethnic
groups sought secession from the federal state. As a
matter of fact, unified Germany prevailed on other
European countries to grant recognition to Croatia. Some
European countries, the United States and the erstwhile
Soviet Union were opposed to the division of the former
Yugoslavia on ethnic lines. Thus, the West European
countries gave legitimacy to the formation of new states,
and strengthened Muslim nationalism in Bosnia and
Herzegovina. Subsequently, ethnic differences in Bosnia
sharpened and the much publicised Bosnian ethnic
conflict became not only a regional security issue but
also an international security issue. Consequently, the
media and international organisations began to accept an
ethnic conflict in a state not as an internal security issue
but an international security issue. Such recognition,
however, has not been universally endorsed so far.

Be that as it may, an increasing number of ethnic groups

have begun to demand more rights and recognition of
their separate identity in a multi-ethnic state. In fact, in
the post-Cold War period, ethnic crises have assumed
significance in international affairs. The number of
ethnic conflicts have increased and several of them are
highly visible. In fact, ethnic conflicts have become a
major concern to policy makers because of the large
scale brutal killings and violation of universally accepted
human rights in these clashes. Sometimes they are
considered as a major source of domestic and
international conflict. In certain quarters, it is believed
that "ethnic conflict seems to have supplanted nuclear
war as the most pressing issue on the minds of policy
makers." 9 In reality, nuclear war is not likely to be
fought, not only because of its devastating characteristics
but because of the validity of the existence of deterrence
against a prospective offender. Though its possibility has
not been completely eliminated, the causes of a nuclear
war have been reduced tremendously with the end of the
Cold War, with the adoption of many confidence
building as well as arms control measures in the recent
past.

In spite of a general belief that there has been an

explosion of ethnic conflicts in the post-Cold War
period, in reality ethnic conflicts increased gradually in
the post-World War II period. "The worldwide
magnitude of ethnic rebellion, for example, increased
nearly fourfold between the period 1950-1955 and the
year 1985-1989." 10 But neither the United Nations, nor
regional organisations or the major powers took much
interest in the resolution of ethnic conflicts. At times the
belligerent ethnic groups were supported by regional
or/and superpowers. But the ethnic conflicts remained
confined to a country or a region and hardly assumed
international significance. Moreover, the media also did
not take a keen interest in informing its readers and
observers about ethnic crises. Thus, one of the longest
modern civil wars in Ethiopia, from the early 1960s until
1991, did not become an international security or human
rights issue as the Bosnian civil war did in the early
1990s.

But in the post-Cold War period, non-governmental

organisations (NGOs) such as Amnesty International and
International Alert, as well as local human rights watch
groups, have highlighted ethnic conflicts the world over.
Some regional organisations like the Organisation of
African Unity (OAU) and Organisation for Security and
Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) have also begun to
express concern and take interest in resolving ethnic
crises in their respective regions. Above all, since
Boutros Boutros-Ghali became UN secretary general in
1992, the UN has become more active in resolving ethnic
conflicts. In his Agenda for Peace, released on June 17,
1992, Boutros Ghali had outlined four kinds of responses
to ethnic, religious, social, cultural, or linguistic strife:
preventive diplomacy, peace-making, peace-keeping and
post-conflict peace-building. But he had not proposed or
supported the use of forces to compel the belligerents to
end their hostilities. The international community's
response to ethnic conflicts gained further strength
because US President Bill Clinton has taken a more
assertive interventionist policy posture against human
rights violators.

Though collective intervention is allowed under Chapter

VIII of the UN Charter and Article 34 empowers the
Security Council to investigate disputes that cause
international friction, humanitarian cases, like violations
of human right and ethnic cleansing, are not included for
intervention. In fact, states are subjects of international
law and the UN may intervene if there is a conflict
between two states. But ethnic groups have no special
international legal status. At the forty-eighth session of
the UN Commission on Human Rights on February 21,
1992, the commission approved a draft declaration on the
"Rights of Persons Belonging to National or Ethnic,
Religious and Linguistic Minorities," which made an
attempt to give a special status to groups under
international law. However, none of the human rights
conventions clarifies group membership, except the UN
draft declaration which names them as "Separatists,
Pluralists and Activists." In fact, it is difficult to identify
a group as a separate entity because its membership can
be changed.
Nevertheless, the international community has identified
four types of groups--national, social, ethnic and
religious--in the Genocide Convention, but it avoids
reference to gender and political groups. Another
example of human groups as subjects of international law
is prohibition of terrorism, which specifically identifies
terrorists as members of identifiable groups. 11 The
recognition of groups is implicit in certain cases and does
not apply to all groups. In other words, groups do not
have an independent international legal status with some
exceptions like the Palestine Liberation Organisation
(PLO). Consequently, there is legal sanctity for
international intervention in resolving an ethnic crisis.
Notwithstanding the international legal status of ethnic
groups, some ethnic crises have assumed international
significance and called for collective intervention in their
resolution.

Though geo-political boundaries remain significant, and

every state has the right and responsibility to preserve
and protect them because the territorial integrity of a
state has been recognised by the international
community, they have gradually been eroding because of
the internationalisation of national economy and
interference by the international community on the
ground of violation of human rights and universally
acknowledged international norms. In some multi-ethnic
countries, the most serious threat to the sanctity of geo-
political boundaries has changed from external to
internal, because ethnic, tribal or religious conflicts
generally originate from within and may disintegrate a
state into two or more independent sovereign states. In
other words, in certain cases, the geo-political boundaries
may not be faultlines or flashpoints but ethnic conflicts
within a country may emerge as the new faultlines, and
at times they may be considered appropriate cases
requiring international intervention for their resolution
because they threaten regional and/or international
security. In this respect, it has been noted that in case of
an ethnic conflict occurring in a small and militarily
weak state, there is greater likelihood of outside
intervention for resolving the crisis than in a large and
especially militarily strong state.

For example, while the US and many Western countries

expressed serious concern on the use of brute military
force by Russia for crushing the Chechen's for
independence, they could not contemplate use of military
force for the resolution of the ethnic crisis, apparently
because of the military might of Russia. But this was not
so in the case of the Bosnian crisis. In reality, the
Bosnian crisis was a civil war in which initially three
ethnic groups were fighting amongst themselves and the
Yugoslav federal military forces were there to maintain
law and order. Since the federal military force comprised
mostly the Serbs because the other ethnic groups opted
not to join it, the involvement of the Yugoslav military
force was considered an intervention by Serbia. It was
also regarded as the Serbs' attempt to preserve the
federation for the survival of their reign. Once Bosnia
and Herzegovina declared independence and secured
recognition from the Western countries, the Bosnian civil
war was proclaimed as a war between two countries--
Yugoslavia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina, because in the
meantime, Serbia and Montenegro had joined together to
constitute a new federal Yugoslavia. Thus, the Bosnian
ethnic conflict assumed the status of inter-state war
wherein the Serbs, Croats and Muslims were fighting. It
may be noted that in spite of Bosnia becoming an
independent state its inhabitants remain known by their
distinctive separate ethnic identity and not as Bosnians.
Before Yugoslavia disintegrated, an insignificant number
of its citizens identified themselves as Yugoslavs.
However, until the three states were separated from each
other, they were three republics belonging to the federal
Yugoslavia and their citizens had the common
citizenship of Yugoslavia.

No doubt, such a distinction of citizenship assuming a

legal status is not new in the annals of human history but
the Bosnian case is unique because the new independent
state was presumably constituted by its people exercising
the much cherished right of "self-determination." In
reality, the right of self-determination was not exercised
universally because one-third of the population of
Bosnia, i.e., the Serbs, boycotted the referendum. The
fundamental question is, if a sizeable part of the
population of a state boycotts a referendum that decides
their fate in a newly created state, should they be
condemned to be citizens of a country they despise? Or
do they have an option to exercise their right of "self-
determination" for constituting a new, independent state
or becoming a part of another contiguous state where
people of their own ethnic group reside?

The Bosnian crisis marked a distinctive character of the

history of the post-Cold War period that granted sanction
to the division of a state on ethnic lines but did not give
universal endorsement to the principle of division of a
multi-ethnic state on ethnic lines. We live in a world that
thrives on contradictions but we refuse to admit the
contradictions and claim that we observe norms,
principles and rules that govern the existing world order.
The Bosnian crisis is the seminal example of such
contradictions. If the solution of the Bosnian crisis is
allowed to determine the future of human history, then
there will be worse ethnic wars in future than we have
witnessed in the post-Cold War period so far.

In fact, the Bosnian ethnic conflict is a most contentious

one that is likely to elude solution if the basic premise of
its resolution is not modified. It is an acceptable
universal principle that a multi-ethnic state should not be
divided on the ethnic lines. 12 Various leaders advised
the ethnic leaders of the former Soviet Union and
Yugoslavia to preserve federal multi-ethnic states. But
both the states disintegrated on ethnic lines as various
former republics were called by their ethnic names, even
though almost all of them were inhabitated by more than
one ethnic group. The Republic of Slovenia of
Yugoslavia was the most ethnically homogeneous
amongst them. The two former Communist states
disintegrated on the basis of internal borders which were
largely drawn for administrative purposes.

The newly created states received recognition from the

international community with some hesitation.
Yugoslavia was primarily allowed to disintegrate on
ethnic lines as the different republics were nominally
constituted. The internal borders became the national
borders of the new states. With the exception of
Kazakhstan and Bosnia, all the other new states
comprised a majority of one ethnic group. While all the
former republics are called by a specific ethnic group's
name, Bosnia is not the name of an ethnic group. In
Bosnia, no single ethnic group comprised more than 50
per cent of the population. The Muslims were the single
largest ethnic group in the former republic with 43.7 per
cent of its total population of 4.3 million, in comparison
with the Serbs constituting 33.4 per cent and the Croats
at 17.3 per cent. In reality, the difference in numbers
between the Muslims and Serbs was hardly half a million
of people. In the bloody ethnic war, the Serbs had the
upper hand because they were better armed and trained
than their Muslim adversaries. Though the Muslims and
Croats were more hostile to each other than the Muslims
and Serbs, they joined together against the Serbs in the
formation of a new state because they found in the Serbs
their common enemy. However, they continued to fight
with each other. Though the objective of the Dayton
Peace Accord was to establish a multi-ethnic state, it was
agreed to establish a federation of Croats and Muslims
and a separate Republika of Srpska for Serbs in a new
Bosnia and Herzegovina. Nominally, Bosnia is one state
but in reality, it is divided along ethnic lines. When
multi-ethnic Yugoslavia was not allowed to survive,
Bosnia's attempt to succeed as a multi-ethnic state
appears to be arduous.

The fundamental question is not whether Bosnia is going

to survive as a multi-ethnic state or not, but whether a
multi-ethnic state should be allowed to disintegrate if a
bloody ethnic crisis persists and there is no sign of its
resolution. There seems to be no likelihood of the
international community endorsing the principle of
constituting a state on ethnic lines and allowing a multi-
ethnic state to be disintegrated. "Some 40 per cent of the
world's states have five or more sizeable ethnic
populations, a mere 20 per cent are relatively
homogeneous." 13 There are around 8,000 ethnic groups
the world over and it is unthinkable that every ethnic
group will have its own independent sovereign state in
the near future. But many multi-ethnic states are likely to
be confronted with the demand for granting more rights,
autonomy or even independence to one or more ethnic
groups. Generally, the central state authority will oppose
granting of any privileges or rights to an ethnic group in
a multi-ethnic state because other ethnic groups would
also agitate for such demands and, consequently, state
authority would not only be weakened but the state may
be divided into several parts. The state authority has the
solemn responsibility of guarding the territorial integrity
and sovereignty of the state and it is also responsible for
protecting and preserving the lives of its subjects and
adequately satisfying their aspirations. It is expected that
in a democratic country, the people's grievances will
generally be redressed and there should not be any cause
for serious concern on ethnic grounds. However, many
developed and under-developed democratic countries
have perennial ethnic problems that elude solutions.

In fact, ethnic differences are not in themselves the

causes of conflict but they may become so when
historical grievances--imagined or real--are exploited by
unscrupulous political leaders. 14 An ethnic crisis
usually begins in a state when an ethnic group raises its
demands because it presumably believes that it has been
denied its rights and privileges by the dominating ethnic
group in a multi-ethnic state. The state authority will
generally oppose it and if the ethnic agitation becomes
violent, the state will try to suppress it because the state
authority believes that the acceptance of the demand of
an ethnic group would weaken the state structure and
may lead to its fragmentation. But an ethnic dispute
cannot be resolved by the use of violence. Violence
breeds violence. No doubt, the state has a monopoly on
the use of force but that has to be used for protecting the
lives of its citizens and guarding the state's territorial
integrity from aggression by one or more foreign states.
However, the state was primarily established for
protecting the lives of its citizens. "For most people, a
feeling of insecurity arises more from worries about daily
life than from the dread of a cataclysmic world event."
15

In the post-World War II period, more people have been

killed by their own states or in ethnic or tribal wars than
in inter-state wars. "With the dark shadows of the Cold
War receding, one can now see that many conflicts are
within nations rather than between nations," the Human
Development Report 1994 notes, and in addition, it
observes, "Human security is not a concern with
weapons--it is a concern with human life and dignity." 16
In a multi-ethnic state, once an ethnic group or groups
have no faith in the neutrality of the state and "to the
resonance of myths of the multicultural nation" as well as
in the appeal of nationalist vision, "individuals begin to
search for new imagined kinship communities able to
promise social justice." 17
In such circumstances an ethnic group in a multi-ethnic
state begins to demand its special rights and privileges
which the state authority generally opposes. If the ethnic
crisis appears intractable, then ethnic leaders propogate
that their ethnic group is like a subject of the state
authority which is believed to be under the command of a
dominant, larger ethnic group. 18 They would like to
attract the attention of the international community and
accuse, rightly or wrongly, that there have been
violations of human rights against their ethnic group by
the state authority. They may demand the right of self-
determination on the issue of whether their ethnic group
should remain a part of the existing state with more
autonomy or be allowed to establish an independent
sovereign state.

The pertinent question is whether the sovereign right of a

state or the right of self-determination of an ethnic group
is absolute or not? The state authority will contest the
right of self-determination and oppose interference by
the international community on the ground that it is an
internal affair, therefore, no outside interference can be
justified. In fact, a state cannot procrastinate on the issue
under the cover of it being an internal matter and, thus,
not allowing international community to intervene in the
resolution of the problem. If the ethnic crisis persists for
long or becomes too bloody or neighbouring
country/countries are affected by it because of the same
ethnic group residing there or due to an inflow of
refugees, the international community is likely to discuss
the issue and suggest ways for its resolution,
notwithstanding the aggrieved state's protest that it is its
own internal affair. As a matter of fact, the "components
of human security are interdependent. When security of
people is endangered anywhere in the world, all nations
are likely to get involved. Famine, disease, pollution,
drug trafficking, terrorism, ethnic disputes, and social
disintegration are no longer isolated events that are
confined within national borders. Their consequences
travel the globe." 19

In the current age of mass electronic media, no crisis can

be kept an internal affair of a country for long. In fact, as
early as in 1952, the United Nations General Assembly
condemned the apartheid policy of South Africa, which
was in a way an internal affair of that country. In other
words, an ethnic crisis in a state cannot be an exclusive
internal affair of a state. The international community is
likely to intervene in the resolution of an ethnic crisis of
a state and the latter cannot prevent it from doing so on
the ground of infringement of its sovereignty. Thus,
sovereignty is no longer an absolute right of a state. If we
accept that the sovereignty of a state is not an absolute
right, then the much publicised right of self-
determination of an ethnic group gains validity.

But the principle of self-determination as a method of

determining the right of a minority ethnic group for
attaining a sovereign status or autonomy in a multi-ethnic
state has not been universally acknowledged as a legal
right. During the accelerated trends towards
decolonisation, the principle of self-determination gained
the legal status of "right" with the adoption of a
declaration by the UN General Assembly but its validity
in a sovereign multi-ethnic country was never granted by
the world body. 20 Be that as it may, recently the ethnic
wars of secession have highlighted "the inherent tension
between 'self-determination' and 'sovereignty' or
'territorial integrity'." 21 These days, an agitating ethnic
group generally justifies its demand for "self-
determination" on the ground that its human rights have
been violated by the state and it cannot enjoy universally
acknowledged rights in the existing state structure. In
case a movement for "self-determination" has been
launched by a minority ethnic group in a multi-ethnic
state and it receives moral and/or material support from
one or more neighbouring countries because in those
countries people of that ethnic group are residing, it may
not only cause tension between two or more countries
but would also become a regional or international
security issue. In such case, neighbouring countries may
raise the ethnic issue of another country in a regional or
international forum. In other words, an internal issue of a
country cannot be exclusively its own. Recently, efforts
have been made on recognition of the right of the
international community to intervene in an ethnic crisis
in a state on the ground that human rights are violated
and the crisis may threaten international security.

In the post-Cold War period, it is believed in some

quarters that the state has been confronted with threats
from within, more than from outside. The state authority
has been facing challenges from dissenting forces within
its internal borders. Now in many states, their citizens
may not trust the state elites as neutral policy makers and
executors. Many of them may believe that they can get
economic, social and political justice only in a state that
is constituted on ethnic lines. This tendency is likely to
re-territorialise a multi-ethnic state like the erstwhile
Yugoslavia, especially if different ethnic groups are
mostly residing in separate geographical and/or political
divisions. Incidentally, Yugoslavia disintegrated in spite
of a large number of mixed marriages, i.e., the social and
emotional bondings. The most serious negative
characteristic of Yugoslavia was that its people were
always identified first as a native of an ethnic group and
then as a citizen of the state. But this can happen in any
multi-ethnic state if ethno-nationalism becomes
aggressive and ethnic lines become sharp.

There has been a shift from strategic to security studies.

"Once anything that generates anxiety or threatens the
quality of life in some respect becomes labelled a
'security problem'." 22 Now famine, disease, pollution,
drug trafficking, terrorism, ethnic disputes, religious
fundamentalism, population explosion, refugee issues,
economic crisis and social disintegration are no longer
isolated events that are confined within national borders.
It is widely believed that a national security problem is as
much the concern of the international community as of
the victim state. The international community has
generally extended its aid and assistance to a state that is
devastated by either a natural disaster or human crisis.
An ethnic crisis can divide a state into two or more parts
and challenge the state structure and international order.
It is not only a security concern for the aggrieved state
but also for the international community. Therefore, in
certain cases, an ethnic crisis is considered not just as an
internal concern of a state but as an international security
issue. However, it has not been universally
acknowledged that an ethnic crisis threatens regional and
international security. While the Bosnian ethnic crisis
became a regional or international security issue, the
ethnic crises in Rwanda, Afghanistan and Sri Lanka
remained confined to the respective country and some of
their neighbouring countries. In fact, the Clinton
Administration, the UN under Butros Ghali's secretary
generalship, Western intellectuals, and Western media
have played significant roles in projecting the sudden
explosion of ethnic crises in Europe as the major
international security concern in the post-Cold War
period. An ethnic crisis may become an international
security concern only if it acquires recognition by the
international community, and its intervention in
resolution of the crisis is considered fundamentally
important.