Reflections on aggressive peace

Abstract

Multilateral interventions for regime change are not new, but their mutation has been congruent with an aggressive attempt to introduce liberal values into peacekeeping and related operations discernible from the 1990s. While recognizing non-coercive, needs-based elements of interventions for peace, this article contends that regime change wars have harmonized with the UN's facilitation of aggressive peace missions and coercive peacebuilding. In the 1990s the perceived failures of, and demands on, the UN, led to a general policy of permissiveness for Western states to pursue regime change, accompanied by reconstruction and development opportunities to promote neoliberal ideas of political economy in war-torn societies. This article focuses on two aspects of international operations fostered through or by the UN: the militarization of peace missions and peacebuilding through neoliberal political economy. It commends further research into the networks of power and resistance that have populated aggressive peace.