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x Preface and Acknowledgments Somalia intervention, then Haiti, and finally the Kosovo campaign, and those missions were quite different. From a military perspective, these were simply combat operations with a humanitarian purpose. What seemed to be straightforward missions, however, were embroiled in political debates about mission creep, exit strategies, vital vs. periph- eral interests, and a host of legal and ethical questions. How was it possible to wage a war and save lives? Did not dropping bombs belie any moral high ground we might claim? Even if war with a moral pur- pose was legal and politically possible—was it prudent? I was eager to wrestle with these dilemmas to understand how humanitarian mili- tary intervention could be as achievable as our rescue that day on the high seas. Resolution would elude me, however, as it has escaped much brighter minds in the men and women pondering this question from the trenches of humanitarian action, at the highest levels of govern- ment, and in the quiet of academic reflection. In my present work as part of a nongovernmental organization at the United Nations, I have witnessed the intractable policy debates rage on. Angry delegates, whose compatriots are most likely to need humanitarian relief, resist the notion that other countries might have a responsibility to deliver it. The heated debates are not so much about humanitarianism as they are about sovereignty and power. There is real fear that protecting human rights and delivering aid is just a pretext for sinister designs. Not everyone is displeased with humanitarian war. When I met with Kosovo’s president, Fatmir Sejdiu, in his office in Pristina just days after that former Serbian province had adopted its constitution in 2008, he expressed gratitude for the Western intervention that led to political independence for his people. In hindsight, the 1999 Kosovo intervention is still contested. It was largely seen as a success for NATO allies, who united after overcoming their respective misgivings about violating Serbian sovereignty to rescue Kosovar Albanians. It was criticized by those who saw it as part of an unduly intervention- ist American foreign policy. Just two years later, the allies would unite again to protect the skies of the United States after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. But when it came time to debate the prospect of war with Iraq in 2002, invective tore that unity apart, leaving bitterness that remains today. What was striking to me at the time, as I was examining the Kosovo debates, was how similar the arguments made by the Americans, British, French, and Germans in 2003 were to those they had made in 1999 about war with Serbia. The most contentious aspects were again the desire for, but elusiveness of, a UN Security Council resolution authorizing force, the need for some legal or acceptable alternative