The Cold War has been followed by a decade of regional and ethnic conflicts, massacres, and forced exiles. Should America assume the role of peacekeeper and chief humanitarian in a world of endless wars and human disasters? Eminent foreign correspondent William Shawcross has spent much of his career in war zones and has had unrivaled access to diplomats, peacekeepers, and global policymakers at the highest levels, including UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, for whom he has high regard. In which has a new epilogue for the paperback edition, Shawcross takes us behind the lines with him to Cambodia, Bosnia, Somalia, Sierra Leone, East Timor, Rwanda, and Kosovo to show us how complex and costly Western interventions are and how naïve are our hopes of peacemaking without bloodshed.