To R2P or not to R2P? That is the question

Sammanfattning: The last decades has seen a development in the international arena towards new norms, designed to protect civilians during humanitarian crises. This notion became known as the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) and has established itself since the turn of the millennia. At the same time we can observe a change in the behavior during war by the western powers, where territorial conquest no longer is the main objective. Instead wars are fought for values, and are more humane in their nature. This study sets out to investigate the effect of these two developments on the North Atlantic Treaty Alliance. I chose three instances where the R2P norm can be applied, and where NATO has the possibility to intervene, namely the interventions during the breakup of Yugoslavia, the crisis in Darfur and the intervention in Libya. I make use of a theory examining humane warfare by Christopher Cocker, which anticipates a reduction in armed forces, advances in technology and a change in conflict behavior. The theory is applied on the three cases. The findings show that the theory has a strong explanatory value, and that NATO’s warfare indeed has become more humane. It also shows that the reduction in the armed forces might have consequences for the alliance.