Mission Accomplished?

From Vietnam to Syria politicians commentators and journalists have argued both for and against intervention whether military or humanitarian. Simon Jenkins here presents a provocative and wide-ranging survey of the history of-andd the arguments surrounding-interventionn in Kosovo Afghanistan Iraq Libya and Syria. Do nations intervene because of right and wrong? Is Western intervention simply a form of ''imperialism-lite''? When is intervention justified? Jenkins traces the evolution of ''liberal interventionism'' And shows that scepticism towards it came and comes not just from a growing perception of its failure. Instead he argues that the past few decades can be characterised as an age of intervention displaying worrying signs of merely laundering old-fashioned Western imperialism and bordering at times on a crusader complex. In the face of recent conflicts-particularlyy in the Ukraine and with the rise of Islamic state-whatt can we learn from the miscalculations mistakes and mendacity of ''the age of intervention''?.