Pearson Edexcel International GCSE in History · 4HI1 · Free · no account needed

Somalia, Bosnia and the Balkans

What happens when an organisation of sovereign states has to act inside one?

Option B5 · The changing role of international organisations: the league and the UN, 1919–c2011 › Key topic 5 · The UN at bay, 1990–2011 — one of 2 lessons in this key topic. Paper 2 Section B — breadth study in change: The changing role of international organisations: the league and the UN, 1919–c2011, key topic 5 (30 marks: 6 · 8 · 16).

Learn Somalia, Bosnia and the Balkans, teach it to an AI pupil, then defend it in a marked debate — this lesson carries all three.

What the specification asks for

“UN attempts to find long-term peace in identity wars, including Somalia (1991–95), Bosnia (1992–95). The Balkans (1991–99).” — examined through consequence. Incandio is aligned to specification 4HI1; it is not published by, endorsed by or affiliated with Pearson.

1 · Understand it

A new kind of problem

The conflicts of the 1990s were mostly inside states rather than between them, which is a problem for an organisation whose Charter rests on sovereignty and non-interference. There was frequently no government to consent to a deployment, no front line to separate, and no agreement to keep.

The optimism of the period made this worse. After Namibia and the Gulf, the Council authorised operations at a rate it had never approached, and mandates were written in the language of peacekeeping — impartiality, consent, minimum force — for situations in which one party was attacking civilians and no consent existed.

The result was a series of operations with mandates that did not match their circumstances, forces smaller than the tasks required, and rules of engagement that assumed a peace. What followed was not a failure of soldiering but a failure of the political decisions that produced the mandates, and that distinction is what a top-band answer keeps hold of.

Somalia

Somalia's government collapsed in 1991 and famine followed as armed factions obstructed relief. A United Nations operation was deployed and proved unable to protect distribution, so a larger American-led force was authorised in 1992 to secure humanitarian access, and a subsequent United Nations operation was given a broader mandate including disarmament.

That mandate turned the force into a party to the conflict. Attempts to arrest a faction leader led to fighting in Mogadishu in October 1993 in which American soldiers were killed and their bodies filmed being dragged through the streets. The United States announced a withdrawal and the operation was wound up in 1995.

The consequences ran far beyond Somalia. The willingness of Western states to risk casualties in humanitarian operations collapsed, and the effect was immediate: in April 1994, as genocide began in Rwanda, the Council reduced the existing force there rather than reinforcing it. Somalia in 1993 is one of the causes of Rwanda in 1994.

Bosnia and Srebrenica

Yugoslavia disintegrated from 1991 and war in Bosnia began in 1992. A United Nations protection force was deployed with a mandate centred on humanitarian delivery, and in 1993 the Council declared several towns to be safe areas, including Srebrenica.

The declaration was not matched by force or by rules. The troop numbers requested for the safe areas were a fraction of what commanders had said was needed, and the force operated under peacekeeping rules in a war where one party intended to take the areas. Srebrenica was held by a lightly armed Dutch battalion.

In July 1995 Bosnian Serb forces took the town. Around eight thousand Bosniak men and boys were murdered, in what international courts have subsequently found to constitute genocide. It is the worst single atrocity in Europe since 1945 and it happened in a place the United Nations had declared safe.

The consequence for the organisation was profound. The Secretary-General's own report of 1999 accepted institutional responsibility in terms unusually direct for a United Nations document, and the failures of Rwanda and Srebrenica together produced the argument that led to the responsibility to protect doctrine adopted at the World Summit in 2005.

2 · Learn it — the notes

The dates that earn marks

1992–93
Operations in Somalia expand from famine relief to disarmament; fighting in Mogadishu in October 1993 ends Western willingness to take casualties. Why this date: It is a direct cause of the failure to act in Rwanda six months later.
1993
The Council declares safe areas in Bosnia, including Srebrenica, without the forces commanders had requested. Why this date: A declaration unmatched by force is the specific decision that made 1995 possible.
April 1994
The Council reduces its force in Rwanda as genocide begins. Why this date: It shows the Somalia effect operating within months, on a different continent.
July 1995
Srebrenica falls and around eight thousand Bosniak men and boys are murdered. Why this date: The worst atrocity in Europe since 1945 occurred in a United Nations declared safe area, which forced the organisation to examine its own doctrine.

The figures, and how far to trust them

  • Around 8,000 — Bosniak men and boys murdered at Srebrenica in July 1995. (The figure comes from identification work and court findings; international courts have found the killings to constitute genocide.)
  • A fraction of what was requested — The troops provided for the Bosnian safe areas compared with the numbers commanders had said were necessary. (Different figures were proposed at different stages; every version provided fell well short.)
  • October 1993 and April 1994 — Mogadishu, and the reduction of the Rwanda force six months later.

The people to place

  • Boutros Boutros-Ghali — Secretary-General 1992–96, during the Somalia and Bosnia operations.
  • Kofi Annan — Head of peacekeeping during this period and later Secretary-General; commissioned the 1999 report on Srebrenica.

How historians disagree

Attributed interpretations, never voiced — the AO4 seam.

  • The 'mandates, not troops' reading: The failures of the 1990s followed from decisions taken in New York — safe areas declared without the forces to hold them, peacekeeping rules applied to wars against civilians — rather than from the conduct of the soldiers who were sent. Contested by The reading that the deeper obstacle was the Charter itself, since an organisation built on sovereignty and non-interference has no settled basis for acting inside a state, and better mandates would have run into the same wall..

What students say — and what is actually the case

Not this: The Srebrenica massacre happened because the peacekeepers were cowardly.

This: A lightly armed battalion operated under peacekeeping rules in a safe area declared without the forces commanders had requested. The decisions that produced that situation were taken in the Security Council.

Not this: The failures of the 1990s were unconnected.

This: Mogadishu in October 1993 destroyed Western willingness to risk casualties, and six months later the Council reduced its force in Rwanda as genocide began. The connection is direct.

Two things students merge

Blurred: Peacekeeping and protection.

The distinction: Peacekeeping assumes consent, impartiality and minimum force; protecting a population from a party determined to attack it requires the opposite of all three. The 1990s applied the first set of rules to the second kind of situation.

Blurred: The United Nations and its member states.

The distinction: The Council is composed of governments, and the troops and money come from members. Saying the United Nations failed at Srebrenica obscures which governments declined to supply what commanders had asked for.

What a Grade 9 answer holds here

A Grade 9 answer puts the responsibility where the decisions were taken. A safe area was declared and the troops commanders asked for were not supplied; the rules given to those who went assumed a peace that did not exist; and six months after Mogadishu the Council cut its force in Rwanda — so the failures of the 1990s are decisions made in New York rather than failures of the soldiers sent to carry them out.

3 · How it is examined

This strand is genuinely set through: Paper 2 Section B (a) (6 marks — “Explain TWO ways in which … was different from ….”); Paper 2 Section B (b) (8 marks — “Explain TWO causes of ….”); Paper 2 Section B (c)(i) or (c)(ii) (16 marks — “How significant was … in …, in the years …? / How far were … responsible for …, in the years …? You may use the following in your answer: • [prompt] • [prompt]. You must also use information of your own.”).

What earns marks: The link from Mogadishu to Rwanda, stated with the six-month interval. It turns two separate failures into a causal chain.

The cap that bites here: The 16-mark question needs three aspects; two will not reach the top band.

4 · Prove it — the questions

Answered inside Incandio, where a marker checks what a correct answer must contain and tells you which half was missing. The marking stays in the app; the questions are here.

  1. Explain TWO ways in which the conflicts of the 1990s were different from the conflicts the United Nations was designed to handle. [6 marks · Paper 2 Section B (a)]
  2. Explain TWO causes of the failure of the UN operation in Bosnia. [8 marks · Paper 2 Section B (b)]
  3. Explain TWO causes of the UN's failure to act in Rwanda in 1994. [8 marks · Paper 2 Section B (b)]
  4. How significant were the failures of the 1990s in the history of the United Nations, in the years 1945–c2011? [16 marks · Paper 2 Section B (c)(i) or (c)(ii)]
  5. How far were the UN's failures in the 1990s caused by its member states? [16 marks · Paper 2 Section B (c)(i) or (c)(ii)]

Think you understand it?

Reading is the start. On Incandio a topic counts as mastered only once you have taught it and defended it — the two things a revision guide cannot ask of you.

Incandio this topic → Prove it. Teach it. Defend it. What does “Incandio it” mean?

  1. Prove it — five questions on Somalia, Bosnia and the Balkans, marked on the spot, that tell you what was missing rather than just what was wrong.
  2. Teach it — Explain Somalia, Bosnia and the Balkans — what happened, why, and what it made possible — to Ember, an AI pupil who asks the awkward question. Understanding is credited; wording is not required.
  3. Defend it — Argue Somalia, Bosnia and the Balkans against the historical mind with the strongest claim on it — three rounds, marked against descriptors you can read before you begin.
  4. Then the exam — 15 authored exam-style questions on this option, marked on Incandio with the mistake you actually made named.

Completely free. No subscriptions, no paywalls, no account needed to start.

The debate is against The Charge Against Peacekeeping — the case itself, argued at its strongest, because on this strand there is no single person whose position the learner has to defeat.

Carry on through the option