Central Africa

Although the war in Congo officially ended in 2003, two million people have died since. One of the reasons is that the international community's peacekeeping efforts there have not focused on the local grievances in eastern Congo, especially those over land, that are fueling much of the broader tensions. Until they do, the nation's security and that of the wider Great Lakes region will remain uncertain.

Seven years after more than 500,000 Tutsi were massacred in Rwanda, the world still cannot explain why. Mahmood Mamdani's When Victims Become Killers is a rich history of Hutu and Tutsi identity, but how it applies to the genocide is unclear.

Advocates of humanitarian intervention often claim that 5,000 U.N. troops alone could have staved off the Rwandan genocide in 1994. But a more realistic appraisal suggests that an intervention of any size would have required much more time and logistical planning than most proponents care to admit. Given the genocide's terrifying pace, even a major mission by the West could have saved only a fraction of the ultimate victims. Herewith a reassessment of the limits of intervention.

Rwanda is only the latest example of what happens when small arms and light weapons are freely sold to countries plagued by ethnic, religious, and nationalist strife. These weapons cause the most death and destruction in local wars and are closely tied to human rights abuses and other violations of international law. Yet the world has focused predominantly on controlling the proliferation of major weapon systems. It is time to establish a viable mechanism to monitor and control small arms transfers. The United States should take the lead in this difficult but increasingly urgent task.