Brown Cover OP 43 - The Watson Institute for International Studies

in the conflict connection that were apparent during the Cold
War era have persisted. In the 1990s, the impact of aid on conflict
has had to do less with the desire of donor states to take sides than
it has with the character of war. Four aspects of the nature of
current conflict are important here, most of them having been
present in various forms and to varying degrees in pre-1990s
conflict. As described in Politics and Humanitarian Action, the
change from Cold War to post-Cold War conflict is a matter of
degree rather than kind. Since the post-Cold War context is
discussed in detail in other Occasional Papers, the discussion
here is limited to how change in the landscape of humanitarian
action has affected the conflict connection specifically.
In the first place, the superpowers frequently used humanitarian
assistance as an instrument of the Cold War. In many
instances, this politicization of humanitarian assistance enhanced
the capacity of their proxies to prosecute conflicts. With
the collapse of the Soviet Union, the end of bipolarity and of the
global struggle between competing truths removed a major political
impulse to deploy humanitarian assistance as an instrument
of geopolitical struggle. This structural transformation in world
politics created a wider space for impartial and neutral humanitarian
action. While one might have expected that the connection
between humanitarian action and conflict would have weakened,
it did not, for reasons identified below.
Second, changes in state perspectives concerning refugees
have shifted international practice towards toward discouraging
cross-border flight and instead servicing the needs of vulnerable
populations within the borders of their state of origin. These
changes have rendered relief agencies increasingly dependent
on belligerents for access, creating significant potential for diversion
of relief to military purpose. Victim populations are more
vulnerable when they receive assistance and their exposure
fosters leakage of goods to military forces at the local level.
Such conflict-fueling effects are likely to be exacerbated in
weak or failing states and fragmented societies. Since the logistics
exercised by parties to such conflict are often weak and
overextended, forces in the field have an incentive to steal relief,
while those in authority often are too weak to stop them even if
they wanted to. Indeed, as discussed in Politics and Humanitarian
Action, belligerents on occasion move populations to areas where
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