Journal of International Relations and Political Science Studies

Öz

After the Cold War, the USA is directly or indirectly involved in humanitarian crises. The USA led interventions in the post-Cold War humanitarian crises have begun to be accepted as legitimate, even if not legal, by some segments. However, the real question is whether these countries intervene to realize their national interests or not. Our aim is to determine whether the USA is involved in humanitarian crises for national interest or humanitarian concerns.
In US national security documents, foreign policy purposes or national interests are classified as national security, power gain, economic interests, or first second tertiary interests. We analyzed the study by putting the humanitarian concerns of the US administration against these interest elements and focusing on “intention” at every stage.
Since the subject is very broad in the literature, we have chosen the 1995 Bosnia and 1999 Kosovo interventions, which are related to the humanitarian crisis, as a comparative case study. Because both incidents were the subject of ethnic cleansing, an intervention was carried out in the same region and during the period of US President Bill Clinton.
Although there were similar reasons for both events in the study, there were also differences. Although the USA acts for both humanitarian and foreign policy purposes, it has been determined that there are internal and external factors that affect its goals.