There is a strong case for intervening in civil disputes before they become 'hot' wars. The Charter of the UN might be interpreted to actually discourage preventive diplomacy, whereas a more benign interpretation of Article VII would give it greater scope. Within the UN, preventive diplomacy needs to be given central importance. The absence of a well oiled machine of successive and clear initiatives within the UN Secretariat has weakened the Secretary-General's good offices in peace efforts. The potency of preventive diplomacy depends on placing it within a hierarchy of possible increasingly powerful linked civil and military interventions which pulls an ever tighter legal and political drawstring around all the parties.
Ethnic differences are often over simplified and artificially magnified.
Recommendations are made for improving the environment of preventive diplomacy as well as creating a staged process, including a new Commission of the Security Council with a degree of independence. The results of the first wave of large-N studies of how civil wars end are brought together. The studies have significant problems and do not always agree. Several different databases have also been developed for future research. It is important that researchers both address one another more and work with those of different methodological persuasions to produce conclusions which will benefit both theory and public policy.