As the Cold War wound down in 1989, Africa was awash in civil wars. Ambassador Hank Cohen initiated an aggressive policy of diplomatic intervention in African conflicts, using the prestige and credibility of the world’s only superpower to search for peace. Cohen details his own and others’ efforts in seven civil wars, with results ranging from heady triumph in Mozambique to utter disappointment in Angola. At every stage, deadly power struggles and bureaucratic and political infighting raised formidable obstacles.

In this account of assertive diplomatic intervention, Hank Cohen describes and analyzes the art of mediating in the midst of war, techniques of encouraging negotiation, problems of cease-fires, troop encampment, and demobilization, the fundamental causes of civil war in Africa, and cultural gaps between mediators and protagonists. He candidly characterizes key personalities and events and offers valuable lessons for practitioners of internal conflict resolution. With civil wars still raging in Africa, Cohen’s experiences as a diplomatic practitioner of conflict resolution and the complex lessons he learned in the trenches remain as relevant as ever.