Since the end of the Cold War, the international community—or more precisely, key members of it—have shown a growing willingness to use coercive measures, including ultimately the use of force, to uphold what can be considered evolving rules and norms of global governance. Notable examples include the 1991 Gulf War; UN-sponsored humanitarian interventions in Somalia, Iraq, and the former Yugoslavia; the NATO-led military operations in Bosnia and Kosovo; and, more recently, the Australian-led multinational initiative to restore order and sovereignty to East Timor. Yet, this recent trend is far from established. The mixed record and uneven nature of the cases cited above would suggest that the outcome is still very much in balance, and the use of force remains a highly contentious issue within the international community.

In 1999, JCIE and the Brookings Institution launched a project to help guide the process of consensus-building by examining the key areas of contention in greater depth from the perspectives of the United States, Germany, and Japan—three leading members of the international with considerable influence in global affairs. The project was directed by Paul Stares, director of studies at JCIE, and Ivo Daalder, senior fellow in the Foreign Policy Studies Program at the Brookings Institution. In July 1999, a small workshop was held at the Brookings Institution, and a special session on the topic was conducted at the May 2000 Global ThinkNet Conference in Tokyo.