The second case study is of an altogether different sort. In Rwanda in 1994, the relevant confrontation presented a complex kluge of coup d'état, civil war, cross-border invasion, and ethnic genocide, with the competent outside forces – the United Nations, the United States, France, and Belgium – basically passive and ineffectual until the devastating internecine carnage had run its evil course. As in the other chapters, we present here (a) the background on the crisis, (b) a description of the climactic uses of deadly force, and (c) an appraisal of how things might have played out differently. But there is an important contrast with other chapters: in this case, there is little analysis of how the leading governments might have usefully restrained their application of familiar lethal weapons if non-lethal weapons had been available. Instead – in view of the fact that the outside forces were so feckless in doing virtually nothing to arrest the mindless slaughter – the remaining question is whether non-lethal capabilities could have helped inspire any quicker, more decisive foreign engagement. That is, we are reduced to asking whether the putative rescuers might have found modern NLWs helpful, if they had been otherwise motivated to inject themselves earlier into the bloody Rwandan turmoil?

BACKGROUND ON THE RWANDA CONFRONTATION

Rwanda is a small, very densely populated central African country – about the size of Vermont, with a population estimated at eight million in 1994.