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Rebecca Ellis (RE): How did you get into the field of intervention?

Stephanie Blair (SB): I have a collection of experiences. What got me into it was that in the third or fourth year of my undergraduate degree, we had a course on security, and the lecturer was a retired Canadian Colonel who had served in the Canadian Permanent Delegation to the UN. A lot of people would say, "Ah Canada, ah peacekeeping", and would ask him how we can learn peacekeeping. He would respond: "You can't because we don't have a peacekeeping school". He would also say that "The best trained soldier is a well-trained peacekeeper." The government ended up asking him to set up a peacekeeping training centre, which was part of the peace dividend following the fall of the Berlin Wall. As part of that peace dividend, we set up peacekeeping training centres. A lot of people equate peacekeeping to soldiers, but this wasn't about training troops. Whether we call it peacekeeping, crisis management, intervention or stabilisation, it isn't about involving either civilian or military, it is about both civilian and military. We brought both together….That's how I started; being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

RE: Have you spent any time overseas at the site of an intervention?

SB: My first position was serving with the United Nations in Cambodia, and then the UN's first Haiti mission. I worked with the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) in Bosnia and Kosovo, as well as with the UN in Kosovo. The operation started as a prevention of further escalation and went on to trying to evacuate people from air attacks. On the ground, they thought it would last three days, but in the end it went on for 72 days instead.

The most surreal experience was when I was asked to act as Mayor of a town in Kosovo, due to executive and legislative authority being held by the UN: "I have no background in public administration, and there I was, the Mayor of a town - it just shows how very desperate the situation was at the time". I found that context is everything. Understanding a conflict comes down to more than just understanding the culture. Afghanistan and Iraq taught us that we can never "own" that space, and with Syria we wouldn't own that space either, especially considering how relatively empty the space of Afghanistan is in comparison to Syria

RE: How do you think the idea of global intervention has changed since you started?

SB: It's really come full circle in terms of institutional capability. We've seen the OSCE go from being venerated to people thinking we should kill it, but we really shouldn't because the Russians are in it. When I started, peacekeeping was king, and was considered a relatively safe endeavour. For example, someone in Kosovo could walk around the streets without fear, and the Security Council mandate was accepted. This has changed considerably compared since Tony Blair's Chicago Doctrine of the late 90s, where you had a coalition of the willing. Since then, a wedge has been driven between legitimacy and organisation.

RE: Where will the situation in Syria go now? Will we go back to the UN?

SB: I think we've come full circle after learning those lessons from Iraq, then Afghanistan, then Iraq again. We saw airstrikes in Libya, but no boots on the ground and no stabilisation, which is particularly worrying concerning the regional containment. In short, there really never is a dull moment in the field of intervention.

She then asked the audience in the room: "Why should we intervene in Syria?", inviting those who agreed to stand up, and those who disagreed to remain seated. Audience members were then asked justify their opinions, with many voicing both sides of the issue.

Following this exercise, Dr Blair stated: "I don't have an answer. I work on cross-departmental strategies, bringing them all together on the issue, always asking: What will we achieve? What is our end goal? How do we share that goal? If we intervene - even if it isn't militarily - my work is done in a political, military, and civilian context. In any intervention one must always ask, "Who, What, When, Why, and How" questions to find answers, as intervention is always contextually driven. During the "honeymoon period" following the Kosovo NATO airstrikes, my first question was: What are you going to do now? There was no sense of what an independent Kosovo would be. This is perhaps the fundamental problem with the future of Syria, since there is no plan beyond stopping Daesh, and this intervention, if it happens, will have to be done in a different way to the way it was conducted in Kosovo. Difficult questions must continue to be asked if intervention is to be successful.

Dr Stephanie Blair is Hammamet Conference Programme Director at British Council and Senior Security and Justice Advisor and Senior Conflict and Stability Advisor to the UK Stabilisation Unit