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LONDON, Oct 21 (AFP) - International military intervention in internal conflicts is increasingly being seen as legitimate and the recent trend, which began in Europe, is likely to spread across Asia, the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) said Thursday.
Unveiling the organisation's annual report into the world's armed forces, IISS director John Chipman said: "Events of 1999 made an important contribution to the progressive erosion of the distinction between internal and international conflict."
The IISS said 110,000 people died between August 1998 and August 1999 in 10 international conflicts and 25 civil wars, 11 of them in sub-Saharan Africa.
It said NATO intervention in Kosovo paved the way for a new consensus.
"Intervention in Serbia increased the perception that, at least in Europe, a formal international law is emerging where normal protection against intervention is suspended when leaders commit atrocities against their own population," Chipman said.
"The trend is there beyond Europe, especially in Asia, where leaders have had to deal with the pros and cons of allowing external intervention in what was previously considered a domestic issue.
"The crises in Kashmir, East Timor, across the Taiwan strait, all have brought a measure of external diplomatic interest, and in the case of East Timor, military involvment," he said.
"While Asians as a whole still question the legitimacy of military intervention in (their) internal affairs, this prospect has now become a more regular feature of regional strategic consideration.
"Indeed the idea that a Malaysian might lead the follow-on international force in East Timor shows quite how revolutionary the changes in the Asian strategic culture may have become."
The IISS said India's conduct of the conflict in Kashmir -- after Pakistani regular forces and Islamic militants infiltrated key areas on the Indian side of the border of the divided Himalayan state -- was based on winning international support.
New Delhi barred its commanders from conducting operations on the Pakistan side of the border. "The policy brought important political benefits, but Indian forces suffered greater casualties as a result," the IISS said.
It also said concerns over as escalation of violence between the two new nuclear powers brought intervention from US President Bill Clinton, who put pressure on Pakistan to withdraw its forces.
The United States continued to act as the world's policeman in 1999, being active from the Balkans to Northern Ireland, to the Middle East and China, reflecting a new willingness to protect its interests overseas after its bruising in the 1950s and 60s in Korea and Vietnam.
But, the IISS noted, there was mounting resistance to its world role from old enemies such as China and Russia, and old allies such as France and Israel.
Americans, too, were becoming increasingly worried that anti-US sentiment could threaten their domestic security, particularly through increased acts of terrorism.
The IISS noted three preconditions for international intervention in civil conflicts -- some national interest, an allied context and the probability of success at acceptable cost.
In monetary terms, the IISS put the cost to NATO of the March-June air war against Yugoslavia over Kosovo at 11 billion dollars. It provisionally put the cost of the peacekeeping effort in the Serbian province at around 10 billion dollars for one year.
In terms of human lives, the IISS said 15,000 people died in Kosovo, 15,000 in the Ethiopia-Eritrea border war, 10,000 in Afghanistan, 9,000 in the Democratic Republic of Congo and 9,000 in Sierra Leone.