"Despite our best intentions and continuing diplomatic efforts, there will be many more crises involving violent conflict and state collapse in the coming years. Over the past two decades, the international community has had extensive experience in dealing with such situations, with varying degrees of success. It is somewhat disheartening that we seem to approach each new crisis as if it were the first one. If anything, our learning curve seems to have a negative slope. This paper is just a cursory review of observations from the Balkans. More serious efforts at studying crisis prevention and post-crisis stabilisation are currently taking place throughout the world. It is high time that these efforts are integrated into the decision-making processes of relevant governments to develop new conceptual frameworks and build permanent capacities for effective crisis management."