Humanitarian intervention has been the target of numerous criticisms, mainly in recent decades. Questions arise in particular when analyzing how nations decide whether or not to intervene in the internal affairs of another state. Politics plays an important role in the internal and external decisions of most countries. Faced with the question of whether and where to intervene, parties, whether governments or IGOs, resort to the concept of cost-benefit analysis to generate their verdict. Despite the scale of violations, parties will ignore human rights violations in countries where the cost may exceed the benefits. This concept generates a structure in which the right to freedom or the right to deny the freedom of others is based on your social status as well as your networks. It is not common for a political leader to intervene in the internal affairs of another state if he or she does not expect to succeed. Conditions such as success rate and expected time to outcome are taken into account when deciding whether to undertake a policy. The lack of involvement during the genocide in Rwanda in 1994 is a clear example of this. According to Samantha Powers, despite the degree of brutality, it was believed that the United Nations had decided against mediation because it could not afford another failed intervention like in Somalia, which could harm the future of its peacekeeping program. Furthermore, she believed that the United States had failed to help end the genocide, largely because of the aftermath of Somalia, which claimed the lives of eighteen American soldiers. Rwanda was not considered a possibility after a public outcry that Americans died “unnecessarily” (2002, p.541). The American choice not to intervene makes it less...... middle of paper ...... the events of Somalia can be seen as an illustration of the fact that only the losses suffered by governments are those which favor reason of state. American citizens actively supported their country's participation in ending the crisis in Somalia until the death of American soldiers and subsequently demanded that the operation end (Wengraf, 2011, p. 118). If the security and protection of those suffering from human rights violations is not the primary motive for mediation, then the intervention is absolutely not humanitarian, but simply a war against a sovereign state. Without political or economic advantage, it becomes very difficult for governments to use their limited resources to meet the needs of individuals in foreign states. Even though international law mandates the security of human rights beyond national borders, it fails to impose an established obligation..