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The Yom Kippur War (the 1973 Arab-Israeli War) was fought from October 6 (the day of Yom Kippur) to October 24, 1973, between Israel and a coalition of Egypt and Syria. The War began when Egypt and Syria launched a surprise joint attack on Israel. Israel recovered and stroke back, threatening both enemy capitals when the cease-fire international accord took place.

However, in Israel, the casualty rate was high. Per capita, Israel suffered as many casualties in 3 weeks of fighting as the United States did during almost a decade of fighting in Vietnam.

On December 7, 1975, Indonesian forces launched a massive air and sea invasion, known as Operasi Seroja, or 'Operation Lotus'.

During the invasion mass killings and rapes took place: 60,000 Timorese were dead by mid-February. A puppet Provisional Government of East Timor was installed in mid-December, consisting of Apodeti and UDT leaders. Attempts by the United Nations Secretary General's Special Representative, Vittorio Winspeare Guicciardi to visit Fretilin-held areas from Darwin, Australia were obstructed by the Indonesian military, which blockaded East Timor. On May 31, 1976, a 'People's Assembly' in Dili, selected by Indonesian intelligence, unanimously endorsed an 'Act of Integration', and on July 17, East Timor officially became the 27th province of the Republic of Indonesia. Although the United Nations had turned a blind eye to the Indonesian annexation of West Irian some years previously, the occupation of East Timor remained a public issue in many nations, Portugal in particular, and the UN never recognised either the regime installed by the Indonesians or the subsequent annexation.

On December 12, 1975, the United Nations General Assembly approved a resolution according to which, "having heard the statements of the representatives of Portugal, as the Administering Power, concerning developments in Portuguese Timor...deplores the military intervention of the armed forces of Indonesia in Portuguese Timor and calls upon the Government of Indonesia to withdraw without delay its armed forces from the Territory...and recommends that the Security Council take urgent action to protect the territorial integrity of Portuguese Timor and the inalienable right of its people to self-determination".

However, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, the US ambassador to the UN at the time, wrote in his biography that "the United States wished things to turn out as they did, and worked to bring this about. The Department of State desired that the United Nations prove utterly ineffective in whatever measures it undertook [with regard to the invasion of East Timor]. This task was given to me, and I carried it forward with not inconsiderable success." (A Dangerous Place, Little Brown, 1980, p. 247) Later, he admitted that as American ambassador to the UN, he had defended a "shameless" Cold War policy toward East Timor. (source: Wikipedia)

Argentina was in the midst of a devastating economic crisis and large-scale civil unrest against the military junta that was governing Argentina in the period leading up to the war. The government, headed by President General Leopoldo Galtieri, decided to play off long-festering nationalistic sentiment by launching what it thought would be a quick and easy war to reclaim the Falkland Islands. The ongoing tension between the two countries over the islands increased on 19 March when 50 Argentines landed on the British dependency of South Georgia and raised their flag, an act that is seen as the first offensive action in the war. On 2 April, Galtieri ordered the invasion of the Falkland Islands, triggering the Falklands War.

Though initially surprised by the Argentine attack on the South Atlantic islands, Britain launched a naval task force to engage the Argentine navy and air force, and deployed Royal Marines on the ground. After heavy combat, the British eventually prevailed and the islands remained under British control, although as of 2005, Argentina has still not relinquished its claim to the Falkland Islands. The political effects of the war were strong in both countries. The Argentine loss prompted even larger protests against the military government, which prompted its downfall, while a wave of patriotic sentiment swept through the United Kingdom, bolstering the government of British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. (source: Wikipedia)

NATO's bombing campaign on Yugoslavia lasted from March 24 to June 10, 1999.

The legitimacy of NATO's bombing campaign in Kosovo has been the subject of much debate. NATO did not have the backing of the United Nations to use force in Yugoslavia but justified its actions on the basis of an "international humanitarian emergency". Criticism was also drawn by the fact that the NATO charter specifies that NATO is an organization created for defence of its members, but in this case it was used to attack a non-NATO country which was not directly threatening any NATO member. NATO countered this argument by claiming that instability in the Balkans was a direct threat to the security interests of NATO members, and military action was therefore justified by the NATO charter.

The war inflicted many casualties. Yugoslavia claimed that NATO attacks caused between 1,200 and 5,700 civilian casualties. Human Rights Watch counted a minimum of 500 civilian deaths in 90 separate incidents. NATO acknowledged killing at most 1,500 civilians. The majority of deaths appear to have been within Kosovo itself; there were up to 5,000 military casualties according to NATO estimates, while the Serbian figure is around 1,000. Large numbers of Albanian civilians were also killed, although the exact numbers are unclear. (source: Wikipedia)

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