The relationship which has grown up between States and non-governmental actors in responding to human needs in contemporary conflicts is characterised by fundamental moral as well as operational ambiguities. A healthy ethic and a viable response cannot avoid the need to rethink fundamental aspects of contemporary state society : the foreign policy paradigm, roles and limitations of state power, and forms of collective action. A transformation of the required scope would be unprecedented in peacetime – indeed some would exclude it by assumption. However, if the moral impetus of humanitarianism were to be harnessed effectively – instead of being dispersed as at present – and if a coherent framework of analysis were to be developed, an increasingly internationalised civil society may have more effective strategies than it suspects to contribute towards this goal.