The merging of peacekeeping, peace building and sometimespeace enforcement initiatives into the concept of PeaceOperations has raised difficult challenges for the humanitariancommunity, which has had to struggle to protect its principlesfrom dynamics that pretend to subordinate the humanitarianaid to the political and military goals of the interventions. In thiscontext, this paper pretends to examine recent developments incontemporary peace operations and explore the challenges theypose to humanitarianism. For this purpose, a first section willhighlight some new trends in western ‘Peace Operations’ andthe role conceived for ‘humanitarian’ initiatives in this integratedapproach to conflict management. A second section will thenexplore the challenges and risks posed by the integration andsubmission of humanitarian assistance into broader political and military objectives in the framework of contemporary warfare and; finally, a third section will sketch some recommendations for the relations between humanitarians and the military