KOSOVO AND THE CHALLENGE OF HUMANITARIAN INTERVENTION

The Kosovo conflict has the potential to redraw the landscape of international politics, with significant ramifications for the UN, major powers and regional organizations as well as for the way in which we understand and interpret world politics. Can the UN Security Council veto now effectively be circumvented to launch selective enforcement operations? Can the humanitarian imperative be reconciled with the principle of state sovereignty? What can we learn about the evolving contours of world politics in the wake of the Kosovo conflict? We hope to be able to offer a meaningful contribution to this continuing and important debate - a debate that is crucial to our understanding of global politics at the beginning of this new century.

Within days after the beginning of NATO airstrikes over Kosovo, we proposed to UNU to undertake a major study on the implications of NATO’s involvement in the Kosovo conflict. Our intent was to draw on some of the best scholarship available to examine the Kosovo crisis from numerous perspectives - from the conflict-parties and NATO allies, from the immediate region surrounding the conflict and further afield - complemented by lessons for the longer term normative, operational and structural consequences of the Kosovo crisis for world politics. The response was positive, and we were given the means and support to bring together a group of 36 scholars and practitioners to produce a systematic assessment of the Kosovo conflict and its consequences for the changing contours of international society. In September 1999 all the authors convened in Budapest, Hungary, to share and discuss their draft contributions. The resulting book will be available in the summer of 2000 (Albrecht Schnabel and Ramesh Thakur, eds. Kosovo and the Challenge of Humanitarian Intervention: Selective Indignation, Collective Action and International Citizenship. Tokyo, United Nations University Press).

This research brief is comprised of two main sections. The first section (the Introduction) is a policy brief that has been distributed in similar form to policy makers, analysts, and UN and Member State officials. As part of this effort, several events - both at the UN and at academic institutions - have been organized by the United Nations University to reach as large an audience as possible. The second section (Parts One through Seven) of this publication features brief summaries of all individual contributions to the project. Here, each author has attempted to focus on the main issues, arguments and lessons, and - insofar as the contribution lends itself to such - on specific recommendations for further study or action by national and international policy makers. We hope that this research brief and the subsequent book will stimulate thought and further discussion within both the policy-making and academic communities.

We would like to acknowledge a number of individuals who have been instrumental in making this research brief (and the separately distributed policy brief) possible: We express our deep gratitude to Manfred Boemeke, Senior Dissemination Officer and

Head, United Nations University Press, and his colleague Sumiko Sudo for producing the policy and research briefs. We are grateful to William Auckerman for copyediting the draft manuscript. We thank Yoshie Sawada in the Peace and Governance Programme for her support and assistance, and Jacques Fomerand and Mary-Esther Leung of UNU’s Office in North America for making it possible to share our findings with the wider UN community at a symposium at UN Headquarters.

Albrecht Schnabel
Ramesh Thakur
Tokyo, March 2000

CONTRIBUTORS top

Duska Anastasijevic is a staff writer for the independent weekly Vreme, Belgrade, Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.

Vladimir Baranovsky is Deputy Director at the Institute of World Economy and International Relations (IMEMO), Russian Academy of Sciences, and Professor at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO), Moscow, Russia.

Coral Bell is a visiting fellow at the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre of the Australian National University, Canberra, Australia.

Nicola Butler is a senior analyst for the Acronym Institute, London, United Kingdom.

Marie-Janine Calic is expert advisor to the special Coordinator of the Stability Pact, Brussels, and a historian and political scientist at the German Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik (SWP), Ebenhausen, Germany.

Jean-Marc Coicaud is a Senior Academic Programme Officer in the Peace and Governance Programme of the United Nations University, Tokyo, Japan.

Lori Fisler Damrosch is the Henry L. Moses Professor of International Law and Organization at Columbia University, New York, USA.

Agon Demjaha is an adviser (and was the founding director) of the Kosovar Civil Society Foundation, Pristina, Kosovo, Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.

Simon Duke is an Associate Professor at the European Institute of Public Administration, Maastricht, Netherlands.

Hans-Georg Ehrhart is a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy at the University of Hamburg (IFSH), Hamburg, Germany.

Lawrence Freedman is Professor of War Studies at King's College, London, United Kingdom.

Ray Funnell is retired Air Marshall of the Royal Australian Air Force, Australia.

Felice Gaer is Director of the Jacob Blaustein Institute for the Advancement of Human Rights at the American Jewish Committee, New York, USA.

A.J.R. Groom is Professor of International Relations and Head of the Department of Politics and International Relations of the University of Kent at Canterbury, United Kingdom.

David Haglund is Director of the Centre for International Relations and Professor in the Department of Political Studies at Queen’s University, Kingston, Canada.

George C. Herring is Alumni Professor of History at the University of Kentucky, Lexington, USA.

G. John Ikenberry is Professor of Political Science at the University of Pennsylvania and Non-Resident Fellow at the Brookings Institution, Washington, DC.

Alan M. James is Emeritus Professor of International Relations at Keele University, Keele, United Kingdom.

Matthias Z. Karádi is a Research Fellow at the Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy at the University of Hamburg (IFSH), Hamburg, Germany.

Ibrahim Karawan is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Utah, Salt Lake City, USA.

George Khutsishvili is Founding Director of the International Center on Conflict and Negotiation (ICCN) and Adjunct Professor of Peace and Conflict Studies at Tbilisi State University and Georgian Technical University, Tbilisi, Georgia.

Georgios Kostakos is Academic Adviser at the University of Athens and Research Fellow at the Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy (ELIAMEP).

Andrew Linklater is the Woodrow Wilson Professor of International Politics at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth, United Kingdom.

Steven Livingston is Associate Professor of Political Communication and International Affairs, Director of the Political Communication Program, and Associate Professor of International Affairs in the Elliot School of International Affairs at The George Washington University, Washington, DC, USA.

James B.L. Mayall is Sir Patrick Sheehy Professor of International Relations and Director of the Centre of International Studies, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom.

Bjørn Møller is Secretary General of the International Peace Research Association, External Lecturer at the University of Copenhagen and Senior Research Fellow at the Copenhagen Peace Research Institute (COPRI), Copenhagen, Denmark.

Satish Nambiar is a retired Lieutenant General of the Indian Army, was the first Force Commander and Head of Mission of UNPROFOR in the former Yugoslavia, and is currently Director of the United Service Institution of India.

Philip Nel is Professor of Political Science, Department Chair, and Director of the Centre for International and Comparative Politics at the University of Stellenbosch, Stellenbosch, South Africa.

Albrecht Schnabel is an Academic Programme Officer in the Peace and Governance Programme of the United Nations University, Tokyo, Japan.

Allen Sens is a Sessional Instructor in the Department of Political Science and a Research Fellow at the Institute for International Relations at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada.

Mónica Serrano is Professor at the Centro de Estudios Internacionales at El Colegio de México and Research Fellow at the Centre for International Studies, Oxford University, United Kingdom.

Péter Tálas is Senior Research Fellow of the Institute of Strategic and Defence Studies at the National Defence University in Budapest, Hungary.

Paul Taylor is Professor of International Relations and Chair of the Department, London School of Economics and Political Science, London, United Kingdom.

Ramesh Thakur is Head of the Peace and Governance Programme and Vice Rector, United Nations University, Tokyo, Japan.

László Valki is a Professor of International Law at the Eötvös Lorand University, Budapest, Hungary.

Zhang Yunling is a Professor of International Economics and Director of the Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies, the Institute of Japanese Studies, and the APEC Policy Research Centre at the Chinese Academy of Social Science (CASS), Beijing, China.

INTRODUCTION - LESSONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS top

1. Policy Brief: Lessons from the Kosovo Conflict top
Albrecht Schnabel and Ramesh Thakur

The Roots of the Conflict: History and Politics

Competing constructions of history have served to perpetuate a climate of hatred between the ethnic Serb and Albanian communities and triggered the spiral of conflict. Each side has maintained a perception of history as an oscillating domination by one or the other side, and each claims exclusive rights and sovereignty over the same piece of land.

The recent conflict mainly resulted from the deliberate and strategic policies of Serbia’s ruling elites, which had the short-term goal of securing the continuation of their own power and shoring up the existing power structure that had been showing signs of decay since the mid-1980s.

A Very Slow Response from the International Community

Although an explosion of the Kosovo powder keg was often predicted, international efforts to contain the conflict were modest and hesitant. Later, faced with brutal and rapidly escalating hostilities, the international community reacted in a confused manner.

The international community was reminded that the Dayton Agreement, which had ended the wars in Bosnia, did not put a lid on instability, ethnic competition, conflicting territorial claims, underdevelopment and poverty in the region. Moreover, this has taught us about the important roles that need to be played in the region by non-military organizations - in particular, the European Union, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and the United Nations.

NATO’s Decision to Intervene

Action by the UN Security Council would have been blocked by Russian and Chinese opposition to military intervention in Kosovo. The Uniting for Peace Resolution was not invoked to seek authorization from the UN General Assembly. Rather, NATO unilaterally decided to intervene. The choice of NATO as the vehicle for intervention in Kosovo suggests that this was a European response to a European problem … and would not necessarily presage comparable action anywhere outside Europe.

What was at stake was not only the fate of the ethnic Albanian population of Kosovo. It was also the standing and reputation of the major democratic countries involved in the NATO operation, and the credibility of NATO itself. Ultimately, it was a matter of setting the tone for the years to come, with full understanding of the implications that these decisions and actions could have on the future of the international system.

Fundamental policy differences between the NATO allies led to a "lowest common denominator" approach to achieving military objectives. Air strikes did not prevent widespread atrocities against civilians on the ground in Kosovo or the mass exodus of refugees into neighboring countries.

The war over Kosovo was, in general, an unproblematic conflict for the small powers among NATO’s allies, because its status as a "humanitarian war" made it easy to justify to political leaders (if not always to their publics). Despite mixed public and official responses, the new NATO entrants proved to be loyal, and the established members showed firm solidarity.

American leadership in the campaign was striking. While America’s constructive participation is indispensable to the international community’s search for solutions to problems of security, justice, economic growth and political governance, it can be profoundly worrisome to try to cooperate with a large and potentially unpredictable superpower that is itself uncertain of how much global leadership it wants to provide. World order and Pax Americana are roughly the same thing today. But American hegemony - regardless of how open, benign and enlightened it might be - is a poor substitute for a more inclusive, institutionalized and widely agreed upon international order.

Critical Reactions from the International Community

The developments of the Kosovo conflict have distinctly influenced Russia’s perception of its relations with the outside world in a more fundamental way than most other events during the last decade. Any possible arguments that NATO might become a stability-provider for Europe have lost validity for Russia.

China worries that what happened in Yugoslavia yesterday may occur in Asia, especially in China, tomorrow. The problem of a strong power (or powers) using force against a weak one (or ones) based on its (their) own "values" will only create disorder. China supports a multipolar world order; while China does not want to challenge or compete with US superiority, it rejects US domination or hegemony.

Many of those in Islamic countries who supported the NATO operation because the Muslims in Kosovo might ultimately benefit from it, now argue that the Alliance committed strategic mistakes in carrying out its military operations. These mistakes include not intervening earlier, refusing to deploy ground troops to put a decisive end to the conflict, and not anticipating Milosevic’s resort to evicting hundreds of thousands of Muslims from Kosovo.

The South African government, reflecting the positions of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) and Organization of African Unity (OAU) in particular, wanted to make clear that unilateral intervention, no matter how noble the pretext, is not acceptable. A broad, non-discriminatory multilateralism (in all issue areas, including security and trade) remains the best safeguard that the developing world has against unilateral misuse of power by the strong.

Many developing countries fear that the international community runs the danger of becoming hostage to the machinations of a few privileged and powerful countries. Moves are already afoot to seek common positions, if not alignments, and for a restructuring of the United Nations Security Council. Many developing countries may feel compelled to move towards ensuring greater security for themselves through acquisition of more weaponry. There is almost total unanimity in India, for example, that the country needs to strengthen itself militarily to the extent that there can be no scope for any outside interference in affairs on the subcontinent.

Sanctions Don’t Work

Whatever the justification in other contexts, if the objective is the relief of suffering in - and the democratization of - the targeted society, sanctions are a grotesquely inappropriate instrument of policy.

Precluding the Use of Ground Forces was Ill-advised

In the Kosovo context, excluding the deployment of ground forces from the beginning was a serious mistake. Uncertainty about the possible use of ground forces should have been preserved, and in future interventions a principle of ambiguity should be respected.

Media Coverage Bolstered Public Support

Pictures of refugees tended to bolster US and European public support for the military action, while pictures of collateral damage - the death of civilians by errant NATO bombs - undermined support for the bombing. However, concern for "mistakes" was balanced by concern for the plight of ethnic Albanian refugees. More than any other factor, the constant stream of refugees and reports of Serbian atrocities tended to bolster support for the war.

NGOs Were Torn Between Humanitarianism and the Use of Force

By and large, calls for use of force came from relatively few NGOs, with the most public appeals coming from NGOs located outside the region. NGO positions on the use of force reflected the legal and moral norms they devote themselves to upholding and enforcing globally, and an aversion to the use of violence in settling international disputes. Far from being "selective indignation," their actions reflected efforts to implement global norms universally, with an impact that could instead be termed "effective indignation."

The Prospects for Stability in Kosovo Are Grim…

If the age-old divide between the two communities in Kosovo was widened by the imposition of absolute Serbian rule in 1990, the atrocities committed by the Serbian regime during the NATO campaign appear to have broken all bonds beyond repair.

The Albanian political leadership and a major part of Kosovo’s population continue to insist on independence. The historical dream of creating a unified pan-Albanian state is still persistent.

There is a worrying lack of a long-term plan for implementing a settlement in Kosovo. The application of a double standard for ethnic Albanians ("all victims") and Serbs ("all perpetrators") has made it almost impossible to implement Resolution 1244, whose aim was to respect the territorial integrity of the FRY (with Kosovo as a constituent element).

Neither the Rambouillet Accords nor UN Security Council Resolution 1244 clarify the future status of Kosovo. The lack of agreement on the future territorial status of Kosovo makes the task of the UNMIK more difficult, further confuses both Serbs and Albanians and leaves space for self-serving misinterpretations and propaganda.

Peace support operations in Kosovo, along with Bosnia-Herzegovina, now look set to continue indefinitely. NATO expended huge military and political resources on a relatively small region, and yet the conflicts in the former Yugoslavia are still far from resolved. Military power alone has not been sufficient, and other skills and expertise will be needed if reconciliation and reconstruction are to proceed in the Balkans.

The current situation in Kosovo can only be an interim solution - in the form of an open-ended protectorate. It is clear that the only lasting solution is a political settlement that reconciles legitimate ethnic Albanian interests about the future of the province and long-term peace with Serbia.

…Unless Serbian Society Embraces Democracy

If the cycle of self-victimization is ever to be broken, t he grassroots democracy that has again begun to emerge throughout Serbia needs to adopt a more responsible perception of Serbia’s history and national identity. For this to happen, Serbs must start building truly democratic institutions which will be prepared to examine not only the effects of Milosevic’s rule, but also the reason for his continued political success. Only then will Serbia create the conditions for its return to the society of states and re-establish friendly relations with its neighbors, Kosovo included.

NATO’s War Has Brought Southeastern Europe Back into the Spotlight

NATO’s war in and over Kosovo and the subsequently increased international presence in the region have brought much needed attention to the Southeast European region. The new momentum for peace, security and stability in the Balkans should embrace as well the Southern Caucasus.

It is time that Southeast European countries address their problems as a community and as a region, and deal with conflicts and state misbehaviour and failure (as in the case of Serbia) by themselves, particularly if they want to avoid continued great power intervention. Regional integration, confidence building, early warning, conflict prevention and development should be main foreign policy goals throughout Southeastern Europe, both within the Balkans and the Southern Caucasus as well as between those two regions.

Military Power Was Used Poorly

In the Kosovo conflict, military power was not used well. This, in turn, was the result of the fact that, in the main, senior politicians and those who advise them have not studied the military and the power they deploy; they neither understand military power nor appreciate the difficulties associated with its use, and consequently err in using it. This situation must be corrected. Too many precious resources are wasted, too much devastation occurs and, most importantly of all, too many lives are lost because those entrusted with making decisions on using military power have neither the knowledge nor the skill to do so wisely.

NATO Acting Without the UN Sets a Dangerous Precedent…

A dangerous precedent has been set in the Balkans, whereby NATO takes action with UN backing when possible, but without it if Alliance members think it necessary.

… Or Does It?

Although comparable circumstance may not be lacking, for political and strategic reasons operations along the lines of those in Kosovo may not often be embarked upon in the immediate future. This will further delay the widespread acknowledgment of a reshaped norm. The Kosovo crisis has undoubtedly introduced some change into the wider world, but not much.

Principled Responses? Most Likely Not

A code of rules governing intervention would be likely in the early 21^st century to limit rather than help effective and responsible action on the part of the international community. The charge of double standards is inevitable. Nevertheless, the creation and strengthening of humanitarian norms in the medium and long term is a practical goal.

Any attempt to get general agreements among governments about the principles which should govern intervention through Security Council Resolutions would be counter-productive at this time. Intervention in present circumstances has to depend upon a conjunction of the various overlapping interests of states and a common perception of the relevance in particular instances of moral principles. Agreement in advance on general rules governing when intervention could take place would be very difficult to achieve, unless on the basis of a minimum common denominator that would make it more difficult even in cases of gross violations of basic standards.

It may not be feasible to expect to achieve anything like principled responses at the international level in the foreseeable future, at least where the issue concerns military intervention to enforce international law. It may be inevitable, possibly even preferable, for responses to international crises to unfold selectively, when those who have the capability to respond also have motivations for undertaking the burdens of intervention. Scarce resources may need to be allocated in accordance with the preferences and values of those who are committing the resources. Such interventions could well prove more effective than unrealistically altruistic ones.

A Dilemma for the International Citizen

The good international citizen faces a painful dilemma. To respect sovereignty is to be complicit in human rights violations; to rely on economic sanctions and diplomatic pressure - and to argue that the UN Security Council must give its consent to humanitarian war - risks accusations of failing to act decisively against violent regimes. Yet to use force unilaterally risks accusations of violating international law and of setting unfortunate precedents.

Perhaps the dilemma can be overcome by trying to promote an international consensus about the point at which a state forfeits its sovereignty, and by efforts to remove the Great Power veto in exceptional circumstances so that the support of a majority of the Great Powers is all that is required to permit states to engage in humanitarian war. Without such international agreements, good international citizens may be tempted - and may come under pressure from their domestic populations - to go it alone. While it is hard to condemn them if they do, it is also hard to support their efforts other than in the most extreme of circumstances and with the assumption that the use of force will not cause more problems than it solves.

PART ONE - THE KOSOVO CRISIS top

2. Kosovo in the Twentieth Century: A Historical Account top
Marie-Janine Calic

Although an explosion of the Kosovo powder keg had often been predicted, international efforts to contain the conflict were modest. It was not until the emergence of the first violent clashes in late 1997 that major international actors put the issue high on their political agenda. Faced with a brutal and quickly escalating war, the international community was unable to cope. Although countless international organizations, national governments and special envoys attempted to mediate between the parties, this was done mainly on a half-hearted and contradictory basis.

On 24 September 1997, the International Contact Group for the first time voiced their concern over tensions in Kosovo and issued an appeal for negotiations. They established a new working group on this issue and sent a delegation to the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY). This delegation urged Belgrade to (i) initiate a "peaceful dialogue" with Pristina, (ii) allow an OSCE-led observer mission to Kosovo, Sandshak and Vojvodina, (iii) accept international mediation, and (iv) grant a "special status" to Kosovo. Belgrade, however, declared that Kosovo was an internal affair and nobody else’s business, and rejected these proposals. In its Moscow declaration of 25 February 1998, the Contact Group declared that any solution on special status would be acceptable, as long as both sides were in agreement.

In response to the escalation of violence in March 1998, the UN Security Council imposed an arms embargo as well as economic and diplomatic sanctions against the FRY, calling for a "real dialogue" between the conflicting parties. As the fighting continued, displacing several tens of thousands of people, NATO in June 1998 stepped up its military presence in neighboring Macedonia and Albania and started to threaten Belgrade with air strikes. It was not until September, however, that NATO issued an Activation Warning (ACTWARN) for an air campaign in the FRY.

In its resolution 1199 of 23 September 1998, the UN Security Council called for an immediate cease-fire, withdrawal of military and paramilitary forces, complete access for humanitarian organizations, and cooperation on the investigation of war crimes in Kosovo. Although the resolution did not explicitly threaten the use of "all necessary means," NATO interpreted this as a legitimization for the use of military force against the FRY. By this time, the UNHCR estimated that there were about 200,000 refugees.

After an ultimatum issued by NATO, Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic and US special envoy Richard Holbrooke agreed on 12 October 1998 on a partial withdrawal of the Serbian military forces and deployment of an OSCE verification mission of 2,000 unarmed personnel. Although the situation calmed down in view of the approaching winter, a number of serious clashes between Yugoslav forces and Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) fighters were reported before the informal cease fire broke down around Christmas.

In view of the new escalatory spiral, on 6 February 1999 the Contact Group pressured the conflicting parties into negotiations on the legal status of Kosovo. In the Rambouillet meetings, the Contact Group presented a proposal for an interim agreement based on its decisions of 29 January 1999, providing for a large degree of self-government and an international implementation force. Whereas the Albanian delegation could finally be convinced to approve the proposal, Belgrade continued to reject the agreement for fear of foreign interference in its internal affairs.

On 24 March 1999, NATO started an air campaign against the FRY. The campaign aimed to force the Serbian side to accept the Rambouillet agreement and, thus, to prevent an imminent humanitarian catastrophe. NATO expected that it would take only a few days to bring the Belgrade government to the fold. Instead, the military operation continued for 11 weeks before the war came to an end. Serbian military and paramilitary forces reacted with extreme violence against KLA fighters and the ethnic Albanian civilian population. Altogether, more than 800,000 people were displaced and thousands killed.

After the G-8 states had agreed on the text for a UN Security Council Resolution that was also acceptable to the FRY, on 9 June 1999 representatives of the Yugoslav military and NATO concluded a military-technical agreement on the withdrawal of Yugoslav troops from Kosovo. This ended the war. On the basis of Resolution 1244 of 10 June 1999 and the report of the Secretary General of 12 June (S/1999/672), the NATO-led Kosovo Force (KFOR) established its presence in the war-torn province. The UN, in cooperation with numerous international organizations, began to build up a civil administration.

From the beginning, the United Nations Mission In Kosovo (UNMIK) was confronted with a number of serious problems. Many lessons from the Bosnia peace operation were neglected, such as a unified civil-military and integrated command structure. In addition, KFOR was unable to prevent the expulsion of more than 250,000 non-Albanians, mainly Serbs and Roma, by the KLA. UNMIK is suffering from a severe financial crisis caused by Member State governments who, as often before, were willing to fund a war, but not the necessary reconstruction and peace-building efforts. Last but not least, the constitutional political status of Kosovo, which formally remains an integral part of the FRY, is de facto still undefined. The Albanian political leadership and a major part of Kosovo’s population continue to insist on independence. The historical dream of creating a unified pan-Albanian state is still persistent.

3. The Kosovo Conflict: A Perspective From Inside top
Agon Demjaha

The roots of the Kosovo conflict date to the beginning of the 20th century. During this century-long period, two realities - an Albanian reality and a Serbian reality - have been created, based more or less on different and contradictory interpretations of history.

The dissolution of the former Yugoslavia and the abolition of the autonomy of Kosovo in 1989 escalated the conflict to a new level: Kosovo became a de facto Serbian colony where ethnic Albanians (representing 90 per cent of Kosovo’s population) were ruled by the Serbs, who represented less than 10 per cent of the province’s population. Albanians created parallel state institutions that, in reality, had the objective of establishing local and sovereign authority. The Kosovo Albanians hoped that the international community would support their cause and reward their peaceful resistance to Serb oppression. Despite many warnings that the conflict in Kosovo would escalate to an open armed conflict, the international community failed to implement a workable conflict prevention strategy and instead focused much more on the management and containment of the escalating conflict rather than on a sustainable solution.

While the Dayton Agreement retroactively rewarded the armed struggle of the Bosnian Muslims and Serbs (each getting their own territory and political structures), the hopes of Kosovo Albanians receded into an indefinite future, thus triggering the emergence of the Kosovo Liberation Army. The appearance of the KLA and the actions of Serbian police and military forces caused the first human catastrophe in the summer of 1998. When, on 15 January 1999, 45 ethnic Albanians were massacred in Racak, the international community decided that it was finally time to act.

A peace conference in Rambouillet, France, was organized for February, and both the Albanian and the Yugoslav delegations agreed to participate. The Albanian delegation insisted on a referendum on independence after an interim period, while the Serbian delegation resisted the prospects of a NATO presence in the province and eventual independence for Kosovo. After the Albanian delegation unilaterally signed the peace deal, NATO decided to move forward with air strikes against Yugoslavia. Although without the mandate of the Security Council, at least in the opinion of the Albanians NATO was conducting a just war, a war that was the only credible response by the international community to address the crisis in Kosovo. On the other hand, for Serbs the NATO strikes were illegal and an act of aggression against their sovereign country. Whatever the truth, it should be remembered that even if NATO’s real aims were not of a humanitarian nature, it was Milosevic who gave them a good excuse for such an action.

After almost three months of bombing, a military-technical agreement between NATO and Yugoslavia was signed, and on 12 June 1999 KFOR, the international security forces with NATO at its core, were deployed throughout Kosovo. After finding many of their friends and relatives murdered and their houses burned, numerous returning ethnic Albanian refugees began to take revenge on the remaining Serb population, prompting them to flee Kosovo. While these acts of revenge on behalf of Albanians should not come as a surprise, the reprisals against innocent Serbian and Roma civilians are in no way justifiable. Moreover, they are very damaging to the reputation and the cause of the Albanians themselves.

The many remaining problems make present day Kosovo rather chaotic. The province experiences constant armed incidents because of the possession of considerable amounts of weaponry on both sides, the political landscape is fragmented, the number of international and local police forces is insufficient, and much of the infrastructure has been heavily destroyed. Towns like Prizren and Peja have been practically deserted by the Serbs, and the towns of Mitrovica and Rahovec are divided along ethnic lines. Moreover, it is clear that it will take a long time for Kosovo to rebuild its democratic institutions.

The current situation in Kosovo can only be an interim solution - in the form of an open-ended protectorate. Due to the high level of animosity between the ethnic Albanian and Serb communities, long-term solutions are simply unrealistic at this point. Neither the Rambouillet Accords nor UN Security Council Resolution 1244 clarify the future status of Kosovo. While offering some comfort in not having to deal with the hot issue of the future territorial status immediately, this makes the task of the UNMIK more difficult, further confuses both Serbs and Albanians, and leaves space for self-serving misinterpretations and propaganda. Various options about the future status of Kosovo need to be considered, although it is clear that the only lasting solution is a political settlement that reconciles legitimate ethnic Albanian interests about the future of the province and long-term peace with Serbia.

4. The Closing of the Kosovo Cycle: Victimization Versus Responsibility top
Duska Anastasijevic

The origin of the ethnic rivalry in Kosovo is a contentious issue. The lines of division do not only follow the Albanian-Serbian polarity; they are also apparent within each community. For example, Serbs and Albanians both identify the same territory as their "historic homeland." Radicals on both sides tend to locate the roots of their enmity even before the Ottoman rule. As Ernest Renan so appropriately notes, "getting its history wrong is part of being a nation."

In the Kosovo case, erroneous perceptions of history have served to perpetuate hatred between the two communities and indeed triggered the spiral of conflict. Kosovo, of course, is not Bosnia, where cordial inter-ethnic relations thrived for centuries before the bonds were broken by brutal violence and ethnic cleansing. Nonetheless, while co-existence in Kosovo was a reality long before it was transformed into total confrontation, the forces behind the creation of historical perceptions were so divergent that each side began to see itself as a victim of the other.

The conflict resulted from the deliberate and strategic policies of Serbia’s ruling elites, which had the short-term goal of securing the continuation of their own power and shoring up the existing power structure that had been showing signs of decay since the mid-1980s. Nationalism served as the vehicle for achieving this goal and, moreover, was used to justify political interests and tactics. It was a deliberate strategy by the Serbian leadership to create the conflict, as the Kosovo issue was essential to the successful emergence of populism in Serbia and the rule of Slobodan Milosevic - a rule that has gone virtually unchallenged for more than ten years. The role of Serbian intellectuals and the media in generating a security dilemma and hatred between the two communities also deserves particular mention.

If the age-old divide between the two communities in Kosovo was widened by the imposition of absolute Serbian rule in 1990, the atrocities committed by the Serbian regime during the NATO campaign appear to have broken all bonds beyond repair. The Serbian regime has emerged bloodied but unbowed. The military defeat was not total, allowing Milosevic to use his uncanny skill at turning defeat into personal victory. He could, moreover, now boast that his tiny nation had stood up against the world’s most powerful military alliance. He also had new examples to demonstrate the victimization of Serbs. The ethnic Albanians, too, have gained additional exemplification of their status as victims, as that same powerful military alliance came to their rescue on moral and humanitarian grounds.

The process of self-victimization was developed and consolidated by nationalist myth-making and propaganda. Because of the traditional lack of contact between the two communities, this propaganda was very effective, playing, as it did, on the misconceptions of both Serb and Albanian publics. The different languages and cultures of the two peoples certainly played an important role in the fact that ethnic Albanians and Serbs shared little, other than the territory they occupied. If this was true in the early days of their cohabitation, little was done to improve mutual understanding. Each side insisted on a perception of history as an oscillating domination by one or the other side, and each claimed exclusive rights and sovereignty over the same piece of land. When these interests came into conflict, the Kosovo knot began to tighten to the point where the only possible solution seemed to be to cut through it; the time had passed when it could be unraveled. This is not to say, however, that the conflict resulted from the clash of two nationalisms: this would obscure the differences in their activities.

For almost a decade, the Serbian nationalist movement held power over the territory and, more importantly, showed its readiness to inflict death and human suffering in demonstrating that power. The Serbian national consciousness still has problems in linking cause to effect in the wars in Croatia and Bosnia. It will therefore not be surprising if some time is needed before it is reconciled to the fact that Serbian sovereignty over Kosovo no longer exists. It can be reclaimed only by the use of force, but - given the current economic and military power of Serbia on the one hand and the strength of the KFOR ground troops in the province on the other - this scenario is the least likely.

Thus, the grassroots democracy which has again begun to emerge throughout Serbia since the latest military adventures of the Milosevic regime ended in defeat needs to adopt a more responsible perception of Serbia's history and national identity if the cycle of self-victimization is ever to be broken. For this to happen, Serbs must start building truly democratic institutions which are prepared to examine not only the effects of Milosevic’s rule, but also the reason for his continued political success. Only then will Serbia create the conditions for its return to the society of states and re-establish friendly relations with its neighbors, Kosovo included.

5. The Kosovo Conflict: The Balkans and the Southern Caucasus top
George Khutsishvili and Albrecht Schnabel

The conflicts between Serbia and Kosovo, and between NATO and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, have caused mixed reactions among countries and peoples throughout Southeastern Europe. While the Balkan countries were directly affected by the conflict, the Southern Caucasian countries of Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan seem at first to be too removed from the Balkans to be affected by the conflict in Kosovo. However, they do consider themselves part of Europe, part of the greater Southeast European subregion and future members of Europe’s regional organizations and greater security community.

Throughout the region, reactions have ranged from strong support for either NATO or Serb actions to equally strong opposition. The reasons for such varied responses can be found in every country’s and society’s ethnic, religious or political proximity to the conflicting parties and, in particular, in these countries’ aspirations to join NATO and/or other Western political and economic organizations.

While Orthodox states close to Yugoslavia were less enthusiastic about NATO’s reaction, those close to the Kosovo Albanians were supportive. However, Muslim communities with close affinity to the Kosovo Albanians (such as Turkey and Azerbaijan), but with separatist minority struggles of their own, had a different issue to worry about: Would support of NATO action not undermine their own efforts to keep separatist minority groups at bay?

While there was disagreement over the means and ends of NATO action, the Alliance was generally supported, as most states are desperately seeking NATO membership. The EU, OSCE and the UN were perceived to be subordinate regional and international organizations vis-à-vis NATO. NATO’s actions have been a mixed blessing to the region as a whole. The Balkans has been further destabilized by refugee movements, a devastated and unstable Kosovo with strong international security presence, and a politically and economically much weakened Yugoslavia (whose GDP has slipped below that of Albania).

In the Southern Caucasus, various minority separatist groups, most prominently in Nagorno-Karabakh and Abkhazia, have been encouraged by the international (NATO) community’s apparent willingness to support the cause of independence against a perceived oppressive regime (although Karabakh and Armenia were careful not to contradict Russia’s position too loudly). For the titular nations in the Southern Caucasus, this has not been without problems: Loyalty to NATO (either as an existing or aspiring member) clearly conflicts with the Alliance’s perceived new role as the protector of separatist minorities’ rights and interests. Once politicians and the public realized that NATO was in fact assisting a separatist movement, enthusiasm for NATO actions subsided. However, that was never expressed in open complaints or disagreements over NATO actions, but rather in more subdued calls than usual for NATO’s physical and political presence in the region.

However, NATO’s war in and over Kosovo and the subsequently increased international presence in the region have brought much needed attention to the Southeast European region. The international community was reminded that the Dayton Agreement, which had ended the wars in Bosnia, has not put a lid on instability, ethnic competition, conflicting territorial claims, underdevelopment and poverty in the region. Moreover, it has also reminded us of the important roles that need to be played in the region by non-military organizations - in particular, the European Union, the OSCE and the United Nations. The EU’s subsequent attempt to reinvigorate its plans for a Southeast European Stability Pact, symbolized with a summit in Sarajevo, are indications of this possible attempt to re-commit the European Union to the region.

There are other positive developments for the region that have come out of the NATO war in Yugoslavia. The anti-Serb stance of the international community has reinforced the message that the West does not necessarily limit itself to the protection and defense of non-Muslim communities. The FRY has been weakened to a point where it is no longer a major player in the region; Bosnian integration may benefit from that. Particularly, the aftermath of the war and Kosovo Albanian atrocities against Serbs have shown that there are no "good guys" and "bad guys" in the Balkans; both Serbs and Albanians can be victims or perpetrators.

The war and the unstable aftermath of NATO’s actions in Kosovo have shown (again) that the Balkans is more often than not at the mercy of great power interests. It is time that Southeast European countries address their problems as a community, as a region, and deal with conflicts and state misbehaviour and failure (as in the case of Serbia) by themselves, particularly if they want to avoid great power intervention. The region has to be careful in engaging NATO or other military and non-military organizations in the region. Once response mechanisms/dynamics/expectations are triggered in these organizations, external involvement may take on its own dynamic - one that may easily turn out to be counterproductive for the peace and security needs of the region.

What may have been useful for the Kosovo Albanians may not at all apply in the Southern Caucasian context. It remains to be seen if any of the renewed attention directed at the Balkans will be extended to address the latent and protracted conflicts in the Southern Caucasus (and the Caucasus as a whole), or if that region will continue its existence at the margins of interest by the European and international communities.

A number of policy recommendations arise from this discussion: Under a new government, Serbia should be encouraged to rejoin the Southeast European and European communities of states and regional and subregional organizations. An alienated Serbia should be avoided. The demonization of the Serbs also should be avoided. However, the current Serb leadership should be discredited and internationally sanctioned. Only a new leadership committed to democracy, cultural tolerance, and regional integration and power sharing should be supported by the outside world.

The new momentum for peace, security and stability in the Balkans should embrace as well the Southern Caucasus. The Southern Caucasus must be included in a Southeast European Stability Pact. Community building between Christian and Muslim communities should be a high priority (and could set standards worldwide). Regional integration, confidence building, early warning and conflict prevention, and development should be main foreign policy goals throughout Southeastern Europe, both within the Balkans and the Southern Caucasus, and between those two regions.

PART TWO - THE MAJOR PLAYERS top

6. The Costs of Victory: American Power and the Use of Force in the Contemporary Order top
G. John Ikenberry

The end of the Cold War did not provide the sort of historical break - as occurred in 1815, 1919, and 1945 - to gather world leaders together to discuss first principles and new institutions. The current system is a patchwork, and it is clearly at risk. On the specific issue of humanitarian intervention, the two extreme alternatives - either American unilateral intervention or a UN Security Council-sanctioned intervention - seem increasingly difficult to sustain on a consistent basis. The alternative is either a series of regionally-based security forces that have the local legitimacy and capacity to act in various contingencies, or some sort of ad hoc coalition of the willing. Kosovo makes it clear that the world community needs to find a way to raise basic questions and find ways to reorganize the mix of international norms, international institutions, great power interests and American power.

Three trends of the post-Cold War international order are most important. The first is the rise of humanitarian and human rights standards. These are norms of democracy and human rights that the United States and other states have invoked in seeking to legitimate the current liberal world order.

The second is the transformation of NATO. The NATO governments have articulated a new identity for the alliance after the Cold War: it is to be a grouping of like-minded democratic states with an interest in the wider stability of the region. This ties NATO power and purpose to states on the periphery of Europe and to actions and contingencies unrelated to the territorial defense of member states. This shift in NATO probably helped facilitate the end of the Cold War and allowed its members to preserve the alliance, but it also unsettles the wider Eurasian neighborhood.

Finally, the international distribution of power has become radically unipolar. The United States has become the only serious world military power. This unprecedented asymmetry in power as a mere fact of international life is increasingly quite provocative. The war in Kosovo did more than anything else in recent years to underscore this new reality, revealing even Europe’s inferiority in military capacity. If history is a guide, other states have reason to fear concentrated and unrestrained power. It invites resentment and ultimately a balance-of-power reaction.

Two dilemmas emerge from these trends. First, American constructive participation is indispensable to the international community’s search for solutions to problems of security, justice, economic growth and political governance, but it is profoundly worrisome to try to cooperate with a large and potentially unpredictable superpower that is itself uncertain of how much global leadership it wants to provide.

Second, the absence of new institutional agreements after the Cold War to guide the international community in upholding standards of human rights and humanitarian justice has meant that informal governance mechanisms have been followed. Most of these involve working with and through American power and diplomacy; world order and Pax Americana are roughly the same thing today. But American hegemony - regardless of how open, benign and enlightened it might be - is a poor substitute for a more inclusive, institutionalized, and agreed-upon international order.

The post-Cold War international order is a mix of contradictory shifts and unsettled roles and expectations. American power is both a useful tool and a provocative obstacle to the stable and legitimate functioning of the system. It sits on top of a fragile foundation. American power is vital if the international community is to act - whether in Europe through NATO or elsewhere in the world through the UN Security Council.

While the rest of the world worries about the potential aggressiveness and unilateralism of American power, the American people are more inclined to question whether that power should be used at all. The result is a situation in which a political chain runs from a humanitarian disaster in a remote part of the world through Washington, D.C., and out to a farm in Iowa, where the American president is forced to go and make the case that it is worth American casualties to uphold abstract principles and world weary obligations.

7. Russia: Reassessing National Interests top
Vladimir Baranovsky

The developments of the Kosovo conflict have distinctly influenced Russia’s perception of its relations with the outside world in a more fundamental way than most other events during the last decade. The ongoing re-assessment of Russia’s national interests in light of the Kosovo crisis may have a considerable impact on Russia’s evolving foreign and security policy.

The concrete regional aspects of Russia’s interests associated with the Kosovo crisis have a relatively low profile. The "ethno-religious solidarity" with the Serbs had a certain emotional impact on Russia’s political scene, but this factor does not play a crucial role and is deliberately downplayed by the official authorities. More significant are the moral grounds of Russia’s sympathy towards Yugoslavia, which is regarded as the victim of aggression and pressure from powerful nations. The issue of establishing a "union" with Yugoslavia, although widely debated in the country, has little prospect of being translated into practical policy. However, Russia considers that its political presence in the region is an important goal and has realistic chances to be achieved.

Russia is deeply concerned with a possibility that "the Kosovo pattern" might be applied to Russia itself or to its immediate environment. This alarmism reflects the widely spread uncertainty with respect to the territorial integrity of the country, with Chechnya being of special relevance to Russia’s perceptions of the developments in and around Kosovo. An eventual external involvement into the conflict zones in Russia’s post-Soviet environment is another matter of concern.

The developments around Kosovo, as viewed by Russia, point to the evolution of a "NATO-centred" Europe. The "‘Kosovo phenomenon" has contributed to the consolidation of Russia’s anti-NATO stand more than the three-year long campaign against the enlargement of NATO. Any possible arguments that NATO might become a stability-provider for Europe have lost validity for Russia. It seems in the interest of Russia to reduce considerably its relations with NATO, without however breaking them irreversibly. At the same time, Russia hopes that the Kosovo crisis will promote the self-identification among Europeans, their alienation from the USA and their interest towards "extra-NATO" patterns (such as the OSCE).

The global implications of the developments around Kosovo represent the most serious concern for Russia. Russia feels that the international law and UN-based international order is collapsing, while its substitute might relegate Russia to the sidelines of global developments. Preventing this collapse becomes Russia’s major interest in the international arena. Also, Russia may become tempted to look for partners outside the "Euro-Atlantic" zone (and eventually among the anti-Western regimes). A serious reassessment of the use of force (becoming "less unjustifiable") and increased attention to military preparations may also follow the Kosovo phenomenon.

There were considerable domestic aspects in Russia’s assessment of, and reaction to, the crisis of Kosovo. The military operation of NATO in Yugoslavia is broadly perceived as discrediting democratic values (to the extent that they are associated with Western countries). Furthermore, the developments in and around Kosovo have provoked a real identity crisis among domestic pro-Western groups, while society at large is becoming increasingly sceptical about arguments in favour of cooperative relations with the West. At the same time, the consolidating effect of the Kosovo crisis on the Russian domestic scene should not be exaggerated; the prospect of building an anti-Western coalition based on the broad condemnation of NATO’s actions, and advocated by national-patriotic forces, does not seem realistic.

All these factors have shaped the practical policy of Russia's government, which seems to follow three basic guidelines: First, to articulate a strong negative attitude towards NATO's policy with respect to Kosovo and to manifest Russia's readiness to oppose its consequences; in particular, Russia has announced its intention to reconsider a number of key elements in its military security policy. Second, to prevent a dramatic collapse of relations with the West, in particular by avoiding direct confrontation (which could be caused, for instance, by military assistance to Belgrade). Third, to capitalize on the role of mediator, on promoting peaceful solutions to the crisis and on making Russia's involvement indispensable to all involved parties. Indeed, the Kosovo crisis has unexpectedly added weight to Russia's international role.

Comments in Russia about the performance of NATO-led conflict settlement in Kosovo are becoming increasingly sceptical. In particular, they point to a failure to provide effective security protection for the Serb minority in Kosovo. There is a growing belief that this greatly undermines NATO’s claim that the intervention had been motivated by human rights considerations. Russia’s other grievances are focused on inadequate implementation of various provisions of UN Security Council resolution 1244. This would endanger Russia’s efforts to re-channel the settlement to the UN.

8. China: Whither World Order After Kosovo? top
Zhang Yunling

The NATO bombing campaign in Serbia, and especially the bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, shocked the Chinese. It was the first time that a regional organization attacked a sovereign state without the authorization of the United Nations, making - among many others - an embassy a military target. If this so-called collective intervention in a sovereign state becomes legitimate, it provides a carte blanche to powerful countries to use force, or threaten to use force, to make other countries change their domestic policies, governments or political systems. China worries that what happened in Yugoslavia yesterday may occur in Asia, especially in China, tomorrow.

NATO’s action against Yugoslavia raises many questions, including the legitimacy of waging war on a sovereign state, the core principles of international relations and the credibility of the United Nations. Peace for the new century will rest on maintaining international rules and laws passed by the UN members, while respecting state sovereignty and equality. The danger of a "new interventionism" based on power may lead to more violence and a new arms race, and thus an even more unstable and dangerous world.

The end of the Cold War left the US as the only world superpower. The danger of this unipolar world order is that it enables the US to impose its will on other countries. In launching air strikes on Yugoslavia, US-led NATO acted without the authority of the UN, setting a dangerous precedent in interfering in the internal affairs of a sovereign state. The problem of this "preemption" of using force by a strong power (or powers) against a weak one (or ones) based on its (their) own "values" will only create disorder. China supports a multipolar world order. China does not want to challenge or compete with US superiority, but rejects a US domination or hegemony.

NATO’s action in Kosovo is supported by a doctrine of "new interventionism," which is based on a seemingly "new justice." However, who judges on "the cost of violence," who conducts the intervention - and in what kind of way? With a military intervention in a sovereign state, US-led NATO attempted to rewrite international law based on its own rules. This enforced order does not ensure the peace in the region.

It is clear that China, as a rising power, worries about US domination or hegemony As a socialist country, furthermore, it is anxious about possibly imposed Western values backed by "collective intervention." However, what worries China most is the situation in the Asia-Pacific region. China is mostly worried about a US-led coalition in Asia against China. The US-led NATO action in the Balkans re-alarmed China that there is a real danger for its security. China suspects an American regional strategy. In addition to its military presence and a strengthened US-Japan alliance, the US has increasingly expanded or strengthened its bilateral military ties with many countries surrounding China.

Of course, this does not mean that China will take an overall hostile or confrontational policy to the US and its allies. China needs a long-term peaceful environment to develop itself. It remembers well the lesson of the collapse of the former Soviet Union, which could not compete with the military superiority of the US. But China believes that it can play a positive role in checking American hegemony and in moving towards a fair international order.

China has proposed a "new security concept" based on the above principles. In the Asia-Pacific security cooperation, China supports a positive role of the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF). Security cooperation with Russia and Central Asian countries also reflects China’s efforts to offer a different model from that of the Western allies. However, it seems that the US and Japan do not trust such a "soft approach."

As for the role of the UN, it has expanded and strengthened since the end of the Cold War in peacekeeping and intervention in internal conflicts. But its credibility was questioned when NATO launched the air strike on Yugoslavia. China made great efforts to hand the issue back to the UN. China does not reject all kinds of intervention. However, China insists that an intervention must be based on rules and authorized by the UN Security Council. Any new rule-making must be done by the international community with fair participation (or support) of all community members, not just a few countries. The "new interventionism doctrine" cannot be permitted to condition evolving principles of international relations.

The Kosovo crisis reflects a new danger threatening world stability and security. The fundamental reason why China so strongly opposed NATO’s bombing is to insist on the principles for a fair and stable world order.

9. The Major European Allies: France, Germany and the United Kingdom top
Simon Duke, Hans-Georg Ehrhart and Matthias Karádi

The basic issue raised in this and other chapters concerns the recourse to military means as a way of addressing political, economic and social problems, and the effects on regional and international security and stability.

For the three major European allies, the Kosovo crisis raised more questions than answers. Hans-Georg Ehrhart observes that there was initial French disappointment with the failure of its various conflict prevention efforts, chiefly revolving around diplomatic intercession. Matthias Karádi’s section on Germany points to the remarkable – indeed, historic – role it played during and after the crisis. Simon Duke, discussing the United Kingdom, observes that the vigorous leadership role played by the Blair government had the more general aim of securing Britain’s leadership role in Europe on questions of security and defence.

The internal political significance of their respective roles lies in the groundswell of support for (a still ill-defined) autonomous European crisis management capability. As such, the relevance of Kosovo may lie primarily in its role as a catalyst towards the design and implementation of a Common European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP). The military significance of their roles in Operation Allied Force was overshadowed by the U.S. role which, in turn, had the twofold effect of masking many of the differences between the European allies and putting into stark relief the practical manifestations of what it will mean to implement ESDP.

The policy-relevant lessons and suggestions that arise from the study may be split into two sets: those that arise for regional security and those that pertain to more general issues of international security.

Regional security

The need for a seamless web: The three cases highlighted reflect a more general problem that exists at the regional level. In this case the difficulty of linking the EU’s efforts at preventive diplomacy with economic leverage (targeted sanctions) and the threat or actual use of military force (through the WEU or NATO) was apparent. In short, the inability of the three main European powers to link these aspects into a credible conflict prevention/management strategy was a major shortcoming that, arguably, has spurred on efforts to create a genuine ESDI and, in the EU context, ESDP;

Conflict Prevention: The "Kosovo effect" has seen an increasing emphasis being placed upon crisis prevention by senior EU officials. Crisis prevention, however, is not officially a Petersburg task, although it could be argued that it is implicitly included in the Treaty on European Union. Explicit mention of it in the treaty’s revision and further plans for how it might be implemented in practice are necessary;

Implementing Europe’s desire for autonomous capacities: A number of significant developments during and after NATO’s military operations in Kosovo sharpened general awareness of the urgent need for regional crisis response capacities. France, Germany and the United Kingdom led the call for a Common European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP). It is with regard to the response to that call and how to implement ESDP that opinions diverge amongst the European allies as well as with Washington;

Future relations with the U.S.: In spite of the contributions made by France, Germany and the United Kingdom, all pale in comparison to those of the United States. The stakes in Kosovo would have been very high for the Europeans in case of autonomous intervention in terms of the individual contributions that would have been required - this would have meant an additional 1,000-plus aircraft and 5,000 to 6,000 additional military personnel. Two questions arise from this observation: First, political rhetoric aside, are the European allies willing to make such an investment? And second, what happens if the U.S. chooses not be involved the next time?

Intra-regional congestion: The overarching U.S. role was matched in institutional terms by that of NATO. The role of the Alliance raises the important issue of what relations will emerge between the EU-WEU (and the ESDP) and NATO, as well as with the OSCE and the Council of Europe. The risk of institutional turf battles must be avoided.

General international issues

Relations between the UN and regional security bodies: The Kosovo crisis and indeed the crises in Europe of the last five years in Europe, Africa and Asia have illustrated the profound limitations of the regulatory system built up around the UN and a number of regional organizations (OAS, OAU, OSCE, NATO, etc.). The general paucity of any means of intervention other than those made available to the various organizations by Member States, and the frequent absence of appropriate command and control structures, has meant that more often than not such crises are addressed by means of unilateral action (or "coalitions of the willing," as they are commonly referred to). The power structures in the region eventually showed a concerted response in Kosovo, a barely perceptible one in Africa, a hesitant one in Asia (Indonesia and East Timor) and a muddled response to Chechnya;

Watering-down of principles of international law: Legal principles were used in Kosovo (and elsewhere) to suit the circumstances and were used as "political weapons." This can only weaken their effectiveness and will make any subsequent appeal to them, especially by Western countries, suspect;

Knock-on effects for crisis management: The "Kosovo effect" is already being felt in the Russian Federation in connection with Chechnya. No UN agency has been authorized to move into the area resulting, once again, to underline the peripheral role that the UN is increasingly playing in international disputes. On the one hand, the UN is faced with chronic resource problems where there is a demand for UN assistance and, on the other, being sidelined when a regional power chooses to unilaterally or bilaterally apply pressure or force;

Territorial Integrity: France, Germany and the United Kingdom, along with the other NATO allies, showed a worrying lack of a long-term plan for implementing a settlement in Kosovo. The application of a double-standard for ethnic Albanians ("all victims") and Serbs ("all perpetrators") has made it almost impossible to implement Resolution 1244, whose aim was to respect the territorial integrity of the FRY (with Kosovo as a constituent element). Since the principle of territorial integrity is at the centre of the international system, political solutions may be extremely hard to arrive at, and the interim might demand a sustained military presence with ad hoc political structures.

PART THREE - VIEWS FROM NATO ALLIES top

10. The Nordic Countries: Whither the West’s Critical Conscience? top
Bjørn Møller

The Nordic countries have a number of features in common, such as a fairly high standard of living, a "welfare state" form of capitalism, and stable democracy. All of them score high on a scale of "internationalism," in the sense that they pay their dues to the United Nations, contribute significantly to UN peacekeeping and similar operations, and allocate a high percentage of their wealth to development aid. On all these counts they score much higher than, for instance, the United States, which leads only in terms of military expenditures.

This shared orientation notwithstanding, the five Nordic countries differed throughout the Cold War in terms of alignment. Denmark, Norway and Iceland have been members of NATO since its foundation, whereas Sweden and Finland have been neutral and/or non-aligned. The end of the Cold War has both caused and coincided with rather profound changes in this pattern:

While there are no immediate prospects of Sweden or Finland joining NATO, both are cooperating quite closely with it under the auspices of the Partnership for Peace Program as well as in other contexts;

Both have joined the European Union, and even done so without the reluctance and reservations of the old member, Denmark. Both are thus closer to the Western European Union (without actually being members) than is Denmark;

While remaining outside the EU, even Norway has closer ties to the WEU than has Denmark;

Denmark has abandoned its political dissent and become a totally "loyal" member of NATO, thereby resembling Norway.

Paradoxically, the declining need for US security guarantees after the collapse of the Soviet Union has been accompanied by growing support for US policies by Denmark and Norway, even when this has entailed breaches of international law. The turning point became the February 1998 Iraqi crisis, where both countries pledged support for an attack against Iraq that was not authorized by any UN mandate. Having thus lost their "virginity" in thought, if not in deed, the step to real action in the case of the FRY (Federal Republic of Yugoslavia) seemed less significant. The relatively unified position of the Nordic countries in the United Nations was thereby shattered. This disagreement notwithstanding, Nordic cooperation has continued, both in terms of joint statements and in terms of military cooperation, e.g., in SFOR (Stabilization Force) in Bosnia.

During the entire period of the break-up of the former Yugoslavia, all three Nordic NATO members were unanimous in their support of NATO policy. Until 1998, however, they were able to do so without abandoning their traditional adherence to UN rules. Perhaps as a consequence thereof, the nineties saw an almost unprecedented domestic consensus on these policies, as well as on security politics in general. The "centre" simply grew to encompass almost the entire political spectrum, leaving only the rather insignificant right and left wings in dissenting positions. As far as Yugoslavia was concerned, it also helped that the problems calling for action were immediately appealing to Denmark, with its long-standing emphasis on human rights policies.

When the focus of attention during 1998 shifted from Bosnia to Kosovo, Denmark adopted a "follow the leader" position, and showed no hesitation when it came to issuing threats against the FRY. On 8 October 1998 a decision was passed by Parliament to contribute to "a NATO deployment in the western Balkans" with four F-16 aircraft plus reserves and 115 personnel. As a consequence of this decision, the aircraft were dispatched to Italy and the authority to use them was transferred to the NATO command chain - as yet another contribution to the NATO’s "diplomacy of threat."

After this decision had been taken, the entire matter was almost completely de-politicized. No real political decision was thus ever taken to launch the attack, even though this constituted a complete departure from long-standing policies. The Danish military contribution to NATO’s war mainly consisted of four F-16 aircraft plus one reserve, to which were added, from April onwards, an additional four aircraft, and 150 troops for AFOR (Albania Force) from April.

Throughout the war, most of Denmark’s military contribution was for support functions rather than actual combat. However, on 26 May 1999 Danish pilots dropped their first-ever bombs on a sovereign state. Even though the bombing campaign was so obviously not achieving its aims, there was little parliamentary debate on the alternatives, such as the use of ground troops. Perhaps surprisingly, 70 per cent of the otherwise peaceful Danish population supported the war - even to the point of favoring the use of ground forces.

Throughout the war there was massive sympathy with the victims, which was also reflected in the substantial humanitarian aid granted, both through government and NGO channels. In addition to the security political debate, there was a heated debate on whether or not to accept Kosovar refugees (and perhaps Serbian deserters) and, if so, how many and under what conditions. On this issue the former "centre versus the extremes" division of opinion was transformed into a rather traditional left-right spectrum. The further to the left, the greater the willingness to welcome refugees, while the reluctance to accept refugees grew towards the right (xenophobic) end of the spectrum. The end result became that Denmark accepted a small number of 1,500 temporary refugees (later increased to 3,000), most of whom never actually arrived.

After the war, Denmark has pledged to commit around 850 troops for KFOR, to be deployed in the northwestern part of Kosovo under French command, mostly drawn from the Danish contribution to SFOR in Bosnia.

Norway’s attitude and behaviour throughout the crisis and war have closely resembled those of Denmark. In January 1999, six F-16 aircraft were dispatched to Italy. During the war, the following contributions were envisaged:

81 personnel for the Kosovo Verification Coordination Centre, located in Macedonia;
a contribution the Extraction force;
six F-16 aircraft, with a total of 180 personnel; and
a C-130 transport airport allocated to the evacuation of refugees.

For obvious reasons, Iceland’s contribution to the NATO war has been mainly rhetorical, as the country possesses no armed forces that it might have contributed. It did, however, politically support its NATO allies.

Throughout the crises, the two (no longer quite so) neutral Nordic states were actively involved, albeit not in the same way as the NATO members –(if only because they were never asked to participate in the war against the FRY). Finland’s reaction to NATO’s attack was muted, but supportive. However, while there had previously been a certain interest in exploring the option of joining NATO, support for the Western Alliance in the public declined significantly to a fourth or even a fifth of the population during the war. Some of the opposition parties, including the Centre Party, also expressed reservations against particular features of the war.

During the war, Finland contributed:

humanitarian aid, as well temporary refuge, for a small number of refugees;
President Ahtisaari’s work as EU envoy to work out the peace agreement with President Milosevic; and
the promise to contribute troops for (what became) KFOR, after a UN mandate had been secured.

Sweden was significantly less supportive of the NATO war than Finland. This was not so much because of a different assessment of the situation in Kosovo, or of the desirability of a solution along the lines of the Rambouillet draft, as it was due to concerns for international law.

After the war, Sweden has sent a mechanized battalion (around 800 troops) to KFOR - but reduced its presence in SFOR correspondingly - in addition to a promise to send 50 policemen to assist in the establishment of a local police force, and 40 observers to the OSCE mission. As a reflection of the (at most) lukewarm support for NATO’s handling of the Kosovo crisis, Sweden has subsequently proposed the establishment of an independent commission under the auspices of the UN to investigate what happened before, during and after the war.

11. The Southern Flank: Italy, Greece, Turkey top
Georgios Kostakos

Unlike countries situated away from a crisis area, which can afford a highly moral and principled stance (at least in terms of proclamations), neighboring countries are obliged to formulate their positions by considering more mundane factors, such as potential refugee flows; historical, ethnic, religious and other ties to the conflicting parties; similar situations that might affect them; or, the stability of the region. The end result is that the latter countries may adopt more balanced approaches, which may well entail many elements in common, despite often different starting points and diverse broader interests and considerations.

The existence of a sole superpower in the world today and the perceived necessity to maintain good relations with it plays a significant role in shaping the official outward attitudes of countries and in mitigating public reactions within them. This is the case despite often fundamental reservations - if not regarding the goals of an action, then at least regarding the tactics adopted by "the international community" vis-à-vis a certain conflict.

Unlike what one might have expected, the Italy, Greece and Turkey behaved in an overall restrained and responsible way, not trying to take undue advantage of developments in the region. Having said that, each country certainly attempted to place itself in a favourable position vis-à-vis the post-conflict political and economic arrangements.

Smaller countries feel the need to support multilateral institutions of broad membership and collective decision-making, where they are given a say vis-à-vis issues that could otherwise be decided upon by an elite group of powerful actors or even by the hegemon alone without broader consultations. In that sense, all three countries, to a lesser or greater extent, proposed peaceful ways out of the crisis and welcomed the eventual return of the Kosovo issue to the legitimate United Nations framework through Security Council resolution 1244 of 10 June 1999.

Turkey’s firm attachment to the United States and NATO was vindicated by the predominant role of the two and the simultaneous affirmation of the continuing weakness of the European Union. Turkey will continue to sell itself as a loyal member and regional headman for the superpower and NATO, expecting to benefit in terms of political concessions from neighbouring countries (including Greece), securing its internal front (including both the Kurdish and Islamic questions) from outside interference and reaping economic and political benefits from the exploitation of Caspian oil reserves and its overall strategic location.

Greece tries to keep a middle ground, externally but also domestically, between a U.S.-centred new international order and a more traditional one based on long-established principles. It needs the support of NATO and the superpower in its relations with Turkey, particularly in the context of the disputes over the Aegean and the Cyprus problem. It realizes that a settlement not based on international law may lead to the closure of these questions to its disadvantage. At the same time Greece tries to balance the transAtlantic and the European orientation by favouring a more assertive European common foreign and security policy with itself as the regional hub for Southeastern Europe. At least one immediate benefit that seems to have accrued to Greece from the Kosovo crisis is the designation of Thessaloniki as the seat of the EU Balkan Reconstruction Organization, although with strong operational offices in Pristina and perhaps elsewhere.

It was important to Italy to assert itself as a major power, second to the superpower but more or less on an equal basis with the other European heavyweights. It will continue its efforts to play a protagonistic role in both major forums, the EU and NATO, as well as in the United Nations. The appointment of ex-Prime Minister Prodi to serve as President of the new European Commission is expected to give Italy a higher profile on the European stage. Moreover, the country will continue to pursue its own regional policies, through Albania but also through a political and economic presence in other countries of Southeastern Europe and the Mediterranean.

12. Kosovo and the Case of the (Not So) Free Riders: Belgium, Canada, Portugal and Spain top
David Haglund and Allen Sens

The war over Kosovo was, in general, an unproblematic conflict for this set of small powers (Belgium, Canada, Portugal and Spain) because its status as a "humanitarian" war made it easy to justify to political leaders (if not always to their publics) while the inability of NATO to have avoided involvement made the war seem strategically necessary. Not surprisingly, little overt appeal was made by the smaller allies to that strategic rationale for the war, nor was it essential for it to have been made, such was the resonance of the humanitarian claim. Nevertheless, the strategic pull was real, for all the allies understood the necessity of preserving alliance solidarity and credibility, while for the three European allies the war became a test case for greater European defence cooperation. For these four allies, with varying degrees of qualification, Kosovo was even a "good" war - one of the few such they are likely to know.

• Belgium: Belgium’s declared support for NATO action rested on two foundations: the proximity of the crisis and attendant fears that it could spread, and the humanitarian disaster that was beginning to unfold in an eerie replay of the Bosnian war several years earlier. Equally important was the felt need to show solidarity with the major European allies, for purposes related to the furthering of integration in Europe. Publicly, however, the Belgian government rationalized its involvement in NATO action against Serbia largely on humanitarian grounds. In parliament, the Socialists, Social Democrats, Christian Democrats, and Liberals were broadly supportive of NATO actions. This broad consensus was mirrored in Belgian public opinion, with the majority of Belgians supporting the air campaign against Serbia. Twelve Belgian F-16 fighters were engaged in the air campaign against Serbia, although not in strategic bombing. Belgium also committed 1,100 personnel to KFOR for a period of one year.

• Canada: As did the other allies, small or otherwise, Canada saw the war very much as a humanitarian conflict. And like the other allies, it also had some strategic (if unstated) interests at stake, associated with the need to preserve the credibility of the alliance. As in other alliance capitals, in Ottawa policy makers and opinion shapers stressed the humanitarian aspects of the war. Indeed, Canada and its foreign minister, Lloyd Axworthy, figured among the vanguard of the "humanitarian hawks," and for some weeks during the war’s initial phase, Canada was out front of the United States and alongside of Britain in suggesting that a ground offensive might yet be necessary.

Canada played a role in the air war, commensurate with that of France and Britain and quite unlike that of the other "smaller" allies. It could do this because it had what most of the other (non-U.S.) allied air forces lacked: precision-guided missiles (PGMs) capable of being unleashed from the 18 CF-18 fighter-bombers deployed in theatre. NATO flew more than 27,000 sorties (strikes and otherwise) during Operation Allied Force; of that total, Canadian aircraft accounted for 678 (in what Canada termed Operation Echo). Although the number of aircraft Canada contributed was roughly comparable to that supplied by several other allies, operationally Canada was much more important than most, with the obvious exception of the U.S. Air Force (USAF). The latter supplied 715 of Operation Allied Force’s 912 aircraft, and flew the lion’s share of the sorties. But Canada’s pilots, because they had the PGMs and also because of their high level of training and their high interoperability with the USAF, flew nearly 10 per cent of all strike sorties during Operation Allied Force. As well, the overwhelming number of strike "packages" sent over Serbian skies were led either by Americans or Canadians.

• Portugal: Portugal's response to the Kosovo crisis was similar to the "communautaire" approach adopted by Belgium. Although not directly threatened by the violence within Serbia, the country’s leaders evinced concerns that the conflict could spread. As in the other countries surveyed, no appeal was made to overt strategic rationales for action; rather, obligations to the alliance and Europe, as well as the humanitarian imperative, were cited in justification of NATO action. Public opinion was less supportive of the war than in Belgium and Canada (although more so than in Spain). The lack of a UN mandate was a matter of considerable debate in Portugal, with the government insisting that Kosovo was not to be seen as precedent setting.

Portugal’s initial contribution to the NATO air campaign was three F-16 aircraft. Portugal’s contribution to Joint Guardian is a battalion of some 300 personnel. In light of the crisis response nature of NATO military requirements, Portugal had begun to restructure its military in 1998 with the development of a capacity to contribute to NATO’s rapid reaction forces was deemed a "first priority." Nevertheless, the size and capacities of the Portuguese military will ensure that Portuguese pursuit of "communautaire" strategies in NATO will be limited to political and diplomatic support of alliance initiatives, backed by a token contribution of military assets to coalition efforts.

• Spain: Kosovo affected Spain as it did the other "smaller" allies. Madrid saw in the crisis a humanitarian challenge that simply had to be addressed - all the more so if the vision of a more coherent "Europe of defence" was ever to become a reality. But Spaniards proved more reluctant than their leaders to back the air war. In fact, Spain was among the allies in which public opinion waxed least enthusiastic about bombing the Serbs. Partly this has to do with the country’s recent (and lugubrious) military history, from the civil war of the 1930s to the long period of rule by General Francisco Franco. Partly it may have something to do with Spain’s own internal political difficulties, which have made it one of the more sensitive allied countries when it comes to allegations about separatists resorting to "terrorism" to achieve their aims.

Although Spanish leaders preferred to stress the country’s involvement with the refugee crisis, in response to which generous contributions were made, Spain’s was one of the handful of allied air forces to take part in strategic bombing. The country’s F-18s (equipped with laser-guided bombs) were in on the first wave of attacks on 24 March 1999 and had flown, by early June, some 200 sorties, of which 160 were strike sorties. Militarily, for a country with an armed force some three times the size of Canada’s, Spain seems to have refined the art of "burden sharing" in a fairly cost-effective manner, doing more than Portugal and Belgium but less than Canada. It eventually committed eight of its F-18s to Operation Allied Force, and also allowed US military aircraft on the way to Serbia to use bases on Spanish soil.

13. The New Entrants: Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic top
Péter Tálas and László Valki

Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic joined NATO just twelve days before air strikes against Yugoslavia began - although, originally, the accession was planned to take place in April 1999 at the Washington Summit. Nevertheless, the attitude of these countries regarding the air strikes was not determined by whether or not they were members on 24 March, but by the fact that all three were desirous of joining the North Atlantic Alliance, and thus the West, since the early nineties. In other words, they wanted to rejoin the community of states they had been separated from by history. Naturally, their attitudes showed some difference in the details.

• Hungary:As far as Hungary was concerned, the government consistently supported the air campaign against Yugoslavia and took an active part by opening its airspace and airfields to NATO aircraft. Opposition parties and majority public opinion also approved of the NATO operation. Geographically, Hungary’s position was very important. It had common borders with Yugoslavia, and - since the Dayton Peace Accord - a military base and airfield in the southern part of the country, at Taszár, has been providing logistical support for the IFOR/SFOR operations. In October 1998, NATO had requested permission to use Hungarian airspace, and in March 1999 it extended its request to the use of the Hungarian airfields as well.

Later, a debate evolved in the Hungarian press among leading Hungarian intellectuals about the legitimacy and efficiency of the NATO air strikes. Another debate evolved in connection with the use of ground forces. In response to the lack of success of the first three weeks of air strikes, there was growing speculation in the Western media that the war could not be ended without the use of ground forces. Its geographical position would have made Hungary most suitable for launching a ground invasion. Hungarian military leaders also thought that a ground attack was inevitable and that it would have to be launched from Hungary. But neither the government or the opposition supported such a plan. Leading politicians declared that Hungary could undertake only such commitments that would not endanger the lives of ethnic Hungarians in Vojvodina.

The preparation of a ground force invasion would have taken several weeks, giving Milosevic sufficient time to deploy his special police units against ethnic Hungarians who did not have an armed organization like the KLA to defend them. Foreign Minister János Martonyi said that it was not in Yugoslavia’s interest to extend the conflict to Hungary. Hungary had no desire to participate in a military action, but would participate in a possible peacekeeping mission. Leading NATO politicians considered this acceptable; it had always been the Alliance’s position that directly neighboring states did not have to take part in military operations. In fact, such participation would even be counterproductive, since it entails the possibility of a direct armed conflict and consequently a dangerous escalation of the fighting. Interestingly enough, according to many observers, in the end Milosevic gave in because he thought that he would not be able to face a ground force attack.

• Poland: Amongst the three new member states, Poland had the greatest public support for joining the Alliance. This support slipped only slightly during the NATO air campaign against Yugoslavia. Polish officials were among the first to suggest the bombardment of Serb TV and radio stations in order to crush Milosevic’s propaganda machine. Moreover they were determined in principle to support the idea of supplementing air strikes with land operations. No request was made to Warsaw for the use of Polish airspace, nor were the Poles asked to participate in the maritime blockade against Yugoslavia.

The consistent policy adopted by the Warsaw government did not match the views of the political elite and the Polish public. On the contrary, the Kosovo conflict deeply divided the public and politicians (the latter without regard to party affiliation). However, the NATO air campaign was generally favored by the moderates of the political spectrum, no matter whether they were on the left or on the right. These are the political groups that will likely govern Poland in various political constellations during the years to come.

• Czech Republic: Amongst the new members of NATO, the Czech Republic featured the noisiest and most spectacular debate about NATO’s air campaign. Greece and the Czech Republic were the only NATO members that, although having granted their votes, demonstrated views of open dissent. The government approved the opening of Czech airspace and airfields to allied military aircraft as late as on 6 April. In spite of the fact that all political parties promised their support to the proposal of the government, it was passed by Parliament only after five hours of stormy debate (with 145 representatives out of 181 present in support of the vote). Direct participation in possible land operations was a non-issue, since the government strongly opposed the idea of a ground attack. It would have limited the involvement of Czech troops only to the defence and aid of Albanian refugees.

PART FOUR - SELECTED INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVES top

14. The Muslim World: Uneasy Ambivalence top
Ibrahim A. Karawan

In Muslim countries, as in many other parts of the world, the conflict in Kosovo was followed not only with considerable attention, but also with the belief that it was far from being just one more conflict to be added to the ethnic conflicts that proliferated after the end of the Cold War. Even more than the war in Bosnia, the Kosovo conflict has been seen as a defining moment or a critical juncture, the importance of which would ultimately transcend the immediate setting, or the winners as well as losers in that conflict.

Analysts and opinion makers alerted the attentive public in many Muslim countries to the importance of grasping and understanding the "lessons of Kosovo" in anticipation of political trends that are going to unfold necessarily in the future - or so they argued. Clearly, the proclaimed "lessons of Kosovo" were not the same according to various schools of thought. As in other regions of the world, the events of Kosovo became an arena of sharp contention over the very meaning of international interactions, the real intentions of major international actors, and the relationship between "what is" and "what ought to be" in our very rapidly changing international politics.

A diversity of interests and perspectives has characterized the political perceptions and policy positions of Muslim countries. These countries in fact could not or would not do much to influence the outcome of the conflict. They also failed to develop a consensus on the Kosovo war or put an agreed-upon label on the conflict in Kosovo for various reasons.

Thus, knowing that a specific country is Muslim or that its population has a Muslim majority does not give us adequate answers to questions about its likely positions on a matter like Kosovo. Despite the repeated talk during the last quarter of a century about the growth of Islam as a transnational movement at the expense of territorial states, the fact that Muslims continue to live within the boundaries of nation-states does indeed matter. Hence, one can identify the diversity of the positions and policies of these Muslim countries despite their shared and broad sympathy with some other Muslims in distress.

Many of those in Islamic countries who supported the NATO operation on the grounds that the Muslims in Kosovo might ultimately benefit from it, argue that the Alliance committed strategic mistakes in carrying out its military operations. This made their support indeed a qualified one. These mistakes included not intervening earlier, the refusal to deploy ground troops to put a decisive end to the conflict, and not anticipating Milosevic’s resort to the eviction of hundreds of thousands of Muslims from Kosovo.

Beyond that, a leading newspaper in Bahrain condemned the recurrence of cases in which the NATO military machine failed to distinguish between the combatants and noncombatants at a high cost in human life of innocent civilians in Serbia. NATO promises about surgical strikes and that the civilian population in Serbia would not be affected by the heavy bombardment and firing of missiles turned out to be false. In essence, those who adopted that perspective believed that supporting the Muslims in Kosovo should not entail justifying the killing of many innocent human beings, whether they were Serbs or not. As al-Ayam put it, "whoever sends fighters and missiles against civilians in Yugoslavia cannot be any less evil and barbaric than Milosevic."

In some Muslim societies in which similar arguments have been expressed, the comparison between the American actions against Yugoslavia and against Iraq was central in shaping such views. According to these arguments, in both Iraq and Yugoslavia many innocent civilians who did not have any means of influencing the policy choices of their authoritarian leaders have suffered on a very large scale from the combined effects of the devastating military strikes and of the economic embargo. According to that perspective, part of the U.S. strategic objective was to use the Kosovo conflict to further test new generations of sophisticated weapons or military doctrine and to demonstrate its vast preponderance of power in order to intimidate potential challengers to its worldwide influence in the future.

15. Latin America: The Dilemmas of Intervention top
Mónica Serrano

This examination of different responses in Latin America to the Kosovo crisis finds parallels with the wider tension between state interests and human rights, which has led observers to characterize the UN Charter as a "dynamic compromise."

Different responses to the crisis developed both in a context dominated by changing legal and political interpretations of the right of intervention, and in the context of democratic and humanitarian crises. Thus the declaration issued by the Rio Group on 25 March 1999, one day after NATO’s bombing began, needs to be seen as an attempt to reconcile respect for human rights and state sovereignty.

In Latin America, responses to NATO’s military intervention in Yugoslavia did not follow a uniform pattern. Reactions in the region varied from moderate support to open opposition. At one end of the spectrum, Argentina and Chile made clear their concern about NATO’s decision and its dismissal of the UN, but their responses did seek to reconcile sovereignty and respect for human rights. For Argentina in particular, NATO’s actions were not openly construed as illegitimate. Brazil’s more moderate approach was explicable by its traditional emphasis on "universalism" and multilateralism, and its more cautious stand vis-à-vis the loosening-up of the principle of non-intervention in the region. At the other end of the spectrum, we find Mexico. Fearful of autonomist threats at home, the Mexican government privileged Yugoslavia’s territorial integrity and rigidly opposed NATO’s resort to military force.

Entangled within the different responses lie a series of factors, among which domestic political circumstances and wider regional trends are the most important. The different dynamics unleashed by the transition to democracy and the restoration of democratic civilian supremacy have strongly influenced the positions of different countries in the changing legal context for intervention and the external protection of democracy. It is, in fact, possible to analyze the various responses to the Kosovo crisis in terms of this regional quest.

16. South Africa: The Demand for Legitimate Multilateralism top
Philip Nel

The official South African reaction to the Kosovo crisis was even-handed, favouring none of the sides to the conflict. However, the frequency and intensity of SA reactions to NATO bombings were striking, and are in need of some explanation. Given its leadership position in many multilateral bodies (SADC, UNCTAD, NAM, and others), South Africa could be expected to respond prominently. The emphasis placed on the inappropriateness of NATO’s actions, and the emphasis on the UN Security Council as the sole legitimate forum to deal with matters of humanitarian intervention, are striking in official declarations by the Department of Foreign Affairs.

Three possible "selfish" reasons exist for these two emphases: Firstly, through these declarations, South Africa wanted to atone for its own involvement in a non-UNSC-sanctioned humanitarian intervention (Lesotho, September 1998), that went somewhat awry. Secondly, emphasizing the primary role of the UNSC would shift responsibility for dealing with African crises to the UNSC, and would thus relieve South Africa of some of the pressure it is experiencing as one of the designated "conflict managers" in sub-Saharan Africa. Thirdly, the South African government, reflecting the position of the OAU in particular, wanted to make clear that unilateral intervention, no matter how noble the pretext, is not acceptable.

This last reason reflects a broader commitment to broad multilateralism (as distinct from the narrow multilateralism practiced by NATO) by the NAM, in general, and by its current chair, South Africa, in particular. Such a broad, non-discriminatory multilateralism (in all issue areas, including security and trade) remains the best safeguard that the developing world has against unilateral misuse of power by the strong. Hopefully, the denouement of the Kosovo crisis will lead to a re-commitment to this normative vision of global politics.

17. India: An Uneasy Precedent top
Satish Nambiar

It appears that, as the world enters the new millennium, the spectre of the United Nations becoming a toothless and impotent organization is looming large over us. The main reason for this depressing outlook is the recent experience of NATO intervention in Kosovo. The merits of the respective stands of the belligerents notwithstanding, the manner in which the United Nations was totally ignored and bypassed, the arrogant violation of all international treaty norms, transgression of state sovereignty, the indiscriminate destruction of civilian infrastructure and the killing of innocent civilians, by a regional organization comprising most of the developed countries of the Western world, has given cause for deep disquiet about the future of this august body.

Events in the Balkans in the early nineties were only marginally monitored or followed in India. This was primarily because the country was then preoccupied with domestic and regional commitments, such as dealing with terrorist activity in the states of Punjab, Jammu and Kashmir, and Assam, and with the operations of the Indian Peacekeeping Force in Sri Lanka. Even so, analysts of the Balkan situation find it incomprehensible that the USA and Western Europe did not apply their efforts to seeking a resolution of the Kosovo situation during the deliberations at Dayton. This is the reason for the scepticism of the strategic community in India, in so far as the evident Western bias against the Serbs is concerned.

However, when NATO resorted to air strikes and bombing in Yugoslavia on 24 March 1999, there was unequivocal condemnation in India, both from the Government and outside. The unilateral action was viewed as a flagrant violation of all international norms, against the provisions of the United Nations Charter, and seen as direct and unprovoked aggression. NATO intervention in Kosovo raises a number of issues that merit scrutiny and analysis in the context of what the future holds for the developing world. The humanitarian dimension is sad and depressing; but notwithstanding the efforts of the ubiquitous Western media, the responsibility for the extent of the humanitarian crisis rests on NATO. The legal and ethical positions in regard to the sovereignty and integrity of a state are a matter of concern. The possibility of the extension of NATO’s area of operations is disturbing. The irony is that it is quite obvious that the operation was an unprofessional miscalculation of some politicians and diplomats; it could not have been the preferred option of NATO’s military planners.

The prime movers of the utterly inexcusable operation had drawn all the wrong lessons from what had transpired during the conflict in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina. At that time, there were Croatian and Muslim troops (trained and equipped by the U.S.) to exploit the air operations with operations on the ground. The apprehension of most countries is that the primacy of the UN Security Council in the maintenance of international peace and security is being totally compromised. And finally, the message that the developing countries are reading is that they should place as the heads of the governments in their countries only such persons as are acceptable to those who intend to run the world. If they fail to do so, they will be deprived of assistance from international organizations, and subjected to sanctions and, possibly, bombings.

The international community cannot and must not allow itself to become hostage to the machinations of a few privileged and powerful countries. Moves are already afoot to seek common positions, if not alignments, and for a restructuring of the United Nations Security Council. Many developing countries may feel compelled to move towards ensuring greater security for themselves, and self-reliance through acquisition of more weaponry. There is almost total unanimity in India that the country needs to strengthen itself militarily to the extent that there can be no scope for any interference in the affairs on the subcontinent.

PART FIVE - CHALLENGES OF THE POST-WAR ORDER top

18. NATO: From Collective Defence to Peace Enforcement top
Nicola Butler

Since the end of the Cold War, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) has transformed itself from an organization concerned principally with collective defence and deterrence of the Soviet Union into a powerful player in the field of peace-keeping and peace enforcement in Europe.

The North Atlantic Treaty of 1949 was originally designed to provide for the common defence of the US, Canada and their Western European allies. The Treaty spells out the geographical boundaries of Alliance territory and emphasizes the "primary responsibility of the [UN] Security Council for the maintenance of international peace and security." Despite this, in the war over Kosovo NATO carried out its largest and most complex military operation to date, against a sovereign state that posed no direct threat to Alliance territory, outside Alliance borders, and without the backing of the UN Security Council.

NATO represented its strategy in Kosovo as "diplomacy backed by credible force." US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright highlighted this combination of diplomacy and force as one of the "basic principles" leading to the successful conclusion of NATO’s bombing of Serbia. NATO’s stated objectives were to halt or avert a humanitarian catastrophe in Kosovo and to support international efforts to secure Yugoslav agreement to an interim political settlement. Military strategy was therefore presented as being necessary to disrupt the violent attacks being committed by the Serb Army and Special Police Forces.

The principal Alliance objective of achieving a political agreement with the Belgrade authorities, including the withdrawal of Serb military forces from Kosovo and the introduction of a multinational implementation force, KFOR, was achieved. Air strikes did not, however, have the quick and decisive deterrent effect on the Milosevic regime that NATO expected. Speaking at the time, Representative Porter Goss, Chairman of the U.S. House Intelligence Committee, said the effect of air strikes was that "instead of caving in, Milosevic struck back harder and more ruthlessly against the Kosovo Albanians."

The length of the air campaign had the effect of pushing NATO cohesion to the limits, putting particular pressure on countries such as Italy and Greece where public opposition to the air strikes was high. According to U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott, had Milosevic not conceded on 3 June, "there would have been increasing difficulty within the alliance in preserving the solidarity and the resolve of the alliance."

At a political level, NATO unity was tested by differences of opinion about questions such as whether to use ground forces, the possibility of boarding ships in the Adriatic to enforce the maritime blockade of Yugoslavia, and the bombing of "phase 3" targets such as communications facilities and supply stores. At particular stages, Italy, Germany and Greece advocated a pause in the bombing to allow for greater diplomatic efforts to resolve the conflict. In contrast, British Prime Minister Tony Blair insisted that there would be "no halt" to the bombing until NATO’s objectives had been met. NATO military strategy was also restricted by U.S. concerns not to risk a domestic political backlash, including actions that could endanger American military forces.

Fundamental policy differences between the Allies led to a "lowest common denominator" approach to achieving military objectives. Although high-altitude bombing appears to have delivered Alliance objectives without Allied casualties, its success in destroying Serb military forces is open to question. Highprofile targeting errors, such as the bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade, the bombings of Serb and Kosovar Albanian civilians, and the missiles that landed outside Yugoslavia, have raised doubts about the effectiveness of the air campaign.

Although NATO forces escaped with minimal loss of life, the impact of the air strikes on civilian life in Yugoslavia has been severe. However, air strikes did not prevent widespread atrocities against civilians on the ground in Kosovo or the mass exodus of refugees into neighbouring countries. At best, NATO was unable to halt the humanitarian catastrophe until it was too late for many Kosovar Albanians. At worst, the transition from OSCE monitoring to NATO air strikes precipitated a greater disaster for those left in Kosovo.

Despite NATO’s decision in March 1999 to go ahead with Operation Allied Force without a Security Council resolution, the question of acting without UN backing is still controversial within the Alliance. Although the U.S. domestic debate is still hostile to an enhanced role for the UN, the result of the Kosovo operation for many of NATO’s European members has been to increase their concerns about the implications of acting without UN backing.

A dangerous precedent has been set in the Balkans, whereby NATO takes action with UN backing when possible, but without it if Alliance members think it necessary. Although the U.S. does not wish to set any geographical limits on NATO’s sphere of influence, most of NATO’s European members would prefer to limit future NATO operations to within Europe. Even in Europe, the war in Chechnya demonstrates how difficult it would be for NATO to conduct operations similar to Operation Allied Force in regions where there may be more politically at stake.

With the beginning of air strikes against Yugoslavia, NATO’s post-Cold War relationship with Russia reached a new low. Talks in the NATO-Russia Permanent Joint Council were brought to a halt. Russia’s parliament put ratification of the START II nuclear arms reduction treaty on hold. At the height of the conflict, the Russian Foreign Ministry also alleged that NATO had violated the Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) Treaty in Albania and Macedonia.

The bombing of Yugoslavia may also have a negative impact on the wider nuclear non-proliferation regime. At the 1999 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Preparatory Committee (PrepCom) meeting, a number of diplomats speculated privately on whether NATO would have bombed Belgrade if Yugoslavia possessed nuclear capabilities.

NATO presents the outcome of Operation Allied Force as vindicating Alliance peace enforcement strategy. The high-tech, televised demonstrations gave a large boost to the aerospace industry, which argu

KOSOVO AND THE CHALLENGE OF HUMANITARIAN INTERVENTION Selective Indignation, Collective Intervention, and International Citizenship

KOSOVO AND THE CHALLENGE OF HUMANITARIAN INTERVENTION
Selective Indignation, Collective Intervention, and International Citizenship