Correspondence:The Crisis in Kosovo

ROBERT COXAND LLOYD AXWORTHY

Hon. Lloyd AxworthyHouse of Commons, Ottawa11 April 1999

Dear Mr. Axworthy,

On the eve of[the] House of Commons debate on Canada'sparticipation in the war in Yugoslavia, I would like to expressmy strong dissent from the existing bombing strategy.

It is evident that this policy was badly conceived and has beencounterproductive in its execution. United States diplomacy is at alow ebb with a President imprisoned by the contradictory moodsof public opinion (do something in the face of television portray-als of atrocities but don't allow any Americans to be killed) and anincompetent Secretary of State who left no room for maneuver andrefrained from drawing into negotiations other parties who mighthave moderated the threats made on behalf of NATO and provid-ed more acceptable pressure on Milosevic. The efficacy of theAmerican military doctrine of bombing has been refuted histori-cally in the blitz against British cities and the saturation bombingby [the] British of German cities during World War II, in theAmerican bombing of Vietnam, and in the human catastrophe andpolitical impasse of the Gulf War.

Your policy up to now has been a constructive development ofLester Pearson's determination to build up the United Nations asthe long-term key to the management of conflicts in the world.This is a policy consistent with the integrity of middle and small-er powers which aspire to an autonomous role in the world. Therehave been disappointments in this course, including most recentlythe Rwanda genocide (although a Canadian general for the United

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Nations did act honourably for our country in trying to avoid thatcatastrophe). It is a poor argument to say the UN Security Councilcould not act in the present case of Yugoslavia because of theprobability of a Russian and Chinese veto. That only demonstratesthat there was no consensus in the international community behindthe NATO policy and that more effort was necessary to broadenthe negotiations beyond NATO.

On the threshold of the millennium, the choice for security-political and human-lies between a world dependent upon onesuperpower supported irregularly by its acolytes and a recon-structed United Nations which is not dominated by one powerfulstate and which provides greater access from civil society. Yourpolicy up to now has supported the latter option. The record on theland mines treaty and the effort to establish an international crim-inal court has demonstrated the lack of support for this optionfrom the one superpower, the United States. The Canadian gov-ernment's present policy of bombing Yugoslavia in signalling thechoice of the United States and NATO over the United Nations asthe future road to global governance undermines the credibility ofyour erstwhile policy.

The only way in which you could regain initiative towards thelong-term goal you were aiming for would be to have Canada dis-engage from the NATO bombing and seek to involve others-Russia, Italy, Greece, and France, for instance-in a renewedeffort at a broad-based settlement in the Balkans. Following Serbresistance to Hitler during World War II, Tito demonstrated thatthose peoples who had fought each other bitterly could be broughtto live peacefully together. One condition for his achievement wasto become independent of both NATO and the Soviet Union andto build alliances with other non-aligned states.

"Bombing for peace" is only making the humanitarian anddiplomatic situation worse. I hope it will not become your politi-cal epitaph.

Sincerely,

Robert W. Cox ER.S.C.Professor Emeritus of Political ScienceYork University, Toronto

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Professor Emeritus Robert W. CoxS Metcalfe StreetToronto, OntarioM4X IRS

2 June 1999

Dear Professor Cox:

Thank you for your correspondence concerning the humanitar-ian crisis in Kosovo.

The systematic campaign of terror and ethnic cleansing beingcarried out by the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY) is anaffront to human dignity and contrary to international humanitari-an and human rights law. Canada's reaction to the crisis is in keep-ing with our foreign policy priorities of human security andrespect for human rights.

Our preference, and that of all NATO Allies, has always beenfor a diplomatic solution to the problem of Kosovo. Since thebeginning of this crisis, Canada and the international communityhave taken an active role in numerous diplomatic attempts toencourage the Yugoslav government to resolve the Kosovo issuepeacefully. These efforts include United Nations Security Councilresolutions, G-8 meetings and sanctions. Although the FRY agreedto comply with the resolutions, in reality, the Yugoslav leadershipwas in breach of all of its obligations under UN Security Councilresolutions and under the Belgrade agreements of October 1998.In addition, FRY security forces harassed the verifiers of theOrganization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) inan effort to dispense with an international presence that wasbecoming increasingly embarrassing to Belgrade.

Ultimate diplomatic efforts were made at Rambouillet.Regardless, the Yugoslav regime relentlessly continued its pro-gram of ethnic cleansing. As well, there was evidence thatYugoslav forces were preparing for a massive spring offensive. Alldiplomatic efforts had failed to spur President Milosevic towardnegotiating a peaceful resolution.

Under such grave circumstances, NATO was compelled to actin support of international humanitarian law. Nothing wouldplease us more than to be able to end the air campaign. However,in order for NATO to cease its action against the FRY,and for any

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solution to be effective and durable, President Milosevic mustmeet the five conditions endorsed by NATO, the European Union,and the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Kofi Annan.Those conditions are: an immediate end to the campaign of ethniccleansing and violence against civilians; withdrawal of securityforces; making conditions possible for the unconditional return ofall refugees; serious diplomatic talks based on the RambouilletAccord; and acceptance of an international military presence toimplement a peace agreement and to protect the population.Canada and its NATO Allies continue to keep the way open for anegotiated end to this conflict once President Milosevic acceptsthe demands of the international community.

In response to the refugee situation, the Canadian governmenthas supported the efforts of the international humanitarian agen-cies to provide for basic necessities such as food, water, shelterand medical supplies, mainly through the UNHCR and theInternational Committee of the Red Cross, and Canadian NGOs.As well, within the framework ofthe UNHCR emergency human-itarian evacuation program, Canada agreed to accept and hasaccommodated 5000 refugees on an emergency basis.

Canada remains committed to the shared goal of the interna-tional community of realizing a diplomatic solution to the crisis inKosovo. Our current efforts through bilateral and multilateralforums demonstrate our active involvement in, and support for,the peace process. I am personally engaged in attempts to resolvethe crisis through my regular contacts with my counterparts with-in NATO and the G-8. I have enclosed documents for your addi-tional information. As well, should you have access to the internet,you may wish to browse our Web site at

http://www.dfait-maeci.gc.ca/foreignp/kosovo/text/kosovo-e.asp.

Thank you again for writing

Sincerely,

Lloyd AxworthyMinister of Foreign AffairsEnclosures

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Hon. Lloyd AxworthyMinister of Foreign Affairs24 July 1999

Dear Mr. Axworthy,

On my return from two months in Europe I found your letter of2 June in reply to an earlier correspondence from me concerningthe war in Yugoslavia. I thank you most sincerely for the courtesyofa reasoned response. Since my assessment of that situation dif-fers in important ways from the position your government hastaken, I would like to explain my point of view. I should first makeclear that I am not a pacifist in the sense of excluding the use offorce under any circumstances, nor am I the kind of "realist" whowould consider that only "national interest" is admissible in for-eign policy to the exclusion of ethical concerns. As a former seniorofficial in the United Nations system and a professor of interna-tional relations, * I am motivated primarily by concern for globalgovernance in the currently changing and uncertain conditions ofworld order.

I agree fully that "ethnic cleansing" is an evil to be eradicatedinsofar as possible along with other gross violations of humanrights. It is wrong, however, to place the whole burden of theseevils upon the Serb leaders and people. The campaign of vilifica-tion that has characterized much of the media in Europe andAmerica and many statements by political leaders has perhapsserved the cause of mobilizing public opinion but has certainlydone a disservice to historical perspective and balanced judgment.Moreover, in a just world no goal, even defence of human rights,can be taken as absolute. The consequences of actions should begiven primary consideration, especially when human lives are atrisk. As Max Weber argued, there is an important distinction inpolitics between an absolute ethic and an ethic of responsibility.My concern is that the consequences of the US and NATO deci-sion to bomb Yugoslavia into submission both in the short termand in the long term are disastrous for the Yugoslav people(including the Kosovars) and gravely prejudicial for future world

* Cox held the rank of Assistant Director-General of the ILO when he resigned in1972. He was subsequently Professor of International Organization at ColumbiaUniversity, 1972-77, and Professor of Political Science at York University from1977.

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order, and that the procedure that led to this decision was badlyflawed. I apologize that my perception may take longer to explainthan your patience may allow for.

The Decision to Bomb Others have rightly pointed to the under-mining of international law that results from contravening theprovisions of both the United Nations Charter and the NorthAtlantic Treaty. I confine my criticism to the political reasoning atfault. There was obviously insufficient consensus in the EuropeanUnion to mount a credible deterrent to Milosevic. The UnitedStates, urged on especially by the UK, provided the catalyst for analignment of NATO governments. France and Germany wereacquiescent, Italy and Greece and the new members were moreapprehensive. European public opinion was deeply divided. TheUS Secretary of State, Ms. Albright, for whatever reason, took theinitiative to lead the campaign.

The constraint upon her enthusiasm was the US President'sdecision that a war of intervention in Europe, where there was nomajor US national interest involved (though perhaps several sec-ondary interests), would have to be fought by air power alone andwithout risk of US casualties-a doctrine, partly derived from thetechnological hubris of the Gulf War experience, and primarilyfrom the public memory of Vietnam and the metaphor of the"body bags." Germany and some other NATO allies likewiseexcluded use of ground troops. The US Secretary of State implied(if she did not put it on record) that the Yugoslav governmentwould yield to NATO after a few days of bombing. This ignoredthe lessons of Coventry and Dresden in World War II and the USexperience in Vietnam. Nor did the Gulf War support this thesis.In fact, the bombing predictably rallied public support againstNATO even among Serbs hostile to Milosevic. The military strat-egy was faulty at the beginning and the fault was compounded asfailure to attain the purported objective of protecting the Kosovarsled the US and NATO to expand attacks from military to civiliantargets, something which I believe a military analyst has describedas "reinforcing failure."

The diplomatic aspect of the procedure leading up to the warwas equally flawed. Rambouillet was not a negotiation; rather itwas an ultimatum. The two hostile parties, Serbs and AlbanianKosavars, did not meet. When both parties rejected the draft pre-pared by the contact group, Ms. Albright arranged to change the

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composition of the Albanian Kosovar delegation by bringing inthe KLA, hitherto considered by the CIA to be ''terrorists.'' (Ms.Albright's recourse to the KLA continues with US grooming oftheex-"terrorist" Hachim Thaci for a leading role in shapingKosovo's future.) With this change in the Kosovar representationat Rambouillet, the trigger for bombing lay with the KLA; if itaccepted the text and the Serbs rejected it (and no governmentcould have accepted the terms presented to the Serbs), then NATOwould begin bombing. In effect, NATO, through this manipulationof "negotiation," intervened on one side in a civil war. To Serbpeople generally it appeared analogous to the Nazi ultimatum fol-lowed by the bombing of Belgrade during the Second World War.

No doubt NATO investigators will find evidence that Milosevichad plans for massive removal of Albanian population in Kosovo.Prior to March 24, when the bombing began, the evidence is thatrelatively small numbers of attacks on Albanian Kosovars hadoccurred and that these were occasioned by the guerilla civil warbeing carried on by the KLA against the Serb army. This isaffirmed in the testimony of a Canadian career military officer,Roland Keith, who was a member of the Kosovo VerificationMission of the OSCE. It is also the evidence ofa few western jour-nalists who remained in Kosovo after the bombing began, notablyRobert Fisk of The Independent and the Canadian Paul Watsonof the Los Angeles Times. For these observers the massive attackupon and removal of the Albanian Kosovar population began afterthe bombing started on March 24. Roland Keith has suggested thata strengthening ofthe observer presence together with a continuedpresence of foreign reporters would have been a deterrent to massexpulsions if supplemented by other pressures and incentives byconcerned European governments.

The mass expulsion plan, assuming there was one and it seemsvery likely that there was, required specific circumstances to putinto effect. The decision to withdraw the OSeE and to beginbombing provided those circumstances; and the campaign ofexpulsion moved much more rapidly than NATO had expected.Mao's metaphor for a guerilla war-the fish that swim in the sea,i.e., guerillas supported by a sympathetic population-appliedhere. The Serb forces set about to drain the sea. The NATO deci-sion to bomb provided the opportunity.

When it became apparent after several weeks that the bombingcampaign was not working, the initial error was compounded by

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the decision to expand the range of targets to factories, bridges,chemical and petroleum works, electrical networks, television andradio installations. Whether or not specifically targeted, the esca-lated bombing also hit hospitals, health clinics and schools(schools were closed throughout Yugoslavia for two months dur-ing the bombing campaign) and residential areas. Despite NATOrhetoric, these were not attacks on the Serb leadership but on theSerb people. The use of cluster bombs and depleted uranium cas-ing on shells and missiles which leave long term radioactivity toundermine people's health shows the nature of this war againstpeople, killing and maiming and threatening the health of this andfuture generations while destroying the economic apparatus builtup by the Yugoslav people during fifty years of socialist construc-tions, something they could reasonably identify as their own ratherthan the property of a dominant class.

The Morality of Warfare Moral indignation in Europe andAmerica focuses on massacre, theft, arson, and rape, mainly bySerb paramilitaries given a free hand and encouragement byMilosevic in Kosovo after March 24. Many historical cases showhow situations of war and violent revolution can release psycho-pathic instincts otherwise repressed in more normal situations.This applies not just to Serbs but also in recent times to other par-ticipants in Balkan wars--Croats and Bosnian Muslims andAlbanian Kosovars and, of course, we remember My Lai even ifwe don't think back to the seizure of First Nations' lands in NorthAmerica.

This horror is one aspect of an asymmetrical kind of warfare inwhich one side dominates the land while the other dominates thesky. The behavior of the side with air power does not offend ourrefined sensibilities in the same way. The extreme case would bethat of the pilots of the B2 bombers, which caused the most dam-age in the populated areas, who took off from Missouri on a 30-hour round trip flight to Yugoslavia where they discharged theirsatellite guided missiles from 15,000 feet, from which height theycould hardly see the effect of their work on the people below,returning home to mow the lawn and play with their children. Afar cry from the psychopath, head hidden in a black cagoule, whomurders and rapes on the ground? Yes, at first appearance and inpublic imagery. But the psychopath here is not the pilot whoreleases impersonal destruction. It is the military system which

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has succeeded in depersonalizing warfare, in which the agent ofdestruction, at a safe distance from the object, is protected fromany immediate knowledge of what he is really doing, a protectionenhanced by the Orwellian language in which the activity ismorally disguised ("assets," "degrading," "collateral damage,""friendly fire" etc.), evoking no suggestion of killing and maimingand polluting the human environment. Dostoyevsky's GrandInquisitor put it well: "And they will all be happy, all the millionsof creatures, except the hundred thousand who rule over them. Forwe alone, we who guard the mystery, we alone shall be unhappy.There will be thousands and millions of happy infants and onehundred thousand sufferers who have taken upon themselves thecurse of the knowledge of good and evil."

There is a moral equivalence between these two seeminglyvery different ways to make war. The distinction, to borrow aMarxian metaphor, might be expressed as between proletarian andbourgeois methods of warfare.

Consequences The short-term effects of NATO's ''victory'' arereadily apparent:- the death and destruction in Kosovo and in the Serb territories,

including a quantum leap in violations of human rights and theeffective "degrading" of the population and of the resources atits command;

- the exacerbation of communal hatreds which KFOR is unableto control and which makes Bernard Kouchner's task to bringabout a reconciliation among communities (not forgetting theGypsies) virtually impossible and yet likely to endure in someform for a generation or more;

- an economy reduced to material conditions equivalent to thoseleft by WorldWar II but lackingthe psychologicalelan that madepossible the rebuilding of a state and an economy at that time;

- an increase in organized crime throughout central and easternEurope, since the war itself expanded the operations of theAlbanian mafia which, among other activities, providedresources for the KLA; and following the war, the likely con-version of Serbian paramilitaries into adjuncts of the Russianand other eastern European mafias;

- the political destabilization of whole Balkan region, callinginto question borders and the situation of minorities in all thecountries.

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The longer-term consequences could be even more unfortu-nate. As I see it, the long-term issue of global governance couldmove in one of two directions. The most apparent tendency at pre-sent is towards a world shaped by one hegemonic power sustainedby economic globalization and the homogenization of culturesthrough a dominant mass media, the expansion of which is pro-tected by a unitary concentration of military-political force. Thealternative would be a pluralistic world in which different groupsof countries pursue different paths of economic and social organi-zation which reflect and sustain their different cultural patterns.The one defines civilization in the singular. The other allows forthe coexistence of civilization (in the plural).

The outcome of the Kosovo war moves the world markedly inthe first direction. NATO, which had exhausted its purpose withthe fall of the Berlin wall, gives itself a new role as the most pow-erful concentration of military power, expanding its scope beyondthe geographical limitations of its founding treaty and settingaside its purported subordination to the United Nations SecurityCouncil, so as to become the military force behind economic glob-alization. (The intent is somewhat naively betrayed by the clausein the Rambouillet ultimatum that requires the Kosovo economyto be organized on "free market" principles.) The manner in whichRussian diplomacy was first invoked to facilitate the entry ofNATOtroops into Kosovo and then subordinated to NATO controlis indicative of the disdain of the would-be global hegemonicpower towards possible dissenters. The "accidental" bombing ofthe Chinese embassy in Belgrade was another warning signal illdigested by the Chinese people and government. The Kosovo warhas met with opposition or at best reluctant acquiescence in Asiaand Africa. The USINATOvision of the future world is rejected bymost ofthe world's peoples, though there is at present no counter-vailing military-political power to give substance to their opposi-tion. Nevertheless, there would be grave dangers in any attempt toconsolidate this particular western vision of future world order.

Although the initial perception is one of supremacy of thehegemonic world vision, the effect of the war on internationalrelations may not really sustain that vision. In the United Statespublic opinion was about equally divided between support andopposition to the war and the experience may be a deterrent to fur-ther US interventions of this kind. The total unpreparedness ofwestern European countries and their resort to reliance on US air

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power may stimulate a movement towards a more effectiveEuropean security organization; and the ghost of Charles DeGaulle could obstruct the Blair government's aspirations to lead inEurope with US backing. The warnings and humiliations sufferedby Russia and China can only be incentives to assert their alterna-tive conceptions of world order, while Japan remains ambivalentbetween reliance on a US security blanket, on the one hand, andthe desire to assert Japan's independent power as a "normal" coun-try, on the other.All of these reactions to the war, together with thehostility of other Asian countries and Africa to the spectre ofNATO as the dominant world force, could make of the war inYugoslavia a turning point away from the monolithic vision ofglobalization backed by military force.

The alternative, pluralistic conception of world order impliesthe construction of a system of global governance that wouldmediate among different civilizations without being the expres-sion of anyone of these civilizations. A reconstructed UnitedNations, freed from the dominance of the United States, andstaffed by people skilled in empathy for a variety of civilizationalperspectives could perform this role. It is, however, difficult toimagine how such a change could be achieved in the near future,since the US is clearly not disposed to compromise its dominancein the United Nations nor to allow it to displace NATO as the pre-mier instrument of global hegemony. Ironically, NATO's warmade Russia and China into the principal defenders of the UnitedNations. Any move in the direction of a functioning pluralisticworld would require a long sustained effort on the part of its pro-ponents.

These opposed visions of the future world define the dilemmaof Canada's role. In the war over Kosovo Canada appeared to theworld as an appendage of US policy. Political and economic pres-sures made it difficult for Canada to behave otherwise. During theCold War, Finland took such a position openly and frankly withregard to its powerful neighbour the Soviet Union. It was a frankand honourable admission and it removed Finland from anyresponsibility in international affairs. Canada's dilemma is, ofcourse, different. Canada has generally defined its position as thatofa supporter of the United Nations and, in the late John Holmes'sense, a "middle power," not just as reflecting its military-politi-cal weight but as having a vocation to be "in the middle" as a seek-er and facilitator of solutions. This tradition, together with the

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multicultural nature of Canada, which someone has called the"first post-modem society," argue for active support of the alter-native pluralistic concept of a future world and for restructuring ofthe United Nations in line with it. The dilemma is how far this canbe done in a condition of economic, military and cultural depen-dency on the United States. The war over Kosovo has been a seri-ous setback for the pluralistic concept of world order and forCanada's credibility in the United Nations. After a successful cam-paign for a seat on the Security Council, Canada's diplomacyacquiesced almost immediately in the marginalization of theUnited Nations on a matter of global governance.

I have great sympathy for your task in reviving a constructiverole for this country.

With respect,

Yours sincerely,

Robert W. Cox, ER.S.C.Professor Emeritus of Political Science,York University

* * * • *

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PostscriptROBERT COX

It is now just over a year since the bombing campaign againstYugoslavia stopped with a peace settlement. A reflective per-spective together with new information that becomes avail-

able through official reports and unofficial indiscretions make itpossible to connect events with their wider context and discerntheir meaning.

My characterization of Secretary of State Madeline Albright as"incompetent" in my letter of 2 June 1999 (above) was based,rather naively it turns out, on the assumption that the aim of diplo-macy was to persuade Milosevic to accept a supervised withdraw-al of Yugoslav forces from Kosovo and the introduction of aninternational force that would pacify the civil war betweenKosovar insurgents of the KLA and the Yugoslav police and mili-tary. If diplomacy were the aim, the means chosen were obvious-ly going to fail. But we now know that Albright's purpose was notto reach an agreement but to start a war,t

The terms of the Rambouillet Agreements were clearly intend-ed to provoke Serbia's rejection. They provided for the occupationby NATO of the whole of Serbia, not just Kosovo. Russia, theparty that would most likely have influence with the Serb govern-ment, rejected military provisions included in the US-drafted"agreement" and was sidelined in NATO's confrontation withSerbia. Ms. Albright arranged to bring in the KLA leader, HachimThaci, previously regarded as a ''terrorist'' by the CIA, to replacethe unofficially elected Kosovar "government" headed by IbrahimRugova as representative of the Kosovar Albanian interest, per-suading him to accept Rambouillet, with the sotto voce under-standings that the KLA would have a continuing political presencein a NATO-occupied Kosovo and that NATO would not be overlyrigorous about disarming the KLA. The fact that the Yugoslav par-liament then agreed to a withdrawal of Yugoslav forces fromKosovo and to a United Nations (not a NATO) occupying forcewas both obfuscated in the western media and treated by NATO asa delaying tactic.' With a formal Kosovar acceptance and aSerbian rejection of the "agreement," the United States had

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cleared the way for the aerial bombardment that had been plannedfor some time, and NATO's war began.

But why did Ms. Albright, as representative of the US govern-ment, want war? I think we can minimize the defence of humanrights trumpeted by Tony Blair, and somewhat less stridently byBill Clinton, as the activating factor. After all, the same MadelineAlbright in 1994 had intervened to prevent the United NationsSecurity Council from deploying sufficient military force inRwanda to stop the genocide there.s Furthermore, it is known thatthe scale of the repression prior to the bombing in Kosovo, whichtook place in the context of civil war and was monitored by bothjournalists and an observer group of the Organization for Securityand Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), was much exaggerated as apart of war preparations by NATO, something about which USdecision makers would have been well aware.

It is now also clear that the mass expulsion of 800,000 Kosovarrefugees took place after the NATO bombing began. The bombingproduced what it was supposed to prevent, a logical and quite pre-dictable military response by Yugoslav forces to clear the way forthe crushing of the KLA insurgency. Furthermore, the search forbodies after the Yugoslav forces withdrew and the NATO occupa-tion force, KFOR, entered Kosovo demonstrated that howeverbrutal the expulsion of the Kosovar population had been, the alle-gations of mass murder were exaggerated.s It seems most likelythe decision for war within the executive branch of the US gov-ernment, which was itself divided, was motivated primarily by thegeo-strategic considerations discussed below.

Why Did Other NATO Countries Acquiesce in the USDecision For War? As for Canada, there was no real parliamen-tary debate; all the parties, including the NDP and the BlocQuebecois, supported the government in following the US initia-tive. There was a more serious debate outside parliament.Historian Michael Bliss, former Canadian ambassador toYugoslavia James Bissett,e and retired Canadian General LewisMacKenzie, formerly commander of UN peacekeeping forces inBosnia, were among those who voiced criticism, and journalistsMarcus Gee of The Globe and Mail and Richard Gwyn of theToronto Star did not succumb to the prevailing pro-war mediabias. There was no voice of opposition from the official Left; per-haps the NDP had been entranced by the Gladstonian rhetoric of

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Tony Blair. Among political personalities the only outspokenopposition came from Red Tories David Orchard, candidate forthe leadership of the federal Progressive Conservative Partyagainst Joe Clark, and senator Douglas Roche.

Other NATO governments were swayed by different politicalmotives. Britain's Tony Blair was concerned to maintain a USpresence in Europe and US leadership in NATO; he became themost hawkish of the leaders. Gerhard Schroder, with his foreignminister Joschka Fischer of the Greens, rallied to the US war plan,perhaps with a view to lifting a lingering pall over Germany'sinternational status but definitely to manifest support forAmerica's continuing role in Europe. Blair and Schroder were themost convinced backers of the war and the most convinced sup-porters of NATO and of the maintenance of a US presence inEurope.

President Chirac of France was also firmly committed to thewar, while at the same time protesting his independence (heclaimed to have vetoed some of the bombing targets)." Franceacquiesced in the US initiative, perhaps in part to allay suspicionof a traditional pro-Serb stance, and in any case to avoid being iso-lated within NATO. The French Prime Minister, socialist LionelJospin, was much more doubtful about the wisdom of the war butwent along so as not to destabalize the "cohabitation" withGaullist party chief Chirac." In Italy, tension was higher; the lifeof the centre-left government led by Massimo D' Alema was atstake. Public opinion was not sympathetic and was provoked toanger when US pilots at the NATO base in northern Italy severeda cable car lift during a practice flight, killing several people (thepilots had their wrists slapped by a US military court which did lit-tle to mollify Italian public outrage), and when aircraft returningto the NATObase discarded unused bombs in Italian fishing zonesof the Adriatic. Greek opinion was hostile. Hungarians, borderingon Serbia, had joined NATO for protection, not to go to war withtheir neighbour. As the bombing went on well beyond the fewdays that Secretary Albright had predicted would result inMilosevic's capitulation, public questioning of the campaign grewin Europe (and in America). This was particularly threatening inGermany for the Schroder-Greens alliance. Public support in theNATO countries weakened and with it so did NATO solidarity.

As for the condition of Kosovo after the NATO occupation, theUnited Nations commissioner Bernard Kouchner is faced with a

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virtually impossible task with minimal resources. It has beenimpossible to establish an orderly legitimate rule. The KLA and itsvarious factions are the most powerful force among the Kosovarpopulation. They remain armed despite the UN resolution (no.1244) calling for disarmament of the KLA, and have been, underNATO auspices, incorporated into a Kosovo Protection Corps(KPC). They have carried out "ethnic cleansing" of the remainingSerbs, Gypsies (Roma), Turks and Jews. The mafias which sus-tained the KLA during the conflict have free rein within the law-less occupied zone and extend their operations across Europe.?Kosovo is now an uncontrolled base for organized crime through-out Europe. The power relationship between the United Nations'administration and the retreaded KLA was illustrated in an inci-dent involving a Canadian citizen of ethnic Albanian origin whowas employed by the UN in Kosovo in prison administration. Hehad to be spirited out of Kosovo by the UN after receiving deaththreats for refusing to hire former KLA members as prisonguards.!v Furthermore, this disorderly entity under the NATOoccupation is a focus for the political destabilization of southernEurope. Albanian irredentism threatens not only Serbia but alsoMacedonia and Greece as established borders become moot.

The US Strategy So, if the moral justifications for the attack onYugoslavia, an attack which violated the UN Charter, the NATOCharter, and the constitutional provisions and procedures of sev-eral of the principal belligerents, did not survive the post bellumevidence, what other reasons led to the war? A geo-strategic poli-cy of the Clinton administration can be seen in retrospect as tak-ing form over several years.

Part of that strategy was to secure the subordination of theUnited Nations to US interests. Madeline Albright, as US ambas-sador to the United Nations, manipulated the United NationsSecurity Council through the threat of a veto to reject the reap-pointment of the sitting Secretary-General, Boutros BoutrosGhali,for a new term of office, despite the fact that he had the sup-port of all the other Council members. I I Boutros Ghali had beentoo little attentive to US requirements. In his place she secured theelection of Kofi Annan, and initiated him to his new office bymaking him party to a deal with Senator Jesse Helms. The dealwas for some movement by the Senate on payment of US arrearsto the United Nations in return for more United Nations compli-

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ance with US desires. The UN Secretary-General is now treatedlike a subordinate in Washington. The United Nations has becomemore aligned to the US vision of a "new world order" of capital-ist globalization underwritten by the military power of the UnitedStates and its allied powers.J2 The United Nations, in this vision,would deal with humanitarian relief and stay out of security issueslike Kosovo.J3 Security would henceforth be the function of aNATO with a wider geographical sphere of action, and, in thePacific region, of the US-Japan Security Treaty recently comple-mented by an agreement for military cooperation between theUnited States and the Philippines.

The 50th anniversary of NATO's founding was to be celebratedon 22 April 1999. There could be no question of just recognizingthat NATO had done the job for which it had been created and,now that the Cold War was officially over, could be wound up.Rather, the vision of a new mission for NATO as the military sup-port for the new world order was to be affirmed with the enthusi-astic support of Britain and Germany. Success in Kosovo wouldunderscore this vision.

As it turned out Kosovo was not an unsullied success forNATO. Prolongation of the bombing without any notable prospectof victory increased pressure to resolve the issue from allied gov-ernments and peoples and also from the US Congress. In order toextricate NATO from the impasse, the G8, i.e., the G7 plus Russia,was revived as a vehicle for dealing with Belgrade and negotia-tions were confided to Martti Ahtisaari of Finland for theEuropean Union and Victor Chemomyrdin of Russia. With NATOwithdrawn to the background as the protagonist, these two pro-duced an agreement acceptable to Belgrade in which Kosovo wasrecognized to be part of Serbia, and a United Nations' administra-tion was to be installed in a NATO-occupied Kosovo. This was notthe unconditional surrender proclaimed by NATO as its goal.Yugoslav military forces withdrew from Kosovo in an orderlyfashion. The bombing which wreaked havoc on the economicinfrastructure of Yugoslavia and left many civilian casualties("collateral damage") had done little to "degrade" the military.

The Clinton administration's vision of world order---economicand communications globalization sustained by US and allied mil-itary power-remains predominant but not uncontested in NATOcountries. The Kosovo war tested its acceptability in Europe. ManyEuropeans would prefer greater independence both economically

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and militarily from America. The debate in the European Unionover "social Europe" and the "democratic deficit" mobilizes theLeft in favour of the social market of a social democratic form ofcapitalism.J4 Kosovo implied defeat for those aims. The suddendeparture of Oscar Lafontaine from the German government inMarch 1999 before the war began, and the collapse of MassimoD' Alema's centre-left government in Italy in April 2000, wereamong the signals of defeat. The demonstration in Kosovo ofEuropean dependence on US air power, however, provoked arenewed determination on the part of some Europeans to create amore credible European security capability which would be moreindependent of America.J5

The European project of integrating eastern Europe into theEuropean Union, which might have enlarged the base for a possi-ble "social Europe," was, however, pre-empted by NATO's leap-frogging into the east with tentacles reaching into Ukraine and therepublics on the southern border of Russia. 16 This imperial expan-sion would place the oil and gas resources of Central Asia and theCaucasus under western control, excluding Russia. Geoffrey Yorkin The Globe and Mail signaled Canadian diplomacy's role infacilitating NATO penetration in Ukraine. ("With its 1.5 millionUkranian Canadians and its non-threatening image, Canada was alogical choice for NATO's co-ordinating job," he wrote.)!? BothRussia and China see a threat of encirclement and have reactedwith determination to strengthen their military forces. 18 Kosovo isa key link in this imperial vision.

Europe today is the critical site for the struggle which coulddetermine whether the future world will have a place for different,coexisting forms of economic and social organization. The strug-gle for an alternative to Anglo-American competitive market cap-italism is not over, but the alternative presently lacks a coherentimage and a cohesive counter-hegemonic base. It has been setback by the emergence of a new version of the neo-liberal hege-monic project, the "Third Way" or the "New Middle," articulatedby Blair and Schroder in their joint statement of 8 June 1999,which coincided with the conclusion of the Kosovo war. In theirperspective, globalizing capital, sustained militarily by NATO,would be combined with measures to facilitate the adjustment oflabour to the exigencies of the market. Their position is an exten-sion of the Clinton administration's vision of geo-strategic policy.The alignment of the Schroder and Blair governments now aims

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to displace the Franco-German axis which had been the politicalbasis for a more independent European system. Yet there areweaknesses in the new imperialism and sources of support for amore pluralistic world. Kosovo revealed both, foreshadowingfuture struggles.

Toronto, July 2000

Notes

1. An excellent and detailed critical review of the Kosovo negotiations with par-ticular reference to French participation is to be found in an article by EricRouleau in Le Monde diplimatique December 1999. See also "Whatreporters knew about Kosovo talks-but didn't tell," published on the inter-net by FAIR Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting 24 June 2000 at<http://www.fair.orglpress-releases/kosovo-talks.html>.

2. The long text of the Rambouillet Agreement, which was presented by theUnited States and drafted by ambassador Christopher Hill, is accessible onthe internet at <http://www.balkan.cc/Files/Rambouillet/Html/Rambo-html%20I.htm>. It was never widely distributed even among supposed par-ties to the "agreement," let alone negotiated.

3. IPA Institute for Public Accuracy News Release 16 April 1999 "Troublingquestions about Rambouillet," at <http://www.accuracy.orglpress_releasesIPR041699 .htm>.

4. See the report "Rwanda: The Preventable Genocide," prepared by StephenLewis and five other "eminent persons" for the Organization ofAfrican Unity(The Globe and Mail 8 July 2000).

5. See Richard Gwyn, "No genocide, no justification for war on Kosovo,'Toronto Star 3 November 1999; and Lewis MacKenzie, "Where have all thebodies gone",' The Globe and Mail 9 November 1999.

6. See his "The tragic blunder in Kosovo,' The Globe and Mail 10 January2000. Ambassador Bissett took part in public discussions during the courseof the war.

7. Le Monde 12 June 1999.8. Eric Rouleau, Le Monde diplimatique.9. Edward S. Herman and David Peterson, "Kosovo one year later: from Serb

repression to NATO-sponsored ethnic cleansing," Znet Commentaries 23June 2000.

10. Andrew Mitrovica, The Globe and Mail 27 June 2000.1I. Brian Urquhart, a former Undersecretary-General of the United Nations,

described Albright's maneuvers in his article "The making of a scapegoat,"The New York Review of Books 12August 1999. See also Boutros BoutrosGhali, Unvanquished: A USIUN Saga (New York: Random House, 1999).

12. Two indications are a move towards a centralizing budgetary control whichhas long been a US objective and one generally opposed by poor countriesthat press for more UN services, and the giving of a fuller access to multina-tional corporate interests in the formation of UN policy.

13. Le Monde 10 May 1999.14. On the contest between two forms of capitalism in Europe, the classic thesis

is Michael Albert, Capitalisme contre capitalisme (Paris: Seuil, 1991).There is now a whole literature on this theme.

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15. See Maurice Bertrand, "Europe de la defense ou de la securite"," Le Monde9 June 1999.

16. Kees van der Pijl, "What happened to the European option for EasternEurope?," in Social Forces in the Making of the New Europe: the restruc-turing of European social relations in the global political economy,Andreas Bieler and Adam David Morton, (eds.) (London: Macmillan, forth-coming, 2000).

17. The Globe and Mail 24 June 2000.18. On China's reaction see Frederic Bobin in Le Monde 22 June 1999, in which

the perceived threat of encirclement coming after the bombing by USINATOof the Chinese embassy in Belgrade (which no one in China accepts to havebeen an "accident") is treated as one more case of "collateral damage" in theKosovo war.

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