Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gxg78 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T04:20:35.519Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

When Weak Nations Use Strong States: The Unintended Consequences of Intervention in the Balkans

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Christopher Marsh
Affiliation:
Baylor University, U.S.A. [email protected]
Mark Heppner
Affiliation:
Baylor University, U.S.A. [email protected]

Extract

In the years that have passed since NATO forcibly compelled Yugoslavia to withdraw its military and police forces from Kosovo and the province was placed under U. N. guardianship, the Kosovo crisis of 1999 has been examined from a variety of angles. Although many insightful analyses have documented the horrific and deplorable events that led up to the crisis, one important factor that has received relatively short shrift is the way in which the U. S. was drawn into the conflict. In particular, it has remained overlooked that the United States, qua superpower, had a significant impact on the policy formulations of the belligerent parties. This essay is based on the proposition that the United States does not formulate policy and operate in a vacuum, but rather that the U. S. is itself a critical factor in the calculations of other actors in the international system. These actors make strategic calculations based upon their expectations of American actions and reactions. The U. S. policymaking community, on the other hand, seems to formulate policies without considering the implications of the fact that other actors might anticipate U. S. actions or even attempt to provoke a desired response.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © 2003 Association for the Study of Nationalities 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Notes

1. The term “Kosovo” is used here to refer to the Yugoslav province of Kosovo; “Kosova” (an anglicized form of the Albanian spelling) is only used in direct quotes. “Kosovo Albanians” is used instead of “Kosovar Albanians” or “Kosovars,” again except in direct quotations.Google Scholar

2. Book-length treatments include: Bacevich, Andrew and Cohen, Eliot, eds, War over Kosovo (New York: Columbia University Press, 2001); Lambeth, Benjamin, NATO's Air War for Kosovo (Santa Monica: RAND, 2001); and Stephen Hosmer, Why Milosevic Decided to Settle When He Did (Santa Monica: RAND, 2001). Some of the better article-length analyses have been: Lenard J. Cohen, “Kosovo: ‘Nobody's Country’,” Current History, March 2000, pp. 117–123; Chris Hedges, “Kosovo's Next Masters?”, Foreign Affairs, May-June 1999, pp. 24–42; and Tihomir Loza, “The KLA Cleansed,” Nation, 17 May 1999, pp. 5–6. For excellent accounts of the opposing viewpoints on NATO intervention in Kosovo, see William J. Buckley, ed., Kosovo: Contending Voices on Balkan Interventions (Grand Rapids: William Eerdmans, 2000), and Frank Columbus, ed., Kosovo-Serbia: A Just War? (Commack, NY: Nova Science, 1999).Google Scholar

3. See, among others, Malcolm, Noel, Kosovo: A Short History (New York: New York University Press, 1999), 353, p. 353; Hedges, p. 29; and Loza, p. 5.Google Scholar

4. Waltz, Kenneth, Theory of International Politics (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1979), p. 96.Google Scholar

5. Thomson, Janice, “State Sovereignty in International Relations: Bridging the Gap between Theory and Empirical Research,” International Studies Quarterly, June 1995, p. 220.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

6. For a cogent discussion of humanitarian intervention and the United Nations, see Roberts, Adam and Kingsbury, Benedict, “The UN's Roles in International Society since 1945,” in Roberts, Adam and Kingsbury, Benedict, eds, United Nations, Divided World: The UN's Roles in International Relations (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996), pp. 162.Google Scholar

7. It is also possible that independence may be achieved but that sovereignty will not be recognized by the international community. This would be of little consequence, however, since the territory would still be controlled by the new state, whatever the objections of the international community. For more on the role of recognition and intervention on the basis of shared norms among a community of states, see Weber, Cynthia, Simulating Sovereignty: Intervention, the State and Symbolic Exchange (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995).Google Scholar

8. Pritchard, James, “French Strategy and the American Revolution: A Reappraisal,” Naval War College Review, Autumn 1994, pp. 83108. Pritchard holds that by supporting the American revolutionaries, France sought directly the “humiliation of Great Britain” (p. 84) and that French involvement contributed significantly to the American victory (p. 104).Google Scholar

9. For the international legal precedents for and against NATO intervention in Kosovo, see Ackerman, David M., “Kosovo and NATO: Selected Issues of International Law,” in Columbus, , ed., pp. 155166. For the case against, see Yoram Dinstein, “The Right to Humanitarian Assistance,” Naval War College Review, Autumn 2000, esp. pp. 87ff.Google Scholar

10. Caffrey, Dennis F., “Confronting the ‘Hard Decisions’ of Redefined Sovereignty and the Tools of Intervention in the New Security Environment,” in Manwaring, Max and Olson, William J., eds, Managing Contemporary Conflict: Pillars of Success (Boulder: Westview, 1996), p. 105.Google Scholar

11. Kurth, James, “American Strategy in the Global Era,” Naval War College Review, Vol. 53, No. 1, 2000, p. 11.Google Scholar

12. For an excellent account of Russian views on U. S. and NATO action in the former Yugoslavia, including an assertion that humanitarian objectives are cover-ups for aggression, see Brovkin, Vladimir, “Discourse on NATO in Russia during the Kosovo War,” Demokratizatsiya, Vol. 7, No. 4, 1999, pp. 544560.Google Scholar

13. Pankov, Yuri, “Agressiya Prodol'zhaet,” Krasnaya Zvezda, 24 March 2000, p. 3; and Chuganov, Konstantin, “Uprazhnenie Vtorzheniya,” Rossiiskaya Gazeta, 21 March 2000, p. 7.Google Scholar

14. Ibid. Google Scholar

15. Malcolm, , p. xvii.Google Scholar

16. Ibid. Google Scholar

17. United Nations Security Council Resolution 1244 (10 June 1999), Article 11(a).Google Scholar

18. Sigler, John C., “A Look at Albanian Nationalism and the KLA,” from the Serbian Unity Congress Website, found at http://www.suc.org/politics/kosovo/papers/Sigler.html; visited 2 February 2000.Google Scholar

19. Makino, Valerie and Kim, Julie, “Pre-bombing Kosovo Conflict Chronology,” in Columbus, , ed., pp. 174175.Google Scholar

20. Personal interview with U. S. Army officers at the United States Military Academy, West Point, NY, 15 April 1999.Google Scholar

21. Hedges, , p. 29.Google Scholar

22. The KLA Brought NATO to Kosova: An Interview with Hashim Thaqi,” in Buckley, p. 252.Google Scholar

23. Makino, and Kim, , p. 177.Google Scholar

24. Ibid., p. 175.Google Scholar

25. Hedges, , pp. 4142.Google Scholar

26. Loza, , p. 5.Google Scholar

27. Malcolm, , p. 353.Google Scholar

28. Loza, , p. 5.Google Scholar

29. Losing the Peace?The Economist, 18 March 2000, p. 17.Google Scholar

30. Soderberg, Nancy E., comments at the 5th Annual World Convention of the Association for the Study of Nationalities, Columbia University, New York, 15 April 2000.Google Scholar

31. Jenkins, Simon, “NATO Prepares to Reap the Balkan Whirlwind,” The Times, 21 March 2001.Google Scholar

32. Karon, Tony, “Macedonia: A Mess of NATO's Making?Time Online Edition (http://www.time.com), 19 August 2001.Google Scholar

33. Tammen, Ronald, Kugler, Jacek, Lemke, Douglas, Stam, Allan C. III, Alsharabati, Carole, Abdollahian, Mark Andrew, Efird, Brian and Organski, A. F. K., Power Transitions: Strategies for the 21st Century (New York: Chatham House, 2000).Google Scholar

34. Olson, William J., “A New World, a New Challenge,” in Manwaring, and Olson, , Managing Contemporary Conflict, p. 6.Google Scholar

35. Gurr, Ted Robert, “Ethnic Warfare on the Wane,” Foreign Affairs, Vol. 79, No. 3, 2000, pp. 5264.Google Scholar

36. For discussion of what a Chinese collapse might look like, see Chang, Gordon, The Coming Collapse of China (New York: Random House, 2001).Google Scholar