Correspondence: The Crisis in Kosovo

ROBERT COX AND LLOYD AXWORTHY

Hon. Lloyd Axworthy House of Commons, Ottawa 11 April 1999 Dear Mr. Axworthy, n the eve of[the] House of Commons debate on Canada's participation in the war in Yugoslavia, I would like to express my strong dissent from the existing bombing strategy. It is evident that this policy was badly conceived and has been counterproductive in its execution. United States diplomacy is at a low ebb with a President imprisoned by the contradictory moods of public opinion (do something in the face of television portrayals of atrocities but don't allow any Americans to be killed) and an incompetent Secretary of State who left no room for maneuver and refrained from drawing into negotiations other parties who might have moderated the threats made on behalf of NATO and provided more acceptable pressure on Milosevic. The efficacy of the American military doctrine of bombing has been refuted historically in the blitz against British cities and the saturation bombing by [the] British of German cities during World War II, in the American bombing of Vietnam, and in the human catastrophe and political impasse of the Gulf War. Your policy up to now has been a constructive development of Lester Pearson's determination to build up the United Nations as the long-term key to the management of conflicts in the world. This is a policy consistent with the integrity of middle and smaller powers which aspire to an autonomous role in the world. There have been disappointments in this course, including most recently the Rwanda genocide (although a Canadian general for the United Studies in Political Economy 63, Autumn 2000

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Nations did act honourably for our country in trying to avoid that catastrophe). It is a poor argument to say the UN Security Council could not act in the present case of Yugoslavia because of the probability of a Russian and Chinese veto. That only demonstrates that there was no consensus in the international community behind the NATO policy and that more effort was necessary to broaden the negotiations beyond NATO. On the threshold of the millennium, the choice for securitypolitical and human-lies between a world dependent upon one superpower supported irregularly by its acolytes and a reconstructed United Nations which is not dominated by one powerful state and which provides greater access from civil society. Your policy up to now has supported the latter option. The record on the land mines treaty and the effort to establish an international criminal court has demonstrated the lack of support for this option from the one superpower, the United States. The Canadian government's present policy of bombing Yugoslavia in signalling the choice of the United States and NATO over the United Nations as the future road to global governance undermines the credibility of your erstwhile policy. The only way in which you could regain initiative towards the long-term goal you were aiming for would be to have Canada disengage from the NATO bombing and seek to involve othersRussia, Italy, Greece, and France, for instance-in a renewed effort at a broad-based settlement in the Balkans. Following Serb resistance to Hitler during World War II, Tito demonstrated that those peoples who had fought each other bitterly could be brought to live peacefully together. One condition for his achievement was to become independent of both NATO and the Soviet Union and to build alliances with other non-aligned states. "Bombing for peace" is only making the humanitarian and diplomatic situation worse. I hope it will not become your political epitaph. Sincerely, Robert W. Cox ER.S.C. Professor Emeritus of Political Science York University, Toronto

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Professor Emeritus Robert W. Cox S Metcalfe Street Toronto, Ontario M4X IRS 2 June 1999 Dear Professor Cox: Thank you for your correspondence concerning the humanitarian crisis in Kosovo. The systematic campaign of terror and ethnic cleansing being carried out by the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY) is an affront to human dignity and contrary to international humanitarian and human rights law. Canada's reaction to the crisis is in keeping with our foreign policy priorities of human security and respect for human rights. Our preference, and that of all NATO Allies, has always been for a diplomatic solution to the problem of Kosovo. Since the beginning of this crisis, Canada and the international community have taken an active role in numerous diplomatic attempts to encourage the Yugoslav government to resolve the Kosovo issue peacefully. These efforts include United Nations Security Council resolutions, G-8 meetings and sanctions. Although the FRY agreed to comply with the resolutions, in reality, the Yugoslav leadership was in breach of all of its obligations under UN Security Council resolutions and under the Belgrade agreements of October 1998. In addition, FRY security forces harassed the verifiers of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in an effort to dispense with an international presence that was becoming increasingly embarrassing to Belgrade. Ultimate diplomatic efforts were made at Rambouillet. Regardless, the Yugoslav regime relentlessly continued its program of ethnic cleansing. As well, there was evidence that Yugoslav forces were preparing for a massive spring offensive. All diplomatic efforts had failed to spur President Milosevic toward negotiating a peaceful resolution. Under such grave circumstances, NATO was compelled to act in support of international humanitarian law. Nothing would please 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 must meet 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 ethnic cleansing and violence against civilians; withdrawal of security forces; making conditions possible for the unconditional return of all refugees; serious diplomatic talks based on the Rambouillet Accord; and acceptance of an international military presence to implement a peace agreement and to protect the population. Canada and its NATO Allies continue to keep the way open for a negotiated end to this conflict once President Milosevic accepts the demands of the international community. In response to the refugee situation, the Canadian government has supported the efforts of the international humanitarian agencies to provide for basic necessities such as food, water, shelter and medical supplies, mainly through the UNHCR and the International Committee of the Red Cross, and Canadian NGOs. As well, within the framework ofthe UNHCR emergency humanitarian evacuation program, Canada agreed to accept and has accommodated 5000 refugees on an emergency basis. Canada remains committed to the shared goal of the international community of realizing a diplomatic solution to the crisis in Kosovo. Our current efforts through bilateral and multilateral forums demonstrate our active involvement in, and support for, the peace process. I am personally engaged in attempts to resolve the crisis through my regular contacts with my counterparts within NATO and the G-8. I have enclosed documents for your additional 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/kosovoe.asp. Thank you again for writing Sincerely, Lloyd Axworthy Minister of Foreign Affairs Enclosures

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Hon. Lloyd Axworthy Minister of Foreign Affairs 24 July 1999 Dear Mr. Axworthy, On my return from two months in Europe I found your letter of 2 June in reply to an earlier correspondence from me concerning the war in Yugoslavia. I thank you most sincerely for the courtesy ofa reasoned response. Since my assessment of that situation differs in important ways from the position your government has taken, I would like to explain my point of view. I should first make clear that I am not a pacifist in the sense of excluding the use of force under any circumstances, nor am I the kind of "realist" who would consider that only "national interest" is admissible in foreign policy to the exclusion of ethical concerns. As a former senior official in the United Nations system and a professor of international relations, * I am motivated primarily by concern for global governance in the currently changing and uncertain conditions of world order. I agree fully that "ethnic cleansing" is an evil to be eradicated insofar as possible along with other gross violations of human rights. It is wrong, however, to place the whole burden of these evils upon the Serb leaders and people. The campaign of vilification that has characterized much of the media in Europe and America and many statements by political leaders has perhaps served the cause of mobilizing public opinion but has certainly done 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 be given primary consideration, especially when human lives are at risk. As Max Weber argued, there is an important distinction in politics between an absolute ethic and an ethic of responsibility. My concern is that the consequences of the US and NATO decision to bomb Yugoslavia into submission both in the short term and 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 in
1972. He was subsequently Professor of International Organization at Columbia University, 1972-77, and Professor of Political Science at York University from 1977.

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order, and that the procedure that led to this decision was badly flawed. I apologize that my perception may take longer to explain than your patience may allow for. The Decision to Bomb Others have rightly pointed to the undermining of international law that results from contravening the provisions of both the United Nations Charter and the North Atlantic Treaty. I confine my criticism to the political reasoning at fault. There was obviously insufficient consensus in the European Union to mount a credible deterrent to Milosevic. The United States, urged on especially by the UK, provided the catalyst for an alignment of NATO governments. France and Germany were acquiescent, Italy and Greece and the new members were more apprehensive. European public opinion was deeply divided. The US Secretary of State, Ms. Albright, for whatever reason, took the initiative to lead the campaign. The constraint upon her enthusiasm was the US President's decision that a war of intervention in Europe, where there was no major US national interest involved (though perhaps several secondary interests), would have to be fought by air power alone and without risk of US casualties-a doctrine, partly derived from the technological hubris of the Gulf War experience, and primarily from the public memory of Vietnam and the metaphor of the "body bags." Germany and some other NATO allies likewise excluded use of ground troops. The US Secretary of State implied (if she did not put it on record) that the Yugoslav government would yield to NATO after a few days of bombing. This ignored the lessons of Coventry and Dresden in World War II and the US experience in Vietnam. Nor did the Gulf War support this thesis. In fact, the bombing predictably rallied public support against NATO even among Serbs hostile to Milosevic. The military strategy was faulty at the beginning and the fault was compounded as failure to attain the purported objective of protecting the Kosovars led the US and NATO to expand attacks from military to civilian targets, something which I believe a military analyst has described as "reinforcing failure." The diplomatic aspect of the procedure leading up to the war was equally flawed. Rambouillet was not a negotiation; rather it was an ultimatum. The two hostile parties, Serbs and Albanian Kosavars, did not meet. When both parties rejected the draft prepared by the contact group, Ms. Albright arranged to change the 138

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composition of the Albanian Kosovar delegation by bringing in the KLA, hitherto considered by the CIA to be ''terrorists.'' (Ms. Albright's recourse to the KLA continues with US grooming ofthe ex-"terrorist" Hachim Thaci for a leading role in shaping Kosovo's future.) With this change in the Kosovar representation at Rambouillet, the trigger for bombing lay with the KLA; if it accepted the text and the Serbs rejected it (and no government could have accepted the terms presented to the Serbs), then NATO would begin bombing. In effect, NATO, through this manipulation of "negotiation," intervened on one side in a civil war. To Serb people generally it appeared analogous to the Nazi ultimatum followed by the bombing of Belgrade during the Second World War. No doubt NATO investigators will find evidence that Milosevic had plans for massive removal of Albanian population in Kosovo. Prior to March 24, when the bombing began, the evidence is that relatively small numbers of attacks on Albanian Kosovars had occurred and that these were occasioned by the guerilla civil war being carried on by the KLA against the Serb army. This is affirmed in the testimony of a Canadian career military officer, Roland Keith, who was a member of the Kosovo Verification Mission of the OSCE. It is also the evidence ofa few western journalists who remained in Kosovo after the bombing began, notably Robert Fisk of The Independent and the Canadian Paul Watson of the Los Angeles Times. For these observers the massive attack upon and removal of the Albanian Kosovar population began after the bombing started on March 24. Roland Keith has suggested that a strengthening ofthe observer presence together with a continued presence of foreign reporters would have been a deterrent to mass expulsions if supplemented by other pressures and incentives by concerned European governments. The mass expulsion plan, assuming there was one and it seems very likely that there was, required specific circumstances to put into effect. The decision to withdraw the OSeE and to begin bombing provided those circumstances; and the campaign of expulsion 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-applied here. The Serb forces set about to drain the sea. The NATO decision to bomb provided the opportunity. When it became apparent after several weeks that the bombing campaign was not working, the initial error was compounded by 139

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the decision to expand the range of targets to factories, bridges, chemical and petroleum works, electrical networks, television and radio installations. Whether or not specifically targeted, the escalated bombing also hit hospitals, health clinics and schools (schools were closed throughout Yugoslavia for two months during the bombing campaign) and residential areas. Despite NATO rhetoric, these were not attacks on the Serb leadership but on the Serb people. The use of cluster bombs and depleted uranium casing on shells and missiles which leave long term radioactivity to undermine people's health shows the nature of this war against people, killing and maiming and threatening the health of this and future generations while destroying the economic apparatus built up by the Yugoslav people during fifty years of socialist constructions, something they could reasonably identify as their own rather than the property of a dominant class. The Morality of Warfare Moral indignation in Europe and America focuses on massacre, theft, arson, and rape, mainly by Serb paramilitaries given a free hand and encouragement by Milosevic in Kosovo after March 24. Many historical cases show how situations of war and violent revolution can release psychopathic instincts otherwise repressed in more normal situations. This applies not just to Serbs but also in recent times to other participants in Balkan wars--Croats and Bosnian Muslims and Albanian Kosovars and, of course, we remember My Lai even if we don't think back to the seizure of First Nations' lands in North America. This horror is one aspect of an asymmetrical kind of warfare in which one side dominates the land while the other dominates the sky. The behavior of the side with air power does not offend our refined sensibilities in the same way. The extreme case would be that of the pilots of the B2 bombers, which caused the most damage in the populated areas, who took off from Missouri on a 30hour round trip flight to Yugoslavia where they discharged their satellite guided missiles from 15,000 feet, from which height they could hardly see the effect of their work on the people below, returning home to mow the lawn and play with their children. A far cry from the psychopath, head hidden in a black cagoule, who murders and rapes on the ground? Yes, at first appearance and in public imagery. But the psychopath here is not the pilot who releases impersonal destruction. It is the military system which

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has succeeded in depersonalizing warfare, in which the agent of destruction, at a safe distance from the object, is protected from any immediate knowledge of what he is really doing, a protection enhanced by the Orwellian language in which the activity is morally disguised ("assets," "degrading," "collateral damage," "friendly fire" etc.), evoking no suggestion of killing and maiming and polluting the human environment. Dostoyevsky's Grand Inquisitor put it well: "And they will all be happy, all the millions of creatures, except the hundred thousand who rule over them. For we alone, we who guard the mystery, we alone shall be unhappy. There will be thousands and millions of happy infants and one hundred thousand sufferers who have taken upon themselves the curse of the knowledge of good and evil." There is a moral equivalence between these two seemingly very different ways to make war. The distinction, to borrow a Marxian metaphor, might be expressed as between proletarian and bourgeois methods of warfare. Consequences The short-term effects of NATO's ''victory'' are readily apparent: - the death and destruction in Kosovo and in the Serb territories, including a quantum leap in violations of human rights and the effective "degrading" of the population and of the resources at its command; - the exacerbation of communal hatreds which KFOR is unable to control and which makes Bernard Kouchner's task to bring about a reconciliation among communities (not forgetting the Gypsies) virtually impossible and yet likely to endure in some form for a generation or more; - an economy reduced to material conditions equivalent to those left by WorldWar II but lacking the psychological elan that made possible the rebuilding of a state and an economy at that time; - an increase in organized crime throughout central and eastern Europe, since the war itself expanded the operations of the Albanian mafia which, among other activities, provided resources for the KLA; and following the war, the likely conversion of Serbian paramilitaries into adjuncts of the Russian and other eastern European mafias; - the political destabilization of whole Balkan region, calling into question borders and the situation of minorities in all the countries. 141

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The longer-term consequences could be even more unfortunate. As I see it, the long-term issue of global governance could move in one of two directions. The most apparent tendency at present is towards a world shaped by one hegemonic power sustained by economic globalization and the homogenization of cultures through a dominant mass media, the expansion of which is protected by a unitary concentration of military-political force. The alternative would be a pluralistic world in which different groups of countries pursue different paths of economic and social organization which reflect and sustain their different cultural patterns. The one defines civilization in the singular. The other allows for the coexistence of civilization (in the plural). The outcome of the Kosovo war moves the world markedly in the first direction. NATO, which had exhausted its purpose with the fall of the Berlin wall, gives itself a new role as the most powerful concentration of military power, expanding its scope beyond the geographical limitations of its founding treaty and setting aside its purported subordination to the United Nations Security Council, so as to become the military force behind economic globalization. (The intent is somewhat naively betrayed by the clause in the Rambouillet ultimatum that requires the Kosovo economy to be organized on "free market" principles.) The manner in which Russian diplomacy was first invoked to facilitate the entry of NATO troops into Kosovo and then subordinated to NATO control is indicative of the disdain of the would-be global hegemonic power towards possible dissenters. The "accidental" bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade was another warning signal ill digested by the Chinese people and government. The Kosovo war has met with opposition or at best reluctant acquiescence in Asia and Africa. The USINATOvision of the future world is rejected by most ofthe world's peoples, though there is at present no countervailing military-political power to give substance to their opposition. Nevertheless, there would be grave dangers in any attempt to consolidate this particular western vision of future world order. Although the initial perception is one of supremacy of the hegemonic world vision, the effect of the war on international relations may not really sustain that vision. In the United States public opinion was about equally divided between support and opposition to the war and the experience may be a deterrent to further US interventions of this kind. The total unpreparedness of western European countries and their resort to reliance on US air 142

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power may stimulate a movement towards a more effective European security organization; and the ghost of Charles De Gaulle could obstruct the Blair government's aspirations to lead in Europe with US backing. The warnings and humiliations suffered by Russia and China can only be incentives to assert their alternative conceptions of world order, while Japan remains ambivalent between reliance on a US security blanket, on the one hand, and the desire to assert Japan's independent power as a "normal" country, on the other. All of these reactions to the war, together with the hostility of other Asian countries and Africa to the spectre of NATO as the dominant world force, could make of the war in Yugoslavia a turning point away from the monolithic vision of globalization backed by military force. The alternative, pluralistic conception of world order implies the construction of a system of global governance that would mediate among different civilizations without being the expression of anyone of these civilizations. A reconstructed United Nations, freed from the dominance of the United States, and staffed by people skilled in empathy for a variety of civilizational perspectives could perform this role. It is, however, difficult to imagine how such a change could be achieved in the near future, since the US is clearly not disposed to compromise its dominance in the United Nations nor to allow it to displace NATO as the premier instrument of global hegemony. Ironically, NATO's war made Russia and China into the principal defenders of the United Nations. Any move in the direction of a functioning pluralistic world would require a long sustained effort on the part of its proponents. These opposed visions of the future world define the dilemma of Canada's role. In the war over Kosovo Canada appeared to the world as an appendage of US policy. Political and economic pressures made it difficult for Canada to behave otherwise. During the Cold War, Finland took such a position openly and frankly with regard to its powerful neighbour the Soviet Union. It was a frank and honourable admission and it removed Finland from any responsibility in international affairs. Canada's dilemma is, of course, different. Canada has generally defined its position as that ofa supporter of the United Nations and, in the late John Holmes' sense, a "middle power," not just as reflecting its military-political weight but as having a vocation to be "in the middle" as a seeker and facilitator of solutions. This tradition, together with the 143

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multicultural nature of Canada, which someone has called the "first post-modem society," argue for active support of the alternative pluralistic concept of a future world and for restructuring of the United Nations in line with it. The dilemma is how far this can be done in a condition of economic, military and cultural dependency on the United States. The war over Kosovo has been a serious setback for the pluralistic concept of world order and for Canada's credibility in the United Nations. After a successful campaign for a seat on the Security Council, Canada's diplomacy acquiesced almost immediately in the marginalization of the United Nations on a matter of global governance. I have great sympathy for your task in reviving a constructive role for this country. With respect, Yours sincerely, Robert W. Cox, ER.S.C. Professor Emeritus of Political Science, York University

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ROBERT COX
t is now just over a year since the bombing campaign against Yugoslavia stopped with a peace settlement. A reflective perspective together with new information that becomes available through official reports and unofficial indiscretions make it possible to connect events with their wider context and discern their 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 diplomacy was to persuade Milosevic to accept a supervised withdrawal of Yugoslav forces from Kosovo and the introduction of an international force that would pacify the civil war between Kosovar insurgents of the KLA and the Yugoslav police and military. If diplomacy were the aim, the means chosen were obviously going to fail. But we now know that Albright's purpose was not to reach an agreement but to start a war,t The terms of the Rambouillet Agreements were clearly intended to provoke Serbia's rejection. They provided for the occupation by NATO of the whole of Serbia, not just Kosovo. Russia, the party that would most likely have influence with the Serb government, rejected military provisions included in the US-drafted "agreement" and was sidelined in NATO's confrontation with Serbia. Ms. Albright arranged to bring in the KLA leader, Hachim Thaci, previously regarded as a ''terrorist'' by the CIA, to replace the unofficially elected Kosovar "government" headed by Ibrahim Rugova as representative of the Kosovar Albanian interest, persuading him to accept Rambouillet, with the sotto voce understandings that the KLA would have a continuing political presence in a NATO-occupied Kosovo and that NATO would not be overly rigorous about disarming the KLA. The fact that the Yugoslav parliament then agreed to a withdrawal of Yugoslav forces from Kosovo and to a United Nations (not a NATO) occupying force was both obfuscated in the western media and treated by NATO as a delaying tactic.' With a formal Kosovar acceptance and a Serbian rejection of the "agreement," the United States had

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cleared the way for the aerial bombardment that had been planned for some time, and NATO's war began. But why did Ms. Albright, as representative of the US government, want war? I think we can minimize the defence of human rights trumpeted by Tony Blair, and somewhat less stridently by Bill Clinton, as the activating factor. After all, the same Madeline Albright in 1994 had intervened to prevent the United Nations Security Council from deploying sufficient military force in Rwanda to stop the genocide there.s Furthermore, it is known that the scale of the repression prior to the bombing in Kosovo, which took place in the context of civil war and was monitored by both journalists and an observer group of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), was much exaggerated as a part of war preparations by NATO, something about which US decision makers would have been well aware. It is now also clear that the mass expulsion of 800,000 Kosovar refugees took place after the NATO bombing began. The bombing produced what it was supposed to prevent, a logical and quite predictable military response by Yugoslav forces to clear the way for the crushing of the KLA insurgency. Furthermore, the search for bodies after the Yugoslav forces withdrew and the NATO occupation force, KFOR, entered Kosovo demonstrated that however brutal the expulsion of the Kosovar population had been, the allegations of mass murder were exaggerated.s It seems most likely the decision for war within the executive branch of the US government, which was itself divided, was motivated primarily by the geo-strategic considerations discussed below.

Why Did Other NATO Countries Acquiesce in the US Decision For War? As for Canada, there was no real parliamentary debate; all the parties, including the NDP and the Bloc Quebecois, supported the government in following the US initiative. There was a more serious debate outside parliament. Historian Michael Bliss, former Canadian ambassador to Yugoslavia James Bissett,e and retired Canadian General Lewis MacKenzie, formerly commander of UN peacekeeping forces in Bosnia, were among those who voiced criticism, and journalists Marcus Gee of The Globe and Mail and Richard Gwyn of the Toronto Star did not succumb to the prevailing pro-war media bias. There was no voice of opposition from the official Left; perhaps the NDP had been entranced by the Gladstonian rhetoric of

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Tony Blair. Among political personalities the only outspoken opposition came from Red Tories David Orchard, candidate for the leadership of the federal Progressive Conservative Party against Joe Clark, and senator Douglas Roche. Other NATO governments were swayed by different political motives. Britain's Tony Blair was concerned to maintain a US presence in Europe and US leadership in NATO; he became the most hawkish of the leaders. Gerhard Schroder, with his foreign minister Joschka Fischer of the Greens, rallied to the US war plan, perhaps with a view to lifting a lingering pall over Germany's international status but definitely to manifest support for America's continuing role in Europe. Blair and Schroder were the most convinced backers of the war and the most convinced supporters of NATO and of the maintenance of a US presence in Europe. President Chirac of France was also firmly committed to the war, while at the same time protesting his independence (he claimed to have vetoed some of the bombing targets)." France acquiesced in the US initiative, perhaps in part to allay suspicion of a traditional pro-Serb stance, and in any case to avoid being isolated within NATO. The French Prime Minister, socialist Lionel Jospin, was much more doubtful about the wisdom of the war but went along so as not to destabalize the "cohabitation" with Gaullist party chief Chirac." In Italy, tension was higher; the life of the centre-left government led by Massimo D' Alema was at stake. Public opinion was not sympathetic and was provoked to anger when US pilots at the NATO base in northern Italy severed a cable car lift during a practice flight, killing several people (the pilots had their wrists slapped by a US military court which did little to mollify Italian public outrage), and when aircraft returning to the NATO base discarded unused bombs in Italian fishing zones of the Adriatic. Greek opinion was hostile. Hungarians, bordering on Serbia, had joined NATO for protection, not to go to war with their neighbour. As the bombing went on well beyond the few days that Secretary Albright had predicted would result in Milosevic's capitulation, public questioning of the campaign grew in Europe (and in America). This was particularly threatening in Germany for the Schroder-Greens alliance. Public support in the NATO countries weakened and with it so did NATO solidarity. As for the condition of Kosovo after the NATO occupation, the United Nations commissioner Bernard Kouchner is faced with a

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virtually impossible task with minimal resources. It has been impossible to establish an orderly legitimate rule. The KLA and its various factions are the most powerful force among the Kosovar population. They remain armed despite the UN resolution (no. 1244) calling for disarmament of the KLA, and have been, under NATO auspices, incorporated into a Kosovo Protection Corps (KPC). They have carried out "ethnic cleansing" of the remaining Serbs, Gypsies (Roma), Turks and Jews. The mafias which sustained the KLA during the conflict have free rein within the lawless occupied zone and extend their operations across Europe.? Kosovo is now an uncontrolled base for organized crime throughout Europe. The power relationship between the United Nations' administration and the retreaded KLA was illustrated in an incident involving a Canadian citizen of ethnic Albanian origin who was employed by the UN in Kosovo in prison administration. He had to be spirited out of Kosovo by the UN after receiving death threats for refusing to hire former KLA members as prison guards.!v Furthermore, this disorderly entity under the NATO occupation is a focus for the political destabilization of southern Europe. Albanian irredentism threatens not only Serbia but also Macedonia and Greece as established borders become moot. The US Strategy So, if the moral justifications for the attack on Yugoslavia, an attack which violated the UN Charter, the NATO Charter, and the constitutional provisions and procedures of several of the principal belligerents, did not survive the post bellum evidence, what other reasons led to the war? A geo-strategic policy of the Clinton administration can be seen in retrospect as taking form over several years. Part of that strategy was to secure the subordination of the United Nations to US interests. Madeline Albright, as US ambassador to the United Nations, manipulated the United Nations Security Council through the threat of a veto to reject the reappointment of the sitting Secretary-General, Boutros Boutros Ghali,for a new term of office, despite the fact that he had the support of all the other Council members. I I Boutros Ghali had been too little attentive to US requirements. In his place she secured the election of Kofi Annan, and initiated him to his new office by making him party to a deal with Senator Jesse Helms. The deal was for some movement by the Senate on payment of US arrears to the United Nations in return for more United Nations compli148

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ance with US desires. The UN Secretary-General is now treated like a subordinate in Washington. The United Nations has become more aligned to the US vision of a "new world order" of capitalist globalization underwritten by the military power of the United States and its allied powers.J2 The United Nations, in this vision, would deal with humanitarian relief and stay out of security issues like Kosovo.J3 Security would henceforth be the function of a NATO with a wider geographical sphere of action, and, in the Pacific region, of the US-Japan Security Treaty recently complemented by an agreement for military cooperation between the United States and the Philippines. The 50th anniversary of NATO's founding was to be celebrated on 22 April 1999. There could be no question of just recognizing that 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 support for the new world order was to be affirmed with the enthusiastic support of Britain and Germany. Success in Kosovo would underscore this vision. As it turned out Kosovo was not an unsullied success for NATO. Prolongation of the bombing without any notable prospect of victory increased pressure to resolve the issue from allied governments and peoples and also from the US Congress. In order to extricate NATO from the impasse, the G8, i.e., the G7 plus Russia, was revived as a vehicle for dealing with Belgrade and negotiations were confided to Martti Ahtisaari of Finland for the European Union and Victor Chemomyrdin of Russia. With NATO withdrawn to the background as the protagonist, these two produced an agreement acceptable to Belgrade in which Kosovo was recognized to be part of Serbia, and a United Nations' administration was to be installed in a NATO-occupied Kosovo. This was not the unconditional surrender proclaimed by NATO as its goal. Yugoslav military forces withdrew from Kosovo in an orderly fashion. The bombing which wreaked havoc on the economic infrastructure of Yugoslavia and left many civilian casualties ("collateral damage") had done little to "degrade" the military. The Clinton administration's vision of world order---economic and communications globalization sustained by US and allied military power-remains predominant but not uncontested in NATO countries. The Kosovo war tested its acceptability in Europe. Many Europeans would prefer greater independence both economically

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and militarily from America. The debate in the European Union over "social Europe" and the "democratic deficit" mobilizes the Left in favour of the social market of a social democratic form of capitalism.J4 Kosovo implied defeat for those aims. The sudden departure of Oscar Lafontaine from the German government in March 1999 before the war began, and the collapse of Massimo D' Alema's centre-left government in Italy in April 2000, were among the signals of defeat. The demonstration in Kosovo of European dependence on US air power, however, provoked a renewed determination on the part of some Europeans to create a more credible European security capability which would be more independent of America.J5 The European project of integrating eastern Europe into the European Union, which might have enlarged the base for a possible "social Europe," was, however, pre-empted by NATO's leapfrogging into the east with tentacles reaching into Ukraine and the republics on the southern border of Russia. 16 This imperial expansion would place the oil and gas resources of Central Asia and the Caucasus under western control, excluding Russia. Geoffrey York in The Globe and Mail signaled Canadian diplomacy's role in facilitating NATO penetration in Ukraine. ("With its 1.5 million Ukranian Canadians and its non-threatening image, Canada was a logical choice for NATO's co-ordinating job," he wrote.)!? Both Russia and China see a threat of encirclement and have reacted with determination to strengthen their military forces. 18 Kosovo is a key link in this imperial vision. Europe today is the critical site for the struggle which could determine whether the future world will have a place for different, coexisting forms of economic and social organization. The struggle for an alternative to Anglo-American competitive market capitalism is not over, but the alternative presently lacks a coherent image and a cohesive counter-hegemonic base. It has been set back by the emergence of a new version of the neo-liberal hegemonic project, the "Third Way" or the "New Middle," articulated by Blair and Schroder in their joint statement of 8 June 1999, which coincided with the conclusion of the Kosovo war. In their perspective, globalizing capital, sustained militarily by NATO, would be combined with measures to facilitate the adjustment of labour to the exigencies of the market. Their position is an extension of the Clinton administration's vision of geo-strategic policy. The alignment of the Schroder and Blair governments now aims 150

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to displace the Franco-German axis which had been the political basis for a more independent European system. Yet there are weaknesses in the new imperialism and sources of support for a more pluralistic world. Kosovo revealed both, foreshadowing future struggles. Toronto, July 2000

Notes
1. An excellent and detailed critical review of the Kosovo negotiations with particular reference to French participation is to be found in an article by Eric Rouleau in Le Monde diplimatique December 1999. See also "What reporters knew about Kosovo talks-but didn't tell," published on the internet 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 the United States and drafted by ambassador Christopher Hill, is accessible on the internet at <http://www.balkan.cc/Files/Rambouillet/Html/Rambohtml%20I.htm>. It was never widely distributed even among supposed parties to the "agreement," let alone negotiated. 3. IPA Institute for Public Accuracy News Release 16 April 1999 "Troubling questions about Rambouillet," at <http://www.accuracy.orglpress_releases IPR041699 .htm>. 4. See the report "Rwanda: The Preventable Genocide," prepared by Stephen Lewis and five other "eminent persons" for the Organization of African 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 the bodies gone",' The Globe and Mail 9 November 1999. 6. See his "The tragic blunder in Kosovo,' The Globe and Mail 10 January 2000. Ambassador Bissett took part in public discussions during the course of 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 23 June 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 Boutros Ghali, Unvanquished: A USIUN Saga (New York: Random House, 1999). 12. Two indications are a move towards a centralizing budgetary control which has long been a US objective and one generally opposed by poor countries that press for more UN services, and the giving of a fuller access to multinational 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 Monde 9 June 1999. 16. Kees van der Pijl, "What happened to the European option for Eastern Europe?," in Social Forces in the Making of the New Europe: the restructuring of European social relations in the global political economy, Andreas Bieler and Adam David Morton, (eds.) (London: Macmillan, forthcoming, 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 USINATO of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade (which no one in China accepts to have been an "accident") is treated as one more case of "collateral damage" in the Kosovo war.

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