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No. 357

October 25, 1999

Faulty Justifications and

Ominous Prospects

NATO's "Victory" in Kosovo

by Christopher Layne

Executive Summary

member Turkey has been for years waging a sim

-

With the withdrawal of Serbian forces from

ilar war against Kurdish separatists. Moreover,

Kosovo, President Clinton triumphantly pro-

the conflict in Kosovo was not a test of American

claimed, "We have achieved a victory." Yet the

credibility--the stakes were both murky and

Clinton administration's ill-conceived Kosovo

meager--until Washington needlessly trans-

policy has habitually failed to meet its objectives.

formed the situation into a test of American

The threat of air strikes failed to get Yugoslav

resolve. The Kosovo war was a challenge not to

strongman Slobodan Milosevic to sign the

NATO's traditional role as a collective-defense

Rambouillet peace accord. Once the air strikes

alliance but only to its new and dubious role as a

began, the unintended consequences were horrif-

post­Cold War crisis-management institution.

ic. Not only did the bombing trigger a refugee cri-

Furthermore, history shows that conflicts in

sis, but U.S.-Russian relations were driven to a

peripheral regions such as Kosovo do not

post­Cold War low--a development that makes

inevitably escalate to Europewide wars that

Europe and the world more dangerous.

imperil American interests. The two world wars

Even the various rationales for NATO inter-

involved exceptional breakdowns of the Euro-

vention offered by the administration were

pean balance of power.

faulty. Those rationales included assertions that

NATO's bombing of Yugoslavia killed hun-

(1) genocide was occurring in Kosovo; (2) if the

dreds of civilians and exacerbated tensions

United States did not intervene, American credi-

throughout the region. Moreover, Belgrade's

bility would be lost and dictators around the

headache may soon become Washington's. U.S.

world would assume that they had a free hand;

and other NATO troops already have a tense

and (3) NATO's role as the guarantor of

relationship with the Kosovo Liberation Army,

European security would be discredited, thereby

which still demands independence, not merely

increasing the risk that Europe would be drawn

autonomy, for Kosovo. In short, NATO's "victo-

into its third Continent-wide war this century.

ry" means deploying U.S. troops on yet another

The humanitarian situation in Kosovo prior

multi-billion-dollar, open-ended peacekeeping

to NATO bombing, however, was not unusual in

and nation-building operation.

the annals of counterinsurgency wars. NATO

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Christopher Layne is a visiting scholar at the Center for International Studies at the University of Southern

California and a MacArthur Foundation Fellow in Global Security.