The Progressive Response

The Progressive Response is a publication of Foreign Policy In Focus, a joint project of the Interhemispheric Resource Center and the Institute for Policy Studies. The project produces Foreign Policy In Focus (FPIF) briefs on various areas of current foreign policy debate. Electronic mail versions are available free of charge for subscribers. The Progressive Response is designed to keep the writers, contributors, and readers of the FPIF series informed about new issues and debates concerning U.S. foreign policy issues.

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Table of Contents

I. Updates and Out-Takes

FALSE ASSUMPTIONS
by Julianne Smith, BASIC

BOMBING CAN'T STOP SERB VIOLENCE
by Rear Admiral Eugene J. Carroll Jr., USN (Ret.)

II. Comments

HELL BENT ON DESTROYING NATIONAL SOVEREIGNTY

KOSOVO: WHAT'S THE ALTERNATIVE?

I. Updates and Out-Takes

FALSE ASSUMPTIONS
by Julianne Smith, BASIC

(Ed. Note: The Foreign Policy In Focus project continues to follow events in Kosovo closely. As part of its effort to present progressive analysis about the U.S. role in global affairs, the project sponsored a forum at the Institute for Policy Studies on March 30, moderated by project codirector Martha Honey. Presenters included representatives from the Center for Defense Information and BASIC. Included below is analysis about the NATO bombing campaign provided by Julianne Smith of BASIC and Admiral Eugene Carroll of CDI.)

President Clinton and NATO's decision to begin bombing Yugoslavia at the end of March was based on a number of false assumptions:

1. The conflict in Kosovo somehow counted more than any other conflict in the world, that this conflict merited military intervention more than the conflicts in Sierra Leone or Sudan (where many more people have suffered). Even if NATO assumes that conflicts in Europe are indeed more important due to its strategic interests in regional stability, one has to ask the question--what about the Kurds in Turkey? Why hasn't NATO done anything to put a halt to the violence and abuse that has been inflicted upon this ethnic minority for the past few decades?
2. Another false assumption with the bombing campaign has been that bombing is a preventive tool. In truth, bombing is a tool that the West uses at the "eleventh hour" after they have exhausted other means. To the credit of Western policymakers, some attempts were made in advance through diplomatic efforts to stop the violence. However, opportunities to get involved before the violence started were frequent and yet nothing was done until it was too late. The ethnic Albanians tried for many years to bring attention to their cause through nonviolent means. Numerous organizations such as the Conflict Prevention Network in Ebenhausen, Germany, wrote studies and tried to lobby policymakers to act at that stage in the conflict. But due to the fact that policymakers often feel they have too many fires to put out today to try to prevent the fires of tomorrow, preventive action is rarely undertaken.
3. The assumption that bombing would prevent the conflict from escalating is weak as well. Today, it is not clear as to whether or not the same results (a flood of refugees arriving in Albania and Macedonia and further atrocities committed by Milosevic) would have occurred had the bombing not taken place. One thing is clear, however; the conflict continues to this day and a number of countries in the region have been forced to come to terms with their own highly sensitive political positions. For example, countries with similar ethnic minority populations worry that it is just a matter of time before they will be pulled into the conflict either militarily or politically, perhaps triggering conflict within their own borders.
4. Clinton made the moral argument that the US should participate in the bombing to save lives. Again, little has surfaced to indicate that this objective has been met. Instead, we've seen Milosevic increase his willingness to use force and witnessed a steady stream of refugees pour into neighboring countries. The bombing has not yet saved any lives, even after over a week of bombing.
5. This leads to yet another false assumption: bombing is enough to get someone like Milosevic to the table to negotiate. Bombing has not been successful at achieving this goal and has had the added negative affect of unifying Serbia, something even Milosevic himself has been unable to do up to this point. Any chance the West had in working with the Serbian democrats (or opposition) has been lost now that we are bombing their homes. It should have been evident by the U.S. experience in Iraq that this would have been a likely outcome.
6. The West has also been quick to assume that the bombing would have few implications for NATO-Russia relations and if it did, those implications wouldn't be that severe. Clearly, as we've seen in the past few days with Russia pulling out of all Y2K cooperation with the U.S. and withdrawing its Ambassadors from NATO, Russia is intent on making its voice heard and is greatly opposed to the NATO operation without a UN mandate.
7. The UN mandate moves to the final false assumption--that NATO stands above international law and therefore, didn't need to make any effort at getting a UN mandate for military intervention in Yugoslavia. While no one doubts the urgency of helping the Kosovo Albanians, the West should have tried to get a greater international voice behind the bombing campaign in order to show Milosevic that his behaviour would not be tolerated by both the West and the world as a whole. Furthermore, by avoiding a UN mandate, NATO has now opened a pandora's box of possibilities for other groups of states to claim that they too now have the right to interfere in civil wars around the globe. Who is to say that Russia and Belarus won't someday decide to interfere in the Ukraine, while claiming that NATO set a precedent for military intervention without a UN mandate?

To conclude, Kosovo, for better or worse, has clearly demonstrated that the policymakers of the most developed countries of the world are locked into cold war auto pilot, that they are unable to use and react to the many early warning mechanisms that exist and create long term strategies for the Balkan region as a whole. Until the international community makes the conceptual shift from REACTING TO instead of REDUCING the security risks of the 21st Century, it seems likely that there will be more Kosovos in our future.

Julianne Smith
BASIC

(Views expressed in this speech do not necessarily reflect those of BASIC and are presented here solely as Smith's personal outlook.)

BOMBING CAN'T STOP SERB VIOLENCE
by Rear Admiral Eugene J. Carroll Jr., USN (Ret.)

Most Americans agree that Slobodan Milosevic is an inhumane despot who has brought misery and devastation to the former Yugoslavia. Nowhere are the consequences of his misbegotten drive for personal power more evident than in the tragedy he has wrought in Kosovo.

Even though this is true, one question must still be asked: Why has NATO, led by the United States, resorted to a destructive bombing campaign against Serbia when military action cannot resolve the issues that underlie the violence in Kosovo? There simply is no military solution to the complex historic, ethnic, and religious issues motivating the conflict there. And, even if there were one, it could not be accomplished from the air alone. Missiles and bombs, no matter how smart they may be, are blunt, brutal instruments of destruction that intensify and deepen wounds rather than healing them. They will not change the political reality of Serbian control in Kosovo.

President Bill Clinton blandly assures Americans that our bombing will deter and degrade Milosevic's ability to make war against ethnic Albanian Kosovars.

While the bombing clearly imposes a price for such actions, it not only cannot stop violence in Kosovo but will bring additional violence and destruction against the very people we profess to be protecting. Raising violence to a new level in order to end violence seems to be a serious contradiction in objectives.

Furthermore, there is a very real possibility that NATO bombing will actually enable Milosevic to tighten his authoritarian grip in Serbia--first by justifying complete elimination of all opposition political factions and, second by playing into the tendency of citizens to rally around their government in response to external attacks. The history of aerial bombardment consistently confirms this effect and, according to press reports from Belgrade, is already evident there. If Milosevic remains firmly in control and refuses to withdraw his forces from Kosovo, what does NATO do then? How long will the NATO alliance support a pointless aerial-warfare campaign that perpetuates and intensifies suffering in Kosovo? Or, almost as bad, consider what happens if Milosevic cunningly accedes to NATO demands and permits the introduction of the planned 28,000-strong NATO occupation force into Kosovo. How long will the Allies bear the costs and dangers of standing between Serbs and Kosovars, neither of whom really want peace? The United States alone has already spent about $20 billion to bring a tenuous form of peace to Bosnia, a delicate condition maintained by separating the Serbs from Croats and Bosnian Muslims with a three-kilometer demilitarized zone.

No such barrier (or partition) is possible in Kosovo, and sustained violence between the Kosovar majority and the disarmed Serb minority is certain.

It must be noted that NATO attacks directly serve the interests of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). Even though we cannot eliminate Serbian forces, we will at certain times and places create opportunities for the KLA to exploit Serbian losses through attacks on vulnerable Serb units. If this process continues long enough, it could develop that the KLA will become the aggressors and engage in their own ethnic cleansing actions against Serbian civilians. Then what does NATO do, attack the people it is ostensibly protecting? Or what does NATO do if the KLA declares Kosovo an independent state? Thus the resort to bombing has put NATO into a lose-lose situation, where no probable outcome satisfies the need for a stable, peaceful relationship between Serbia and Kosovo. This no-win strategy clearly must be revised and a means found to resume pursuit of a more constructive, less confrontational political resolution of the Kosovo problem. It is obvious NATO is not going to generate any such initiative, nor would Milosevic deal with NATO negotiators at this point.

Fortunately, there is one European power with clean hands and a long term supportive relationship with Serbia that could enter into substantive negotiations--Russia. The United Nations Security Council (with U.S. agreement) could call for a cease-fire and direct Russia to act as a mediator to broker a deal between NATO and Serbia.

This mission for Russia would have the great benefit of restoring Russia to a meaningful role in European security affairs after it was ignored, even humiliated, when NATO decided to attack Serbia. Russia seemingly could engineer face-saving concessions from both parties to end the violence in Kosovo.

One important condition would be the use of a large team of suitably empowered monitors in Kosovo to be provided by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe--not 28,000 NATO troops. This team would supervise and enforce the new security arrangements and oversee repatriation and resettlement programs for returning Kosovars. This would be far more effective in creating long-term security than the present futile effort.

(Adm. Eugene J. Carroll, Jr. is Deputy Director of the Center for Defense Information in Washington. He is a contributor to the FPIF project. This article, which was published in Newday on March 26, expresses opinions offered by Carroll at the FPIF forum)

II. Comments

HELL BENT ON DESTROYING NATIONAL SOVEREIGNTY

(Ed. Note: These comments are a response to PR Vol. 3, No. 9 that included excerpts from two recent FPIF policy briefs, one by Joe Stork of Human Rights Watch on Human Rights & U.S. Policy, available at
http://www.fpif.org/briefs/vol4/v4n08hrts.html, and the other by Tomas Valasek of the Center for Defense Information on NATO, available at: http://www.fpif.org/briefs/vol4/v4n11nato.html)

Although some of your comments about the inconsistency of U.S. human rights policies have merit, I have a fundamental problem with any discussion of human rights extrinsic to a recognizable social contract. Although I also feel that the Clinton administration has not given these concerns adequate weight, it is my opinion that the U.S. is engaging in far too many "crusades" on behalf of political factions within sovereign states, without adequate consideration of the cost to the rule of law associated with externally interfering in the governance of those nations. If our policies were strictly amoral, this might be reasonable, but since this administration attempts to wrap all its actions within the flag of Wilsonian morality, it is merely hypocritical.

I do not feel, however, that devolution of American power in favor of a strengthened European arm of NATO (or more pointedly, a European security entity outside of NATO) really resolves the fundamental issues involved in, say, the Balkans. There is no reason to believe that a European security apparatus based on the European Union would be any more benevolent, or any less determined to impose solutions by force of arms, than the U.S.-led NATO. While the current Secretary of State has admittedly brought matters in Kosovo to a head, there is a good bit of complicity on the part of the European members of NATO, France in particular, for what is taking place. If the Europeans, including the Greeks, had wished to register strong enough opposition to Albright's policies, they could have vetoed those initiatives, they could have dissented from them. This they have not done.

What I do not hear from your organization is any coherent view of Congress's role and responsibilities with respect to these matters. If, as you point out, the U.S. executive branch is empowered to make executive agreements which have the force of law, then it is clear that Congress may have little or nothing to say about how those agreements are implemented and enforced. In the United States, the first line of defense for human rights is none other than the US Constitution, and if your organization were less hell bent on destroying national sovereignty, the rule of law in the United States, based on its constitutional separation of powers, would have a better chance to prevail. But I gather that this is not your position.

Bill R.
BillR54619@aol.com

KOSOVO: WHAT'S THE ALTERNATIVE?

I am a progressive. In fact I am a liberal.

Foreign policy issues are never an easy call, but in this case President Clinton has done the right thing. You have to ask yourself-What is the alternative? Not, What should we have done 5 years ago? but What do we do now?

If not now, when? If not me, who?

Joe Timpson
joet@inconnect.com

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