The Kosovo war in perspective

In historical perspective, the Kosovo war stands as a significant turning point. Within the Balkan region, Operation Allied Force marked the end of the nationalist wars of the 1990s and the beginning of a new phase of partnership and integration with the EU and NATO. In terms of the wider European security order, its repercussions were contradictory. NATO reasserted its role as Europe's leading security institution, yet Operation Allied Force also gave significant momentum to the EU's development as a quasi military body. Further afield, an immediate crisis erupted in Russo-western relations followed by renewed cooperation on the ground; the longer-term impact, however, was a lingering resentment in Moscow at NATO action. At the global level, meanwhile, Operation Allied Force appeared to symbolize the primacy of both American-led western power and of the liberal norms and values that underpinned the intervention. But this was arguably a high point: future global security crises would be managed in the context of the rising power of the non-western world, a more fragmented West and greater contestation over the norms that should underpin international society.     

Still not worth the bones of a single Pomeranian grenadier: the geopolitics of the Kosovo war 1999

The Kosovo war of 1999 brought the checkered legacies of Russian and Western geopolitics back to the forefront of international relations. Central to the discussions of the Balkans is its century-old legacy as a Shatterbelt or Crush Zone. Though not identified by Saul Cohen as a Shatterbelt during the Cold War, the region is now located where the maritime (Western) and land power (Russian) geostrategic realms come into contact. NATO expansion and Russian insecurities about the region’s future have revised interest in geopolitical linkages and historical antecedents. The tradition of pan-Slavism, linking Russia to the Balkans cultural and political networks, has been uneven and is now subject to intensive debate within Russian political circles. In 1999, public opinion surveys showed consistent support in NATO countries for the bombing of Yugoslavia but strong opposition in Russia and other Slavic states. The surveys also question many stereotypes, especially the geopolitical visions of Russian citizens. Modern geopolitics is differentiated from classical geopolitics by the insertion of public opinion into the formation of geopolitical codes and foreign policy, in both the western countries and in Russia. In such an environment, the Balkans will remain central to the strategies of the great powers but public opinion, modifying geopolitical cultures, will ameliorate confrontations.     

The Legendary Commander: the construction of an Albanian master‐narrative in post‐war Kosovo*

ABSTRACT. The ongoing, post‐war construction of Albanian martyrs, memory and the nation in Kosovo has produced iconic tropes of militant resistance, unity and national independence. This critical interpretive account, based on years of the authors' ethnographic and political engagement with Albanians in post‐war Kosovo, focuses on the making of a master narrative that is centred on the ‘sublime sacrifice’ of the insurgent KLA leader Adem Jashari, known as the ‘Legendary Commander’. It also aims to trace voices of discord with this master narrative, testing contestations in terms of the rural–urban, political and gender divides in Kosovo‐Albanian society. It concludes that the narrow international view of Albanians as either ‘victims’ or ‘perpetrators’ has contributed to the consolidation of this powerful narrative, its celebration of Albanian agency in militant resistance and the closing of public debate within Albanian society.     

Innovation and precedent in the Kosovo war: the impact of Operation Allied Force on US foreign policy

The 1990s was a period of strategic innovation in US foreign policy. Operation Allied Force in particular represented an important step in the contorted evolution of America's attitude towards the use of force in the post-Cold War period. That operation demonstrated the growing influence of humanitarian concerns and the extent to which America was willing to reconsider Cold War criteria on the prudence and utility of force in support of its foreign policy. In its decision to intervene in Kosovo, the Clinton administration also divided opinion among the military. This, in effect, reduced the premium placed on the counsels of the armed forces and made it easier for the Bush administration subsequently to ignore their advice. Furthermore, having fought the war multilaterally through NATO, Operation Allied Force made America more wary of doing so again. In other words, the intervention set a number of precedents and left a significant legacy for the way in which US foreign policy was pursued in the decade that followed. This legacy is considered in two parts: the first analyses those issues associated with the use of force debate; the second considers how the Kosovo experience affected US attitudes to coalition warfare.     

The Rambouillet Conference on Kosovo

The Rambouillet process sought to re-establish autonomous governance andhuman rights for Kosovo, under the protection of the international community. However, the Kosovo authorities had committed themselves to outright independence while the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia consistently rejected any international interest in the affairs of Kosovo, which it considered an entirely domestic matter. To reconcile these irreconcilable views, an initial attempt was made to establish self-governance for Kosovo for an interim period, without touching upon the issue of the status of that territory.
As the Rambouillet conference progressed, the Contact Group moved significantly towards the FRY/Serb demand of expressly confirming its continued sovereignty and territorial integrity over Kosovo. While this and other concessions did not help to engage the FRY in the negotiating process, itjeopardized the acceptance of the agreement by Kosovo. The negotiations werebacked by the threat of the use of force, which could only be innovatively justified by reference to the doctrine of humanitarian intervention, inasmuch as there existed no formal Security Council mandate. However, the credibility of that threat was initially undermined by splits within the Contact Group during the actual negotiations, which also extended to implementation of the agreementupon acceptance by NATO. Moreover, the negotiations were hampered by thefact that one of the three principal international negotiators openly sided withone of the parties and essentially represented it. Encouraged by these divisions, Belgrade manoeuvred itself into a position of direct confrontation with NATO, which could now genuinely argue that the grave humanitarian emergency in Kosovo could only be addressed through acceptance of the Rambouilletaccord by Yugoslavia, even if sustained military attacks were required to achieve that end.     

Rentier Statebuilding in a Post‐Conflict Economy: The Case of Kosovo

Kosovo has been under various forms of international administration since 1999. Although the political dimension of this international experience has been widely studied by scholars — especially those associated with the critical theory of liberal peacebuilding — the economic dimension of international rule has received less attention. This article explores the economic dimension by linking insights from rentier theory with critical approaches to liberal peacebuilding and statebuilding. The postulate informing this article is that the sources of a state's income have an impact on its institutional development. The article discusses liberal peacebuilding through the lens of rentier theory, it analyses the economic management in the early years of the international administration of Kosovo, and describes and explores some of the unintended consequences of this massive international presence in Kosovo for the local economy.     

NATO: from Kosovo to Kabul

NATO has throughout its history been the subject of prognostications of crisis and dissolution. Indeed, the alliance has been written off so many times that crisis as normality has come to typify its development. In the twenty-year history of NATO's post-Cold War development, Operation Allied Force stands midway between the existential moment that was the collapse of the Soviet bloc and the current travails being experienced in Afghanistan. A comparison of NATO's experience in the Balkans and in the Afghan theatre suggests that the view of a NATO perched permanently at the edge of collapse is problematic and misleading. This is not to defend alliance actions as such but rather to suggest that the narrative of crisis and collapse makes for poor analysis and underestimates NATO's proclivity for adaptation and endurance.     

Kosovo: Cultural Heritage in Conflict

Abstract

The secession of territory represents a unique challenge in the protection of cultural heritage in conflict. The declared independence of Kosovo has considerable implications for international cultural heritage. This paper focuses on the deliberate destruction of examples of historic architecture such as De?ani Monastery and Hadum Mosque as a means of contextualizing the nature of heritage in conflict with respect to international cultural heritage law. It offers a preliminary examination of aspects of cultural heritage in conflict, particularly in regard to the secession of territory and how it applies to historic monuments. The aim of this paper is two-fold: to address the considerations of immovable cultural property within the borders of Kosovo; and to utilize the examples of Visoki De?ani Monastery and Hadum Mosque to highlight the significance of cultural property in conflict.     

The German politics of war: Kunduz and the war in Afghanistan

This article analyses the way in which Germany's participation in the international intervention in Afghanistan has shaped and transformed the country's politics of defence and deriving policies. It argues that in the wake of operational challenges posed by the insurgency in northern Afghanistan since 2007, and in particular the increasing rate of German combat fatalities, established post‐Cold War dogmas of German politics are becoming subject to erosion. Developments in the Kunduz region of northern Afghanistan, with the tanker bombing of 4 September 2009 as its apex, have had a catalyst function in this process. In particular, strategic, operational and tactical requirements for counterinsurgency operations have had significant politico‐strategic repercussions for the country's defence and security policy more generally. As a result, in recent years the Bundeswehr has begun to undergo a far‐reaching structural process of military adaptation and innovation. The article explains and analyses this phenomenon of political change and military learning in the context of political paralysis.     

The shadow of the civil war: A historiography of civil war memory

The memory of the Civil War has become one of the most vibrant and contested subjects in nineteenth-century American history over the past two decades. Studies of Civil War memory potentially can reveal much about the cultural, political, and intellectual world of the Civil War, Reconstruction, and the Gilded Age. Whereas the Civil War has often been studied in historical isolation, histories of memory thrust off the standard constraints of periodization to emphatically link the Civil War with late nineteenthcentury history. David W Blight's award-winning synthesis Race and Reunion (2001) both indicates the topic's rapid maturation and heightens the need for a historiographical excursion to assess the collective strengths and weaknesses of this burgeoning subfield. The following essay explores the convergence of factors, both within and outside of the historical profession, which have encouraged the boom in memory studies. In addition, it traces the emerging historiography to examine both the creative diversity of the field as well as its common assumptions, insights, and strategic limits.     

Operation Allied Force: handmaiden of independent Kosovo

This article challenges the historical amnesia surrounding the whirlwind of international recognition of the state of Kosovo. It explores three theses concerning the role of international intervention and local politics in state formation. First, the article contends that Kosovar Albanians were 'backed into' the independent state option. Second, it makes a distinction between 'parallel states' and 'parallel societies', and explores the inadequacy of the thesis that, in the case of Kosovo, a parallel entity was waiting in the wings, prepared to step up and assume the mantle of a fully operational independent state. Third, it argues that Operation Allied Force was central to the eventual recognition of the independent State of Kosovo.     

Rape in Kosovo: Masculinity and Serbian Nationalism

Abstract. Accusations of Albanian rape of Serbs in Kosovo became a highly charged political factor in the development of Serbian nationalism in the 1980s. Discussions of rape were used to link perceptions of national victimisation and a crisis of masculinity and to legitimate a militant Serbian nationalism, ultimately contributing to the violent break‐up of Yugoslavia. The article argues for attention to the ways that nationalist projects have been structured with reference to ideals of masculinity, the specific political and cultural contexts that have influenced these processes, and the consequent implications for gender relations as well as for nationalist politics. Such an approach helps explain the appeal of Milo?evi?'s nationalism; at the same time it highlights the divisions and conflicts that lie behind hegemonic gender and national identities constructed around difference.     

The Vienna negotiations on the final status for Kosovo

The Vienna negotiations on the final status for Kosovo were an impossible project. It was clear at the outset that both parties would not be able to find common ground on the status issue. However, the talks focused on the practical issues of governance in Kosovo, such as decentralization, community rights and cultural heritage. It was thought that these could be addressed, initially at least, in a status‐neutral way. While the parties did not manage to agree on all or most of these problems, the UN Special Envoy, Martti Ahtisaari, generated a comprehensive proposal offering compromise solutions that should have been acceptable to both sides. The recommendation of the Special Envoy in favour of supervised independence was deliberately separated from the comprehensive proposal. It was thought that the UN Security Council would at least endorse the proposal, even if it was ultimately unwilling to pronounce itself in favour of independence. The issue of status might then be settled outside the Council. However, when it appeared to some states on the Council that endorsement of the substantive Ahtisaari plan would in fact be tantamount to acceptance of independence, this avenue was closed.     

The hospitality of war

In considering some of the issues raised by the troubling and troublesome thesis of ‘the barbarization of warfare’, this review article reflects briefly on civilization and barbarism on the battlefield, and in the imagination, calling in aid an unholy alliance of Joseph Conrad, Norbert Elias, Basil Liddell Hart among others, and pitting the idea of a ‘civilizing process’ against a barbarizing one. From 2003 to 2006 UN Secretary General Kofi Annan pursued an agenda that went far beyond budget, personnel and management issues, and included proposed changes to existing institutions in peacebuilding, disarmament and non‐proliferation, human rights, and counterterrorism. The overhaul was prompted by fear that in the aftermath of its invasion of Iraq, the United States might walk away from the United Nations. By showing that the UN system could be strengthened to address the new threats of the twenty‐first century, Kofi Annan hoped that the United States could be convinced to re‐engage. Despite polarization and mistrust among member states, the effort created new intergovernmental organs to address key problems, gained universal endorsement for the responsibility to protect, and established new offices in the Secretariat to make it more effective. That more was not accomplished was a result of spotty American engagement and the performance of the US ambassador, as well as hesitation among many member states that would rather have an ineffective UN than an effective one that advanced the goals of American primacy.     

The state of war

This article frames the discussion of the ‘state of war’ in this issue of International Affairs. Beginning by noting the continued recurrence of ‘traditional’ modes of war along side so‐called ‘new wars’ and calling to aid Rousseau's brutal satire of 1756, The state of war, the article offers a discussion of three ‘responses’ to the reality of war in international relations—the heroic response, the realpolitik response and the compassionate response—and argues that a synthesis between them characterizes the general approach to war in any historical period. It then considers how the contemporary synthesis might be viewed and offers thoughts on the articles in this issue in the light of this suggestion.     

Italians at war: war and experience in Fascist Italy

This article examines Fascist violence in war from the perspective of the strategies employed by the Italian army. Focusing on the military’s use of violence from the re-conquest of Libya to the civil war in Italy, the article argues that Fascism systematically employed forms of violence that were both typical and original.