Falling into line? Kosovo and the course of German foreign policy

Germany's role in Operation Allied Force has been described as a watershed in its foreign policy. It remains perhaps the pinnacle of Germany's security and defence policy transition after the Cold War. Germany's participation in Operation Allied Force was the first aggressive use of force by the Bundeswehr since the Second World War and, remarkably, was undertaken without a United Nations Security Council mandate. The deployment of German forces in 1999 suggested that German reluctance to burden-share in crisis management alongside NATO allies had been overcome. Yet Germany remains a cautious actor when it comes to the deployment of offensive military force. In this regard, Germany has maintained a considerable degree of continuity in its foreign and security policy after unification, a theme which this article will outline.     

From Pristina to Tskhinvali: the legacy of Operation Allied Force in Russia's relations with the West

This article reviews the main developments in the Kosovo crisis in the context of relations between Russia and NATO/the West. For Moscow, Operation Allied Force constituted a flagrant breach of international law, a threat to post-Cold War European security governance and a challenge to Russia's status in the international order. Official Russian interpretations, heavily influenced by domestic politics, reflect a perception among Russia's political elite that, rather than upholding liberal democratic values, NATO's intervention constituted a selective defence of the interests of the leading western powers.
Such views have influenced Moscow's position on the thorny question of Kosovo's independence and Russia's more assertive foreign and security policy in the recent period, not least in the conflict over South Ossetia in August 2008. Ultimately, Operation Allied Force resulted in the Russian governing elite reassessing its views on statehood, the international order and the norms underpinning international society.     

‘Tony's war’? Blair,Kosovo and the interventionist impulse in British foreign policy

Operation Allied Force had a decisive impact on Tony Blair's leadership of UK foreign policy. This article begins with Blair's famous Chicago speech of April 1999; his clearest statement of an apparently underlying moral purpose in international relations. It then contrasts the conventional wisdom that over Kosovo Blair was acting out of a sense of moral obligation (sharpened by recent British failings to act to prevent humanitarian disasters in the Balkans) with a revisionist account centring on the domestic political considerations impelling Blair into this particular foreign policy adventure. Blair drew three lessons from his involvement in Operation Allied Force: that media presentation was a crucial aspect of implementing a successful foreign policy strategy; that he had been too cautious between 1997 and 1999, partly as a result of being chained to the vagaries of public opinion; and that he could generate robust and worthy foreign and defence policies sitting with his close advisers on the sofa of his 'den' in Downing Street rather than working through traditional channels. The key argument in conclusion is that there was a Tony Blair before Iraq, one who was genuinely set on building a consensus around humanitarian intervention.     

Secessions,interventions, and the case of Kosovo

Abstract

This paper examines the question of secession – what causes it, when it is justified, whether force can be used, and what can be done to make secession unnecessary. It goes on to explore the question of intervention in terms of precedents and the UN charter. In the case of Kosovo it attempts an ethical evaluation of Operation Allied Force, making use of the ‘just war’ criteria as a framework. Conclusions are drawn, on the whole favourable to NATO.     

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.     

The Kosovo war: a recapitulation

This article has four objectives: first to make a case for the significance of the Kosovo war in contemporary history; second, to present an overview of the crisis itself and the military confrontation which was its consequence; third, to survey the initial controversies aroused by military action—and, specifically, the debates surrounding NATO's Operation Allied Force; and finally, to reference the longer term significance of the Kosovo war in terms of the themes covered by the remaining contributions which make up this volume.     

试析尼克松政府的西欧外交

尼克松总统上台执政时,正值美国深陷越战不能自拔,而当时的国际局势较战后初期已发生了重大变化。为了使美国的对外政策适应这种变化,尼克松提出了以"实力"、"谈判"和"伙伴关系"为三大支柱的新战略——"尼克松主义",并应用于西欧外交,对美国的西欧政策做了转折性调整。虽然尼克松的西欧外交标志了美欧关系史上的一个新时代,但其实施却困难重重。     

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.     

War in Iraq, Revolution in America

In this lecture in honour of John Whitehead, Strobe Talbott reflects on the history of the international system, the emergence of the nation-state and the role the US has played in the formation of post-Second World War international institutions. He draws a distinction between the typical Westphalian nation-state, exemplified in Europe, and the United States, a nation based on the 'exertion of political will and championship of political ideas'—a distinction that helps to account for the strain of 'exemplary exceptionalism'; in the history of US foreign policy. Turning to a dichotomy of approach in the foreign policy of the current Bush administration, the author draws attention to the continuation of a tradition of 'moral clarity' on the one hand and on the other hand the introduction of a new concept that saw the preeminence of American power reordering a dangerous world. He believes the Bush 'revolution' in foreign policy reached its peak with the Iraq war and that there is now hope the US will recommit itself to the international institutions severely damaged over the past two years and will begin a new era in which America takes a leading role within a multilateral framework.     

The influence of Operation Allied Force on the development of the jus ad bellum

Some have argued that NATO's air campaign against Serbia in 1999 was manifestly unlawful, others that it was an entirely legitimate humanitarian intervention. A third position suggests that the intervention while unlawful, in the strictest sense, was nonetheless legitimate. Here, a customary law right to intervene was seen as emerging, permitting action to prevent a mass atrocity crime, even when UN Security Council authorization was absent. Did Operation Allied Force, then, add to the case for the emergence of this new customary norm? While the 1990s was a decade of humanitarian intervention, the decade since has been dominated by international action against terrorism and, of course, the effects of the highly controversial US and British led invasion of Iraq. In this context, there is scant evidence that a customary right or obligation to intervene for humanitarian reasons has crystallized since 1999. But if Kosovo achieved anything, it was to prompt greater attention to the merits of the argument in favour of a ‘responsibility to protect’. If NATO's 1999 action were repeated today in a similarly unauthorized manner it would still be unlawful, but it would perhaps be seen as a legitimate means to preventing a mass atrocity crime.     

Book reviews

Books reviewed in this issue. International Relations theory The global commonwealth of citizens: toward cosmopolitan democracy. By Daniele Archibugi. Order, conflict, and violence. Edited by Stathis N. Kalyvas, Ian Shapiro and Tarek Masoud. Human rights and ethics Torture and democracy. By Darius Rejali. Sexual enslavement of girls and women worldwide. By Andrea Parrot and Nina Cummings. International law and organization International justice in Rwanda and the Balkans: virtual trials and the struggle for state cooperation. By Victor A. Peskin. Humanitarian intervention after Kosovo: Iraq, Darfur and the record of global civil society. By Aidan Hehir. Foreign policy America and the world: conversations on the future of American foreign policy. By Zbigniew Brzezinski, Brent Scowcroft and David Ignatius. Conflict, security and armed forces Does peacekeeping work? Shaping belligerents’ choices after civil war. By Virginia Page Fortna. Fighting terror: ethical dilemmas. By Alex J. Bellamy. Twilight war: the folly of US space dominance. By Mike Moore. Global non‐proliferation and counter‐terrorism: the impact of UNSCR 1540. Edited by Olivia Bosch and Peter van Ham. National missile defense and the politics of US identity: a postcultural critique. By Natalie Bormann. The way of the world: a story of truth and hope in an age of extremism. By Ron Suskind. Political economy, economics and development The shape of the world to come: charting the geopolitics of a new century. By Laurent Cohen‐Tanugi. Globalization, regionalization and business: conflict, convergence and influence. By Marc Schelhase. Energy and environment The end of food. By Paul Roberts. History Great Britain and the creation of Yugoslavia: negotiating Balkan nationality and identity. By James Evans. The voices of the dead: Stalin's great terror in the 1930s. By Hiroaki Kuromiya. Europe Explaining institutional change in Europe. By Adrienne Héritier. European defence policy: beyond the nation state. By Frédéric Mérand. Turkish accession to the EU: satisfying the Copenhagen criteria. By Eric Faucompret and Jozef Konings. Serbia in the shadow of Milo?evi?: the legacy of conflict in the Balkans. By Janine N. Clark. Spanish politics: democracy after dictatorship. By Omar G. Encarnación. Russia and Eurasia Oilopoly: Putin, power and the new Russia. By Marshall Goldman. Russian civil–military relations: Putin's legacy. By Thomas Gomart. Axis of convenience: Moscow, Beijing, and the new geopolitics. By Bobo Lo. Middle East and North Africa Harmonizing foreign policy: Turkey, the EU and the Middle East. By Mesut Özcan. Sub‐Saharan Africa Africa: altered states, ordinary miracles. By Richard Dowden. Crouching tiger, hidden dragon?: Africa and China. Edited by Kweku Ampiah and Sanusha Naidu. China returns to Africa: a rising power and a continent embrace. Edited by Chris Alden, Daniel Large and Ricardo Soares de Oliveira. China into Africa: trade, aid and influence. Edited by Robert I. Rotberg. Gulliver's troubles: Nigeria's foreign policy after the Cold War. Edited by Adekeye Adebajo and Abdul Raufu Mustapha. Becoming Somaliland. By Mark Bradbury. Crude continent: the struggle for Africa's oil prize. By Duncan Clarke. Asia and Pacific Descent into chaos: how the war against Islamic extremism is being lost in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Central Asia. By Ahmed Rashid. Korea. By Christoph Bluth. Butcher and bolt. By David Loyn. North America The American civilizing process. By Stephen Mennell. Latin America and Caribbean US presidents and Latin American interventions: pursuing regime change in the Cold War. By Michael Grow.     

Neo-conservatives and their American critics

This review article examines four recent American books relating, in very different ways, to the rise of unilateralism and neo-conservatism in the United States. Richard Perle and David Frum, former advisors to George W. Bush robustly present the 'neo-conservative' case. Max Boot, another unilateralist, argues from the experience of American history that small wars have often been as important as big wars in projecting American power; and he suggests that this experience has a present-day relevance. Ivo Daalder (who served in the Clinton administration) and his co-author James Lindsay, set out to explain the 'Bush revolution' in foreign policy and put it in context. They insist that Bush is not a mere tool of his advisors, who are in any case not homogenous. His foreign policy strategy is indeed new, although it has given rise to certain unresolved problems. Robert McNamara (a former US Defense Secretary) and James Blight, share the fear of nuclear terrorism but argue that it can only be contained through the universal elimination of weapons of mass destruction, under the supervision of a possibly reformed UN. They oppose the unilateral use of force by the US except when America itself is attacked. They also argue that the US must change its posture from 'deterrence' to 'reassurance' and show more empathy in addressing the concerns of other countries and communities.
The review concludes that America is now deeply divided over its foreign policy and that events, rather than arguments, may decide the outcome of the debate.     

World population growth,family planning,and American foreign policy

The US decision since the 1960s to link foreign policy with family planning and population control is noteworthy for its intention to change the demographic structure of foreign countries and the magnitude of the initiative. The current population ideologies are part of the legacy of 19th century views on science, morality, and political economy. Strong constraints were placed on US foreign policy since World War II, particularly due to presumptions about the role of developing countries in Cold War ideology. Domestic debates revolved around issues of feminism, birth control, abortion, and family political issues. Since the 1960s, environmental degradation and resource depletion were an added global dimension of US population issues. Between 1935 and 1958 birth control movements evolved from the ideologies of utopian socialists, Malthusians, women's rights activists, civil libertarians, and advocates of sexual freedom. There was a shift from acceptance of birth control to questions about the role of national government in supporting distribution of birth control. Immediately postwar the debates over birth control were outside political circles. The concept of family planning as a middle class family issue shifted the focus from freeing women from the burdens of housework to making women more efficient housewives. Family planning could not be taken as a national policy concern without justification as a major issue, a link to national security, belief in the success of intervention, and a justifiable means of inclusion in public policy. US government involvement began with agricultural education, technological assistance, and economic development that would satisfy the world's growing population. Cold War politics forced population growth as an issue to be considered within the realm of foreign policy and diplomacy. US government sponsored family planning was enthusiastic during 1967-74 but restrained during the 1980s. The 1990s has been an era of redefinition of the issues and increased divisiveness among environmentalists, feminists, and population control advocates. The current justification of US population program assistance is based on concern for the health of women and children. Future changes will be dependent on ideology, theology, and political philosophy.     

美国对台湾的援助政策初探:1949～1953年

1949～1953年是冷战开始后美台关系的起点.这一时期美国对台湾的援助政策具有相当的稳定性,尽管在执行过程中采取了一些“模糊”策略,但并不存在由“放弃”到“扶植”的明确转折,更没有放弃台湾的切实行动.至1953年共和党执政时,美国对台湾援助政策的最大限度是将其作为“战略后备军”服务于美国的远东冷战.     

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.     

Paving the Way for Baghdad: The US Invasion of Panama, 1989

ABSTRACT

In December 1989, the United States unleashed its might against Panama. The invasion, Operation Just Cause, was the largest military operation conducted by the US since Vietnam and its first post-Cold War intervention. US troops invaded a foreign country, quickly occupied it, and withdrew before engendering a violent insurgency. Although George H. W. Bush authorized an illegal invasion which invited international denunciation, its quick and successful resolution concealed serious issues. Senior officials who served Bush senior, but who badly failed his son, also drew important lessons from the invasion. Just Cause demonstrated how a small and mobile force using overwhelming firepower could decapitate an enemy regime and establish the conditions for the development of a democratic state. The invasion also prefigured the justification for US interventionism in the post-Cold War: spreading democracy and protecting human rights. An easy victory on the surface, the Panamanian intervention paved the way for a greater calamity on the Tigris decades later. Just Cause provided US policy-makers with a false sense of confidence and optimism that paved the path for the invasion of Baghdad in 2003.     

The collapse of British foreign policy

British foreign policy has tried to balance between the United States and continental Europe for the past half-century, with an unambiguous commitment to a special relationship with Washington and an ambiguous commitment to European integration. New Labour has followed its predecessors in this, claiming that Britain can act as a bridge between America and Europe, or as a pivot around which transatlantic relations turn. In the wake of the Iraq war, deepened scepticism in Washington about whether close European cooperation is in America's interest, and scepticism across continental Europe that Britain can or should act as a privileged interlocuteur, have undermined both ends of the bridge on which British foreign policy claims to rest. The end of US commitment to Atlanticism, together with post-Cold War divergence between US and European interests and values, should have led to a shift in British priorities towards closer cooperation with other major European states and-from that shared perspective-an attempt to reconstruct a more balanced transatlantic relationship. The EU presents a sadly weak framework for such a strategy; but Britain's domestic debate, in which this government-like its predecessors-has allowed a Eurosceptic press to shape the language of foreign policy, has made it more difficult for any government to change direction. Recent government speeches on foreign policy, however, suggest that ministers still cling to the illusion that Britain has a 'unique' position between Europe and the United States.     

Australian defence policy and the concept of self-reliance

Since the Vietnam War, Australian defence policy has been based on the concept of self-reliance—the ability to defend Australia without allied combat forces. Self-reliance arose from concerns about US support in conflict with Indonesia. It has implications for Australian foreign policy, force structuring, joint operations and the defence industry, which were most coherently laid out in the 1987 White Paper. Later White Papers adapted this framework, but the 2013 White Paper seems to move towards a new approach to defence policy and strategy, which continued use of the term ‘self-reliance’ obscures rather than elucidates.     

Book reviews

Book reviewed in this articles. Constructivism and international relations: Alexander Wendt and his critics. Edited by Stefano Guzzini and Anna Leander. Agents, structures and international relations: politics as ontology. by Colin Wight. Harry Potter and international relations. Edited by Daniel H. Nexon and Iver B. Neumann. The ethics of territorial borders: drawing lines in the shifting sand. by John Williams. The parliament of man: the United Nations and the quest for world government. by Paul Kennedy. Peace at any price: how the world failed Kosovo. by Iain King and Whit Mason. The first ten years of the WTO, 1995‐2005. by Peter Gallagher. Normalization of US‐China relations: an international history. Edited by William C. Kirby, Robert S. Ross and Gong Li. Of law and war. by David Kennedy. War and the law of nations: a general history. by Stephen C. Neff. The making of a terrorist: recruitment, training and root causes. Edited by James Forest. Economic justice in an unfair world: toward a level playing field. by Ethan B. Kapstein. The next great globalization: how disadvantaged nations can harness their financial systems to get rich. by Frederic S. Mishkin. Italy and Albania: financial relations in the fascist period. by Alessandro Roselli. International law and sustainable development: lessons from the law of international watercourses. by Alistair Rieu‐Clarke. From world war to Cold War: Churchill, Roosevelt and the international history of the 1940s. by David Reynolds. War and state formation in ancient China and early modern Europe. by Victoria Tin‐bor Hui. A time for peace: the legacy of the Vietnam War. by Robert D. Schulzinger. The rift between America and old Europe: the distracted eagle. by Peter H. Merkl. The geopolitics of Euro‐Atlantic integration. by Hans Mouritzen. Managing EU‐US relations: actors, institutions and the new transatlantic agenda. by Rebecca Steffenson. Designing democracy: EU enlargement and regime change in post‐communist Europe. by Geoffrey Pridham. The year of Europe: America, Europe and the energy crisis 1972‐4. Edited by Keith Hamilton and Patrick Salmon. Albania as dictatorship and democracy: from isolation to the Kosovo war, 1946‐8. by Owen Pearson. I. B. Military and society in post‐Soviet Russia. Edited by Stephen L. Webber and Jennifer G. Mathers. Russian conservatism and its critics: a study in political culture. by Richard Pipes. The Middle East in international relations: power, politics and ideology. by Fred Halliday. Constructing international relations in the Arab world. by Fred H. Lawson. The trouble with Africa: why foreign aid isn't working. by Robert Calderisi. Security dynamics in Africa's Great Lakes region. Edited by Gilbert M. Khadiagala. In the line of fire: a memoir. by Pervez Musharraf. China's rise in Asia: promises and perils. by Robert G. Sutter. Making China policy: from Nixon to G. W. Bush. by Jean A. Garrison. Hungry for peace: international security, humanitarian assistance, and social change in North Korea. by Hazel Smith. How Bush rules: chronicles of a radical regime. by Sidney Blumenthal. The one percent doctrine: deep inside America's pursuit of its enemies since 9/11. by Ron Suskind.     

Revisiting the Linkage: PDD 25, Genocide in Rwanda and the US Peacekeeping Experience of the 1990s

After the successful US–UN action in Operation Desert Storm in 1991, by the mid-1990s Washington's enthusiasm for multilateral action had already faded away. This was evident after the ‘Black Hawk Down’ disaster of the US Mission in Somalia in October 1993 and the release of a much more restrictive peacekeeping policy in May 1994 (PDD-25). The US inaction during the following Rwandan genocide in spring 1994 was then seen as the obvious consequence of the American ‘trauma’ in Somalia, as well as the symbol of Washington's withdrawal from peacekeeping commitments. However, in the light of new archival documents a different scenario emerges. This article shows that the consequential link, often stressed by the literature, between the Somali disaster, the release of PDD-25 and American inaction in Rwanda is much less straightforward. This suggests that the policy in Rwanda was not just a consequence of the Somali debacle and that the reasons for US inaction toward the genocide must be gauged within a broader set of factors. The study of Washington's policy in Rwanda thus becomes a significant case to investigate some broader patterns of post-Cold War American foreign policy and to re-evaluate the US peacekeeping experience of the 1990s.