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When Weak Nations Use Strong States: The Unintended Consequences of Intervention in the Balkans

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Christopher Marsh  and
Mark Heppner
Christopher Marsh
Affiliation:
Baylor University, U.S.A. Chris_marsh@baylor.edu
Mark Heppner
Affiliation:
Baylor University, U.S.A. Chris_marsh@baylor.edu
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Extract

In the years that have passed since NATO forcibly compelled Yugoslavia to withdraw its military and police forces from Kosovo and the province was placed under U. N. guardianship, the Kosovo crisis of 1999 has been examined from a variety of angles. Although many insightful analyses have documented the horrific and deplorable events that led up to the crisis, one important factor that has received relatively short shrift is the way in which the U. S. was drawn into the conflict. In particular, it has remained overlooked that the United States, qua superpower, had a significant impact on the policy formulations of the belligerent parties. This essay is based on the proposition that the United States does not formulate policy and operate in a vacuum, but rather that the U. S. is itself a critical factor in the calculations of other actors in the international system. These actors make strategic calculations based upon their expectations of American actions and reactions. The U. S. policymaking community, on the other hand, seems to formulate policies without considering the implications of the fact that other actors might anticipate U. S. actions or even attempt to provoke a desired response.

Type
Articles
Information
Nationalities Papers , Volume 31 , Issue 3 , September 2003 , pp. 281 - 293
Copyright
Copyright © 2003 Association for the Study of Nationalities 

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References

Notes

1. The term “Kosovo” is used here to refer to the Yugoslav province of Kosovo; “Kosova” (an anglicized form of the Albanian spelling) is only used in direct quotes. “Kosovo Albanians” is used instead of “Kosovar Albanians” or “Kosovars,” again except in direct quotations.Google Scholar

2. Book-length treatments include: Bacevich, Andrew and Cohen, Eliot, eds, War over Kosovo (New York: Columbia University Press, 2001); Lambeth, Benjamin, NATO's Air War for Kosovo (Santa Monica: RAND, 2001); and Stephen Hosmer, Why Milosevic Decided to Settle When He Did (Santa Monica: RAND, 2001). Some of the better article-length analyses have been: Lenard J. Cohen, “Kosovo: ‘Nobody's Country’,” Current History, March 2000, pp. 117–123; Chris Hedges, “Kosovo's Next Masters?”, Foreign Affairs, May-June 1999, pp. 24–42; and Tihomir Loza, “The KLA Cleansed,” Nation, 17 May 1999, pp. 5–6. For excellent accounts of the opposing viewpoints on NATO intervention in Kosovo, see William J. Buckley, ed., Kosovo: Contending Voices on Balkan Interventions (Grand Rapids: William Eerdmans, 2000), and Frank Columbus, ed., Kosovo-Serbia: A Just War? (Commack, NY: Nova Science, 1999).Google Scholar

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36. For discussion of what a Chinese collapse might look like, see Chang, Gordon, The Coming Collapse of China (New York: Random House, 2001).Google Scholar