Q. Was NATO right to intervene in Kossovo?
There are many ways in which humanitarian intervention is viewed as a quintessentially "liberal" foreign policy practice, from the fact that liberal-democratic states have the principle initiators and the important role accorded to international institutions and the traditionally liberal concern for human rights. The 1999 Kossovo crisis is not an exception. If you look at the military operations carried out by the English-speaking nations in the last twenty years, the successes have been those which were undertaken either to expel a foreign invader, as in the Falklands in 1982 and Kuwait in 1991, or to overthrow a dictatorship which had negligible public support, as in Grenada in 1983, Panama in 1989 and Haiti in 1994. Getting involved in a civil war is much more risky. For example, the United Nations intervention in Somalia from 1992 to 1995 was a total fiasco, which achieved absolutely nothing. When a civil war breaks out in a backward Third World country such as Somalia, Sierra Leone, Algeria or the Sudan, both sides are usually just as bad as each other, so it is not worth backing either of them. These countries are not likely to become stable democracies in the foreseeable future, no matter what the Western powers do. In thes
Thousands of cluster bombs remain un exploded throughout kossovo and Serb territory"However some journalists have recently argued that even if the NATO powers succeeded in occupying Kossovo, the Serbs could harass them for years with guerrilla warfare. However, this strategy might have been ineffective because the entire region was already exhausted by war in 1995. If air alone had been successful in 1995 in convincing milosovic to withdraw his support for the Bosnia-Serbs then air power again, many, argued, could be used to persuade him to leave kossovo. There was little suggestion that any one state would or should unilaterally intervene and halt the ethnic cleansing. This is likely to encourage an even greater reliance on the veto of those Permanent Members who fear expansive subsequent interpretations"Issues of international law concern not only the legitimacy of the intervention (the ends) but also the way in which the intervention is conducted (the means). In contrast, "doves" were thought to take a more conciliatory approach over Kossovo, however, often these same "hawks" took the position of the "doves" - negotiate with milosovic, don't bomb. It is a part of Europe only two hours by jet from Heathrow Airport; nearer to us than some of the places where millions of Britons spend their summer holidays it was Robert Burns who said that even if you cannot right the world's wrongs, you should at least do what you can. I doubt this, because guerrilla warfare only works if there is a sympathetic local population to support the guerrillas. e sorts of cases, it would be wise to follow a policy of non-intervention and leave the combatants to stew in their own juice. The Alliance should have demonstrated its commitment to defending human rights by building up an invasion force so that, if diplomacy failed, it could have conducted a successful rescue mission" According to many political commentators, realism underplays the importance of international institutions and the increasing importance of multilateralism, even in matters of security. The trouble with Bosnia today is that the NATO powers are keeping it united by force. The conflict between the Serbs and the Kossovars is not a case of six of one and half a dozen of the other. The tension between "jus ad bellum" and "jus in bello" has been summed up by Michael walzer as the "dilemma of winning and fighting well: the military form of means/end problem, the central issue in political ethics"Moreover the means used to conduct the kossovo intervention, including NATO's choice of targets, its use of cluster bombs, and the tactic of bombing from a high altitude rather than the use of ground troops, proportional to the ends? In other words, did NATO contravene international law by the standards of "jus ad bellum"? The final report of the International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia (ICTY) suggested that allegations against NATO could not be sufficiently established to warrant a criminal investigation. They obviously thought the same tactic would work again. Moreover, bombing from the air contributed to, if not created, the ground conditions entirely conductive for ethnic cleansing to occur - precisely the situation NATO claimed it was seeking to avoid.
Common topics in this essay:
Kosovo Report,
Nicholas Wheeler,
Serbs Kossovars,
International Law,
Cold War,
,
Beating Serbs,
Independent Commission,
Security Council's,
Bosnia NATO,
international law,
human rights,
ethnic cleansing,
jus ad bellum,
intervene kossovo,
ad bellum,
political commentators,
cluster bombs,
jus ad,
nato powers,
humanitarian intervention,
commitment defending human,
defending human rights,
breach international law,
backward third world,
|
Acceptance Essays
