Translated material
War of the "flower children"
10 years ago, NATO aircraft began to bomb Yugoslavia
Balkan tragedy. Ten years have passed since the start of the NATO military campaign against Yugoslavia, an event unprecedented in many respects
For the first time, the largest military-political bloc took upon itself the right to decide when and to what extent this force should be used, interpreting the resolutions of the UN Security Council quite freely. Finally, for the first time, a humanitarian catastrophe became the basis for full-scale hostilities - Belgrade was accused of genocide of the Albanian population of Kosovo. The latter is of key importance.
The War of the Flower Children The Yugoslav war was the culmination of the ideological development of the 1990s, when it seemed that the principles of international relations had changed with the end of the ideological confrontation. It was a war of "flower children" - a generation of politicians who were formed under the influence of the events of 1968.
Who made the decision to start fighting? US President Bill Clinton, an ardent opponent of the Vietnam War, who was hiding from the draft abroad. NATO Secretary General Javier Solana, a left-wing activist who fought against Francoism and Spain's membership in the North Atlantic Alliance. German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, who defended German leftists in courts. His Minister of Foreign Affairs Joschka Fischer, a participant in street fighting with the police. British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who came into politics on a wave of leftist sentiments with a strong desire to remake the party, the country and the whole world. The head of the Italian government, Massimo D'Alema, who left the university in 1968 to work in the ranks of the Italian Communist Party.
Leaders raised to reject state violence, in the spirit of the protest culture of 1968, turned out to be more "hawks" than the classical conservative realists Henry Kissinger or Senator Jesse Helms. Adherents of traditional geopolitics considered it absurd to use all the power of the West against a not very significant Balkan dictator, especially since neither the United States nor Europe could derive direct benefits from such a war.
But for the "children of 1968" it was a logical decision: as soon as there is the world's strongest military-political group, it must protect not only geopolitical interests, but also purely good goals - human rights and freedoms. Moreover, Slobodan Milosevic personified everything that the "sixties" hated: the imperial approach, aggressive nationalism and cynical political calculation.
The dragon, the slayer of the dragon The euphoria of "armed moralism" did not last long. The winner of the dragon himself was in his shoes.
The salvation of the Albanians turned into the expulsion of the Serbs. The broad interpretation of the UN Security Council resolution, which was allowed on the eve of the Yugoslav campaign, turned into a complete disregard for the Security Council on the eve of the Iraqi operation. The use of force to protect the persecuted, endorsed by Bill Clinton, degenerated into the forceful promotion of democracy practiced by George W. Bush. And Tony Blair, who sincerely called the Kosovo campaign a battle of "good against evil," dragged his own nation into a war in Iraq four years later, based on lies and fraud.
Final chapter? Kosovo was the last (hopefully) chapter of the Balkan tragedy. It was hard to believe that at the end of the 20th century, medieval customs could so easily and quickly reign in the center of Europe. Moreover, until the end of the 1980s, Tito's Yugoslavia gave the impression of a completely prosperous and very successful country that skillfully used its special position between East and West.
During the brutal Bosnian war, the most depressing thing was the complete impotence of the “civilized world”, which was incapable of anything to oppose the triumph of aggression and chauvinism. Dayton peace, which ended the Bosnian meat grinder, left an unpleasant feeling of a deal with the devil. The three leaders responsible for the fratricide - the Serb Slobodan Milosevic, the Croat Franjo Tudjman and the Muslim Aliya Izetbegovic shared the "trophies" under pressure, but also with the blessing of the West. From a moral point of view, elements of the agreements of that time, which were unattractive, still surface to this day. For example, the guarantees of inviolability that the American mediator Richard Holbrook gave to the Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic accused of war crimes.
When Kosovo “smoked” three years later, the nightmare of Munich and “appeasement of the aggressor”, the most shameful page in the history of the 20th century for the West, loomed before the world community. And the flows of Albanian refugees completely resurrected the inaction during the Holocaust. It is also worth recalling that five years earlier (in 1994) Europe and the United States were unable to stop the monstrous massacre in Rwanda. In three months, about a million representatives of the Tutsi people were destroyed, and international peacekeepers simply fled from the zone of events.
All together, this made me go on the bombing of Belgrade. There was a good goal - to prevent genocide. For the sake of this, they closed their eyes to many other things. For example, the fact that in Kosovo the Yugoslav people's army was opposed not only by defenseless peaceful Albanians, but also by well-trained and professionally equipped armed formations that did not shun provocations, terrorist attacks and outright banditry. As a result, it turned out that they were the main winners of that war ...
Open Questions The 1999 war and its aftermath were more disappointing than satisfying. Ten years after the Kosovo campaign, the questions that the fighting tried to answer are still open.
Where is the line beyond which “internal affairs” end and the need for outside intervention arises? What are the criteria for violence for good? Who is the judge who has the right to issue a verdict on the use of force? And finally, is the "civilized world" capable of not losing this quality by adopting the doctrine of "good with fists"?