Deconstructing the Kosovo War

Kosovo, located in the Balkan Peninsula, has been an area of turbulence, turmoil, and general unrest throughout most of its history. Throughout the 20th century, Serbians and Albanians struggled with each other for control of the region. Kosovo is significant to Serbian identity; Serbians consider it to be the "cradle" of their culture.

However, ethnic Albanians make up nearly 90 percent of Kosovo's population. The 1974 Yugoslav constitution proclaimed Kosovo an autonomous province of Serbia. Following the death of Yugoslav President Josip Broz Tito in 1980, there was an increased desire by the Albanians to declare Kosovo's independence. Slobodan Miloševiæ, who was then a prominent Communist, used his notoriety to gain support by espousing a message of extreme Serbian nationalism, garnering enough support to eventually become President in 1989. Throughout the 1990's, the Albanians peacefully rebelled-through actions such as secretly educating their children in their native language-as Miloševiæ stripped Kosovo of its autonomy. After 8 years of nonviolent protest, the Albanians formed the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), which resorted to sometimes violent means. A plan introduced by the international community to end the crisis and bring peace to the region was reluctantly signed by the Albanians, but rejected by Miloševiæ. The Albanians continued to be brutally persecuted. Serbian forces began a campaign of ethnic cleansing against Albanians in Kosovo. This led to NATO's 11 week bomb campaign of the region, which came to be known as the Kosovo War and lasted from March 24 through June 10, 1999.

If nations should only go to war when they 'must', what exactly does 'must' mean? While I highly doubt that anyone would argue that war is ever good, wars can be fought in a just and honorable manner. When deconstructing this war in order to evaluate the morality of the actions taken by NATO[1], it is important to consider the three levels of justice. The first is ultimate justice, or the unrestricted value for every human life. The next is justice as law, or the legality of action within a particular society. And finally, the last is justice as ethics-what is considered to be good by society in general. To go a step beyond the three layers of justice, I will consider Just War Theory (each principle of which falls somewhere within the three layers of justice). There are two parts of Just War Theory, each of which is broken down into even smaller components: Jus ad bellum (justice in the events leading up to the war) and Jus in bello (justice in the events that make up the war itself). Jus ad bellum dictates tefore entering a war, a country must have:

· Just cause/right intention-(Justice as ethics)

· Proper authority-(Justice as law)

· The war must be a last resort (all other diplomatic solutions must be exhausted)-(Ultimate justice)

· Probability of success-(Justice as ethics)

· Proportionality (Do the ends justify the means?)-(Justice as ethics)

Jus in bello asserts that during a war, a country must:

· Discriminate between combatants and noncombatants-(Ultimate justice)

· Apply force in a proportional manner to avoid excessive civilian casualties-(Ultimate justice)

And so, the first aspect to be examined is the Jus ad bellum principle of just cause. In the case of the Kosovo War: according to their website, NATO's stated objectives were:

"To bring about a verifiable stop to all military action, violence and repression; the withdrawal from Kosovo of military personnel, police and paramilitary forces; the stationing in Kosovo of an international military presence; the unconditional and safe return of all refugees and displaced persons and unhindered access to them by humanitarian aid organizations; and the establishment of a political agreement for Kosovo in conformity with international law and the Charter of the United Nations."[2]

Prior to the coalition intervention, Albanians were suffering gross human rights violations in Kosovo. These violations included, among other things: rape and sexual assault, targeted killings, contamination of water wells, and compulsory labor. When I discussed the situation with a classmate of mine, an Albanian Kosovar and current student at Emerson College, (whose family remains in Kosovo) she made this analogy: "Just try and imagine what it would be like for you if you woke up every single day being afraid that Emerson Police would start beating you up outside the Little Building[3] for no reason at all, and you might get an idea of what it was like in Kosovo." Vaclav Havel, President of the Czech Republic made the observation of the Kosovo War: "If one can say that any war is ethical, or that it is being waged for ethical reasons, then it is true of this war. Kosovo has no oil fields to be coveted; no member nation in the alliance has any territorial demands; [...] [NATO] is fighting out of concern for the fate of others. It is fighting because no decent person can stand by and watch the systematic government-directed murder of other people... This war places human rights above the rights of states."[4] Therefore, NATO's actions were in accordance with the first principle of Jus as bellum.

The next principle, proper authority, is somewhat more complicated. The idea of authority between nations is somewhat vague. What gives a one nation authority over another? According to the North Atlantic Treaty[5]... safeguard the freedom, common heritage and civilisation of their peoples, founded on the principles of democracy, individual liberty and the rule of law. They seek to promote stability and well-being in the North Atlantic area."In this case, it was determined that the North Atlantic area could not reach stability until the atrocities were stopped in the Balkans. Furthermore, because of its proximity to Kosovo, Greece (a member of NATO) was predicted to incur a flood of Kosovar refugees and other instabilities. The United Nations' Security Council formally expressed serious alarm for the situation of human rights in Kosovo[6]. Although the NATO countries had public support from many key members of the United Nations-including Secretary General Kofi Annan-they could not attain official authorization for forceful intervention. Russian diplomats vowed to veto any such measure. In her book, The Mighty & the Almighty: Reflections on America, God, and World Affairs, former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright reflects on this dilemma: "We could allow Russia's threatened veto to stop us from acting, or we could use force to save the people of Kosovo even without the UN's explicit permission. I pushed hard and successfully for the second option [...] I did not want to see innocent people murdered."[7] Therefore, the question of proper authority is unclear. It could be argued that the NATO forces did not technically act under the proper authority during the Kosovo War.
, the goal of NATO countries is to "

The next condition of jus ad bellum is that any military action must be a last resort. Prior to NATO's intervention, the international community was involved in multiple efforts to diplomatically end the conflict in Kosovo. One of the final and most notable examples of international efforts is the negotiations that took place in Rambouillet, France in the early part of 1999. At those peace talks, the Albanians grudgingly agreed to end the struggle, but the Serbians refused. Hence, it is reasonable to assume that all realistic attempts at diplomacy had been exhausted prior to NATO's intervention.

The jus ad bellum portion of Just War Theory also dictates that before entering war, the warring party must determine that it has a reasonable chance to succeed. The sheer number of both military and financial resources possessed by the NATO countries in relation to Serbia meant an extremely high chance of success for the coalition. Furthermore, in order for NATO to take any military action, it must be unanimously agreed to by all allied countries. Therefore, the probability of success was very high.

The next question is of proportionality; that is to say, do the ends justify the means? According to Madeleine Albright, "Estimates of the number of civilians killed by the bombing range from 500 to 2,000 [...] The Serbs, before they were stopped, killed an estimated 10,000 Albanians in Kosovo and drove hundreds of thousands of more from their homes."[7] There were no ally casualties. Thus, the casualties of the Kosovo War made up only a small fraction of those being killed and otherwise victimized under Miloševiæ's rule. If the genocide went on without intervention, that number would have surely increased exponentially.

Given all of the evidence cited above, it is my conclusion that NATO was mostly justified in entering the Kosovo War. NATO met all conditions of jus ad bellum but one. The only debatable area is that of authority-which is fluid and anything but precise. But what about the actions of the coalition forces after the initial invasion of Kosovo?

The second portion of Just War Theory, jus in bello sets the standards for behavior after war has already been engaged. The first condition of this section of the theory declares that the military must discriminate between combatants and noncombatants. NATO and the Clinton administration maintain that there were only three civilian targets bombed, and that those were by mistake.

Finally, the final condition of Just War Theory states that the force applied must be proportional; that the military must avoid using excessive force. During this conflict, NATO refused to utilize ground troops-choosing to attack entirely from air. The benefit to this strategy was the obvious lesser risk for coalition forces (Once again, there were no coalition casualties). However, this tactic also put more civilians at risk because of the decreased accuracy of air strikes. In the early stages of the intervention, NATO forces targeted military structures exclusively, but then moved on to facilities such as power plants in an effort to make life more uncomfortable for those living in Kosovo, putting increased pressure on the government to surrender. Furthermore, because there were no ground troops to intervene, Miloševiæ and the Serbians continued their process of ethnic cleansing while the air strikes were taking place. While engaged in war, the actions of the NATO forces (while extremely logical as efforts to keep the number of coalition casualties), were at the very least questionable in their moral integrity. While I highly doubt that NATO intended to destroy noncombatants and further endanger Albanians, the reality is that they did.

Since the campaign ended in June of 1999, the citizens of Kosovo have enjoyed a significant increase in their overall well-being. Miloševiæ was indicted by the United Nations' International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and charged with 66 counts of crimes against humanity, including violations of the Geneva Conventions, torture, and genocide. He died while in custody before his trial could be completed. While Kosovo and the surrounding area still suffer from moderate instability and periodic protests, refugees feel safe enough that they have begun returning to Kosovo from Western Europe. Albanians no longer fear for their lives every time they leave their homes. In February of 2008, Kosovo even declared its independence with the hopes of creating a "democratic multiethnic state." The classmate I referred to earlier can also testify to the improved conditions in Kosovo since NATO's intervention:

"We no longer fear the police, because the police are Albanians and they don't terrorize us [like the Serbians] [...] we can go to university and high school and learn everything in Albanian. Before the war, unless we chose to attend class [spoken] in Serbian, [we] could not attend school period. People in the public sector finally have their jobs back. The Serbs fired all Albanian doctors, for example, because they refused to make Serbian the only language spoken in hospitals-basically if someone were dying from a heart attack and they didn't speak Serbian, the doctors could not treat them and they would die [...] Living conditions are now much better."

So, since the NATO forces violated some aspects of Just War Theory, does that mean that the Kosovo War was an entirely unjust war? I think not. As much as philosophers have tried to narrow ethics to an exact science, there are some elements of humanity that cannot be measured or even defined. And ethics can vary from culture to culture-or even person to person. As much as people would like to make ethical issues purely right or wrong, black or white, the truth is that there are many shades of gray. While the actions of NATO before and during the Kosovo War are debatably tainted with the fumes of injustice, the means did ultimately lead to a better end than international inaction would have. Therefore, I would classify the Kosovo War as a mostly just war.

Winston Churchill once said, "The price of greatness is responsibility [...] one cannot rise to be in many ways the leading community in the civilized world without being involved in its problems, without being convulsed by its agonies and inspired by its causes."[8] People of the United States and the other countries that make up NATO are people of conscience, capable at times of becoming so inspired as to rouse forces to stand up against injustice, inequality, and evils in order to change history. NATO's military action in Yugoslavia was basically just-and with the best of intentions: to help an oppressed people under the rule of a vicious dictator.

[1] North Atlantic Treaty Organization: includes Belgium, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, The Netherlands, Spain, Turkey, United Kingdom, United States, and others.

[2]"The Kosovo Air Campaign." North Atlantic Treaty Organizarion. 24 Jan. 2008
.

[3] The Little Building is a dormitory at Emerson College.

[4] Quoted in: Albright, Madeleine. The Mighty & the Almighty: Reflections on America, God, and
World Affairs. New York, NY: HarperCollins, 2006.

[5]"The North Atlantic Treaty." North Atlantic Treaty Organization. 4 Apr. 1949. 6
Apr. 2008 .

[6]Resolution 1199. 23 Sept. 1998. Security Council. United Nations. 4 Apr. 2008
.

[7]Albright, Madeleine. The Mighty & the Almighty: Reflections on America, God, and
World Affairs. New York, NY: HarperCollins, 2006.

[8] Churchill, Winston. "The Price of Greatness is Responsibility." Harvard University. 6 Sept. 1943.