FEUILLETON: 25 Years Since NATO's Bombing of Serbia (Part 24): American Hegemony, NATO Expansion, and the Yugoslav Wars' Significance

Written for Kosovo Online by Dragan Bisenic

During the NATO Alliance's attack on Serbia, NATO celebrated its 50th anniversary at the Washington summit from April 23 to 25, 1999. The Yugoslav crisis, culminating with Kosovo, catalyzed debates about NATO's fate and its uncertain future post-Cold War. Saving NATO became a major task for Western foreign policy experts, and the Yugoslav wars served as a laboratory to test the validity of various ideas. Eventually, the notion that NATO should not only survive but expand to include former Soviet satellites and Central and Eastern European countries prevailed. This summit marked the pinnacle and climax of the Yugoslav crisis. Notably, NATO's first expansion occurred amid the attacks on Serbia, coinciding with NATO’s 50th anniversary.

This summit also redefined NATO and the Yugoslav crisis. The Yugoslav crisis shaped the “new NATO.” The primary "architect" of this new organization was Stephen Larabee, a senior expert at the RAND Corporation, making him an invaluable commentator to contextualize the events in Yugoslavia and the Kosovo crisis within a broader security framework.

"There were two opinions. The first was that NATO had existed for 50 years and with the disappearance of the Soviet threat, it had outlived its purpose. The second opinion, which my colleagues and I held, was that NATO needed to adapt to the new security landscape and challenges, incorporating new democratic states in Central and Eastern Europe into the European Union and NATO itself," said Stephen Larabee, one of the leading proponents of NATO's eastward expansion and the Partnership for Peace. "We had the advantage because nobody took us seriously. Therefore, our opposition was so weak. Seriously speaking, people understood there was a risk of a security vacuum in Eastern and Southeastern Europe. The only way to prevent this was to expand both the European Union and NATO. Richard Holbrooke's arrival from his position as ambassador in Berlin to Assistant Secretary of State for Europe greatly aided this. But most people still didn't believe it. They thought we were foolish. Once, I was told, 'In Washington, nobody believes what you are saying, except for two people.' I asked, 'Who are they?' 'President Clinton and his National Security Advisor Anthony Lake,' was the answer," Larabee recounted.

He emphasized, "It was very important that the USA took a leading role in transforming NATO and stabilizing Central and Eastern Europe." However, this was achieved very gradually. "Bosnia played a crucial role and dramatically showcased how unstable the situation was. It was important that Bosnia not be repeated elsewhere. Vaclav Havel and Lech Walesa played very important roles in the internal debate in the USA, recognizing how crucial it was for the USA to engage in Central and Eastern Europe. The German government and its then Defense Minister, Volker Rühe, were very accommodating and helpful. George Soros also played a significant role," the RAND analyst testified.

Ambassador Robert Hunter was even more direct. I first met Robert Hunter, the U.S. Ambassador to NATO from 1993-1998, in May 1998 at an American Enterprise Institute conference held in Istanbul. He told me then that "Bosnia was a life experience for NATO" in which the military alliance "played a crucial role." "Bosnia almost destroyed the alliance, but later became its salvation. We have spent there 870 days, with all 16 allies and 14 partner countries." Hunter was, of course, very well-informed. Just after completing his term in Brussels, which he found entirely satisfactory. During his tenure, significant changes occurred. When he arrived as the newly appointed U.S. ambassador to NATO in 1993, Robert Hunter noted he could not hide his surprise when he found himself at the headquarters of the Western military alliance. The morale of his disheartened colleagues and employees was at rock bottom; the alliance had no clear direction, as there was no obvious path for NATO to follow after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

In the same year, but in early September, I met with Robert Hunter again at a seminar on the Greek island of Halki, held amid the first NATO alerts that could lead to the bombing of Serbia if Milosevic did not accept the arrival of the OSCE mission in Kosovo. Hunter then published an article in the newspaper Katemarini where he imagined there was no better opportunity for a NATO armed intervention than marking half a century of its existence, which would happen the following year.

The former U.S. Ambassador to NATO wrote that the alliance had to begin bombing before the 50th anniversary of NATO because, without it, it would be impossible to keep all members on the same line while admitting ten new states without internal debate about the meaning and reasons for NATO's continued existence. Furthermore, he clearly stated that NATO's credibility was at stake. For Hunter, this was proof that NATO had finally found its new mission. On that occasion, NATO published a special, ceremonial publication for the half-century of NATO's existence. "Bosnia saved NATO in the real sense," he repeated the words from an interview he gave me a year earlier in his contribution to the celebration of 50 years of the alliance held amid the bombing of Serbia in Washington.

Many believed the bombing was an effort to preserve and strengthen American hegemony in the world as envisioned by the neoconservatives, who had significant ideological influence during the Clinton administration.

Leading neoconservatives, William Kristol and Robert Kagan, published their manifesto in the July/August 1996 issue of Foreign Affairs, calling for a return to "neo-Reaganite foreign policy" immediately after Bob Dole's defeat in the presidential race against Bill Clinton, which they called "benevolent global hegemony," countering "Patrick Buchanan's neo-isolationism" and "Henry Kissinger's realism." For them, the state at that time, when America chose Clinton, a president who wanted to neglect foreign policy, resembled the 1970s when America adjusted to coexistence with the Soviet Union, and Ronald Reagan challenged such a societal consensus. Proposing a controversial vision of ideological and strategic victory over the forces of international communism, Reagan sought to end retreating before the Soviet threat, significant increases in defense spending, resistance to communist advances in the "third world," and greater moral clarity and objectives in U.S. foreign policy. He celebrated the idea of American "exceptionalism" and did not accept limitations on American power imposed by domestic political realities. Reagan began a war within his own party and challenged Gerald Ford, who was selected as the Republican presidential candidate in 1976, primarily on issues of foreign policy and Henry Kissinger as a leading figure in American foreign policy, accusing him of his dominance in American foreign policy "precisely coinciding with the loss of American military superiority." Reagan failed to remove Ford, but won the battle for the Republican nomination, precisely on the platform of "morality in foreign policy." Reagan managed to transform the Republican Party, the conservative movement in America, and after winning the 1980 elections, to do the same in the world. Just a few years later, Reagan's call for "exceptionalism" did not survive the Bush administration, where "self-proclaimed pragmatists like James Baker considered it simpler to justify the victory in the Gulf War before the American public as a 'job' rather than defending a world order shaped according to American interests and objectives," write the neoconservative leaders.

"Benevolent global hegemony" is the new strategy they seek, and in it, they consider bad policy to be one that would reduce America's role in the post-Cold War era. After the defeat of the "evil empire," America enjoys strategic and ideological dominance. The first goal of American foreign policy is to preserve and increase that dominance by strengthening American security, supporting its friends, helping their interests, and supporting those principles worldwide. Hegemony is nothing less or more than being the leader with the most influence and power over everything they possess. That is America's position in the world. Leaders of Russia and China understand this, as the authors illustrate with criticisms that Yeltsin and Jiang Zemin directed at the USA for "world hegemony." Kristol and Kagan enjoy that criticism because they consider it a "compliment" and "guidance on how to act." In the same way, they proudly call upon the opinion of other enemies, such as then-current Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic: "The simple truth of this era was spoken by Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic, as he tried to explain why he wanted to reach a final agreement with Washington. 'As a pragmatist,' claims one Serbian politician, 'Milosevic knows that all U.S. satellites are in a better position than those who are not satellites' Kagan and Kristol call on the USA to turn to "neo-Reaganite foreign policy of military superiority and moral trust." The usual post-war question – what is the threat, they consider wrongly posed. In a world where global peace and American security depend on American power, the most important threat America faces and will face in the future is its own weakness. "American hegemony is the only appropriate defense against threatening peace and international order. Therefore, the appropriate goal of American foreign policy is, accordingly, to preserve American hegemony as long as possible in the future." Preserving American hegemony is not a matter of trivia or details but long-term and strategic thinking and planning. It is therefore not important whether the USA continues to give China the status of most favored nation as much as it is important that the USA has a strategy of containment, influence, and unconditional demands for regime change in China. Whether NATO will expand in five or ten years or even later is less important than whether NATO remains strong and unified under decisive American leadership. It doesn't matter whether the USA builds 20 B2 bombers or three fewer, as long as military planners have enough money to make "intelligent choices" driven more by strategic than budgetary demands.

To preserve American hegemony, three "imperatives" must be met: military budget, citizen participation, and moral clarity. At the time the text was written, the Clinton administration was approved an additional $7 billion to maintain peace in Bosnia and implement the Dayton Agreement, which was a military budget of a total of $267 billion. To preserve the American role as "global hegemon," between $60 and $80 billion should be spent each year, estimate Kristol and Kagan, because their opinion is that Clinton's military budget is too small to meet the demands, and funds for research and development have been reduced by more than half. They believe that only the conviction of every power that there is no chance of any military competition with the USA can prevent countries like China or Iran from challenging the world order or wanting to compete in technology or force numbers. "Americans should rejoice that their military costs are higher than the next six countries combined," they claim, referring to the 19th-century British standard of "double power," namely that the British navy must be twice as large as the next two naval powers combined. They propose that the USA adopt a similar standard of double, triple, or quadruple size.

However, American citizens do not meet the expectations for "empire management." "American soldiers face unwarranted suspicions that they serve as some kind of foreign legion, on their difficult tasks they will not have the support of American citizens who are too busy reducing taxes at home. Poor political leadership and poor education of the citizenry about the responsibilities of global hegemony have created a growing separate and alienated military culture. Ask any mechanic or cleaner on an aircraft carrier why he patrols the oceans and he will be able to give you a more sophisticated answer about the significance of power than 99 percent of graduate students can. It is completely misguided to imagine that the USA can effectively lead the world when the vast majority of the population neither understands nor is involved in any real way in international missions," write Kaplan and Kristol.

Henry Kissinger was a great supporter of NATO expansion and one of the first Westerners to demand changes in NATO during the Cold War.

The debate on the future of NATO was produced, as Kissinger believed, by the "debacle" in Bosnia. In his text "Expand NATO Now," published on December 14, 1994, in the "Washington Post," he highlighted that the level of bitter accusations due to Bosnia within the Atlantic Alliance was unmatched since the Suez Crisis nearly four decades earlier. Kissinger assessed that the causes of the Bosnian debacle were twofold. First, it arose due to conceptual failures within each of the allied governments, not because of the structure of the alliance "which was never designed to deal with ethnic conflicts on its periphery."

On the contrary, Western democracies would have thought well before recognizing a Bosnian state within borders that reflect none of the ethnic, linguistic, or historical unities traditionally associated with nationality. "What led these statesmen to think – if they indeed thought – that Croats, Serbs, and Muslims, whose mutual hatred caused the breakup of Yugoslavia, could coexist in a unitary state in much smaller Bosnia," Kissinger wondered.

The gala dinner held on April 24 was triumphant but also full of uncertainty, as the war showed no signs of ending soon. There were 42 delegations, and each was allowed to include 10 people at dinner. The remaining 300 guests were gathered from cabinets, ministries of state and defense, and Congress and included several prominent names. The White House did not release the guest list, but retired General Colin Powell, Henry Kissinger, Alexander Haig, Robert J. and Elizabeth Dole, and Strom Thurmond were noticed in the crowd. "This is probably the greatest concentration of political power under one tent ever," noted Latvian Ambassador Ojars Kalnins.

Senate debates, which had been regularly held in previous years, always accounted for developments in the Balkans, Bosnia, and Kosovo. The decision to expand NATO was then adopted, despite clear warnings from George Kennan: "But here is something of the utmost importance. And perhaps it is not too late to express an opinion which, I believe, is not just my own but is shared by many others with extensive and in most cases, more recent experience in Russian affairs. The opinion, frankly expressed, is that the expansion of NATO would be the most fateful mistake of American policy in the entire post-Cold War era."

Clark went to Washington with the intention of strengthening his arguments for a ground operation and accelerating work on it. Before that, he talked to Madeleine Albright, at a working breakfast with him, on April 12. Albright arranged for him that it depends on him. "I did the best I could and they called it my war, so they dumped everything on me. Now they will dump everything on you," Albright told him. Clark noted that he did not want to ask who "they" were, but it is easy to assume that it was the military leadership, which had long been in conflict with Madeleine Albright.

When he arrived, the Secretary of Defense, William Cohen, specifically ordered him not to talk about ground troops. "Nothing about ground forces. We have to make the air operation work or we will both be writing our resignations," Cohen told Clark.

"The New York Times" soon assessed that this "turned Cohen and General Shelton more into managers than commanders, trying to balance various domestic and international demands while maintaining support for the efforts." "Reflecting the Pentagon's caution regarding the war, Cohen and General Shelton resist any escalation of the conflict that would draw the military into a ground operation," the newspaper noted.

The way they played their roles shaped some of the everyday decisions in conducting the war. The nature of the operation also shaped their roles. The New York Times assumed that tensions inevitably appeared, and Clark's aides say that the Pentagon's caution and checks and balances clash with the urgency of his war commander's fighter to strengthen the fight.

General Shelton's main aides say that Shelton thought that NATO's planning staff in Mons, Belgium, was inexperienced in planning war. "Saceur's staff is not a warfighting staff," said one of Shelton's aides, using the military acronym for the Supreme Allied Commander Europe's staff. "They have never led or planned any war," he said.

General Shelton also had to balance General Clark's demands for forces with the demands of other American field commanders around the world.

In other respects, however, Cohen strongly supported General Clark, urging his colleagues in NATO allies to approve more bombing targets and resisting calls for pauses in air strikes.

For Cohen, this was a turnaround. As a senator, he opposed sending American troops to Bosnia, but as Secretary of Defense, according to Samuel Berger, he was an "early and strong advocate" of bombing Yugoslavia.

Clinton, in negotiating a book by one of his advisors, Nancy Soderberg, states that the USA, "just joined the concert of allies in NATO strikes on Serbian forces, both in Bosnia and in Kosovo." Thus Clinton avoids mentioning that it was a war, not just an ordinary action. Wesley Clark says, "Actually, we weren't allowed to call it a war. But of course, it was a war."

The NATO summit in Washington, which began on April 23, 1999, was a major turning point. The first thirty days of the war went terribly wrong for NATO despite an intensified air campaign. The alliance miscalculated Milosevic's response; the public perceived NATO's decision as weak; and the credibility, relevance of NATO, even its very survival, was now endangered. This was not lost at the NATO ministers' meeting in Washington; consequently, the Summit became a turning point in the war.

U.S. National Security Advisor Samuel Berger later said that these leaders unanimously agreed with his words: "We will not lose. We will do whatever it takes, we will not lose." According to the statement of the heads of state and government, the crisis in Kosovo represents a fundamental challenge to the values that NATO has stood for since its founding: democracy, human rights, and the rule of law. This is the culmination of a deliberate policy of oppression, ethnic cleansing, and violence carried out by the Belgrade regime under the leadership of President Milosevic. We will not allow this campaign of terror to succeed. NATO is determined to win.