Politics
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization's (NATO's) bombing campaign in Kosovo and the refusal of most Western leaders to regard it as war have prompted numerous questions about the nature of this episode in European history. The debate on 'Kosovo' indicates that there is considerable uncertainty about war as a concept. A serious critique on the concept of war has surfaced, and alternative articulations are frequently explored. A broad sphere of non-war has emerged. Within a new constellation, war remains first and foremost a memory from the past. There is the sphere of classic war, which remains based on the modern story of states, sovereignty and territoriality. In Kosovo, war has transcended its modern meaning without becoming an integral part of the new and incoming, and without altogether leaving behind the old ideas of war.
The conflict in Kosovo represents a significant watershed in post-Cold War international security. Interpreting its political and operational significance should reveal important clues for understanding international security in the new millennium. This text analyses the international response to the crisis in Kosovo and its broader implications, by examining its diplomatic, military and humanitarian features. Despite the widely held perception that the conflict in Kosovo has implications for international security, unravelling them can be challenging, as it remains an event replete with paradoxes. There are many such paradoxes. The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) entered into the conflict ostensibly to head off a humanitarian catastrophe, only to accelerate the catastrophe by engaging in a bombing campaign; the political aims of all the major players contradicted the military means chosen by them in the conflict. The Russian role in the diplomatic efforts demonstrated that NATO did not want Russia to be involved but in the end needed its involvement. Russia opposed the bombing campaign but ultimately did not have enough power or influence to rise above a role as NATO's messenger; the doctrinal hurdles to achieving ‘immaculate coercion’ by use of air power alone seemed to tumble in the face of apparent success; it is ultimately unclear how or why NATO succeeded.
In the eyes of some observers, the Kosovo crisis posed the greatest threat to relations between Russia and the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) since the end of the Cold War. This chapter first charts the course of Russian policy towards, and involvement in dealing with, the Kosovo crisis. It then examines the longer term impact of the crisis on relations between Russia and NATO. Russia and the leading NATO members were extensively engaged in discussing what to do about the developing crisis in Kosovo in 1997 and 1998. Two main forums were utilised for the conduct of these conversations, which produced a greater degree of agreement than is sometimes supposed. They were the Contact Group and the United Nations Security Council. When Russia and the NATO members began to disagree, it was over the possible use of coercion in order to impose a settlement on President Slobodan Milosevic of the former Yugoslavia. The launch of Operation Allied Force on March 24, 1999 followed the final breakdown of negotiations.
Amidst the generally positive reactions generated by the 2005 European Union (EU)-Ukraine Summit, one Ukrainian commentator went as far as to call the occasion 'a leap forward to Europe'. The 'new' Ukrainian leadership, which had come to power following the 'Orange Revolution' roughly a year before, had been eager to stage a public event that would catch the imagination of its pro-European electorate. In discussions on possible EU enlargement, the case of Ukraine remained the most controversial accession, after Turkish membership. While the EU provided a constructive point of reference for Ukraine, because of its positive public connotations and through an articulated set of agreements and programmes, Brussels' policy line was reviewed, as a result of a transformed political environment in Ukraine. Memorandum of Understanding was signed on co-operation in the field of energy, aiming at integrating the Ukrainian energy market into the EU, thereby enhancing the state's energy security.
This chapter investigates the role of European Union (EU) institutional actors at the treaty level in the process of constructing an Area of Freedom, Security and Justice (AFSJ). It deals with the main advances of the Constitutional Treaty which resulted in the Lisbon Treaty. The Lisbon Treaty amends two separate bodies of treaties: the Treaty on European Union (TEU), and the Treaty on the Functioning of the Union (TFEU). The chapter analyses the role of the European Commission, acting to initiate and push for a process of normative change among EU decisionmakers, as well as concrete institutional change, which is both part of its role as a supranational policy entrepreneur (SPE). While the Commission developed the so-called 'Plan D' to improve communication between the EU and its citizens, the European Council Summit of 17 and 18 June 2005 decided that a 'reflection period' lasting until 2007 was necessary.
The development of both the Israeli and Palestinian media explains why Palestinian cartoonists fail to enjoy the political freedom of their Israeli counterparts and why Israeli cartoonists do not benefit from the government subsidies Palestinians cartoonists enjoy. Despite intertwined histories, and shared experiences with Ottoman and British rule, distinctly different media regimes evolved in Israel and Palestine that shaped their cartoons' content. This chapter examines three Israeli papers: Ha'aretz, Yediot Achronot and Maariv. History has made Maariv fiercely competitive with Yediot Achronot, although the former is perceived to have lost the innovative edge it once enjoyed after it lagged in introducing colour and tabloid style reporting. The chapter also examines three Palestinian papers: Al-Ayyam, Al Quds, and Al-Hayat al-Jadida. Where Al-Quds is a commercially driven independent press and Al-Ayyam is a loyal self-censoring outlet, Al-Hayat al-Jadida is the ideological mouthpiece of the Palestinian Authority (PA).
In the story of post-Cold War conceptual confusion, the war in and over Kosovo stands out as a particularly interesting episode. This book provides new and stimulating perspectives on how Kosovo has shaped the new Europe. It breaks down traditional assumptions in the field of security studies by sidelining the theoretical worldview that underlies mainstream strategic thinking on recent events in Kosovo. The book offers a conceptual overview of the Kosovo debate, placing these events in the context of globalisation, European integration and the discourse of modernity and its aftermath. It then examines Kosovo's impact on the idea of war. One of the great paradoxes of the war in Kosovo was that it was not just one campaign but two: there was the ethnic cleansing campaign in Kosovo and the allied bombing campaign against targets in Kosovo and all over Serbia. Serbia's killing of Kosovo has set the parameters of the Balkanisation-integration nexus, offering 'Europe' (and the West in general) a unique opportunity to suggest itself as the strong centre that keeps the margins from running away. Next, it investigates 'Kosovo' as a product of the decay of modern institutions and discourses like sovereignty, statehood, the warring state or the United Nations system. 'Kosovo' has introduced new overtones into the European Weltanschauung and the ways in which 'Europe' asserts itself as an independent power discourse in a globalising world: increasingly diffident, looking for firm foundations in the conceptual void of the turn of the century.
This chapter outlines the contrasting rationale for, expectations of and disappointment with the Oslo Peace Process as a necessary precursor for testing whether Israeli and Palestinian cartoons anticipated the outbreak of violence in October 2000. With no foreseeable resolution to the conflict, Israelis and Palestinians were forced to consider radical alternatives. The anticipated influx of capital provided the much-needed financial support for the peace talks. Peace also ended Israeli control, granting Palestinians their long-sought self-determination. From the Israeli perspective, Yasser Arafat's repeated rejection of Israeli concessions without providing viable counter-offers only seemed to confirm Israeli fears that Palestinians never intended to end the conflict. A major economic downturn in 1985 exacerbated the predicament of Palestinians in the territories, as hyperinflation caused Palestinian wages to collapse while unemployment quadrupled. The six years of sustained wide-scale protests against Israeli rule that ensued fundamentally altered Israeli attitudes towards the West Bank and Gaza.
The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation's (NATO) use of military power against the government of Slobodan Milosevic of the former Yugoslavia over Kosovo has been among the most controversial aspects of the Alliance's involvement in South East Europe since the end of the Cold War. The air operations between March and June 1999 have been variously described as war, ‘humanitarian war’, ‘virtual war’, intervention and ‘humanitarian intervention’. Key features of the debates over NATO's employment of military power have been concerned with its legality and legitimacy (that is, the role of the United Nations and international law), its ethical basis, and its impact on the doctrine of non-intervention in the domestic affairs of states. The conceptual debates that have raged over these issues are important not only within the context of European security but more generally for their impact on the international system as a whole. This chapter examines these issues by exploring why NATO undertook military action over Kosovo, the kind of armed conflict that it engaged in, and whether such a resort to force can be justified.
In his 1990 survey of literature on the Northern Ireland conflict, John Whyte suggested that, in proportion to its size, the region represented 'the most heavily researched area on earth'. He estimated that some 7,000 books and articles might have been written on the Northern Ireland conflict. The essentialist conception of the Northern Ireland 'problem' which has predominated within the British State dovetails neatly with the argument of those who would offer consociationalism as the appropriate political 'solution'. Moreover, essentialism lends itself to an excessive readiness to hand over power to the very ethnopolitical entrepreneurs, taken to be merely the passive representatives of ethnic 'communities', whose protagonism has driven the conflict itself. Ethnic protagonism in the name of identity came to be articulated in terms of the 'politics of recognition'. 'Nationalist politics' is indeed incurious at best about working 'across communities'.