Why did we bomb Belgrade

Bibliographic Data

ID3715728
AuthorsMichael Mccgwire (University of Wales, corresponding author)
Year2000
Volume76
Issue1
Pages1-23
Publication date2000-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueInternational Affairs (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0020-5850 • E-ISSN: 1468-2346
PublisherOxford University Press (OUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1111/1468-2346.00116
OpenAlexW2145504578
LanguageEN
Citations received10

We are told that Kosovo marks a new era of humanitarian intervention, when promoting and protecting values will be reason enough for coercive military action. However, a review of the evidence, as outlined in this article, suggests that it was Western interests, rather than values, that led to the largely unintended bombing campaign. One can identify two objectives underlying NATO policy—one substantive and the other relating to image. It was the latter that determined the timing of NATO's response to the Kosovo crisis, which had such damaging consequences, many yet to be fully realized. Kosovo shared several characteristics with the Suez crisis that turned out to have been a watershed in the post-Second World War world; so, too, may Kosovo turn out to have been a watershed in the post-Cold War world

Action (physics) · Cold war · Development economics · Economics · Human rights · Humanitarian intervention · Intervention (counseling) · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Unintended consequences · Balkan and Eastern European Studies · Balkans: History, Politics, Society · Law · Military History and Strategy · Psychology

Tools

Open DOISci-Hub