This electronic version has been made available under a Creative Commons (BY-NC-ND) open access license. Analyses the international response to the crisis in Kosovo, and its broader implications by examining its diplomatic, military and humanitarian features. Unravelling these implications can be challenging as it remains an event replete with paradoxes - the originality of this book's approach lies in its exploration of these paradoxes. The crisis in Kosovo has been a headline grabbing event - a serious study of the implications of the conflict on wider European security issues and institutions is urgently required.

After eleven weeks of bombing in the spring of 1999, the United States and NATO ultimately won the war in Kosovo. Serbian troops were forced to withdraw, enabling an international military and political presence to take charge in the region. But was this war inevitable or was it the product of failed western diplomacy prior to the conflict? And once it became necessary to use force, did NATO adopt a sound strategy to achieve its aims of stabilizing Kosovo? In this first in-depth study of the Kosovo crisis, Ivo Daalder and Michael O'Hanlon answer these and other questions about the causes, conduct, and consequences of the war. Based on interviews with many of the key participants, they conclude that notwithstanding important diplomatic mistakes before the conflict, it would have been difficult to avoid the Kosovo war. That being the case, U.S. and NATO conduct of the war left much to be desired. For more than four weeks, the Serbs succeeded where NATO failed, forcefully changing Kosovo's ethnic balance by forcing 1.5 million Albanians from their home and more than 800,000 from the country. Had they chosen to massacre more of their victims, NATO would have been powerless to stop them. In the end, NATO won the war by increasing the scope and intensity of bombing, making serious plans for a ground invasion, and moving diplomacy into full gear in order to convince Belgrade that this was a war Serbia would never win. The Kosovo crisis is a cautionary tale for those who believe force can be used easily and in limited increments to stop genocide, mass killing, and the forceful expulsion of entire populations. Daalder and O'Hanlon conclude that the crisis holds important diplomatic and military lessons that must be learned so that others in the future might avoid the mistakes that were made in this case.

An engrossing, clear-eyed look at the conflict in Kosovo and what it reveals about the limits of America's power to shape the world and impose democratic and humane values in countries under the control of ruthless dictators. 4 maps.

Kosovo in the 1990s

The war in Kosovo was a turning point: NATO deployed its armed forces in war for the first time, and placed the controversial doctrine of 'humanitarian intervention' squarely in the world's eye. It was an armed intervention for the purpose of implementing Security Council resolutions-but without Security Council authorization.This report tries to answer a number of burning questions, such as why the international community was unable to act earlier and prevent the escalation of the conflict, as well as focusing on the capacity of the United Nations to act as global peacekeeper.The Commission recommends a new status for Kosovo, 'conditional independence', with the goal of lasting peace and security for Kosovo-and for the Balkan region in general. But many of the conslusions may be beneficially applied to conflicts the world-over.

The dissolution of communism and the rise of ethnic and religious conflict throughout the former Yugoslavia, which sparked the war among Bosnians, Serbs, and Croats, has captivated the attention of the Western media throughout the 1990s. But little notice has been paid to the growing ethnic and religious tensions within the Serbian province of Kosovo -- tensions that now pose a serious threat to the security of the Balkans. Nearly 90 percent of the population of Kosovo is composed of Albanian Muslims, many of whom support a growing movement -- at first peaceful, but now turning violent -- for independence from Christian Serbia. In Between Serb and Albanian, Miranda Vickers explores the roots of this conflict and tracks the recent trajectory of Serbian and Albanian relations in Kosovo. The first third of the book outlines the history of Kosovo during the medieval and Ottoman periods, when relations between the two communities were generally good. The second part examines Kosovo since 1945, when the area fell under Serbian administration in the socialist Yugoslav system. Vickers concludes by surveying the steady deterioration in Serb-Albanian relations since the disintegration of Yugoslavia in 1981. With careful detail, she reveals how a largely peaceful. politically driven campaign for the independence of Kosovo has recently turned to violence with terrorist attacks on Serb political and military institutions, on Albanians thought to be collaborating with the Serbs, and on Serbs themselves. In the process, the author provides a balanced account of the Serb and Albanian positions, while placing much of the blame for the current situation on the repressive policies of Serb dictatorSlobodan Milosevic. Vickers sees ominous portents that the conflict may soon spread to neighboring Balkan countries. This book is essential reading for all those wishing to understand the historical, social, and cultural aspects of ethnic and religious strife in Serbia, and the implications of this conflict for the current political situation in all of southeast Europe.

While exploring events that led to the bloodshed in Kosovo in 1999. Denisa Kostovicova shows that the legacy of ethnic segregation is one of the major obstacles the international community faces in its efforts to establish an integrated multi-ethnic society in this territory." "Of interest to academics and students of nationalism and politics as well as practitioners and journalists, this book is an important advance in research on one of the most tragic European conflicts of recent times."--Jacket.

"In the 1990s, Yugoslavia, which had once been a role model for development, became a symbol for state collapse, external intervention and post-war reconstruction. Today the region has two international protectorates, contested states and borders, severe ethnic polarisation and minority concerns. In this first in-depth critical analysis of international administration, aid and reconstruction policies in Kosovo, Jens Stilhoff Sorensen argues that the region must be analysed as a whole, and that the process of state collapse and recent changes in aid policy must be interpreted in connection to the wider transformation of the global political economy and world order. He examines the shifting inter- and intracommunity relations, the emergence of a 'political economy' of conflict, and of informal clientelist arrangements in Serbia and Kosovo and provides a framework for interpreting the collapse of the Yugoslav state, the emergence of ethnic conflict and shadow economies, and the character of western aid and intervention. Western governments and agencies have built policies on conceptions and assumptions for which there is no genuine historical or contemporary economic, social or political basis in the region. As the author persuasively argues, this discrepancy has exacerbated and cemented problems in the region and provided further complications that are likely to remain for years to come." -- Back cover.

This volume examines the legacy of the East–West divide since the implosion of the communist regimes in Europe. The ideals of 1989 have largely been frustrated by the crises and turmoil of the past decade. The liberal consensus was first challenged as early as the mid-2000s. In Eastern Europe, grievances were directed against the prevailing narratives of transition and ever sharper ethnic-racial antipathies surfaced in opposition to a supposedly postnational and multicultural West. In Western Europe, voices regretting the European Union's supposedly careless and premature expansion eastward began to appear on both sides of the left–right and liberal–conservative divides. The possibility of convergence between Europe's two halves has been reconceived as a threat to the European project. In a series of original essays and conversations, thirty-three contributors from the fields of European and global history, politics and culture address questions fundamental to our understanding of Europe today: How have perceptions and misperceptions between the two halves of the continent changed over the last three decades? Can one speak of a new East–West split? If so, what characterizes it and why has it reemerged? The contributions demonstrate a great variety of approaches, perspectives, emphases, and arguments in addressing the daunting dilemma of Europe's assumed East–West divide.