<<Your wrong: The Rambouillet agreement was an ultimatum, far from a reasonable negotiation process. It called for a force of NATO only force of 30,000 and a referendum in 3 years for independance. This was NATO's ultimatum not the U.N.'s. As you now see we are negotiating and we have it down to an acceptable figure of 30% NATO forces, 30% russian and 40% other. As I indicated (and Henry Kissinger said) competent negotiation would have averted this disaster.
Regarding the arms race we disagree again. Seeing that the U.S. (under the guise of NATO) broke U.N. agreements, nations around the world realize that to truly protect themselves against having their internal domestic policy dictated by the U.S. they need to arm themselves. Blair's 50th aniv NATO speech hinted toward NATO's expanded role in the new millenium as being pro-interventionist.>>
I didnt assert that Ramb. was a UN "negotiation" and I agree it was hamfisted. *But* you were arguing that the Russians should have had a part in this and that they did, both in drafting the UNSC resolutions and the OSCE resolution **which was the basis for Ramboilet!** The Russians themselves helped craft the guidelines and the language!! Milosevich has been thumbing his nose at a UNSC resolution, which had to be restated ***three!*** times in the past year (!) to try and make its point to Milosevich, what makes you so sure that a "well-negotiated" agreement at Ramboulet would have done the trick? Time and again in this decade this man has gotten away with quite literally murder. UN resolutions (which his regime signed on to, must I add) have meant little to him and a properly negotiated settlement in France no doubt would have been so much paper as well.
Speeches mean little, and Blairs' was as hollow as they get. NATO simply can not support the kind of role that was alluded to. This episode in the Balkans has proved that much, they werent even able to take the rudimentary first steps of any war, namely blockade the country and cut its power and support. Outside of well-exercised contingency plans, NATO is a war machine by Committee, which means ineffective. That much is plain to the whole world by now. It is also plain that there are definate limits to US power. The US does not act unilaterally, it always seeks concensus, a coalition. The world which is coming to be is not a world conducive to interventionist adventures, and the US will find it increasingly difficult to form the coalitions it needs to back such adventures. The end of the Kosovo crisis will find the US less interventionist, not more. The power of the US to intervene where it wishes presupposes a lack of adequate compensatory power to deter such action as well as the necessary coalition to support intervention. Since the Gulf War, that has been the case. Today, the world is realigning and Kosovo will no doubt be the last US adventure of this sort. Especially after Clinton leaves office, and the Presidency learns from its mistakes and stops such silliness as Somalia. |
