Western Power and the Intervention in Kosovo

In the first section of this chapter, I build on the broader reflection on the West’s dominance when the Cold War ended as outlined in Chapter 3 , to highlight the extent to which humanitarian intervention and statebuilding became central to the West’s new foreign policy. Despite the many universalist claims made about human rights, Western states responded to intra-state humanitarian crises in an overtly self-interested fashion. While this does not mean that every putative humanitarian intervention was prosecuted for purely self-interested reasons and/or unwarranted, it does mean that interventions only ever happened when there was something to be gained from so doing. Building on this link between interests and action, I then analyse the intervention in Kosovo; I begin by noting the extent to which Kosovo was essentially ignored from 1989 to 1998 despite the systemic oppression inflicted on the Albanian community. When in late 1998 the West increased its engagement with Kosovo, the situation had deteriorated to the extent that it posed a threat to regional security and the credibility of NATO. The intervention in March 1999 was, therefore, motivated by self-interest much more than any desire to save the people of Kosovo. Finally, I demonstrate how the unilateral nature of the intervention coheres with the characteristics of the wilful hoper described in Chapter 2 and how the backlash against NATO’s actions from other states set in motion a process by which “balancing” against NATO in the wake of the intervention ultimately precipitated the later shift towards multipolarity.