| dc.description.abstract | ‘Operation Allied Force’ was designed by NATO to put an end to the Serbian oppression of Albanian population in Kosovo. NATO claimed that this operation had the purpose of destroying the military apparatus of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY). FRY was what remained of ex-Yugoslavia in 1999, with Serbia and Montenegro being the only two member states left. Belgrade was the capital of the FRY, with Serbia having the dominant position in the Federation. The campaign started on March 24th 1999 and ended on July 10th 1999. NATO Secretary-General, at that time, Javier Solana, stated, in an article, that “our strategy was, and remains, to target the infrastructure, which enables Milosevic to control his military machine and to cripple his instruments of ethnic cleansing.” . This statement clearly defines the intervention as a humanitarian campaign.
For the history of modern international relations, it is of a great importance to analyse the intervention in Kosovo, since it was one of the first humanitarian interventions of this new kind, establishing a totally new concept of warfare. Western interventions, in the past, were primarily motivated by self-defence or reinforcement of allies. They were never solely based on ethical or humanitarian motives. This changed with the Kosovo War. The success of the campaign served later as an argument for other humanitarian interventions, designed in line with the ‘Kosovo model’. So, the model became, in a sense, central to the western warfare in the 21st millennium.
NATO soon realised that, by bombing merely military targets, it can hardly achieve the goals of protecting ethnic Albanians and stopping Serbian military and paramilitary activities in Kosovo. This raised the question about efficiency of the air strikes and, in that context, also the question about expanding the campaign to targets that might have not been used purely for military purposes and could be easily considered as civilian targets. Consequently, as part of the Operation, NATO bombed the headquarters of the Radio and Television of Serbia (RTS) in Belgrade on the 23rd of April 1999, killing at least 16 civilians and injuring 16 more. According to NATO representatives, the RTS headquarters served as a command, control and communication centre (‘C3’), for the military of the FRY. By eliminating it, the C3 of the Yugoslav army would be disrupted and in addition the main tool that Milosevic used for his propaganda, to promote violence in Kosovo, would (at least temporarily) destroyed.
This airstrike provoked a fair amount of controversy worldwide. Several experts in the fields of politics, international law, sociology and history questioned the legality of the attack, while others tried to justify it. According to NATO, the airstrike was successful since the amount of civilian casualties was minimal considering the importance of the goals that they achieved. Hence, they were talking about these casualties as necessary “collateral damages”.
It is clear that this airstrike followed the new pattern of western warfare, considered to be appropriate for a post Cold War World, in which humanitarianism plays a major role in determining military strategy. Therefore, in order to understand the current military methods of NATO, it is important to investigate historical circumstances within which this ‘merger’ of militarism and humanitarianism became possible at all. The research on NATO’s operation in Kosovo is especially relevant, as it reflects a change in the relationship between NATO and other international institutions, based on the belief that ethical, humanitarian urgencies are more important and more legitimating for an intervention, then any legal justification or UN resolution.
Sociologist Martin Shaw writes about this development of western warfare in his book: The New Western Way of War: Risk Transfer and it’s crisis in Iraq. Shaw is a leading academic on the topic of war. His work has encouraged public debates and it has brought to light new perspectives on how the West is waging war in the world. According to him, this new trend involves airstrikes from a safe distance, which protects the western military, but causes civilian deaths on the enemy side. Another characteristic of what Shaw typifies as a ‘new way of war’ is the use of media. Their influence is exponentially growing. The new way of war is designed to fight not only armed forces, but also beliefs and social attitudes. In such circumstances, the media might be a great tool, but might also become a great obstacle. Military interventions rely on the support from the media and the general public. The media can manipulate public opinion, which results in opposition or in support for an intervention.
Looking at the Shaw’s traits of the new western way of war, one has to ask the question whether such a new warfare is justifiable in the same way as the traditional warfare. The ancient theory of waging a ‘Just War’ has been the coat of international agreements on war. There are seven criteria of warfare that can be used to determine whether certain military developments comply with the Just War tradition. In this paper, I would like to examine whether the air strike on the RTS, as part of the New Western Way of War, meets these requirements of the Just War Theory. I would like to do this by analysing whether the intervention was conducted in compliance with these criteria. Both the Just War theory and Shaw’s theory of the new Western warfare will be further analysed in the chapters ahead. I hope to demonstrate that humanitarian interventions and traditional warfare differ in such a way that the same principles can’t be applied in both situations. The traditional Just War Theory can’t directly create ground for legitimizing humanitarian interventions. There is an ethical element of such interventions, which goes beyond the realm of the international legal framework and often serves as a legitimation ground | |
