Citation

Russell P. J. Genocide Res. 2009; 11(4): 487-511.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2009, Informa - Taylor and Francis Group)

DOI

10.1080/14623520903309537

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

NATO's 1999 bombing campaign over Kosovo is credited by many with being the classic example of a successful humanitarian intervention, but it also represented a massive failure of preventive diplomacy. The problems in Kosovo were well-known and longstanding, notwithstanding their eclipse by the open warfare in Croatia and Bosnia. Left unresolved and largely unaddressed by the West, they worsened to the point of prompting military intervention on a scale that the West had refused to consider in Bosnia. Why was so little attention given to Kosovo before that point? In particular, why was it left off the agenda at the Dayton negotiations in November 1995, at the high point of Western engagement in the former Yugoslavia? If ever there was a missed opportunity to attempt preventive diplomacy for Kosovo, it was at Dayton. This article suggests that there were valid reasons for the decision to exclude Kosovo, and that successfully addressing Kosovo was not a realistic possibility at the time and under the circumstances. Many factors, including practical logistical and time constraints, relative and absolute conditions in Kosovo and Bosnia, the political interests of the different former Yugoslav participants, and the international profile of the Kosovo situation, but notably not including lack of knowledge or concern about the state of affairs in Kosovo, combined to effectively force Kosovo off the agenda at Dayton. Nevertheless, the decision not to attempt a solution was not cost-free; it directly and negatively contributed to the ensuing developments in Kosovo, and so ultimately to the need for intervention in 1999. The decision-making process in this case offers an avenue for considering the more general prospects for effective preventive diplomacy, and for understanding why this apparent option may be ignored even in cases of well-known, long-running, and severe human rights abuses with a clearly recognized potential for escalation to the level of genocide and other crimes against humanity.