NATO deconstructs the sovereign state
Postmodernists in the field of International Relations have been arguing for the revaluation (or should I say devaluation?) of the concept of state sovereignty for the last decade. In their own lexicon, they seek to deconstruct the central role of the state as a given forwarded by the school of realism which has dominated International Relations theory and practice since the end of World War II.
The current situation in Yugoslavia seems to offer substantial weight to the theory of postmodernism by dispelling the totalities of the primary opposites of traditional realism: not only state sovereignty, but international anarchy. The fact that 19 countries have agreed to go forward with Operation Allied Force against a sovereign nation shades in gray the absolute qualities of those binary opposites.
I’m sure that the Postmodernists must have been surprised last week to find an ally in Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. I am referring to when Albright criticized Milosevic’s audacity in speaking about respect for international borders by comparing his plea for his country as sovereign to a child who has killed his parents and pleads that he is an orphan!
There is no lack of interpretations as to why NATO should or shouldn’t be doing what it is doing. The interventionists say: We are there for humanitarian reasons. We can’t allow ourselves to watch this slaughter any longer. This is basically what Bill Clinton had to say. We have finally learned the lessons of World War II, when the world stood by and pretended not to know the atrocities that Hitler was committing against the non-Aryan "others" living within his reign. Madeleine’s view. Then there is the credibility of NATO which has been on the line after a succession of inconclusive ultimatums.
The detractors for the most part call upon the problem of state sovereignty. Although Kissenger is consistent with his realist formula for diplomacy, he finds himself with strange bedfellows. There are the Russians who are probably concerned about the precedence this would make for their future and inevitable Chechnyas among that country’s 89 regions who are struggling for ever more autonomy in Russia’s pseudo-Federalist system. And then of course the Chinese, who are unhappy enough as it is about the reprehensions they get from the West about Tibet.
Another detractor spoke out last week: Eric Hobsbawn, the Marxist historian and unlikely defender of the realist notion of the state. He was in Lipsia receiving a prize called "European Understanding" as recognition for his book entitled, "The Age of Extremes" on the history of the world in the 20th century. He himself commented on the irony of the fact that he was receiving such a prize at the very moment when NATO was bombing Yugoslavia!
In speaking of the situation in Kosovo, Hobsbawn didn’t spare his criticism toward his German hosts, blaming Bonn for its role in rushing the recognition of Slovenia, Croatia, and Bosnia as independent states immediately after the collapse of Yugoslavia. According to the English historian, separating ethnic groups in the Balkans can only be a temporary solution. "The modern world isn’t one where people divide, but where more and more people unite in order to give life to a homogenous state."
That may be true. And if you remove the word state and substitute it with the word world, even his views may sound similar to postmodern discourse. However, he is neglecting to remember one important fact. During the 35-year rule of his communist comrade, Tito, those very ethnic groups were living together in perfect harmony.
It would take a demagogue like Milosevic to stir up ancient tribal passions, evoking the sad heroic loss in battle of the Serbian Prince Lazzaro to Turkish soldiers in 1389. This is a magic date for Belgrade. It conjures up romantic sentimentalism in epic fraternity with their co-religious orthodox Russian protectors, providing fresh zeal for ever more bloodshed. When the disseminators of Belgrade’s Serbian cult propaganda describe the Kosovo plain, they narrate the story of the first apocalyptic battle of the Lamb Serb against the Beastly Turk.
As soon as Milosevic came to power one of his first decisions was to take away the autonomy that the Kosovo Albanians had enjoyed during the entire Communist period. It was his very first demonstration of his evil intentions and propensity to be the guiding example of a new and nefariously efficient hybrid: the postcommunist-neonazi. However, events in Slovenia and Croatia, and then Bosnia put Kosovo on the back-burner. Those in the know pressed for including a clause concerning the fate of Kosovo in the Dayton Accords, but that was more than negotiators felt they could handle. Bringing up Kosovo would have compromised the Bosnian settlement.
So here we are with the pressure-cooker that has been waiting to explode since 1989. This is why Madeleine Albright’s seemingly simplistic words following the initiation of NATO’s mission in Yugoslavia resounded with such truth: "We must be clear that there is one reason only that we have moved from diplomacy backed by the threat of force to the use of force backed by diplomacy. That reason is President Milosevic."
April 1999
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