|
|
|
|
International Affairs
October 1998
This article examines key elements of international diplomacy and the Kosovo crisis. From very early on, it is shown, the Kosovar Albanians were accorded differential treatment by the international community in relation to the other national minorities of the former Yugoslavia. Whether warranted or not, this approach helped ensure that Kosovo would fail to become a major international concern, thus allowing the conflict to smoulder for years. The explosion of pent-up frustration we are witnessing today in Kosovo is only one consequence of these actions. Another is that the scope for moderate solutions has narrowed. Genuine democratization of Serbia may enlarge the political space required to restore credibility to compromise solutions but the prospects for such a development in the short term are weak. The international community favours a solution to the conflict which would preserve Serbia’s territorial integrity, just as it did earlier with respect to Yugoslavia. But if the Albanians’ desire for independence cannot be sublimated or if the granting of autonomy to Kosovo is used as a cover for the Serbian leadership to pursue its campaign of violence, then persistent opposition to any adjustments to Yugoslavia’s boundaries may be a prescription for further tragedy in the region.
Richard Caplan is a Research Fellow in Politics at Jesus College, University of Oxford. He has written widely on international policy and the Yugoslav crisis, most recently for the Journal of Strategic Studies (September 1998). He is co-editor (with John Feffer) of Europe’s new nationalism: states and minorities in conflict (1996).
This is an edited text of the sixth John Vincent Memorial Lecture delivered by Lawrence Freedman at the University of Keele on 8 May 1998. Against the background of Soviet military power in Europe in the 1970s, the author explores in the first place the question of the utility of force in circumstances where there is no immediate danger of war, and concludes with a discussion of its contemporary relevance for the armed forces of the Atlantic alliance.
Lawrence Freedman is Professor of War Studies at King’s College London. He is currently the official historian of the Falklands Campaign. He is the editor of Strategic coercion: concepts and cases (1998).
The purpose of this article is to consider the future prospects for the discipline of security studies in the face of a rising agenda of global, as well as national and international security issues. The author argues that security studies has not found it easy to accommodate itself to a transforming world scene. In particular, it failed disappointingly the challenge posed by the revolutions of 1989–91 which it neither foresaw nor, subsequently, has explained with much insight. The reasons for this are a consequence of its constrained world view, framed by the values of Classical Realism. It remains in its essentials a discipline shaped by the shocks of the late 1940s, which engendered it. However, several groups of scholars have begun to respond to these deficiencies, and the article notes several heartening trends. The time is ripe to press forward, it is argued, and two areas where work is still relatively undeveloped are suggested. A focus upon understanding the phenomenon of stereotyping is proposed as an effective way to improve understanding of global culture. The transformation of political agency demands a new approach to power politics.
Gwyn Prins is Senior Research Fellow in the International Security Programme at the Royal Institute of International Affairs. He is also Senior Fellow in the Office of the Special Adviser on Central and Eastern European Affairs, Office of the Secretary–General, NATO, Brussels, and the first Visiting Senior Fellow at the Defence Evaluation and Research Agency of the UK Ministry of Defence. He is General Editor of Global Transformations.
In his reply to Jonathan Haslam’s article published in the January 1998 issue of International Affairs, William Odom outlines his vision of NATO and its origins and purpose, and discusses the American strategic view of the post-Cold War world against which the decision to expand NATO should be seen. Russia will, he maintains, remain a problem for the West, but its importance and power should not be overemphasized. The danger facing the Western security order is not one of Russia’s exclusion but of US power ebbing out of Europe — a distinct probability unless NATO expands.
William E. Odom is Director of National Security Studies at the Hudson Institute, Washington DC and an adjunct Professor at Yale University. At the time of his retirement from the US army in 1998 General Odom was Director of the National Security Agency and Chief, Central Security Service, Fort George Meade, Maryland. His books include America’s military revolution: strategy and structure after the Cold War (1993) and The collapse of the Soviet military (1998).
Labour’s Strategic Defence Review claims to be ‘radical’, leading ‘to a fundamental reshaping of British forces’ while being ‘firmly ground in foreign policy’. Five questions are discussed: 1) Is labour’s defence policy different from that of its Conservative predecessors? 2) Has foreign policy ‘led’ defence policy? 3) How open was the review process and to what extent has Labour succeeded in creating a new consensus on defence policy? 4) Has the SDR successfully addressed the problem of overstretch? 5) Does it provide the ‘modern, effective and affordable armed forces which meet today’s challenges but are also flexible enough to adapt to change’, as it claims? This article argues that on the first two questions the answer is a qualified ‘yes’; that on the third, the process was more open than ever before but that it is difficult to identify specific decisionsinfluence by more open debate; that on the fourth, Labour has attempted a balancing act which may be vulnerable, not least to changes in the economy; and that on the last question, Labour has succeeded in shifting the focus of the armed services towards power projection capabilities as required by their foreign policy baseline.
Colin McInnes is a Reader in the Department of International Politics University of Wales, Aberystwyth. He is the author of Hot war, cold war: the British army since 1945 (1996).
To date, there has not been a sustained attempt to bring the philosophy of the Third Way into foreign policy. In order to fill this gap, the authors turn to the idea of ‘good international citizenship’ pioneered by the former Australian Foreign Minister, Gareth Evans. It is argued that good international citizenship provides a conceptual rationale for an ethical foreign policy as well as a standard for judging the priority accorded to the goals of security, trade and human rights. Through an examination of a number of cases, the authors conclude that Britain’s record as a good international citizen has been uneven and argue against Labour’s critics that the government has set a new course for Britain’s way in the world. More importantly, it has encouraged a public debate about the meaning and priority accorded to the promotion of different values.
Nicholas J. Wheeler is Senior Lecturer in International Politics at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth. He is co-author (with Ian Clark) of The British origins of nuclear strategy, 1945–55 (1989), and is currently writing a book on humanitarian intervention and international society.
Tim Dunne is Lecturer in International Politics at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth. He is the author of Inventing international security: a history of the English school (1998) and co-editor (with Nicholas J. Wheeler) of Human rights in global politics (forthcoming 1999).
Review Articles
Overview