The 1999 Kosovo War and the Crisis in U.S.-Russia Relations

Abstract

Based on recently declassified U.S. sources from the Clinton Presidential Library and the State Department’s Freedom of Information Act Virtual Reading Room, this article looks into Bill Clinton’s and Boris Yeltsin’s statecraft to save the post-Cold War U.S.-Russia partnership during the Kosovo War in 1999. The war deepened the rift between Russia and the West jeopardizing the policy of mutual integration and accommodation. Clinton’s and Yeltsin’s personal diplomacy helped Russia to play a constructive role in the search for a peace settlement and the complete withdrawal of Serbian troops from Kosovo. Despite domestic protest in Moscow, Yeltsin did not join Milosevic but chose to work with the United States and salvage Russia’s relationship with the West.