The United Nations and NATO’s War: The Fallout from Kosovo

Abstract

The disintegration of the former Republic of Yugoslavia has had a significant effect on the United Nations’ development in the post-Cold War era. Without denigrating the importance of events elsewhere, the concentrated attention that the United Nations and its member governments have directed at the nearly decade-long conflict in the Balkans has generated a considerable body of experience and opinion about the need for, character of and institutional mechanism by which the international community responds to civil conflicts and the humanitarian disasters they create. The conflicts in the Balkans during the 1990s were marked by both cooperation and competition among a number of institutions, especially the United Nations, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), over if, when and by what means to intervene. This interaction has, in turn, been influenced both by institutional interests (the concern for credibility and legitimacy in addressing new threats to security in Europe and elsewhere) and by national interests. As a result, the emerging security environment is marked by a complex set of relations among different institutions that have not yet agreed on a satisfactory division of labour and whose approach to security issues in the region reflects differing interests depending on capabilities and institutional mandates. Additionally, institutional competition reflects the differing capacity and interest of member states to influence the timing, method and objectives of intervention.