>> i'm going to argue in this talk and i argue in my book, this understanding is incorrect. the generally accepted view of what we know what happened in yugoslavia is substantially wrong, all right? and, you know, we now have a great deal of new information on the yugoslavia wars and the information is a vast number of memoirs by participants, reports by governments including a 6,000-page analysis by the dutch parliament. and i think most importantly the war crimes trial by the international criminal tribunal for the for them yugoslavia at the hague and the criminal trial of the other balkan figures. and the transcript of these trials present an unusually rich resource for understanding the origins of these wars. and i relied in particular upon the prosecution witnesses

primarily because they are vastly more interesting. out of this picture comes a very different understanding of yugoslavia. and i argue that foreign intervention in yugoslavia did not solve the humanitarian problem. on the contrary it helped create the problem in the first place. i argue that it led to the breakup of yugoslavia which i -- which i point was was caused at least in part by intervention by foreign powers and it helped spread the violence and intense the violence. okay. now, let me note a number of points. my study is primarily a study of foreign intervention in yugoslavia. i do not dispute that internal factors were extremely important. i deal with those internal factors. nevertheless, i argue that apart from the internal factors the external intervention by foreign powers was critically important

in making the war possible and then expanding the violence. as a general point, my critique of humanitarian intervention is that the -- it under-rates the possibility that interventions can actually make the problem worse. if you read interventionist literature and in particular i focus on the widely influential book by samantha power, a problem from hell, america and the age of genocide, there's an assumption that intervention will only act to improve human rights. there's no consideration given for the possibility that intervention by military force itself will cause a great deal of damage and take many lives as inevitably it will. nor is there much consideration given to the possibility that external intervention can increase ethnic conflict. and can intensify the violence.

that it was supposedly trying to stop. and i point out in yugoslavia that's exactly what happened. okay. for the rest of the talk or most of the rest of the talk, i'm going to focus on one chapter of the book which is a chapter on kosovo. i'm not going to deal with the other parts of the book which deal with the other wars again for reasons of trying to circumscribe my talk to leave some time for some questions and, you know, to keep it manageable. and i should add that kosovo intervention of 1999 whereby nato went to war for 10 weeks against the republic of serbia allegedly to protect the people of kosovo from serbian aggression, this intervention in its 10th anniversary in 2009 and is often cited as the most

exemplary case of intervention. it is seen by many americans, democrats and republicans asgate war. to some extent it's seem a welcome contrast to the iraq war which is increasingly viewed in a negative light and i also i should add the afghan war which is going very badly indeed. and in light of these less satisfactory examples of humanitarian intervention, there's an effort to focus upon kosovo as a case in which intervention really worked. it is viewed widely as a case where the united states acted with essentially clean motives with altruistic motives, without any ulterior motives without getting access to oil or strategic advantage. it was seen as a case where war was taken only as a last resort after the possibilities for solving the problem if diplomacy was exhausted when milosevic made all efforts against

diplomacy and finally and most importantly, kosovo is seen as a case where intervention had positive results in the sense that it restrained the aggressors. it protected the ethnic albanians who were being oppressed and generally resolve the problem. i'm going to argue that based upon the evidence, all of these points are essentially incorrect. first, a bit of background. kosovo was a province of yugoslavia. it was within the communist yugoslavia state and it was part of serbia. and it was for a very long time essentially dominated by serbia. internally, kosovo consists of mostly two groups, the ethnic albania army which was

approximately 80 to 90% of the population and a serb minority. at the time of the nato war, approximately 10 or 15% of the population. the two groups had a history of adversarial and largely negative interactions. the serbs historically being the privileged group, the better educated and the more affluent group. the albanians were the one of the very poorest groups in ula of europe. under communist yugoslavia, it was essentially the serbs who were dominant in the province and the republic of serbia that dominated the province. there was significant discrimination against the albanian majority. and it must be said as a general point the albanians the very legitimate and historical grievance. in 1976, the communist government under tito engineered a major change of policy.

and in this new policy, the albanians were privileged. new funds were given to the albanians for instruction in albanian in local schools. major federal funds were given to try to alleviate poverty among the albanian majority. and the local albanians were given effective authority in the local communist party. and essentially from 1966 to 1989, it was the albanians who were dominant. and in the context of this dominance, the albanians began to a large extent getting revenge on the serbs. and discriminating and harassing the serbs. there was, you know, in general neither group, the albanians and the serbs weren't going to show mercy to each other and when the albanians were the dominant

groups the serbs were the victims. there was a large flight of serbs from kosovo. some of this was economic flight because there were better jobs in the republic of serbia. some of it was also simply fleeing harassment by the albanians. in the 1980s, as the albanian harassment increased there was increasing talk of ethnically cleansing the serbs, indeed some of the first talk of ethnic cleansing by the albanian majority in kosovo. i emphasize this very complex history partly because there's a general perception that it was only the albanians who were the victims and the serbs were the victimizers. but the history is much more complicated than that. and indeed, both sides had a history of victimizing each other to some extent. in 1989, a major change occurred

when milosevic, then the president of the republic of serbia, very opportunic president in protecting the serbs in kosovo, used thinks authority basically to establish a state of marshall law in kosovo. and to end kosovo's autonomy. and kosovo basically became under-served dominance again in 1989. the tables were turned. it was now the serbs who were the victimizers. the albanians were the victims. and, you know, the albanians had largely lost all they had gained after 1966. when yugoslavia broke up if 1991, kosovo remained an

autonomous province of serbia. still essentially under marshall law by the serbs. and increasingly, a movement for independence of kosovo emerged among albanians and there's no doubt that the vast majority of albanians wanted independence. which is quite natural given the circumstances. initially this movement was led by a figure who advocated nonviolence as a technique modeling himself on martin luther king and gandhi. but by the mid-'90s, another group began emerging called the kosovo liberation army. which broke with the idea of nonviolence and insisted upon armed insurgency as a technique of liberation. the kosovo liberation army are i believe it important because these were the groups essentially that became america's allies during the 1999 war. it's worth looking at them a bit carefully. generally speaking they're presented in a positive light, we now know that basically they had many negative features.

and in particular, the basic strategy of the kla was to attack serb civilians and policemen in isolated areas as a means of provoking the serbs into retaliatory actions and thus leading to massacres to inflame world public opinion. we know this because it comes from the very best sources. in particular, western officials repeatedly cited the kla as a terrorist organization. in fact, a series of western powers including the united states up until 1998 classed the kla as a terrorist organization for the simple reason that engaged in deliberate attacks against noncombatants. and again, we have it from some of the key witnesses at the milosevic trial, prosecution witnesses. a man who was a member of parliament and a key figure of the diplomacy in this period was a major prosecution witness against milosevic and we have this exchange at the trial. milosevic, it was a well-known fact that these kla were terrorists. this was a terrorist

organization. mr. milosevic, i never denied this was a terrorist organization. and so this was repeatedly acknowledged as a basic point of fact. in private, western officials acknowledged there wasn't morally much difference between the two sides. the memoirs of tony blair's press secretary, alistar cam basketball acknowledged there was no basic difference between the two sides. they were basically the same. in parliamentary hearings, the british minister of defense louder george robinson stated up until shortly before the nato bombing, quote, the kla were responsible for more deaths in kosovo than the yugoslavia serb authorities had been. so the image of this is a simple conflict in which it was, you know, the serbs were doing all of the aggression and the

albanians were the victims simply is not accurate. okay? and there's very little doubt, i should add, one of the objectives of the kla was to ethically clean the serbs once they had won the war. there was an uptick in fighting in 1997 or i should add shortly after 1997 because there was a breakdown in civil order and the neighboring republic of albania meant the arms supplies was open and there was an enormous supply of weapons of kosovo which enabled the kla to begin a major insurgency and by 1998 full scale civil war had commenced. and the kla attacked serbs and policemen and there were counterinsurgency measures including brutal attacks against

villages that supported the kla. and leading to major atrocities and acts of ethnic cleansing but again, this was true on both sides and was equally true of the kla as it was of the serb forces. in late 1998, the united states tried to broker a diplomatic settlement of the fighting and it dispatched richard holbrooke, a top diplomat with experience dealing with the balkan problem to try and impose a settlement. and in october of 1998, the holbrooke agreement as it was known was announced. and what this essentially amounted to was that the serbs agreed to withdraw most of their offensive forces from kosovo and establish a ceasefire. they also agreed to allow a peacekeeping force of approximately 2,000 personnel from the organization for security and cooperation in europe to observe the ceasefire.

this was an asymmetrical agreement because it imposed no requirements at all on the kla. only on the serbs. milosevic accepted it nevertheless. the osce monitors were deployed and a ceasefire was declared. now, it was widely claimed after the 1999 nato bombing attack that it was the serbs who violated the agreement and led to the breakdown of the agreement and the upsurge in fighting. and that's what caused the upsurge in fighting that led to the nato attacks. we now know that's false. that, in fact, it was not the serbs who caused the breakdown of the agreement. it was the kla and we have it from the very best sources. one of these sources is a general, a german general, who played a key role in the war. he was actually present at the -- some of the events that led to the holbrooke agreement. he was always key prosecution witness against milosevic at the

war crimes trial and at the milosevic trial, he acknowledged that the serbs basically implemented the terms of the holbrooke agreement in good faith. they withdrew their troops as required. they announced -- they implemented a ceasefire. and it was kla attacks basically that led to the breakdown of the agreement. he stated this repeatedly not only at the milosevic trial but also in interviews at a british parliamentary hearing and also in the bbc. the bbc independently obtained minutes of the north atlantic council, the decision-making body of nato in which the head of the osce reported to nato that most of the violations of the ceasefire were by the kla and not by the serbs. so it's very clear that the breakdown of the holbrooke agreement was due not to the serbs but to the kla. this is not to whitewash the serbs because they did very terrible things in kosovo but it's merely to state facts. the serb response to the kla

attacks was publicly to urge the united states to use its influence to restrain the kla. the united states simply ignored the requests. and the kla continued their attacks. the serbs then responded with a massive counter-offensive. they took off the loves as one witness put it and attacked the kla with full force. leading to a series of massacres culminating in the well publicized massacre in a town in 1999 in which 48 people were killed. these circumstances of the massacre were probably exaggerated by u.s. officials. they claimed that not only were the people killed but they were tortured and dismembered. that isn't true. a later forensic investigations revealed they weren't tortured or disfigured. nevertheless, it does appear there had been a massacre. it was not an armed confrontation as the serbs claimed. and this is widely publicized as

an example of, you know, atrocious action by the serbs which undoubtedly it was. the united states then worked with europe to call a major peace conference in february of 1999 for a full settlement of the kosovo conflict. it took place in a castle outside of paris. it was officially chaired by the foreign ministers of france and britain, though, behind the scenes the u.s. clearly played a dominating role. and the united states and its european allies put together a predetermined agreement that's quite complex but, in essence, what it demanded was that the serbs would have to agree to full regional autonomy for kosovo, not independence. independence at this point was ruled out. but full regional autonomy for kosovo as an autonomous province of serbia.

an end to the basically the repressive measures that were started by milosevic in 1989 and an armed peacekeeping force would surprise the implement these measures for a period of time. again, the conference eventually broke down without an agreement. and u.s. and european officials claimed that the breakdown was caused by serb entrancents. -- trancents. and they resisted all reasonable measures and after it was on display at the convention. we have clear evidence that it was simply not the case from the best sources. we have an account from mark vailer, who's a cambridge university academic, a professor of law, who acted as an

ambassador of the convention that the serbs accepted most of the sanctions put against him and madeleine albright said the same thing and her press secretary, james reuben, also acknowledged the serbs had, in fact, accepted most or almost all the political demands put on them at the convention. they seemed they had been negotiating the only disagreement was on the peacekeeping force. the u.s. demanded that the peacekeeping force would have to be directed by nato; whereas the serbs insisted it should be u.n. as directed. they didn't trust nato. however, it seemed likely or at least possible that that disagreement could be overcome since the serbs had already accepted the political demands and accepted in principle the idea of an armed force to oversee the implementation of the accords. and it looked like a full agreement could have been achieved.

what caused the agreement to break down was a new demand put forward by the negotiating powers probably by the united states at the very end of the conference. and this new demand was that the peacekeeping force would not only have the right to occupy kosovo, but it would have full right to occupy all of serbia, okay? this is a totally new demand. one that was later acknowledged would have certainly been unacceptable to the serbs. and after this demand was put forth, the serbs seemed to lose all interest in the negotiations. and there was a complete breakdown of negotiating interest after this event, okay? now, this is called the military annex or annex b as it was proposed. why did the united states put forth this demand? after the war was over, u.s. and western officials acknowledged

the demand had been put forth but insisted it was harmless detail that if the serbs had insisted they would have removed it. it may have been a blunder undiplomatically. but it wasn't a major problem and couldn't really have caused the breakdown of talked, okay? this seems to me doubtful. the person who played a major role in drafting the military annex was wesley clark. he admits this if his memoirs. who is known to be very meticulous and is not one to make obvious errors of this sort, i think. he's not a fool. he's generally speaking knows what he's doing. henry kissinger, you know, later said the document put forth was a terrible document. the serbs could never have accepted it. i'm paraphrasing it but that's the gist of what he said. we finally what we have to be a smoking gun, which is after the

war was over in parliamentary hearings there was testimony from lord john gilbert who was a number two figure in the british defense ministry in the war and was responsible for the british defense but a major role in the war. he testified at length about the war in 2000 supporting the war and when he was asked about the military annex he had this to say. i think certain people were spoiling for a fight in nato at that time. we were at a point where some people felt something had to be done against serbia so you just provoked a fight. with regard to the peace terms themselves, gilbert said, quote, i think the terms put to milosevic were absolutely intolerable. how could he possibly accept them? it was quite deliberate. now, the operative phrase here, ladies and gentlemen, is it was quite deliberate. so this was not an accident. this was put forth to milosevic with knowledge that this was going to be unacceptable. that milosevic could not

possibly have accepted these terms. no leader in a similar situation could have reasonably been expected to accept terms that humiliating, okay? and this was done with intent. i would take this as likely evidence that the united states was seeking to undermine the peace talks. certainly it had that effect. and that right after this was presented serbia lost all interest if the peace talks leading directly to the peace talks and ultimately the war. so i think it's incorrect, myth as to say, that all u.s. powers used all reasonable means to achieve a diplomatic solution and only went to war when a diplomatic solution was possible. a diplomatic situation was made impossible according to the record of events as i see it. in any case, the breakdown led

to western preparations for war. and the chronology is very interesting. on march 19th, shortly after the breakdown of negotiations, the osce monitors began to withdraw from kosovo. on the assumption that bombing was coming and they didn't want to be injured. the very next day serbia began a major offensive in kosovo leading to ugly atrocities. the bombing actually commenced on march 24th leading to an intensification of serb atrocities much worse than the previous round of atrocities and over the next 10 weeks, about 10,000 albanians were killed by the serb security forces, okay? this is a significant figure because up until this time, the total number of casualties on both sides, both military and civilian, serve and albanian was 2,000, all right? how many albanians had been killed has never been fully accounted for. i would estimate it was probably

a little under 1,000 since the albanians it seems were accounted for fewer victims according to lawyer serbs. -- according to the serbs. and the next weeks 10,000 were killed. the increase in deaths was about ten-fold. and this is in a 10-week period as opposed to a year and a half or at least a over a year in which the war had been leading to killings previously. so there was a huge increase in atrocities that were directly connected with the bombing. some american officials have dismissed any link. and they've insisted that, for example, the serbs had begun the atrocities before the bombing. what this ignores is the fact that the atrocities began on march 20th, which is the day after the osce began announcing its withdrawal when bombing was clearly imminent. as i would see it, there's a very clear and direct connection between nato military action and the ratcheting up of atrocities that occurred.

now, before i go into the circumstances of the war itself and how the war played out, i'd like to basically pull back a little bit and discuss u.s. motives for war. now, i would say a major u.s. motive for war not only in kosovo but also with regard to all of the interventions in former yugoslavia was a major anxiety of america's position in the world after the end of the cold war. when the cold war was over, there was, of course, a tremendous enthusiasm and ebullience among u.s. officials that they had achieved a historic success but at the same time there was a recognition that the major justification for u.s. power, which was fighting communism, had disappeared. and there was concern that now there was really no longer a good justification for u.s. military power either in terms of the vast number of overseas u.s. military bases or in terms

of the fleets around the world or in terms of u.s. security alliances such as nato or in terms of the u.s. military budget by way of justifying it to the u.s. public. and so the question was, what would replace anticommunism as a sort of central guiding logic for u.s. power after the end of the cold war and no obvious solution presented itself. and there were other concerns as well in particularly there was a fear that europe might establish an independent foreign policy. and indeed european officials were talking openly about the need to establish an independent foreign policy, independent from the u.s. and independent from nato. and were openly collaborating to have a european military force that was separate from nato. in addition there were efforts at the financial level to establish european independence that culminated in the launching of the euro in january, 1999, as a united currency of at least some of the members of the european union. the launching of the euro was

seen not only have to economic but political significance. all of this was seen in threatening terms by the united states. and a major u.s. objective during the 1990s was to come up with a new purpose for nato because it was felt nato was the major institution through which america could establish its dominance over europe. and if nato could be revive and have a new logic and a new rationale, america would be better placed to prevent europe from establishing this feared and dreaded independent foreign policy. to a large extent this u.s.-european tension which existed throughout the 1990s played out as an arena in the former yugoslavia. europe tried to establish its credentials to act as an independent power in yugoslavia. america tried to establish its dominance in yugoslavia as well.

and there was a certain adversarial relationship between europe and america. and in particular, this very -- this intense american concern was heightened during 1998 and 1999 by the launching of the euro, which actually took place in january of 1999. and also there was a concern about european anger over seeming american arrogance in an effort to dominate previous interventions particularly in bosnia. even in great britain was now showing interest in the possibility of a dependent foreign policy, a very alarming development on the part of the united states. so i think what you have here to a large extent was american efforts to use a new war in kosovo as a context in which to draw the allies together for a moral crusade under american leadership in a way that would give a new relevance to nato.

1999 was to be the 50th anniversary year for nato, symbolically very important. and also the u.s. wanted to change nato's charter to not only to act in the area but to defend western interests outside of europe and potentially any part of the world. and they wanted to do this in the context of a successful war. now initially, kosovo was seen as a distraction from these larger issues. but i think by early 1999 a consensus emerged within the united states establishment that kosovo wasn't the distraction from these larger problems america faced. it was a solution to these larger problems that if america could have a war under its guidance, a successful war, one that would be perceived in a positive light, it would give a truly a new relevance to nato, reaffirm its relevance in the 50th anniversary and enable the

united states to push through this new strategic concept to give nato worldwide scope, all key u.s. objectives. all eventually achieved, i should add. there was some resistance from the military in particularly the ground army feared a ground war and a new vietnam. however, the military was divided to some degree because the air force was enthusiastic in kosovo as it had been in bosnia but the air force seemed to favor intervention and to some extent it appears the business community was positive about a war. and an article in barons investment weekly noted basically that weapons for companies and to some extent to the business community in general saw the kosovo war in a positive light and so a consensus emerged in the u.s. that a war would have a positive effect and i should add the nato factor was mentioned repeatedly in the memoirs of top u.s. officials as a major u.s. motive.

so again it's a myth to say that the u.s. had no interest except humanitarian ones in this case. there were clear, concrete ideas in kosovo. and they were openly acknowledged in memoirs of top officials. however, it made clear that it was in this what of the war. -- it was in charge of the wars. the other nato powers accounted collectively for the other 30%. again, establishing without any question. it was the u.s. here that was guiding this war. which was the u.s. objective to some degree. europe was to some extent humiliated by the fact that the ability to participate in this war was quite limited. they simply lacked the technology and the wherewithal to carry it out. but again, that was consistent to u.s. objectives to establish u.s. dominance.

however, the united states ran into significant problems which as the serbs prepared for this war by conducting with the iraqi military and getting from them on how to use their antiaircraft weapons and based upon these consultations the serbs made an effective defense and were able to pose threats to low-flying nato aircraft and nato had to fly 15,000 feet, which reduced the effectiveness of its bombing. and as a result of this there was no quick serb capitulation. nato was very frustrated by this they he expected the serbs would capitulate in a matter of days and they didn't. nato's response to this was twofold. first of all, there's a ratcheting gradually over time in the intensity of bombing and civilian targets were hit and there's no question that had the serbs had not capitulated when they did, the u.s. was prepared to really start destroying the cities of serbia on a massive scale. you know, the war itself had fairly limited effects. the total number of civilians

killed ranged from -- estimates vary but the range was 500 to 2,000. is that a large number or small number depends on how you look at that time. compared to the bombings of world war ii or contrary, it was much smaller. the united states, however, was prepared to lift its strength. and was prepared to begin much more intensive bombing and it was gradually over time demonstrating its potential to do so. so one response was intensity of bombing was increased he. and to increase public relations. and claims were made that the serbs had killed 100,000 people or even in some estimates even higher than 100,000 people. this was not claimed directly. secretary of defense said hundreds of albanians had disappeared and may have been killed. the press promptly picked up 100,000 people had been killed. this was reported, for example, in the economist. there's no question this was an overstatement.

the current estimates are in the range of 10,000 which is a terrible number. but it's one-tenth the figure that was claimed. another claim was that the serbs had a long-standing plan to murder or expel the albanians and that they would have done so even if there had been no bombing and that nato bombing had come just in time to prevent this. specifically, the german defense ministry working with the u.s. leaked reports that they had discovered an operation horseshoe which was a serb plan, a firm plan to ethnically cleanse virtually the entire albanian population that had been established well in advance of the nato bombing and that it would have been done if even if there had been no bombing. this was widely disseminated and it served to distract many people from nato's military failure and to increase anger at the serbs. when the war was over, the german defense ministry was shown to have had really no evidence for this operation horseshoe, all right?

a retired german general wrote a book and was interviewed by the london times to a large extent the whole thing was a fake. and -- but, you know, that event -- those facts were known during the war. only after the war did this come out. and in any case, again, i want to emphasize the atrocities the serbs really did commit were terrible enough. but they were significantly exaggerated by nato officials as kind of a public relations strategy. in any case, the serbs did capitulate on june 10th. they pretty much agreed to nato's terms. nato did not insist that all of serbia had to be occupied. they withdrew that requirement. that was quietly withdrawn. but otherwise the serbs pretty much agreed to all the terms that were demanded which weren't that different actually than the ones that the serbs agreed to at the convention.

and nato diemployed the koso kosovo -- deployed the force. it was established that kosovo would remain part of serbia. however, once the nato forces were fielded, the kla effectively was put in charge of kosovo by the nato forces. and they proceeded to mete out revenge against the serbs and over the next several months 400 and 700 serbs were murdered probably by albanian vigilantes directly under the nose of nato. also a great many roma were murdered as well. and most of the serbs, not quite all of them but most of the serbs were ethnically cleansed. it was estimated after the serb capitulation nearly a quarter of

a million people mostly serbs and roma were expelled or left voluntarily from kosovo. even though who left voluntarily were surely influenced by the murders and other attacks that were taking place during this period. and there's still i should add a serb minority in kosovo. i think it's in the range of 100 to 150,000 although a majority of the serbs have been -- have been essentially expelled from kosovo. ironically, this was a war that set to establish that ethically cleansing as a means of settling conflict but nevertheless after the war was over, the albanians did precisely that. they ethically cleansed not all but most of the serbs. well, so let's look at the basic effects of the war. now, in any humanitarian

intervention surely the main issue to be raised is what effect did have it on the humanitarian situation? by any reasonable standard i would say the effect was quite negative in this case. the effect was negative in a number of different levels. first of all, the level of atrocities in terms of killing and ethically cleansing increased after the nato attacks. far from restraining the serb atrocities, the nato air attacks seemed to have tremendously increased them, which is a not surprising and, border boxes, it had been predicted in advance. the joint chiefs of staffs warned president clinton that there was a possibility that the serbs would engage in revenge killings if nato engaged in bombings and that's exactly what happened. the chronology strongly suggests that this was a direct effect of nato bombing. and, you know, the effect was substantial. there really is no evidence that the serbs had any firm plan to

ethically cleanse the entire albanian population although reports to the contrary. they did a great deal of ethically cleansing. by some accounts as much as 90% of the albanian population had been displaced in one form or the other at the end of the war but most of this occurred during the period of the nato bombings. so the level of atrocities greatly increased. the second effect of the nato bombing it by itself did a great deal of killing. i noted the estimates of civilians killed both serbs as well as albanians ranges from 500,000 to 2,000. correction, 500 to 2,000. now, u.s. officials have said this is a reasonable and a low number of casualties but that's how you look at it. even if we accept the lower figure of 500, then it's reasonable to say that the total number of civilians killed by the nato bombing was about the same as the total number of albanians who had been killed by serb attacks who preceded the bombing.

let's not forget ladies and gentlemen the total number of deaths of the bombing was 2,000. the total number of albanians killed by the serbs again has never been properly estimated but it probably was in the range of 500 i would say. it couldn't have been much higher than that because the total number of everybody killed is 2,000. so that's a second effect was direct deaths from the bombing itself. and third one must take into account the revenge killings that took place of the albanians and the revenge killings by the albanians which nato did very little to stop that occurred after the end of the bombings. based on all these factors i think it's reasonable to say that the effect of this humanitarian intervention was to greatly worsen the situation from the humanitarian standpoint far from resolving the problem. it made it worse. the major judgment i make is a very negative one with regard to this particular intervention.

now, in conclusion i want to note that this is only one episode in the breakup of yugoslavia. in my book i deal with other aspects of foreign intervention in other areas most notably in boz kneeia which had significant similarities to the bosnia intervention where u.s. intervention had made the problem worse than worse before. the whole problem was created by western intervention which made possible and encouraged the breakup of yugoslavia. surely there were many reasons for it including domestic ones. but i think there is clear evidence that a decisive element that made the breakup possible was foreign intervention. now, i think, you know, this really has to be a major lesson for us because again when you hear people advocating for future humanitarian interventions in places like, for example, darfur or burma

myanmar or zimbabwe to resolve the problem. it should have the same effect with places like darfur. that logic doesn't follow as we've seen the effect was not positive in kosovo. and i think there's very good reasons for thinking the intervention in darfur would have similarly negative effects. this is precisely what was argued by a recent excellent book called "saviors and survivors." which argues very much against intervention in darfur. that it would cause many of the same problems as the bosnia intervention. people forget an intervention is a form of war and war has tremendous potential to do damage and to kill. that's often forgotten. the save darfur movement as is pointed out is not a call for peace. it is a call for war. and we should be very careful when we call for war recognizing the tremendous risks of damage that could be caused by war. and has, in fact, occurred in places like kosovo.

so i think basically, you know, my basic verdict on humanitarian intervention is the lack of accountability. it's very easy for intellectuals to advocate for military intervention in distant places. the question is, what if it makes it worse? kosovo isn't the only case. let us not forget iraq which is also justified in part as humanitarian intervention to liberate the iraqi people. christopher hitchens justified it in those terms. the intervention in iraq was a disaster. it took a situation that was bad, it certainly was bad under saddam hussein and made it much worse. afghanistan was certainly in a very bad situation under the taliban who were doing some terrible things and the situation now is a good deal worse with no end in sight. and the taliban at the very least there was security for most of the country. now there's a generalized insecurity. it seems to be getting worse, not better. so again, there's lack of

consideration for the potential of humanitarian intervention to do tremendous harm. another problem with humanitarian intervention is cost. acts of war are extremely expensive. in the case of yugoslavia it was relatively cheap. a mere of tens of billions of dollars. the current estimate for the long-term cost of war in iraq is about $3 trillion. that's from linda billman's of harvard and george stiglitz of columbia. for afghanistan, i haven't seen any estimates but it also undoubtedly would have to be at least in the hundreds of billions. and if it goes much longer it could very well be in the trillions just like iraq. the question would be, is there anything of humanitarian nature we could do with that kind of money? let's not forget if we spend the money on intervention there'll be less money available for such things as disease eradication or efforts to combat global warming. there are many easy, inexpensive things that can be done. that will have tremendous

humanitarian impact that are easy to do and carry little risk, for example. increasing aids program to protect people against aids in africa. which is chronically underfunded. but gets relatively little attention and little funding when compared with military intervention and my question is why? if there's such an urgent need for intervention in darfur, why isn't there an urgent need to increase spending on aids prevention in africa? i think the short answer is two reasons. one is that it does not benefit powerful vested interests including those associated with u.s. power and u.s. hegemony. and for some reason it just doesn't seem exciting enough. to intellectualing who advocate these types of policies. i guess moral crusades involving war seem much more exciting than boring things like disease intervention. perhaps what we need is to put

the money and the efforts and our attention into things that work and things that don't really carrying much risk in making the situation before. and before we save darfur or save afghanistan in the way that we supposedly saved kosovo, perhaps we should consider let's not make the situation worse. in medicine there's a basic point. that before you take action, make sure the action doesn't make the disease worse than before. first do no harm. we must accept that we can't cure all diseases. and we can't cure all conflicts but at least let's not make it worse. first do no harm. that's my final conclusion. thank you. [applause] >> i believe we're going to open it up for question and answer and if anyone has any question to give to professor gibbs, please let me know and i'll bring the microphone to you. you have your hand raised. will you stand up, please.

>> my question is, referring to your point that after the cold war, the u.s. needed something else to do with its military. so it needed humanitarian. i thought the war on drugs filled that role and i'm wondering if the war on drugs fills that role in a different geographical region, latin america where humanitarian intervention doesn't seem to play a role or what's your thought on that? and actually, if you want to -- if you want it to work in honduras, that would be a great thing, too. thanks. >> okay. it's a good point that -- i don't want to suggest humanitarians is the only justification for u.s. foreign policy obviously there are others. the war on drugs clearly is one. another, obviously, after 9/11 is, of course, terrorism. at the same time, i would say at least during the 1990s and to some extent even today, humanitarian intervention is really the dominant one. even now.

perhaps arguably even more so than terrorism or at least equal to it. one of the arguments one hears again and again with regard to afghanistan -- and again, let's be clear, american troops are not in large numbers fighting the war on drugs the way they are fighting in afghanistan and iraq. the main focus of the u.s. now is primarily afghanistan and iraq. that's perfectly straightforward. and what's the justification for it? in afghanistan the justification we hear again and again is that we have to protect women and girls from the, you know, actions of the taliban. we have to let the girls go to school, for example. and, you know, it's a very -- it's an argument that pulls at your heart strings. and among reasonable people at least in the west, very few would dispute the fact that, you know, it's a good thing that women and girls be protected from, you know, attacks by people like the taliban. and the taliban are very generally speaking a very ugly political group. i think most of us would agree on that.

and it's a very effective at least at a rhetorical level a very effective argument for war. and that's the main argument at least that i'm hearing right now. is the humanitarian need to help the afghan people particularly women and girls but the afghan people more generally protect themselves against the taliban. but at what price? is the cure worse than the disease? i think it's starting to look like that in afghanistan. and so, you know, in short, there was a great need to find a great function of u.s. cold war. and there were a number of solutions to that problem. and humanitarian intervention was one among several but it's the dom inability one. -- dominant one. it's the one i'm seeing in the opinion section of the "new york times."

>> it would have been easy for you to go with the usual account of yugoslavia's breakup and i commend you for the research you did. you must have done it with an open mind to look outside the box. my question is, about the introduction. it alluded to your views about public opinion. and i'd like you to just clarify that a little bit or expand on that because i think -- whether it's iraq or whether it's the taliban or saddam or whatever, even in yugoslavia, to demonize a group as effective -- you have to almost in a democracy to get public opinion. it still is important to justify a bombing or get people to support it. >> yes. i agree as a general point and jacquelyn sharky in her introduction emphasized the issue of accountability and the issue of the lack of involvement by the public. and i think a basic problem you have in foreign crises in

yugoslavia and darfur and afghanistan is people don't know about these places which is perfectly understandable. the situation is complicated. it is difficult to get a good information on it. and i think there's often an effort to try and get a very simple story. and the simple story that's often told is villains and heroes or villeans or victims is a better one. and in the case of the yugoslavia, all of the blame is put on a single group, the serbs. and it must be said the serbs did some terrible things. and particularly in bosnia, and others the serbs created most of the atrocities because they had better weapons and they were better armed and other committed other atrocities. the groups did the basically the same thing admittedly on a smaller scale because they had fewer weapons. but the story was simplified to the public.

all the atrocities and the aggressive acts were caused by the serbs and as we've seen in the case of the kosovo it's simply not true but that's how it was presented because the public responds much better to a simple story and the need to keep it simple is very important. another feature that is very striking to me is the personalization of conflict. that we were not fighting with any degree of complexity. we were fighting against a single evil individual, milosevic. in iraq all the problems in iraq were caused by a single individual, saddam hussein. i think there's an effort in sudan to suggest bashir as a single individual is the problem. this is a gross simplification of these conflicts and not on to whitewash these people who were all indeed criminal persons who did very criminal things, but to suggest that certainly in the case of yugoslavia, there were many villains and it was a complex war that could not be reduced to single personalities

but nevertheless there was an effort to simplify it by reducing it to single personalities because that plays much better in public relations terms. what's very striking is not just that it was accepted by the public but a lot of intellectuals who really should have known better with advanced training and degrees from ivy league institutions seem to accept these very simplified accounts of what actually happened. indeed, you'll see some really very intelligent people. a social theorist said, and yugoslavia you a over when milosevic became president of serbia. as if all the problems were caused by this one individual. but in any case, whether accurate or not, it's certainly very effective in getting the public to come along. i would certainly agree with that.

>> we always assume that wars were between armies, between nations and so forth. the civil war, the world war i, world war ii or all the korean wars and so forth, but the war in bosnia, the war in iraq, the war in afghanistan is not really a war as i see it. it's more of an invasion. would you comment on that? >> well, there's no doubt that, you know, the united states certainly invaded iraq. in a certain sense of the term, i guess, you could call its actions in afghanistan an invasion. as you could also in the case of

kosovo and that there was forced entry. and so, yes, this was a form of invasion. there's no question that at least the iraq and kosovo actions were violations of international law in the sense that they were done without getting help from the u.n. security force. in the case of afghanistan there was a security council resolution in that case and in the other cases there were not. and so with the exception of the iraq case, these interventions were illegal military actions. i think its illegality have been recognized. there's post-talk analyses that acknowledged that it's technically illegal but defended as serving a higher moral purpose that goes beyond war but as we've seen that too falls flat when one looks more carefully at the circumstances.

>> are there any more questions? >> it's not a question. it's a commentary. after being in mexico for a year, i observed that the government decided to intervene in you are on own country if we can call it that way and use the military force to eradicate the drugs, the market of drugs, something. i don't know what they really wanted to eradicate. but the numbers -- it caught my attention because you cited 2,000 death in kosovo and then after the bombings it went up to 10,000 if i'm not wrong. will the numbers in mexico after these war on drugs started -- i

would say in a matter of a year or two went up to about 10,000. with being people being beheaded and all sorts of weapons being used so i find the power between this military intervention in mexico in this case and i'm afraid this to a certain extent is supported by the u.s. just by looking at what's happening there. >> it's a very good illustration of how, you know, military force in the case of mexico took a problem that admittedly was a problem and, you know, produced bad results, which was drug trafficking and violence from drug trafficking and there was an effort to get tough and crack down on the drug trafficking which made the problem much worse and greatly increased the level of deaths and the level of human suffering and there is indeed a parallel to what happened in kosovo that -- you know, the idea that military force is your main instrument is