Special Issue on the Conflict in Kosovo

Third Quarter 1999

Editor's Watch

by James W. Skillen

The military engagement of NATO in Kosovo "was not a war at all, but an exercise in coercive diplomacy designed to change one man's mind," concludes Michael Ignatieff (The New Yorker, 8/2/99). Whether war or coercive diplomacy, the conflict has raised profound questions about American foreign and military policy, the future of NATO, the legitimacy of "humanitarian" intervention, and the justice of it all.

This issue of the Public Justice Report focuses entirely on these questions. The editors invited Christians with expertise, from Europe, Canada, and the United States, to assess the conflict's implications and consequences. The range of opinion is wide—from cautious approval to severe criticism of NATO's intervention, for example. There are both agreements and disagreements about whether NATO's use of force met with criteria of the historic, Christian, just-war doctrine. And the authors offer different judgments about NATO, American diplomatic aims, and the use of the just-war doctrine.

Theo Brinkel, writing from Europe, offers a largely sympathetic assessment of NATO's intervention in Kosovo, while introducing some of the basic considerations of the just-war doctrine. Justin Cooper, in Canada, gives reasons for supporting outside intervention but questions some of the means used. Steven Meyer steps back behind the conflict to assess what he believes are serious weaknesses in American foreign policy today, weaknesses that have led to misguided judgments about the Balkans. Based on personal involvement in the diplomatic developments leading up to and during NATO's intervention, David Steele, using just-war criteria, develops his own nuanced assessment of the conflict. Donald Kruse, a Middle-East expert who also served in the American foreign service in Europe, weighs opinions about the Kosovo conflict expressed by people and leaders in the Middle East. Tracy Kuperus, an Africa specialist, takes up the question of why American intervention seemed so crucial in Kosovo but not in Rwanda. Finally, Daniel Philpott, sheds important historical light on why forceful intervention, which seems to conflict with the principle of respect for state sovereignty, might be justified for humanitarian purposes and might occur more frequently in the decades ahead.

While none of these authors speaks for the Center for Public Justice or for this publication, together they help fulfill one of the Center's purposes, which is to assess political reality carefully and critically from a Christian point of view. Questions of war and peace now appear in a different light in our rapidly shrinking world, which is no longer structured militarily by the Cold-War conflict. These are the circumstances in which we now find ourselves and Christians have an obligation to try to understand them in order to be able to pursue justice, both domestically and internationally.