Trap for a Superpower

Judging by these principles, I have no doubt that Milosevic infringed the rights of the Albanian population in Kosovo. Nor do I have any doubts that the situation required outside intervention. My doubts center on the ways in which international pressure can be successfully applied.

We have accomplished exactly the opposite of what we intended. We have accelerated the ethnic cleansing we sought to interdict. We have helped to consolidate in power the Milosevic regime and we have helped to create instability in the neighboring countries of Montenegro, Macedonia, and Albania, not to mention the broader international implications such as our relationship with China.

The question I have to ask myself: is it possible, is it appropriate to intervene in the internal affairs of a state in the name of some general principle like human rights or open society? I did not want to consider such a question and I certainly don't want to accept no for an answer. It would be the end of the aspiration for an open society. In the absence of outside intervention oppressive regimes could perpetrate untold atrocities.

People who live in democratic countries do not believe in democracy as a universal principle. They tend to be guided by self-interest, not by universal principles. They may be willing to defend democracy in their own country because they consider it to be in their own self-interest, but few people care sufficiently about democracy as an abstract idea to defend it in other countries, especially when the idea is so far removed from the reality. Yet people do have some concerns that go beyond self-interest. They are aroused by pictures of atrocities. How could these concerns be mobilized to prevent the atrocities?

I have attended a number of discussions about Kosovo and I was shocked to discover how vague and confused people, well-informed people, are about the reasons for our involvement. They speak of humanitarian reasons and human rights almost interchangeably.

The atrocities started over a year ago, and the principles of open society were violated ten years ago. But people did not even know where Kosovo was until we started bombing Yugoslavia.

We shall not be able to get rid of Milosevic by bombing but if, after the war, there is a grand plan for the reconstruction of Southeast Europe involving a customs union and virtual membership in the EU for those countries which qualify, I am sure that the Serbs would soon get rid of Milosevic in order to qualify.

Ironically, it is the US that stands in the way of such a political alliance. We are caught in a trap of our own making. We used to be one of the two superpowers and the leaders of the free world. We are now the sole remaining superpower and we would like to think of ourselves as the leaders of the free world. But that is where we fail, because we fail to observe one of the basic principles of the open society. Nobody has a monopoly on the truth, yet we act as if we did. We are willing to violate the sovereignty of other states in the name of universal principles but we are unwilling to accept any infringement on our own sovereignty. We are willing to drop bombs on others from high altitudes but we are reluctant to expose our own men to risk. We refuse to submit ourselves to any kind of international governance. We were one of seven countries which refused to subscribe to the International Criminal Court; the others were China, Iraq, Israel, Libya, Qatar, and Yemen. We do not even pay our dues to the United Nations. This kind of behavior does not lend much legitimacy to our claim to be the leaders of the free world. To reclaim that role we must radically alter our attitude to international cooperation. We cannot and should not be the world's policemen, but the world needs a policeman. Therefore we must cooperate with like-minded countries and abide by the rules that we seek to impose on others.

Moscow News, June 8-15, 1999