WASHINGTON -- Some of America's sophisticated military assets are in the Balkan skies, perhaps illustrating the problem of having the best ladder at the wrong wall. Still, Senate Democrats have become bellicose.
Most of them opposed the gulf war, fought in response to an unambiguous violation of international law and in defense of vital U.S. political and economic interests in a strategically crucial region. During the climactic stage of the Cold War, many Democrats opposed aid to the Contras fighting a dictatorship aligned with Moscow.
These Democrats argued that there was no significant U.S. interest in the outcome of a "civil war" in this hemisphere, and that taking sides in civil strife was without warrant in international law.
Many Senate Democrats opposed procuring the B-2 bomber. Now they favor employing the B-2 in a civil war in a province of the remnant of Yugoslavia. Why? The short answer is that the president wants their support. There is, as yet, no long answer.
Sen. Joseph Biden, a Delaware Democrat, never a stickler for accuracy, repeatedly says that one reason for bombing is to stop "genocide." President Clinton, ever the vulgarian, echoes Mr. Biden.
Mr. Clinton's Tuesday speech, effectively announcing war, was made not to the nation but to a public employees union. The speech began with inappropriate jokes, then oozed smarmy folksiness ("this is not a slam-dunk"). He compared war against Serbia to the missed opportunity of confronting Hitler early.
He indulged in his characteristic verbal tic, invoking "our children." And he recycled the "it's the economy, stupid" trope -- American prosperity depends on a Europe "wealthy enough to buy our products," which depends on peace, which depends on Kosovo.
The proliferation of reasons for using force reflects uneasiness with the three best reasons. One is that European decadence and parochialism has at long last been dented. Europeans are galvanized to act against barbarism in their own back yard and it is in America's interest to encourage this European adulthood.
The second reason is that if NATO cannot act against nearby barbarism, NATO should not be expanding, it should be disbanding. The third is that graphic journalism in a wired world forces America either to respond to this humanitarian calamity or to stop thinking of itself as having some responsibility for certain universal values in Europe.
Uneasiness about the sufficiency of these reasons reflects the excessive American desire, especially among liberals, to locate in international law a clear justification for all uses of force. It is difficult, although not impossible, to fashion a plausible lawyerly justification for bombing a sovereign nation, not because of any action by that nation against another nation, but because of its mistreatment of an oppressed ethnic group within its borders.
It is unseemly for Senate Republicans, who should advocate maximum latitude for the United States to exercise its sovereignty, to suddenly make a fetish of international law. A conservative critique should stress prudence, not jurisprudence. Two prudential questions are:
How long will it take NATO, operating from the air over mountainous terrain, to destroy enough of Serbia's forces that they can no longer threaten Kosovo? Rifles and pistols in the hands of Serbian "police" have sufficed for massacres. And if Serbia is rendered incapable of oppression, is the Clinton administration prepared for the Kosovo Liberation Army to thank NATO by refusing to settle for "autonomy," seeking instead independence from weakened Serbia?
NATO policy is that ground forces will be used only as peacekeepers, not peacemakers. So, Slobodan Milosevic can effectively block NATO from deploying ground forces in Kosovo by maintaining relatively low-intensity conflict. Milosevic has seen Saddam Hussein play with Mr. Clinton, paralyzing U.S. policy by making perishable promises. Will Milosevic stop NATO's bombing by making feints toward some ambiguous "autonomy" for Kosovo?
NATO will not easily replicate the success of its bombing of Serbian forces in Bosnia in 1995. Serbia merely coveted Bosnia; Serbia reveres Kosovo, birthplace of Serbian nationalism. We may have begun yet another demonstration of the limits of air power. Great ladder, difficult wall.
George F. Will is a syndicated columnist.
Pub Date: 3/28/99