I am not sure from a type-written letter whether you are implying some irony in your question, but factually I agree with the distinction you are making. In the passage quoted from Carrington he deliberately characterised the Serb chauvinists as being merely very foolish for not giving Kosovo autonomy. Blair, like Thatcher before him in the early 90's on the question of Bosnia, wanted to go to war ostensibly, and ostentatiously, for an ideal.
> Actually, it was Carrington who most
>forcefully warned against the German recognition of Croatia and Slovenia,
>without which there would have likely been very little bloodshed.
I think you are factually correct that Carrington warned against this. He did also try to facilitate the unanimous dissolution of the federation. I doubt it was the main cause of the disintegration of Yugoslavia which I think should be put down to centrifugal internal contradictions. With very different economic conditions in different parts of the federal state it is not surprising that nationalism exacerbated these differences in the 90's. Yugoslavia is not the only former socialist state that has disintegrated.
Jim Heartfield:
>I think I prefer the cynical honesty of Carrington to the heavily
>ideological apologetics of Blair's 'human rights' which seem more
>crudely imperialistic than Jimmy Carter's.
That seems in conformity with your position.
>Whoa, Chris, what's that you say? The Nato bombing precipitated
>Operation Horseshoe? I don't remember you admitting so much at the time.
I do not remember denying it, and I am pretty likely to have admitted it at the time. I certainly warned on marxism-unmoderated before the outbreak of war, about the imperialist nature of the western position on Rambouillet. I always thought the more proportionate response to the Serb crushing of Albanian autonomy, was military aid to the Kosovans. On conditions. I know this argument has also been rehearsed about the reactionary nature of some of the Kosovan positions but that would have been a reason for putting conditions on their aid.
But as far as this exchange is concerned, do *you* accept that Operation Horshoe must have been planned well in advance for it to have been executed with such speed (as well as atrocities) when the OECD observers were pulled out?
I agree that Jimmy Carter's position was less crudely imperialistic than Blair's. Carter came out against cluster bombs did he not?
But what would you say to Clinton's claim in favour of intervention that 200,000 died in Bosnia. The total deaths on all sides in the war over Kosovo appear to have been less than a tenth of that. In my opinion that does not excuse the widespread bombing of Serbia, but it is an argument that does not do Clinton much damage, I suggest.
Carl commented :
>Sounding a bit Blair-ish there, Chris. What might those "modern
>concepts of conflict resolution" be?
The main point of my post was to pick up your quote from Carrington to highlight a clear example of one of two imperialist policy options in the face of fascism: appeasement or armed defiance. I get the impression that the majority of contributors to these lists are influenced by the Vietnam war, quite rightly, and assume that any armed action by an imperialist power is probably wrong. And certainly that struggles against colonialism and neo-colonialism are right.
Nevertheless as we close the 20th century, one of the great lessons of marxism is that revolution does not quickly move to the capitalist heartlands but that fascism can be a real menace as an alternative form of capitalist class rule to bourgeois democracy.
I think these two historical lessons intersected in Yugoslavia and explain the bitterness of the debate.
Two more recent features have to be added to the picture: 1) the complex risks in the breakup of former centralised socialist states.
2) modern methods of conflict management. This is a new language, which does not dispense with the bodies of armed men that support every state. However in certain conditions where it suits capitalism to use the method, they will organise a series of meetings in which different stakeholders spell out what they want, including the material and psychological values, and are led to calculate their chances of getting these. In South Africa it successfully led to the disbandment of the white South African army, although it had not been overthrown by revolution. In Northern Ireland the latest phase, as Senator Mitchell jets in again, is the stand-off that the republicans will only surrender armed policing of their communities if the RUC is drastically reformed. How much it will be reformed remains to be seen. That is why Mo Mowlam does not have to resign: it is all part of the conflict management process.
Now the US has not threatened to bomb Stormont or London if the agreement is not carried out, as it threatened to bomb Belgrade, and did bomb Belgrade, but that seems to be to be a switch between conflict management and old-fashioned gun-boat diplomacy. The US establishement was deeply divided about that switch in Kosova.
Conflict management is going on again now: eg getting Serbian orthodox priests sitting round the table with KLA representatives in Kosovo. It is not abstract democracy: it is about managing power and interests within a state structure.
Fundamentally I do not see anything mysterious about this from a historical materialist point of view. The difference is a shift in perspective about whether world governance is inevitable. Do we fight politically to resist it every way we can, or to change the agenda in a more progressive direction with the opportunities that open up? Blanket resistance leaves us out of the arena of struggle.
Chris Burford
London