Since the alternative is too horrible to contemplate, let us assume that before long Nato succeeds in imposing its will on President Milosevic, with or without the use of ground troops, and that a kind of peace has descended on the Balkans.
The first thing to remember is that it is not only Croats, Muslims and Albanians who have suffered as a result of Milosevic's murderous drive for a Greater Serbia. As a consequence of his policies, hundreds of thousands of Serbs have also been expelled from lands which their forefathers have occupied for centuries in Croatia, Bosnia, and no doubt now in Kosovo. Perhaps they will conclude, as the Germans did 50 years ago, that they must pay the price for following a deluded leader, and learn to live within diminished boundaries. But they are a mythopoeic nation. It is more likely that they will conclude that once again they have been the victims of a historic injustice, and that they will brood in bitterness, waiting to launch yet another futile attempt to reverse the verdict of history. For the future tranquillity of the Balkans, the Serbs will have to be brought back into the international community as equal members.
And the consequences go much wider than the Balkans alone. Before the crisis, most Russians were as ignorant of what was happening in the Balkans as most westerners. Reason says that Russia has no serious national interest in the affairs of the former Yugoslavia. But even sensible policy-makers have been saying foolish things. Prime Minister Primakov is more cunning. If his bid to act as a broker in the peacemaking succeeds, he will boost the prestige of Russia as well as of himself. But it is not clear that he will be allowed to do so by his own domestic opinion, by Milosevic, or by those in the west who regard Russia as an irritating irrelevance. Relations between Russia and the west could spiral downwards.
Nato will be profoundly affected even in victory. There were two main arguments about Nato enlargement. One argument was that Nato would remain a purely defensive alliance, and that those who remained outside had nothing to fear. The other was that Nato would now acquire a new role: to promote human rights, democracy, good government and market economics inside Europe. It was never clear how a military organisation could promote civilian objectives. But the ultimatum which Nato delivered to Serbia-and the war which has followed it-means that it can no longer be portrayed as a purely defensive alliance. And the Russians, among others, must wonder where it will stop.
Nato members have been surprisingly united in support of military action. Milosevic's policies left them no decent choice. But Nato has turned out to be a very blunt instrument. Even if a halfway decent settlement is now cobbled together for Kosovo, it will be more difficult to get people to support a repetition of the trick in another European crisis. And the Americans are now likely to find it harder to get European support for the idea that Nato should extend itself beyond this continent, to help them maintain the peace wherever it is threatened, and punish villains wherever they are found.
This raises the biggest question of all: the nature and the future of US power. Americans believe that they have a duty to slay dragons. But their record-in Vietnam, in Iraq, in Iran, in Somalia, even in neighbouring Cuba-demonstrates that there are severe practical limitations even to the most awesome military power, especially when it is exercised in the belief that technology can substitute for body bags. Meanwhile it is a reasonable certainty that US power will conjure up increasing opposition, as the overwhelming power of Athens conjured up the coalition led by Sparta.
All our relationships are likely to be more edgy as a result of what has happened. Nato's identity crisis and transatlantic recrimination are likely to intensify, even as the Europeans wonder whether they will ever be able to organise a peaceful continent without external assistance. It will be harder to integrate a modernising Russia into the western community. Countries such as India or China, which do not share the US view of its own role, will become more inclined to join in resisting US demands. Sooner or later the US, too, will have to adapt to an imperfect world. But it may then go too far, and retreat into sullen isolationism.
It is a glum prospect. Because there are no simple, cheap or satisfying solutions, we will have to go for complex and boring ones. The main, and hitherto most successful body for the promotion of peace, prosperity and democratic rights in Europe, is not Nato but the European Union. The EU needs to give practical assistance and political support to the countries most immediately affected by the crisis-Kosovo itself, Montenegro, Albania and Macedonia. It needs to develop its relationships even more energetically with the European countries which are not likely to become early members. This means not only Russia, but also, and as soon as possible, postwar Yugoslavia. All this will be expensive and will be opposed by sectional interests within the EU. Nato should abandon its wilder pretensions to set the rest of the world to rights. It should concentrate instead on its basic function as a defensive alliance and expand its network of partnerships with non-members. The Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which includes Russia, should become the main pan-European agency for the resolution of political disputes between its members. This means strengthening its authority; it also means restoring Yugoslavia to membership as soon as this can properly be done.
And then there is the much despised United Nations. Of course the UN cannot solve all, perhaps not even many, of the world's problems. Of course it provides no basis for starry-eyed optimism about universal peace and world government. But despite its numerous failures, it is the only comprehensive, law-based body which exists for the purpose of settling political disputes among its members. For a brief period at the end of the 1980s and the beginning of the 1990s, while the Permanent Members of the Security Council still took one another seriously, it functioned as its founders had intended. The theory which has recently gained currency-that if the UN cannot agree then the US and its allies have the right and the duty to take action on their own-is arrogant, subversive of the rule of law, and unattractive to a lot of people. However inconvenient, it is time for the western powers to try once more to make the UN work.
