U.S.-RUSSIAN RELATIONS IN THE SHADOW OF THE 1999 KOSOVO WAR

Mladen Lišanin

Abstract

The paper examines the changing relations between the U.S. and Russia since the end of the twentieth century, shaped by the experience of NATO’s war with Federal Republic of Yugoslavia over Kosovo. The first decade after the termination of the Cold War brought about the American ‘unipolar moment’, and with it the attempt of Russian political elites to approach the unipole and find a sustainable modus vivendi with it: the relationship between Yeltsin and Clinton administrations is a vivid example of such endeavors. At the same time, policies such as NATO expansion induced suspicion on the Russian side with regard to the possibilities of achieving an understanding and allowing Russia to become a legitimate part of European security architecture. When, in March of 1999, NATO began with the attacks against FRY (a country perceived as traditionally friendly towards Russia) without the consent of the United Nations Security Council, a long shadow was cast over the prospects of a Russian – American rapprochement. All subsequent episodes of cooperation and competition between Russia and the U.S. have been observed through the lens shaped by the Kosovo war. Drawing from contemporary Russian and western academic literature and memoir materials (Primakov, Guskova, Narochnitska, Baranovsky, Tsygankov, Sushenkov; Wohlforth, Walt, Clarke, Hill, Galen Carpenter et al.) and building upon the traditional realist concepts of great power competition and balancing, the author assesses the development of U.S.-Russian security relations in the context the Kosovo war experience. It is argued that, in addition to being an attack against a country perceived as a traditional Russian friend or protégé, NATO bombing of FRY in 1999 posed a major concern to Russia because it was a signal that the alliance was ready to change its strategic posture and engage in out-of-area operations.

References

• Antonenko, Oksana. 1999. “Russia, NATO and European Security after Kosovo”. Survival 41 (4): 124–144. doi: 10.1080/713660137.
• Baranovsky, Vladimir. 2000. “The Kosovo Factor in Russia’s Foreign Policy”. The International Spectator: Italian Journal of International Affairs 35 (2): 113–130. doi: 10.1080/03932720008458130.
• Blank, Stephen J. 2000. Threats to Russian Security: The View from Moscow. Carlisle [PA]: Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College.
• Brudenell, Anna Maria. 2008. “Russia’s Role in the Kosovo Conflict of 1999”. The RUSI Journal 153 (1): 30–34. doi: 10.1080/03071840801984615.
• Cohen, Stephen F. 2016. “The Imperative of De-demonizing Vladimir Putin”. The Nation, online, 2 November 2016, https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/the-imperative-of-de-demonizing-vladimir-putin/.
• Daalder, Ivo H. and Michael E. O’Hanlon. 2000. Winning Ugly: NATO’s War to Save Kosovo. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press.
• Filimonović, Miljan. 2010. Spoljna politika Ruske Federacije. Beograd: Infinitas.
• Fukuyama, Francis. 1989. “The End of History?” The National Interest 16: 3–18.
• Galen Carpenter, Ted. 2000. “Damage to Relations with Russia and China”. In NATO’s Empty Victory: A Postmortem on the Balkan War, ed. Ted Galen Carpenter, 77–91. Washington, DC: Cato Institute.
• Galen Carpenter, Ted. 2017. “How Kosovo Poisoned America’s Relationship with Russia”. The National Interest, online, 19 May 2017, https://nationalinterest.org/feature/how-kosovo-poisoned-americas-relationship-russia-20755.
• Gobarev, Vicktor. 1999. “Russia‐NATO relations after the Kosovo crisis: Strategic implications”. The Journal of Slavic Military Studies 12 (3): 1–17. doi: 10.1080/13518049908430401.
• Gunitsky, Seva and Andrei P. Tsygankov. 2018. “The Wilsonian Bias in the Study of Russian Foreign Policy”. Problems of Post-Communism 65 (6): 385–393.
• Guskova, Jelena (ur.). 1996. Jugoslovenska kriza i Rusija: dokumenti, fakta, komentari (1991-1995). Beograd: Institut za međunarodnu politiku i privredu.
• Guskova, Jelena. 2003. Istorija jugoslovenske krize (1990-2000) II. Beograd: Izdavački grafički atelje „M“.
• Halberstam, Dejvid. 2003. Rat u vreme mira: Buš, Klinton i generali. Beograd: BMG.
• Hill, William H. 2018. No Place for Russia: European Security Institutions since 1989. New York [NY]: Columbia University Press.
• Huntington, Samuel P. 1993. “The Clash of Civilizations?”. Foreign Affairs 72 (3): 22–49. doi: 10.2307/20045621.
• Kanet, Roger E. 2020. “The Russian Federation, the USA and European Security”. International Politics. Published online 29 March 2020. doi: 10.1057/s41311-020-00228-6.
• Klark, Vesli. 2003. Moderno ratovanje: Bosna, Kosovo i budućnost oružane borbe. Beograd: Samizdat B92.
• Kramer, Mark. 2009. “The Myth of a No-NATO-Enlargement Pledge to Russia“. The Washington Quarterly, 32 (2): 39–61. doi: 10.1080/01636600902773248
• Krauthammer, Charles. 1990/1991. The Unipolar Moment. Foreign Affairs 70(1): 23–33.
• Kurth, James. 2001. “First War of the Global Era: Kosovo and U.S. Grand Strategy”. In War over Kosovo Politics and Strategy in a Global Age, eds. Andrew Bacevich, Eliot Cohen, 63–96. New York [NY]: Columbia University Press.
• Lanoszka, Alexander. 2020. “Thank Goodness for NATO Enlargement”. International Politics. Published online 7 April 2020. doi: 10.1057/s41311-020-00234-8.
• Latawski, Paul Chester and Martin A. Smith. 2003. The Kosovo Crisis and the Evolution of Post-Cold War European Security. Manchester – New York [NY]: Manchester University Press.
• Legvold, Robert. 2018. “US – Russia Relations Unhinged”. In Chaos in the Liberal Order: The Trump Presidency and International Politics in the Twenty-First Century, eds. Robert Jervis, Francis J. Gavin, Joshua Rovner, and Diane N. Labrosse, 287–300. New York [NY] – Chichester: Columbia University Press.
• Levitin, Oleg. 2000. “Inside Moscow’s Kosovo Muddle”. Survival: Global Politics and
• Strategy 42 (1): 130-140. doi: 10.1093/survival/42.1.130
• Lieven, Anatol. 2001. “Hubris and Nemesis: Kosovo and the Pattern of Western Military Ascendancy and Defeat”. In War over Kosovo: Politics and Strategy in a Global Age, eds. Andrew Bacevich, Eliot Cohen, 97–123. New York [NY]: Columbia University Press.
• Lišanin, Mladen. 2018. “Sanctions as an Ambiguous Tool of Economic Statecraft: The Case of Russia Post-2014”. Serbian Political Thought 18 (2): 53-68. doi: 10.22182/spt.18212018.4.
• Lynch, Dov. 1999. “‘Walking the tightrope’: The Kosovo Conflict and Russia in European Security, 1998–August 1999”. European Security 8 (4): 57–83. doi: 10.1080/09662839908407427.
• Marten, Kimberly. 2020. “NATO Enlargement: Evaluating Its Consequences in Russia”. International Politics. Published online 16 April 2020. doi: 10.1057%2Fs41311-020-00233-9.
• MccGwire, Michael. 1998. “NATO Expansion: ‘A Policy Error of Historic Importance’”. Review of International Studies 24 (1): 23–42. doi: 10.1017/S0260210598000230.
• Mearsheimer, John J. (1990) “Back to the Future: Instability in Europe after the Cold War”. International Security 15 (1): 5–56. doi: 10.2307/2538981.
• Mearsheimer, John J. 2014. “Why the Ukraine Crisis Is the West’s Fault: The Liberal Delusions That Provoked Putin”. Foreign Affairs 93 (5): 77–84.
• Mearsheimer, John J. 2018. The Great Delusion: Liberal Dreams and International Realities. New Haven [CT] – London: Yale University Press.
• Medvedev, Roj. 2009. Boris Jeljcin: Rusija na kraju XX veka. Beograd: Službeni glasnik.
• Milošević, Đorđe. 2006. Vreme stida i zločina. Novi Sad: Prometej.
• Mueller, John. 2018. “Embracing Threatlessness: US Military Spending, Newt Gingrich, and the Costa Rica Option”. In US Grand Strategy in the 21^st Century, eds. A. Trevor Thrall and Benjamin H. Friedman, 198–219. Abingdon – New York [NY]: Routledge.
• Naročnicka, Natalija. 2008. Rusija i Rusi u svetskoj istoriji. Beograd: Srpska književna zadruga.
• Primakov, Jevgenij. 2002. Godine u visokoj politici. Beograd: Izdavački grafički atelje „M“.
• Primakov, Jevgenij. 2010. Svet bez Rusije? Čemu vodi politička kratkovidost. Beograd: Sližbeni glasnik – Fakultet bezbednosti.
• Posen, Barry. 2000. “The War for Kosovo: Serbia’s Political-Military Strategy”. International Security 24 (4): 39–84. doi: 10.1162/016228800560309.
• Power, Samantha. 2003. A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide. New York [NY]: Perennial.
• Sarotte, Mary Elise. 2014. “A Broken Promise? What the West Really Told Moscow About NATO Expansion”. Foreign Affairs 93 (5): 90–97.
• Sarotte, Mary Elise. 2019. “How to Enlarge NATO: The Debate inside the Clinton Administration, 1993–95”. International Security 44 (1): 7–41.
• Savranskaya, Svetlana and Tom Blanton. 2017. NATO Expansion: What Gorbachev Heard. George Washington University, National Security Archive Briefing Book #613, online, 12 December 2017, https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/russia-programs/2017-12-12/nato-expansion-what-gorbachev-heard-western-leaders-early.
• Sayle, Timothy Andrews. 2019. Enduring Alliance: A History of NATO and the Postwar Global Order. Ithaca – London: Cornell University Press.
• Shifrinson, Joshua R. Itzkowitz. 2016. “Deal or No Deal? The End of the Cold War and the U.S. Offer to Limit NATO Expansion”. International Security 40 (4): 7–44. doi: 10.1162/ISEC_a_00236.
• Shifrinson, Joshua R. Itzkowitz. 2017. “Time to Consolidate NATO?”. The Washington Quarterly 40 (1): 109–123. doi: 10.1080/0163660X.2017.1302742.
• Shifrinson, Joshua R. Itzkowitz. 2020. “Eastbound and Down: The United States, NATO enlargement, and suppressing the Soviet and Western European alternatives, 1990–1992”. Journal of Strategic Studies. Published online 1 April 2020. doi: 10.1080/01402390.2020.1737931.
• Simić, Jasminka. 2010. U potrazi za novom misijom: NATO i jugoslovenska kriza. Beograd: Službeni glasnik.
• Smith, Nicholas Ross. 2020. A New Cold War? Assessing the Current US-Russia Relationship. Palgrave Macmillan (eBook). doi: 10.1007/978-3-030-20675-8.
• Sushentsov, Andrey A. and William C. Wohlforth. 2020. “The Tragedy of US–Russian Relations: NATO Centrality and the Revisionists’ Spiral”. International Politics. Published online 28 March 2020. doi: 10.1057/s41311-020-00229-5.
• Talbott, Strobe. 2019. “Bill, Boris, and NATO”. In Open Door: NATO and Euro-Atlantic Security After the Cold War, eds. Daniel S. Hamilton and Krsitina Spohr, 405-424. Washington, DC: Foreign Policy Institute/Henry A. Kissinger Center for Global Affairs, Johns Hopkins University SAIS.
• Trapara, Vladimir. 2017. Vreme resetovanja: Odnosi Rusije i Sjedinjenih Američkih Država u periodu od 2009. do 2012. godine. Beograd: Institut za međunarodnu politiku i privredu.
• Tsygankov, Andrei P. 2009. Russophobia: Anti-Russian Lobby and American Foreign Policy. Basingstoke – New York [NY]: Palgrave Macmillan.
• Tsygankov, Andrei P. 2012. Russia and the West from Alexander to Putin: Honor in International Relations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Tsygankov, Andrei P. 2013. Russia’s Foreign Policy: Change and Continuity in National Identity. Lanham [MD]: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
• Walt, Stephen M. 2005. Taming American Power: The Global Response to U.S. Primacy. New York [NY] – London: W. W. Norton & Company.
• Walt, Stephen M. 2018. The Hell of Good Intentions: America’s Foreign Policy Elite and the Decline of U.S. Primacy. New York [NY]: Farrar, Straus & Giroux.
• Webber, Mark, James Sperling and Martin A. Smith. 2012. NATO’s Post-Cold War Trajectory: Decline or Regeneration? Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
• Yesson, Erik. 1999. “NATO and Russia in Kosovo”. The RUSI Journal, 144 (4): 20-26. doi: 10.1080/03071849908446422.
• Zagorski, Andrei. 2019. “Russia and NATO in the 1990s”. In Open Door: NATO and Euro-Atlantic Security After the Cold War, eds. Daniel S. Hamilton and Krsitina Spohr, 459-480. Washington, DC: Foreign Policy Institute/Henry A. Kissinger Center for Global Affairs, Johns Hopkins University SAIS.