U.S. Involvement in the Kosovo War
U.S. Involvement in Kosovo War has been waged in the Balkans for thousands of years. Yugoslavia has been divided, reunited, divided again, undergone wars and been through depressions. Each country within the Yugoslavia region has experienced hardships due to a failing economy, poor leadership, and civil wars. In the past few years, a major upheaval in the political structure and the disputes concerning land between the different religions and ethnicity's has caused a civil war. The country and ethnic group of this recent dispute is Serbia and Kosovo. The Albanian Kosovars want their independence from Serbia, while the Serbs consider Kosovo the location in which their cultural and ethnic identity is placed. The United States became involved in the Balkan conflict in the end of 1998 ("Kosovo" 1). U.S. involvement in Kosovo is making matters worse for the innocent people of Kosovo. Kosovo, a small area in the center of the former Yugoslavia, is playing an important role in the Balkan conflict. In the summer of 1998, the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) decided to launch a guerilla warfare attack on Serbia in attempts to liberate themselves and gain their cultural rites. The President of Serbia, Slobodan Milosevic, is refusing to allow Kosovo to break away from Serbia without a fight. Kosovo is a site of great emotional significance to the Serbs; it is the site of a historic defeat by the Ottoman Empire in the 14th century. From this defeat, Kosovo became the cradle of Serbia's cultural and ethnic identity. Milosevic began an ethnic cleansing campaign in which he killed thousands of ethnic Albanians. NATO forces, as well as the United States, began stepping in in the winter of 1998. The United Sta...
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...he Balkan region, and neither force stepped in to help resolve it. A common theory is that NATO will greatly benefit from Kosovo if it becomes detached from Serbia. NATO will benefit from this because Kosovo is in a prime area in which a base for NATO forces would allow them to "keep tabs" on the area. To the Serbs, U.S. involvement is seen strictly as a way for president Clinton to make his time in office memorable militarily as well as historically, and help to cover up his sex and money scandals (Thompson, 1). The Kosovo conflict is growing with each day. New information is being given and different countries are becoming involved. The countries that are involved need to finish what they have already started. Nobody knows what the future will hold for the people of Kosovo. In the upcoming weeks and months, many decisions will be made, and history will be written.
Bosnia had been part of Austria-Hungary since 1908 but it was claimed by neighboring Serbia. Austria-Hungary blamed Serbia for the assassination and on July 28th declared war. What began as the third Balkan war turned into a European war in two years? On August 4th Germany invaded neutral Belgium on its way to France it intended to knock France out of the war before turning its attention to Russia. Britain had guanteed to defend Belgium’s neutral zone and it declared war on Germany. The Great War had begun” (WWI Book
In a recent White House brief, President Obama called the Russian invasion of Crimea a clear violation of Ukraine’s sovereignty, territorial integrity, and international law. When assessing the Russo-Ukrainian crises in Crimea, the commander of European Command (EUCOM) and the Supreme Allied Commander of European Forces (SACUER) must account for U.S. interests in the region before deciding a proper course of action. This essay aims to assess four of the United States’ national interests through the perspective of EUCOM and SACUER. The first section will outline the role of EUCOM and SACUER in the European region and assess the overall problem of Russia invading Crimea. The second section will outline four of the United States’ national interests at stake: international order, trade and economic prosperity, energy supply, and freedom of the seas. In doing so, this assessment of U.S. interests in Crimea supports the options of non-intervention and a non-provocative stance in order to maintain long-term stability because the Russian invasion has only violated peripheral interests of EUCOM and SACUER.
The United States Involvement in Bosnia; is it positive or negative. After a lifetime of war in Bosnia, can the United States really offer positive change? To truly get a feel for the conflict in this region we must first look at the long-standing hatred between the occupying ethnic groups: Serbs, Muslims, and Croats. From 1481 to 1903 the Ottoman Empire was the ruling body over the entire Balkan region. By the early nineteen hundreds the Ottoman Empire had collapsed. In 1918, at the end of World War One, Russia annexed the Balkan region renaming it Yugoslavia. In 1919 Joseph Stalin, Communist ruler of Russia and its satellite states (i.e. Yugoslavia), appointed Tito to be the head of Yugoslavia. Tito quickly became an iron fisted and ruthless dictator. The Machiavellian characteristics exhibited by Tito have given all Serbs a reputation as being strong armed and merciless. With Tito’s death in 1991, Yugoslavia collapsed and split into 3 independent states: Bosnia, Herzegovina, and Croatia. In 1994 Slovadon Malosovitch was elected ruler of the Serbian state. Incidents of mass genocide and several other war crimes became regular occurrences under his rule. The Bosnian crisis has shown the world the worst of human nature. On behalf of the United Nations, in an effort to settle the unrest in the Balkan region, The United States became involved in 1995. The United States involvement includes: the commitment of twenty thousand troops, the troop support of legions of tanks and other vehicles, and the “full support” of the United States Government.
struggle, however, fought under the guise of ethnic hatred. Bibliography Glenny M, "The Balkans, 1804-1999", 2000. Lampe JR, Yugoslavia as History. Twice There was a Country, 1996. Kegley and Wittkopf, "World Politics", 2001.
A new leader arose by the late 1980s, a Serbian named Slobodan Milosevic, a former Communist who had turned to nationalism and religious hatred to gain power. He began by inflaming long-standing tensions between Serbs and Muslims in the independent provence of Kosovo. Orthodox Christian Serbs in Kosovo were in the minority and claimed they were being mistreated by the Albanian Muslim majority. Serbian-backed political unrest in Kosovo eventually led to its loss of independence and domination by Milosevic. In June 1991, Slovenia and Croatia both declared their independence from Yugoslavia soon resulting in civil war. The national army of Yugoslavia, now made up of Serbs controlled by Milosevic, stormed into Slovenia but failed to subdue the separatists there and withdrew after only ten days of fighting. Milosevic quickly lost interest in Slovenia, a country with almost no Serbs. Instead, he turned his attention to Croatia, a Catholic country where Orthodox Serbs made up 12 percent of the population. During World War II, Croatia had been a pro-Nazi state led by Ante Pavelic and his fascist Ustasha Party. Serbs living in Croatia as well as Jews had been the targets of widespread Ustasha massacres.
International organizations such as NATO and the UN are essential not only for global peace, but also as a place where middle powers can exert their influence. It is understandable that since the inception of such organizations that many crises have been averted, resolved, or dealt with in some way thro...
Although Milosevic was a key figure during this period whose actions undoubtedly influenced the chain of events that unfolded, I believe his power-seeking motives were not unique to him; his actions in the former Yugoslavia could have been committed by a number of others who had the same desire for power driving them. Nevertheless, as he was president of Serbia and essentially commander-in-chief of Serb forces who carried out unconscionable acts of cruelty against Muslims and other non-Serb civilians, particularly in the attempt to annex Bosnia-Herzegovina, he bears responsibility for his actions as an authority figure. Though his main goal seemed to be focused on territorial expansion of the Serbian state, he led military forces to deport and murder non-Serb civilians in massive numbers and therefore was in vi...
The Balkan Peninsula has long been known as the “tinderbox of Europe” because it has been an area of conflict and political unrest for centuries. The countries and people that occupy the peninsula are constantly in chaos and at war with each other. This trend continues today with the problems in Bosnia and the recent international crisis in Kosovo. Throughout history, small local incidents in the Balkan Peninsula have escalated into large international crises. World War I is a perfect example of what started as a regional conflict and grew into an all-out European war. A small local European struggle between Austria-Hungary and Serbia over the territory of Bosnia erupted into a full-blown worldwide conflict after the assassination of Archduke Francis Ferdinand.
- Review in detail the key players that were involved in the split of the nations by religious reasons. This includes Milosevic.
Bosnia is a country in Europe and its capital is a city called Sarajevo. Bosnia is bordered by Serbia and Croatia. In this genocide, between 1992 and 1995, the Serbians wanted to pursue genocide against the Muslims of Bosnia. After World War 1, a country called Yugoslavia was created in 1918. It was created out of the Austria-Hungary empire that lost the war and lost its land. Serbians, Croatians, Slovenes, and Bosnian Serbians and Muslims lived all in one country. The problem was the people didn't get along and each republic wanted to take control of the country. This went on until after WWII, when the Soviet Union took power and control over the country. Joseph Broz (Tito) was leader of Yugoslavia until the 6 republics separated. Then in 1992, Bosnia declared its independence from Yugoslavia. Soon after, the Bosnian
The author doesn’t forget to mention the relationship between USA and NATO. He thinks that Americans welcome NATO as a weapon for America’s affairs, not of the world’s. In his final words, it is suggested that either Europe should invite USA to leave NATO or Europe should expel America from it.
Aleksov, B. (2011). Croatia since Independence: War, Politics, Society, Foreign Relations/Croatia after Tuđman: Encounters with the Consequences of Conflict and Authoritarianism. Europe-Asia Studies. Slavonic & East European Review, 89(4), 782-785.
... has been providing a military there to ensure safety, trying to return displaced persons to their homes, and making an effort to reconcile the armed forces of Bosnia-Croat Federation and the Republika Srpska. NATO also created the Security Cooperation Program (SCP) which helps strengthen stability and promotes reconciliation in the Bosnian community, like the UN,. NATO has also been involved with the complications in Kosovo. In October of 1998, NATO threatened air strikes to force the Milosevic regime in Kosovo to withdraw their forces, help bring an end to the violence, and to let the refugees return to their homes. President Milosevic agreed. The next year, after months of continued threats NATO began to bomb Yugoslavia on March 24th 1999, because Milosevic refused to make peace. The war in Kosovo has killed more than two thousand people and forced more than four hundred thousand from their homes.
The history of modern Bosnia began with the country of Yugoslavia in the 1900s. At the beginning of World War I, the Baltic region was controlled by Austria-Hungary. The trigger for WWI actually took place in Sarajevo, Bosnia, when a group of insubordinate Serbs assassinated Archduke Francis Ferdinand (heir to Austria-Hungary). In the ashes of the Austria-Hungarian Empire, the Baltic countries formed the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes in 1918. The Kingdom united as the country of Yugoslavia in 1929, of which Bosnia was a constituent republic until Nazi Germany invaded in 1941. After Nazi Germany fell, President Marshall Tito took over the country and controlled it. Although President Tito was a Communist, he did do some good in the country, especially by keeping the Soviet Union at arm’s length, which planted unity in his country against a common enemy. When Yugoslavia was under Tito, it had some of the best times in Slavic
After years of hostility and aggression between the European superpowers and large states, the balance of power began to be challenged. The Serbians in 1914 assassinated the Arch-duke, Franz Ferdinand, of Austria-Hungary. The country counteracted and “issued an ultimatum to Serbia, which would bring the assassins to justice. And with that action Serbia’s sovereignty was nullified” (Duffy Michael, 2009). Since Serbia did not succumb to the harsh demands of Austria-Hungary, “preventative” war was declared on Serbia on July 28,...