________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ CTHEORY THEORY, TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE VOL 22, NO 3 Article 74[2] 99/10/06 Editors: Arthur and Marilouise Kroker _____________________________________________________________________ Kosovo: A European Fin-de-Siecle [Part II] ========================================== ~Sergei Medvedev~ 5. Russia between ~Derzhavnosti~ and the Dollar ----------------------------------------------- Thanks to Mr. Primakov, Russia has lost 15,000,000,000 dollars. -Front page headline in _Kommersant-Daily_. 24 March 1999. [9] The war in Kosovo was an implicit competition between the two most publicized essays on international affairs of the last decade, Francis Fukuyama's _End of History_ and Samuel Huntington's _Clash of Civilizations_. The prize in the contest was Russia. Had she chosen to join her Slavic/Orthodox brethren in Serbia in defying the West, Huntington would have prevailed. Had she, on the contrary, acquiesced with the military power, moral arguments, and, most important, economic instruments of the West, the title would have gone to Fukuyama. In the first round, it seemed that Huntington was pulling ahead. The reaction in Russia to the start of the NATO air campaign was overwhelming and unanimous. Deep political divisions and partisanship were put aside in the protest against NATO and the show of solidarity with the Serbs. The West had given Russia eloquent and powerful evidence of her loss in the Cold War. In fact, the bombing helped to consolidate Russia's political elite and a large part of the population in the anti-Western camp, playing directly into the hands of the Communists and nationalists. [10] Psychologically, there was a meaningful difference between this situation and Russia's former geopolitical losses. Withdrawal from Eastern Europe and the reunification of Germany were seen as a unilateral gesture of goodwill on Russia's part (were they not?). NATO expansion, for all its alleged strategic damage for Russia, was still negotiated with Moscow, and received Russia's reluctant consent (the Founding Act). But here, for the first time in the post-Cold War decade, something had been accomplished without Russia's participation. This was a revelation. The taboo of Russia's defeat was lifted, with some profound psychotherapeutic effects. What followed was a two-week carnival of national ambition. It was a ritual exorcism, complete with spontaneous mass demonstrations at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow, the sign-up of volunteers for combat in Serbia, threats of supplying arms to Milosevic and of re-targeting Russian nuclear missiles, and a sharp increase in the domestic role of the military. This emotional outburst proved once again, as in the 1993 and 1995 parliamentary elections, that the post-Cold War post-traumatic syndrome runs deep in the national consciousness. However, once the taboo subject of Russia's defeat is raised, resentment and aggression are reified in a symbolic, verbal manner (popular demonstrations, declarations in the Duma, etc.) and, thus, somewhat mitigated and healed. Indeed, the steam of the Russian nationalist engine all emanated from the whistle. By mid-April, nationalist fever had fallen. Admitting to the impossibility of opposing the West or halting NATO bombing, Russia took on the rather sensible position of wait-and-see, criticizing NATO's action, and gradually resuming cooperation with the West along financial lines. Meanwhile, important domestic shifts were taking place. Primakov's heavy-handed mediation in the conflict in Kosovo gave way to the more flexible and Western-minded efforts of a resurrected Viktor Chernomyrdin. Later, Primakov's fall from grace was confirmed as his Communist-dominated government was sacked by President Yeltsin and Sergei Stepashin was appointed as his replacement. The shaping of the new government and its economic program was closely coordinated with international financial institutions. Consequently, large-scale cooperation between Russia and these institutions resumed for the first time since the financial crisis of August 1998. Finally, President Yeltsin emerged out of the political wilderness, scoring two major victories over the Communist Duma: first, he defeated attempts to impeach him; second, he succeeded in having his selection for Prime Minister, Sergei Stepashin, approved on his first attempt. The economy, thought moribund, started showing signs of revival, the ruble was strengthening, and the stock market was recovering from the shock of August 1998. Suddenly, against all odds, Russia embarked upon a "liberal spring." In other words, just as Russia's political system managed to absorb the internal shock of the August 1998 financial crisis, it is handling the external impact of the 1999 Kosovo crisis fairly well. Moreover, there seem to be no long-term political repercussions on the domestic scene. The consequences for Russian foreign and security policy, however, are less salubrious. Generally, in the last 5 to 6 years, ever since the Kozyrev line based on liberal internationalism and the abandonment of "national interests" faded away, Russian foreign policy has oscillated between minimalist cooperation with the West and damage control. The Kosovo crisis has once again sent Russian foreign policy into damage control mode, undermining mutual trust and the fragile mechanisms of cooperation with NATO. In a sense, the West's war in Kosovo has undone the political and psychological achievement of the 1997 Paris Declaration and the NATO-Russia Founding Act. From appeasing Russia, the West has turned to sidelining Russia - a policy that is consistent with Russia's dwindling economic and diplomatic resources, but is hardly encouraging for the country's elite. Damage control seems to be the most likely course for a country still haunted by superpower memories and aspiring for respect in international affairs (in Russian, this post-imperial syndrome is called ~derzhavnosti~). [11] Meanwhile, Russia remained vitally dependent on the New World Order's economic environment, as represented by IMF loans, Western markets for Russian oil and gas, and a vested interest in having the country's elite and ordinary citizens embrace economic openness. Several polls conducted among anti-NATO demonstrators near the U.S. Embassy in Moscow showed that people are ready to burn American flags, but would never agree to give up free circulation of U.S. dollars, or the opportunity to travel to the West. Respondents also did not seem willing to support higher military outlays in the Russian budget. The crisis in Kosovo has had a dual effect on Russian foreign policy. On the one hand, it caused some immediate damage to Russia's relationship with the West. A more important fact, however, is that Russia proved disinclined to neo-imperialist temptations, and remains unlikely to slide into isolationism and confrontation with the West even under the most adverse circumstances. Russia was disturbed but not displaced. An ailing giant was certainly irritated, but did not care to move. Paradoxically, the story of Kosovo has been somewhat beneficial to Russian-Western relations, demonstrating that Russia is being integrated into the New World Order and will continue to fluctuate between minimalist cooperation and damage control, while maintaining a framework of dialogue with the West. Other benefits appear in the field of information and international PR. The geopolitical accident in Kosovo suddenly put Russia in the limelight. A lonely Russian reconnaissance boat travelling (at a top speed of 12 knots) into the Adriatic, Viktor Chernomyrdin's shuttle diplomacy, the Russian paratroopers' surprise spurt to Pristina airport ahead of NATO troops - all of these made international headlines. Russia suddenly became interesting. Moreover, after the West's initial neglect, all of a sudden Russia seemed important, and the West began looking for ways to involve it in crisis management. Semi-isolated, Russia unexpectedly started winning points on the diplomatic front. The crisis in Kosovo created a common information field, a common context within which dialogue with the West resumed. Indeed, one can see similarities with NATO's expansion debates, which also gave Russia a voice and place at the negotiating table of European security for a good four years (1993-1997). Both NATO's expansion and the war in Kosovo gave Russia an interface with the West, providing a forum where she could claim her national interests which otherwise would not even be heard. In both cases, Russia might have come out a loser, but these possible losses have risen the level of global awareness about Russia, her problems, and her residual strengths. One is reminded of a daily ritual phrase, a magical incantation, repeated by U.S. and NATO leaders: "Our goal is to keep Russia involved." In the world ruled by mass media, it is perceptions and images that count, not the actual territorial/strategic wins or losses. In both cases, Russia was a Big Story in the global media, evoking distant memories of her lost glory, and this partly compensated for perceived geopolitical damages. In general, Huntington's argument was not fully relevant in Kosovo where one can see a clash of ambitions and a collision of destructive policies, rather than a genuine clash of civilizations. Everyone, including NATO and the Serbs, Russia and China, played by the same rules of global civilization. National positions made little difference. Kosovo has demonstrated that Russia is drifting away from the good old world of geopolitics and grand chessboards. After Afghanistan and NATO's expansion, Chechnya and Kosovo, any talk of Russia's "national interests" and "grand strategies" mainly serve to make newspaper headlines and to increase the heartbeat of the Realist die-hards, rather than to position Russia for the future. It is remarkable that, in accordance with the rules of postmodernity, Russia is being "seduced" (in the Baudrillardian sense) rather than coerced into the global civilization, just as is being done with her neighbour, China, and much of the Arab world. The New World Order is a hegemony working mostly by means of seduction, promoting brands like NATO, Lockheed, CNN, democracy, IMF, human rights, the Euro, Mercedes, Pizza Hut, etc. Above all, coercive actions like the one in Kosovo are needed to enhance brand recognition. Fukuyama does not score a clear-cut victory in Kosovo. His light-hearted neo-liberal Utopia was devised with a good deal of irony, but in Kosovo the New World Order arrived in an unseemly and sinister manner. This is not the End of History, but rather the re-writing of history with all its pitfalls, enmities, and blood. Fukuyama was probably right in principle, but not in the devilish details. 6. Behold, the New World Order Cometh ------------------------------------- Utopia has arrived; if you aren't part of it, get lost! -Jean Baudrillard, _America_. In 1970, the Polish director Andrzej Wajda made a film titled _Landscape after the Battle_ that won him wide international acclaim. This is a love story set in a concentration camp in Poland in late 1944, abandoned by the German troops and taken over by the Allies. It begins on a euphoric note, showing prisoners in their striped robes pouring out of the barracks into the fresh snow. However, the long-awaited liberation does not bring freedom. Days go by, and as people are still kept inside the camp, the occupation authorities install a new repressive order, using the prisoners as bargaining chips in the grand game of World Wars. This is a film about the absurdity of heroic myths, a story of hope and disillusionment, of the anguish and torment that remain the lot of individuals under any rule. The landscape after the battle in Kosovo is murky and dubious. Serb security forces have evacuated the province but remain essentially undefeated. Pictures on TV showed a dignified orderly retreat of armed men, displaying Serb flags and V-signs. This army can still be used for oppressing dissent within Serbia or waging an assault against Montenegro. Kosovo Albanians are returning to what is left of their homes, but KFOR, in spite of all its goodwill, cannot rule out acts of ethnic revenge, the escape of tens of thousands of Kosovo Serbs, and the rise of the para-criminal KLA. Like Bosnia, Kosovo will likely remain the West's protectorate for many years to come. Moreover, one of the biggest bombing campaigns in history proved far from effective. For 79 days a relatively small Yugoslav contingent with weapons from the 1960s and 70s held its own against the mightiest military machine in the world and retained its capacity to respond with anti-aircraft fire - a remarkable achievement. Until the last two weeks of the war, when the Kosovar guerrillas' kamikaze tactics flushed the Serbs' armour into the open and rendered it vulnerable to NATO strikes, the infamous Serb army had escaped serious injury. [12] Even if Milosevic is toppled, democracy is installed in Serbia, and Kosovo is granted independence (all unlikely events), Serbian resilience and NATO's incapacity to diminish it and halt the ethnic cleansing during the 79-day war send all kinds of wrong signals around the globe. NATO's decision to attack was a mistake from the beginning. Once the bombing started, the Alliance proved surprisingly obstinate and inflexible as well as hesitant and indecisive. Despite mounting evidence of the ineffectiveness of bombing, loss of civilian life, and the acceleration of ethnic cleansing, NATO did not modify its strategy and opt for a wiser course, a halt to the bombing or a riskier ground operation. This lack of flexibility and resolve is quite understandable, given that NATO is an alliance of 19 nations ruled by consensus and politicians, not by orders and the military; it is also damaging to the Organization's credibility. In mere technical terms, the bombing campaign has not opened a new chapter in the history of warfare, as some are claiming. It has convincingly demonstrated that air power alone cannot produce victory. Military supremacy and high-tech weaponry provide no substitute for political solutions; on the contrary, they tend to increase tensions and reduce the likelihood for a lasting settlement. NATO's brand of military power may still be relevant in "traditional" inter-state wars and high-intensity conflicts; however, most future conflicts will be medium- to low-intensity, involving great numbers of civilians, just as in Kosovo or in Algiers. Judging by the case of Kosovo, NATO is ill equipped to handle such contingencies. The conflict in Kosovo is far from over, and NATO's effectiveness was uncertain; as a result, the "message" sent to potential perpetrators and troublemakers around the world is mixed. NATO has yet to prove that it has the skills, tools, and political will to handle any regional conflict effectively. The absence of such proof is a truly dangerous development with consequences reaching far beyond the Balkans. Should similar flare-ups occur simultaneously in places like Tibet, Timor, Chechnya, and Eritrea, is NATO going to intervene, and if it is, has it shown it has the capacity to do so rapidly and efficiently? And if NATO does not intervene, will it appear as a credible remote deterrent? While answers to these questions are doubtful at best, NATO's operation in Kosovo served as a background (and arguably a pretext) for a regional conflict in Kashmir, involving two nuclear powers, India and Pakistan. In general, the new NATO role of a self-appointed arbiter in regional conflicts is likely to increase the reliance on nuclear weapons around the globe. The post-Kosovo world is not necessarily a safer place. NATO's recourse to a moral argument as superior to the norms that govern international law does not make for a safer world either. Laws, like sovereignty, may be outdated, but they at least tend to be inviolate, providing for stability in the system. On the contrary, norms are always subject to interpretation. Should Russia (or, hypothetically, the CIS Tashkent Treaty on Collective Security) now decide that human rights are being violated in Tajikistan, will the West endorse her intervention? Or what if Iran resumes its war with Iraq on the grounds that Saddam Hussain has violated Islamic norms? What happens next? Fidel Castro at the EU-Latin American summit in late June 1999 cited the possibility of a NATO intervention in Colombia's cocaine provinces on behalf of the "civilized world." The problem here is not NATO; it is not driven by an individual's malicious will, nor does it seek world domination. NATO, and the nations that comprise it, is a mere instrument of a rising discourse that is somewhat awkwardly called the New World Order. [13] The post-sovereign, post-Westphalian world need not be endowed with greater pluralism, freedom of choice, and multiculturalism. Old national totalities are giving way to transnational ones, discourses of power are changing location but not the mode of operation; they continue to discipline and punish. Or rather, the discourse of power has become a-local (global) and a-topic (Utopian). It is neither good nor bad, it is the air of postmodernity, and it is not in our power to change the atmosphere. However, one is always left with an option of deconstructing the new discourse of power by looking into its innate binary nature. In the story of Kosovo, the dichotomy imposed on the audience by the mass media was the false choice between the clear and present evil of Milosevic (and everything that comes with him, like violent nationalism, ethnic cleansing, etc.) and the seemingly unavoidable use of power by NATO (complete with "collateral damage") - a choice between ethnic cleansing and NATO bombing. Apart from the fact that a "third way" can always be envisaged (for example, an earnest and open-minded search for a political solution or the use of economic mechanisms or the use of seduction - instead of bombing the enemy into submission one can buy him into an agreement by allocating just a fraction of the funds spent on waging war), this dichotomy is clearly simulated. It is simulated because it is produced and communicated within the same binary discourse, making the recipient choose between Us and Them, Inside and Outside, Europe and Anarchy. Both sides in this dichotomy have power as a goal and violence as its means. But while Milosevic's violence is ruthless and straightforward, the use of power by the West is disguised as principle. A violence of a declining, archaic kind that has no moral pretence is opposed by a violence of the future, endowed with most of the world's resources and moral authority. Choosing between them is like choosing between the atrocities of Dachau and the bombing of Dresden, between Auschwitz and Hiroshima. There are no winners in this contest. Is there a way out of this vicious dichotomy? "No war, no peace, and disband the army," as Leon Trotsky suggested in Russia in 1918? Make love, not war? Flower power? We have yet to come up with an answer. Perhaps this is the nature of the new world we have to live in, the time of questions unanswered; no longer the Age of Innocence, but the age of complicity and uncertainty. ----- Editors' note: Part 1 of _Kosovo: A European Fin-de-Siecle_ was published on September 29th, 1999. _____________________________________________________________________ This paper draws on discussions with a group from Osteuropa-Institut of the Free University of Berlin (Klaus Segbers, Christoph Zurcher, Graham Stack, Simone Schwanitz, Simon Raiser, Bjorn Warkalla and Svetlana Boym of Harvard University). Special thanks to Peter van Ham (Marshall Center, Garmisch) for his work titled "Kosovo and the Balkanization/Integration Nexus" and to Henrikki Heikka (UPI, Helsinki) for a lively e-mail debate on the problem of Kosovo. If one subtracts these inputs, there is very little left of the author's own. Well, something. _____________________________________________________________________ Notes - Part II --------------- [9] A leading Russian newspaper was commenting on Mr. Primakov's famous U-turn over the Atlantic. Learning that the strike against Serbia was to start within hours, Mr. Primakov ordered to turn his plane back to Moscow, canceling a visit to the United States during which credits, aid packages and projects were to be negotiated possibly worth $15 billion. [10] According to figures cited by Viktor Chernomyrdin, before the NATO attack 57% of Russian respondents had a positive attitude towards the United States, and 28% a negative one. In early May 1999, the figures were 14% positive and 73% negative. (Viktor Chernomyrdin, "Impossible to talk peace with bombs falling." _The Washington Post_. 27 May 1999: p. A39). [11] ~Derzhava~ in Russian means Power, and ~derzhavnosti~ implies mentality and behaviour of a Power, an aspiration for a Power status. Note that very few in Russia are talking about ~velikoderzhavnosti~, i.e. a Great Power stance. [12] "Messy war, messy peace." _The Economist_. 12 June 1999, p. 17. [13] The difference with Orwell's Brave New World is the one between modernity and postmodernity. _____________________________________________________________________ Sergei Medvedev is a Russian researcher and professor currently working in Helsinki. His writings focus on the Russian state, post-Communism and postmodernity, cultural anthropology and political geography. _____________________________________________________________________ * CTHEORY is an international journal of theory, technology * and culture. Articles, interviews, and key book reviews * in contemporary discourse are published weekly as well as * theorisations of major "event-scenes" in the mediascape. * * Editors: Arthur and Marilouise Kroker * * Editorial Board: Jean Baudrillard (Paris), Bruce Sterling (Austin), * R.U. 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