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Prospects for peace in KosovoDimitri Simes strode to the lectern, his face indicating that what he was about to say would be painful. After a deep breath, he launched into an emotional presentation. He began by saying that Americans are naïve if they believe that the Clinton administration is coming to the aid of Kosovars because of humanitarian concerns about ethnic cleansing. If the United States is so worried about acts of genocide, he wondered aloud, why have they not acted in numerous other regions where similar acts have been committed? Why has America not moved to assist the Rwandans, the Kurds or the Bosnians? The answer, said Simes, is because America had no economic interests in those other areas, whereas instability in Europe could have a devastating impact on the world economy and subsequently the U.S. economy. Simes did not condemn America’s action, only the reasons given for those actions. Dimitri K. Simes, founding president of the Nixon Center for Peace and Freedom—a bipartisan public policy institution based in Washington, D.C.—and informal foreign policy adviser to President Nixon, spoke at Tech on June 8, the eve of the current NATO peace agreement with Yugoslavia. He spoke to those attending a lively roundtable discussion entitled “The Crisis in Kosovo: American, European Union and Russian Perspectives.” Attendees ranged from academics, media and staff from European consulates, to those with relatives still in the war-torn region. The event was hosted by the European Union Center of the University System of Georgia and the European Center of Georgia. Simes said that the Russians did not agree with NATO’s air strikes on Kosovo and felt further diplomatic efforts should have been made. He stated that the position of the United States ignores the historic complexities of the region. Looking to the future, Simes expressed concern about the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), a renegade military force with no known leadership, possibly disrupting future rebuilding and peace efforts. Lt. Gen. Dan Benton III, recently retired from the U.S. Army and current Atlanta resident, presented the U.S. perspective with an insider’s point of view; in his last military assignment, he served as chief of staff for the U.S. European Command in Stuttgart, Germany. Benton oversaw all U.S. military operations in 89 nations of Europe, Africa, part of the Middle East and central Asia. He supervised the planning efforts for U.S. forces deployment into Bosnia and for the Kosovo Monitoring Force, so he is intimately familiar with the United States’ military capabilities and mission in the area. Benton emphasized three major reasons for American interests in Europe: 1) promotion of peace, stability and democracy in Europe; 2) the economic importance of greater Europe, the United States’ single largest trading partner; and 3) instability, which poses the greatest threat—20th century Europe has been the site of two world wars, as well as the rise and fall of monarchism, fascism, communism, and currently nationalism and religious fervor. Humanitarian concerns also are a factor with reports of mass killings and genocide. “The price of world power is to stand up and do what is right,” said Benton. When asked why the United States acts in Europe over incidents of genocide but not in similar situations in other areas of the world, Benton acknowledged that the United States’ economic interests are the deciding factor. Lodewijk Briet, political counselor, European Commission delegation in Washington, D.C., and native of the Netherlands, has a foreign affairs background and has worked with the European Commission for more than 10 years, including serving on the cabinet for Commission President Jacques Delors. Briet expressed the European Union’s (EU) distress over the continuing outbreak of nationalism in the Balkans. The EU is a model to overcome nationalism and create cooperation and voluntary self-limitation by EU members. The goals of the NATO bombing were to end the cycle of bloodshed and violence, encourage stability in the region and ensure that the Balkans share in future economic prosperity, Briet said. With peace talks in progress on the day of the roundtable, he conceded that, “winning the war may prove easy compared to reconstructing the region and keeping the peace.”
The program was co-sponsored by the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce; Metro Atlanta
Chamber Military Affairs Council; Georgia Council for International Visitors; the
Center for International Strategy, Technology and Policy at Georgia Tech; and the
Sam Nunn School of International Affairs.
Approved by the Office of External Affairs on 09/24/97
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