This sentiment is widespread and it did not take long after NATO launched its air campaign in Kosovo for accusations of such double standards to be leveled.25 Even Secretary-General Kofi Annan has suggested as much.26
The fourth general source of contention that emerged during the Kosovo conflict revolved around the question of how force should be applied in pursuit of humanitarian ends. Aside from the moral or pacifist reservations that some felt about using force under any circumstances, schisms arose over the following basic questions:
・When should deadly force be applied? Some criticized NATO for resorting to the use of force too hastily and thereby prematurely foreclosing the possibility of a peaceful settlement. Others considered it too slow to act and doing little to prevent the mass expulsion of Kosovar Albanians.
・Where should deadly force be applied? Some considered NATO to have been overly averse to attacking civilian targets in Serbia to coerce its leadership. Yet, when NATO did eventually attack urban targets in Serbia it was criticized for using force indiscriminately.27 Some even cautioned that such actions would expose NATO leaders to accusations that they were contravening the laws of war as in fact Serbia later attempted to do.28
・How much force should be applied? Some argued that NATO's graduated use of force unnecessarily prolonged the campaign. Had NATO initially bombed Serbia in the way that it later did while at the same time massing troops on its borders, more lives would probably have been saved.29 As one commentator asked rhetorically: "If you start a war for moral reasons and then wage it in a half hearted manner, is your behavior still moral?"30
The fifth source of contention that typically surfaces in cases of multilateral humanitarian intervention and which was also present in the Kosovo conflict derive from the politico-military management of such operations. How should such efforts be organized and controlled? Who is ultimately in charge to decide the questions outlined above? How should the associated responsibilities, burdens and, moreover, risks be distributed equitably? These are standard questions associated with any collective endeavor but they are particularly acute in matters as sensitive as the use of force. In Kosovo they manifested themselves in many inter-allied disputes over such matters as targeting strategy, the willingness to risk casualties particularly in a land campaign, and the disproportionate burden borne by the United States in the pro-section of the war. Subsequent accounts of the conflict have revealed how shallow and fragile the consensus was within NATO on these questions despite the outwardly projected image of alliance unity and harmony.
IV: Addressing the Intervention Challenge
Given the likelihood that the international community will be faced with another humanitarian crisis in which forceful intervention is seen as the only solution, how should it approach this challenge in ways that can avoid or at least ameliorate the sources of contention discussed above? One approach is to view humanitarian intervention as fundamentally a question of governance―global governance to be more precise.
