As NATO's bombing of Yugoslavia neared its conclusion, the press began debating whether or not the war was a success. The idea that the war in Kosovo has proved that military force is an integral part of a humanitarian foreign policy appeared again and again in the pages of the New York Times and Washington Post. It was against this backdrop consensus that most of the press' criticism took place. The most common criticism of the war made by writers in the New York Times and the Washington Post was that it should have been conducted more aggressively, in order to topple Milosevic's government. NATO's professed reluctance to prepare ground troops was also often cited as a central strategic flaw.
Civilization is more civilized for having intervened to do the right thing.
If the Kosovo war marks the beginning of his demise, then other countries in transition will more likely see their future in democracy, fair treatment of minorities and peaceful neighborly relations. Long-simmering tensions over the status of ethnic Hungarian minorities in both Romania and the Serbian province of Vojvodina have been exacerbated by NATO's intervention in Kosovo. Hungarian nationalists are keying off of NATO's actions on behalf of ethnic Albanians in Kosovo and are calling for a broad revision of borders in the region. There are a great number of maps of Europe waiting to be redrawn, and a host of groups eager to start drawing. This media advisory was written by FAIR intern Rachel Coen.