With an oil pipeline on the way and the prospect of another ethnic conflagration in the Balkans, there is bitter irony in the fact that not only have US troops now exchanged fire with Albanian guerrillas, but Nato has allowed the Yugoslav army, a sworn enemy only two years ago, into the Kosovo buffer zone to assist in pacifying the insurgents. It is crystal clear that Nato s intervention in Kosovo has not resolved any of the problems in the region. Instead it has ensured the spread of ethnic conflict still deeper into the Balkans. Thinking the unthinkable No less ominous is the military build-up Nato s intervention in the Balkans has provoked. Following China s announcement last month of an 18 percent increase in defence spending, the Financial Times commented, Chinese defence planners have argued that Nato s intervention in Kosovo highlighted the west s meddlesome intent, and thus justifies a stronger army.
Capitalist society is unthinkable without armaments, as it is unthinkable without wars.
On globalisation its attitude is typified by New Labour s most aggressive convert, secretary for international development Clare Short, when she said, Multinationals are not the problem. Africa s problem is not that multinational capital is exploiting it, but that multinational capital isn t interested in investing there. On war, New Labour s enthusiasm for Nato s expansion eastwards, the war against Yugoslavia and the continuing bombardment of Iraq speaks for itself. Thus it was that George Robertson s dogged defence of the war against Yugoslavia netted him a lordship together with the secretary generalship of Nato. You have never been consulted about this war.