Moral principles are expressed in absolutes. But foreign policy must forever be concerned with reconciling ends and means. The fact that ethnic cleansing is repugnant does not obviate the need to devise the most appropriate response. At every stage of the Kosovo tragedy, other mixes of diplomacy and force were available, though it is not clear they were ever seriously considered. It deserves to be questioned on both political and moral grounds.
States can take pride in elevating human rights to an integral part of foreign policy.
But when one observes the progression from the call for moral pressure of the 1970s, to economic sanctions in the 1980s, to military intervention in the 1990s, the time has come to call for a definition of purposes and a dialogue on the relationship between objectives and methods. But this is for the future. Serb military forces leave Kosovo and the refugees are allowed to return. The paradox is that a country that thinks of itself as acting in the name of universal values is seen by too many others as acting arbitrarily, or inexplicably, or arrogantly. A re-examination of the prevailing premises of our foreign policy is overdue.