JOHN STEINBRUNER The Consequences of Kosovo T he humanitarian catastrophe in Kosovo has been contained by the international ground intervention initiated in June, and for the imme­diate victims, that is a vital accomplishment in the most literal sense of the word. It is also a precedent of considerable promise for the Balkan region and for many other parts of the world afflicted with endemic communal violence. The full consequen­ces of this episode are still to be determined, however, and the prospects of a constructive out­come are seriously endangered by reverberations that have not yet been acknowledged let alone mastered. It is prudent to assume that the violence inflicted and the resentment implanted have put the viability of coherent government into question throughout the area and that political reconstruc­tion will require an effort well beyond anything yet designed. It is quite evident that NATO ’s bombing campaign crystallized a sense of threat in Russia likely to affect the massive internal transformation occurring there, and Russia’s acute sensitivity is reflected in quieter form throughout the world. The engagement of the most capable alliance with a small dissident state is necessarily a matter that commands global attention. General lessons will be drawn from this experience. The fundamental conditions of international security will be re­shaped as the extended outcome unfolds. It is of course difficult to discern what the extended outcome will be five years or a decade hence. A judicious combination of humility and courage is undoubtedly the prime qualification for attempting such a judgment. For those who dare to try, however, there are plausible grounds both for hope and for fear. A broadly constructive out­come to the Kosovo episode is conceivable, but it will require some remedial correction of the egregious mismatch between ends and means that threatened the NATO operation right up to the point that it succeeded. That in turn will require the most difficult of political feats – a recognition by the immediate victors of their own contribu­tion to the catastrophe. Alternatively a cascading disaster is also conceivable, particularly if the ever powerful impulse for belligerent self-justification overcomes the practical interest in refined accom­modation. It is customary in these situations to assume that results will fall somewhere in the murky middle, as does frequently happen. But in attempting to understand what has already occurred and to shape the extended outcome, it is important to explore the coherent edges of the situation before attempting to contend with its bewildering and demoralizing ambiguities. Developing a Constructive Outcome The document that now provides the legal basis for intervention in Kosovo, UN Security Council resolution 1244 , proclaims that violent displace­ment of the civilian population is a threat to inter­national peace and security and thereby enables the assertive use of force under Chapter VII of the Charter. It specifically authorizes both an inter­national military»presence« in the province and an international civil administration, in effect imposing comprehensive international authority in Kosovo to be exercised until an indigenous government can be established on the basis of legi­timate consensus. Under the terms of the resolu­tion all armed units within the province are to be effectively subordinated to international authority, and all segments of the population are to be given equal protection. The nominal sovereignty of Yugoslavia is acknowledged in principle, but the actual exercise of it has been categorically and indefinitely suspended. Those provisions represent an assertion of international responsibility going well beyond the standards of recent decades. If the international community had been willing to assert such decisive IPG 3/99 Steinbruner, The Consequences of Kosovo 287