Peace at Any Price: How the World Failed Kosovo (Crises in World Politics)

By Iain King and Whit Mason

Book Overview

In June 1999, after three months of NATO air strikes had driven Serbian forces back from the province of Kosovo, the United Nations Security Council authorized creation of an interim civilian administration. Under this mandate, the UN was empowered to coordinate reconstruction, maintain law and order, protect human rights, and create democratic institutions. Six years later, the UN's special envoy to Kosovo, Kai Eide, described the state of Kosovo: "The current economic situation remains bleak.... respect for rule of law is inadequately entrenched and the mechanisms to enforce it are not sufficiently developed.... with regard to the foundation of a multiethnic society, the situation is grim."In Peace at Any Price, Iain King and Whit Mason describe why, despite an unprecedented commitment of resources, the UN Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK), supported militarily by NATO, has failed to achieve its goals. Their in-depth account is personal and passionate yet analytical and tightly argued. Both authors served with UNMIK and believe that the international community has a duty to intervene in regional conflicts, but they suggest that Kosovo reveals the difficult challenges inherent in such interventions. They also identify avoidable mistakes made at nearly every juncture by the UN and NATO. We can be sure that the international community will be called on to intervene again to restore the peace of shattered countries. The lessons of Kosovo, cogently presented in Peace at Any Price, will be critically important to those charged with future missions.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0801445396
• ISBN13: 9780801445392
• Release Date: August 2006
• Publisher: Cornell University Press
• Length: 328 Pages
• Weight: 0.96 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 5.0" x 7.8"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

Top Analysis

Peace at any Price Peace at Any Price: How the World Failed Kosovo (Crises in World Politics)was recommended to me as probably the most authorative work on the UN work in Kosovo. The authors were deeply involved on the ground there, and it shows in the depth and quality of the analysis. The book contains an excellent description and chronology of overall events. It then moves into a deeper analysis and consideration of what happened, before a final (brilliant) conclusions section which is really what made this book so worthwhile for me. Although Peace at any Price is a brilliant macro analysis of the Kosovo intervention, there are loads of examples and personal accounts which bring the analysis to life. I read Peace at any Price alongside Joe Sacco's also excellent "Safe Area Gorazde" Safe Area Gorazde: The War in Eastern Bosnia 1992-1995 and found that Sacco's work added an additional level of human and emotional understanding, on top of Mason's analysis of the events.

Incisive and Compelling

In the past decade, Kosovo has only ever hit the headlines because of violence and tragedy. Ethnic cleansing, war crimes, NATO intervention: these events dominated the news agenda for the first six months of 1999 and defined Kosovo's international reputation. Sadly, destruction is more telegenic than construction, and the important attempts to steer Kosovo towards a better future have received far less attention. The authors' task is to tell the story of the UN mission that has administered Kosovo from the early days after NATO intervention through to - presumably - its imminent independence (conditional, supervised or however formulated). This is the first significant study of UNMIK, and succeeds brilliantly in illuminating its challenges, dilemmas and limitations. From its uncertain first steps, by 2001 UNMIK oversaw the largest per-capita investment in peacebuilding that the world has ever seen. Yet the returns on that investment have been unimpressive, yielding a host of lessons that the "international community" urgently needs to learn if it is to succeed in elsewhere. Paying particular attention to the orchestrated ethnic violence of March 2004, the authors convincingly portray an international community consistently unwilling to confront hardliners in the Kosovo Albanian community. This timidity is the source of the failure identified in the title, and has long-term consequences for Kosovo and its population. As a ground-breaking study, the book almost inevitably left me wanting more. What could UNMIK realistically have achieved, given the timeframe and resources available? How much influence could a short-term mission - however well-resourced - really exert over Kosovo's long-term development? Social and political change is a long-term process, yet western politics - under the scrutiny of the 24-hour media - demands rapid results. Do we really have the stomach for the necessary long-term engagement, or are we content simply with the illusion that something is being done? Necessarily, the authors have been more conservative in their aims, but in exploring UNMIK's successes and failures, they have rendered a great service to those who must grapple with these problems. We can only hope that future Donald Rumsfelds will choose to listen, and be willing to learn.