But why did the West – especially the USA – collaborate with this St. Vitus dance?
Because they wanted Yeltsin o achieve all the above goals. Because it served to neutralize Russia as a potential, backdoor combatant, a-la Vietnam. Because they really had no more effective channel of communication to Milosevic. Because it is better to have your dependent as mediator – then a real independent. Because they had o choice: many NATO members would have protested had Russia's help been rejected. And because Russia has to be part of any future settlement.
Sometimes, as Freud said, a cigar is just a cigar. Only this time it is a smoking cigar. There is more to the intricate USA-Russian choreography than meets the eye. The USA is in no hurry to finish this particular "air campaign". Meetings are scheduled a week apart. The same proposals and the same envoys keep shuttling back and forth.
This is because Russia and the USA see eye to eye. They want Serbia weakened and Milosevic dead (if possible). They understand that "Great Serbia" is Milosevic's dream – but the world's nightmare. Everyone is holding out. Everyone – Russia included – want the Serbs to cease to be a viable fighting force. As time passes, Russia will become more and more confrontational but this time the culprit and the recipient of their vitriolic diatribes is likely to be Milosevic. It is good for the West and it is good for Russia because it is Russia that will fill in the vacuum left by the debris of the Milosevic regime. The USA couldn't be happier. It wants out of the Balkan – never to come back.
At this stage, the poor nations of the Balkan are deluded into believing in a future, Western sponsored, "Balkan Marshal Plan". They are in for a rude awakening. The minute the war ends – the USA will vanish, leaving the resulting mess to the natives, to a fragmented Europe and to Russia, who asked for it by getting involved.
The only money likely to be invested in the region by the USA is in the reconstruction of the Chinese embassy.
(Article written on May 19, 1999 and published May 24, 1999
in "The New Presence")