MIM NOTES No. 196        October 15, 1999	

NATO commander wanted to confront Russians

A British general refused an order from the NATO commander Gen. 
Wesley K. Clark during the invasion of Kosovo in June, 1999. The 
British were ordered to evict the Russians from the major airport 
of Kosovo that they had seized.

The British replied: "'No, I am not going to do that. It's not 
worth starting World War III.'"(1) Already Yeltsin had previously 
warned the West not to get him involved because tensions regarding 
Yugoslavia and the rest of the Balkan region might provoke a third 
European world war. The Russians and Slavic peoples generally have 
opposed the NATO moves into the Balkans.

The U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff informed NATO 
commander Wesley K. Clark in July that his term as NATO commander 
would come to an end slightly earlier than expected, in April 
2000.(2) The New York Times story releasing the conflict with the 
British in September did not mention Clark's projected early 
departure and instead focussed on the NATO command structure.

The British disobeyed orders on the theory that each commander is 
allowed to check with his or her country's commander first. After 
checking, the British General Sir Michael Jackson essentially won, 
because leaders of both countries overruled the move.

Rather than review the history of wars starting or the history of 
how military brass might be more aggressive or less aggressive 
than civilian leaders, the New York Times focused on the breakdown 
of NATO discipline. Needless to say the New York Times also did 
not address the history of people's movements against militarism.

NATO is the military organization the United States put together 
in Europe to face the Soviet Union after World War II. It includes 
France, England, other Western imperialists and has recently added 
some Eastern European countries that used to be in NATO's 
counterpart the WARSAW pact. The United States is the most 
important militarily in the NATO alliance.

Notes:
1. New York Times 10 Sept 1999, p. a6.
2. CNN web site at  cnn.com/ US/9907/28/clark.01/
--MC5