Key goals for the West, meaning the U.S. and EU

By Johan Galtung
Research note of March 12, 2010

Mihajlo (Markovic) stated this in fall 1991 at a UNESCO conference on democracy, in Praque:

“Yugoslavia as it was cannot be saved, it is doomed. But when it breaks up there is one thing we Serbs will never accept: living as minorities under those who killed us during the 2nd world war as allies of Hitler and Mussolini, and they lived and live in Zagreb, Sarajevo and Pristina.”

Goals of, by and for the West, meaning the USA and some EC-EU:

For all of them:

– law and order, meaning no violence, as long as it is not in their interest (like with KLA) or by they themselves;

– normalizing Yugoslavia to Western investment and extraction, literally speaking business as usual.

– something honest about human rights and democracy.

For the U.S.:

– world hegemony, role as ultima ratio with ultima ratio C3I and arms. Important to show U.S. superiority in establishing law and order;

– punishing Yugoslavia for “equalizing” and “moralizing”, being non-aligned between Good and Evil, not making a clear stand – like Finland, Sweden, Austria and Switzerland which competed in being first in confessing that sin, aligning itself morally with USA;

– making the Cold War hot by fighting it out with Serbia – the Reds! – in the role as Russia; Slovenia in the role as the Baltics and Croatia as Poland, almost all Catholic, to be liberated, and then there are Muslims down south, good Muslims if they are against Serbia.
Serbia has been perceived as having the “wrong” alphabet, “wrong” Christianity, and being located to the east. In what presumably was about JNA, they bombed Belgrade as a good Moscow-substitute, including KGB (Ministry of the Interior) and the Chinese Embassy;

– making it clear that there is no alternative – such as Rugova’s nonviolence or diplomacy – to bombing violence in major conflicts;

– getting a major base in return (Bondsteel in Urosevac, Kosovo) useful for encirclement of the Asian landmass (Halford MacKinder very important);

– controlling if not oil itself at least an oil pipeline to the Adriatic;

– eliminating elements of socialism like state factories (included therefore in the bombing) with their priority of employment over profit and protection of industrial workers;

For Germany:

– the Wilhelminian project of a hinterland also in Serbia. Winning 2nd World War against Tito’s partisans for ustasha chetniks;

For Austria:

Winning the First world war, revenge for Sarajevo;

For the EU:

Fragmentation, picking up the pieces.