Kosovo and Hegemony

List,
	I apologise for the long post.  When I am faced with such long
missives, I download them into my PC for reading when I am less stressed 
& have more time.  --P

=======================================================================

List,

     It has been a bit over 2 months since the beginning of the
NATO air campaign against Serbia.  Throughout this period, there
have been innumerable contributions to WSN either defending or
attacking the motives &/or policies of NATO and Serbia.  The
majority of these exchanges have been highly polemical with
little connection to the ostensible purpose of this site:
informed exchange among those already familiar with the core
tenants of W-S theory.  Instead, most of them read like the
"Letters to the Editor" column found in most newspapers--high on
emotion but scant in historically based theoretical analysis. 

     Below is my own personal effort to explain the Kosovo war
within the framework of World-Systems theory.  Because it
highlights geo-political POWER as the main explanatory variable,
it will almost certainly insult the passionately MORAL supporters
of either side.

     What follows is intended as part one of a 2-part piece.
  
     This first part is directed at explaining the motives and
actions of the main international players, and to demonstrate to
the reader why this conflict seems to be bringing us closer to a
global nuclear exchange than at any point since the Cuban Missile
crisis.  The second [to follow] explains why globalization must
necessarily lead to an increasing frequency of civil race/ethnic
wars.

             ***************************************

                                I

                            IDEOLOGY

     It seems to be in our nature as humans to divide the world
into dualistic oppositions.  This yearning for clarity via
dualism is most obvious during wars (and athletic events, which
are merely wars as theater).  On an emotional level, we seem to
want desperately to believe that morality motivates one side
while the leadership of its opponent side is greedy and its
population deluded by propaganda.  This human frailty is well
articulated by the aphorism that "One person's terrorist is
another's liberation fighter."  

     But if we truly seek a more complete understanding, we must
transcend our emotional attachments.  In part, that means viewing
all of the players as acting out of a similarly complex mixture
of motives:  Part moral conviction; part selfish political
ambitions; and partly a desire to either increase or consolidate
their movement or country's position within the international
power structure (the global hierarchy of nations).  

     At the same time, the media within each of the involved
countries seeks to portray its OWN leadership as moral and
peaceful, and that of the opposition as somehow greedy, evil, or
even insane.  When I hear complaints about how the U.S. media
"demonizes" the Serbs, or how the Chinese media "demonizes" the
United States, I am amused by the naivete of those complaining:
the media are only doing their job: it is the *FUNCTION* of the
media in wars to glorify their own government and demonize the
opposing government(s).  How could one expect anything else?

                               II

                          History (A):

                   THE COLLAPSE OF YUGOSLAVIA

     As Georgi so eloquently described in his post of March 27,
Mr. Milosovich found himself in 1988-9 faced with an impossible
situation: the (ethnically separate) provinces held together by
Tito via both ideological persuasion and money carefully re-
distributed from the center were becoming increasing
uncomfortable with rule from Belgrade.  As others have explained
elsewhere (see Johnestone and Choussodovsky at zmag.com), the
International Monetary Fund had been willing to encourage
commercial lending to the Yugoslav government throughout the
1980's (when the global depression of the early 1980's was
preventing Yugoslav exports from generating much revenue, and the
Soviet state was unable to afford to lend money to make up the
shortfall).

     However, as always when the IMF steps in (as it also did for
the same reasons throughout Eastern Europe at that time: Russia,
Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania), it demanded "reforms"
in the way that the Yugoslav state collected and spent its
income.  The effect of these changes was to reduce the money sent
out from Belgrade to the provinces, which in turn lent strength
to the separatist tendencies within those provinces.  In an
effort to hold the Yugoslav state together, Mr. Milosovich used
both "carrots" and "sticks."  As inducements (carrots) to the
ethnically diverse provinces to stay, he suggested the creation
of a "Federation," within which each province would have its own
president.  Since there were 6 provinces, there would be 6
presidents.  Each would take turns as the head of the Yugoslav
Federal state in a rotating fashion.  As a "stick" to prevent
provinces from defecting (declaring independence), he--just as
Georgi described--used ethnic "Serb" solidarity.  With the
ideology of communism gone, and the ideology of "free"-market
capitalism popularly discredited, he had few other choices but to
play the ethnic "card" of Serbian nationalism.  However, it back-
fired.

     Within the old Yugoslavia under Tito there was a clear
ethnic ranking--although it was officially suppressed: Serbs,
Croats, Muslims, and Albanians (descending order).  Although
members of each group could be found in every province, Serbs
were a clear majority in Serbia, Croats in Croatia, Muslims in
Bosnia, and Albanians (also Muslim) in Kosovo.  When, in 1989,
Milosovich went to the field of the "Blackbirds" in Kosovo to
pronounce that he would ensure that Kosovo province would once
again be in Serbian hands, it put all of the other provinces on
notice that Milosovich intended to maintain Serbian control over
the Yugoslav federation, despite the appearance of ethnic
equality implied by the rotating presidency.  (The field of the
Blackbirds was the site of a major defeat of Serbian knights
defending "Christendom" against the Muslim Turkish army in 1389--
hence Milosovich's speech was planned to coincide with the 600th
anniversary of that defeat.  A U.S. analogy might be approximated
by imagining a U.S. president making a speech at the Alamo
asserting the goal of removing all persons of Mexican descent
from the U.S. southwest.)

     Simultaneously, the official state media inside Serbia had
routinely been describing the rapid population growth of the
"Albanians" as "Demographic Genocide" against the Serbs, ignoring
the fact that Kosovo had been economically depressed for a long
time, motivating many Serbs to move out in order to seek better
opportunities in Belgrade & Novi Sad.  (Incidentally, this racist
fear among elites about faster population growth among the poor
has also been spoken of by Israelis about the Palestinians, and
Caucasian-Americans about African-Americans.)

     During the administration of Tito, ethnic peace in Kosovo
had been pursued by allowing the "ethnic Albanians" (90% of the
population of that province) virtually complete governmental
autonomy.  When Mr. Milosovich made his speech there in 1989, he
revoked that autonomy.  The Albanian response was to withdraw
from participation in the Serbian sanctioned government and form
an underground "parallel" administration.  This circumstance of
"dual power," lead by the committed pacifist Ibrahim Rugova,
obtained for full decade before war broke out in 1998.

     Prior to the war, the weakness of the central governments of
both Albania and Kosovo, combined with their joint poverty and
their geographic location between the heroin production centers
of Pakistan and Afghanistan and the major heroin markets of
Europe, were both unable to stop and thus ultimately compelled to
join those who survived (directly or indirectly) from a thriving
business trans-shipping heroin from Afghanistan to Europe.  It
was this money that helped finance the early KLA in the 1980's,
when they lacked popular support among the Albanians (see State
Department docs posted by Arno Tausch).

     Wallerstein once asserted that all social theories not
rooted in class analysis can ultimately be reduced to assumptions
that are racist (=nationalist) (see his _The Capitalist World-
Economy_).  Because Mr. Milosovich had built his power upon an
inflammation of Serbian nationalism, his racist ideology
generated a heightened ethnic defensive counter-consciousness
among the non-Serbs.  Given this context of highly tense and
mutually suspicious relationships among the Yugoslav provinces,
it is hardly surprising that within 3 years (1992) the
"Federation" fell apart.  First Croatia, then Bosnia unilaterally
declared independence, to escape perceived Serbian dominance of
the new federation.  Despite their mutual hostility to one
another, both Croatia and Bosnia agreed that the risk of reaching
for independence was preferable to remaining suppressed by an
increasingly pugnacious Serbia.  Thus the war began--the Yugoslav
Federal Army fighting to "maintain the (Serbian) union" against
the separatist "rebels."


                          History (B):

               THE WAR FOR PROVINCIAL INDEPENDENCE
              AND POPULAR TERROR AS A STATE POLICY

     
     During the multi-front civil war of 1992->95, the brutality
of the fighting gave new meaning to the general observation that
civil wars are the most vicious of all wars.  Reluctant to
validate the fragmentation of an existing European state, the
United Nations and the European Union both refused to recognize
the break-away provinces.  However, without prior warning or
consultation, the German government recognized the new "states" a
mere two weeks after their declaration of independence.  Perhaps
not coincidentally, these were the very areas that were under the 
most effective Nazi control during WWII.  In response to this
legacy, the barracks of the Yugoslav Federal troops were often
decorated with the new flag of the European Union, augmented with
swastikas and the label "Deutsche-mocracy."  Consistent with this
ideological tool, the Serbian state referred to the break-away
Croations as "Ustashi"--the name given to German fascist
collaborators inside Croatia during WWII.

     The fighting in both provinces (Bosnia & Croatia) pitted a
well trained and modernly equipped Yugoslav Federal Army against
poorly equipped and essentially untrained civilians fighting for
provincial independence.  Given this alignment of forces, it was
inevitable that the Federal Army would easily achieve a rapid
series of military victories.  As they did so, the stories of
mass executions and rapes followed quickly in their wake.  These
accounts were seized upon by the Western press as a wonderful way
to boost circulation and thus advertising revenue.  It is
reasonable to assume that in the rush to find salacious
atrocities some of these claims were inadequately verified, 
exaggerated, and perhaps entirely fabricated.  But their sheer
volume and diverse sources of the accounts lends credence to the
generality of these practices by the Federal Army and strongly
implies that they were deliberate policies designed to induce
popular terror and thereby cut away public morale and support of
separatism.  Further, the destruction of Dubrodnic and the mass
graves of Srebonica and Birchko provide irrefutable evidence of
Serb mass murder.

     In the meantime, the domination of the global media by the
war produced numerous Muslim volunteers from the Middle-East to
assist Bosnia, many of them battle-hardened by prior
participation in the Afghan war.  Their involvement retarded the
achievement of a complete Serbian victory over Bosnia, while
Sareavo survived on smuggled Western aid.  As for the Croatians,
the United States trained both their soldiers and the Bosnians in
the use of high-tech U.S. weapons which eventually enabled
counter-attacks that rolled back the Serbian lines.

     However, I believe it naive to imagine that atrocities were
the monopoly of the Serbs.  While I am confident that they
probably murdered and raped more individuals than the Bosnians
and Croats put together, I also believe that that greater volume
of murder victims can be safely attributed not to some sort of
moral "inferiority" on the part of the Serbs but rather to their
SUPERIOR FIREPOWER.  Had the shoe been on the other foot, I'm
confident that both the Croats AND the Bosnians would have been
just as enthusiastic about terrorizing the Serbs.  An indication
of this can be found in the fact that, as soon as the Croats felt
ready, they launched a counter-offensive against their OWN
Serbian minority in the Krainna region of Croatia, using
brutality, and terror to displace somewhere between 
150-->300K individuals, forcing them to flee to Belgrade (little
coverage in the "Western" press of this "incident"). 
[Interestingly, these Serb refugees were ignored & unattended to
by Milosovich once they'd arrived in Belgrade.  So much for
Serbian solidarity!]

     My conclusion from this brief survey is that all sides are
equally victims of the "barbarization" process forced upon the
participants of war.  The value of human life is cheapened for
all participants, bringing in train both a disgust for and de-
humanization of the opponent, making it more tempting to engage
in and easier to "justify" mass killings, rapes, and torture
visited upon civilian populations affiliated with "enemy" of the
moment.  Given that this process of barbarization has had
adequate time to equally poison all sides, their advocates have
all devolved into moral depravity--the moral equivalent of "mud-
wrestlers", quick to take tactical advantage whenever available &
by any means necessary.  Hence there are no "good guys" here--
only ordinary humans driven by the terror, desperation, and
barbarism of war into believing that violence is the only
solution to their pain & oppression (real or imagined).  Those
who committed the greatest number of atrocities were simply those
with the best weapons and tightest organization.  To date, that
group has been the Serbs (Yugoslav Federal Army).

     Inside Kosovo, the Serbian push to compulsorily evacuate the
"ethnic Albanians" (who have been living in that area for many
hundreds of years, and are thus about as "Albanian" as African-
Americans are "African") started just steps behind (literally)
the withdrawal of the OSCE monitors, and well before the start of
NATO bombing.  Further, the procedures employed clearly required
considerable advance planning, insofar as they involved prior
placement of trains, buses, evacuation centers, and
troops/paramilitaries. Even the notorious "Arkan" was well-
established in headquarters in Pristina weeks before the bombing. 
Finally, the actual evacuation process was remarkably similar to
one undertaken by the (then fascist regime) in Serbia as long ago
as 1938!!  Hence the Serb apologists who cling to the fantasy
that the "Albanians" were leaving to escape NATO bombing are
allowing their emotions to blind them to reality.


                               III

                       NATO INVOLVEMENT: 
             LOGICAL FLAWS IN THE "OFFICIAL" REASONS


     I have heard it said that no situation can be so terribly
bad that the addition of a policeman won't make it worse.  The
NATO air war bears this out:  all it appears to be doing is
killing people in an almost random way--including the very people
that it was allegedly called in to "save."  I've heard one wit
suggest that NATO and the Serbian army appear to be in a
competition over who can kill the most Kosovars the fastest. 
Inside Serbia itself, the "policy" seems to be to turn the
country into a sea of molten glass, in which civilians are the
primary victims.  NATO "apologies" aside, this carpet bombing
(let us call it by its right name) against civilians has even
been admitted by one NATO general to be designed to weaken
Serbian popular morale (Toronto Globe & Mail: 5/26/99), hence
*INTENTIONAL*!!

     Granted that the media's job during wartime requires them to
dish out the official party line, supplemented when useful by
exaggeration and sometimes even fabrication.  However, the
official propaganda on BOTH sides has strayed so far away from
the facts on the ground that one is compelled to conclude that
the war may not be all that it appears.  Which brings me to the
key points of this overly-long post.

     I believe that the war in/over Kosovo is only the SURFACE
WAR, the appearance of things, the prolegomena to the real,
deeper truth.  It is simply a surface phenomenon, a testing
ground (in a political more importantly than a military sense)
for what I call the "Shadow War"--which is, ironically, the REAL
war.

     Let us peel away the first layer.  Why does the US/NATO care
about the Kosovars, when equal if not greater horrors of mass
killings and population movements at gunpoint have happened in
Turkey (a NATO member itself), Rwanda, Burma, Cambodia, Kashmir,
Sri Lanka, Irianjaya, East Timor, etc,etc,etc...?  Clearly what
distinguishes the Kosovars is *NOT* either the intensity OR the
nature of their suffering--in many ways less than that of those
others just listed.  So obviously the NATO agenda must involve
OTHER considerations.

     The conventional explanation found in the sanctioned media
is that this is Europe's "doorstep", ambiguously suggesting that
NATO is involved because: 
     (a) they are somehow "white" people & hence more worthy of
concern (implying that war between non-whites is OK), &/or 
     (b) that war in the Balkans somehow threatens the stability
of European capital accumulation.  The first is explicitly
racist, the second of dubious merit.  The fact that the first
explanation is racist does not by itself make it untrue. 
However, even IF true it cannot be the most important factor, or
the U.S. would have long ago protested the treatment of the Irish
by the English, or the Roma by the Czechs!  Further, those who,
like the "Kosovar Albanians," practice Islam inside the United
States are too few to create a constituency strong enough to push
U.S.--and NATO--foreign policy.

     Regarding the danger to European Core capital accumulation: 
the risk to that process would only be high if those countries
central to the core accumulation process were to be militarily
threatened--Germany, Switzerland, France, and England.  Were the
war to spread beyond Kosovo to include Macedonia, Albania, and
perhaps even Greece, none of the essential core countries would
be crippled--they could simply adjust their trade routes to skirt
around the dangerous areas.

     Yet, as long ago as 1990 then president George Bush warned
Milosovich to stay out of Kosovo on pain of intervention by the
U.S.  Assuming that their concerns in 1990 were not brute racism
or a misguided conception of economics (a big assumption I'll
grant), then I can only assume that their deepest worry was GEO-
POLITICAL: that an unchecked Balkan war might not spread only to
the countries close by, but ultimately re-ignite the chronic
tensions between Greece and Turkey.  A war between THESE two
countries would potentially destroy not only the entire NATO
alliance, but also the relations of the United States with both
Greece AND Turkey, bringing down with it a major leg of U.S.
policy in the Mid-East (which depends upon Turkish support).
(Yet, ironically, NATO/US intervention seems only to have
accelerated the spread of the conflict into the very countries
that the intervention was designed to "protect.")

     Meanwhile, on the far left, there are dark assertions of
"conspiracies" for access to caucasian oil, underground minerals,
or other resources real or imagined.  I find these equally
dubious and overly simplistic.  No oil lies beneath the contested
area itself, and *NO* pipeline plan has EVER contemplated any
route remotely NEAR the Balkans.  Further, all of the minerals
alleged to lie underground Kosovo exist plentifully enough in
more peaceful areas.  There is simply nothing in Kosovo worth
fighting for on economic grounds (unless someone has stumbled
across the "Mother Ship" of an alien species lying in an hitherto
sealed underground chamber--as in a typical "X-Files" episode.)

     Instead, I think the answer lies not in economics or racism
but in geopolitics.  Not only the geopolitical fears just
sketched out above, but also even larger and deeper concerns. 
Milosovich, like Hussein before him, made a point of OPENLY
FLAUNTING U.S. HEGEMONY in such a way that the US (& Britain, its
vicarious co-ruler and self-important subaltern) felt themselves
BACKED INTO A CORNER where war was the only "face-saving" option. 
Put differently, in order for US military hegemony to be
sustained, it is occasionally necessary to actually *USE IT,* so
that those on the receiving end may be made examples of in order
to intimidate others.  THIS is why the US military was never
concerned about the human rights abuses in the other non-European
cases listed: THE PARTICIPANTS NEVER CHALLENGED US AUTHORITY!!! 
Hence the conflicts could simply be ignored.  In Iraq, even the
pretense of "humanitarian" intervention was never invoked.  It
was enough that Iraq had flaunted U.S. dominion by invading
Kuwait (after the U.S. diplomat Glaseby had already given her
implicit U.S. stamp of approval).  Having already seized Kuwait,
Hussein was not inclined to back down in the face of U.S.
complaints & warnings--to have done so would have discredited his
own rule at home.  Hence he was as unable to retreat as the
United States was to ignore him.  Just as in the Balkans, both
sides became backed into corners where war was inevitable.  Once
again, in both cases one corner was occupied by a leader
compelled to public challenge U.S. Hegemony over the world.  Such
challenges *CANNOT* be ignored...


                               IV

                      BACKLASH TO HEGEMONY


     Let us now go down yet another level, the level of the
"Shadow War"--the REAL war.

     The ostensible reason that NATO acted without UN approval is
that they knew that both Russia and China would veto it.  This
assessment is actually true--either/both would certainly have
vetoed it.  Why?  The reasons are twofold, but intimately
related.

     1.   Both countries are broiling with internal ethnic
tensions of their own, made worse by recent collapses in working-
class purchasing power (e.g.--the "Asian Melt-Down" of 1997-8;
and the collapse of the Ruble and massive Russian bank failures
in August 1998).  Inside China, the 30+ year long struggle over
Tibet remains unresolved, while at the same time there are
tensions between the central government and its OWN Muslim
population.

     Inside Russia, many people in the powerful north-west are
deeply suspicious of all of the groups living across the entire
Russian southern flank, whose (largely Muslim) populations, along
with the Chechins, many view as "mud people"--uncivilized peasant
barbarians.  I recently heard on Radio Canada an example of such
feelings when I listened to an interview with a Canadian who had
been among those recently allowed by Serbia to take a tour of
Kosovo (as a United Nations rep).  He reported having a
conversation with some Russian, Ukrainian, and Israeli volunteers
in a hotel lobby in Pristina.  When asked what motivated them to
fight for a foreign country, they all agreed that they hated
Muslims, that Muslims were sub-human, and that humanity would be
improved without them.  In addition to this anti-muslim fear, we
should not forget that anti-Semitism remains the popular norm
within Russian society, as tenaciously pervasive as anti-African-
American sentiments are among the rest of the American working
class.

     If EITHER Russia or China had permitted NATO to operate
against Serbia on the basis of stopping ethnic oppression, then
they would have been giving implicit permission for the UN to
authorize sending armed troops inside their OWN BORDERS to stop
perceived oppression inside Russia or China!  On the one hand,
their concerns are completely understandable--they know full well
how the monopolized media can instantly whip up popular sentiment
to endorse military intervention anywhere in the world, and are
justifiably afraid that that same media could frame ANY internal
conflict within their respective countries as an egregious
offense against human rights and "western values."  Yet, on the
other hand, their fears can be equally correctly construed as the
wish to retain the right to suppress, torture, rape and "cleanse"
any of THEIR recalcitrant minorities with impunity.

     2    Viewed even more broadly, Russia, China, India and misc
other members of the semiperiphery (each of whom probably harbor
dreams of THEMSELVES becoming the next hegemonic core) are
TERRIFIED of a unipolar world with the United States as the sole
hegemonic power.  This is ALSO a reasonable fear, because such a
situation could easily evolve into a GLOBAL EMPIRE: GLOBAL
CAPITALISM INC, where the UN security council would devolve into
a board of directors with the US as CEO.

     Although neither Russia nor China retain any international
credibility as being in any way "progressive," they're each
passionately nationalistic and determined to avoid being coerced
by the US.  Both China and Russia share with Serbia a major
problem of state legitimacy.  As with Serbia, neither can claim
to be in any way "socialist" or even "egalitarian."  Yet, the
clear failures of capitalism to deliver an improved life to the
average worker--indeed, the quality of life in both countries has
DROPPED since their adoption of capitalism--is forcing their
respective governments to find some ideology that will prop up
government power--if only to buy time.  For now, the solution
they've apparently opted for is an extreme nationalism verging on
racism.  For the viewpoint of the Chinese Government, the bombing
of the Embassy in Belgrade was a "God-send":  at a point where
they were terrified of the 10th anniversary of Tien An Mein, the
U.S. Govt mercifully diverts attention, and directs student
frustration instead against the evil Americans.  Even before this
gift to Chinese propaganda, the official Chinese Media had been
portraying the war in Kosovo as without justification, a
capricious exercise in U.S. military equipment designed to
destroy an innocent state whose only crime was to be weak and
unable to defend itself.

     Within this current political atmosphere, both Russia AND
China would eagerly fight for their autonomy (or at least a
sovereign piece of the global capitalist surplus), up to and
including warfare and a nuclear exchange.


                                V

               THE INSTABILITY OF A UNIPOLAR WORLD


     A uni-polar world composed of semi-autonomous states is
highly unstable.  It quickly consolidates itself into a world-
empire, or just as quickly fragments back into competing multi-
polarities.  Either direction requires warfare.

     The reason that Clinton has been so eager to cut a deal
w/China allowing them to join the WTO (even if on US terms) has
been precisely to defer or avoid such a military clash.  If China
can be co-opted into joining the beneficiaries of imperialism and
unequal exchange, it will presumably become a willing defender of
the current global structure of exploitation, and no longer a
military threat.  If, however, it is unable to join on terms it
can live with it, it may opt out altogether in favor of securing
an economic, political, and therefore MILITARY zone in the
Pacific which could serve as its own private periphery (just as
the Japanese tried & failed to do in WWII).  The latter option
would necessarily lead to a war with the US.  But, insofar as
China has not yet acquired the technical sophistication of the
US, it is not yet ready for that sort of challenge.  Hence it is
currently focussing on diplomacy--for now.

     Yet, precisely because China is not yet ready for full-scale
war, some have interpreted the bombing of the Chinese Embassy as
a sort of "shot across the bow" designed to intimidate the
Chinese and deter their involvement in the Balkans.  That may be
overly cynical, but that is certainly how the Chinese are
perceiving it.

     Certainly, if the normal operation of the war cycle charted
out by World-Systems theory were to proceed unimpeded, a US-Sino
conflict would make a plausible scenario for the next global war
circa 2010.

      However, when the US sends in ground troops to Kosovo
(which, barring successful last-minute diplomacy, it MUST do on
pain of losing altogether), it may start a dangerous chain of
events.  For that matter, an unrelenting pursuit of the air war
may achieve a similar causal process.  Already, Russian
volunteers are working alongside Serbs in Kosovo.  Whether there
is a ground invasion or not, some of these young men will return
home in body-bags.  That cannot make either their families or
political representatives happy.  Beyond that, it is NOT in the
geo-political interests of those who fear U.S. total global
control to allow NATO to "win" in Kosovo.  Given that sentiment,
it is impossible to know how far the Russians, Chinese, Indians,
and any allies they have will go to prevent a NATO victory.  Even
as I speak, Viktor Chernomyrdin is announcing yet another "break-
through" in his talks in Belgrade.  Such a diplomatic solution
would grant us more peace for a time, but given the fundamental
tensions over who will govern the world-economy, there will
necessarily have to be other clashes serving as proxies over the
broader clash of wills and conflicting national interests.

     However, should the diplomatic efforts fail, then we can
expect either intensified bombing, the launch of a ground war, or
both.  Should this situation develop, then both the Russian and
Chinese govt's will be under enormous popular pressure to oppose
the NATO advance, even as the Greeks and Italians officially
break with NATO.  The Russians and Chinese must know that their
own weapons cannot compete with those used by U.S./NATO, so I'm
sure that they would think long and hard about getting directly
involved.  However, should their domestic pressures become loud
enough that their very state legitimacy becomes questioned, then
either or both countries may find themselves COMPELLED to
directly fight NATO--doubtless using the rhetoric of restoring UN
authority over uni-lateral action against "rogue" states (like
the members of NATO).

     In this most grim of scenarios, the inequality of the
conventional forces between Russia, China, and the US would be so
large that the Russians & Chinese would have no choice but to
quickly resort to Nukes.  The results would be unpredictable. 
NATO would almost certainly win militarily, but many of us would
die in the process...

     This, then, is the REAL war: THE WAR FOR GLOBAL HEGEMONY IN
THE WAKE OF THE COLD WAR.  Unless/until the core issue of a uni-
polar empire vs a multi-state "world-system" is resolved, every
single local conflict carries the potential of Armageddon.

     For those who truly care about peace--spread education about
international affairs, Afflict the Comfortable, while Comforting
the Afflicted.  
	Peace & Love to all,  
	Peter Grimes