Peace at Any Price: How the World Failed Kosovo

by Iain King

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.

Genres: Nonfiction, History

328 pages, Hardcover

First published August 15, 2006

About the author

Iain King has just become one of the top twenty best-selling thriller authors on Amazon.com.

Iain has worked in ten conflicts and warzones, including Iraq, South Sudan, and throughout the Balkans. In Afghanistan, where he came under fire several times, he served alongside both the battalion commanders who became UK's most senior casualties, and was deployed to more frontline bases in the notorious Helmand Province than any other civilian. In 2013, he became one of the youngest people to be made a Commander of the British Empire (CBE).

It was while based in Benghazi, coordinating international civilian support during part of the 2011 Libyan war, that Iain met some of the refugees who feature so prominently in his new thriller, 'Last Prophecy of Rome'. The book begins with terrorists threatening to inflict on America the fate of ancient Rome. Could Western civilisation be destroyed by barbarians a second time...? Read 'Last Prophecy of Rome' to find out - an edge-of-your-seat thriller with some unexpected warnings from history. The book has just been published, and is already receiving excellent reviews.

Since its release in July 2015, 'Secrets of the Last Nazi' has topped kindle charts in both the US and the UK. The story traces an extraordinary pursuit across Europe, as Cold War rivals hunt the secrets of former SS Captain Werner Stolz. The debut novel has won effusive reviews both as a compulsive page-turner and for the amazing secret at the heart of the tale. Readers have called it 'gripping', 'spell-binding', and 'suspenseful', and several have said it was the best book they had read for years. Bloggers have called it 'unputdownable', 'fantastic', and 'mesmerising'. A well-known American reviewer described it as 'One of the most original and carefully thought out stories that have yet to appear in print,' while a Guardian columnist claims it will 'turn everybody's ideas upside down and back to front.'

Iain has also written two non-fiction books:

'How to Make Good Decisions and Be Right All the Time' is an easy-to-understand introduction to moral philosophy, which also presents a radical new theory on ethics. Used in philosophy courses, it avoids jargon and explains complicated ideas in simple language. The book invites readers to consider some practical dilemmas and long-standing problems in moral philosophy, and offers innovative solutions.

'Peace at Any Price' chronicles the international intervention in Kosovo, explaining what worked well, what didn't and why. The Economist praised it as 'refreshing, serious and well-considered... excellent,' while the Journal of Southern Europe described it as 'one of the most perceptive accounts ever written on the practical difficulties associated with peace building in the aftermath of ethnic conflict.'

Iain also edited and wrote the opening chapter of 'Making Peace in War'. This compilation of stories from civilians who served in Helmand's frontline is both moving and compelling. It tells of absurd but very human events during the war, and offers a unique and fascinating perspective on recent events in Afghanistan.

Reviews

[Steven Godin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although highly informative and inconceivably shocking, this is basically an in-depth look at something that I have known for quite some time, the UN were useless when it came to try and stabilize a war ravaged Kosovo after the NATO lead military action of 1999 forced Serb forces to retreat. The United Nations then set in motion an interim civilian administration which was supposedly there to maintain law and protect human rights among other things. It failed miserably. The following year investigations had recovered the remains of almost three thousand victims of all ethnicities, and the full magnitude of a campaign of terror was emerging with the Serbian Army responsible for the horrors including execution style murders, the rape of countless women and children, arson attacks and torture, which could have been avoided had the UN been quicker out the blocks in negotiations, but it seems to me they were never anywhere near them in the first place!. Sadly look at what has happened already in the 21st century, I can only prey for those caught up in conflict today, and hope the suffering of so many will one day come to an end.

[Lilia C. Oram · Rating 5 out of 5]

Peace at Any Price is an essential, albeit haunting, read for anyone interested in international relations and the complexities of nation-building. Iain King and Whit Mason provide a rare combination of "on-the-ground" personal experience and rigorous academic analysis. Their critique of the UN Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) is both passionate and meticulously argued, highlighting the gap between international ideals and the gritty reality of post-conflict reconstruction.

What makes this book stand out is its bravery in identifying the "avoidable mistakes" made by the UN and NATO. It doesn't just criticize; it offers vital lessons for future interventions. In a world where regional conflicts continue to shatter countries, the insights found here regarding the rule of law and multiethnic stability are more relevant than ever. This is a brilliant, cogent, and deeply necessary contribution to the field of political science.

[Nicholas Whyte]

http://nhw.livejournal.com/723487.html[return][return]This is a fairly damning indictment of the international efforts to put Kosovo on its feet since the NATO campaign against Serbia and Yugoslavia of 1999. From the very beginning, international officials conceded to thuggery on the ground, committed by both the ethnic Albanian majority and by the remaining ethnic Serbs where they could manage it. UN officials retreated into a colonialist mentality, failing to implement their mandate and questioning their own ability to do so. (Kosovo's electricity supplies now are in worse shape than they were before the conflict.) The highest ever per capita expenditure by the international community on post-conflict reconstruction has delivered indifferent results.[return][return]King and Mason have a list of prescriptions as to what could be done better in future. To me, the two key points - confirmed by this book - are, first, that any such international mission needs to move fast to establish the rule of law as a matter of extreme urgency; and second, that the end goal must be clear right from the beginning. The determination to put off deciding on Kosovo's future independence led directly to the discrediting of the UN mission within Kosovo and the violence of March 2004, and has exacerbated uncertainty in the wider region.[return][return]There were one or two other points that occurred to me when reading. In Bosnia, politicians were reined in by the international community when they lied about what was actually in the peace deal. No such measure was ever applied or even threatened in Kosovo, with the result that nationalist fantasies continued to be peddled by the top leadership until the start of this year. Freedom of speech, sure, but malicious lies about the basis of government should at the very least have been countered by the UN.[return][return]King and Mason make the argument, though I feel they are not completely convinced, that holding elections in Kosovo before the moderates were in a position to win was a mistake. In my view that is wishful thinking. While in these circumstances elections do often simply confirm the hold on power of local thugs, at least they are now in by virtue of the ballot box rather than by force and it becomes thinkable that they can be removed. And anyway, the first elections in Kosovo did, in fact, remove from power many of the KLA-linked structures that had gained local ascendancy during the war.[return][return]I think this is the first book-length piece on the Kosovo protectorate, and it's a thorough analysis, drawing of course among other sources from the work my own colleagues have been doing over the years. My one minor quibble are that some of the Serbian names are misspelt - the famously impaled Mr Martinovi is Martimovic, Nenad Radosavljevi has acquired an extra l in his surname, and Slaviaa Petkovi's first name is spelt Slavisha, as if in Albanian. But those quibbles apart, it's a good book.