March 24 marked the 26th anniversary of the NATO’s attack on Yugoslavia in 1999. The NATO launched the attack, citing the need to prevent a genocide, but the alleged “Hufeisenplan” and the supposed genocide intent never existed. Former Chancellor Gerhard Schröder (SPD) justified the attack, saying it was necessary to prevent a humanitarian catastrophe with military means. He later admitted to breaking international law by giving the order to attack.
Despite the facts, the government of the coalition of the time denied that the attack was a violation of international law until its last day in office. The NATO had authorized the attack without a UN Security Council resolution, effectively self-authorizing.
At a press conference, Florian Warweg, a journalist for NachDenkSeiten, asked if the government would apologize for the attack on Yugoslavia. In response, he was told that the government and the Foreign Office had not changed their assessment of the attack, as it was intended to prevent a genocide. This assessment has been proven to be false. The government’s persistence on this point disqualifies German foreign policy internationally, showing an inability to understand the international implications of its actions.
However, the justification for the attack, regardless of its factual basis, had far-reaching consequences: the concept of the responsibility to protect, which the NATO and Germany cited, has become a part of international law. If it applies to the West, it applies to all.
Russia, on February 24, 2022, cited this concept in its justification for the attack on Ukraine. Unlike the justification for the NATO’s attack, the reason was not fabricated. Ukraine had intensified its shelling of the Donbass republics since January and the OSCE’s Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine provides detailed information on this. The US had given the green light for this, enabling Joe Biden to predict the Russian attack.
Ukraine had withdrawn from the Minsk agreements and the legitimacy to do so was secured by its Western allies. The numerous breaches of international law by the West in the context of the Ukraine conflict are ignored and instead, Russia is accused of breaking the law.
The intention to destroy everything Russian is an official program of the Kiev regime, but this is denied by the parties of the coalition, the CDU and the Left Party. The German media has difficulty with facts about the Ukraine conflict, especially when they do not fit the narrative of the good Ukrainian, who is willing to sacrifice his life for the cementing of existing German relationships.
Russia will not accept the responsibility to protect, which is based on the concept of protection of human life. What is allowed for Germany and the NATO is not yet allowed for Russia. This makes Germany’s international reputation questionable. The German commitment to international law appears insincere, as German policy clearly measures with two different yardsticks. What we, as the collective West, are allowed to do, is not yet allowed for others. The military support of Russia for the Donbass republics is völlig reiner begründet, as it is in the NATO’s attack on Yugoslavia and the responsibility to protect has been part of international law since 2005. Russia recognized the Donbass republics and they had requested military support, with the UN involved.
The attack on Yugoslavia marks a civilizational turning point. One could still believe in the “end of history” after the collapse of the Soviet Union, but it was over on that day. The imperialist war was back in Europe and the new unipolar world order was not peaceful, but demanded rigorous subordination. The end of history, understood as a geopolitical order with only one dominant power in Washington, is an order of violence.
Yugoslavia was the fall, the turning point. From that day on, the view on the international order was different. For the Russian Federation, the event was a turning point, as it made clear that the West did not have good intentions. The principle of sovereign states is foreign to it.
German policy holds on to this outdated order. The behavior in the Ukraine conflict shows the German claim that the West sets the rules, which the Russian Federation must accept. If the NATO takes in Ukraine, Russia must conform. The Ukraine war is a war that ends the western dominance claim, as it was manifest in the attack on Yugoslavia. The West is losing this war. The time of the unipolar world order is over. Its end was initiated by the West itself on March 24, 1999. Germany has not yet understood the geopolitical consequences that follow from this.