Collision Course: NATO, Russia, and Kosovo

(Hardback)

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America's relationship with Russia has become increasingly important as Washington has engaged Moscow as a critical, but often prickly, ally in the war on terror. A crisis point in this relationship was NATO's war with Yugoslavia over Kosovo. From smoky late-night sessions at dachas outside Moscow to meetings in the White House Situation Room, Norris captures the feel of a war that repeatedly threatened to spin out of control. He offers a vivid portrait of some of the key characters involved in the conflict, including U.S. president Bill Clinton, General Wesley Clark, Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic, and Russian president Boris Yeltsin. New information includes backstage efforts to open a direct negotiating channel between Milosevic and Washington at the height of the conflict. The book reaches a dramatic crescendo against the backdrop of the war's final days, when Russia unleashed a secret plan to push its forces into Kosovo, ahead of NATO peacekeepers. If the international community is to play a more prominent role in Iraq's immediate future, all parties would do well to revisit the lessons learned from the war in Kosovo. As a confrontation over Kosovo's final push for independence looms, this book offers a seminal insight into the last Kosovo conflict. This study in brinkmanship and deception is essential background reading for anyone trying to understand Russia's uneasy relations with the West.

Reviews

Norris, now with the International Crisis Group, was Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott's communications director during the Clinton Administration. His book recounts the immediate genesis and outcome of the 1999 Kosovo crisis. The author has the advantage of an insider's experience.Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates, graduate students, and practitioners. * Choice *
^ICollision Course: NATO, Russia, and Kosovo^R tells the story of the real diplomacy behind the Kosova crisis.[n]o one has told this important story in more detail or uncovered so many points at which things went disastrously wrong. * Times Literary Supplement (London) *
As communications director for U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott, the lead American negotiator during the war, John Norris had a ringside seat for the diplomacy that ultimately produced a settlement. The story is a dramatic one, and Norris tells it well, drawing the reader into the web of relationships within and between the countries involved.Norris is particularly good at conveying just how grueling diplomacy can be. The number of flights that Talbott and his team took to Europe and Moscow, resulting in a marathon series of exhausting negotiations, is extraordinary.[e]ven readers familiar with the general contours of the Kosovo war will learn a great deal from an extraordinary tale-one that is told extraordinarily well. * Political Science Quarterly *
[N]o one has pulled the war's tale together quite as Norris has--teaching even those who had central roles, such as the Finnish president, Martti Ahtisaari, things they id not know. Becuase NATO allies also often did not agree, and even the U.S. commander in Europe fought with the U.S. secretary of defense, it makes for a saga as tempestuous as it was crucial. * Foreign Affairs *
[E]xamines the multilateral diplomacy surrounding the Kosovo war. Author John Norris was communications director for U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott, the lead diplomat for the United States on the crisis, and his book provides a highly readable, blow-by-blow history of the diplomacy that sought to resolve the conflict. As presented by Norriss book, the Kosovo conflict suggests that aggressive multilateral diplomacy, coupled with the use of limited force, can perhaps solve such disputes, or at least prevent the worst outcomes for them. * The Washington Diplomat *
[A]n important and exciting story told with verve and a lot of detail by the author.The debate will continue, and this interesting, well-researched book is a valuable addition to it. * International Affairs *
Norris judges the diplomacy as largely successful, but offers cautionary notes about the fragility of alliances with Europe and the challenges of engaging Russia. * Reference & Research Book News *

Author Bio

John Norris is Special Advisor to the President of the International Crisis Group, a premier multinational conflict prevention organization, based in Brussels. He was formerly an official in the U.S. State Department.