5 Erlanger (Steven), « After Slow Start, U.N.

Humanitarian interventionism or – as Noam Chomsky defined it – “new military humanism” 1, practised in the Balkans in the aftermath of the Cold War, proved to be of limited value in relation to Moscow. The media’s emphasis on a new “ethical” foreign policy was undiminished until the end of 1999, when the renewed Russian military action in Chechenya presented a situation in which the use of Western force, whatever the human rights position, was clearly not considered an option.

Of particular interest in this context is the stance adopted by the British Labour Government, whereby the intervention in the Balkans was described not as a one-off, but as a starting point for a new kind of world-wide humanitarianism. Rather, I focus on the way in which the rhetorical strategies used to justify it reflect on the debate about definitions of South-Eastern Europe.

1 Chomsky (Noam), The New Military Humanism : Lessons from Kosovo, London : Pluto Press, 1999.ġAlthough this examination of possible definitions of the Balkans concentrates initially on the human rights discourse which accompanied Western involvement in the former Yugoslavia over the past decade – especially as it preceded and underpinned NATO military action over Kosovo – its aim is not to dissect the rights and wrongs of intervention.

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