Page 155 - The CNN Effect in Action - How the News Media Pushed the West toward War ini Kosovo

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THE CNN EFFECT IN ACTION
● Force used as a last resort if diplomacy fails
● Additional approvals still needed to use military option
3. Clear and imminent threat of military intervention
Examples of language used to indicate this type of approach
include
● All necessary approval given, now up to the military to act at
will
● Use of force imminent, unless conditions change (such as
Serbs agree to certain terms or conditions, pull back
forces, et cetera)
Overall, the majority of Western documents made at least some ref-
erence to the possibility of military intervention. Of the 161 docu-
ments surveyed, 97 (60 percent) mentioned the possibility of military
engagement while 64 (40 percent) made no reference to this possibility.
Out of the 97 statements that mentioned the possibility of military
intervention, only 18 (11 percent) made clear threats of this possibil-
ity, while 79 (49 percent) referred to it in the background as a last
resort. If a third party begins to consider becoming directly involved
militarily in other people’s wars, it is likely that they will mention this
option increasingly and more blatantly as they get closer to the
engagement. This was certainly the case in Kosovo, where mention of
war became more common and the threat of attack more direct with
time. In the run up to NATO intervention, discussion of military
engagement flared on four separate occasions, as illustrated in
graph 6.8 and table 6.8. It first appeared in late May after a FRY
offensive that caused concern in Western capitals and led to NATO’s
Operation Determined Falcon. It then retracted for several months
only to reemerge in September after the passage of a UN Security
Council resolution and a NATO activation warning. After receding
briefly again, language of military intervention next appeared in early
October after the transmission of gruesome footage from the mas-
sacre in Gornje Obrinje. This massacre was the first event to garner a
clear threat of imminent force by the West. The reaction to the
Drenica massacre in the spring of 1998 had some very minor refer-
ences to the military, but it was largely dealt with through diplomacy
involving the threat of sanctions. The reaction to the Gornje Obrinje
massacre, however, demonstrated a political landscape that had sig-
nificantly changed. After this incident, the first credible threat of mil-
itary engagement emerged through a NATO activation order
(ACTORD), making air strikes a real possibility. 14 It was only after