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CONCLUSION
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some and a conspiracy theory by others. While it is beyond the scope
of this book to resolve this issue, its possibility provides some useful
insights into how the CNN effect has changed the calculations of war-
fare under certain contexts, creating a new battle in the midst of a
larger war. In this new type of battle, the actual outcome of the fight
is not as important as the perceptions framed by the outside world’s
media. In the Drenica attack on the Jashari compound, the FRY summer
offensive (which included the Gornje Obrinje massacre) and the
battle in Racak (which preceded the massacre), the KLA was badly
outgunned and soundly defeated by the FRY. Yet in each case, the
military defeat became a political victory. In fact, the more one-sided
the defeat, it seemed, the greater the political mileage derived by the
Albanian cause. If, for example, large numbers of Serb soldiers were
killed in any of these incidents, the case for a massacre would have
certainly been more difficult to sustain.
In traditional guerrilla warfare, ambushes aim to draw adversaries
into situations that place them at a disadvantage. In battles involving
a potential CNN effect, the goal is to draw an adversary into positions
that increase their odds of committing actions that might tarnish their
image. As Dugi Gorani has suggested, “With Racak, and with lots of
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others, the Serbs were playing into KLA hands.” Whether Racak and
other massacres were intentional traps or not, the Serbs, to their peril,
seemed naive and barely cognizant of the battles over Western media
images and framing—battles that they were badly losing. The
increased transparency of war in a globalized age means that armed
forces of the twenty-first century, unlike armies in wars of previous
times, must be wary of committing detrimental acts before the cameras.
This is particularly true for middle or weak powers fighting domestic
insurgency, whose battles may be susceptible to outside intervention
under the right context.
In terms of the implications of the CNN effect for the incidence of
war, the geopolitical context, as mentioned, is important. During
periods of perceived threats to national security, such as the post-9/11
era, strategic interests will likely dominate decision-making and inter-
ventions will be largely determined by these calculations. 14 But in
times when world powers do not perceive major threats to their secu-
rity, there could actually be an increase in international wars due to the
CNN effect, as local wars become internationalized with the entry of
outsiders. If belligerents know that the world is watching, however, it
may make wars less bloody and more in line with the laws of war and
just war principles, and this, in the long run, could lead to a decline in
the brutality and incidence of war.