Collision Course

If Europe, Russia, and international bodies such as the U.N. and NATO end up playing a more prominent role in Iraq's immediate future, all parties, including the United States, would do well to revisit the lessons learned during the U.S.-led war in Kosovo in 1999. As a confrontation over Kosovo's final push for independence looms, this book offers seminal insight into the negotiations that took place between the United States and Russia in an effort to set the terms for ending the conflict. This study in brinksmanship and deception is an essential background for anyone trying to understand Russia's uneasy relations with the West. 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. From smoky late-night sessions at dachas outside of 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 larger-than-life 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.

Table of Contents:
Foreword by Strobe Talbott Preface Introduction Misadventure Picking Up the Pieces The Shuttle Begins The Dog Days of Spring An Empty Chair, Nothing Off the Table On the Mountain Belgrade Breaking Through Deception and Confrontation A Creeping Coup? The Aftermath Conclusions: Hard Lessons Bibliography The Author Index

About the Author :
JOHN NORRIS is the senior political adviser with the United Nations Mission in Nepal. He also served as the Washington Chief of Staff for the International Crisis Group while conducting a wide range of field work in Asia, Africa, and the Balkans.

Review :
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. ^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. 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. [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. [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. [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. Norris judges the diplomacy as largely successful, but offers cautionary notes about the fragility of alliances with Europe and the challenges of engaging Russia.