Madeleine's War

What's at stake here is the principle that aggression doesn't pay, that ethnic cleansing cannot be permitted." The troops gathered in a hangar at Spangdahlem air base in Germany cheer. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, standing in front of an F-16, is explaining the war in Kosovo to them. It is, to her, a defining mission for America in the post-cold war world. It is also, for someone who had to flee Hitler, then Stalin, as a child, a very personal mission. As President Clinton proclaims when she is finished, "Secretary Albright, thank you for being able to redeem the lessons of your life story by standing up for the freedom of the people in the Balkans."

The Kosovo conflict is often referred to, by both her fans and foes, as Madeleine's War. In a literal sense, of course, that's not true these days. Now that it's become an armed conflict, she plays a supporting role to the President, National Security Adviser Sandy Berger, Defense Secretary Bill Cohen and the military brass. But more than anyone else, she embodies the foreign policy vision that pushed these men into this war. And she is the one most responsible for holding the allies--and the Administration--firm in pursuit of victory.

To Albright, a stable Europe is central to our interests. Opposing ethnic cleansing is central to our values. And because of the world view bred into her bones and seared into her heart growing up, she believes that America's interests cannot be easily separated from its values. "We are reaffirming NATO's core purpose as a defender of democracy, stability and human decency on European soil," she says.

Her critics argue that this has never been NATO's core purpose. For 50 years, it's been a defensive alliance, one that never before waged war against another European nation, no matter how lacking in democracy, stability or human decency. They see Madeleine's War as the latest example of an incoherent foreign policy driven by moral impulses and mushy sentiments, one that hectors and scolds other nations to obey our sanctimonious dictates and ineffectively bombs or sanctions them if they don't.

So the war in Kosovo, and Albright's determined vision of it, has become more than just another regional conflict. It has become ground zero in the debate over whether America should play a new role in the world, that of the indispensable nation asserting its morality as well as its interests to assure stability, stop thugs and prevent human atrocities.

It was early in Clinton's first term, back when she was U.N. ambassador during the first showdown with Serbia over Bosnia, that Albright showed her stripes on foreign policy. At a 1993 meeting with Joint Chiefs Chairman Colin Powell--who gave his name to the doctrine that the military should be used only after a clear political goal has been set, and then only with decisive force--she challenged the general: "What's the point of having this superb military that you're always talking about if we can't use it?" As Powell later recalled, "I thought I would have an aneurysm."