The tributes paid in Kosovo to the recently deceased British General Mike Jackson reflect an issue that goes to the heart of the country’s recent history. Jackson’s role in NATO’s intervention in 1999 — he was second in NATO’s military chain of command — made him a hero in Kosovo, and Kosovo’s political leaders mourned his death. President Vjosa Osmani described him as “a champion of liberty,” and Prime Minister Albin Kurti said he was “deeply saddened” and paid tribute to “his long and distinguished career.” 

Jackson ultimately served as head of the British Army from 2003 to 2006, and his death on October 15, 2024 was widely lamented in the U.K.. Prime Minister Keir Starmer described him as “an inspirational leader who served with distinction” and the British Army declared that “He will be greatly missed, and long remembered.” 

The Guardian portrayed him as “sensitive” and noted his “marked intelligence and diplomatic subtlety.” He was described by the BBC as “a much-loved and respected soldier… [who will] be remembered fondly.” The Financial Times heralded the “illustrious military career” of this “hard-drinking soldier’s soldier” who, it claimed, always sought peace and was, “no warmonger.”

Being from Ireland, it was galling to witness the celebration of a man deeply implicated in some of the most horrific violence carried out by the British army against Irish people. Many of those — like Jackson — who are heralded as heroes by Kosovo Albanians because of their involvement in the 1999 NATO intervention, demonstrated contempt for human rights in other contexts. This is illustrative of a broader truth with significant contemporary implications; the West’s interest in Kosovo has always been primarily strategic. 

‘He wreaked havoc’

On January 30, 1972, today remembered as Bloody Sunday, British soldiers from the 1st Battalion of the Parachute Regiment opened fire on a civil rights march in Derry, killing 13 Irish civilians and injuring many more. Jackson, then a captain, took part in the operation. 

The army and the British government attempted a cover-up, claiming the soldiers had been fired on first. Despite being at the scene throughout the 17 minutes of shooting, Jackson claimed to have somehow not seen any shots fired by his regiment. On the evening of Bloody Sunday, he compiled a “shot list” which falsely claimed, “those who had been shot were either nail bombers, bombers or gunmen.” In 2010 the British government finally admitted the killings had been “unjustified and unjustifiable.” 

Not only was Jackson on active duty on Bloody Sunday, but five months earlier, his battalion committed what became known as the Ballymurphy Massacre. Over the course of three days, it rampaged through Irish Republican neighborhoods in Belfast, killing 10 civilians, including a priest and a mother of eight. The British Army claimed that those killed were terrorists; a 2021 inquiry determined they were “entirely innocent.”

Unsurprisingly, Jackson’s death has not been mourned in Ireland. The chair of the Bloody Sunday Trust said, “there will be no grieving the loss of this man… He wreaked havoc in Derry and elsewhere in the 1970s.”

Motive and outcomes

The glaring contrast between Jackson’s actions in Ireland and his status as “a champion of liberty” to some in Kosovo highlights an important aspect of Kosovo’s past with important implications for its future; those who saved the Kosovo Albanians in 1999 were not inherently “good” people exclusively motivated to act by concern for the welfare of Kosovo Albanians. 

NATO’s intervention in 1999 certainly — and of course thankfully — saved the Kosovo Albanians from Slobodan Milošević’s extermination campaign. But the positive outcome of an action does not mean the motives of those who undertook this action were virtuous. When judging the moral stature of the people who intervened in 1999, we must look at their character, their record, what they did — and didn’t do — elsewhere. To do so reveals many unpleasant truths about the people some in Kosovo hail as heroes. 

There are statues of Bill Clinton, Tony Blair and Madeleine Albright in Kosovo, but their broader records suggest that they were at best ambivalent about human rights and primarily driven by narrow understandings of their states’ respective national interests. 

Clinton’s timid response to the genocides in Rwanda in 1994 and Srebrenica in 1995 demonstrated he was more concerned with avoiding endangering U.S. troops than defending human rights; Blair is today infamous for ordering U.K. forces to take part in the U.S.-led 2003 invasion of Iraq, which ultimately claimed the lives of approximately 200,000 Iraqi civilians; Albright described the reported death of half a million Iraqi children as a consequence of U.N. sanctions in the 1990s as “a price worth paying.” 

NATO did not intervene in 1999 because its members cared deeply about the welfare of Kosovo Albanians; indeed, the plight of the Kosovo Albanians had been consciously ignored by the West until around 1998. The intervention in 1999 was the consequence of geopolitical calculations; moral concerns played a secondary role. 

At the time Western power was unrivaled, but general faith in the West’s willingness and capacity to use it was diminishing. A series of calamities in the first half of the 1990s — most notably the U.S. withdrawal from Somalia in 1994 following the deaths of 18 U.S. troops there as part of a mission to protect humanitarian aid, and ineffective responses to both the Rwandan genocide and massacres by Bosnian Serb forces — led many to doubt the U.S.’ stated commitment to the protection and promotion of human rights worldwide. Milošević’s unchecked aggression against the Kosovo Albanians deepened skepticism about the West’s ability and willingness to act in a timely and robust manner. 

Indicatively, in September 1998, General Wesley Clark — NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander in Europe — met with Estonian President Lennart Meri, who warned that “NATO is failing in the Balkans. With every passing day you lose credibility.” Something had to be done to restore faith in the West’s global leadership and specifically its ability and willingness to confront tyrants massacring their own people; Kosovo provided the opportunity. The Kosovo Albanians were, therefore, fortunate benefactors of geopolitical calculations rather than solidarity or moral concern. 

Does this matter? 

Only the most naïve could imagine that people who were literally saved by NATO’s intervention in 1999 would not feel eternally grateful to those involved. Why does it matter, then, if people who owe their lives to NATO’s leaders still venerate them? 

It matters because once it is understood that the fate of Kosovo Albanians in 1999 was a function of geopolitical calculations, the West’s support for Kosovo is revealed as contingent and transactional. Kosovo’s importance to the West has always been primarily based on strategic interests rather than solidarity; as Western interests have changed so too has Kosovo’s importance.

As is increasingly clear, the West is no longer an unrivaled superpower; Western power has been in decline since at least 2008. As a result, Western foreign policy has become less ambitious. Strategic recalculations have, therefore, been made, and former allies have been discarded; look at how the U.S. abandoned the Kurds in Syria and the people of Afghanistan. This helps explain why in recent years, Kosovo has been treated so badly by its erstwhile Western partners. 

Western leaders have calculated that appeasing Serbia is now necessary to stem Russian influence in the Balkans. While many — myself included — believe this is both immoral and a strategic miscalculation, there is a geopolitical logic to it; Serbia is Russia’s closest partner in the Balkans and pulling Belgrade away from Moscow and towards the West is now the primary aim of Western foreign policy in the region. 

As part of this policy, Western states have sought to accommodate Serbia’s demands at Kosovo’s expense; this has manifested in various ways, such as the West pressuring the Kosovo government to agree to the Association of Serb-Majority Municipalities in 2013, and the imposition of the Kosovo Specialist Chambers in 2014. The EU-brokered “Belgrade-Pristina” dialogue has become a farce; though Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić has displayed open contempt for the process, Kosovo’s government has been blamed for the failure to reach agreement. 

The U.S. ambassador to Kosovo now routinely criticizes the government of Kosovo while Washington’s ambassador to Serbia habitually declares that “Serbia is headed towards the West” despite escalating authoritarianism, attacks on media freedom and rampant corruption. The terrorist attack at Banjska in September 2023, launched by Serbian militia supported from Belgrade, has been all but ignored by the West.

To say this is unfair is an understatement, but is it surprising? If one believes Western states genuinely care about the welfare of the people of Kosovo, then the answer is yes. If, however, it’s appreciated that the relationship between the West and Kosovo has always been governed primarily by geopolitics, the answer is no. 

The reality of Kosovo’s importance

Ultimately, declaring that Jackson was “a champion of liberty” is not only offensive to the families of those murdered by Jackson’s regiment, it is dangerously naive and illustrative of a broader disposition that fails to appreciate the reality of Kosovo’s importance to the West. 

As Kosovo’s government endeavors to ensure the country’s survival in the new multipolar era, the people of Kosovo must appreciate that today — as always — the West’s approach to Kosovo — and the region more generally — is primarily guided by geopolitics. 

The people of Kosovo cannot fall into the trap of assuming that Western leaders have their best interests at heart when those leaders instruct Kosovo to make concessions to Serbia. The demands now routinely being made by Western states for Kosovo to “compromise” must be seen for what they are; self-interested geopolitical attempts to appease Serbia at Kosovo’s expense. 

Notwithstanding Osmani’s and Kurti’s tweets following Jackson’s death, the current government has been prudent in resisting pressure from Western capitals. It cannot afford to be guided by nostalgia, naive notions about Kosovo’s ongoing importance to the West and related calls domestically for “coordination” with Western partners. 

The West’s geopolitical interests and the welfare of the Kosovo Albanians aligned in 1999; today this is no longer the case.

Feature Image: Atdhe Mulla / K2.0.

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