When States go to war to replace an enemy’s very system of government, the goals of the military campaign can lead to noncompliance with the rules that regulate belligerents during armed conflict. The end result threatens not only international law prohibiting the resort to war except under very specific circumstances, but also international humanitarian law that protects civilians in wartime.
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The article, primarily a news analysis of the Kosovo intervention and broader IHL trends, operates within a classic “motte-and-bailey” rhetorical pattern, skillfully obscuring the fundamental ethical question of intervention itself. While presenting a ‘factual’ account of the bombing campaign – the “what” and “where” – it subtly shifts the burden of proof, framing the debate not about the *legitimacy* of intervening in a state’s internal affairs, but about the *manner* of intervention, as if adh...