EXTRA-TERRITORIAL CONSEQUENCES OF NATO’S WAR ON SERBIA

Abstract

This paper discusses the NATO war on Serbia and its implications beyond the shores and territorial boundary of Serbia. Moved by what it described as gross violation of human rights, and the images of burning homes resulting from the raging conflict in Kosovo in 1999, NATO intervened into the situation by declaring war against the sovereign state of Serbia in defense of the Albanians in Kosovo. The war, like wars generally, produced effects, especially on Serbia. Besides the implications of this war on Serbia, it had far reaching consequences on the territories and countries beyond Serbia. It is to these extra-Serbian consequences of the NATO’s war that this paper devotes its attention. Using exclusively the secondary method of data gathering, the paper finds that NATO’s military attack against Serbia inter alia, unleashed a tidal wave of refugees that placed both economic and political pressure on the neighbouring countries, set a wrong and dangerous international precedent, damaged United States’ relationship with both China and Russia and made all Serbia’s neighbours register trade declines through war-induced trade disruptions.