New balance of forces emerges after the war in Kosovo

Marxist Theory · 2026-05-13

Core Argument

The central thesis of this article is that the Kosovo war of 1999 marks a decisive turning point in the post-Cold War balance of forces, revealing the United States as the sole "hyper power" while simultaneously generating the conditions for new geopolitical realignments that will undermine its dominance. The authors argue that NATO's intervention was not a humanitarian success but a strategic failure that achieved none of its stated military objectives, destabilised the Balkans further, and accelerated the formation of countervailing power blocs centred on Russia and China.

The article makes two interconnected claims. First, that the disappearance of the Soviet Union as a counterweight has unleashed US imperialism as the most aggressive and counter-revolutionary force in history, but that this unipolar moment is inherently unstable. Second, that the war exposed deep divisions within NATO itself — between the US and European powers, between different European states, and within ruling coalitions — which will intensify as the economic contradictions of imperialist rivalry reassert themselves. The war in Kosovo is presented not as an exceptional event but as the prototype for a new era of inter-imperialist conflict.

Theoretical Grounding

The analysis is grounded in the classical Marxist theory of imperialism, drawing on Lenin's framework of interimperialist rivalry and the uneven development of capitalism. The article deploys this not as a mechanical formula but as a living method for understanding the specific conjuncture of the late 1990s. The collapse of the Soviet Union is treated not as the "end of history" but as the removal of a stabilising constraint that had frozen the normal operation of imperialist competition into fixed spheres of influence.

The argument sits firmly within the Trotskyist tradition, particularly its analysis of Stalinism as a degenerated workers' state whose disappearance has removed a buffer between the imperialist powers. The authors reject any notion that the post-Cold War order represents a stable or progressive development. They also draw on the Marxist theory of the state to analyse the role of the KLA, refusing both the liberal framing of the KLA as "freedom fighters" and the uncritical leftist tendency to see anti-imperialist content in what is in fact a collection of gangster-capitalist factions.

The article's treatment of the opposition movement in Serbia is particularly instructive. It distinguishes sharply between the genuine discontent of the masses and the pro-capitalist character of the opposition leadership, applying the Marxist method of class analysis to a situation where the working class lacks an independent political voice. This is a classic application of the theory of the labour aristocracy and the problem of bourgeois leadership of mass movements.

Conjunctural Relevance

The article was published in July 1999, immediately after the end of the NATO bombing campaign, and its analysis has proven remarkably prescient. The key conjunctural elements are:

Geopolitical realignment: The article identifies the emergence of a Russia-China axis as a direct response to NATO expansion. This has become the defining geopolitical feature of the subsequent quarter-century, with the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation and the deepening strategic partnership between Moscow and Beijing confirming the trajectory the authors identified.

NATO's internal contradictions: The divisions within NATO that the article documents — Italy and Greece as "weak links", German reluctance, the Greens' internal crisis — have only deepened. The war in Ukraine has reproduced exactly these dynamics, with European NATO members divided over the extent of military commitment and the economic costs of sanctions.

The failure of "humanitarian intervention": The article's detailed demolition of NATO's propaganda claims — the inflated tank counts, the exaggerated massacre figures, the retrospective redefinition of war aims — anticipates the pattern of every subsequent Western military intervention. The authors' observation that "the first casualty in war is truth itself" has been confirmed repeatedly from Afghanistan to Libya to Iraq.

The criminalisation of post-conflict economies: The analysis of the KLA as a collection of drug-running gangsters competing for control of reconstruction contracts foreshadows the pattern of state capture and organised crime that has characterised Kosovo's subsequent development. The warning that Kosovo would become "the Afghanistan of the Balkans" has been borne out by the province's status as a hub for organised crime and a source of foreign fighters for Islamist conflicts.

The German question: The article's identification of Germany's growing economic dominance in the Balkans, expressed through currency pegging to the Deutschmark and the push for EU free trade zones, correctly identified the emerging fault line within European imperialism that would later express itself in the eurozone crisis and the conflict over energy policy.

Where the Argument Continues

This article is part of a sustained body of analysis by Ted Grant and Fred Weston on the Balkan wars and the post-Cold War order. The argument continues in several directions:

The nature of the Yugoslav state: The article's claim that the crisis flowed from "the bureaucratic nature of the regime" rather than state ownership per se is developed in other IDOM articles on the degeneration of the Yugoslav workers' state and the role of national oppression.

The theory of permanent revolution in the Balkans: The call for an "all-Balkans socialist federation" connects to the broader Marxist tradition on the national question in Eastern Europe, particularly Trotsky's writings on the Balkans and the Marxist analysis of how the national question intersects with class struggle in multi-ethnic states.

The critique of "humanitarian intervention": The article's exposure of NATO's propaganda machine and its retrospective justification of failure is part of a larger IDOM corpus on the theory and practice of imperialist intervention, including analyses of the Gulf War, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya.

The Russian question: The analysis of Russia's internal contradictions — the conflict between the pro-Western bourgeois wing and the nationalist military, the role of IMF loans in propping up Yeltsin — is developed in subsequent articles on the Putin regime and the restoration of Russian great-power ambitions.

Connections

This article should be read alongside:

Lenin, Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism — The theoretical foundation for the analysis of interimperialist rivalry and the export of capital.

Trotsky, The Balkan Wars — The classical Marxist analysis of the national question and class struggle in the Balkans, which the authors explicitly draw on.

Ted Grant, The Unbroken Thread — The collection of Grant's writings on the post-war world, including his analysis of Stalinism and the Cold War order.

IDOM articles on the Yugoslav wars (1991-1995) — The earlier analyses of the breakup of Yugoslavia that establish the context for the Kosovo intervention.

Against the Stream episodes on NATO expansion and the Ukraine war — The contemporary application of the same analytical framework to the current conjuncture, showing how the dynamics identified in 1999 have intensified.

The writings of Michael Rose — The article quotes General Rose's letter to The Times as a source of military testimony against NATO's claims, representing a useful non-Marxist corroboration of the Marxist critique.

Key Quotes

1. "The emergence of US imperialism as the sole major world power is an unprecedented world situation. The USA is now the most counter-revolutionary force ever seen in history."

2. "Nato, of course, has no choice but to hail victory. A well tried way of claiming success when things haven't gone according to plan is to change the stated objective of the exercise."

3. "The fact that the mass murder and expulsion of Kosovar Albanians actually intensified as a result of the Nato bombing seems to escape all the apologists of Western imperialism!"

4. "The problem is not state control. The crisis of the economy in the ex-Yugoslavia flowed from the bureaucratic nature of the regime. Power was not in the hands of the working class, but in those of a privileged bureaucratic elite."

5. "The tragedy of the situation is that the working class has no independent workers' party through which to challenge its own opposition. The independent trade union leaders are supporting the pro-bourgeois opposition movement without questioning its pro-capitalist aims."

6. "The real situation in Kosovo is that of a semi-colony. In fact the owner of the popular daily Kosovar newspaper, Koha Ditore, Veton Surroi, has actually expressed this quite bluntly. In a conversation with a journalist from the New Republic, he gave this advice: 'Do not hesitate. Be colonial.'"