The New York Times

Friday, September 10, 1999

Cohen Warns on U.S. Intervention

By The Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The United States should not commit troops in every international crisis that ``catches our eye and emotion,'' Defense Secretary William Cohen said in remarks that suggested an inclination not to intervene militarily in East Timor.

In a speech prepared for delivery Thursday night to the International Institute for Strategic Studies in Coronado, Calif., Cohen made no mention of the crisis in East Timor, where violence triggered by an independence vote has forced more than 200,000 people to flee their homeland.

Focusing on lessons learned from the Kosovo conflict, Cohen said the United States and its NATO allies were right to intervene in Kosovo to end Serb repression, but the experience underscored that intervention is not the answer in every crisis.

``Among the enduring lessons of this and every conflict is that we must resist the temptation to use our forces in every dispute that catches our eye and emotion,'' Cohen said in his prepared remarks. An advance copy of his speech was made available to reporters at the Pentagon.

Cohen said the 78-day NATO air war against Yugoslavia showed the changing nature of warfare and political conflict, saying it highlighted a ``superpower paradox'': U.S. supremacy in conventional military power is prompting adversaries to develop unconventional methods of warfare.

For example, Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic used ``rape, pillage and slaughter'' as a military tactic, Cohen said. By expelling hundreds of thousands of ethnic Albanians from Kosovo and killing many others, Milosevic created a humanitarian crisis as a combat strategy, he said.

Cohen said Americans must answer several basic questions before deciding whether it is right to intervene militarily in an international crisis like Kosovo. Among those questions are whether the vital interests of the United States or its allies are directly threatened and whether ``the wheel of conflict, if allowed to spin on its violent axis'' will draw other nations into its vortex at ever greater cost.