The U.S.-NATO bombings and missile attack on Serbia have been explained with a great deal of talk about protecting human rights. But a close look at the situation shows that the U.S. policy is more concerned with protecting markets than with refugees. PNS commentator Michael T. Klare is a professor of peace and world security studies at Hampshire College in Massachusetts and author of "Rogue States and Nuclear Outlaws."

Administration officials insist the U.S. war effort in the Balkans is driven largely by humanitarian concerns. Some pundits have gone further, and suggest this is a new form of warfare -- aimed not at conquest but at protecting basic human rights.

A careful reading of the situation suggests, however, that this war is grounded in old-fashioned geopolitics.

This is not to say that U.S. and NATO leaders are indifferent to the suffering of the Albanians in Kosovo -- indeed, many are clearly appalled by the slaughter. But nations rarely go to war unless vital interests are at stake (or seen to be at stake), and this conflict is no exception.

President Clinton has tried to make this clear. "There is a long-term, strategic reason" for the United States to get involved in Kosovo, he said March 23, the day before the bombing began.

Unfortunately, he has not been very successful at explaining this "strategic reason" -- yet we must acquire a better understanding of what is involved if we are to judge the wisdom of committing U.S. forces to this conflict. To do this, we need to examine Washington's view of the strategic situation of the United States.

With the Soviet Union in ruins, the United States has no military challenger. However, this has not resulted in peace and stability. Rather, we face a wide array of lesser threats. These do not endanger or threaten U.S. national security so much as they generate instability in various parts of the world and so undermine efforts to expand the reach of American businesses and political partnerships -- an expansion considered essential for the country's long-term prosperity.

This raises the question of who should maintain global stability? When the Cold War ended, many believed the United Nations should assume this responsibility, with key U.S. support. For a variety of reasons, however, President Clinton has lost faith in the U.N., and so wants the United States -- backed by NATO -- to perform this critical function.

At the same time, in intense, behind-the-scenes negotiations, Clinton has urged European leaders to turn NATO -- with its defense-oriented posture no longer viable -- into a regional peacekeeping organization with jurisdiction spreading throughout Eurasia and the Middle East under U.S. direction.

Clinton thinks U.S. prosperity requires a stable and prosperous Europe, and European stability requires a stable frontier in Eastern Europe, the Balkans, and the Mediterranean. All of this was well underway when the Kosovo crisis broke out earlier this year. By repudiating U.S. efforts to impose a solution and stepping up the repression of the Albanian Kosovars, Slobodan Milosevic called into question the fundamental premise of the U.S. blueprint for stability in Europe. If this blueprint was to be successfully implemented, Milosevic had to be crushed.

Clinton attempted to articulate all this at a March 24 meeting of union officials. "We need a Europe that is safe, secure, free, united, a good partner with us for trading." A Europe "wealthy enough to buy our products" and willing to "share the burdens of taking care of the problems of the world."

This means that the United States must "take on the new security challenges of Europe," he continued, "including all these ethnic upheavals on their border." He added, "Now that's what this Kosovo thing is all about."

It is easy, of course, to dismiss this as simply a veneer of hard-headed rationality to a policy driven by such elemental considerations as hatred for Milosevic, sympathy for the Albanians, fear of Muslim refugees overrunning Western Europe, and so on. But these do not cancel the underlying strategic rationale.

President Clinton clearly believes that his decision to attack Serbia was in America's national interests. The critical question then is whether Clinton's blueprint -- entailing military intervention on the borders -- is really in America's long-term strategic interest?

This question needs careful attention. But it is not too early to begin asking whether we really want the to assume the "burdens of leadership with all of the problems that will inevitably crop up," as Mr. Clinton so blandly put it. Do we really want to go to war whenever a Milosevic appears?

It is also important to ask whether it is really in our best interests to convert NATO into a regional peacekeeping force. This must inevitably produce growing hostility in Russia. Russia may not pose a significant military threat, but a hostile Russia will pose a threat of regional instability on a far greater scale than any ethnic dispute in the Balkans.

Finally, are our long-term interests served by abandoning the United Nations? It is true, of course, that the Security Council is sometimes paralyzed by wrangling among the permanent members. Without a strong U.N., however, the United States will inevitably fall into the risky role of world policemen. Perhaps we would be better off strengthening the U.N., rather than trying to assume its principal security functions.

Americans are a good-hearted people, and will support efforts to alleviate the suffering of the Albanian Kosovars. This is only proper. But this should not stop us from questioning the strategy underlying U.S. intervention in Kosovo. If that strategy is flawed, our ability to promote global peace and stability -- and to avert tragedies of this sort -- will be severely weakened.