By Franz Schurmann

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Prediction for Tuesday, April 6th,1999

The world will know by the beginning of May whether or not it will be setting off on a road leading to world peace or another leading to world war.

• Introduction:
  

  In the Introduction for Prediction #7 I wrote: "I believe three men now have the fate of the world in their minds and hands: Bill Clinton, Slobodan Milosevic and Boris Yeltsin."

  Only one of them has made the decision for peace: Boris Yeltsin.

  Slobodan Milosevic has opted to go in two opposite directions at the same time --- as if half of his body and mind were going one way and the other in reverse.

  Bill Clinton has acquired a deep personal hatred of "Slobo," reminiscent of Franklin Roosevelt's hatred of Hitler. He seems to have only one name for Milosevic: "the dictator."

  What signs are there of these three different stances?

  On April 4 the Yugoslav Tanjug news agency reported that Russian combat volunteers had arrived in Novi Sad, a heavily bombed Danubian city north of Belgrade. Yet AP reported the same day that a top Yeltsin aide said Russia will not be drawn into the Yugoslav conflict militarily, either by supplying arms or sending volunteers.

  Yeltsin has also been trying hard to get a Group of Eight (G-8) peace-seeking conference going. The Japanese and European response has been "not now but when there is something realistic to talk about."

  There long has been something weird about Slobo. He doesn't talk much nor keep his word. And he has delusions that are reflected in his media --- like the one that the Serbs are fighting to prevent the world's Muslims from taking power all over Europe.

  Last week a meeting was said to have occurred in the Belgrade presidential palace between Milosevic and the pacifist Albanian leader Ibrahim Rugova (pronounced Roo-govah). Yet many sources doubt the meeting ever took place. Reason: Serbian TV broadcast no audio and some viewers said the visuals were from an earlier meeting. Also Rugova now has been totally disavowed by the Kosovo Liberation Army.

  Clinton's recent comments indicate he regards Milosevic as a reincarnation of Hitler.

  "We know we are up against a dictator who has shown time and time again he would rather rule over rubble than not at all."

  "I don't think there's any doubt atrocities are taking place."

  "We are preapred to sustain this effort for the long haul... Our plan is to persist until we prevail."

  That adds up to unconditional surrender, the direction FDR proclaimed for America's war against Hitler.

• Prediction:
  

  This prediction is merely a time variant of the previous one: The world will know by the beginning of May whether or not it will be setting off on a road leading to world peace or another leading to world war.

• Outcome:
  When making this prediction on April 6 there was general worry that Russia might be drawn into the conflict. Even among those born long after the events memories remain as to how a reluctant Russia was drawn into World War I and World War II. And during much of the Cold War fear remained that a Soviet-American clash could have resulted in World War III.

  Now on May 4 that worry has been considerably reduced. Nor, despite a lot of anti-Americanism, is there much worry now that the war could spread beyond Yugoslav borders. Even fears that Serbs might take over in Montenegro have diminished.

  Nevertheless another fear remains: that the war could just go on and on. The Kosovo situation is different from that in Iraq which too is the target of continuing American attacks. There is no effective internal opposition against Saddam Hussein in Iraq. There is, however, an effective opposition in Kosovo, the Kosova (Albanian for Kosovo) Liberation Army (KLA). Their aim is independence for all of Kosovo. Official NATO aims, however, offer no more than a restoration of autonomy within the Yugoslav federation.

  If the war just goes on and on then Kosovo could become an American "quagmire" as were Korea (1950-53) and Vietnam (1965-1973). A quagmire in this sense means: neither peace nor war. The same definition applies to the term "cold war."

The basis for the previous Prediction was that what most nations feared was the chance that the Kosovo crisis could lead to World War III. And most people feel that, sooner or later in WW III, global nuclear exchange will occur. That means nuclear winter for the planet.

While many countries now have nuclear weapons capabilities only two of them have mega-arsenals: America and Russia. With America backing the Albanians and Russia the Serbs it seemed to me that the peace-or-war question would in the end be decided by Washington and Moscow, not by Belgrade.

I therefore saw the Cuban missile crisis as a model for the current crisis-management. In October 1962 it was the rational decision-making by Kennedy and Khrushchev which ended the crisis. Fidel Castro was by-passed by Khrushchev and the Miami anti-Castro Cubans by Kennedy. So I felt chances were that Clinton in the end would also by-pass the Albanians, especially the KLA, and Yeltsin would by-pass Milosevic. That would lead to an agreement which likely would have involved a partition of Kosovo between Albanians and Serbs.

That outcome is still possible. But I completely underestimated the emotional factors in the relationships between the three leaders. This crisis is different from the earlier Cold War ones.

I realize now that Yeltsin has opted for peace probably more for emotional than rational reasons. Russians are sick and tired of wars. WW II occurred almost six decades ago but Afghanistan and Chechnya are fresh in Russians' memories. In the short time left to him he wants to do something ordinary Russians would thank him for. Peace would be a great Yeltsin legacy.

It's different with Milosevic. The first day NATO attacked a high Serbian official said: "They want to destroy our state." Milosevic knows how fragile the Serbian state has become. It's not only that most of their Yugoslav mini-empire has broken away but bitter factional quarrels are tearing apart what's left. Milosevic knows that he is the Tsar and so long as he is alive Serbs, ever fearful of external enemies, will gather around him. There is not much rationality now that's holding Serbia together.

And its different with Clinton. Earlier many of his admirers likened Clinton to Franklin Roosevelt and he himself has modeled himself on FDR. FDR started out as an isolationist (the 1935 Neutrality Act) but in WW II became an imperial universalist. Until November 1995 (Dayton accords) Clinton was mainly a domestic president. Now he is imperial and universalist.

The universalism expresses itself in his horror about ethnic cleansing anywhere in the world. When in Africa last year he apologized for his government's indifference to the Rwanda ethnic cleansing.

When the Serbs started their ethnic cleansing in Bosnia Holocaust thoughts were aroused among Americans. Dayton was intended to make sure that "never again" shall the world tolerate ethnic cleansing. Instead it re-appeared in Rwanda but Rwanda was remote. Serbia is a part of Europe and much closer to America. Clinton now shares the rage that has been aroused among so many Americans when they see on their TV screens the ethnic cleansing being perpetrated by the Serbs.

Three men still control the fate of the world. But two of them now are governed by emotions that lead more towards war than peace. As Clinton said: "our plan is to persist until we prevail."