Question: Was the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia in the mid/late 90’s authorized by the U.N?
Something I remember of that time: Republicans were saying it was a “wag-the-dog” type operation and that Clinton was trying, by means of this bombing, to distract the U.S. public from the Monica Lewinsky affair; meanwhile there was a general awareness that Rwanda had occurred earlier in the decade and that Western Powers had done nothing about that but really ought to have done something about that. There was an analaogy in the minds of many people of the West between Rwanda and Kosovo, I think is fair to say. I feel like the term “boots on the ground” may also have originated or gained currency during that time, Republicans having argued that an air war by itself couldn’t achieve anything; what you really needed was “boots on the ground.” (Here is ngrams viewer for boots on the ground. Here is ngrams viewer for Somalia,Rwanda. boots on the ground,Black Hawk Down)
Answer to foregoing question: apparently not: the bombing was not authorized by the U.N., which was a fact that arose during a dispute I had with a very pro-russian person, who sought to compare the Russian invasion of Crimea with the NATO bombing of Kosovo and environs, an idea that seemed wrong and even incredible to me on the face of it, but which I didn’t recall enough about to confidently deny.
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