In early 1998, Kosovo, a province within the Yugoslavian republic of Serbia, exploded in violence. Ethnic Albanians, who make up 90 percent of the population of Kosovo, rebelled against the Serb government. The Albanian Kosovars were originally trying to regain their provincial autonomy which had been revoked in 1990 by Yugoslavian president Slobodan Milosevic, but during the early months of the fighting, their desire for autonomy changed into a fight for nationhood. In the fall of 1998, the Serbs, led by Milosevic, gained the advantage in the rebellion, and hundreds of thousands of ethnic Albanians were forced to flee their homes and villages.

The world watched as first Serbians, and then ethnic Albanians, were massacred because of their ethnicity. Some observers argued for intervention—in the form of North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) forces—to stop the violence. They contend...