Review by Michael Averko
Review also found at Siberian Light
The thought of a re-ignited Cold War can send a chill down some people’s spines. “The New Cold War” (Carroll & Graf, New York, 2007) is about a different kind of Cold War. It’s primarily about Western lobbying efforts to establish influence in the former Communist bloc and Russia’s opposition to it. The book’s secondary theme deals with the pipeline politics involving the former Soviet Union and the West. Blended in are some personal accounts by author Mark MacKinnon. His prose is crisp and easy to follow.
The book starts off with a “Dramatis Personae” section, providing a brief description of the involved lead players and organizations. In that segment, issue can be taken with the characterization of Vojislav Kostunica as a “previously anonymous lawyer, who Madeleine Albright convinced the Serbs to rally around” (a point contradicted by Doug Schoen on page 48 of chapter 3). Albright was never in such a position to influence Serb public opinion. Among Serbs, she has been generally viewed as having a bias against them. If anything, Albright championed Zoran Djindjic, who isn’t mentioned in the Dramatis Personae segment. As per my numerous Serb contacts in Serbia and elsewhere, as well as my own research of the man, Kostunica was relatively well known in Serbia before his democratic challenge to Slobodan Milosevic. This prior knowledge of him includes academics outside of Serbia, who study that country. Before Milosevic’s political fall, Kostunica’s accomplishments include his translation of the “Federalist Papers” into Serbian.
