How America Restarted the Cold War after Russia Ended It in 1991

4 July 2026, by Eric Zuesse. (All of my recent articles can be seen here.)

As I have documented previously, U.S. President George Herbert Walker Bush in February 1990 started secretly informing his European stooges such as West Germany’s Helmut Kohl and France’s Francois Mitterrand that (despite what Bush and his team had told to them and to Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev’s team) if the Soviet Union and its communism and Warsaw Pact would end, then NATO would not expand “one inch to the east” (i.e., not closer to Russia’s borders); Bush told them then that those promises had all been actually a big lie, and that NATO must expand at least up to Russia’s borders, and, in effect, that even Russia itself must become yet another colony in the U.S. empire; and, so, he also told them that there must be NO “peace dividend” as Bush contemptuously put it. None.

The present article will be about how — the very systematic way in which — U.S. President Bill Clinton started carrying out Bush’s operation to conquer Russia.

The first stage of this was economic:

The extent to which mainstream economic theory was adopted by the former communist states and practically destroyed them, has been covered well in David McClintick’s January 2006 “How Harvard Lost Russia” in Institutional Investor, and in Crimson Staff Writers’ 10 February 2006 “‘Tawdry Shleifer Affair’ Stokes Faculty Anger Toward Summers” in The Harvard Crimson, and in W. George Krasnow’s 7 June 2006 “Would Harvard Ever Help Russia?” in Literaturnaya Gazeta, and in Mark Ames’s 10 November 2008 “The Summers Conundrum” in The Nation, and in Harry R. Lewis’s 12 January 2010 “Larry Summers, Robert Rubin: Will the Harvard Shadow Elite Bankrupt the University and the Country?” in the Huffington Post. This “capitalism” practically destroyed the former communist countries. On 12 June 2021, Russia’s RT headlined “Boris Yeltsin had entourage of ‘hundreds’ of CIA agents who instructed him how to run Russia, claims former parliamentary speaker”, and reported that “The first Russian president, Boris Yeltsin, was surrounded by ‘hundreds’ of CIA agents who told him what to do throughout his tenure as leader. That’s according to Ruslan Khasbulatov, the former chairman of Russia’s parliament. … Khasbulatov’s statement comes after former Russian vice president Alexander Rutskoy told online outlet Lenta that 12 full-time employees of the CIA helped carry out the landmark Yeltsin-Gaidar market reforms, systematically dismantling the centrally planned economic system and leading the country into shock capitalism.”

Basically, what all of this was about is that Russia’s President Yeltsin had abandoned Marxist economics in order to accept as the model for Russia, American economics, “free market” economics, and the accompanying libertarian (or neoliberal) political theory that a Government is based upon its economy instead of an economy being based upon its Government (the laws under which the nation’s commerce must run). So, this was to be, in Russia, free-wheeling, minimal regulation, especially as regards commerce, and this included accepting the idea that extreme economic inequality of wealth is fine if it results from “the free market.” Consequently, Russia privatized, under American guidance, Russian assets, as a result of which, Russia’s ‘oligarchs’ (or aristocracy — aristocracy-of-wealth) were born, and American private investors partnered with them. This was all being done not under a Republican U.S. President and his chosen economists (such as Chicago’s Milton Friedman) but under a Democratic U.S. President and his chosen economists (such as Harvard’s Lawrence Summers).

The U.S. aristocracy of wealth was thus using the new Russian aristocracy of wealth to get their clutches onto what had previously been Russian state assets, and knew that these assets were way undervalued because these Americans’ Russian partners had received those assets not only on the basis of having been insiders themselves but on the basis of the rational valuation of them as assets within an already-existing capitalist economy did not yet exist, since capitalism was only starting from scratch in Russia.

The second stage was military:

U.S. President Bill Clinton’s takeover of Yugoslavia as the first of America’s aggressions against Russia after the end in 1991 of the Soviet Union and of its communism and of its Warsaw Pact, was the second stage. It started with Yugoslavia because that formerly communnist country was the easiest to break apart.

A rare example of a retired CIA operative actually describing how the CIA whipped up bigotry in a country it was conquering and was about to destroy was the 10 October 2012 “CIA exposed by former agent – Robert Baer” heavily suppressed interview of that operative, who had been in Yugoslavia under U.S. President Bill Clinton during 1991-94. When he was asked there “what sort of opinions did you have of the CIA and what did your colleagues think” of that operation, he responded, “Many agents and high ranking officers had disappeared because they had refused to work on propaganda against the Serbs in Yugoslavia. I personally was shocked at the amount of lies being perpetrated by the CIA and the US politicians. Many CIA agents worked in propaganda but were not entirely aware of what they were doing.”

He said: “The propaganda was aimed to divide the republics and to ensure that the states are separated from the mother of Yugoslavia. We had to choose a sacrificial lamb that could be blamed for everything. Someone who would be responsible for the war and the violence. Serbia was chosen because it is in some ways the successor of Yugoslavia.”

At another site, https://wikispooks.com/wiki/Robert_Baer, is a statement from Baer endorsing a book by John Perkins, who unquestionably did publish, in 2004, Confessions of an Economic HitMan, which describes the CIA in exactly the same way that Baer allegedly described there what he had actually done in Yugoslavia. Perkins’s new book was Hoodwinked, and this statement was Baer’s endorsement of it, his review of it actually at Amazon (which Amazon subsequently removed, just as Bezos’s operation has removed my hundreds of reviews there and provided no explanation of why), and this from Baer sounds exactly like Baer allegedly said in that 2012 interview about Yugoslavia. So, here is from that book review of Hoodwinked:

“I wasn’t twenty pages into Hoodwinked when I realized Perkins nailed it. What got us into the mess we’re in today, the worst recession since the Great Depression, is the same grotesque capitalism cum corruption we shoved down the throat of the Third World since the end of World War II. (Yes, the Third World’s elites were cheerfully corrupted.) We, and the rest of the West, learned the trick of selling unneeded infrastructure, services, over-sophisticated weapons — stuff that could never benefit anyone other than the people who lined their pockets. And yes, Perkins is right, the international economists and press were handmaidens to the thievery.

Here, Perkins, who had received numerous death-threats, told of an incident when he was apparently poisoned by a pretended journalist who took him out to lunch, at which Perkins experienced enormous pain, was rushed to the hospital, had 70% of his colon removed, and then after recovery tried to contact the ‘journalist’ and found he’d used an alias and couldn’t be contacted, much less identified. Apparently, a very professional physical hitman had almost succeeded at eliminating him.

The third stage was propagandistic:

Whereas Web-searches produce many finds regarding the prosecutions’ side of the U.N. Tribunal’s case against the Serb leader, Slobodan Milosevic, all is hidden and is behind numerous layers regarding the defense’s side of the case. However, the 2002 (very early in the case) article in the Case Western Reserve Law Review, “The International Trial of Slobodan Milosevic: Real Justice or Real Politik?”, by Michael P. Scharf, did note:

IX. COMPOSITION OF THE BENCH

Given that the pool of the Tribunal’s judges that were available for the Milosevic trial included citizens from several countries that had no stake in the Balkan conflict, the three judges assigned by Chief Judge Jorda to preside over the case represented a most unfortunate selection. The judge selected to head the panel, Richard May, hails from one of the NATO countries (the United Kingdom) that led the 1999 intervention against Serbia. May is said to have close continuing contacts with the British Foreign Ministry. The second judge, Patrick Robinson, is from Jamaica, a Caribbean country with very close political and economic ties to the United States and United Kingdom. Having served with Judge May on other trials, Robinson is said to be somewhat too deferential to his British associate on the bench. Only the third judge, O-Gon Kwan of South Korea, who replaced the judge originally assigned to the trial, Mohamed El Habib Fassi Fihri of Morocco, hails from an unquestionably netural [neutral] country.

Yet, even he misrepresented by alleging that South Korea is NOT part of the U.S. empire.

However, there also is much that is insightful in that article, such as:

To make matters even more questionable, a few weeks after issuing the Milosevic indictment, the International Prosecutor, Louise Arbour, was given her dream job: the only seat on the Supreme Court of Canada open to an Ontario resident that was likely to be available during her professional lifetime. One doesn’t need to use much imagination to guess what would have happened to Arbour’s judicial prospects if, instead of indicting Milosevic, she had issued an indictment charging NATO leaders with war crimes in the midst of the intervention.

That paper, written early in the proceedings, is the only critical analysis of this case that I was able to find. So, I asked various AIs questions that the standard Web-searches were avoiding. They weren’t much better:

Google, Grok, Chat GPT and Google AI hid, instead of provided, access to the evidences that Milosevic had presented in his trial. So, I asked them for:

“Milošević’s Defense Strategy and Arguments”

and the answers made clear that he had blamed NATO, and that the Tribunal was refusing to consider any such argument, and were starting with the assumption that Milosevic was guilty unless he could prove his innocence. But by the Court’s ruling-out any consideration that NATO or the CIA MIGHT have STARTED this war, the Tribunal made clear that they were “hanging judges” in a show-trial. So, I asked

Google AI on 3 July 2026:

“the evidences presented by Milosevic in his trial”

and got:

Slobodan Milošević represented himself during his trial at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY). His defense strategy relied on denying the prosecution’s allegations of genocide and ethnic cleansing, primarily arguing that any atrocities committed in Kosovo were either the result of NATO bombings or the actions of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). 

International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia

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To support his defense, Milošević utilized and presented the following types of evidence:

• Video Footage and Photographs: He presented visual evidence in the courtroom intended to portray Serbian actions as legitimate counter-terrorism measures and to highlight the impact of NATO airstrikes.
• ASIL
   +2
  Witness Testimonies: His defense called a total of 225 witnesses (out of the 952 total defense and prosecution witnesses across the trial). These included former high-ranking Yugoslav officials, political allies, and international figures, such as former Russian diplomats and politicians who supported his geopolitical stance.
• Cross-Examination Tactics: Much of Milošević’s “evidence” was extracted through vigorous cross-examination of prosecution witnesses. For example, he notably cross-examined Serbia’s former secret police chief, Rade Marković, who largely recanted a previous confession that had linked Milošević to atrocities committed by Yugoslav forces in Kosovo.
• International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia
   +2
  While Milošević extensively challenged the credibility of ICTY prosecution evidence, the court ruled prior to his death in 2006 that the prosecution had submitted sufficient evidence capable of supporting a conviction across all 66 counts of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide.

Human Rights Watch

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Would you like to know more about the specific types of documents he used, or the high-profile witnesses he called during the defense phase of the trial?

“Yes”

8 sites

• Slobodan Milošević Trial – the Prosecution’s caseThe Trial Chamber granted Milošević, who had chosen to represent himself, extra time to cross-examine Prosecution witnesses and to…
  
• International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia
• 
  Weighing the Evidence: Lessons from the Slobodan Milosevic …Human Rights Watch has examined a portion of the evidence presented to the court during the Milosevic trial. We believe this evide…
  
• Human Rights Watch
• 
  The Trial of Slobodan Milosevic – ASILIn a lengthy and bitter soliloquy, during which he showed video footage and submitted photographs in his defense, Milosevic catego…
  
• ASIL

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“Yes. I asked you for the evidences, and you have said nothing about the evidences.”

To clarify, Slobodan Milošević used his defense phase at the ICTY to submit roughly 1,000 defense exhibits aimed at refuting the prosecution. Instead of presenting traditional “evidence” of innocence, his exhibits focused on proving that the conflict was fueled by outside forces.

International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia

The specific categories of physical evidence, documents, and exhibits he entered into the court record include:

1. Counter-Intelligence Reports and KLA Documents

• Seized KLA Logbooks: He submitted captured notebooks, command logs, and personnel lists from the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). His goal was to prove the KLA was an active terrorist organization, arguing that Yugoslav military actions were lawful counter-terrorism measures rather than ethnic cleansing.
• ASIL
  
• Weapons Inventories: Milošević entered records of smuggled weaponry seized by Yugoslav border patrols from Albania to demonstrate that a foreign-backed, illegal insurgency was taking place.

2. Physical and Visual Evidence of NATO Air Strikes

• Post-Bombing Photographs: He introduced hundreds of physical photographs documenting the destruction of civilian infrastructure, bridges, hospitals, and residential areas in Serbia and Kosovo.
• ASIL

• Video News Footage: Milošević regularly played international and Serbian news reels showing the aftermath of the 1999 NATO air campaign. He argued that the mass exodus of Albanian refugees from Kosovo was triggered by NATO’s bombs, not by a Serbian forced-deportation plan.
• ASIL
   +1
  
• Bomb Shrapnel and Ordnance Remains: He attempted to bring physical remnants of Western ordnance (including pieces of cluster bombs) into the court record to visually underscore his argument that NATO committed war crimes.

3. Official Yugoslav State and Military Records

• Supreme Defence Council Minutes: He submitted redacted logs from the Yugoslav Supreme Defence Council. He used these to argue that official state policy was always defensive and aimed at preserving the unity of Yugoslavia, rather than a criminal conspiracy to create a “Greater Serbia.”
• Unified Court Records
  
• Military Rules of Engagement Manuals: He presented official Yugoslav Army (VJ) and police (MUP) conduct guidelines to claim that his orders strictly commanded forces to respect international humanitarian law and protect civilians.

4. International Political Correspondence

• Diplomatic Letters and Minutes: Milošević entered various communications, letters, and meeting minutes with international negotiators (such as those from the 1999 Rambouillet accords). He used these to argue that Western powers had deliberately engineered the breakdown of peace talks to justify a military intervention.

5. Historical and Academic Texts

• Historical Books and Treatises: He entered several historical essays and texts detailing the deep-seated ethnic conflicts of the Balkans, particularly focusing on historical atrocities committed against Serbs. The judges frequently scolded him for this, noting that historical grievances did not legalise war crimes.

Would you like to review how the ICTY judges ruled on the validity of these specific exhibits, or are you looking for the names of the key witnesses who authenticated these documents? 

International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia

5 sites

• 
  VIEW FROM THE HAGUE MILOŠEVIĆ HAS TO DEFEND …Jun 23, 2004 — MILOŠEVIĆ HAS TO DEFEND HIMSELF ON ALL COUNTS OF THE INDICTMENT. Last week, the Trial Chamber in the case against Slobodan Milošev…
• International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia
• 
  Milosevic (IT-02-54) – Unified Court RecordsDecision and Order on admission of exhibits marked for identification during Prosecution case-in-chief. Decision. Trial Chamber II…
• Unified Court Records
• 
  Procedural HistoryMar 11, 2006 — During the 170 court days, spread over a period of four years, the court heard 347 witnesses and admitted about 1000 exhibits, som…
• International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia

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——

MY CONCLUSION:

It’s no wonder why Web-searches on that trial hide instead of reveal the key things that a person must know in order fairly to judge the Tribunal, and to judge its defendant. The trial was a PR exercise, a substitute for a real trial against Bill Clinton and Tony Blair. International law, such as it exists, is fraudulent, no basis for justice to be rendered. The real question in the case of Milosevic is: Who STARTED that war? Until that question is answered, no justice is even possible regarding the question: Which side was the aggressor in that war? As regards the current Governments of both the U.S. and the UK, they are traitors  — ENEMIES of the 56 signers of the U.S. Declaration of Independence on 4 July 1776.

These people are gangsters and in reality there is zero distance between the ones whose careers are funded by Republican billionaires and the ones whose careers are funded by Democratic billionaires, except that the Republican ones are the bad cop, and the Democratic cop is the good cop (the more hypocritical cop), but as U.S. Government officials, they are on one-and-the-same team: against America’s Founders, and against the American people, not ONLY against everyone but America’s billionaires.   England’s aristocracy have been replaced by America’s aristocracy. Our Founders would be rolling in their graves.

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Investigative historian Eric Zuesse’s latest book, AMERICA’S EMPIRE OF EVIL: Hitler’s Posthumous Victory, and Why the Social Sciences Need to Change, is about how America took over the world after World War II in order to enslave it to U.S.-and-allied billionaires. Their cartels extract the world’s wealth by control of not only their ‘news’ media but the social ‘sciences’ — duping the public.