Tags: Kosovo | technology | war

David Ignatieff is a master of High Journalism; that mix of reportage, analysis and history which provides crucial understanding for today's headlines and unhurried reflection on yesterday's...

In Virtual War, Ignatieff dissects NATO's war against Serbia, giving detailed personality sketches of the major players and some revealing behind-the-scenes dish.

There were no NATO casualties, and no action that would have resulted in them was ever considered. The author supported the war as a just one, but is nonetheless troubled by the new technology and politics of conflict. If war is merely a video game, then moral arguments for waging war are thrown into question.

Echoing the earlier claims of Boudrillard, he writes that "[Virtual] war affords the pleasures of a spectacle, with the added thrill that it is real for someone, but not, happily, for the spectator."

One of the contradictions of Kosovo was that the very safety and detachment of the high altitude war which allowed most NATO governments to maintain public support - that is, its "virtuality" - was coupled to the strategy of targeting civilian infrastructure that ultimately eroded this support.

Ignatieff shows how this came to pass and explains why in the future war will be bereft of both NATO body bags and victory parades - and why this might not be such a good thing, after all.