1999 now appears to be another of the defining years for the GAE and the West, along with 1865, 1913, 1965, etc. As it concerns international awareness of and reaction against the growing unipolar hegemon, that was the year the Chinese codified their Unrestricted Warfare. Thanks to NATO’s evil attack on Serbia, it was also the wake-up call year for Russia. Leonid Savin explains:

On March 24, 1999, the NATO alliance began a military campaign against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, which at that time consisted of Serbia and Montenegro.

Over the years, much has been written about the consequences of this aggression – about the blatant violation of the principles of international law, as the UN did not sanction any military action against a sovereign state; about numerous human rights violations during the bombings; about orchestrated propaganda campaigns against Serbs, which had nothing to do with reality; and about the impact of the war on the civilian population – from post-traumatic syndrome to the increase in oncological diseases due to the use of depleted uranium ammunition.

However, several important points should be highlighted. This campaign became the first offensive operation of NATO. The military-political bloc, which was supposedly conceived for defense against a possible attack from the Soviet Union (a product of the wild imagination of Western, primarily Anglo-Saxon politicians), became a tool of military expansion. From a conditionally defensive one, it turned offensive. First in Europe, and then in other parts of the world, particularly against Libya in 2011.

Read the whole thing. 1999 was also the year Boris Yeltsin recruited Vladimir Putin to right the Russian ship of state. And those of us who remember it, remember a completely different USA which was in many ways, many problems aside, almost completely unrelated to today’s dying proxy.