The crisis in Kosovo has excited passion and visionary exaltation of a kind rarely witnessed. The events have been portrayed as a 'new humanism', timed fortuitously with a new millennium, which will displace the crass and narrow interest politics of a mean-spirited past.

But is this new humanism guided by power interests or by humanitarian concern? Is the resort to force undertaken 'in the name of principles and values', as professed? Or are we witnessing something more crass and familiar?

The New Military Humanism is Chomsky at his best: a brilliant and revealing analysis, offering lessons for us all and sounding a clear alarm which none should ignore.