U.S.-Chinese relations seem to have simply collapsed since the bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Beijing. The rhetoric and the attacks on the U.S. Embassy in Beijing by mobs throwing rocks are all reminiscent of the worst days of the Cold War. Now, U.S.-Chinese relations have been rather poor for months, but to the unaided eye, this response seems fairly extreme.

The U.S. has claimed that the bombing was an unfortunate accident. From the American point of view that, and some financial reparations, should end the matter. That is precisely what has the Chinese furious. They accept that it was an accident. What they don’t accept is that accidents happen. More precisely, it is their view that such accidents happen only when there is carelessness and, more importantly, indifference to the consequences of the accident. In other words, the accident happened because making sure that such accidents didn’t happen was not a top priority of U.S. and NATO planners.

During the Vietnam War, avoiding hitting Chinese and Soviet facilities and ships was an absolute top priority for American pilots. The United States avoided bombing and mining Haiphong harbor for years lest a Russian or Chinese ship be accidentally hit. Similarly, when the Soviets invaded Czechoslovakia in 1968, one of the first assignments for the invading troops was to place a strong guard around the U.S. Embassy. This was only partly due to a desire to prevent the U.S. from engaging in any mischief in Prague. The more important reason was to make certain that some tank gunner didn’t mistake the Embassy for a legitimate target and trigger a crisis with the United States.

In other words, the United States, like any other major power, knows how to prevent accidents from happening. NATO’s explanation, which is that the accident occurred outside the military chain of command, clearly indicates that the political authorities in NATO and the United States were making the targeting decisions. That points the finger at the intelligence community and its database of Yugoslavian targets. It also points the finger at organizations and individuals that have the ability to impose quality control on their targeting decision because they are not creating their data sets on the fly. They could have created a careful screening and vetting process that was obsessed with making certain that the Russian and Chinese embassies were not hit. In fact, as in Vietnam or Czechoslovakia, this could have been, and from the Chinese point of view should have been, step one.

Thus, NATO’s position that accidents happen is precisely why the Chinese are enraged. From their point of view, if China were being treated with sufficient respect, precisely that type of accident would not be permitted. The suspicion that it may have been deliberate is not necessary in order to explain the Chinese view. The fact that it was quite accidental is sufficient to explain their response. Moreover, given all the other issues between the U.S. and China, the bombing gives the Chinese a marvelous lever for extracting concessions from the U.S. in other areas like trade and the espionage investigations. Using the accidental bombing to its maximum effect is a logical and reasonable step for the Chinese who are a very logical and reasonable people.

From an American point of view, the Kosovo affair is now getting completely out of hand. U.S.-Chinese relations, bad before, are now near collapse. Russian influence, even among NATO allies, is at an all-time high. Islamic powers, including the Iranians, that were previously split over the bombing because of the Islamic dimension in Kosovo, are now forming a solid anti-bombing phalanx. Milosevic is no nearer to capitulating today than he was at the beginning of the bombing campaign.

This is not a matter of Murphy’s law; of what can go wrong will go wrong. Rather, it is what happens when the use of military power is separated from crisp, strategic analysis in the name of humanitarianism. Not only has the military action not achieved control over the humanitarian situation, but also the unintended, yet foreseeable, consequences are piling up. Military action always has politico-military repercussions. Merely asserting that it is for a good cause does not limit those consequences. In a humanitarian operation, there is an asymmetry between the underlying national interest and those causes. In other words, all sorts of really bad things start to happen in spite of your best intentions. Going to war for humanitarian reasons brings to mind something about the road to hell being paved with good intentions.