This study revolves principally around the role of national interest in the pursuit of foreign policy by nation states with special focus on the Russo-American contending dispositions to the Kosovo conflict. It is premised on the ground that the ethnic crisis in Kosovo leading to the declaration of self-determination by Kosovo and subsequent U.S./NATO intervention was instigated by a self-serving American propaganda. The legitimacy of the Kosovar declaration was sold to the international community through the creation of a picture of an impending humanitarian catastrophe which itself was ignited by the United States, for effect. Our position is based on the notion that motives that drive foreign policy of states is mainly their national interest and not (as in this case) humanitarian deterministic as statesmen often would have us believe. Data for the study was generated mainly from secondary qualitative sources. It adopts historical and descriptive method of analysis anchoring on theory of propaganda as employed by Hans Morgenthau for understanding the relations of nation-states. The study’s findings are compatible with George Kennan’s postulate that moralism plays only an insignificant role in the conduct of foreign policy; and that statements of statesmen demand rigorous scholarly scrutiny to place them in their proper intent, content, and context.
