..veteran Pentagon officials told the Senate Budget Committee in 1991 that military spending could safely be cut by 50% over the next 10 years... U.S. officials instead set out to exploit the post-Cold War power dividend, a huge military imbalance in favor of the United States, by developing rationales for using military force more freely and widely around the world. During the transition to the new Clinton administration, Madeleine Albright famously asked Gen. Colin Powell, then chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, What's the point of having this superb military you're always talking about if we can't use it? In 1999, as secretary of state under Bill Clinton, Albright got her wish, running roughshod over the UN Charter with an illegal war to carve out an independent Kosovo from the ruins of Yugoslavia. The UN Charter clearly prohibits the threat or use of military force except in cases of self-defense or when the UN Security Council takes military action to maintain or restore international peace and security. This was neither. When U.K. Foreign Secretary Robin Cook told Albright his government was having trouble with our lawyers over NATO's illegal war plan, Albright crassly told him to get new lawyers.