Stratfor's latest:
The End: NATO's Strategic Confusion and Diplomatic Brilliance
1840 GMT, 990619
The agreement reached with the Russians over their role in Kosovo ends the first phase of the Kosovo war. Although
NATO strategic and operational policy was unfocused and incoherent during the war itself, NATO diplomacy at the
end of the war was skillful and deadly. All of this merely sets the stage for a long and painful NATO involvement in the
Balkans. However, the fact that strategically little was gained should not detract from our admiration of the
unscrupulous cunning shown by NATO's leaders in closing out this phase of the war. NATO took a military stalemate
and turned it into a victory by means of some extraordinary diplomatic maneuvering.
When NATO accepted the G-8 accords with the Russians, it represented a genuine retreat from NATO's original
demands at Rambouillet and everyone knew it. What it did achieve was the co-optation of the Russians into the peace
process. Milosevic's strategic vision was predicated on Russian support. This co-optation in itself weakened Serbia's
ability to continue the war. NATO then simply permitted the Russians to sell the G-8 accords to the Serbs.
The diplomatic brilliance was rooted in the fact that while everyone knew that the G-8 accords were a compromise,
forcing NATO to subsume its entry into Kosovo under UN control and giving non-NATO forces a major role, the
precise language of the G-8 accords were sufficiently ambiguous to permit a substantially different interpretation. In
fact, in retrospect, they were drafted with just that in mind. Thus, while it was clear to any careful observer what
happened in Bonn in early May, by mid-June, the collective memory had blurred sufficiently to allow NATO to carry out
its deliberate reinterpretation.
As soon as Milosevic agreed to the G-8 terms, NATO simply ignored the meaning of his agreement and behaved as if
agreeing to the G-8 terms meant agreeing to the basic NATO demands. When the Serbs realized the meaning that
NATO had put on the accords, they balked at signing them. A major crisis ensued in Moscow and it appeared that the
Russians would scuttle the agreements. NATO then did two things. First, the British let it be known that Russian
opposition to the agreement's implementation under NATO's interpretation might imperil financial aid to Russia. This
focused the attention of what is left of Russia's reform movement, as a cut-off in aid would cripple its fading political
hopes. Second, NATO engaged in negotiations that seemed to indicate flexibility in NATO's position and a willingness
to return to the original G-8 meaning. This included all of the formal elements, including a UN resolution. The
negotiations were merely a cover. NATO's real plan was to outwait the Russians and the now disoriented Serbs.
The key was to get the Russians to accept NATO's interpretation of things. Once that happened, Serbia would have
no choice but to capitulate to whatever terms NATO set. NATO remained committed to its reinterpretation of the G-8
accords, while seeming to tack on marginal issues. The Russians remained committed to one key element: the
presence of an independent Russian force in Kosovo. NATO simply ignored the Russian position and the actual
meaning the G-8 accords and pressed on. This led to the final crisis of this phase of the war when Russian troops
moved into Pristina and blocked NATO occupation until their terms were met. The Russians thought this would block
NATO plans. Instead NATO ignored them operationally while using diplomacy to by the time to render their presence
irrelevant.
NATO made sure that the Russians could not send in follow-on forces. First, they used their influence to block
overflight rights for the Russians through surrounding countries. That was the strategic isolation. Then they created a
tactical isolation in which NATO continued its occupation heedless of the Russians. They turned the Russian
presence into an irrelevance. In the end, the Russians withered on the vine, and the Russian government accepted a
face saving settlement that gave a handful of Russian troops a meaningless autonomy.
In short, NATO's complete indifference to the agreements it had signed, brilliantly portrayed as the implementation of
those agreements, turned Belgrade's agreement to a compromise into a NATO victory that arms, by themselves, did
not achieve. NATO had certainly not defeated Serbia's armed forces to the extent that it allowed a permissive entry
regardless of Serbia's wishes. Rather, it converted Serbia's negotiated settlement into a NATO victory that achieved
the same end.
Admiration for NATO's maneuver is tempered by two facts. First, the victory may have been achieved at a very high
price. The issue now is what will happen in Moscow as Russia's manipulation and humiliation sinks in. There is no
question but that NATO weakened the position of its allies in Moscow through this maneuver. We expect a financial
payoff to materialize during this weekend's G-8 agreement. It is not clear that this will do more than buy a crippled
regime some more time domestically.
Second, within Kosovo, the maneuver has created a massive problem with the KLA. NATO is now no longer on a
peacekeeping mission to create peace between two sides. It is occupying territory on behalf of the Albanians in
Kosovo. The KLA is the de facto government of that people. In large part, its credibility is due to NATO itself. No other
faction has NATO's imprimatur. No other faction is as potentially hostile to Western interests. This is not about Islam.
It is about the destabilizing affect that a greater Albania, which is the KLA's ultimate goal, will have on the region.
This can create a terrific problem inside of NATO. Greece and Italy want to see the KLA cut down to size. So do
Macedonia and Croatia. So for that matter does Montenegro, with whose independence NATO is now flirting. The KLA
has served a useful purpose for NATO. NATO should be under no illusions that having fought this long, hard, and
successfully for its ends the KLA will quietly go away. If NATO now turns on the KLA, it will have a nasty guerrilla war
on its hands, as well as an ungovernable Kosovo. If it does nothing about the KLA, it could have a regional political
crisis.
Thus, NATO could have been simply too clever. It stumbled into a war it was not ready for, but through sheer brass
turned a stalemate into victory. It was duplicitous, dishonest, and manipulative—and it worked. That is what diplomacy
is about. The problem is that it worked so well that it left NATO with a major problem (Russia's future) and a minor
problem (the KLA), that will neither go away nor be solved. In the end, the cost of victory may still wind up greater than
the victory itself. |
