Could Serbia be Preparing an Attack on Macedonia?
March 18, 1999
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SUMMARY
With no progress in Kosovo peace talks, it appears that NATO and
Serbia are headed for a military showdown. However, Serbian
deployments suggest that Belgrade may have more in mind than to just
follow Baghdad's example of professional Tomahawk catching.
ANALYSIS
Unless Belgrade suddenly reverses itself, which is always possible, the
stage is now set for armed conflict between NATO and Serbia. The
expectation is that air attacks on Yugoslavia will parallel those in Iraq. In
Iraq, the United States and its allies have largely determined the scope and
tempo of air operations. Iraq has essentially absorbed those air strikes
without launching its own military counter-operations. To be more precise,
Iraq has, on occasion, appeared to try to interfere with air strikes using
anti-aircraft systems and some air interception, but Iraq has never tried to
respond with ground operations outside of Iraq.
It has appeared, at least publicly, to be a basic assumption in NATO's
strategy that Serbia would follow the same pattern. In other words, it has
been assumed that air attacks on Serbia would be low-risk operations, in
which the forces directly involved in the attacks would be exposed to
Serbian fire, but that no other assets would be at risk. Thus, if NATO
relied on a cruise missile attack, deployed extensive air defense
suppression systems and used stealth aircraft, NATO's casualties and
risks would be minimal.
This assumption may well be correct, but it is not certainly correct. We do
not know how Belgrade is planning to respond to NATO air attacks nor
even if they are planning to capitulate at the last minute. But assuming that
maintaining the territorial integrity of their country is as important to the
Serbs as it is to most countries, it is important to consider what military
cards the Belgrade has available, should it choose not to behave like
Baghdad. Let us further assume that, while Serbia has a somewhat more
sophisticated air defense system than Iraq, NATO would have no real
trouble suppressing that system, even if it had to incur some casualties in
the course of the operation.
Serbia's primary military goal would be political: to raise the cost of
anti-Serb operations higher than NATO in general and the United States
in particular would find endurable. The key to achieving this goal is to
inflict casualties and take prisoners. A reasonable, though not certain,
assumption could be made that NATO is prepared to intervene in Kosovo
if the primary cost is money and effort, but that it is not prepared to
intervene if intervention means substantial cost in lives or prisoners. This
assumption could be taken from NATO's assertion that it would not
deploy peacekeeping forces without a prior agreement from all sides, but
would conduct an anti-Serb air campaign in the absence of a Serbian
agreement. An air campaign will leave limited opportunities for casualties
or prisoners, given heavy dependence on cruise missiles and stealth
aircraft, as well as the heavy air defense suppression capabilities of
NATO. With this NATO calculation in mind, the Serbs might choose to
respond to air attacks against Serbia on the ground.
The situation on the ground is quite different from the situation in the air.
Consider the correlation of forces along the Yugoslav-Macedonian
border, where NATO has staged in anticipation of deployment in
Kosovo. First some geography. The Yugoslav border is about 12 miles
from Skopje, the capital of Macedonia and the focus of NATO activity.
There is a direct, multi-lane road from the border to the city. About 2
miles southeast of Skopje, there is the main airport, heavily used by
NATO and UN forces. An autobahn/interstate quality road runs from the
Serbian border to the airport, with lateral roads to the east and west. A
division could easily deploy along this route. There is extensive evidence
that Serbian forces, including armor, are massing along the Pristina-Skopje
road. We infer from some reports that there is also massing along the
Leskovac-Skopje airport superhighway. There are also reports of air
defense units moving forward into the border region. It is clearly a
multi-divisional deployment including armored and mechanized units.
NATO, in turn, has substantial forces in the region, though currently less
than half of the 26-28,000 troops planned for enforcing the as-yet
unsigned Kosovo peace settlement. NATO forces in Macedonia include a
German armored brigade with Leopard 2s, a French Mechanized brigade,
a British Infantry brigade, and other units. In effect, there is a NATO
division in the region with supporting units. What is not clear is whether
these units are forward deployed between Skopje and the border. The
terrain on the border along the Pristina-Skopje highway is quite hilly, with
the advantage to the defense, while the terrain along the Leskovac-Skopje
airport route is more favorable to rapid movement.
It is not clear that Serbia could take Skopje. It is not clear that Serbia
would want to take Skopje. Rather, attacking and seizing the airport and
encircling and using artillery to bombard Skopje could produce an
interesting political result: inflicting casualties and capturing NATO
personnel, while shifting the diplomatic conversation from the status of
Kosovar Albanians to the terms under which Serbians will withdraw from
Macedonia and release NATO prisoners. With the weather forecast for
the border region snow and sleet with low clouds for the next few days,
the ability of NATO air power to create a "highway of death," Iraqi style,
faces some limits.
We are not predicting that this will happen. We are saying that this is a
serious option for the Serbs and that their troop movements seem to
indicate a willingness to at least bluff the option. They have clearly got the
attention of NATO command. Agence France Presse reported on March
17 that an unnamed NATO official publicly warned Serbia that an attack
against Macedonia would be "a catastrophe" for the Serbs.
There is little doubt but that NATO could defeat Serbia's armed forces. It
is not clear, however, that forces currently in Macedonia could do so. It is
certainly not clear that they could do so without major casualties. What
Milosevic is doing is causing NATO to evaluate the potential cost of
intervention. Until now, the assumption has been that NATO could carry
out an Iraq style bombardment without any collateral danger. Milosevic
has been attempting to convince NATO that Serbia is not Iraq, and that
the potential cost for intervention is much higher than NATO ought to be
willing to pay. At the very least, he is making it clear that the current force
structure in Macedonia is woefully insufficient to assure their own security,
let alone to intervene in Kosovo.
It is not clear to us that the Serbs will take the chance. They are in a
powerful defensive position blocking passes into Kosovo. The correlation
of forces does not give them a great advantage. The risk of losing
irreplaceable formations is high. Nevertheless, a twenty-five mile
encirclement could change the entire geometry of regional relationships. In
the past, Milosevic has not been a serious gambler. He has consistently
withdrawn his bluffs at the last minute. We certainly don't know what he
intends to do this time, but he has set up quite a bluff, at the very least. |
