MUST READ.......Latest Special Report from Statfor! edited slightly by my comments
How We Got Here and Where We are Going
1915 GMT 990610
Let us leave the spin-doctors behind and try to get a handle on what has been achieved and what remains to
be done.
First, let us try to recall what the war was fought about. It was not about whether a peacekeeping force would
enter Kosovo. The Serbs had agreed to that prior to the war. The issue that triggered the war was what that
peacekeeping force would look like. NATO had demanded that a purely NATO force under solely NATO
command be permitted to enter Kosovo and administer it directly. Serbia rejected this demand and asserted
that it would permit only a United Nations observer force, consisting of unarmed or very lightly armed observers
into Kosovo. There were other issues but, in the end, this was what the war was about.
For Serbia, the issue of who would be permitted into Kosovo revolved around the question of Serbian
sovereignty over the province. Its view was that a solely NATO force would, first de facto and then de jure, take
Kosovo away from Serbia. The NATO view was that without a unified NATO force, the Serbs would not stop
their atrocities against the Albanians. Thus, the war broke out over the issue of who would be the
peacekeepers and what would be their powers?
The war ended with the same controversy raging. The G-8 accords specifically placed the administration of
Kosovo under the United Nations and made it clear that NATO forces would not be the sole representatives of
the United Nations in Kosovo. Milosevic accepted the G-8 accords. Over the weekend, NATO deliberately tried
to make it appear that he had accepted the essence of the Rambouillet agreements. In other words, NATO
interpreted Milosevic's decision as a capitulation to NATO's original demands, and created a meeting in which
the mission was not to negotiate but simply to transmit NATO's non-negotiable demands to the Serbs. For a
few hours, it appeared that this redefinition of the agreement would work.
This was extremely important to NATO. They badly wanted to present what had happened as an outright victory
rather than as a forced compromise. The G-8 accords were, of course, a compromise. Serbia gave in on the
armaments of the occupying forces and the withdrawal of Serb forces. NATO gave in on the constitution of the
occupying forces, control over the civil administration and the requirement for a Security Council Resolution. It
was a compromise and not a victory. This was extremely distasteful to NATO, and particularly to the United
States.
Something happened on Saturday and Sunday to undermine NATO's interpretation of the agreement. Part of
what happened took place in Serbia. It is clear that Serb military commanders, who had initially accepted the
agreement, were appalled at the interpretation they were hearing from NATO. They had gone to negotiate a
settlement and were handed what were, in essence, documents of surrender. A crisis broke out between
Milosevic and the military. Milosevic, it appears, was not altogether clear of the modalities. Having made the
decision to end the war, he had not taken painstaking care with Ahtisaari and Primakov to examine the details.
However, it was clear that he accepted the G-8 agreement. It was also clear that the G-8 had never designated
NATO as the sole occupying power, and certainly not as the legal, enabling power. The UN had to come in on
this.
So, too, did the Russians because another part of the agreement was that non-NATO forces, particularly
Russian, would also be present. Chernomyrdin had taken a particularly dubious role in underplaying this
dimension. When Moscow woke up to the agreements on Saturday, the Russian military became furious at
what it saw as Chernomyrdin's sell-out. Thus, Serb officers and Russian officers began pressuring the
politicians on both sides to enforce the agreement as it stood, and not accept NATO's redefinition. Indeed, the
Russian military attaché showed up at the border meetings with NATO and essentially put an end to NATO's
attempts to dictate a non-negotiable surrender.
This forced the convening of the G-8 meeting on Monday, which was attended by Russian Foreign Minister
Ivanov and the EU's negotiator Ahtisaari, but from which Chernomyrdin was spectacularly missing. At that
meeting, the G-8 compromise and not the NATO hijacking became the working document. The agreement
consisted of the core compromise reached in Bonn in early May:
Serb forces would withdraw except for symbolic troops.
The United Nations was the controlling party to the agreement, not NATO. The enabling document would
be a UN resolution that passed the Security Council and met with Russian and Chinese approval. It would
not be a unilateral NATO document.
The civil governance of Kosovo would be under United Nations control and not NATO control.
NATO forces would be the core of the occupying force, but they would be accompanied by Russian
forces.
NATO would be obligated to disarm and control the KLA. This would not be at NATO's option. NATO
would also guarantee the security of Serb forces against KLA actions.
The bombing would halt simultaneously with the withdrawal's commencement.
The key elements are that the civil administration is under the control of the United Nations and not NATO; that
the resumption of bombing appears now to be a Security Council decision and not a NATO decision, at least
procedurally; and that Russian troops will be present as observers, enforcers and arbiters, overseeing not only
the Serbs, but NATO as well.
In our view [and mine!], this agreement could have been reached prior to the war had NATO not given Serbia the "take it"
or "leave it" ultimatum at Rambouillet. Certainly, by early May, something of this sort could have been worked
out. It was never Yugoslavia's expectation or demand that Kosovo not be under international guardianship.
Yugoslavia did demand that NATO not be the sole international guardian. This is what led to the war. In the end,
there has been a compromise, but the compromise tilts slightly in favor of Serbia's original view of things and
away from NATO's.[in other words, Yugoslavia won and goldsnow gets his cappucino!]<g>
Now, of course, we are in the danger zone. The bombing has halted. Milosevic's control has been weakened.
This means that regional commanders and even individual soldiers are in a position to violate the agreements
many different ways. Distrust of Milosevic is high. NATO did what it could this weekend to undermine
Milosevic's credibility, resulting in his ability to control events in Kosovo becoming somewhat weaker than it
was before. The implementation process, in the face of deep Serbian passion about the bombing, and
deteriorated chains of command, increases the possibility of some sort of breakdown in the withdrawal
process.
It will not be only NATO overseeing and evaluating this process. Russian and UN officials will be there as well.
Jamie Shea's version of reality will no longer compete with Milosevic's. Other third parties will be present and
each will have its own reason to skew the representation of the situation on the ground. This is particularly true
for the Russian military that will be coming in. Whatever command they are formally under, they serve Russia
and will act in Russian interests.
Now the misery starts. Serb troops will take off their uniforms and blend into the civilian population. Weapons
caches were buried long ago in anticipation of this situation. Kosovo's economy, intimately linked with the rest
of Serbia's, can recover only if Serbia is prepared to cooperate. The fact is that even with Serbia withdrawing,
NATO will find itself badly in need of Serbian cooperation if any sort of economic recovery is to take place.
Indeed, Kosovo needs Serbia more than Serbia needs NATO assistance for rebuilding.
So now the real problems begin. As with any imposition of an occupying force in a civil war, the possibilities of
being caught in crossfire are tremendous. Albanians will fight Albanians. Albanians will fight Serbs. Russians
will help the Serbs. Albanians will help Albanians. One is reminded of the old joke. Every day a dog chased the
car as the driver left for work. It went on for years. One day the driver slammed on the brake, looked at the dog
and said, "OK, you've caught me. Now what are you going to do with me?"
That's sort of the situation in Kosovo. NATO has chased the car and caught it, whatever that means. Now what
will it do with it? Dogs don't have much need for cars and NATO doesn't have much need for Kosovo.
I wish one day I could spit in the faces of the following:
Clinton
Blair
Cohen
Allbright
Berger
Rubin
Clarke
Bacon
Cook
Shea
Milosevic
Thaci
Arkan
They are all war criminals in my book for the pain and suffering they inflicted in this stupid war!
Amen
FWIW
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