stratfor.com
NATO Mission at Crossroads
in Kosovo
03 January 2001
Summary
Renewed attacks against Serb civilians, security forces and peacekeeping troops
by ethnic Albanian fighters have placed the NATO peacekeeping mission in the
strife-torn province of Kosovo at a crossroads. With the crumbling of former Serb
President Slobodan Milosevic’s regime nearly complete, NATO now has to make a
choice: rein in Albanian insurgents with the alliance’s 38,000-strong multinational
Kosovo Force (KFOR), or relinquish once and for all its vision of a multiethnic
Kosovo within Serbia and prepare for the consequences of an independent Kosovo.
Analysis
The United States is scheduled this month to conduct a review of its 8,000
peacekeepers contributing to KFOR against a backdrop of increasing attacks by
Albanian militants against Serbs, other minorities in Kosovo and Serbian security
installations.
A mortar attack Jan. 20 on Serbian Interior Ministry police on Mount Sveti Ilija, just
over the border in Serbia, and the Dec. 29 murder of an elderly Serbian couple in
Obilic in Kosovo are the latest in a spate of violence following the fall of former
Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic’s regime.
The scheduled six-month review, “with a view to progressively reducing the force’s
presence, and eventually, withdrawal,” according to U.S. President Bill Clinton, has
the potential for being a blunt assessment by the top brass on the mission’s lack of
progress to date and the pitfalls that lie ahead.
U.S. President-elect George W. Bush campaigned on a platform of getting out of
the Balkans as soon as practical, and his administration will be far more open to
the military’s criticism of the mission and its objectives, as well as to a frank
detailing of the increasing risks for “mission creep.”
In the wake of Milosevic’s ouster last fall, Belgrade’s security forces are in a state of
disarray and suffering from widespread desertions. Remnants of the disbanded
Kosovo Liberation Army, the 800-strong Liberation Army of Presevo, Medvedja and
Bujanovac – municipalities inside Serbia – and their supporters are taking
advantage. They see an opportunity to step up their quest for a permanent
separation of Kosovo and adjoining Albanian enclaves from Serbian authority, or at
least keep NATO forces in Kosovo until they can consolidate their gains
They are also fearful, with the recent democratic election of Serbian President
Vojislav Kostunika, that NATO will soon cut a deal with the new leadership in
Belgrade and relinquish military control of Serbia.
Unless NATO forces revise their rules of engagement and begin enforcing key
provisions of the military agreement reached at the conclusion of the 1999 NATO air
war against Serbia, the alliance will preside over a further fracturing of southeastern
Europe – exactly the opposite of what it set out to accomplish.
NATO inaction could result in effective independence for Kosovo, against both
NATO and United Nations policy, and the departure of what is left of the province’s
Serb minority. Or, if the ethnic-Albanian forces continue to target Serb forces
across the border, further humiliating Belgrade, Serbian nationalists could once
again use Kosovo and its potential loss as a battle cry to set ablaze once again the
ethnic divisions holding the former Yugoslavia hostage.
In some cases, KFOR has been highly reluctant to play hardball in Kosovo. For
example, the Military-Technical Agreement signed in June 1999 established a
3-mile-wide demilitarized zone where Serbia, its sister republic Montenegro and
Kosovo intersect. Nevertheless, the Serbian Interior Ministry has deployed special
police units inside the zone, and a band of ethnic Albanian fighters, which crossed
from Kosovo, has held a small portion of territory inside Serbia for about 18 months.
Some of the fiercest clashes between ethnic Albanian and Serb forces have
occurred in this demilitarized zone – though they have subsided somewhat since
late November – and KFOR troops, unwilling to enter Serbian territory, have for the
most part looked the other way.
Now, however, Serb security and police forces in the border regions are in disarray
and the Albanians are getting more aggressive with the knowledge that the Serb
regular army is prohibited from entering the region. If it does so, a quick NATO
response is likely.
But, ironically, if the attacks continue and NATO does little to stop them, the
conflict over Kosovo – between Serbs and Albanians – that led to the NATO air war
could be re-ignited, drawing NATO peacekeepers into unwanted hostilities later, at a
time when the United States’ new administration wants to begin withdrawing
American troops from the Balkans.
Belgrade, despite Milosevic’s removal and a democratic sweep in recent elections,
remains fractured. An interior minister in the interim Belgrade government, for
example, threatened in late November to dispatch Serbian army forces into the
demilitarized zone, in violation of the Military-Technical Agreement. Some of the
Milosevic old guard still hold powerful positions in the security apparatus, including
Gen. Rade Markovic, head of the Serbian Sate Security Directorate.
NATO’s choices at this critical juncture are not promising. If it moves to enforce its
mandate and clamp down on the ethnic Albanians’ newfound confidence on the
battlefield – surely to increase in the spring if unchecked – it risks getting further
bogged down, and may need additional troops to beef up its capabilities. This is a
likely topic of discussion in the upcoming force structure review.
If the alliance maintains its cautious approach, the attacks on Serbs will continue,
leading to Kosovo’s effective independence from Serbia, or, perhaps more likely, a
scenario in which the conflict between Serbs and ethnic Albanians is given new life,
seriously threatening NATO’s credibility as a guarantor of regional stability. A
primary goal of the NATO peacekeeping effort has been to keep Kosovo and Serbia
together to prevent unlimited conflict.
American leadership will help determine which course NATO takes. The election to
the White House of George W. Bush, who views the Balkans as peripheral to
American national security, makes it unlikely NATO forces will take action to
staunch the renewed ethnic Albanian violence.
On the other hand, if NATO maintains its current course or reduces its role, the
battle for Kosovo is likely to continue unabated, destroying the alliance’s credibility
as a guarantor of regional stability at the same time the European Union is
attempting create its own separate security and defense identity.
As the NATO peacekeeping mission nears it two-year anniversary, it faces the
vexing and still-unanswered question underlying the Kosovo drama: Is a multiethnic
Kosovo as part of greater Serbia achievable? The answer will be revealed in how
NATO responds to the recent Albanian violence.
The alliance’s fear of “mission creep” and nation-building will likely force it to remain
overly cautious about expanding its operations to neutralize the various ethnic
Albanian insurgents, fueling further clashes and efforts by the Kosovar Albanians to
exact revenge on the Serbs.
The result will be the death knell of NATO’s vision of a multiethnic, democratic
Kosovo within the confines of the former Yugoslavia. The Serb-Albanian rift will grow
ever larger, decreasing substantially the chance NATO can extricate itself while
declaring the mission a success. |
