John : From the Times, London
The Times, April 21 1999 OPINION
Nato is fighting a trio of wars with Milosevic - and none will succeed
Three strikes and out
There are three Kosovan wars running at present. Nato has lost the first, the second is still being fought, and the third has not
properly begun. Since conflict takes a mounting toll on reason, we must struggle to keep these wars distinct.
War A: This began in January with Nato warning President Milosevic against "a humanitarian disaster in Kosovo". Mr
Milosevic declined to be warned. Despite intelligence of his aggressive intent against the Kosovan Albanians, Nato's military
response was hesitant. It already had 2,000 ground monitors in Kosovo and had placed a 10,000-strong Nato intervention
force in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. Amid much confusion during the Lewinsky affair, President Clinton's
Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright, threatened Mr Milosevic not just with sanctions but with a bombing war if he failed to
grant Kosovo "partial autonomy". In March this threat had to be honoured.
Whether Mr Milosevic's Operation Horseshoe - the methodical cleansing of Kosovo - predated the January ultimatum is
unclear. What is beyond doubt is that Nato knew of his readiness to visit on the Albanians what Croatia had visited on the
Krajina Serbs in 1994-95. After the clearing of Krajina, some 250,000 evicted Serbs descended on Belgrade and demanded
Mr Milosevic's head. Having lost Krajina, he was not going to lose Kosovo.
Yet Nato removed the monitors and aid workers from Kosovo. Both groups had served as witnesses and partial restraints on
Serb (and Kosovo Liberation Army) atrocities. They were probably the outside world's best hope of impeding Mr Milosevic's
grim determination. As it was, far from impeding the disaster, Nato's strategy gave the Serbs a "permissive environment" for the
ethnic cleansing.
The cleansing has not been, as Nato spokesmen claim, the worst humanitarian outrage since the Second World War, an
exaggeration many Africans and Asians might consider racist. However, it has been brutal and horrific to witness, and holds a
peculiar abhorrence to Europeans within the memory of Hitler's war. As of yesterday, more than half the Albanian population of
Kosovo has been expelled from the province. The rest have probably been killed or are being held hostage. Mr Milosevic's
Operation Horseshoe may be a sick and hollow victory over a burnt and empty land. But for Serb nationalists the securing of
Kosovo is a triumph, achieved while the mightiest armed force in the world did nothing but dally and bomb. Nato pledged to
draw the line against Mr Milosevic in Kosovo, and did not do so. Nato sent in monitors, then withdrew them. Nato sent
reinforcements to Macedonia but left them setting up camps for victims of a war Nato half-threatened but would not fight. War
A has been lost.
War B: This is a quite separate war. It is being waged at a vertical distance of 15,000ft over War A and mostly in the Danube
basin 200 miles from Kosovo. It is a classic air war, in pursuit not of territory but of a political goal, as in Iraq, to get a regime
to change its mind. As a result, its objectives tend to be hazy and shifting. Air defences and other military targets are bombed
first. As these targets are exhausted "target drift" starts, leading to a drift in objectives. Since War A is all but over, there seems
little point in risking pilots by attacking the Yugoslav Army in the field. Nato is now powerless to stop ethnic cleansing, unless it
can induce Mr Milosevic to change his mind.
Targets are thus extended to non-military sites, to blocking the Danube and to destroying chemical factories, fertiliser plants,
roads and bridges. Nato is seeking to impose a crippling economic burden on the Yugoslav people - we hear no more about
"just bombing Milosevic" - in the hope of turning them against their elected Government and forcing Mr Milosevic from power.
Hence the toxic cloud over Belgrade. Hence the emphasis on Nato's "credibility", as if credibility lay in demonstrating the sheer
potency of Nato's weapons.
Such political objectives are notoriously hard to control. They depend on an accurate reading of the internal politics of a State
under siege. Victories are measured not in burning tanks or factories but in morale, propaganda and power play. Last week
War B briefly intruded on the tail-end of War A, when Nato bombed a refugee convoy. Spin-doctors sought to dismiss it as an
accident of war and attacked the media, including reporters working against ferocious odds in Belgrade. But in wars such as
War B, collateral damage is always a victory for the enemy. The success of a sortie is measured not in hits but in media coups
de thêatre. Nato's Jamie Shea is a frontline general.
This second war has not yet been won or lost. It is conceivable, but unlikely, that history could be stood on its head and
Yugoslavia be the first country bombed into changing its Government. Other apologists suggest that bombing might "soften up"
Mr Milosevic for some Russian-UN deal, to get him to readmit an Albanian resettlement monitoring force into Kosovo. I still
think a version of this is the most plausible outcome of War B, but it would be hard to avoid calling it another defeat. Nato
would have fought its way back to much the same trench as it was in last October. Or Nato might simply continue its act of
punishment until it has made Belgrade another Stalingrad. This "Stone Age" strategy, launched with similar conviction on
Vietnam, is the logical consequence of credibility and a "just war" taking precedence over common sense. To call this winning
War B would be absurd.
War C: This is the war that dares Nato to breathe its name. Despite denials, a force of 80,000 troops appears to be moving
into position to invade Kosovo and set up what would amount to a Western military protectorate. This involves abandoning
Nato's pledge that it would send in soldiers only after a negotiated settlement, once considered a legal necessity for such
intervention. It flatly contradicts Robin Cook's assurance, repeated yesterday, that "We're not going to fight our way in. We've
made that very clear from the start. It would involve too many casualties." Bill Clinton and Tony Blair have pledged likewise.
Yet War C's sabre-rattling gives Mr Milosevic every inducement to prepare his people and his army for an invasion. He is now
mining the roads and appears to be holding back tens of thousands of refugees as potential human shields.
War C was always rejected by Nato because democracy would not wear it. Democracy apparently wanted Mr Milosevic to
be stopped, but cleanly and not at the expense of any Nato lives. Bombers are not allowed to fly low: they can risk missing
their targets but not getting killed. Nato wants to seem tough, but tough at 15,000ft, not in a "bayonet, knife and bullet war".
That is why Nato would not fight War A. Because of that timidity, democracy may now be asked to stomach the same war but
at a vastly higher cost. Nobody could say that War C is unwinnable. Kosovo is not the same as Vietnam and if Nato cannot
hold a province the size of Yorkshire it is in dire straits. But a Nato-ruled Kosovo would be even more burnt and barren than it
is now. Kosovo cannot be rendered "autonomously" Albanian, only autonomously Nato. War C cannot rectify War A. It could
only be a war of punitive desperation. It would do little more than change the guard over Kosovo's empty fields and rotting
corpses. They are Mr Milosevic's doing, for which his people and perhaps a court of law will one day hold him to account.
Nato cannot be party to yet more killing.
Of these three wars, War C is the only one that is militarily coherent, yet it is the maddest war of all. Mr Clinton and Mr Blair
are right on this: the cost is too great for the gain. So where has Nato's hubris got us? I can hardly believe it. The turbulent
20th-century is about to end on a note of stupendous irony: a worsted Nato pleading with Russia to sue for peace.
comment@the-times.co.uk
|
